Except for timely election info, the extensive list of voting resources will now be at the end.

“There’s a reason why you separate military and police. One fights the enemy of the State. The other serves and protects the People. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the State tend to become the People.” ~ Commander Adama, “Battlestar Galactica” (“WATER”, Season 1 episode 2, at the 28 minute mark.)

“People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power.”  ~ Bill Clinton, Democratic Convention Speech  nominating Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination (Wednesday, August 27, 2008) at 14m 19s.

 Welcome to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig, now in its 14^th year on KPFT from Houston 90.1-HD2, Galveston 89.5-HD2, Livingston/Goodrich 89.9-HD2, and Huntsville 91.9-HD2. KPFT is Houston’s Community radio.

And welcome to our international listeners from China, Hong Kong, Serbia, Belgium, and elsewhere.

On this show, we discuss local, state, national, and international stories that may have slipped under your radar. At my website, THINKWINGRADIO-dot-COM, I link to all the articles I read and cite, as well as other relevant sources. Articles and commentaries often include lots of internet links for those of you who want to dig deeper. I do try to fact-check myself and include the links I use to do so.

It’s the 45^th week of Trump’s military occupation of Washington DC; and 34 weeks since those states’ governors deployed National Guard troops to Memphis, Tennessee and New Orleans, Louisiana, at Trump’s request, which is where they remain for now.  

The next gubernatorial election in Tennessee is in about 4-1/2 months. I can’t wait to see how that one turns out.

LAWFARE has a chart of where US troops are currently stationed around the US. The link is in this show post at ThinkwingRadio-dot-com.

Due to time constraints, some stories may be longer in this show post than in the broadcast show itself.

1. Amazing discovery in the Heights neighborhood of Houston. An albino raccoon! So what exactly was that roaming around the Heights recently?; Author: KHOU 11 Staff | khou.com | Published: 6:55 PM CDT June 12, 2026. TAGS: Albinism, Local News, Raccoons, Urban Wildlife,
   1. There was a unique and rare sighting recently in The Heights. It was an albino raccoon! 
   2. Alexander Elias shared video with us of the critter he saw near some train tracks. 
   3. The Houston SPCA Wildlife Center tells us it is unusual to see albino raccoons in the wild because they have to work extra hard to stay hidden from predators. 
   4. Not all raccoons with white fur are true albinos, only those that also have pink eyes and noses, which you can see this one has. 
   5. So how rare was the sighting? According to A-Z Animals, spotting a true albino racoon is around one in 750,000.
   6. MIKE: I originally found this story on the Neighborhood website, and it was amazing how many commenters thought it was an opossum.
   7. MIKE: Raccoons are not particularly common in Houston, but they’re far from rare here.
   8. MIKE: I’m noting it here for two reasons. One is because of just how rare a wild albino animal is in nature. But the other is to point out that while albinism may have made it hard to identify this animal as a raccoon, it should not have been possible to confuse it with an opossum, even an albino one.
   9. MIKE: Plus, a wild raccoon can be somewhat more dangerous to a human than an opossum is, so it’s important to know the difference.
   10. MIKE: Opossums can be shy unless cornered or threatened, and will likely avoid humans when at all possible. Also, aside from being beneficial animals that eat all kinds of critters that humans consider pests, such as ticks, they are unlikely to carry rabies because their body temperatures are too cool to harbor the organism. The same cannot be said about raccoons.
   11. MIKE: Also, as an FYI, technically speaking, Opossums and possums are not the same animal. They’re literally a world apart. I’m providing links in this show post at ThinkwingRadio[.]com for folks who want to learn more.
2. From ABC13[.]COM — Houston attorney Dan Cogdell says he didn’t anticipate reaction to Talarico endorsement; By Tom Abrahams | ABC13.COM | Tuesday, June 16, 2026 8:40PM. TAGS: POLITICS, TEXAS, TEXAS POLITICS, ELECTION, U.S. Senate race, Houston Attorney Dan Cogdell, Ken Paxton, James Talarico,
   1. Houston Attorney Dan Cogdell says he did not anticipate the amount of attention he would receive for endorsing a candidate in the US Senate race in Texas.
   2. Cogdell was Ken Paxton’s criminal defense attorney for years, and he successfully represented him as part of a team of lawyers in his impeachment trial. But he publicly endorsed Paxton’s opponent in the U.S. Senate race, James Talarico.
   3. [Cogdell told ABC13,] “It wasn’t so much a decision against Paxton as it was for Talarico. … I never knew anybody would care about me as much as they apparently have. It’s a shock to me that anybody gives a damn. I was taken aback by that. And I don’t know whether to be impressed or annoyed with how much attention it’s gotten. But it is what it is.”
   4. Paxton’s campaign told ABC13 of Cogdell, “He’s a Democrat. Least surprising thing that has happened.”
   5. Cogdell said his choice was not about party.
   6. [Cogdell said,] “I don’t really consider myself a Democrat or a Republican. … I’m a moderate. I have raised far more money for Republican candidates and donated far more money for Republican candidates than I have Democrats, so I don’t really care about the label. I’m a criminal defense lawyer. If I cared what people thought about me, I chose the wrong gig.”
   7. State Representative Ann Johnson faced off against Cogdell when she helped the Texas House prosecute its impeachment case against Paxton in 2023. Paxton was acquitted of all charges.
   8. [MIKE: As with Trump’s impeachment, a majority of state senators voted to convict, but not the super-majority that was required. Continuing …]
   9. [Johnson said,] “I’m not surprised that it made news. … There are two people that probably know him best. His wife and his longtime criminal defense lawyer, and both of them have walked away from him, effectively.”
   10. Ultimately, though, do endorsements matter? ABC13 spoke with SMU political science professor Cal Jillson.
   11. [Jillson said,] “It’s like fundraising. You need enough money to make your case, you’d rather have endorsements than not have them, but they’re not going to win you the election. … So this is a story that you and I are interested in, and following a little bit, but for most voters, it will not penetrate.”
   12. Cogdell said he has not spoken with Paxton about his change of heart, [saying,] “I did not call him before. … I have not called him after. I suspect I am not going to get a Christmas card this year or next year.”
   13. Cogdell said he and his wife have given the maximum contribution now to both campaigns, [recently] donating enough to match what they’d previously given to Paxton, who announced his campaign for the Senate more than a year ago.
   14. Paxton received the endorsement of President Donald Trump ahead of the primary runoff election day, which, in part, helped him secure the Republican nomination. Paxton handily defeated longtime incumbent Senator John Cornyn.
