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 Buy locally and save, money, time, and stress A Yeshiva in Jerusalem, Men are studying. |
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This is the interconnecting Web of Major Corporations that produce the International Brands that you buy.You have a choice, You can be their Slave and buy from them or you can support your local people and Buy locally thereby defeat the New World Order that wants you DEAD!Is 1984 Becoming a Reality? – George Orwell’s Warning to the World 10 Corporations That Control Almost Everything You Buy  World’s technology companies are interlinked |
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Unilever through it’s Subsidiary Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream has an active Boycott against the Jews living in the Land of Israel. It is time to Boycott the Boycotters! Unilever Brands Update 29June2022: BDS FAILED! Unilever Sells Ben & Jerry’s Israeli Business To Defuse BDS Row TO LOCAL ISREALI licensee OWNER https://www.benjerry.co.il/ |
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Ben and Jerry’s Israel-All Kashrut Cholov Yisroel NO Kitniyot-Pesach Ice Cream
 Michael Dickson-tweet-16March2023-Passover flavors of Israeli-owned Ben & Jerry’s  Ben and Jerry’s-All-Kashrut-Pesach-כל-כשרויות-פסח Ben & Jerry’s new flavor for Lag B’Omer, ‘S’mores’ Ben & Jerry’s new flavor for Lag B’Omer, ‘S’mores’  Ben & Jerry’s new Lag B’Omer S’mores flavor |
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Top social media companies in the world that control your Mind. Top social media companies in the world
 Garbage For Your Body – Garbage For Your Mind MSM is the mouthpiece of leftist elite. – Nothing but garbage These 6 Corporations Control 90% Of The Media In America The Epoch Times: Infographic: Twitter Files INFOGRAPHIC: Key Revelations of the ‘Twitter Files’ – The Epoch Times https://www.theepochtimes.com/infographic-key-revelations-of-the-twitter-files_4986669.html Click to Enlarge INFOGRAPHIC: Key Revelations of the ‘Twitter Files’ – The Epoch Times |
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“It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.”
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Globalism Is The Real Pandemicby Tyler Durden, 22September2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/globalism-real-pandemic Authored by Martin Enlund via Under Orion blog,
TL;DR: Contrary to their stated goals, centralized solutions and globalism are poised to increase disaster risk, undermine knowledge production, impede economic growth, and hinder scientific progress. They should also be rejected on ethical grounds.  Globalism
The drawbacks of extensive centralization (globalism) have been discussed previously, including the fact that it empowers the wrong individuals. However, as proponents of global centralization continue to advance their positions – see e.g. the discussions around the WHO’s new pandemic treaty, it is high time to remind ourselves of more of the downsides associated with centralization.
In this text, I present three additional reasons why the idea of large-scale and centralized solutions should be rejected. They increase the risk of disasters, undermine knowledge production and economic development, and should also be dismissed on ethical grounds. Risk of CatastrophesA society constitutes a complex system. Complex systems exhibit properties that emerge due to dependencies and interactions among their parts. This makes it impossible to understand the whole by merely examining its parts. Butterfly effects are a consequence – a small event can have far-reaching and unpredictable consequences. Such a system can be likened to a tangle of blackberry bushes. Everything is intertwined with everything else, and the only certainty is that you will encounter unintended consequences when you try to reach the berries. These consequences are often painful. Given that today’s experts treat society as if it were a complicated system rather than a complex one, it’s not surprising that they are often taken aback by unintended consequences, such as the recent years’ inflation.
In complex systems, solutions cannot be calculated; instead, one must experiment on a small scale. Even if small-scale experiments yield positive results, it may not be prudent to expand them. It can also be argued that centralization is a necessary condition for catastrophes to occur.
The consequences of experimenting on a large scale are well illustrated by China’s Great Leap Forward, where an estimated 30 million people perished due to famine. Fewer would have died if China had engaged in small-scale experiments first. However, this is what centrally planned and large-scale “solutions” prevent. Rather than consolidating more power into organizations like the UN, EU, or WHO, it is wiser not to put all our eggs in one basket. Undermined Knowledge Production and Economic StagnationLarge-scale centralization “one size fits all”-solutions, has significant implications for knowledge production worldwide and in the business sector. After all, insights into the nature of things don’t originate in spreadsheets; they emerge when hypotheses are tested in reality, and one observes the results. The more hypotheses that can be tested, the more knowledge will be generated. Centralized large-scale systems test fewer hypotheses and, as a result, will experience stagnation in terms of knowledge compared to decentralized systems. Since economic development relies on human ingenuity, centralization will lead to lower sustainable growth, possibly outright stagnation. Biologists recognize that small groups in isolation undergo rapid evolution, and the same concept applies in this context.
Furthermore, when all individuals or groups are subjected to identical rules, the existence of control groups is eliminated. Without control groups, it becomes impossible to make scientifically valid claims about efficiency or causality. Consequently, centralization undermines the foundation of science.
