Image is from this SCMP article.
Much of the analysis below is sourced from Michael Roberts' great website.
Japan's ruling parliamentary coalition, consisting of the LDP (purple) and it's junior coalition partner Komeito (in light pink) have lost their ruling majority. They have ruled post-war Japan for almost its entire history. The LDP is currently led by Shigeru Ishiba after Kishida stood down due to a corruption scandal, and ties to the Unification Church.
While geopolitical factors (over the cold war between the US and China, etc) may have played a role, by far the biggest reason for this result in the poor economic conditions over the past few years. Inflation has risen and real wages have fallen, with little relief for the working class via things like tax reductions. While inequality in Japan is not as extreme as in America, it is still profound, with the top 10% possessing 60% of the wealth, while the bottom 50% possess just 5%.
Shinzo Abe previously tried to boost economic performance through monetary easing and fiscal deficits, while Kishida ran on a "new capitalism" which rejected Abe's neoliberalism and promised to reduce inequality. Nothing substantial has resulted from all this, however, other than increasing corporate wealth. Innovation continues to fall, and domestic profitability is low, resulting in decreasing investment at home by Japanese corporations. Labour productivity growth has only slightly picked up since the mid-2000s and is falling again. The rate of profit has fallen by half since the 1960s, and Japan has been in a manufacturing recession - or very close to it - since late 2022. In essence: there is no choice but between stagnation or decline.
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Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
I think this is a fundamental misunderstanding of what the US military's purpose is within American empire, and how it's funded. Note that the American taxpayer does not fund the military, foreign countries with recycled dollars they accumulate from global trade do that by buying US Treasury bonds. And the military keeps "losing" but the shareholders of all those defense firms are quite happy. Long term sure the US is fucked if it's military can't even take out missile launchers in Yemen, but long is a rather long time.
The US government takes dollars from US taxpayers and points to the military budget as part of the reason why.
If this is a "fundamental misunderstanding of what the US military's purpose" is, what is?
Sure, but taxes are just to prove creditworthiness for bond sales. Governments are not funded by taxes. The US military's primary purposes are to generate capital for the shareholders of defense contractors and be a big enough stick to threaten allies that don't use dollars to buy Treasury bonds. All the other stuff, wars included, is secondary.
All great in theory until another war occurs where their interests are greatly at stake, and they cannot achieve strategic victory. Until the myth of dominance fades and the world goes wild, defying the US in every corner of Africa, South America, Europe and Asia. Until the entire thing implodes or is defeated in the field to the point it must concede major losses
Agreed, but losing Iraq and Afghanistan and Vietnam and Korea hasn't seemed to dent the United States ability to force its allies to keep buying Treasuries. It'll implode eventually, empires always do, but it's more resilient than I'd like.
Even the loses can be fucking intimidating, especially when there's a U.S. military base around every corner (and "guest" troops in "your" military base when there isn't one that technically belongs to the empire).
It's like when you take some ex-employer to court, and have a rock-solid case about retaliation or illegal discrimination or whatever, but the legal proceedings take many years, all you get is some lousy back-wages and a notice posted on the corporation's break room for a while, and you just want the whole thing to be fucking over now that you've had to move on and deal with yet another fucking boss for a good portion of your life on top of the legal battle. It has a pretty devastating effect on you even if you technically "win". Whether it's capitalists or their empire you are fighting, there's a lot of machinery towering over you.
I agree generally but the country controlling the global reserve currency doesn't need to care about convincing future creditors.
Threatening allies and maintaining the international economic system is still important and something the US military is doing increasingly poorly with.
There is no actual destruction of money being done this way, unless the relevant units are too damaged. The taxed money is either put into the treasury or it is returned into circulation through a budget.
On that note, it doesn't matter where money came from with regards to a budget, so when people say that some part of a budget if funded by some specific money (in the short term, at least), they are being silly.
I'd also say that the points about money that individual people have being 'tax credit' are not informative.
However, yes, the obsession with calling money 'taxpayer money' is rather silly, and it should be recognised that money is something issued by a government in order to reliably distribute various goods/services in a society. A state could, indeed, decide to maintain its military in many different ways, including with no budget, depending on how it sets up its economy. (However, it should be noted that it does depend on how the economy is set up. Capitalist states generally need to pay wages/salaries to its military, as well as buy equipment and/or resources to make equipment with for the military, which necessitates usage of money, and simply issuing more money without an increase in productive capacity would mean a reduction in the ability of money to guarantee one goods and services.)
I do have to say that you did not make the relevant points clear for other people. It isn't going to be clear to people what sort of a shift in understanding you are talking about there in the end.
Finally, an explanation for what people mean when they say that 'money is destroyed' when it is taxed. However, all this means is just that money is taken out of circulation, which is much better explained in just those words - that less money stays in circulation.
There isn't a direct transference from accounts, but there is the fact that a government is forced to maintain a balance of its revenues (which include taxation) and budgets. That means that revenues (including taxation, which is a major part of every government's revenue) and budgets are not completely separate things that exist independently of each other.
In any case, it's rather silly to go for the sensationalist 'money is destroyed upon being taxed!' instead of going with the much more informative 'money is taken out of circulation'.
There is also the whole thing regarding the need for maintenance of balance between revenues and budgets, which is a basic macroeconomic fact.
The rest of what you say in the comment (apart from yet another insistence on money being destroyed) isn't controversial and is, in fact, covered/touched upon in my other posts in different wording.
Show me a source for the claim that notes and coins get destroyed or clarify what you mean by money getting destroyed and how that is different from it being taken out of circulation.
