Why China Doesn’t Have a Wall Street and Why It Doesn’t Want One - By Dr. Yu Bin Professor of Economics at Zhejiang University

 Capital is a fundamental component of economic development regardless the political-economic system that employs it. What renders Capitalism deadly is the lack of regulation and not dedicating its purposes for the good of the general public, which could easily be done via corporate charters and business law.

A few articles ago, I informed readers of an English language Chinese publication called The China Academy that provides another source for Chinese views on critical geopolitical and geoeconomic issues. The most major distinction between China’s system and the West’s was its relegation of finance to the public realm at the outset of the New China’s existence in 1949—perhaps the most important aspect of Communism/Socialism the privatized West can’t stand and will wage war to overturn as we’ve seen with USSR/Russia/Cuba and a smattering of others. Financial control as I noted in my last article is the primary pillar of the Class War between Creditors and Debtors that’s been ongoing for 4,000+ years. One of the reasons the Kuomintang was so poor at governance was its very deep level of corruption—easily as deep as the Trump Gang’s—and is the primary reason for its being overthrown. The Chinese are outstanding students, and they’ve studied the West and the Outlaw US Empire for decades to see what China might use and what China must avoid. China decided it must avoid the accumulation of great wealth by individuals for political usage. The Jack Ma example is the best available. China’s been extremely protective of its financial system because they knew it was weaker than the West and that the West has tools at the ready to undermine and capture it setting the clock back to 1900. In 2024, Xi Jinping gave a landmark speech at a closed venue about making China into a financial powerhouse and outlined the steps to take. That speech was kept classified until February 2026 when it was published and I reported it in-full. What many didn’t know was that China had already been working hard for two years and had already instituted some of the required steps. China learned that its industrial success would attract Capital wanting to benefit from that success, and so it has. Several articles I’ve read speak about the entry of Big Capital into the development funding mixture augmenting what the CPC funds via the budget. IMO, it’s very possible that Hong Kong and Shanghai displace New York and London as the planet’s main financial centers—yet another reason why China’s being targeted by economic war. Now that the table’s set, let’s read what Dr. Yu Bin has to say about the issue:

https://karlof1.substack.com/p/why-china-doesnt-have-a-wall-street?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1779344&post_id=209417989&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=y7h5a&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email 

....As we discovered, the article’s title is misleading since China has stock and bond markets. The main difference is Capital and its influence is heavily regulated and not allowed to go beyond the set boundaries. Capitalists are to remain capitalists and not meddle in China’s political affairs. We do see human failure often enough where some official is caught taking bribes, an offense that can merit the death penalty that proves China’s seriousness on the matter. One possible reasoning is political involvement takes business away from concentrating on what it’s supposed to be doing—innovating, modernizing, opening new markets, etc. China has a massive very well educated political class that’s proven itself very adept at governance, although like all humans it errs occasionally. There’re several instances in US history where to promote the public welfare the federal government needed to intervene in markets, energy production and electrification most prominently during the Great Depression. There’s also what was known as the American System promoted by Federalist then Whig politicians that called for government investment in fundamental infrastructure projects like roads, bridges and canals. (It’s a shame railroads weren’t included at their outset.) The Anti-Communist Crusade was all about the preservation of private ownership versus public ownership of Capital and related assets. It’s easy to see the very strong anti-public bias of the wealthy who fueled the Crusade and its propaganda. And with deregulation government was captured by Neoliberal Dogma where the public domain is seen as something to devour to the point where nothing much is owned by the general public—even your house and car are owned by the bank that provided the credit for that purchase. The Empire currently has 25%+ of its people living with their parents because they can’t afford housing. And those people have no incentive to procreate. In his Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Destroy the Global Economy, published in 2015, Dr, Hudson described where Neoliberalism and adherence to its dogma would lead, and we’re living it now. The nations that rejected the West’s prescription have prospered, which is fundamentally why they’re targeted by economic and/or kinetic warfare. China avoided that by adopting what seem to be rather simple ideas related to the common good that provide the foundation for avoiding societal unrest and raising almost a billion out of poverty. It’s easy to see why the West doesn’t want the Global Majority to emulate the Chinese model of development.

