They applied the same things to the European PIICGS that went under (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Cyprus, Greece, Spain), in coordination with the European Central Bank.
They don’t care as long as it’s not the US, the UK, and to some extend France, Switzerland and Germany. Maybe the Scandinavians would get away with it too. Everyone else is fair game.
That’s true as well, but because deficit spending raises inflation, they are also ideologically opposed to it.
Deficit spending usually is done to maintain social welfare programs, which makes more money available to low income citizens, which raises inflation. It’s telling that the first parts of the budget they always want to be cut are government wages and benefits.
This also acts as a signal for the private sector that it’s ok to reduce wages.
They want “assurances” that the government will have enough in the budget to repay the loan at some point, so that’s how they introduce them.
The loans will generate inflation, which will devalue the local currency, which means the loan’s value will decrease as well (this will happen because the value of interest rates paid back will decrease).
Furthermore, they are ideologically opposed to inflation and deficit spending (like all neolibs). They believe that these 2 factors are what destablizes economies, so they demand a government avoid them like the plague.
They believe that the economy does not rely on the proletariat’s economic activity (i.e. buying products and paying bills). They believe that the economy relies on the national loaning industry (i.e. the banks giving loans to people) and the rich people opening up businesses. They are very much adherents of “Reaganomics” or “trickle-down” economics. They think that inflation will damage the accumulated capitals of the rich and the banks, therefore, the economy will not be able to restart.
They want other measures to benefit the capitalist class, so they can help boost the economy (according to their ideology). A big portion of the loans is always allocated to banks, and the rest is either subsidizing corporations directly or indirectly. A certain amount may be used to restructure other existing loans of the government. A major concession they demand is to lower corporate and high-income taxes. Which means the government needs to cut the budget allocated for the benefit of the proletariat to account for the lost income. They usually suggest raising low-income taxes or invent new methods of taxation that targets low-income citizens (e.g. the employer portion of social security payments is decreased, and the employee portion is increased).
Essentially, IMF-imposed austerity means that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Which is just fine as far as the IMF is concerned, because that’s what they think makes for a better economy. In addition, a small class of super-rich people is easier to control and manipulate, and they in turn have an easier time influencing the government.
Look up “shock therapy”. That’s what the IMF believes in.
There’s many mothers of innovation. If you would call something the mother of all innovation, it would be inspiration. And inspiration can be caused by anything. Necessity, sure. But also laziness, curiosity, boredom, irritation, competition, greed/profit, desire for fame, desire for doing good, or just pure unadulterated randomness.
There’s something to be said about necessity driving useful innovation in capitalism.
We don’t really know their strength currently, as this is not published by any official channels, not just about Azov but about all formations. What’s worse, there seems to be corruption relating to drafted soldiers with many of them being signed on, but their pay is siphoned by their superior officers, while they are nowhere to be found (or as reported by the Military Summary youtube channel today, some of them are kept locked away in prison or confinement).
We know Azov currently have at least 3 brigades on the frontline, and they have a bunch of foreign mercenaries in their ranks. Ukrainian brigades are supposed to have about 1000-2000 soldiers each, but these guys are probably operating right now at 300-500 people per brigade, considering the losses they’ve suffered.
Since they use mercenaries (and prisoners as of a few weeks ago), they don’t really have the same issues with manpower as the rest of the Ukrainian forces but they have suffered very significant losses, especially after Mariupol. They are used very sparringly and most of the fighting is done by regular formations. They just come in as reinforcements and usually not in battles that are foregone conclusions as Russian victories or for minor villages.
Currently there’s at least one brigade near Avdevka/Chasov Yar, one near Volchank (near Kharkov) and there was one near Zaporozhia, but they seem to have been moved, probably to the area near Kharkhov as well.
The one near Avdevka was ordered to defend a village a few weeks ago, and they outright refused to take positions there. So that should tell you that their numbers aren’t that great. Also, this article was written a short while before they refused orders:
I’ve learned long ago that AskHistorians is a good place to find facts, but a very bad place to find opinions and analyses.
The historian community is… very complex, to put it mildly. The AskHistorians community, even more so.
Having prefaced that, both comments are bullshit. Parenti never wrote Blackshirts and Reds as an academic historical study. He wrote it as a digestable, easily-read explanation of how fascism and communism actually work. Filling it with sources and footnotes would be pointless, as they would be useless to the average reader, and distracting to everyone else. However, most of his books do contain extensive bibliography, statistics, sources and further analysis at the end, which tells us how far these commenters got into reading one of Parenti’s books.
Furthermore, the idea that Parenti is a nobody in the field of history is a ridiculous claim, and ironically, needs citation. Parenti has been published at least 25 times that I can count, and his papers have been cited by at least 1500 other academic works, which is a very respectable number for a “nobody”. His books carry hundreds of citations each in other academic projects.