   15. MIKE: I think that Democrats blew up on this announcement about Cogdell for at least 5 reasons First and foremost, I think Texas Democrats are starving for any political encouragement after over 30 years in the statewide political wilderness. Also, it’s ironic; It’s funny; It’s gratifying …
   16. MIKE: And from a man who must know Paxton well, it’s highly suggestive, Cogdell’s dismissiveness notwithstanding.
   17. MIKE: Let’s hope it’s a good prognosticator of things to come in November.
3. By now, those of you are interested have had the chance to hear or read lots of reporting and analysis of the Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU), between the US and Iran. Some are calling it a surrender document, but not an Iranian surrender document. I don’t disagree with that assessment, but because you’ve already heard so much about it, I want to focus on a revealing little bit from this story from before Trump signed the MOU that quotes Trump. From CNBC[.]COM — Trump says he likes idea of blaming Vance if Iran deal doesn’t work out; By Dan Mangan (@in/danmangancnbc/@_DanMangan) & Eamon Javers (@EamonJavers) | CNBC.COM | Published Wed, Jun 17 20261:15 PM EDT/Updated 5 Hours Ago. TAGS: President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, memorandum of understanding (MOU), Iran, Strait of Hormuz,
   1. … President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he liked the idea of blaming Vice President JD Vance if a deal to end the war with Iran does not work out.
   2. [After Fox News reporter Peter Doocy suggested Trump was setting Vance up to take the fall by sending the vice president in his stead to sign an agreement with Iran in the coming days Trump quipped,] “If it works out, I’m going to take the credit. If it doesn’t work out, I’m blaming JD.”
   3. [MIKE: Note that Trump did subsequently sign the agreement himself in the Versailles Palace in France. (He may end up regretting that.) As Lawrence O’Donnell and perhaps others have noted, it’s ironically appropriate that Trump signed the US surrender document — I mean, the Memorandum of Understanding — where the ignominious Versailles Treaty that ended WW1 and set the stage for WW2 was signed. Continuing …]
   4. Trump’s comments to reporters at the G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains, France, came as a senior U.S. official separately read the text of the so-called memorandum of understanding with Iran to reporters in a call, and as two Republican senators slammed the agreement.
   5. The text calls for the immediate end to military actions by Israel in Lebanon and the full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz without tolls by Iran for at least 60 days.
   6. The MOU, which includes 14 separate points, includes an agreement for the U.S. and Iran to resolve the question of how to dispose of the Islamic Republic’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium.
   7. One of the officials on the call, who spoke on condition of anonymity to talk about the agreement …, argued there is no pressing need for the U.S. to enter Iran and retrieve that material because the U.S.’s bombing of nuclear sites last summer was so successful in burying it.
   8. [The official said of the nuclear material the administration has said it wants to remove,] “Because of the success of Midnight Hammer, it is very, very much buried.”
   9. Operation Midnight Hammer was [the name for] strikes the U.S. carried out in June 2025 targeting Iranian nuclear facilities.
   10. Since he launched the war on Feb. 28, Trump has repeatedly argued the U.S. needed to attack Iran again because of the threat of the Islamic Republic imminently developing a nuclear weapon. The senior official’s comment suggesting that the material has not been accessible since last year seemed to undercut Trump’s argument.
   11. Trump, in a video address when he announced the beginning of the war, said curtailing Iran’s nuclear ambitions was the reason he attacked.
   12. [He said at the time,] “They attempted to rebuild their nuclear program and to continue developing the long range missiles that can now threaten our very good friends and allies in Europe, our troops stationed overseas, and could soon reach the American homeland.”
   13. Bill Cassidy, a Louisana Republican, in a post on X, called the deal “the worst foreign policy blunder in decades”
   14. [Cassidy wrote that] Former President Ronald “is rolling over in his grave.”
   15. [Cassidy wrote,] “Iran’s nuclear ambitions were not curbed, and they have learned that threatening the Strait of Hormuz works and will undoubtedly leverage it in the future. … Now, Iran gets to build brand-new infrastructure under this deal. Before the war, the strait was open, Iran was being crushed by sanctions, and 13 service members were still alive. Now, 13 Americans are dead, families have paid billions at the pump, sanctions will be lifted, and the bombing has stopped.”
   16. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., told reporters on Capitol Hill: “$100 billion has been spent since the first kinetic strike. We’ve lost two F-18s, [and] several other airframes. Thirteen people have died. Several of our Middle East partners have been attacked. Three hundred and sixty-five people have been injured. … I need more than 14 points.”
   17. Trump’s comment about preferring Vance attend the signing ceremony came at the very end of a press conference with reporters, where he gave the final question to Fox News’ Peter Doocy, who noted he was already in Europe.
   18. Doocy asked, “Why not stick around for the signing ceremony with this Iran peace deal?”
   19. Trump replied, “I might.”
   20. But the president suggested he might not.
   21. [Trump said,] “This is a memorandum of understanding. … It’s very important, but it might not be the kind of document that I should be signing.”
   22. [MIKE: I’m going to play that bit of the recording rather than read it myself. : (PLAY AUDIO — 48s):
   23. Doocy then said, “There’s some element to this where you send the vice president, if it works out great, you look like a genius for sending him. …And if it doesn’t work out, it’s the vice president’s fault?”
   24. Trump answered: “I like that idea. … Sure, this way, if it works out, I’m going to take the credit. If it doesn’t work out, I’m blaming JD “You better be careful, JD. He’s going to turn his plane around and get the hell out of here. Yeah, I like that idea. I think it’s a good idea,” the president said.
   25. MIKE: Note that after the MOU was signed, CNBC radically updated this story, including the headline, but this is from the original version.
   26. MIKE: Trump’s statement prompted me to look up the difference, if any, between loyalty and fealty.
   27. MIKE: The differences are subtle and sometimes overlapping. In a 6-year-old opinion piece by Karen Tumulty from the Washington Post titled Bolton is teaching Trump the difference between loyalty and fealty, it’s explained this way: There’s a big difference between loyalty and fealty: Loyalty is the most perfect form of mutual respect. It is a bond that goes two ways, and that is why it endures. Fealty, on the other hand, must be endured. It is based on power, and ends the moment the one who commands it no longer has a grip on the one who is shackled by it.
   28. MIKE: Another definition is offered on LinkedIn by Scott Donnell: LOYALTY demands mutual respect. It’s a 2-way relationship — a bond that endures. FEALTY is based on power and ends when the one who commands it is no longer in charge. It’s purely one-sided.”