The test for China is to keep private capital closely regulated. Chinese history is filled with tales of landlords exploiting the peasantry while corrupting the local government charged with disciplining them, while more recent examples during Chaing Kai-shek’s rule and what transpired on Taiwan during the dictatorship there remain living memories for many. I’m sure some readers were surprised at China’s view of personal freedom versus corporate designs and the asking of fundamental questions regarding that relationship that certainly aren’t being asked in the West to the same degree. The question being asked by a growing number of people is will we have Socialism or Barbarism and how do we get to the former from the latter......

Xi Jinping on the Chinese Financial System

 The Chinese journal Qiushi, the Communist Party of China’s Central Committee Bimonthly, has published in its third 2026 edition “Take the road of financial development with Chinese characteristics and build a financial power,” which as it says in an endnote “is an excerpt from General Secretary Xi Jinping's speech at the seminar on promoting high-quality financial development by major leading cadres at the provincial and ministerial levels on January 16, 2024,” which makes it two-years old. The obvious question is why now? The answer appears to be connected to the implementation of the 15th 5-Year Plan which is being rolled-out today as this report by Global Times documents. A salient fact about the self-described Marxists and Marxist-Leninists of the Soviet Union and China was revealed at the very end of a podcast featuring Michal Hudson and Vijay Prashad—Hudson:

I had spent a year of my life studying Marx’s theories of surplus value. At the beginning, only volume one was translated. Russia fought against its being translated, and the Communist Party actually destroyed the printer’s plates for volume two because it was so upsetting. Same thing in China. They’re not very happy at all to hear discussions of volumes two and three of Capital.

That prompted me to ask Dr. Hudson at his Patreon page if he would explain further. Here’s what he shared:

It's a long story. One dimension is that the Stalinists only focused on Vol. I: industrial employers exploit labor. The other is the confusion of Stalinists (incl Maurice Dobbs) between price and value. For China, they already kept money as a public utility. But they did not tax land or distinguish between economic rent (unearned income) and value, with Rent = Price - Value. They simply rejected Marxism as tainted by Stalinist bureaucracy and avoided studying Marx's Vol II and III since 1980 under Deng. Their universities give priority to Chinese students who have studied economics in the United States and simply have been neoliberalized.

So, we can conclude that the self-described Marxists weren’t very Marxist since they rejected Marx’s most important tracts. IMO, this revelation is very important for both historical and contemporary reasons. Dr. Hudson knows China well as he often taught courses there and has a series of them in video format. But exploring this isn’t the aim; rather, it’s purpose is to show what Xi prescribes is a hybrid that blends traditional Chinese philosophy with Marxist and other Western political-economic thought. It should also be noted that many elements of what follows are incorporated into China’s various Global Initiatives and into its developmental philosophy for the Belt & Road and also finds its way into bilateral trade agreements.

Another reason why Xi’s speech was delayed publication for two years is China’s own development, particularly its performance in winning the Trade War initiated by Trump in 2025 that saw its correct anticipation of Trump’s actions and the methods taken to avoid them while generating a record Yuan valuated amount of exports. Thus, there’s national self-confidence that allows China to present its vision of what constitutes a proper financial system:

https://karlof1.substack.com/p/xi-jinping-on-the-chinese-financial?utm_source=publication-search 

The Shadow Government Steering America’s Iran War, by Jose Alberto Nino - The Unz Review

 https://www.unz.com/jnino/the-shadow-government-steering-americas-iran-war/ 

Ultimately, the consistency of these organizations’ influence proves that the American presidency is merely a rotating office, while the true center of sovereign power resides elsewhere. Regardless of who sits in the Oval Office, these entities maintain the structural ability to direct the nation’s security and foreign policy to suit their own strategic interests. Until this shadow government is dismantled or stripped of its institutional control, the United States will remain a blunt instrument of organized Jewry’s will, systematically deployed to sow chaos across the globe at the expense of its own citizens.

You can now easily search through every executive in federal government - Government Executive

 https://www.govexec.com/management/2024/01/you-can-now-easily-search-through-every-executive-federal-government/393053/ 

The bigger the organization - the more inept they are - but they steal quite well...especially government - by Steve Penfield - The Unz Review

 The R&D departments at GM, Ford and Chrysler were so inept they couldn’t figure out intermittent wiper blades despite decades of automotive dominance. No problem. They just “swiped” them from small inventor Robert Kearns starting in 1969. His lawsuits against Ford and Chrysler were dragged out from 1978 to 1990 and from 1982 to 1992, respectively, letting the crooks cash in on technology they stole. Automatic transmission and power steering were other big fails for Big Auto, with independent inventor Oscar H. Banker providing the creative brilliance to keep American cars moving.

