La crisi della Silicon Valley Bank non è finita, sarà una lunga storia da raccontare.
Gianluca Codagnone e Thomas Manfredi tornano per aggiornarvi sulla gestione della crisi.
Nel video precedente ci siamo lasciati con una ipotesi di full bail-in in base alla risoluzione della FED. L’elogio del Regolatore americano è stato smentito il giorno dopo dalla nuova risoluzione della FED che cambia le carte in tavola.
L’asta di domenica notte è andata deserta e la mattina dopo la nuova risoluzione la FED ha creato, de facto, uno schema operativo di bail-out fund di tutte le banche del settore bancario americano, ovvero, invece di isolare il rischio sulla Silicon Valley Bank, ha fatto salire il premio per il rischio per tutto il sistema bancario americano. Se questo non è Atlante poco ci manca…
La FED ha preso la decisione giusta per gestire la crisi? Stiamo andando verso una crisi bancaria globale?
La disamina puntuale della situazione porterebbe alla conclusione che il problema non è solo la crisi di Silicon Valley Bank, ma la gestione della crisi da parte della FED.
Quali conseguenze ci saranno da adesso in poi? Un nefasto interplay tra la forward guidance della FED e le politiche di investimento del portafoglio della SVB e, siccome c’era il QE fino a poco tempo fa, con la Banca Centrale americana ha comprato titoli e creato riserve, da adesso in poi, ogni volta che salterà una banca in America, invece di isolare verticalmente il disastro, il problema si diffonde.
Quali effetti a lungo termine avrà questa decisione? È il fallimento totale della riforma regolatoria in America dal 2008 in poi? Ci aspetta una politica monetaria diversa? E cosa succederà con l’inflazione? Tutto quello che vorreste sapere per capire la gestione della crisi di #SVB. Continueremo nei prossimi giorni a dare il nostro contributo per la comprensione della crisi.
Stigma should not be on China pandemic policy, or on the immunocompromised, or else. Stigma should go to this generation, to all of us, which in 3 years wrecked 200 years of progress in public health and undercut massively life expectancy almost everywhere.
Qualcuno (che in 3 anni avrebbe potuto prendere una laurea in epidemiologia, ma preferisce chiedere i vostri soldi) continua a diffondere informazioni errate, questa volta sul caso Cina. Vediamo perché, rispolverando un po’ di storia recente e adattandola ad oggi.
La storia parte da Wuhan: 3 anni fa. Il @nytimes con alcuni team di esperti, tra cui quello di @alexvespi, fece un ottimo lavoro[1] di visualizzazione della “dinamica”, e quindi utilizzerò quella, commentandola a passi. Poi potremo discutere di oggi.
Ecco una rappresentazione realistica dei flussi di viaggio da e per la Cina: immaginiamo ogni puntino come una persona che si sposta da un posto all’altro. Nel Gennaio 2020 l’idea fu: “se blocco la mobilità, risolvo il problema”. Lineare no? Sì, ma purtroppo sbagliato.
Qui ecco un’altra grafica realistica della rete di mobilità umana in Cina. Si chiama “mobilità domestica” perché mappa i movimenti tra diverse parti dello stesso paese, al contrario della grafica precedente, che mappava quella tra paesi diversi.
Dal momento in cui il virus è apparso, si è diffuso silenziosamente nella popolazione di Wuhan. Indisturbato, grazie al passaggio di qualche viaggiatore ha raggiunto le principali città cinesi PRIMA che qualche azione fosse intrapresa.
A questo punto la dinamica che tutti conosciamo si è verificata: a Wuhan un grande focolaio ha attirato l’attenzione delle autorità cinesi (e non solo). Ma il virus era anche altrove, con nuovi focolai che si stavano sviluppando.
Ed ecco il primo passaggio cruciale: Wuhan viene isolata con un lockdown. Vediamo che la mobilità domestica è stata smantellata da questa azione. Ma… ricordate che il virus è già in altre città, non ancora soggette a restrizioni? Ebbene, il virus ha fatto quello che gli riesce meglio: si è diffuso. I piccoli focolai sono cresciuti a dismisura in tutta la Cina, e quindi anche in città con aeroporti, come Wuhan.
In questa grafica vediamo i flussi di mobilità internazionale da Wuhan verso le principali città del mondo, dall’Est asiatico al Nord America Mentre Wuhan non era ancora in lockdown, flussi di persone contagiate si sono spostate dappertutto. E così da Pechino, etc.
Oltre 30 città in 26 paesi nel mondo sono state raggiunte PRIMA del lockdown di Wuhan, portando le scintille che avrebbero generato nuovi focolai. Nel mondo sarebbe successo quello che abbiamo visto poco fa con la Cina.
Lo so, non è il 2020: 0. sappiamo che ci sono gli asintomatici,
1. testiamo e sequenziamo meglio il nemico, 2. siamo vaccinati.