   29. MIKE: I think that both definitions don’t quite cover Trump’s version of “loyalty”. Trump always demands “loyalty” from his underlings and associates, but what Trump offers in return is actually only a form of “fealty”; it’s entirely conditional, transactional, and one-sided. It’s maintained entirely at Trump’s whim.
   30. MIKE: Trump’s definition of fealty, perhaps not consciously but operationally, is that his fealty to someone lasts as long as that underling or associate is useful. When that usefulness is over, they are not only jettisoned, they are excommunicated and often punished.
   31. MIKE: Perhaps some of you have wondered — I know that I have — how crime lords in the movies and TV can command so much loyalty when their response to the failure of an otherwise loyal underling is often punishment by death. That underling’s loyalty hardly seems reciprocated.
   32. MIKE: Those underlings may originally come to serve the crime lord because of an expectation of some degree of wealth and power.
   33. MIKE: Of course, what they actually receive is the wealth and power of a feudal lord given entirely at the master’s whim.
   34. MIKE: When a feudal lord earns the wrath of his master, he can be stripped of his power and wealth, and even executed.
   35. MIKE: Trump is like the movie crime lord who acts like a feudal king. He demands unswerving loyalty — even adoration — from his underlings, but they are nonetheless considered entirely expendable at his whim or need.
   36. MIKE: If his displeasure is strong enough, he may seek their social and political execution, and even seek to deny them their freedom by pursuing them through his sycophantic Justice Department.
   37. MIKE: So how does Trump still manage to command enough loyal subjects to populate his government?
   38. MIKE: I think that there is certainly a component of fear, but it’s basically the same motivation going back to feudal times: Greed. Greed for power and greed for wealth.
   39. MIKE: Survival in Trump’s feudalistic court is secured by unquestioning obedience to Trump. Survival is also no doubt accomplished by the equivalent of court intrigue.
   40. MIKE: I think the mindset of the participants is similar to the mindset of young men in battle. There is an irrational but nonetheless inherent sense of immortality in young people. Thus, the subconscious sense that it’s likely some other guy who is likely to get shot, and not themselves. Of course, the other guy is thinking the same thing.
   41. MIKE: The people in Trump’s orbit are not particularly young, but I think they all suffer from the hubris of believing that it’s always going to be ‘the other guy’ who will suffer Trump’s wrath or be judged by Trump as expendable.
   42. MIKE: In this story, Trump has suggested that his obsequious Vice President JD Vance could be expendable under the right circumstances, metaphorically putting Vance’s head on Trump’s metaphorical chopping block.
   43. MIKE: Thus, what we see is that all of the king’s men are vulnerable to the mad king’s perceived needs. No matter how valuable they see themselves to Trump and how effective they are at their court intrigues, none of his loyalists are really safe.
   44. MIKE: When it comes to Trump’s style of rule, he is a mixture of Nero and Caligula. None of them are safe, and none of us are safe.
   45. REFERENCE: Bolton is teaching Trump the difference between loyalty and fealty; By Karen Tumulty | WASHINGTONPOST.COM | January 30, 2020 More than 6 years ago
4. POLITICO[.]COM has a story about how Trump is further alienating our allies and destroying their faith in our nation’s promises — US halts Tomahawk missile deal with Germany amid Russia concerns — Politico By Liliana Oleniak | POLITICO via NEWSUKRAINE.RBC.UA | Sat, June 13, 2026 – 13:10. TAGS: Russia, EU, USA, Germany, Europe, Missiles, NATO, Weapons, NATO, Germany, Pete Hegseth, Iran War 2026,
   1. The Pentagon has blocked the sale of long-range Tomahawk missiles to Berlin. This decision could spell the end of a security system that has been in place in Europe for nearly 80 years, according to Politico.
   2. … The refusal to sell missiles to Germany was not the first step the US had taken in this direction. Previously, Washington had already: Withdrawn 5,000 troops from Germany; Suspended the deployment of an American battalion equipped with Tomahawk missiles; [and] Reduced its planned contribution of bombers, fighter jets, destroyers, and submarines to NATO.
   3. The Pentagon explains these steps as a desire to restore the balance of contributions between Europe and the US to the continent’s defense.
   4. … The decision regarding the Tomahawks points to a deeper problem. Washington is not simply reducing its own military presence in Europe; it is denying allies the opportunity to acquire high-precision weapons themselves, fearing a reaction from Russia.
   5. The US is attempting to separate its own security from that of Europe.
   6. In 2019, President Donald Trump’s first administration withdrew from [the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty] due to Russia’s violations of its terms. After that, NATO countries began discussing the deployment of their own long-range missiles.
   7. The Tomahawks were supposed to be a temporary solution until European countries developed their own systems. Now this gap has reopened.
   8. For several weeks, the Trump administration has complained that NATO has not sufficiently supported the US and Israel’s war against Iran.
   9. European countries are already increasing defense spending and developing their own long-range strike capabilities, some of which have dual conventional and nuclear capabilities. These will be sovereign systems, and the US will have no say in their use.
   10. This rift does not mean that Europe will be left defenseless. But the security of Europe and the United States will no longer be viewed as a single entity, the agency writes.
   11. Meanwhile, Europeans’ trust in the US has plummeted. The level of trust among European citizens toward Washington has dropped to a critical low.
   12. At the same time, discussions on military aid to Ukraine are ongoing. A US Senate committee has approved a new aid package.
5. An earlier June 4^th POLITICO story about the Tomahawks predicted this outcome and provides a bit more context for the more recent one. I’ve edited out less relevant portions, but I’ve included the link to the full original story in this show post at ThinkwingRadio[.]com — Pentagon likely to cancel missile deal with Germany over fears of Russia; By Paul McLeary, Stefanie Bolzen and Chris Lunday | POLITICO.COM | 06/04/2026 03:30 PM EDT. TAGS: Russia, EU, USA, Germany, Europe, Missiles, NATO, Weapons, NATO, Germany, Pete Hegseth, Iran War 2026,
   1. … S. officials fear Moscow will retaliate if the Trump administration follows through on the effort to deploy precision missiles in the middle of the continent, according to two European officials and one American official. But any decision not to deliver them would yank back a deal made during the Biden administration and leave Berlin without defenses German leaders say they desperately need. …
   2. [Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, NATO’s top commander and the head of U.S. forces in Europe, told military leaders this week that Europe] “can step up now and in the near term.” America, he said, will “refocus” equipment and forces elsewhere.
   3. American officials, even if primarily fearful of Russia’s reaction, likely are also worried about the shrinking U.S. weapons stockpile. The U.S. churned through thousands of Tomahawk and Patriot missiles in the first weeks of the Iran war. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Congress last month that it will take “months and years” to replace the munitions spent in the military conflict.