The poster child for “IP theft” is not China (who innovates tremendously in high-speed rail, high tech weapons and elsewhere) but the sloths of Microsoft Corp. who can’t do anything original. The Seattle-based software blob copied Windows from Xerox, word processing from WordStar and WordPerfect, spreadsheets from VisiCalc and Lotus, data compression from Stac Electronics and an internet browser from Netscape. Microsoft still attempts to replicate Google’s web search with their lackluster Bing. And before all that, they trotted out a DOS operating system strangely similar to Gary Kildall’s pioneering CP/M software. Other than that… those computer geeks in Washington sure know their coding! And Bill Gates, the son of a lawyer who briefly enrolled himself as pre-law at Harvard, also knows how to use federal lawfare to prevent anyone else from doing the same.

https://www.unz.com/article/what-caused-the-post-ww2-decline-of-urban-america-part-1-setting-the-stage/ 

Would You Like To Know How Forest Fires Are Made? - LewRockwell

 We are not there yet.

Watch this brief video to understand how sophisticated destructive technology has become.

A few years ago, they used helicopters flying over vulnerable forest areas, shooting fire-beams at them. Today’s drone technology is much more discrete and effective.

There is a Spanish voice-over the English original version. The video clip explains how chemical capsules are filled into a special compartment of drones designed for the purpose of delivering these “balls” to particular forest areas and then let them drop to earth, where by touching the ground, they catch fire and – bingo- the brushfire is fabricated. It gives plenty of arguments for the scary “climate change” narrative.

Anybody in their clear mind knows that the climate changes all the time, has done so since the existence of Mother Earth for over 4.5 billion years, but slowly and gradually in different regions, so that people and other sentient beings may adapt. “Sudden” changes as in Agenda 2030 are as unrealistic as growing square apples, so to better fit them into commercial agendas.

“Wildfires” – there is nothing wild about them. They are deliberately planted, causing uncounted deaths, destroyed properties, public infrastructure and enormous personal, societal and economic damages, including the burned forests.

National Geographic Ro...National Geographic MapsCheck Amazon for Pricing.

Yes, the infamous “climate change.” That is where the World Health Organization (WHO) comes in, by integrating wildfires and heat risks into national health emergency plans; enhancing the arguments for the amended International Health Regulations (IHR 2005), including the Pandemic Treaty – not yet validated. There is a reason for putting WHO in charge of “climate change”; it can legalize any disease and p(l)andemic, thus, justifying a Global Health Order, erasing national health sovereignties. This is the goal that hasn’t been achieved yet.

In short, the WHO is treating Europe’s current wildfire crisis not just as a disaster response issue, but as a climate‑driven health emergency that requires sustained investments and preventive actions, like the revised 2005 IHR, with Pandemic Treaties, aiming at global health‑systems adaptation.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2026/07/no_author/would-you-like-to-know-how-forest-fires-are-made/ 

Is this a video of two two schoolboys in DaPrincipal's office?

 https://x.com/TCNetworkFans/status/2082209830597439988

What Fauci’s Diary Reveals About America’s Health Care Apparatus

 

Numerous lines of evidence show Fauci lied to us about the pandemic's biggest questions — origins, severity, lockdowns, and masks — all of which was just exposed at an explosive hearing.

Story at a Glance:

•Throughout his career, NIAID director Anthony Fauci has been involved in unscrupulous activity which put America’s health at risk, with much of what he did through COVID building upon a successful blueprint he created decades ago during the AIDS crisis (at a now surreal time when Democrats like Pelosi grilled him during a 1988 hearing).

•As part of Senator Rand Paul’s six year quest to hold Fauci accountable for his role in creating COVID-19 and putting an end to gain of function research, Fauci recently was forced to testify in front of a Senate committee in an unusually candid and contentious hearing where Fauci took the unusual tactic of refusing to testify by pleading the Fifth on every question. This article will summarize the key highlights of that hearing.

•Immediately prior to hearing, private diary entries were released that Fauci had been keeping on a nearly daily basis that explicitly showed many of the public statements he made (and forced us to go along with) contradicted his actual beliefs.

•They also paint a unique picture into his personality, as the saint much of the world came to worship during the pandemic (despite him failing to provide any substantive results) was not at all focused on the science or wellbeing of the country, and instead was a petty man who was obsessed with the fame and media attention he got and using that fame to influence the media’s coverage of the pandemic (and hence the course of it).

