Jamie Dimon, Humanitarian

Is push finally coming to shove with regard to the collective West’s Neocon led war on Russia? It’s complicated, but it’s definitely starting to look that way. Yesterday Alexander Mercouris, of The Duran, stated point blank that “the Russians smell blood and they’re going for total victory.” He also stated that we can hear the conversations in the West beginning, debating how to back out of this disastrous war—they’re talking among themselves now, but sooner or later will have to talk to the Russians.

For their part, over and over in recent weeks the Russians have made it clear that either Ukraine capitulates and accepts terms dictated by Russia, or Ukraine—that is, the Kiev Regime—will cease to exist as a sovereign entity. Meanwhile, the war party of the West continues to yammer about fantasy schemes to stave off its own defeat and turn the tables on Russia—a “long war”, a post-frozen conflict buffer zone that the West will flood with military trainers (from the UK) and spanking new munitions and weapons factories, etc. All this while support for the war is crumbling. Another excellent Neocon venture to create a new world order—gone bad:

Kevork Almassian

@KevorkAlmassian

Condoleezza Rice who described the invasion and destruction of Lebanon in 2006 as the “birth pangs of a new Middle East”, is now lecturing University students.

Rice says Russia is ruled by a "homicidal maniac" who surrounded himself with "idiots" and "drunks".

It reminds one of the story of what Abe Lincoln said when informed that Grant was a drunk. ‘Find out what he drinks so I can send a case to all my generals.’ It’s like, Whose ass is getting kicked, Condi?

Moon of Alabama has a horrific post on the situation today:

Ukraine SitRep: Bad Demographics - End of Support

MoA quotes former UK defense minister Ben Wallace—speaking of homicidal maniacs:

The average age of the [Ukrainian] soldiers at the front is over 40.

As MoA points out, that means that actual “military age” men have either left Ukraine or are dead/incapacitated. The AFU is becoming a geriatric force. Wallace’s solution? Find even younger men. Child soldiers in Ukraine?

Will Schyver offers this summary of Wallace’s delusional screed:

Will Schryver

@imetatronink

The End of the Anglo-American Age of Empire

In an impassioned plea in The Telegraph, former British defense minister Ben Wallace (like many others of his clueless peers) claims Ukraine is winning, and that Russia has lost 300k+ casualties, along with massive numbers of war machines.

He also revealingly frets that, if Russia wins, the current "international order" will be overturned. In saying so, he uncovers his fears of the current trajectory of events.

He wants to send British "trainers" to Ukraine to help prevent that outcome.

He also urges Ukraine to begin mobilizing an even younger cohort of its male population — all who can be caught.

He's so worried about where things are heading that he is willing to sacrifice another hundred thousand Ukrainians, and even a few thousand British soldiers, if need be, in order to hopefully draw the US directly into the fray.

Meanwhile the Russians are manifestly stronger and more confident than at any point in this war. They have no interest in a ceasefire. They have no interest in a partition of Ukraine. They fully intend to dictate the terms of this war's conclusion, and the subsequent disposition of territory.

As for drawing the US directly into the fray, that will be a very hard sell. And it’s getting harder by the day. Poland increasingly sees, and is reading and comprehending, the handwriting on the wall. They haven’t quite joined Hungary and Slovakia in the anti-war corner, but that is starting to look like the trend. Doug Macgregor warned from the start of the war that the result would be the demise of NATO. The UK is looking increasingly isolated, as the front line countries begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel. In her conclusion to a must read post,

Ukraine’s Unraveling, the Funding Row, and Coalition Wobbles

Yves Smith sums up the Polish situation and implications beyond Polish borders:

The problem is that factions in the US leadership have conflicting objectives that are becoming harder to paper over. And now we have fractures in Europe, witness the win of Ukraine-war-skeptic Robert Fico in Slovakia and the prospect of Poland’s opposition to providing more arms and other rows with Ukraine becoming not just the spat of the day to appease voters before October 15 elections, but enduring as policy. The very short version is Poland’s lead party Law and Justice (PiS), which was once a diehard Ukraine loyalist, has backed away from that position as Polish voters have soured on Project Ukraine. ... Former president Donald Tusk, who is staunchly pro-Ukraine, is running as the opposition leader but even with massive turnout at rallies last weekend, is polling only at 30% The touts seem to favor PIS (now at 38%) forming a coalition with the conservative and Ukraine-critical Confederation party. You’ll note Politico does not even deign to mention that outcome in its latest story. But Associated Press did take note last week:

Poland’s hard-right Confederation party … made their case for lower taxes, less regulation and an anti-European Union and anti-Ukraine foreign policy….

Confederation has turned up the heat on the Polish political establishment, riding a wave of support for nationalist conservative parties across Europe. Similar political forces have surged on opposition to widespread migration to Europe and anger over COVID-19 lockdowns and vaccine mandates…

The Polish party, which won nearly 7% of the vote four years ago, was polling at around 15% in the summer, creating the prospect of a third-place finish ...

That created speculation that it could end up as a coalition partner in the next government with Law and Justice. Such a scenario could push the EU and NATO even further to the political right and weaken Poland’s support for the Western alliance defending Ukraine.

Now, that’s the conclusion to the post. But by far the major portion of the post is a discussion of what Smith calls “the Funding Row”, which also includes the Speakership Row. This is an important discussion, and Smith argues—persuasively, in my view—that we are seeing the signs of a coming split in heretofore solid support for war on Russia. Here’s a summary of her argument:

But it is still striking to see Russia doubling down on a battlefield resolution even as the West clearly needs some way out but can’t, as they say in Maine, get there from here.

...