   4. The likely Tomahawk reversal is particularly unsettling for German officials, who are rushing to modernize their atrophied force to serve as a bulwark against Russian aggression. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said last month that he did not expect the U.S. would station Tomahawk missiles in Germany due to limited availability of the cruise missiles, which can travel over 1,000 miles.
   5. [He told German public television,] “The Americans don’t have enough for themselves right now.”
   6. The U.S. unveiled further changes to its role in NATO this week at a quarterly conference of military leaders. These include reductions in fighter jets, drones and naval units, according to WELT, part of the Alex Springer Global Reporters Network, which includes POLITICO.
   7. [Said a Defense Department official, who like others, was granted anonymity to discuss internal conversations,] “The whole point is to give allies the information and clarity they need to drive forward as quickly and effectively as possible.” This is about “allies taking primary responsibility for Europe’s conventional defense.” …
   8. The troop decision, which reduces levels to what they were before the Ukraine war, came after Merz said President Donald Trump had “humiliated” himself with the Iran war. The Pentagon has not yet released the plan for those troops, two American defense officials said, and whether they might deploy elsewhere in Europe.
   9. The U.S. may worry about Moscow, but Germany and the rest of Europe must contend with an all-out war between Russia and Ukraine on their doorstep.
   10. Russian forces have long deployed nuclear capable Iskander missiles to the Kaliningrad exclave between Poland and Lithuania.
   11. [MIKE: I’ll remind listeners that Kaliningrad used to be called Königsberg and was part of eastern German Prussia. It was occupied during WW2 by Soviet forces. The Soviets annexed it, renamed it, pushed out the Germans living there and colonized it with Russians. They did the same with eastern Poland, which they kept and colonized with Russians after Stalin divided Poland with Hitler. Eastern Poland was incorporated into the Belorussian and Ukrainian SSRs. Basically, once the Russians take territory under any circumstances, they never give it back. The more you know … Continuing …]
   12. [The Russians] also have placed medium-range Oreshnik missiles in Belarus, which can reach all of Europe in a matter of minutes. Eastern and Central Europe officials have eyed the moves warily, as they are still working on fielding their own comparable systems. …
   13. German officials have been exploring European alternatives to fill the long-range precision-strike gap. The debate in Berlin is less about any single weapons system than about how quickly Germany can acquire the ability to hold targets at a distance — whether through off-the-shelf purchases, expanded production with allies or longer-term European development.
   14. Drones and cheaper systems may help, but German defense planners do not see them as a one-for-one replacement for Tomahawk-class missiles. German officials are worried more broadly that the U.S. pullback will force Europe to close military gaps faster than its defense industry can deliver.
   15. MIKE: It’s entirely possible, even likely, that the Trump regime canceled the Tomahawk missile sale to Germany at least partly due to newly-created shortages in our stockpiles caused by Trump’s illegal and unprovoked war against Iran.
   16. MIKE: But to say that the sale might be canceled because we’re afraid of “provoking” Russia doesn’t only sound cowardly.
   17. MIKE: It misses the point that giving Germany the ability to deter further aggressive Russian moves against Europe is also in America’s vital security interests. Denying those missiles to Germany before Europe can provide alternatives creates an interim environment that an adventurist Russia might at least consider exploiting. I might also note that we’re costing ourselves sales of these weapons by forcing them to replace them, But, anyway …
   18. MIKE: It’s also a further indication that given the newly discovered realities of modern war against a peer nation like Russia or China (not to mention against even a midrange power like Iran), the US needs much larger stockpiles, and a much greater production capacity for replacing expended weaponry.
   19. MIKE: Like the use of both offensive drones and defenses against those drones, the US has been disturbingly slow to see the implications of the war in Ukraine as it applies to military strategy and tactics, and the need for a much more robust defense production industrial base.
   20. MIKE: This is even more upsetting when you consider that the handwriting was on the wall almost since February 24, 2022 when Russia began a full-fledged invasion of Ukraine. In its attempt to supply artillery ammunition to Ukraine to fight the Russians, the US began running short of 155mm artillery shells, forcing the US Army to begin expanding and building new factory capacity for them.
   21. MIKE: A further red flag that should have raised immediate alarms was when the US had to buy 155mm artillery shells from South Korea and new Patriot anti-missiles from Japan to replenish our own stockpiles.
   22. MIKE: Now, for whatever reasons or excuses that the Trump regime wants to use for denying Tomahawk missiles to our German NATO allies, this is another example that Trump and the MAGA Republicans have turned the US into an unreliable ally whose word means little or nothing. Even treaties can no longer be trusted.
   23. MIKE: For generations to come, the US will be paying the price in our national security and global influence for this kind of perfidy against our allies, partners, and friends.
   24. MIKE: The lesson our friends and allies are learning was once perfectly articulated by President George W Bush: (PLAY AUDIO — 15.5s) “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me … Can’t get fooled again.”
6. This next story is from MEDUZA[.]IO, which is based out of Riga, Latvia. Because sources matter and I don’t think I’ve used this one on the show before, this is an excerpt of how Meduza describes itself. “Meduza is the world’s largest independent Russian media outlet. Completely outlawed by the Russian state, we operate from abroad to deliver news that censors can’t stop to millions of readers inside Russia and around the globe. You can read our reporting in both Russian and English.” I think it’s important not just in the context of the Russia-Ukraine War, but as a warning to the US and other allied states of what they may expect in any “next war”. We must be prepared to fight attack drones with the same volume of defenses with which we may be assaulted, and because what Iran was able to do during our recent conflict was just a taste of what a peer nation could inflict on us and our allies. So while I’m reading this next story, occasionally substitute the United States for Russia in your mind — Why are Moscow’s air defenses struggling to stop drone attacks? And why are oil refineries so vulnerable to Ukrainian strikes?; Source: Meduza | MEDUZA.IO | June 19, 2026, 7:54 am. TAGS: Ukrainian drones, Russia, Ukraine, Moscow, Moscow air defense zone, fuel storage tanks,
   1. On June 16 and 18, Ukrainian drones broke through defenses in southeastern Moscow and knocked out both primary oil distillation units at the Moscow oil refinery.
   2. During the second strike, several fuel storage tanks caught fire, and smoke from the blaze blanketed the surrounding residential neighborhoods.
   3. In carrying out the attack, Ukraine’s Armed Forces achieved several objectives at once: they continued their campaign of strikes against oil refineries; demonstrated their ability to penetrate Russia’s most powerful and layered air defense zone; and produced striking footage that they showed to Western allies.