•Many of the almost unbelievable revelations about Fauci’s personality and conduct mirror what two White House insiders witnessed as they tried to stop Fauci’s senseless pandemic policies—including his profound lack of scientific literacy Scott Atlas observed throughout the pandemic.

•Collectively, these events illustrate an unfortunate reality—the loudest “follow the science” voices are often the most illiterate grifters. Fortunately, as the hearing showed, public opinion is turning against this paradigm and now that the unconditional trust medicine relies upon has been broken, there is a real window for alternatives to the existing paradigm to flourish.

https://www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/what-faucis-diary-reveals-about-americas?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=748806&post_id=209118427&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=y7h5a&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email 

Heritage History | Nameless War by Archibald Ramsay

 https://www.heritage-history.com/index.php?c=read&author=ramsay&book=nameless&story=russian 

The Russian Revolution

Monsieur Francois Coty, the celebrated scent manufacturer, wrote in Figaro on 20th February, 1932:

"The subsidies granted to the Nihilists at this period (1905-1917) by Jacob Schiff, of Kuhn Loeb and Co., New York, were no longer acts of isolated generosity. A veritable Russian terrorist organization had been set up at his expense. It covered Russia with its emissaries."

This creation of terrorist formations by Jews within a country marked down for revolution, whether they be called Nihilists or as in France in 1789, "Sacred Bands," or "Marseillais"; or "Operatives," as in the Britain of Charles I, now stands revealed as standard technique.

Jacob Schiff also financed Japan in her war against Russia 1904-5, as we learn from the Jewish Encyclopedia. This war was immediately followed by an attempt at revolution on a considerable scale in Russia, which, however, proved abortive. The next attempt, during the Great War, met with complete success.

On the 3rd January, 1906, the Russian Foreign Minister supplied to Emperor Nicholas II a report on this revolutionary outbreak, which, as revealed in the American Hebrew of July 13th, 1918, contained the following passages:

"The events which took place in Russia in 1905 . . . plainly indicate that the revolutionary movement . . . has a definite international character . . . the revolutionaries possess great quantities of arms imported from abroad and very considerable financial means . . . one is bound to conclude that there are foreign capitalists' organizations interested in supporting our revolutionary movement. If we add to the above that, as has been proved beyond any doubt, a very considerable part is played by Jews . . . as ring-leaders in other organizations as well as their own . . . always the most bellicose element of the revolution . . . we may feel entitled to assume that the above-mentioned foreign support of the Russian revolutionary movement comes from Jewish capitalist circles." [Jews should be read as International Zionists, Ed.]

The assumption in the foregoing report was indeed well justified. It was to be confirmed by an even more important official document penned at the height of the revolution itself, in 1918, by Mr Oudendyke, the representative of the Netherlands Government in St. Petersburg, who was in charge of British interests in Russia after the liquidation of our Embassy by the bolsheviks.

So important indeed was this report of Mr. Oudendyke's held to be by Mr. Balfour, to whom it was addressed, that it was set out in a British government white paper on bolshevism issued in April 1919. (Russia No. 1.) In it I have read the following passage:

"I consider that the immediate suppression of bolshevism is the greatest issue now before the world, not even excluding the war which is still raging, and unless bolshevism is nipped in the bud immediately it is bound to spread in one form or another over Europe, and the whole world, as it is organized and worked by Jews, who have no nationality, and whose one object is to destroy for their own ends the existing order of things."

A still clearer light is thrown on these happenings by an article written on 12th April, 1919, in a paper called The Communist, at Kharkov, by one M. Cohen:

"The great Russian revolution was indeed accomplished by the hands of Jews. There are no Jews in the ranks of the Red Army as far as privates are concerned, but in the Committees, and in the Soviet organization as Commissars, the Jews are gallantly leading the masses. The symbol of Jewry has become the symbol of the Russian proletariat, which can be seen in the fact of the adoption of the five-pointed star, which in former times was the symbol of Zionism and Jewry."

Mr. Fahey, in his important and authenticated work, The Rulers of Russia, is more specific, stating that in 1917 of the 52 persons who took over the direction in Russia, all but Lenin were Jews.

