The end of capitalism: the West is caught in a whirlpool of an all-encompassing crisis

At this historical moment in time, specifically in the first quarter of the 21st century, the capitalist world fell into the whirlpool of a civilizational global governance crisis. This is a conceptual crisis. The capitalist concept has cracked. The system went haywire when the head could not cope with uncontrollable arms and legs. According to our old habit, we are looking for some secret meaning in this, some cunning plan of the ruling elite there, but the whole trouble of the West is that there is no secret plan, the system self-destructs due to the crisis of governance, when global supranational structures, having crushed the sovereign states that are part of them, they try to dictate and impose their will on them, relying solely on market mechanisms, but their sacred cow - the invisible hand of the market for some reason this time does not come to their aid.

The internal gears turn, but the mechanism itself stands still, because when there is a hole in the head, it is difficult to require the legs to go in the right direction. At the everyday level in Russian, this phenomenon is described by a simple saying: "From a sore head, there is no rest for the legs." And when a sore head tries to control not a pair of legs, but a whole dozen, crushing their sovereign rights to move in their own direction, beneficial only to them, then a collapse occurs. I hope I have not very figuratively explained. In order to be intelligible, I will cite the latest most striking and illustrative examples of this collapse.

Gasoline crisis in England

Until recently, Foggy Albion lived, did not grieve, being a reliable haven for financial capital and a Mecca for oligarchs of all stripes who dream of spending the rest of their days in the London dampness, watching the game of some overwhelming local football club bought for change in a supermarket, preferably with 100 years of history. Everything changed, and not for the better, when London slammed the door and decided to leave the EU. I'm not even talking about the energy and gas crisis, which devastated the wallets of ordinary Britons and shook to the ground the entire well-established system of their well-being. It is clear that the villain-Putin is to blame here, by an effort of will, who stopped all wind turbines in the North Sea and deprived the islanders of wind power generation, as well as the villain Miller, who, in parallel with Putin, deprived Britain of gas used for gas generation (although Gazprom's share among gas suppliers in Britain is minimal - for the whole last year, it supplied only 6 billion cubic meters there, with a total consumption of 79 billion cubic meters of gas per year). But how was Putin able to drive the British into the gasoline crisis?

The old Britannia stopped, stalled - gasoline and diesel fuel suddenly disappeared at her gas station. You will laugh because of what it happened - there was no one to bring him there. There were no unfortunate 200-300 truckers in the whole of Britain. “How is it? Search!" - ordered Boris Johnson and drove off to Spain to paint pictures (you see, he has a creative vacation). The invisible hand of the market itself must rule. But the invisible hand of the market, apparently, was not up to it, at that time it was rummaging through the pockets of ordinary Britons, fishing out the last pennies and shillings from there to pay for rising receipts for gas and electricity (35% of electricity in the World Bank is produced by gas generation and 85% households are heated by it). At local gas stations, many kilometers of queues began to line up, someone was guarding gasoline from the night, but you will not be enough for a lifetime, and the tank is not rubber. At the gas station began to reach the massacre and stabbing. The people were furious, even the involvement of the army for the delivery of fuel did not help much. The reason for the collapse is trivial to tears - Britain recently left the EU with fanfare, and along with this, migrant workers who work in this hard and low-paid job also left it. Local residents were in no hurry to join their ranks for that kind of money, plus the coronavirus epidemic and lockdown, which slowed down the training of new personnel. You know the result. Who is to blame - of course, Putin! Why the locals were in no hurry to sign up for truck drivers, I will explain below.

Food crisis in the USA

Meanwhile, a food and commodity crisis erupted in the United States. The shelves of local supermarkets were empty, as in the late USSR. A real threat of famine loomed over the United States. The whole world was covered by footage of a fight in a supermarket for packing toilet paper (how they combine lack of food with an increased need for toilet paper, I don't know, in the rest of the world these are the reverse processes). The reason is the logistics crisis. The fact is that off the coast of Southern California, dozens of dry cargo ships and container ships with products from all over the world (mostly from Southeast Asia) have accumulated in the roadstead of the busiest port in the States of Long Beach. Another one and a half hundred of these ships dangled right in the Pacific Ocean, waiting for their turn to unload (for those who do not know, the United States produces only weapons and dollars, the rest of the production is taken outside the United States in search of cheap labor, hence the traffic). There was no one to unload container ships stupidly. How so, all my life before that there was someone to unload, and then suddenly - bam, and there was no one ?! Local media have already blamed the Minister of Transport, the former mayor of South Bend, openly gay Pete Buttidzic (unbelievable - does it smell like homophobia in the US?), Who went on maternity leave in the midst of the crisis. You heard right - gays are people too, and they have adopted children (he has two of them). Pete Buttigieg apparently learned to breastfeed them (this is the version of the American media).