   4. The footage was equally telling for Russian officials and military commanders: Even in the Moscow region, the air defense system is plainly incapable of stopping a mass strike. Ukraine’s Armed Forces have learned to assemble the forces needed to overwhelm the radars and launch systems protecting the most heavily guarded facilities. Other defensive approaches are either used in limited ways or remain in the testing phase.
   5. [So how did Ukrainian drones learn to penetrate Moscow’s air defenses — and what have the latest strikes have cost Russia?]
   6. Since the spring of 2026, Ukraine has made sequential strikes on Russian oil refining infrastructure the top priority of its air campaign. The choice was deliberate:
   7. Ukraine’s Armed Forces and intelligence services have a reliable supply of only one long-range strike weapon: drones of various models carrying relatively small warheads weighing several dozen kilograms. As a rule, such UAVs [strike targets more than … (310 miles) away — carry [relatively small warheads weighing several dozen kilograms] … . Ukraine does not yet have enough cruise or ballistic missiles to sustain a mass air campaign.
   8. Warheads of several dozen kilograms are poorly suited to destroying, say, the reinforced-concrete structures of defense industry plants or large bridges. It therefore makes more sense to hit unprotected targets in open areas — targets that also carry high value for the Russian economy. Oil refineries in the European part of Russia fit those criteria precisely.
   9. [MIKE: This is the tactical military version of, “if all you have is lemons, make lemonade.” Continuing …]
   10. Ukraine’s previous campaign against oil refining infrastructure in the fall of 2025 showed that maximum damage requires sustained, systematic pressure. When strikes were infrequent and targeted only the most vulnerable large primary distillation units — Atmospheric-Vacuum Distillation units, or AVTs — Russia was able to restore production relatively quickly.
   11. In the spring and summer of 2026, Ukraine’s Armed Forces are striking more often and hitting a wider range of targets. In addition to AVTs and fuel storage tanks, they are hitting deep-processing units that are harder to repair and require imported spare parts.
   12. According to Bloomberg, all of this has driven gasoline output down 13% year-on-year as of late May — close to the threshold at which the country would face a fuel shortage. Since then, strikes on refineries have continued, although repairs to the damaged plants are also underway.
   13. The Moscow refinery belonging to Gazprom Neft had until recently suffered comparatively little from Ukrainian strikes — hit only sporadically, with long gaps between attacks. The plant sits within a powerful air defense zone and has its own point-defense systems, which are clearly more numerous than those at most other facilities.
   14. The difficulty of penetrating those defenses paradoxically creates not only technical challenges but political benefits for Ukraine: if Ukraine’s Armed Forces begin routinely breaking through the layered protection, it will demonstrate to Ukrainian and Russian society alike — and to the West — the weakness of the Kremlin.
   15. The June 18 breakthrough appears to have involved a substantial drone formation. Russia’s Defense Ministry called it a record, claiming nearly a thousand UAVs were shot down — though those claims are not credible.
   16. What can be said with certainty is that the attack was unusual.
   17. * It made heavy use not only of the traditional long-range … drones but also of other systems …
   18. * The attack … set a record for the number of drone strikes captured on video …
   19. * Video footage also captured numerous misses by interceptor missiles from the Russian surface-to-air missile systems defending the plant.
   20. * There is not a single video showing a drone being definitively brought down by any weapon other than interceptor missiles.
   21. … Ukraine’s Armed Forces struck several units and fuel storage tanks at the refinery. Drones also came down on the grounds of the nearby Sadovod market, on apartment buildings, and on construction sites in adjacent residential neighborhoods. That last detail suggests that when Ukraine’s Armed Forces compiled the flight mission, they may have been working from outdated digital maps rather than fresh satellite imagery — maps on which new buildings and construction cranes had not been marked.
   22. [MIKE: Ukraine has claimed multiple times that they do not target civilians or civilian structures. Naturally, we have only their word for that. These hits may have been accidental, or not. Continuing …]
   23. … So why has [Russian] air defense stopped coping with Ukrainian attacks?
   24. Russia began facing mass drone attacks later than Ukraine did and still lacks an integrated air defense system for countering them.
   25. There is no UAV detection system covering all border regions, let alone territory deeper inside the country. Ukraine, by contrast, has built a layered detection complex consisting of: 1) intelligence assets that provide warning of launches; 2) a radar network capable of tracking low-flying, slow-moving targets; and 3) a network of acoustic sensors that detect drones by engine sound.
   26. Russia also lacks a system for automatically sharing information between different sensors and UAV-intercept weapons.
   27. [Russia faces] a shortage of layered, specialized drone-intercept weapons. Ukraine’s defense system involves both aviation — various types of aircraft and helicopters that can be rapidly repositioned along a drone formation’s flight path — and mobile fire teams equipped with interceptor drones incorporating machine-vision elements. These teams cover both the flight approaches of UAVs and the protection of specific facilities.
   28. Ukraine receives a significant portion of its equipment — including many radars — from the West. Even so, this defense is not absolutely effective, and beyond the Kyiv area, attacks by drones alone — even without combining them with missile strikes — still pose a serious threat.
   29. Russia’s armed forces rely more heavily on point defense of individual facilities, which is easier to overwhelm with a large number of targets. The backbone of that defense consists of surface-to-air missile systems (SAMs), whose numbers and production rates are limited. [Their] air defense system was designed to repel aircraft raids and small numbers of cruise missiles. The appearance in its coverage zone of dozens of drones flying at low altitude — often without advance warning from command — complicates the task of countering attacks.
   30. Russian aviation participates in repelling attacks, but the assets committed are clearly insufficient. Mobile fire teams are also in short supply, and their weapons — primarily machine-gun mounts with specialized sights and man-portable SAMs — are not very effective against UAVs.
   31. Russian interceptor drones … are deployed at the front, where they engage small and medium-sized drones. They carry no warheads and are therefore unlikely to be suitable for destroying large UAVs weighing hundreds of kilograms.
   32. [MIKE: I’ll personally note, one must remember that anything shot down lands somewhere, leaving lots of falling debris and possibly-unexploded ordnance landing in areas other than the intended targets. Continuing …]
   33. The Russian military is developing other defensive tools and approaches, but most are still in the testing phase. …
   34. Assembling these weapons into an integrated system could take many months — time during which Ukraine’s Armed Forces could further scale up drone production and acquire additional mass-strike capabilities.
   35. MIKE: If the US and its allies haven’t figured it out yet, this story should be seen as a flashing red danger light of warning about the new reality of long-range warfare.
   36. MIKE: It’s no longer just artillery, missiles, and drones. Now, defense must be planned to counter massive swarms of one-way kamikaze drones.