Verissimo. Infatti, non credo ci sia ragione per preoccuparsi: non vi saranno nuove restrizioni. La questione è: cosa possiamo fare?
Alcuni paesi, tra cui l’Italia, si sono mossi con azioni sui flussi dalla Cina. Testiamo chi viene direttamente dalla Cina? Certo, e quelli che hanno fatto scalo altrove, prima del rientro? Se non li testiamo, non abbiamo concluso nulla: il mondo è interconnesso.
Ma mettiamoci nel caso migliore (ma irrealizzabile): un test molecolare a chiunque sia stato in Cina o abbia avuto un contatto con una persona che è stata in Cina negli ultimi 7-10 giorni. Andrà bene, no? Ebbene no.
In 3 anni non è stata sviluppata la capacità necessaria per fare test molecolari rapidi su grande scala: la logistica e le infrastrutture richieste sono (ancora oggi) fuori dalla nostra portata. Se non testiamo tutti, qualcuno farà breccia. Se testiamo tutti, ingolfiamo tutto.
Ammettiamo di avere i risultati in meno di 15 min per TUTTI. I positivi andrebbero adeguatamente gestiti: vitto e alloggio. Questo ricorda gli “hotel quarantena” dell’Australia, che non hanno avuto gli effetti previsti.
Ricapitolando: chiudere i voli aiuta a diminuire i flussi, ma NON risolve il problema. Diminuendo i flussi avremo comunque problemi di logistica non indifferenti perché in 3 anni nessuno si è curato di preparare un piano di azione. Sappiamo solo inseguire il virus correndogli dietro.
Questi 3 anni ci sono costati milioni di morti, ma non abbiamo (ancora) investito sul futuro per evitare che riaccada una cosa simile. OK, ma dobbiamo avere paura adesso di chi viene dalla Cina? Per rispondere con certezza, dovremmo avere i dati di sorveglianza genomica, ma anche quelli scarseggiano, soprattutto in Italia, per via dei tagli ai costi.
Quello che vediamo è una piccolissima parte di quello che sta circolando. D’altro canto, la Cina non condivide molto: non siamo al buio, ma diciamo che abbiamo solo un piccolo lumino per leggere.
Ma allora facciamo un lockdown? NO! Nessun addetto ai lavori/persona assennata oggi immagina che farlo sarebbe utile (si veda il caso di Wuhan sopra, per il perché).
Questo è il mondo che abbiamo scelto, decidendo di vivere con il virus. Piaccia o meno, è così. E quindi?
Quindi non possiamo praticamente fare nulla che abbia un impatto rilevante. È tardi. Abbiamo abbandonato la scienza per affidarci alla speranza che non appaiano nuove varianti più pericolose. Il nostro mondo connesso le farà circolare ovunque, finché ce ne saranno.
Testare in Italia chi è stato in Cina negli ultimi giorni ci aiuterebbe, al più, a capire quali varianti stanno circolando lì. Tutto il resto serve solo a darci qualche giorno di tempo in più e a dare l’idea che i decisori hanno la situazione sotto controllo e agiscono.
Moreover, because of the global mobility network, the sources of introduction changes substantially and rapidly through time. Reactive strategies are generally chasing a moving target and may provide a false sense of security. https://nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04130-w
THE WESTERN WORLD PANDEMIC NARRATIVE AND MANAGEMENT IS JUST MISERABLE: ON CHINA
For months the advocacy of the western world was “CHINA MUST END ZEROCOVID” the virus itself, pandemic size, liberty infringement, inflation, immunoharm … everything was due to China;
there have been UNRELENTLESS articles of the Financial Times, WSJ and the likes bashing China zero-covid epidemic management all very debatable, to say the least I will refrain from commenting on China pandemic management spill-over on economies,
because that is what I do for living (forecasting) and I don’t want commentators to look below miserable (Spoiler: China pandemic management was if any, deflationary, because China never lock-downed the entire economy, WHILE we did)
now, China has reopened and, guess, Sars2 is spreading quick (what a fucking surprise).
Western world reaction: lets sequence all incoming passenger from CHINA!!!! they could bring in new variants!!! ok, genotyping is a good thing we should know what is going on.
Pity is that if it wasn’t for a group of worldwide Volunteers which I am proudly part of, genotyping has been completely abandoned by western Governments as a pandemic surveillance tool as the current western pandemic policy stands (let it rip- GBD Tm), sequencing Chinese passengers is epidemiologically worth zero (see Kucharski[2]), as we have BY CHOICE sustained local transmission chains.
So, basically border sequencing while you have sustained and uncontrolled local transmission chains is like …
Now, assume that Border sequencing discovers a new nasty variant Is EU Pandemic management gonna revert to “elimination” or “suppression” or even “mitigation”, or “eradication” ya let me know folks, but I doubt that very much.
if a new variant takes hold in EU/USA after bashing China even more (Commentator here asks: well, they opened now, wtf you want??) We are going to solve it, by being told that “we are boosting our hybrid immunity further by being infected with the new variants” .