So thorough was the mass liquidation of all but hewers of wood and drawers of water in Russia, that this Jewish grip remained unaltered. Dr. Fahey tells us that in 1935 the Central Executive of the Third international, which ruled Russia "consisted of 59 men, of which 56 were Jews. The other three, including Stalin, were married to Jewesses. Of 17 principal Soviet ambassadors, 4 were Jews." (The Rulers of Russia, pages 8 and 9.)

The Rev. George Simons, who was Superintendent of the Methodist Episcopal Church in St. Petersburg from 1907 to October 1918, appeared before a Committee of the United States Senate on the 12th February, 1919, and gave them a report of his personal knowledge of the happenings in Russia up to the time he left. Dr. Fahey quotes him as saying during this evidence:

"In December, 1918, out of 388 members of the revolutionary government, only 16 happened to be real Russians; all the rest were Jews with the exception of one U.S. Negro. Two hundred and sixty-five of the Jews come from the Lower East Side of New York."

Such has been the condition of affairs in the U.S.S.R. from that day to this.

Though a number of Jews were liquidated in the so-called "Moscow Purge," this affected the situation in no way. It merely signified that one Jewish faction had triumphed over, and liquidated, another. There has never been anything in the nature of a Gentile revolt against the Jewish domination.

The fact that some Jews were liquidated by winning factions behind the iron curtain could be used to deceive the world outside into thinking that this was the result of an anti-Semitic revolt, and from time to time a hoax of this kind has been systematically propaganded.

As world opinion gradually turned hostile to the U.S.S.R. important Jews began to fear, that this feeling, combined with a gradual realization that bolshevism is Jewish, might have unpleasant reactions for them. About 1945, therefore, a further powerful campaign was organized from influential Jewish circles, notably in the U.S.A., to put out the story once again that Russia had turned on the Jews. They evidently failed, however, to advise their lesser brethren of this move; and indignant and informed denials were soon forthcoming. A journal called Bulletin, the organ of the Glasgow Discussion Group, wrote in June 1945:

"Such rubbish as is now being spread as to the growth of anti-Semitism in Russia is nothing but malicious lies and pure invention."

On 1st February, 1949, the Daily Worker carried an article in which a Mr. Parker gave a few names and figures of Jews in high office in the U.S.S.R., from which he had evidently recently returned, for he wrote:

"I never heard a breath of criticism over this state of affairs," and stated later in the same article "anti-Semitism would render a Soviet official liable to prosecution in the same way that a private citizen may be brought before the courts for anti-semitism."

On the 10th November, 1949, the Daily Worker, that constant and burning champion of the Jews, printed an article by Mr D. Kartun, entitled "Stamping Out anti-semitism," which shows the complete Jewish control behind the iron curtain when he writes:

"In Poland and the other people's democracies anti-Semitism in word or deed is most heavily punished."

Between 1945 and 1949 the propaganda to convince Gentiles outside the iron curtain, that within that area anti-Semitism was rampant, and the Jews driven from high office everywhere was energetically pursued. It began to be believed by quite a number of people, who would have known better; so much so, that in the autumn of the latter year I thought it worth while to get out a list showing the number of vital positions held by Jews behind the iron curtain. Here is an extract from those lists.

U.S.S.R.:

• Premier — Stalin Married to a Jewess
• Vice-Premier — Kaganovitch Jew
• Ministry of State Control — Mekhlis Jew
• Military & Naval Construction — Ginsburg Jew
• Minister Cominform Organ — Yudin Jew
• Chief Publicist Abroad for U.S.S.R. — Ilya Eherenburg . . .Jew
• Ministry of Building Enterprises Machinery — Yudin Jew
• Foreign Minister — Molotoff Married to a Jewess

POLAND:

• Virtual Ruler — Jacob Bergman Jew
• Public Prosecutor — T. Cyprian Jew
• O.C. Youth Movements — Dr. Braniewsky Jew

HUNGARY:

• Virtual Ruler — Mathias Rakosi Jew

ROUMANIA:

• Virtual Ruler — Anna Pauker Jewess (Since removed for "deviationism" but replaced by another Jew.)

YUGOSLAVIA:

• Virtual Ruler — Moishe Pyjede Jew

In May 1949, the Daily Worker, which is, of course, consistently and ardently pro-Jewish, printed an article by Mr A. Rothstein praising the U.S.S.R. to the skies; and about the same time another article on similar lines about the paradise behind the iron curtain by Mr Sam Aronvitch.