Unless I missed how governments routinely waste energy and resources on burning non-damaged bank notes just to make almost exact same things at the same time instead of just re-using them, it doesn't seem like any actual destruction is happening, and all that does is how much money remains in circulation.
Also, money is obviously not literally just debt. It is very liquid capital that serves as an exchange equivalent for goods and services. Also, I'd like to ask, in what sense is counterfeit money - which is still money - 'just debt'?
At the very least, you are being extremely uninformative, and you seem to be either unwilling or unable to elaborate on your claims.
And?
Firstly, you are now just trying to arbitrarily claim that physical money somehow doesn't count.
Secondly, 10% is not a 'very small percentage'. Thirdly, I can just as well point to the fact that the physical Russian ruble sums up to more than 20% of cashless ruble in M0. Now what?
Meaning that, at best, there is no distinction between saying 'money is destroyed' and 'money is taken out of circulation', contrary to your claim that that is not the case.
So far, you have not explained how the analogy of 'money is destroyed' (which is false in the usual literal sense, obviously) is more informative than saying 'money is taken out of circulation'.
If you are going to ignore the basics of macroeconomics and claim that governments can just pick whatever budgets they want at any point, especially under capitalism where said capitalists can just hike up the prices or otherwise realise their stranglehold on a given economy, then I'd like to ask why, you think, a government that maintains a capitalist economy can't just say 'no' to inflation? And what do you think would happen in a planned economy if the government were to just issue more money for salaries/wages without raising prices?
So, it's not destroyed, then. It is just removed from circulation.
I have several thousands of pages of very dense material to read as it is (including on finance specifically). I will not have much time for that one for at least a couple of years, and I don't see how that book would change my perspective, considering that 'money is just debt' is literally at best an extreme oversimplification and is overwhelmingly likely not something that the Graeber thought himself in a literal sense.
Also, I am going to note that you were either unwilling or unable to elaborate on what sort of debt counterfeit money is. Also, I am going to note that you have been either unwilling or unable to actually explain how money is 'destroyed' upon being taxed, and not simply removed from circulation.
I maintain that the claim that money is destroyed is silly , and less informative than just saying that money is taken out of circulation.
how
Double entry book keeping that sums to zero. You can find a better description, but it's something like this:
Government spends first, telling treasury to increase numbers in appropriate accounts. The treasury "withdraws" money from the Fed, which is also the state, creating a deposit from the left pocket to the right, and from the right pocked to the left. When taxes are payed, the treasury can "return" the money, wiping the spending from circulation. If the Fed sells debt, it can only be payed with money on the same currency that was already spent into existence. Loaning also creates money in the form of extra debt, but that debt can only be payed if it is spent into existence.
That means that the money is not destroyed. Equating destruction of money with taking money from circulation and putting it into what is effectively a government's savings is incredibly silly and non-informative.
The only savings are the paper, if it's physical money. The consolidated government reduces and increases the total value of reserves when needed either way.
Notably, physical money is still in use.
I maintain that the 'money is destroyed' analogy is silly and uninformative. It is much better to just say specifically what you mean - that money is taken out of circulation.
Perhaps. I think the issue is that how money works is counter-intuitive, especially after being used to common nonsense,that simplifications are useful... in a particular context, and they fail in others.
The important point is that money isn't scarce, so all the limitations you're used to exist because of other reasons. I believe that creates an opening for thinking and criticism, even if the American branch prefers thinking you just to fiddle with the numbers to keep the system going.
Ok people pay taxes, the money goes to the government, it gets allocated and used elsewhere. then you're saying they just fudge the numbers at the treasury to make taxes be cancelled out? To have this manipulation, the people doing the manipulation must be cognizant of this process, but acknowledged processes are not how capitalism works, so what is the magic trick here? How does this money destruction take place and what is the rationale that the treasury uses for it?
https://www.law.georgetown.edu/environmental-law-review/blog/federal-taxes-do-not-finance-spending-and-cost-benefit-analysis-must-change/
It doesn't answer the question, just reiterates what is said. Saying taxation destroys the currency is good and all but it's fundamentally untrue, because taxes do go somewhere in the end. They get allocated, reallocated, and spent elsewhere. They do not cease to exist. I am open to being proven wrong.
They don't. You can't tag a particular dollar and follow it as it leaves a taxpayer's account, goes into a government account, gets allocated to a particular item of the budget, and then gets spent out again into the economy. When a dollar is taxed, it basically goes into a furnace and disappears. Separately, dollars are conjured out of thin air and sent into the economy by the government.
The amount of dollars thrown in the furnace in a given day are tallied, sure. But that doesn't determine the amount of dollars the government can create, it only informs it. The government can create as many dollars as it likes at will.
You actually can. However, that's actually not relevant, as you seem to misunderstand what the other person is saying.
Also, if you were correct, it wouldn't be possible to say that money is destroyed in the first place, making What_Religion_R_They correct.
It doesn't. It gets reallocated. The fact that we supposedly can't trace it (marking physical currency and following electronic transactions is a thing) doesn't change that fact. The supply of money in the circulation+savings+treasury does not magically decrease.
So that's a long post before I read it, can you confirm that you've read my much smaller little bit of text?
I'm not saying that taxes "pay" for the military ("oh no my numbers don't add up on both sides of the balance sheet!!")
But the US government taxes money from people, destroys it and points to the military budget as part of the reason.
Literally all the time?
The liberal hand wringers say the military budget needs to be cut to fund public goods and services, and the deficit hawks say public services and government must be cut down to the bare essentials (military and courts)
they don't even need to buy treasuries, the fed can credit member banks (i forgot the unit of account) and they in turn buy treasuries from the open market. Japan does this and has done it for quite a while