“Hybrid mix and match immunity” is gonna be the new black so again .. what we see has nothing to do with virus, pandemic or science it is just politics, stigma, and a lot of bullshit.
STEPWISE EVOLUTION: as @shay_fleishon brillantly explained, since Omicron arrived, we have assisted to a proliferation of sub-lineages (children of Omi) in a sort of
Is this due to Omicron facing different population immunowalls pressure, but having enough plasticity to maintain fitness? Most likely, as transmission bottleneck is low and virus has no major obstacles transmitting inter-host.
So, despite a very tight transmission bottleneck we have now a quite remarkable stepwise evolution not short of amazing
for now the stepwise evolution has produced variants/clades which have had a limited change in disease manifestation (I am skipping long covid characterisation of different omi sublineages, because we have no data yet), and severity
although Omi children are still putting all Health system under pressure, causing measurable extra mortality (5-8% on my estimates) where we have real time data, harming a sizeable percentage of the population due to Long Covid,
a percentage that is big enough that even central banks have measured it as 1-5% of a reduced labour force.
Thanks to vaccines and previous infections, those who have survived have a certain grade of “functional immunity” (aka they don’t die or suffer severe disease);
we don’t know if the recombinants, or the saltation children of Omi will change dramatically the disease presentation; so far it didn’t happen, but who knows this IMHO is the current state of art of Omi evolution.
Is it a good/bad equilibrium? Bah, you judge (for me is bad, but I count 0) is this the situation which China is going to face short term? Co-circulation of Omi children soup? like most of the world? most likely BUT unfortunately this likely scenario doesn’t end the story.
the variants which achieved world dominance after WT, were uncontestably Alpha, Delta, Omicron and they were all “brewed” thanks to a long infection into an immunocompromised (intra-host) the intra-hots selection pressure is far from clear, and the mechanism which take these variant to transmit inter-host even less clear.
But they shaped the epidemic, with completely different disease presentation.
China has an immunocompromised population, like the rest of the world.
The Chinese “immunocompromised” population reservoir was in 2020-2021-2022 spared from being infected.
Without judging Chinese pandemic policy (not my business) I would just say that up to 2022 China spared the world some extra-odds of a new immunocompromised generated variant being created.
Now, as prevalence/incidence of infections will grow even there, the possibility that Chinese immunocompromised people will be infected, will grow too.
So will the probability of an immunocompromised generated variant
is this changing materially the odds, considering that the rest of the world is already doing its best (sarcasm) to infect (and multiples times) all the immunocompromised? I have no clue, because I have no clue of the size of immunocompromised in China vs the rest of the world.
But the odds will probably go up. Therefore, I would stay shy from saying that “the more infections, the more we are ok and nothing changes” from the evolutionary standpoint because so far this has not been the case, stepwise or not.
* Stephan Heblich, Stephen J. Redding, Hans-Joachim Voth
Abstract
Did overseas slave-holding by Britons accelerate the Industrial Revolution? We provide theory and evidence on the contribution of slave wealth to Britain’s growth prior to 1835. We compare areas of Britain with high and low exposure to the colonial plantation econ- omy, using granular data on wealth from compensation records. Before the major expan- sion of slave holding from the 1640s onwards, both types of area exhibited similar levels of economic activity. However, by the 1830s, slavery wealth is strongly correlated with economic development – slave-holding areas are less agricultural, closer to cotton mills, and have higher property wealth. We rationalize these ndings using a dynamic spatial model, where slavery investment raises the return to capital accumulation, expanding production in capital-intensive sectors. To establish causality, we use arguably exogenous variation in slave mortality on the passage from Africa to the Indies, driven by weather shocks. We show that weather shocks inuenced the continued involvement of ancestors in the slave trade; weather-induced slave mortality of slave-trading ancestors in each area is strongly predictive of slaveholding in 1833. Quantifying our model using the observed data, we nd that Britain would have been substantially poorer and more agricultural in the absence of overseas slave wealth. Overall, our ndings are consistent with the view that slavery wealth accelerated Britain’s industrial revolution.
Mario Kessler is a Senior Fellow at the Leibniz Center for Contemporary History in Potsdam, Germany and a member of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation’s academic advisory board. This essay originally appeared in the German-language edition of Jacobin.
Ukraine’s security and independence must be restored — Vladimir Putin’s Great Russian imperial dreams cannot be allowed to succeed. As was made unmistakably clear in his speech on 21 February, Putin justifies the aggression against Ukraine with a supposedly necessary “decommunization” of the country.
His claim that Ukraine was created “by Bolshevik, Communist Russia” against the will of the population is simply false. (Putin’s reference to the Great Russian traditions of the Moscow Orthodox Church aims in the same direction, but can be mentioned here only in brief.) A look at history shows that the Russian socialists recognized the desire of many Ukrainians for independence and embedded it in their political strategy. Moreover, the tradition of Ukrainian statehood has a much longer tradition than Putin gives it credit for.