   37. MIKE: Imagine trying to shoot down a swarm of locusts, having to target each locust individually or in only small clusters of locusts. If the rest of the locusts get through, your crops are ruined.
   38. MIKE: This is the analogy that our military strategists and our defense-industrial base need to be planning for, and they need to be doing it urgently.
   39. MIKE: Unfortunately, I haven’t yet seen evidence of true urgency based on stories I’ve been running across.
   40. MIKE: I’ve read that you can’t stockpile drones. The tech changes so fast that drones rapidly become obsolete. Nonetheless, perhaps we can start to stockpile drone airframes and components that can be rapidly adapted to changing circumstance in times of war.
   41. MIKE: We absolutely should be using Ukraine’s drone and anti-drone tech to develop our own. Why we are not aggressively doing this is a mystery to me.
7. The following article from FOREIGNAFFAIRS[.]COM is information-dense, so I’ll be reading it a bit more slowly than usual. I’m a visual person, and I learn better by seeing than hearing. If you’re like me and want to really digest the case made here at your leisure, I’ll recommend clicking on the link to the story at today’s show post at ThinkwingRadio[.]com. The original story includes graphs that help clarify what’s being explained. Let’s begin. The title is — China Is Pulling Up the Ladder Behind It – How Beijing’s Export Strategy Will Keep Poor Countries Poor; By Shoumitro Chatterjee and Arvind Subramanian | FOREIGNAFFAIRS.COM | June 18, 2026. TAGS: China, Economics, Economic Development, Foreign Policy, Currency Valuation, Currency Manipulation, Dollar Dominance, Renminbi Valuation, Yuan Valuation,
   1. China is increasingly embracing the mantle that comes with being a global superpower. Its rise is forcing the rest of the world to assess its credentials as a potential hegemon and a provider of public goods. And in one significant area, its strength may be a real weakness.
   2. Many poorer countries fear that China’s economic rise will not leave room for them to industrialize. Unlike the United States and European countries, which in the past helped facilitate the industrialization of poorer countries (including China), Beijing is currently on track to have the opposite effect.
   3. China is not merely climbing the technological ladder; it is pulling up the ladder behind it. It dominates the new commanding heights of manufacturing — electric vehicles, solar panels, batteries, drones — but it has not vacated the older, labor-intensive sectors through which it and other rich and middle-income countries escaped poverty. In effect, China is trying to do what economic theory says no country should be able to do: retain comparative advantage in almost everything.
   4. That gambit is all the more striking in an era when global imbalances are once again widening. China’s trade surplus measured as a share of world GDP is at a historic high. The International Monetary Fund has warned that external imbalances and the attendant trade consequences are generating negative spillovers for trading partners.
   5. As Brad Setser and Shahin Valée wrote recently in Foreign Affairs, Chinese currency manipulation is undermining the global trading system. The last great era of Chinese surpluses, roughly in the first decade of this century, produced what several scholars have called the first “China shock”: a surge of exports into the United States that hollowed out swaths of American manufacturing. That shock transformed American politics and helped create a rare bipartisan consensus against free trade and against China.
   6. The new shock is different. It is landing less in the United States, where tariffs, bans, and national security restrictions have blunted Chinese import competition by fiat. It is more visibly affecting Europe, and especially Germany, whose industrial model was built around the internal combustion engine and its associated high-end engineering ecosystem. China’s rise in electric vehicles and green technologies has turned a commercial challenge into an existential one for many European industries.
   7. But the focus on how China’s economic strategy affects the United States and Europe has obscured a larger problem. The most consequential victims of the current China shock are not workers in Detroit or Stuttgart, but future workers in places such as Addis Ababa, Dhaka, Lagos, Nairobi, Phnom Penh, Surat, and Tirupur. Their losses cannot be measured mainly in job cuts or factory closures, but rather in terms of factories never built, export markets never entered, capabilities never accumulated, and development paths never opened. That is the real toll of what is now called the “China squeeze.”
   8. The stakes of the China squeeze are immense. The issue is not only hundreds of billions of dollars in forgone exports; it is whether latecomers to development still have access to the most reliable path of structural transformation the world has known.
   9. Historically, almost every country that escaped from poverty to prosperity did so by relying on manufacturing exports: garments, toys, footwear, furniture, electronics assembly, and other sectors that absorb large numbers of less-skilled workers while building firms, logistics, know-how, and state capacity. China benefited enormously from an open trading system that allowed it to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty through manufacturing for the global market. China’s own rise may now block that same path for countries poorer than itself.
   10. Much of China’s manufacturing trade surplus (the difference between its exports and imports) sits precisely where poorer countries should have their greatest opportunity. Of China’s total manufacturing surplus of about $2.2 trillion, roughly $700 billion to $1.4 trillion is concentrated in low-skill-intensive sectors such as apparel, footwear, toys, furniture, and electronics assembly, the very areas in which low- and middle-income countries with vast labor pools compete most directly with China.
   11. The simplest measure of this dynamic is China’s share of global exports in low-skill goods. China’s share of gross exports, including final goods such as shirts or shoes, rose sharply starting in the early 1990s, peaked at over 60 percent in 2014, and then declined. That pattern suggests the squeeze may have eased.
   12. But gross exports miss much of the story. A shirt is not just a shirt. It is fabric, yarn, zippers, and buttons, but also packaging, logistics, and design. Accounting for the total value embedded in exports (what economists call “value-added exports”) — a better proxy for the jobs and capabilities created along the supply chain — China’s share of low-skill goods has not meaningfully fallen.
   13. It has continued to rise, apart from a brief dip. China has not only dominated final assembly, but has increasingly also dominated the production of the downstream inputs that go into final assembly: fewer shirts but more of the yarn, zippers, buttons, and so forth that go into making clothing.
   14. Economists can determine whether this dominance is excessive. They can ask, for instance, whether China’s share of low-skilled exports is commensurate with its share of the world’s low-skilled labor. And they can ask how China compares with today’s advanced economies when they were at a similar level of income. Together, these measures can help assess the extent to which China is distorting the global economy.
   15. In labor-intensive manufacturing, a country’s share of world exports should broadly track its share of the world’s low-skilled labor, or at least the two should not diverge massively even if technologies and productivities are similar across countries. At the start of the twenty-first century, among all lower- and middle-income countries, China’s share of low-skilled labor and its share of value-added exports were roughly aligned. Since then, they have diverged sharply. Between 2013 and 2023, China’s value-added export share remained at about 64 percent, even as its share of the labor force fell by three percentage points. According to this benchmark, China’s “excess” exports rose from 33 to 36 percent of all global exports from lower- and middle-income countries.