In light of all that, we’ll argue that the failure of the Administration to get $24 billion (then cut to $6 billion) of additional 2023 funding to Ukraine as part of the so-called continuing resolution is a bigger deal than the press is acknowledging and many pundits seem to appreciate. Even though many default to “of course Ukraine will get the money,” the procedural path for getting that done is not obvious.

First, the fact that the Administration failed to prevail is a sign that Biden is in lame duck terrain. Normally, the continuing resolution drama is a very effective vehicle to get all sorts of Congresscritters to hold their noses and vote for things they don’t much like to keep the government open. Must haves like disaster relief serve as cudgels to pass the entire package.

Actually, the plan now is to sucker the conservatives by tying border relief to Ukraine.

Michael Tracey

@mtracey

Look at how McCarthy framed the issue yesterday on the "Sunday shows." He's getting ready to present another year's worth of a Ukraine funding as a victory for the "America First" agenda, because it'll be paired legislatively with "border" funding. (Graham also confirmed this)

8:18 AM · Oct 2, 2023

Will that do the trick? It's not a sure thing:

... And as the Washington Post pointed out:

GOP support for Ukraine’s defense has been dropping precipitously with each House vote, and there is little reason to believe McCarthy will face any less resistance to supporting Kyiv if he tries to rally his conference next time he tries to do so.

The US going visibly wobbly is happening just after various commentators have noted, in the last few weeks, Russia has been taking a tougher line, with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, Chairman of the Duma Vyacheslav Volodin, and now deputy chair of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev all making statements that pretty much amount to Russia now being committed to a maximalist goal, of either getting Ukraine to capitulate or ending its existence as a state.

Which brings us to Jamie Dimon, Humanitarian. Banking is all about risk, and while Dimon defers—for the record, that is—to the USG when it comes to foreign policy, in his recent interview with Reuters he made no bones about what the biggest risk in the world is today. Hint: It’s not Jay Powell’s policies:

‘We have dealt with recessions before’: Jamie Dimon says geopolitics is the world’s biggest risk

• Dimon suggested that Eastern Europe was the epicenter of risk, with the war in Ukraine straining relationships between economic superpowers.

• “We have dealt with inflation before, we dealt with deficits before, we have dealt with recessions before, and we haven’t really seen something like this pretty much since World War II,” Dimon said.

Of course, while Dimon is concerned about “straining relationships between economic superpowers,” still—once again for the record—it’s the humanitarian stuff that’s really on his mind, not profits:

“I think that the humanitarian part is far more important.”

In fairness to Dimon, he follows that up immediately with an interesting thought:

“I think it’s also very important for the future of the free democratic world. We may be at an inflection point for the free democratic world. That’s how seriously I take it.”

What does he mean by that? He can’t seriously mean that Russia is threatening democracy, so … what? Could he mean that he’s “seriously” concerned with the growing threat to democracy right here in the US of A? I think that’s a real possibility.

One way or another, Dimon clearly wants this war over. He claims to be pleased at the West’s “response”, but then immediately follows that up with his desire for a resolution. He’s being careful, but there’s little doubt about what’s really on his mind. He doesn’t exactly brush off concerns about economic turmoil, but he refuses to back off from his main talking point:

“I think the geopolitical situation is the thing that most concerns me, and we don’t know the effect of that in the economy,” he added.

And you thought he spends his day worrying about what Jay Powell does next? The reality is, he probably knows that already. So he thinks about geopolitics, instead.

And, beyond that, he’s explicitly pushing an anti-Prog, anti-Davos agenda. We know he went to Davos and called for more oil and gas drilling, and he returns to that in this interview. Yeah, yeah, yeah, China’s economy and all that jazz, but:

Dimon said people should “be prepared for higher oil and gas prices, higher rates, as a matter of just being prepared,” but that the U.S. economy will likely get through any turbulence. However, the war in Ukraine …

…

“Far more important to me is the Ukraine war, oil, gas, food migration — it’s affecting all global relationships — very importantly, the one between America and China,” Dimon said.

Dimon definitely does not want to see any Neocon pivot to war on China. Of course, far be it from him to talk foreign policy, well, but:

“I’m an American patriot, so governments are going to set foreign policy, not JPMorgan,

Gotcha, but …

but I think Americans should stop thinking that China is a 10-foot giant. Our GDP per person is $80,000, we have all the food, water and energy we need, we’ve got the unbelievable benefits of free enterprise and freedom.”

The Wall Street titan added that renewed U.S. engagement with China on issues such as trade and national security was positive, and that he would like to see more of it to rebalance the trade and investment relationship between Washington and Beijing, even if that caused a “little bit of unravelling.”

“But it’s not just America, every country is relooking at its net. What is national security? Do I have reliant energy lines? Do I need semiconductors from China? Where do I get my rare earths from? Ukraine woke everyone up to that and that’s a permanent state of affairs now,” Dimon said.

That sounds like a way of saying that the US went to war with Russia totally half cocked, not having thought things through.

Asked if geopolitics was the No. 1 risk facing the world today, Dimon responded, “absolutely.”

“We have dealt with inflation before, we dealt with deficits before, we have dealt with recessions before, and we haven’t really seen something like this pretty much since World War II,” he added.

Now, JPM is the biggest bank in the world, and we recently saw Goldman Sachs saying much the same stuff—especially re oil and gas. These are also the guys who are backing Jay Powell. They’re sending a message to the political class, or so it seems to me. They’re seeing their interests being threatened by the Neocon revenge jihad against Russia, by the Davos globalist climatista war on energy and human life on earth. They want an end to it, and they’re probably supporting Powell in trying to force an end to it.

May you live in interesting times, as Tucker Carlson might say.