Forged by Revolution
Indeed, aspirations for an independent Ukraine received an immense boost from the revolutions of 1905 and 1917. Ukraine declared itself an independent republic within a federative Russia as early as March 1917, rather than in the wake of the October Revolution. Immediately after the October Revolution, Lenin’s government proclaimed as one of its basic principles the right to self-determination for all oppressed nations of the empire, up to and including the right to secession.
The idea was not to detach the Russians from the oppressed peoples of the Tsarist Empire, but rather to create a community of free peoples in revolutionary struggle against big landowners and capitalists. As a result, the Ukrainian parliament, the Rada, declared Ukraine a people’s republic, and the non-Bolshevik parties received a majority in elections. The Bolsheviks in Ukraine recognized the country’s statehood by constituting themselves as an independent party as late as 1917.
However, the Ukrainian People’s Republic sided with the Central Powers in the upcoming negotiations between Soviet Russia and the former. The Bolshevik delegation, led by Leon Trotsky, was then forced to admit a delegation from the Rada as a negotiating partner in Brest-Litovsk. Countering the Rada, Ukrainian Bolsheviks under Christian Rakovsky proclaimed the Ukrainian Soviet Republic with Kharkiv as its capital in early January 1918.
In July 1918, the Communist Party of Ukraine was formed. A part of the Ukrainian Social Democratic Labour Party joined it. The latter was founded in 1900 as the Revolutionary Ukrainian Party. Among its early politicians was Symon Petlyura, who would briefly become president of the Ukrainian People’s Republic in 1919–1920. His party advocated national autonomy for Ukraine — but how far this autonomy should go remained a matter of dispute within the party. That said, the vast majority, including Petlyura, opposed the Bolsheviks.
The Soviet Perspective
Ukraine was the main theatre of the Russian Civil War under changing governments in 1918–1919, before Trotsky’s Red Army defeated the Whites under Anton Denikin in late 1919 and captured the entire territory in 1920. Up to 150,000 people fell victim to the bloody massacres of Jews, most of them committed by the White Army and marauding gangs — the largest wave of extermination before Auschwitz.
Western Ukraine, hitherto part of the Habsburg Empire, had also declared itself a People’s Republic in 1918. However, Polish troops prevented its planned unification with eastern Ukraine, so that western Ukraine became part of the new Polish state. The breakup of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 by the Nazi regime led to the formation of a government in Carpatho-Ukraine, that westernmost part of Ukraine that had been part of Czechoslovakia since 1918. After a few days, however, the Nazis handed over the conquered Carpatho-Ukraine to the allied Hungary. Polish western Ukraine was divided up between Germany and the Soviet Union in September 1939.
All this was still in the future on 28 December 1919, when Lenin addressed a “Letter to the Workers and Peasants of Ukraine Apropos the Occasion of the Victories over Denikin”. He wrote: “The independence of the Ukraine has been recognised both by the All-Russia Central Executive Committee of the R.S.F.S.R. (Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic) and by the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks). It is therefore self-evident and generally recognised that only the Ukrainian workers and peasants themselves can and will decide at their All-Ukraine Congress of Soviets whether the Ukraine shall amalgamate with Russia, or whether she shall remain a separate and independent republic, and, in the latter case, what federal ties shall be established between that republic and Russia.”
The interests of working people and their success in the struggle for the complete liberation of labour from the yoke of capital were to be central in resolving this question. “We want a voluntary union of nations — a union which precludes any coercion of one nation by another — a union founded on complete confidence, on a clear recognition of brotherly unity, on absolutely voluntary consent.”
Lenin advised the utmost caution on these questions to prevent national discord from splitting the ranks of the Bolsheviks. He assumed that the Bolshevik leadership of Ukraine was fully aligned with Soviet Russia. Separatist tendencies that could drive Ukraine into opposition to Moscow had to be blunted from the outset.
For this very reason, in January 1919, Christian Rakovsky was appointed chairman of the Central Executive Committee, that is, prime minister of Soviet Ukraine — a position he held until 1923. Since the socialist revolution abolished private property, Rakovsky argued, it also eliminated the basis of the bourgeoisie’s state order.
All national privileges would be abolished. Political and economic centralization in the form of a temporary international federation, on the other hand, would suppress all national particularism. The Central Executive Committee of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic decided in June 1919 to unite a number of commissariats of the two republics, namely the Commissariats of the Army, Transport, Finance, Labour, Post and Telegraph, and the Supreme National Economic Council. The Central Executive Committee of the Russian Soviet Republic confirmed this decision.
Rakovsky criticized the Ukrainian nationalists for sacrificing the social liberation of the working class to the national question. In doing so, he may have underestimated the dangers of Russian nationalism and chauvinism — the chauvinism that Putin stands for today. [..]