   16. The magnitudes are large. For apparel, textiles, leather, and footwear, this excess amounted to about $110 billion in value-added exports in 2022. Across all low-skill sectors, we estimate excess value-added exports of more than $355 billion in 2022. That export space could have supported tens of millions of manufacturing jobs in poorer economies. Value-added data beyond 2022 are not yet available, but data on gross exports until 2024 show a similar trend.
   17. Comparison with the past offers a similar sense of the scale of the current distortion. When today’s rich countries were as rich as China is now, they had already ceded much more low-skill manufacturing space to others. After adjusting for income levels and for the fact that goods are more tradable today because of lower transport costs and trade barriers, we calculate that advanced economies at China’s current level of per capita GDP had a global export share of about eight percent in comparable sectors. China’s share today is much higher, at 27 percent. The gap, multiplied by current global gross exports, implies excess Chinese exports of about $140 billion in the four labor-intensive sectors of apparel, textiles, leather, and footwear, a figure close to the $110 billion estimate from focusing on low-skilled labor share.
   18. Two very different comparisons therefore yield the same conclusion: China’s continued dominance in low-skill manufacturing is historically unusual and economically consequential. The biggest proportional gains from a relaxation of the squeeze would likely accrue to sub-Saharan Africa, where low-skill exports are currently only about $12 billion.
   19. If countries in the region had more room in global markets (and enacted better domestic policies, such as deregulating their economies and reducing the costs and risks of doing business) they could increase such exports severalfold. East Asian and South Asian economies could also see large gains, with low-skill exports rising by 75 to 175 percent.
   20. China alone does not explain every missed opportunity in a poorer country. Domestic constraints still matter enormously. But China’s dominance narrows the possibilities available to poorer countries and makes it harder for them to plot a reliable way forward.
   21. The effect of the China squeeze on lower- and middle-income countries is too large to dismiss. But the causes also matter. If China’s dominance reflects genuine accomplishments in boosting the country’s productivity — through gains in scale, logistics, automation, and managerial quality, and through fierce domestic competition — then poorer countries should respond to the current situation by seeking to improve their own competitiveness. If that dominance reflects subsidies, financial repression, or exchange rate distortion, then it is an indictment of the global trading system.
   22. China’s dominance has persisted even as its wages have surged. Data from the UN Industrial Development Organization show that Chinese manufacturing wages are now far above those in most competitor countries and are still rising. In apparel, annual wages in China average around $10,000, about five times such wages in Bangladesh and four times those in India. Conventional theories about trade hold that such wage gaps should allow lower-wage economies to carve a greater slice of the global export pie. They have not. China remains formidable even in sectors where its labor-cost advantage has long disappeared.
   23. [MIKE: I’m going to pause here for a moment and discuss this annual Chinese wage that is stated as US$10,000. Because the Chinese renminbi is so undervalued, this number is deceptively high. The exchange rate of US dollars to Chinese Renminbi — usually called Chinese Yuan — is just under 6.8 per dollar. That means that in local currency, a low Chinese wage is about 67,000 yuan. For purchasing domestically-produced goods and services, that’s an upper working class wage. What really matters for the purposes of real purchasing power is what a Chinese worker earns in Chinese currency. An equivalent dollar value of income only becomes limiting if the earner wants imported goods, which the state-manipulated exchange rate makes prohibitively expensive for most Chinese. I’ll get into this a bit more later. Continuing …]
   24. One possibility is that China’s productivity advantage is simply large enough to offset its wage disadvantage. Its workers might toil 15 hours a day and its firms operate with the benefit of automation, deep supplier networks, dense industrial clusters, world-class logistics systems, and an ecosystem that can scale production with extraordinary speed. These advantages are real. But distinguishing genuine competitiveness from policy distortion requires dis-aggregated firm-level data on productivity, wages, subsidies, credit, ownership, and export performance.
   25. For more than a decade, such data have been largely unavailable to researchers outside China, making serious diagnosis, including assessing the effect of automation, very difficult.
   26. Industrial policy is another possible explanation. China has long used subsidies, directed credit, government procurement practices, and local government support to strengthen manufacturing. Yet research by the International Monetary Fund and the Federal Reserve suggests that China targets subsidies more heavily toward high-tech sectors than toward traditional labor-intensive industries. That may help explain China’s success in electric vehicles, batteries, solar panels, and drones. It does less to explain its abiding dominance in apparel, footwear, toys, and basic assembly.
   27. That leaves the exchange rate. Several analysts have argued that the renminbi remains undervalued by 15 to 25 percent.
   28. [MIKE: I want to pause here again because this is a critical observation. If the Chinese yuan was 15-25% more expensive on the currency market, that could make Chinese exports up to 15-25% more expensive. It would also make imports less This one change by itself — letting the yuan float on the currency market without Chinese government intervention — would do a great deal to reduce China’s trade advantage. It would reduce their trade surpluses, and make room in other countries for new and expanding manufacturing jobs and infrastructure. This is another detail that I’ll get into in my comments at the end. Continuing …]
   29. China’s foreign exchange intervention tracks its global market share in low-skill goods: [In parallel with the frequency of its intervention in keeping the renminbi relatively weak,] between 2013 and 2018, its global export share declined; thereafter, its global export share rose, [in response to its manipulation of weakening] the renminbi. If the renminbi has been kept artificially cheap, the effect is equivalent to a broad subsidy to Chinese exporters and a tax on foreign producers. It would make Chinese goods cheaper in global markets and foreign goods more expensive in China — precisely the combination that would sustain the China squeeze.
   30. What can be done to redress the China squeeze? Poor countries might look to other trading partners for help. For example, the European Union and Japan can negotiate and deepen free trade agreements with poorer countries so that they can get more favorable terms of access that could partially offset China’s advantage. Large countries and the International Monetary Fund can lean on China to address its undervalued currency.
   31. Unfortunately, lower- and middle-income countries have only limited negotiating leverage with China. After all, Beijing has been relatively impervious to demands even from Washington to open its markets. U.S. President Donald Trump retreated from imposing high tariffs on China when it threatened to restrict exports of critical minerals.
   32. Any corrective action, therefore, would have to come from China itself. If it assesses, correctly, that the United States has become an unreliable and unstable hegemon, it could see value in offering an alternative to Washington, as an actor able to help prevent a breakdown of the international trading order. But that would require abandoning actions that inflict harm on poorer countries. It has taken some salutary symbolic steps, giving up its developing-country status at the World Trade Organization, which, in principle, makes it harder for it to dole out subsidies to its firms. It has also lowered tariff barriers to some poorer countries. But it can and must do more.
