Luongo: Running On Empty, The US Leaves Zelenskyy Hanging
Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, n' Guns blog,
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made one last ditch effort to plead for US monetary and military support for the war against Russia. President “Biden” all but blackmailed the American people last week over this issue, threatening us with sending our children to fight a war to cover up his corruption and Davos’ antihuman agenda.
The contempt with which I hold these people cannot be overstated. Biden has no more legitimacy to threaten us with fighting a war with Russia for Ukraine than Zelenskyy does. Yet his handlers think nothing of putting those words in his mouth after shoving his morning dose of stimmies into him to prop him up in front of the teleprompter for him to hopefully not misread.
If that last sentence doesn’t make your blood boil, I’ve not been doing my job properly lo these past six years.
So, challenge accepted then.
Watch this clip of Zelenskyy telling us we need to forego everything to save his sorry ass.
Zelensky just went on Fox and begged western leaders to send ALL their money to Ukraine
— johnny maga (@_johnnymaga) December 12, 2023
“Don’t build roads. Spend all your money on weapons, drones, Society and pensions… we have only one enemy: Putin.” pic.twitter.com/gtuGMsMS1e
This level of rhetoric is the zenith of toxic thinking. There is no time for anything other than fighting XXX. For Zelenskyy it is Putin. For the vampires and ghouls like Al Gore, John Kerry and Tony Blair screeching at COPE28, it is climate change.
For Democrats and the Media it is Trump.
By framing all of these topics in this way they betray their own agendas. It is nothing more than the full court press that all tyrants push when they are at their most vulnerable. If things were going their way they wouldn’t have to exhort people to give up everything to fight their fight for them.
If Zelenskyy wasn’t such a tool for Davos and/or the Neocons who pushed him into this position, I’d actually feel some pity for him. But my humanity has limits. There comes a point where you have the face the consequences of the actions you have taken.
I don’t care if you are him, Joe Biden, George Soros, Anthony Fauci, Klaus Schwab, or any of their lieutenants. You can only outrun the hangman for so long.
You can only hide behind the law and the veneer of civilization that put you in your position of power for so long.
Eventually the lies and the double-dealing, the fast-talking and the pride, all catch up with you. Eventually, you ask for something that no one is willing to part with and it all comes crashing down.
If Zelenskyy has an ounce of shame left in him he would go back to Kiev and makes plans to give Putin his pound of flesh to save those of the people he’s supposed to represent. Swallow the pride, save the people.
But he won’t. Neither will Biden. Or Warren. Or Hillary. Or any of them. They would rather burn the world to the ground and blackmail us to the very end than face the one thing they are all afraid of… and it isn’t just death as Alex Jones told Tucker Carlson on X/Twitter the other day.
… it’s the emptiness of the lives they’ve led which they need to prove to everyone. How else can they justify their actions to themselves?
I was asked by Sputnik News to give my thoughts on Zelenskyy’s trip to Washington D.C. to scare up money for Ukraine, knowing full well that he has eluded the hang man for nearly two years now.
This money doesn’t just represent a vain hope of a failing government, it is emblematic of the problems across the entire West: this magical thinking that we can fund every idea that comes into our heads by throwing other people’s money at it.
Have you ever noticed how the people who speak about shared sacrifice are the ones who never seem to sacrifice anything of their own?
As I write this we’re waiting on the latest FOMC policy statement with the markets having clearly told Chair Jerome Powell they want cheap money. They can’t live without it and that he better give it to them… or?
What I’m not sure. Zelenskyy begmanded for more money. He got nothing other than a pittance that Joe Biden could slough off without Congressional approval.
This whole standoff over Davos’ big projects — Climate Change, Ukraine — has run out of runway. It has met the limit to which we’re willing to pay the price for costs they never counted. It will crash.
While everyone tries to read the Fed tea leaves based on what the “Dot Plot” will show, the reality is that none of that matters if we don’t cut spending. The markets want it all: stimulus, easy credit and more spending.
They’ve made this abundantly clear. Politically, Biden, Zelenskyy et.al. want the same thing. But none of that takes into account those that actually have to live with the consequences of these decisions.
The political risks have clearly shifted away from them on this issue or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
Post-Keynesian propagandists like Paul Krugman are famous for saying “Deficits don’t matter.”
Until they do.
As always, when asked by Russian media for my commentary I post the full transcript of the Q&A for the sake of transparency. Do with it what you will.
How viable is the situation that Ukraine does not receive the aid package till the end of December? If so, what would be the terms for allocating the new funds? When approximately would the money arrive in this case?
I don’t think I’m qualified to answer that question. The timing of the flow of funds is not what I focus on. From the outside, Ukraine’s problems look quite acute, but how much of that is narrative in order to pressure US legislators into giving in to Zelenskyy’s demands and how much is reality is anyone’s guess at this point.