Senato della Repubblica. COMMISSIONE PARLAMENTARE DI INCHIESTA SULLE CONDIZIONI DI LAVORO IN ITALIA, SULLO SFRUTTAMENTO E SULLA SICUREZZA NEI LUOGHI DI LAVORO PUBBLICI E RIVATI
[..] Ne è emerso un quadro di come il fenomeno dello sfruttamento dei lavoratori, da parte di caporali senza scrupoli, si sia evoluto significativa- mente nel corso degli ultimi anni.
Si è passati, infatti, in un breve arco temporale, dai casi di un forte coinvolgimento della malavita organizzata locale a situazioni di sfrutta- mento di lavoratori indifesi, quasi sempre stranieri, da parte di loro connazionali che organizzano il loro trasferimento dal Paese d’origine fino al luogo di lavoro nel quale quotidianamente verranno negati i loro diritti di persone, prima ancora che di lavoratori.
[..] La prima costante che si deve sottolineare riguarda il rapporto tra la ricerca del profitto con modalità, termini e proporzioni prevalenti sulla tutela della dignità, della salute e della sicurezza.
[..] si vedano al riguardo i dati che emergono circa il caporalato e lo sfruttamento del lavoro dove nessuna regione risulta esente da questa piaga non degna di un paese civile. Infatti emerge una allocazione del delitto di intermediazione illecita di manodopera molto diffuso nell’ambito dell’agricoltura e trasversale a molti settori dell’economia.
Una terza costante riguarda in modo specifico il settore degli incidenti sul lavoro che ricade quasi esclusivamente su operai e manovalanza di vario tipo, a dimostrazione che – in forza dello studio della causalità dei singoli incidenti – sono vittime sempre gli anelli deboli della catena lavorativa.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine took much of the world by surprise. It is an unprovoked and unjustified attack that will go down in history as one of the major war crimes of the 21st century, argues Noam Chomsky in the exclusive interview for Truthout that follows. Political considerations, such as those cited by Russian President Vladimir Putin, cannot be used as arguments to justify the launching of an invasion against a sovereign nation. In the face of this horrific invasion, though, the U.S. must choose urgent diplomacy over military escalation, as the latter could constitute a “death warrant for the species, with no victors,” Chomsky says. Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor Emeritus at MIT and currently Laureate Professor at the University of Arizona.
C.J. Polychroniou: Noam, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has taken most people by surprise, sending shockwaves throughout the world, although there were plenty of indications that Putin had become quite agitated by NATO’s expansion eastward and Washington’s refusal to take seriously his “red line” security demands regarding Ukraine. Why do you think he decided to launch an invasion at this point in time?
Noam Chomsky: Before turning to the question, we should settle a few facts that are uncontestable. The most crucial one is that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a major war crime, ranking alongside the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the Hitler-Stalin invasion of Poland in September 1939, to take only two salient examples. It always makes sense to seek explanations, but there is no justification, no extenuation.
Turning now to the question, there are plenty of supremely confident outpourings about Putin’s mind. The usual story is that he is caught up in paranoid fantasies, acting alone, surrounded by groveling courtiers of the kind familiar here in what’s left of the Republican Party traipsing to Mar-a-Lago for the Leader’s blessing.
The flood of invective might be accurate, but perhaps other possibilities might be considered. Perhaps Putin meant what he and his associates have been saying loud and clear for years. It might be, for example, that, “Since Putin’s major demand is an assurance that NATO will take no further members, and specifically not Ukraine or Georgia, obviously there would have been no basis for the present crisis if there had been no expansion of the alliance following the end of the Cold War, or if the expansion had occurred in harmony with building a security structure in Europe that included Russia.” The author of these words is former U.S. ambassador to Russia, Jack Matlock, one of the few serious Russia specialists in the U.S. diplomatic corps, writing shortly before the invasion. He goes on to conclude that the crisis “can be easily resolved by the application of common sense…. By any common-sense standard it is in the interest of the United States to promote peace, not conflict. To try to detach Ukraine from Russian influence — the avowed aim of those who agitated for the ‘color revolutions’ — was a fool’s errand, and a dangerous one. Have we so soon forgotten the lesson of the Cuban Missile Crisis?”
Matlock is hardly alone. Much the same conclusions about the underlying issues are reached in the memoirs of CIA head William Burns, another of the few authentic Russia specialists. [Diplomat] George Kennan’s even stronger stand has belatedly been widely quoted, backed as well by former Defense Secretary William Perry, and outside the diplomatic ranks by the noted international relations scholar John Mearsheimer and numerous other figures who could hardly be more mainstream.
None of this is obscure. U.S. internal documents, released by WikiLeaks, reveal that Bush II’s reckless offer to Ukraine to join NATO at once elicited sharp warnings from Russia that the expanding military threat could not be tolerated. Understandably.
We might incidentally take note of the strange concept of “the left” that appears regularly in excoriation of “the left” for insufficient skepticism about the “Kremlin’s line.”