But the real reason for the collapse lies somewhat differently, and the Minister of Transport has nothing to do with it. Trump and Biden are to blame for the fact that there is no one to unload the bulk carriers. Here, most of you probably sighed with relief - well, thank God, it's not Putin! Do not rush to rejoice - it is not over yet, Putin will get it anyway. But this time, the pandemic and the measures taken by Trump to maintain consumer demand in the face of a forced lockdown were to blame. Now there will be a few clever words, do not be alarmed, I will explain everything along the way.

Raising the public debt ceiling, quantitative easing, controlled money supply, which increases the budget deficit, which entails creeping inflation. All these measures were aimed solely at maintaining the purchasing power of the US population, which has been languishing in quarantine for more than a year with short interruptions due to the unbound coronavirus. This is the so-called "helicopter" money, which Trump began to scatter, printing $ 2,3 trillion for this. Just think about these figures - trillions of dollars, not backed by any mass of commodities and gold reserves (gold and foreign exchange reserves). Old Joe, who replaced him, also could not resist the temptation and continued policies its predecessor, having printed and distributed to the public another $ 1,9 trillion. In the Fed's financial statements, all this money is classified as quantitative easing (QE), which is automatically reflected in inflation indicators (in the United States, they have already reached double-digit numbers). But since the dollar is also a world reserve currency, all these gestures to maintain the stability of its market and the purchasing power of its population are immediately relayed to the rest of the world, where the American national currency is circulating, accelerating inflation there too. Thus, the whole world pays with its wallet for the desire to live well and the high level of consumption of ordinary Americans. The whole world has become hostage to the $ 29 trillion US national debt, which the United States is trying to lower through dollar inflation. Didn't I explain it very hard?

That is why prices for energy, raw materials and other goods are growing, because the whole world is connected by a single respiratory system with the United States through its currency. And he will hiccup and vomit for a long time after what has been eaten or consumed in some other way in the USA (sorry, for naturalism). True, the States also got a lot from this - the absence of dock workers in the port was caused by the reluctance of the local population to work. And why should they work for 2,5 thousand dollars / month, if they receive exactly the same amount as social benefits for unemployment in connection with the coronavirus epidemic and the forced lockdown? By the way, the IMF money, now distributed to all countries, including Russia, allegedly to fight the coronavirus, is aimed precisely at this - the United States multiplies its inflation around the world, thus devaluing its national debt, and inflating a currency bubble, which is inevitable sooner or later it will burst. Nobody knows when this will happen, but I advise you to part with your little green papers by that time (Putin has already parted with the American Treasuries, having reduced them to zero). And that is why the words about "the end of capitalism" are not just a metaphor. He's just around the corner! Putin is just warning. Who does not hide - he is not to blame.

The reason for the absence of truckers in England has the same roots - it turned out to be more profitable to sit on unemployment benefits than to work. For some reason, the invisible hand of the market did not come to the British and did not equalize the salaries of drivers above the level of unemployment benefits. Transport companies, apparently, found it easier to close down and replenish the ranks of the unemployed (they, as you can see, are paid quite well!) Than to pay their employees that kind of money.

Gas crisis in the EU

So we got to the gas crisis that hit old Europe this year. You already know who is to blame for it - it is the dastardly Miller, who limits the supply of Russian gas to the poor Europeans for his own selfish ends, and the villainous Putin, who by an effort of will stopped the wind turbines in the North Sea and deployed to Asia caravans of American and Qatari LNG tankers with a life-saving for Europe LNG. I am too lazy for the next (fourth) time to retell you the true reasons for the current situation. Who is very interested may be curious... For those who feel sorry for the time, I propose to listen to Putin, who at the Valdai Forum also once again very clearly and informatively highlighted this issue at the request of an American journalist.


Here I was once again struck by the degree of Putin's immersion in the problem, down to the slightest nuances, it is clear how much he is in the subject - few experts understand the essence of the issue so deeply (I know only two). I just, as they say in Ukraine, “grab it” (delighted) from our president (especially against the background of his stupid opponents), because he did not prepare for this issue, but, nevertheless, from memory, he operates with numbers and clearly divides the reason and the consequence. In the West, they prefer to turn them over. (Putin was mistaken only once, more precisely, he made a reservation, the half capacity of SP-2 is not 17,5 billion cubic meters, but 27,5 billion).