That said, Zelenskyy’s position is extremely tenuous. This looks like his last chance to scare up funds from the old guard in the Senate – McConnell, Schumer, etc.
In case the US political fight ends badly for Ukraine, what scenarios do you think would be most possible for Ukraine?
Zelenskyy is hanging on by a very thin rope, one which he put around his own neck. That said, I don’t believe for a second that he wasn’t being ordered to run things the way they have been run. He’s a puppet, an order-taker. And, as long as he stays on script, he will be rewarded with a fat ‘gold watch’ for a job well done.
It won’t be his fault if Ukraine collapses, that’s a failure of the strategy pursued to poke a fight with Russia in the first place.
Zelenskyy, I’m sure, understands all this and if he goes home empty-handed, he may be doing so to pack his bags before he’s run out of town. Russia will continue grinding out small victories, no matter how the US National Security Council and various US/UK think tanks spin what’s happening.
That is what’s happening in the central front around Avdiivka and we’re seeing Russia push to the north near Sumy and Cherniv. If Zelenskyy has to flee or is killed, the military will likely push for some kind of surrender. And at that point the West will have a decision in front of them, enter the war openly as Biden has threatened or accept whatever peace Russia enforces on Ukraine.
Any result that does not involve Odessa will likely be rejected by Putin. He didn’t expand his military budget by 70% for 2024 for nothing, after all. He’s preparing for a real war in 2024 and 2025. He knows the forces behind this war in Ukraine have not been defeated politically, therefore policy has not changed.
What would the financial toolkit include, how risky would it be to raise tax revenue or cut spending?
The US needs to cut spending regardless of Ukraine. Period. The path we’re on is unsustainable. Even the FOMC Chairman, Jerome Powell, says this, breaking serious protocols in doing so. The US cannot really raise taxes either, nor should it. We are already overtaxed and over-regulated to the point of self-extinction.
Cutting spending in DC is the path forward for the US, making our bond issuance more sustainable. At this point the political winds have shifted away from Ukraine. And Biden is telling Netanyahu in Israel to shut the war on Gaza down by year end.
The fundamental problem is that real political reform is not possible in the US until the McConnells and Schumers no longer have real control over Congress. This means the Fed needs to hold the line on interest rates until late into the campaign season, at a minimum.
If Biden wanted to tame inflation in the US, he could do so nearly immediately by ending Trump’s tariffs on China’s imports. This would free up consumer spending, and work with the Fed’s high interest rate policy to encourage savings and investment in the US. Cutting the deficit spending in D.C. would reassure capital markets that the US is serious about getting back on some form of sustainable path and give Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen options on rolling over US debt.
What consequences do you foresee if mentioned monetary-policy options are unlocked?
If the US does not commit to cutting spending and lowering the cost of government on the middle class, there is little the Fed can do to forestall a crisis. The Fed has fixed, somewhat, the monetary side of the equation, radically pulling back on credit creation and returning rational prioritizing to corporate and consumer spending.
Funding for Ukraine is emblematic of the political rot in D.C. as the leadership wants nothing but to keep prioritizing everything, everywhere, all at once, because their grand dreams of social engineering trump all other concerns. As Ayn Rand put it a long time ago, “Ideas have consequences.” And the ideas and ideals of the post-WWII generations have had ruinous consequences for not only the world but also the US itself.
The Fed will not back down on interest rates until one of the major New York money center banks gets into trouble. Powell has made that clear and financial conditions at this moment in time do not warrant him backing down.
Not only will he not cut rates tomorrow, but I don’t expect him to cut rates until the 2nd half of 2024, despite how the market has priced things in recent weeks. Ukraine is just another pressure point to get Powell to pivot.
Ukraine fully depends on foreign financing at the moment – how would social obligations such as wages and pensions be paid in the event the aid is delayed for an uncertain period of time?
In depreciating and rapidly discredited hrvnia. The folks with the most to lose in Ukraine at this point are those carpetbaggers who were chosen to rebuild the country after the war was over. Russia understands this and no more wants Blackrock rebuilding Ukraine than it wants Ukraine in NATO.
In many ways, to the Russian mindset under Putin’s leadership, these two things are roughly equivalent. So, without the US and/or the EU’s monetary support Ukraine becomes a failed state of epic proportions. This is why we’re hearing intense noises from Brussels to fast-track Ukraine into the EU to shovel money in there to keep the dreams of the Great Reset alive.
Europe can no more afford to support Ukraine financially than the US can. No real change can occur until the checks stop showing up. The fortitude and bravery of those fighting for Ukraine will wither even faster if their efforts are not feeding their families back home.
This is the only way, however, out of this tragedy. Stop the money, you stop the violence and abuse.
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