“Socialism primarily means keeping track of everything,” said Lenin, and he is likely correct. However, it’s unfortunate for him and other central planning bureaucrats that it’s just not feasible. The information required for successful planning is dispersed and cannot be collected by either a planning committee or an AI. Believing otherwise indicates a lack of understanding of the local knowledge problem.
In the business world, decentralization is widely recognized as a potent force. Large corporations resist change and stagnate, making them less competitive than smaller counterparts when it comes to exploring new niches and markets through small-scale experiments. This observation applies to governmental, supranational, and global organizations as well. Is UnethicalThe principle of subsidiarity is an ethical guideline originating from the Catholic Church, which suggests that decisions should be made at the most appropriate and lowest level of authority. The Church’s interest lies not in disaster risk, knowledge production, or economics but in the souls of individuals.
Rerum Novarum, issued in 1891 by Pope Leo XIII, addressed the social conflicts arising in the wake of the industrial revolution. The Catholic Church took a stand in favor of subsidiarity based on reasons related to community, dignity, justice, and self-governance. 40 years later, Pope Pius XI issued Quadragesimo Anno, in which he described the significant dangers to human freedom and dignity arising from unbridled capitalism, socialism, and communism. Pius spoke out against a few individuals controlling financial forces and advocated for the principle of subsidiarity. It would be intriguing to know what these popes would say about the ongoing globalist Fourth Industrial Revolution.
For the countries that formed the Coal and Steel Union, which later evolved into the EU, subsidiarity was of utmost importance. Today, this principle seems to have vanished. Instead of respecting the uniqueness of nations, higher-level entities instead engage in bullying. Let’s Aim for a New Renaissance InsteadRather than centralization, globalization, and large-scale control, we should strive for the exact opposite.
Complexity research indicates that when a system finds the “critical point” between order and chaos, it exhibits remarkable qualities of adaptability, innovation, and disturbance management. Isn’t it precisely such a balance we should seek as a society, as a world? A return to more decentralized systems would reduce disaster risks, promote stronger economic development, and, according to the Church, create a more decent and ethical society.
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.” Matthew 23:2-18.
As for heaven, my knowledge is limited, but I am starting to suspect that it’s the proponents of centralization and their many foot soldiers who are blocking our path towards a new renaissance. * * * If you wish to subscribe, sign up here! |
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Time To Boycott Elon’s Boycottersby Tyler Durden, 30November2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/political/boycotting-elons-boycotters
It was about four years ago that ZeroHedge went through ad monetization hell, having lost most of our advertisers because they did not approve of the content on this website and as a result they – together with such members of the Censorship Industrial Complex such as Newsguard, Sleeping Giants and CheckMyAds and various three letter US government agencies – did everything in their power to kill the site by starving it of ad revenue (it’s what prompted us to launch a premium, subscription-supported version without which we would not have survived, and therefore we wish to personally thank all of our premium subscribers).
Fast forward to today, when Elon Musk is going through the same hell, as a growing group of companies are trying to do to X/Twitter what they tried to do to us by targeting the social media network and trying to starve it of ad revenue (their stated trigger of responding to the Media Matters fake news “report” was just a red herring: if it hadn’t been for Media Matters, they would have found some other point of “virtue” to rally around, and pull their ads).
Of course, there is one key difference: Elon is the world’s richest man, and if Twitter does not generate even one additional dollar of revenue, Elon will still be a multi-billionaire, and X can continue to operate for a long, long time if not in perpetuity (if costs are trimmed enough). It’s also why Elon yesterday had some choice words for those advertisers who had halted advertising, telling them “go fuck yourself” (with a shout out to Disney chief Bob Iger) if they think they can blackmail Musk… which is precisely what ad demonetization is: a not so subtle way of pushing content and editorial direction in exchange for a monthly stipend.
 Nelson Epega-tweet-29November2023-ELON MUSK GOING VIRAL
Here, a brief tangent: for the most part, advertising spending is rarely about actual “advertising” and instead it is about endorsing, encouraging and funding certain ideologies and party lines which corporations agree with, encourage and seek to make default. It is about influencing the content decisions and editorial slant by implicitly threatening that the ad money can disappear at a moment’s notice if something is published the company disagrees with. It’s why when Pfizer or Moderna spend tens of millions for advertising in the NYT it is not so people are aware that Pfizer makes a covid booster shot – they know that from non-stop news coverage; it is to make sure that the NYT never questions the corporate party line. In other words, it is public relations in an advertising wrapper. Add to this lobby spending and political donations by those same corporations, and you have a fusion of the corporate, political and media branches, all superglued together with lots of money (and in the case of Pfizer and Moderna, it’s taxpayer money) something which in simpler times has been called fascism. Glenn Greenwald recaps this dynamic in the clip below:
That corporate “journalists” were shocked and horrified by this defiance of establishment power so perfectly encapsulates the fraud at the center of their increasingly irrelevant industry: @GGreenwald: “If you’re a journalist, the thing that you should hate more than anything is any force or any influence that tries to limit your freedom to speak… If you aren’t willing to say [“Go f*ck yourself”] to corporations who are trying to limit what you can say, don’t bother calling yourself a journalist… The problem is is that the people who are hired by these major media corporations—and who thrive in them and succeed in them—are people who have the opposite instinct: Their instinct is to assuage and serve and placate establishment power, not to defy it.” https://rumble.com/v3ynsmr-system-update-show-189.html  System Update-tweet-30November2023-Elon Musk to boycotting corporate advertisers
As a result, ad companies have unlimited leverage when it comes to dealing with most media companies… except one: X, which as noted above, is controlled by the world’s richest man, and thus advertiser leverage in this particular case is virtually non-existent. It’s also why instead of pretending they can influence the narrative (and force X to pursue the same censorship as were implemented by the former management team of its predecessor, Twitter) they are simply pulling away and hoping to crush this bastion of free speech, the same way they did to us.