The fact is, to be honest, that we do not know why the decision was made, even whether it was made by Putin alone or by the Russian Security Council in which he plays the leading role. There are, however, some things we do know with fair confidence, including the record reviewed in some detail by those just cited, who have been in high places on the inside of the planning system. In brief, the crisis has been brewing for 25 years as the U.S. contemptuously rejected Russian security concerns, in particular their clear red lines: Georgia and especially Ukraine.
There is good reason to believe that this tragedy could have been avoided, until the last minute. We’ve discussed it before, repeatedly. As to why Putin launched the criminal aggression right now, we can speculate as we like. But the immediate background is not obscure — evaded but not contested.
It’s easy to understand why those suffering from the crime may regard it as an unacceptable indulgence to inquire into why it happened and whether it could have been avoided. Understandable, but mistaken. If we want to respond to the tragedy in ways that will help the victims, and avert still worse catastrophes that loom ahead, it is wise, and necessary, to learn as much as we can about what went wrong and how the course could have been corrected. Heroic gestures may be satisfying. They are not helpful.
As often before, I’m reminded of a lesson I learned long ago. In the late 1960s, I took part in a meeting in Europe with a few representatives of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (“Viet Cong,” in U.S. parlance). It was during the brief period of intense opposition to the horrendous U.S. crimes in Indochina. Some young people were so infuriated that they felt that only a violent reaction would be an appropriate response to the unfolding monstrosities: breaking windows on Main Street, bombing an ROTC center. Anything less amounted to complicity in terrible crimes. The Vietnamese saw things very differently. They strongly opposed all such measures. They presented their model of an effective protest: a few women standing in silent prayer at the graves of U.S. soldiers killed in Vietnam. They were not interested in what made American opponents of the war feel righteous and honorable. They wanted to survive.
It’s a lesson I’ve often heard in one or another form from victims of hideous suffering in the Global South, the prime target of imperial violence. One we should take to heart, adapted to circumstances. Today that means an effort to understand why this tragedy occurred and what could have been done to avert it, and to apply these lessons to what comes next.
The question cuts deep. There is no time to review this critically important matter here, but repeatedly the reaction to real or imagined crisis has been to reach for the six-gun rather than the olive branch. It’s almost a reflex, and the consequences have generally been awful — for the traditional victims. It’s always worthwhile to try to understand, to think a step or two ahead about the likely consequences of action or inaction. Truisms of course, but worth reiterating, because they are so easily dismissed in times of justified passion.
The options that remain after the invasion are grim. The least bad is support for the diplomatic options that still exist, in the hope of reaching an outcome not too far from what was very likely achievable a few days ago: Austrian-style neutralization of Ukraine, some version of Minsk II federalism within. Much harder to reach now. And — necessarily — with an escape hatch for Putin, or outcomes will be still more dire for Ukraine and everyone else, perhaps almost unimaginably so.
Very remote from justice. But when has justice prevailed in international affairs? Is it necessary to review the appalling record once again?
Like it or not, the choices are now reduced to an ugly outcome that rewards rather than punishes Putin for the act of aggression — or the strong possibility of terminal war. It may feel satisfying to drive the bear into a corner from which it will lash out in desperation — as it can. Hardly wise.
Meanwhile, we should do anything we can to provide meaningful support for those valiantly defending their homeland against cruel aggressors, for those escaping the horrors, and for the thousands of courageous Russians publicly opposing the crime of their state at great personal risk, a lesson to all of us.
And we should also try to find ways to help a much broader class of victims: all life on Earth. This catastrophe took place at a moment where all of the great powers, indeed all of us, must be working together to control the great scourge of environmental destruction that is already exacting a grim toll, with much worse soon to come unless major efforts are undertaken quickly. To drive home the obvious, the IPCC just released the latest and by far most ominous of its regular assessments of how we are careening to catastrophe.
Meanwhile, the necessary actions are stalled, even driven into reverse, as badly needed resources are devoted to destruction and the world is now on a course to expand the use of fossil fuels, including the most dangerous and conveniently abundant of them, coal.
A more grotesque conjuncture could hardly be devised by a malevolent demon. It can’t be ignored. Every moment counts.
Contro la guerra, sempre. Per accogliere migranti che fuggono dalla guerra, sempre. Contro le dittature e le follie imperialiste, sempre.
Antonio Cipriani
Premessa doverosa per scrollarsi di dosso le mediocri e conformiste polemicuzze pro questo guerrafondaio o pro quell’altro: contro i malati della guerra. E non da oggi, non come mammolette belliciste che ieri tifavano bombe a gogò e oggi, di punto in bianco, piangono per i morti sotto le bombe. Non come i politici delle nostre parti che ieri (probabilmente anche oggi) avrebbero volentieri affondato a cannonate un barcone di bambini disperati; hanno felicemente inventato leggi disumane, hanno osservato curdi e siriani morire congelati alla frontiera polacca e oggi si stracciano le vesti.