Iran doesn’t need nukes, right now at least. Iran’s missile strike against Israel demonstrated that Iran can hit what it wants when it wants. Israel has a nuclear power plant and (illegal) nuclear facilities, which Iran can hit and turn Israel into a radioactive wasteland, if push comes to shove.
Moreover, Iran is morally opposed to nuclear weapons, so I don’t see them getting them any time soon.
Also, if this story is to be believed, Israel tried to hit Iran with an EMP nuclear device, after Iran’s missile strike, which was shot down by a Russian aircraft.
Get a somewhat thick white PVC pipe (its walls should be like 2-3 mm thick). If you are unsure about the thickness just make sure it doesn’t bend easily. Cut it to about one and a half length your height. If the flag has a seam to insert it into poles like that just place it in. Otherwise, if the flag has holes in it for rope, drill the pipe. Or if you dont have a drill, take a nail, heat it up until its point is red and use it to drill through the pipe. It’ll penetrate it like butter when hot. Then use zip ties to get the flag in place and carry some additional zip ties and a cutter to swap flags.
If you are making the flag from scratch, and you have access to a sewing machine, then fold one end of the flag about 5-6 cm and sew it to make a sleeve. Then sew the top of the sleeve to close it off on one end. That way the pole can fit in the sleeve and hold the flag.
That’s a lot of assumptions to make an argument.
Ok, so Zelensky has banned opposition parties, arrested political opponents. And furthermore he cancelled elections that were supposed to happen next month. Will you be condemning Ukrainian conscription then, since the government will neither be democratic or legally elected?
So the 15000 civilian deaths caused by Ukraine bombing its own provinces before Russia intervened, the constant efforts by Russia to resolve the issue diplomatically, the naked refusal of the West to even engage with Russia, the West openly backing a fascist coup in Ukraine, and then arming it with the explicit dictate of provoking Russia, the West pressuring Ukraine to not accept the generous settlement offered by Russia in May after the war started, all that doesn’t count?
It’s not like Russia has never done any of those things individually.
[citation needed]
Not legit at all. We don’t even need to analyze it deep. Just with rudimentary high school biology. CO2 is a waste product of your cells. It interferes with many processes including respiration itself. Your body goes through a lot of effort to remove it. You shouldn’t be trying to increase it. It’s like drinking your own pee.
We are living there right now
Iirc, the first time I saw it it was in a tweet of an African official responding to a British political person when the Brit said something along the lines of “Africa is being enslaved by China” (that was the gist at least). Probably the Brit deleted their tweet afterwards, which also deleted/hid the replies. I’m pretty sure I saw a screenshot of it on GenZedong
That’s a really useful link. Thanks for sharing it!
No problem. Thank you for your kind words!
I would go serious to show that it’s not funny, but also calm to prevent defensiveness.
I would then pick apart why they said it. Asking “why did you feel the need to say that?”, and then explaining how that makes ME feel about it, is a great starting point. For any sort of disruptive behaviour the best approach (in my opinion) is to be a mirror so they can see themselves through your eyes.
Example:
Teacher: why did you feel the need to say that?
Student: I dont know
T: did you find it funny?
S: I dont know, maybe. Other people say it too
(at this point don’t do the adult argument of “what other people do shouldnt concern you”)
T: well, I dont know how other students here feel about it, but personally I am disappointed in you. I thought better of you, and I would like to respect you, but right now I can not. It’s a word that has a very negative history, and I’d suggest you learn more about it, before using it so lightly next time.
I would also engage the students who are most affected by it and ask them to express how they feel about it.
Another good tactic is to turn it back on the perpetrator and ask them how they would feel if someone used so freely a term they found offensive.
From your original post it sounded to me like you were being assertive towards her, so sorry if I misunderstood.
For the skinhead friend: I’d suggest you ask common friends during a break privately. Approaching the ones that also seem concerned might be the best course of action.
Having discussions in class is great, but try to engage her in dialogue. Take a seat and let them take charge of the discussion. Just moderate to keep things civil, calm and in the realm of logic rather than emotions. Keep calm and try to be/seem open to her ideas and ask questions. Sometimes people just need a wall to bounce their thoughts on so they can actually process them.
If this change is as recent as you say then it might just be a phase as she is thinking things through. Give her time and opportunity to do that.
I’d also suggest you let her explore other aspects of her German origins. There’s no great examples to be positive about people of African descent in German history, but still, she might get interested/distracted by other parts of German history.
Soviet school textbook on the ancient world. It pretty much covers everything, and it’s packed with information and short analysis, but doesn’t go into too much detail or into specific events.