On the 10th November the same paper printed an article in which D. Kartun, writing of the "People's Democracies" and the stamping out of anti-semitism there, wrote:

"No one could dream of making an anti-semitic speech or writing an anti-semitic article in any of these countries. If they did their jail sentence would be both immediate and lengthy."

In the last few years we have been supplied with further dramatic proof of the vital inter-relation between Jews and the U.S.S.R. From the Canadian spy trials, which focused the spotlight on atom spying for the U.S.S.R., with the conviction and imprisonment of Frank Rosenberg (alias Rose), the Canadian Jew Communist Member of Parliament, and several Jews, to the conviction and imprisonment of many others of the same gang in Britain and the U.S.A., including Fuchs, Professor Weinbaum, Judith Coplon, Harry Gold, David Greenglass, Julius Rosenberg, Miriam Moskewitz, Abraham Brothanz, and Raymond Boyer, who, though a Gentile by birth, married a Jewess and, I believe, adopted the Jewish creed on that occasion.

Finally, we had the flight to the U.S.S.R. with atom secrets also of the Jew Professor Pontecorvo, who had been working in close association with Fuchs.

No doubt we shall continue to be regaled with plausible stories proving that Russia has gone anti-semitic; but it is not hard to realise that such a Jewish grip backed by the most elaborate spy and liquidation squads known to man, would cause a convulsion which would shake the world before its grip could be broken.

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The Deaf, Dumb and Blind Empire of Piracy - Escobar

 Iran knows where everything is located – to the millimeter. No need to go for flashy photo ops Shock’n Awe-style monopolizing the news cycle. What matters is the Chinese torture of steadily degrading the enemy’s capabilities; the strategy is painfully methodical, and painfully precise.

No wonder the Empire of Piracy is catatonic. What to do when your massively expensive and nearly irreplaceable sensing and monitoring hardware is being reduced to ashes? When your screens go deep dark? When the arrogant imperial confidence of the entire chain of command is being torpedoed in real time?

The Iranian Way of War is a sophisticated mix that may eventually be studied in Western military academies. All logically interconnected – from destruction of enemy support infrastructure to steady degradation of intel, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities; from attrition of air defense and interceptor inventories to widespread disruption of logistics.

And all that is supremely cost effective – but certainly not for the attacking Empire, as every (malfunctioning) Patriot costs millions of dollars, and simply cannot defend scores of different locations simultaneously.

In a nutshell: this is how a systematic degradation of the whole regional architecture that allows the U.S. and its vassals to project military power across West Asia looks like. Played out in front of the whole Global South. The manual is available for all, live, in real time.....

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2026/07/no_author/the-deaf-dumb-and-blind-empire-of-piracy/ 

.....Everything is running out

Iran’s precision, restraint and reach is shutting up the whole vociferating spectacle emanating from the Empire of Narratives – as Iranian missiles and drones relentless strike fighter jets, Black Hawks, data centers (as in the Amazon central hub in Bahrain), logistics depots, power plants – and more.

The Global South just needs to check the satellite images of proverbial craters across Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and UAE. And Iran hasn’t even started yet. Were Iran to obliterate Qatar’s remaining LNG trains, that would leave most of the planet with no LNG from Doha for at least a decade – not to mention the helium for making microchips.

The massive humiliation of hitting and disabling one of those multibillion-dollar sitting ducks is being kept for the appropriate time. And as everyone knows, Iran runs the clock, and time is on its side.

None of that, of course, minimizes the risks of the escalation ladder; and we are still in the middle of what could become the Mother of All Escalation Ladders.

But then, suddenly, the imperial machine stops – and CENTCOM refrains from bombing Iran for a few days. At a closed meeting in Washington last Friday, someone with an IQ over room temperature (J.D. Vance? Gen. Caine? Both?) dared to warn neo-Crassus that his Mother of all Escalations was destined to fail.

And that was due to a bunch of obvious reasons; from no Patriots available to widespread Gulf petromonarchy panic; from the risks to the global economy to a massive oil crisis just around the corner.

Does that mean that neo-Crassus will return to the MoU that he signed and then bombed? Of course not. Plan B may look more like intensifying “economic pressure” via extra embargoes and sanctions, as recommend by the real estate Talleyrand of the times, Kushner, the Epstein lite family “advisor”.

So it’s not only global oil reserves – and the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) that are running out. THAADs, Patriots, JASSMs, Tomahawks, everything is running out.