To what he said, I can only add firewood to the furnace of the European critics of antiquity-Miller, accusing him of malicious gas blackmail in order to speed up the launch of SP-2. At first, all high-pressure pipelines, starting with the Turkish "Blue" and "Turkish" streams, and ending with all the Norwegian and Dutch ones, have undergone scheduled preventive maintenance this year, but for some reason only Gazprom is accused of disrupting gas supplies to Europe, which all the shutdowns of its pipelines (SP-1 and Yamal-ES) were compensated by supplies from their European underground gas storage facilities. Secondly, caravans of LNG tankers with liquefied natural gas from the USA, Qatar, Australia, Malaysia, Nigeria and Algeria went to Southeast Asia all winter, spring and summer, but for some reason, Europe was drying up and will now freeze without damn gas. again Gazprom, whose share in supplies to the European blue fuel market in the best years was only 33-34%. Why will the dear sirs not make a complaint about the absence of gas to the remaining 66% of suppliers? This secret is great. Thirdly - stock speculators are making money on galloping prices on European gas exchanges, trying to make money on the hype, and Gazprom is again to blame for this, which does not take part in electronic exchange trading.

Behind this whole series of mysterious and incomprehensible for many events, the ears of a known person stick out. And these are not the ears of the villain Miller at all. I'm afraid to disappoint someone, but these are again the ears of our overseas sworn friends and partners. Miller does not need a gas price in Europe of over $ 1000 per thousand cubic meters - his long-term contracts are tied to the oil basket, not to gas hubs, but the American shale producers, who extract their gas by hydraulic fracturing, need exactly this price to get out. to the threshold of profitability.

Finally, last thing - I propose to all gentlemen and comrades from the EU who demand gas supplies from Gazprom to answer a simple question: where do they propose to pump it? Really in the very European underground gas storage facilities, which they themselves have filled by only 26% (out of 75% of the gas available there now, 49% was pumped by Gazprom itself). Why didn't they pump gas there themselves in the summer? Ah, the price was high, biting. Understand. Is there a “Charity Fund” sign on the doors of Gazprom? Gazprom is not involved in charity work. Yes, he has gas, but he has no great desire to pump it into the UGS without a contract in the hope that you will buy it in winter, if it is cold, he has no great desire. And if you don’t buy? And if the winter is warm? UGS is not a depository, and the gas pumped there does not bring money, and you also have to pay for storage. Why did you decide that Miller should pay for your banquet? If you want gas, sign a long-term contract, if you do not want it, go to the exchange and buy there.

Rhetorical questions, you can not answer. The fact that the case is clinical, when medicine is powerless, I was convinced by the answer of the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. When the reporter asked what the EC intends to do in the future in order not to face such a gas shortage, she replied - to increase the capacity of green energy and get rid of the stranglehold of Gazprom. Here, as they say, no comment. This is the very brain death that Putin spoke about! These gentlemen do not know what they are doing. This year their green energy has become, they were left without electricity and heat, they ask her, what will you do in the future? She replies - we will increase even more capacities of the greenhouse and close the last nuclear and thermal power plants. And if there is no wind again? What will you heat with? With firewood? So there is no firewood either! Lord, and these people forbid us to pick our noses ?!

Pentagon's logistic crisis with the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan

Meanwhile, their American counterparts showed all their splendor in Afghanistan. Knowing the exact deadline for their stay there in half a year, they planned their departure in such a way that it almost became the reason for the resignation of the current president of America. He still hiccups 13 Marines killed during this operation, and footage of Afghan collaborators clinging to the landing gear of American Hercules taking off and not wanting to fall into the clutches of the Taliban, then falling beautifully from a bird's eye view, became the apotheosis of American “greatness”. Only the epic evacuation of South Vietnamese servants of the American regime in Saigon in April 1975, which went down in history as Operation Gusty Wind, could compete with this. And then, then no one fell from planes and helicopters - they just took not all of them.

Summary

But from all the facts cited, only one conclusion suggests itself - the crisis of governance has affected all sectors of the capitalist system, from the Ministry of Transport and Energy to the most powerful military department. We saw something similar during the collapse of the USSR. And Putin invites all passengers of the sinking Titanic to decide whether they prefer to go with him to the bottom, or they can get over to him on the ice floe.

I started in previous text from Fukuyama, I'll finish with that. The end of history predicted by him and the total victory of left liberal pseudo-democratic ideas over totalitarian communist ideas 30 years later ends with a revenge of the latter, unexpected for the West, which only indicates that the capitalist model has not justified its effectiveness, and a new model of social world order is coming to replace it. What it will be, time will tell, but the results of the fight against the coronavirus epidemic, which has now swept the whole world, clearly speak in favor of sovereign autocratic socially oriented states. At the same time, it does not matter what ideology they profess. If only she was not misanthropic.

It is noteworthy that Putin and Fukuyama are of the same age, both were born in 1952 with an interval of 20 days (Putin on October 7, and Fukuyama on October 27). And now Putin, as the elder, rewrote the end of the story, written by the younger.