   33. It could, for example, extend duty-free access to all labor-intensive imports into China from all developing countries. A radical option, consistent with attempting to boost consumption within China, would be to go further and subsidize imports of labor-intensive goods from poor countries so that importers get a payment from the Chinese government, which they pass on to Chinese consumers in the form of lower prices.
   34. At the very least, it should not stymie the transfer of valuable expertise to other countries as it did in 2025, when Beijing pressured the manufacturer Foxconn to repatriate 300 managers and engineers from India.
   35. Beyond trade, China could proactively encourage its entrepreneurs to set up manufacturing plants in poor countries with the greatest potential. This would complement its Belt and Road Initiative, the vast investment program that focuses on infrastructure and commodities.
   36. Even on the exchange rate, there could now be an opening. China, like other countries, has long chafed under the dollar’s financial dominance. That dominance is eroding as a result of U.S. actions and growing doubt about the reliability of American institutions. It would make sense for Beijing to now accelerate the internationalization of the renminbi.
   37. That would entail real costs in terms of strengthening the currency and potentially hurting Chinese exports, but it could offer a far greater prize: a realistic shot at rivaling dollar dominance. And a correction in the currency’s undervaluation would generate many positive spillovers for poor countries.
   38. Together, such measures might have some negative consequences, mainly in hitting lower-skilled Chinese exports. But they would be a boon for Beijing in a different way. If China’s leaders want to take on more of the mantle of global leadership, they must understand that leadership works not simply through domination but by facilitating the rise of others. To truly take advantage of the waning of American hegemony, China must not only distinguish itself from this current protectionist and erratic iteration of the United States; it must also break with its own record of mercantilism.
   39. MIKE: In 2003, the exchange rate of the US dollar to the Chinese yuan was a bit more than 8.2 to the US dollar. I was in China around that time, and that tracks with my memory of the exchange rate.
   40. MIKE: If anything, China is much more dominant in international trade now than it was 20 years ago. This matters because it’s contrary to how exchange rates in a floating currency regime are supposed to work.
   41. MIKE: In my lay opinion, given its trade dominance and trade surpluses, the Chinese yuan should be somewhere between 4 or 5 to the US dollar. This would dramatically impact current global trade patterns. It would also make that RMB67,000 wage in equivalent US dollars realistically lower.
   42. MIKE: Like most other things, exchange rates fluctuate with supply and demand. Businesses in various countries usually like to be paid in their local currency, so contracts are typically priced in the seller’s currency. This protects the seller, but can wreak havoc on the buyer if currency values swing wildly.
   43. MIKE: To pay for imported merchandise, companies have to go on the open currency market to buy, in this case, Chinese yuan. This is where supply and demand become relevant. Buying yuan creates demand for it, and in a normal market, that should drive up the value of the yuan relative to the currency of the country in which the buyer does business.
   44. MIKE: In the case of countries with big export surpluses, this increase in the value of a nation’s currency should make the products it sells more expensive relative to the customer’s buying power.
   45. MIKE: The end result should be fewer sales by a country with rising currency value and more demand for imports from that country. In combination, this should reduce trade surpluses and balance out international balance sheets.
   46. MIKE: I’ve said many times before that the value of the US dollar is irrationally high. In April of 2026, US trade had a net deficit of almost $56 billion, and the US hasn’t run a trade surplus in decades.
   47. MIKE: According to Macrotrends[.]net, the US has run an average annual trade deficit of about $800 billion — plus or minus — every year for at least 20 years. That means that based on simple math, there’s about $16 trillion sloshing around overseas that we have not balanced out with our exports just since 2006.
   48. MIKE: I hope you’ll forgive me for getting into the weeds on this for a while.
   49. MIKE: I asked Google Ai the question, “What should the value of the US dollar be if the world lost confidence in the dollar?”
   50. MIKE: According to an article in CEPR[.]ORG, “the US enjoys an ‘exorbitant privilege’– borrowing at low interest rates, running persistently large trade deficits, [and] printing money to finance these deficits without fear of inflation —that the US could lose” because “Financial markets are becoming aware that President Trump’s policies are undermining the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.”
   51. MIKE: The answer on Centralbanking[.]com was that because of its privileged status as the world’s premier reserve currency, the US dollar is currently worth about $33 trillion, but they emphasize, “on paper”.
   52. MIKE: It bases this on a scholarly paper published in May 2026 which says in part, “We find that a complete loss of reserve currency status would lead to a moderate 8.8% real depreciation of the dollar. On the other hand, there is a larger 90 basis point increase in U.S. real interest rates, and consequently an aggregate wealth loss of approximately $33 trillion.”
   53. MIKE: Based on some other responses I got, that may be very conservative.
   54. MIKE: Getting back to what I consider the crux of the story which I’ll remind you was titled, “China Is Pulling Up the Ladder Behind It – How Beijing’s Export Strategy Will Keep Poor Countries Poor,” the artificially low value of China’s currency relative to other currencies is a form of economic warfare; no more, no less.
   55. MIKE: In the case of poor countries, it encourages their people to import Chinese goods instead of establishing local businesses that can provide and export goods of their own.
   56. MIKE: China’s current economic and geopolitical actions — let’s call them ‘strategies’ — amount to 18^th century mercantilism. Here’s why.
   57. MIKE: According to Brittanica[.]com, “mercantilism [was an] economic theory and practice common in Europe from the 16th to the 18th century that promoted governmental regulation of a nation’s economy for the purpose of augmenting state power at the expense of rival national powers. … It was believed that trade balances must be “favourable,” meaning an excess of exports over imports. Colonial possessions should serve as markets for exports and as suppliers of raw materials to the mother country. Manufacturing was forbidden in colonies, and all commerce between colony and mother country was held to be a monopoly of the mother country.”
   58. MIKE: Mercantilism was partly a cause for the American Revolution, and based on the definitions and information I’ve found, I feel it’s fair to say that China’s economic policies make it a neocolonialist mercantilist nation.
   59. MIKE: China’s trade policies — starting with its manipulation of the value of its currency — can be described as predatory. China is indeed economically assaulting all the nations of the world, rich and poor, though as always, the poor nations feel it the most.
   60. MIKE: The world needs to impel China to change its trade and currency policies so that global trade can work the way it’s supposed to.
   61. MIKE: While Trump and his Republican Party are in control of US policies, we can’t expect any improvement in our economic and financial situation relative to China, but we can hope that elections still have consequences.

There’s always more to discuss, but that’s all we have time for today.