L’incoerenza regna sovrana. E noi poveri cittadini semplici, di cuore giusto, ne subiamo le conseguenze sociali, politiche e culturali.
Ma dall’incoerenza stracciona al terrapiattismo ottuso il passo è breve. Adesso essere russi è vietato. Nello sport, nella cultura, nella vita di ogni giorno. Come se essere russi volesse dire essere Putin. Tanto stupida la lettura politica della fase storica che al fotografo Alexander Gronsky, arrestato in Russia mentre protestava contro la guerra, è stata cancellata la mostra prevista a Reggio Emilia. Cavolo, che decisione democratica e artisticamente lungimirante. Ma non solo, al grandissimo Paolo Nori è stato cancellato dall’Università Bicocca il corso su Dostoevskij, per evitare polemiche… Ascoltate su Instagram il racconto di un affranto e sbigottito Nori. Non solo contro i vivi, ma anche contro i morti. E che morti, visto che il grandissimo scrittore russo era stato condannato per le sue posizioni critiche verso il regime dell’epoca.
Nei tempi pavidi e conformisti, dove è meglio sempre allinearsi e coprirsi all’ombra del potere, certe efferatezze fanno riflettere. Stiamo rasentando il ridicolo. Si confondono le acque per meglio annullare quei principi sani di autonomia critica che animano il pensiero libero. Arriveremo anche a bruciare i libri?
We, a community of economists working at universities and research centers in Russia and abroad, declare a strong protest against the war launched on February 24, 2022 by the Russian authorities against Ukraine. We demand an immediate cessation of hostilities and the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine.
An attack on Ukraine is an act of baseless aggression against a neighboring sovereign state.
War is a catastrophe for the peoples of both countries. These are irreparable losses of human lives, both military and civilians, as well as incurable psychological trauma for survivors of the war.
As economists, we can predict with complete certainty the most serious negative consequences for the Russian economy – rising prices, falling incomes and investments, depreciation of savings, further cuts in social spending, and the accelerating loss of human capital due to emigration. The economic cost to Russia will be an order of magnitude greater than the lost opportunities in the previous decade of economic stagnation.
We believe that the actions of the Russian leadership are causing great damage to the future of Russia. By unleashing a war against Ukraine, the leaders of Russia are acting against the interests of Russian citizens. We demand an immediate end to the aggression!
Мы, сообщество экономистов, работающих в университетах и научно-исследовательских центрах в России и за ее пределами, заявляем решительный протест против войны, начатой 24 февраля 2022 года российской властью против Украины. Мы требуем немедленного прекращения боевых действий и вывода российских войск из Украины.
Нападение на Украину – это акт безосновательной агрессии против соседнего суверенного государства.
Война – это катастрофа для народов обеих стран. Это невосполнимые потери человеческих жизней, как военных, так и мирных жителей, а также неизлечимые психологические травмы для переживших войну.
Как экономисты, мы можем с полной уверенностью предсказать серьезнейшие отрицательные последствия для экономики России – рост цен, падение доходов и инвестиций, обесценение сбережений, дальнейшее сокращение социальных расходов, ускоряющаяся потеря человеческого капитала в результате эмиграции. Экономические издержки для России будут на порядок больше, чем упущенные возможности в предыдущее десятилетие экономического застоя.
Мы считаем, что действия руководства России наносят огромный ущерб будущему России. Развязывая войну против Украины, руководители России действуют против интересов российских граждан. Мы требуем немедленного прекращения агрессии!
26 февраля 2022 года
Un passo verso il nulla
Lettera aperta degli scienziati e dei giornalisti scientifici russi contro la guerra con l’Ucraina.
«Noi, scienziati e giornalisti scientifici russi, protestiamo fortemente contro le operazioni militari in Ucraina avviate dalle forze armate del nostro paese. Questo passo fatale conduce a enormi perdite di vite umane e sovverte le fondamenta dell’attuale sistema di sicurezza internazionale. La responsabilità dello scoppio di una nuova guerra in Europa è interamente della Russia.
Non c’è alcuna giustificazione ragionevole per questa guerra. I tentativi di usare la situazione nel Donbas come pretesto per un’operazione militare non sono per nulla credibili. È perfettamente chiaro che l’Ucraina non costituisce una minaccia per la sicurezza del nostro paese. La guerra contro di essa è ingiusta e francamente insensata.
L’Ucraina è stata e rimane un paese a noi vicino. Molti di noi hanno parenti, amici e colleghi del mondo accademico che vivono in Ucraina. I nostri padri, nonni e bisnonni hanno combattuto insieme contro il nazismo. Scatenare questa guerra per le ambizioni geopolitiche della leadership della Federazione Russa, guidata da discutibili fantasie storiografiche, è un cinico tradimento della loro memoria. Noi rispettiamo la statalità ucraina, la quale si basa su istituzioni democratiche realmente funzionanti. Comprendiamo la scelta europea dei nostri vicini. Siamo convinti che tutti i problemi nelle relazioni tra i nostri paesi possano essere risolti pacificamente.
