The US National Bureau of Economic Research says that an equivalent of over a trillion dollars has been moved out of Russia and into the US and Western Europe in the wake of the USSR’s collapse. At least half of this sum ended up in the US. 

This is an enormous amount of money. A huge injection of capital. Those in the US who profited from this injection have every reason to want the money to keep coming. They created a whole system that serviced the needs of the Russian oligarchy because that oligarchy was bringing in all this money and engineering a sophisticated network for laundering these and other profits.

The system in question existed on many levels. There is a political branch, a judiciary branch, there is a business one, there are think tanks, journalists, artists, and academics who (sometimes kinda sorta maybe even unwittingly) erected an ideological justification for tolerating the status quo. 

It’s ironic that the former Communist and KGB leaders (which is what every single of those Russian oligarchs is) managed to exploit the weaknesses of the capitalist system – capital rules! there is nothing more important than capital accumulation! – so damn well. 

This isn’t an issue of any single presidential administration. Why do you think Obama sat so vapidly by while Russia invaded one country after another? He did it for the same reason he run over to Wall Street to deliver speeches the moment after his mandate ended. These are the people he served. This was his one and true constituency. And those fat cats would not have appreciated anything that stood in the way of the enormous capital flows coming towards them from Eastern Europe. 

And yes, of course, Hillary’s uranium deal was scandalous and immoral. Just like everything Bush Jr did in his treatment of Russia. It’s not the problem of one person, one president, one campaign, one administration. It’s a flaw in the entire system. Not a bug but a feature. 

We are not powerless in this whole deal. Our power is in understanding what is going on and not letting ourselves to be seduced into supporting this ridiculous and evil system. We are not getting any of these crazy profits that go to hide in off-shore bank accounts. Why should we work to support this dirty money-laundering stratagem? If we all stop playing the game today, right now, that’s the only way for us to win.

Remember when I talked about Jim McGuigan’s concept of “cool capitalism”? Cool capitalism seduces by giving you something that you truly want and value. In return, you close your eyes to some things and accept what you are secretly eager to accept anyway. 

Folks! Talking about “the Trump collusion” is like treating a late-stage AIDS victim for acne. It’s actually counterproductive because noticing a tiny part of the truth at the expense of the larger picture is a denial of the greater truth. The true resistance is to notice this entire dirty scheme and hold your gaze on it. Let’s at least start talking about this. Let’s at least stop pretending that this is something new that arose fifteen seconds ago. Let’s finally recognize what’s been happening in the last 25 years. It’s not going to be easy and it’s not going to be fun. And that is how we will know that we are finally not being dumb, impotent pawns of cool capitalism.

So we didn’t beat the record yesterday. We fell short by a couple thousand visits. Let’s see if we do it today. 

When inequality is really sky-high, you don’t even notice it. In the USSR, most people were convinced there was no inequality because they existed on a different planets than the elites. 

When the USSR fell apart, inequality lessened and people started noticing it because it now existed on the same planet with them. 

Of course, most of them are still convinced there was no inequality in the USSR because they didn’t personally see it. 

These are some of the many queries that brought people to the blog since Monday.

Question: “i don’t want pets in my house because of the pet hair and smell. how do i explain this to pet lovers without being rude.”

Answer: By saying “I don’t want pets in my house because of the pet hair and smell.” If people think this honest statement about your own boundaries in your own house is rude, they are idiots.

Q: “how to convince your husband he has asperger’s syndrome”

A: For the millionth time, the desire to diagnose adults, especially the ones you are in a romantic relationship with and especially when you are not qualified and have not been asked to provide a diagnosis, is based on absolutely nothing but the need for power over that person. What you are doing is not OK. It’s wrong, manipulative, and immoral. Please stop.

Q: “cliif notes on wasted lives by zygmunt bauman”

A: Oh, fuck you, loser. It’s a short book that’s a pleasure to read, and you are looking for cliff notes that you can’t even spell? Dumb brat.

