Geography Archives: Europe

A “rent good” is one whose supply cannot be augmented at will, simply through investing more on its production; its supply is subject to constraints imposed by nature, because of which there is a certain maximum rate of long-run growth which is exogenously given and cannot be altered at will.

In December, the United States is bringing new nuclear warheads to Europe. The B61-12 warhead is a more advanced warhead from the ones currently deployed in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey.

Punchbowl News reports that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is planning a trip to Taiwan, which will be yet another incendiary provocation against Beijing if it occurs. The previous House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, sparked a significant escalation in hostilities with her visit last year, the consequences of which are still reverberating today.

Ireland has to stop collaborating with the U.S. military/industrial complex by allowing U.S. troops and in Shannon Airport (3 million and rising so far).

On Jan. 14, a large crowd gathered in Times Square in New York City to honor the true legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and demand an end to the brutal U.S.-NATO proxy war being waged in Ukraine.

According to preliminary estimates of the Bank of Russia, in January-September 2022, it strengthened to $198.4 billion, which is $123.1 billion more than in the same period last year. This surplus was taken out of the country (at the same time, half went to pay off the external debts of Russian companies with their replacement by domestic ruble lending) and is reflected in the balance of payments item “net capital outflow”.

… in the form of a life-size cardboard cut-out.

It is not uncommon to see U.S. citizens point to Denmark as a socialist alternative. And yet, just like in the United States, capital accumulation is the guiding principle in Danish society.

Donetsk city and region remains even now under intense fire by the artillery and mortars of the Kyiv regime, generously supplied by Western countries.

Like during the Cold War, the global schism has a military component that is gradually intensifying. The emerging East-West military standoff is building on the energy of the polarization exacerbated by the Russo-Ukrainian war for NATO expansion.

Today the Linke is tragically split, on both political approaches and personalities.… [M]ost worrisome is the split about the present war. Some in the Left downplay the role of NATO, call for total condemnation of Russian imperialism and total military support for the Ukraine, in agreement with most media positions.

In this reprint of the February 1994 “Notes from the Editors,” former MR editors Harry Magdoff and Paul M. Sweezy ask: “The United States could not have won a more decisive victory in the Cold War. Why, then, does it continue to act as though the Cold War is still on?”

A series of international organizations—a network of networks—created by Russia and China form the pillars upon which an alternative to the Western-dominated world order are being built. There is already an institutional split between the West and the rest evidencing the pre-schism bifurcation among great powers: the G7 and G20.

The IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva has now openly admitted that the year 2023 will witness the slowing down of the world economy to a point where as much as one-third of it will see an actual contraction in gross domestic product.

Nearly a decade ago I began warning that NATO expansion and the West’s failure to understand that Russian national security interests not a Russian desire to ‘recreate the USSR’ or ‘former Russian empire’ would lead to a world split apart between the West and ‘the rest’ (Sino-Russian ‘strategic partnership and those states oriented towards it).

The Macron-led government is making a new bid to push controversial pension reforms, calling to increase the retirement age from 62 to 64.

I know I’m not the only one thinking that our world has lost its mind. It’s not easy being some relatively sane person nowadays. At the best of times, politics is bankrupt. At its worst, it’s toxic, dominated by demagogues, liars and cheats. Their falsehoods fly wholesale, rarely disgruntling masses of people, let alone damaging a demagogue’s political career.

Tariq Ali’s new book examines the disconnect between Churchill’s popular image and the larger context of his life and times.

The worst crime the USSR committed, the one for which it will never be forgiven, was to have been a shared hope for a more just, more dignified and more humane society.

In 1996, the eight countries on the Arctic rim—Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States—formed the Arctic Council, a journey that began in 1989 when Finland approached the other countries to hold a discussion about the Arctic environment.