Scatenando la guerra, la Russia si è condannata all’isolamento internazionale e a rivestire il ruolo di “paese-canaglia” («страны-изгоя» nell’originale). Questo significa che noi scienziati non saremo più in grado di fare bene il nostro lavoro: in sostanza, la ricerca scientifica è impensabile senza la piena cooperazione con i colleghi di altri paesi. Isolare la Russia dal resto del mondo significa un ulteriore degrado culturale e tecnologico del nostro paese, senza alcuna prospettiva positiva. La guerra con l’Ucraina è un passo verso il nulla.
Siamo amaramente consapevoli che il nostro paese, il quale ha dato un contributo decisivo alla vittoria sul nazismo, è ora diventato l’istigatore di una nuova guerra nel continente europeo. Chiediamo un arresto immediato di tutte le operazioni militari contro l’Ucraina. Chiediamo il rispetto della sovranità e dell’integrità territoriale dello Stato ucraino. Chiediamo la pace per i nostri paesi. Impegniamoci nella scienza, non nella guerra!»
Открытое письмо российских ученых и научных журналистов против войны с Украиной – Science against the war
24.02.2022
“We, Russian scientists and scientific journalists, declare a strong protest against the hostilities launched by the armed forces of our country on the territory of Ukraine. This fatal step leads to huge human losses and undermines the foundations of the established system of international security. The responsibility for unleashing a new war in Europe lies entirely with Russia.
“There is no rational justification for this war. Attempts to use the situation in Donbass as a pretext for launching a military operation do not inspire any confidence. It is clear that Ukraine does not pose a threat to the security of our country. The war against her is unfair and frankly senseless.
“Ukraine has been and remains a country close to us. Many of us have relatives, friends and scientific colleagues living in Ukraine. Our fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers fought together against Nazism. Unleashing a war for the sake of the geopolitical ambitions of the leadership of the Russian Federation, driven by dubious historiosophical fantasies, is a cynical betrayal of their memory.
“We respect Ukrainian statehood, which rests on really working democratic institutions. We treat the European choice of our neighbors with understanding. We are convinced that all problems in relations between our countries can be resolved peacefully.
“Having unleashed the war, Russia doomed itself to international isolation, to the position of a pariah country. This means that we, scientists, will no longer be able to do our job normally: after all, conducting scientific research is unthinkable without full cooperation with colleagues from other countries. The isolation of Russia from the world means further cultural and technological degradation of our country in the complete absence of positive prospects. War with Ukraine is a step to nowhere.
“It is bitter for us to realize that our country, which made a decisive contribution to the victory over Nazism, has now become the instigator of a new war on the European continent. We demand an immediate halt to all military operations directed against Ukraine. We demand respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Ukrainian state. We demand peace for our countries. Let’s do science, not war!”
Мы, российские ученые и научные журналисты, заявляем решительный протест против военных действий, начатых вооружёнными силами нашей страны на территории Украины. Этот фатальный шаг ведёт к огромным человеческим жертвам и подрывает основы сложившейся системы международной безопасности. Ответственность за развязывание новой войны в Европе целиком лежит на России.
Для этой войны нет никаких разумных оправданий. Попытки использовать ситуацию в Донбассе как повод для развёртывания военной операции не вызывают никакого доверия. Совершенно очевидно, что Украина не представляет угрозы для безопасности нашей страны. Война против неё несправедлива и откровенно бессмысленна.
Украина была и остаётся близкой нам страной. У многих из нас в Украине живут родственники, друзья и коллеги по научной работе. Наши отцы, деды и прадеды вместе воевали против нацизма. Развязывание войны ради геополитических амбиций руководства РФ, движимого сомнительными историософскими фантазиями, есть циничное предательство их памяти.
Мы уважаем украинскую государственность, которая держится на реально работающих демократических институтах. Мы с пониманием относимся к европейскому выбору наших соседей. Мы убеждены в том, что все проблемы в отношениях между нашими странами могут быть решены мирным путём.
Развязав войну, Россия обрекла себя на международную изоляцию, на положение страны-изгоя. Это значит, что мы, учёные, теперь не сможем нормально заниматься своим делом: ведь проведение научных исследований немыслимо без полноценного сотрудничества с коллегами из других стран. Изоляция России от мира означает дальнейшую культурную и технологическую деградацию нашей страны при полном отсутствии позитивных перспектив. Война с Украиной — это шаг в никуда.
Нам горько сознавать, что наша страна, вместе с другими республиками бывшего СССР внесшая решающий вклад в победу над нацизмом, сейчас стала поджигателем новой войны на европейском континенте. Мы требуем немедленной остановки всех военных действий, направленных против Украины. Мы требуем уважения суверенитета и территориальной целостности украинского государства. Мы требуем мира для наших стран.
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per/corsi di economia politica 