Q: “aspergers does he love me or am i his special interest”

A: Ask him and not the internet. By the way, Asperger’s is no longer diagnosed. And that’s precisely because people like you have been trying to use it to excuse swinish behavior towards their significant others and children.

Q: “how to split from a boyfriend with aspergers”

A: Exactly like you’d split from anybody else.

Q: “was there anything good from soviet union”

A: Yes. Me.

Q: “reasons why soviet union are moving out of socialism”

A: Oh, hello, reader from year 1989.

Q: “why would an old man befriend a younger woman”

A: For reasons he is aware of and can tell you about when you ask him.

Q: “my aspie ex has found herself a new guy”

A: Only because she is aspie. Nobody else ever finds anybody new, of course. Normal human beings go into complete lifelong celibacy after they break up with their partners. Those crazy aspies, though, they sometimes go and find new guys or gals. Imagine that.

All my life, I thought it was a great idea to skip breakfast and often lunch, too, and have an enormous dinner instead. And then I discovered that this strategy dramatically increases your chances of developing type 2 diabetes, especially if you are overweight and/or have family history of diabetes.

People, if you are young, don’t repeat my mistakes. Eat three non-huge meals and two small snacks at the same time every day. 

We are about to beat the daily record of visits to this blog. Come on, folks! Let’s not miss this opportunity and lose by a tiny margin. This ancient record is from back in 2012 and it’s ripe for a beating.

“This report focuses on a critical demographic in the United States – Latinos. Currently 17% of the U.S. population (more than 58 million people) and the second-largest racial/ethnic group in the nation Latinos are a fast-growing demographic,” begins a study conducted by Yale researchers that is titled “Climate Change in the Latino Mind.”

I can’t keep reading past the first sentences because I don’t understand how Latinos can be a “racial/ethnic group.”

How can one trust a study whose creators didn’t even try to familiarize themselves with a group they are studying? What shared ethnicity or race can an Afro-Cuban, a white Argentinean of Ukrainian descent, a descendant of the Bolivian Aymaras and a mestizo from Tamaulipas possibly have? They will probably (but not always) share a language and a culture. But race? That’s every kind of insane. Is it the “all THOSE people are the same to me” attitude at play?

But I promise that it’s the most chaotic and untidy it’s ever been.

Klara asked for more milk this morning and I left her in her crib and went downstairs to heat up another portion. When I came back, I heard her asking her bedtime doll Baby in a conversational tone, “Where did mamma go? What happened? Where did mamma go?”

People are stunned by how well she speaks, but I tell them, “Hey, I’m a language teacher. This is exactly like teaching beginner language courses but without any “will this be on the test?” and “I’m an English major, so why do I have to be here at all? I hate languages!!!!””

Many colleagues respond to this kind of outburst by explaining the importance of learning languages but I don’t. I’m not a saleswoman or a guidance counselor. I refuse to hand-hold and caretake at work. If you detest the language requirement, organize with other students and present a collective petition to the administration. When Klara goes, “No pants, no dress, no shoes, no school!”, I spend as much time as I need to entertain, convince, cajole and provoke interest. But I’ll be damned if I treat adults at work like I treat my toddler. If their parents chose not to socialize them into the joys and limitations of adulthood, it’s their misfortune.

The most unpleasant part of parenthood is socializing a child into the system of societal limitations. The danger is that you can either impose too many limitations or too few. And the temptation is always to say, “To hell with it. No pants, no dress, no school is fine because it makes my life easier not to jump around like a trained bunny explaining why you have to do it”. But that’s a way out at the expense of the child. Who will grow up thinking it’s ok to throw tantrums at school or at work. 

N says, “Suddenly, it become a lot harder to take care of Klara. It used to be so much easier.”

“Did it start when I left for the DR?” I ask. 

“Yes!” he says. 

And that’s how we discovered the difference between the primary caregiver and everybody else.

Actually, the hardest time so far when she was between a year and 19 months. That is, in the gap between her learning to walk and learning to talk in sentences.