The problem, as Musk laid out, is that while X can sustain without ad revenue for a long time, a complete ad boycott will likely eventually kill X as Musk is unlikely to shoulder the burden of its costs and expenses out of his own pocket indefinitely, and as a result, “what the advertising boycott is going to do is it’s going to kill the company.”
“What the advertising boycott is going to do is it’s going to kill the company. The whole world will know that those advertisers killed the company and we will document it in great detail. Let’s see how Earth responds.”  Citizen Free Press-tweet-30November2023-Elon Musk will let X die before he caves to advertisers
And while Musk is ready to let X die before he folds to advertiser blackmail, he is confident that “the whole world will know that those advertisers killed the company and we will document it in great detail. Let’s see how Earth responds.”
In other words, the only way these corporations, whether for woke, neo-conservative, militant, progressive, or any other reason, will stop trying to demonetize websites such a X, ZH or any other media outlet they have no leverage over in hopes of snuffing them out, is if the public takes the fight straight to them and starves them of revenue. Think the sales implosion at Tranheuser Busch/Bud Light after the Dylan Mulvaney fiasco, or the collapse of Target stock after the anti-woke backlash.
So yes, the only way that corporate management teams will ever stop weaponizing ad dollars – especially if it means losing access to one of the wealthiest audiences, such as that of Zerohedge, or one of the most engaged readership bases such as that of X, is if their shareholders lose enough money and force management to either change or be fired.
Which is why it is time to boycott the boycotters: below we have summarized the names of those companies which have publicly signaled their “virtue” by pulling their ads from X/Musk.
We are confident there are many more companies that have also pulled their
Yes, Apple has no obligation to advertise on X, and neither does Disney, but nobody has an obligation to buy iPhones or to go to (the idiotically overpriced) Disney World. And since boycotting Musk is nothing more than a ploy to project influence (where else does one have the guarantee of reaching the eyeballs of the world’s most influential, powerful and richest), it’s only fair that retaliation against corporate attempts to starve the First Amendment, takes place in kind.
Which is why the time to boycott the boycotters has arrived: let’s find out how these leftist corporations – and their shareholders – like it when their revenues suffer the way that they hope to make Musk suffer; judging by the grassroots response already, we won’t have long to wait.
 Insider Paper-tweet-30November2023-Users on X-mass cancellation of Disney subscriptions
 @amuse-tweet-30November2023-FREE SPEECH
𝕏 is the only big tech platform fighting for freedom of speech online. These slimy corporations should feel ashamed of themselves for trying to suppress free speech in America: -@Apple -@comcast -@Disney -@warnerbros -@washingtonpost -@Discovery -@IBM -@NBCUniversal -@ParamountPics -@Lionsgate Video by the great: @drefanzor  KanekoaTheGrea-tweet-30November2023-Support @elonmusk
 MatthewXRP-tweet-30November2023-I just canceled my Disney+
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Big Companies Are Predatory, Big Governments Do Dumb Thingsby Tyler Durden .05September2022 – 06:50 PM https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/big-companies-are-predatory-big-governments-do-dumb-things Authored by Bruce Wilds via Advancing Time blog, Mankind faces a toxic mix when it comes to protecting our freedom. Big companies are predatory, big governments are stupid. The thing they have in common is they both want more control and power. China is a good example of trying to combine both, this experiment however seems to be crumbling before our eyes. Yes, where the powerful forces of global companies and big governments meet is at the intersection of Globalization and the World Economic Forum’s vision of the future.
The whole concept of people power or that the masses have at any time the ability to just say no is constructed around the rather utopian or optimistic view that people can agree on what is in their self-interest. In truth when you push away the emotional high garnered from the vision of a quick clean non-violent rebellion, we are the underdog in this ongoing struggle for control of our lives. History shows the so-called masses are seldom able to come together on anything.
Keeping us divided and docile is a tool used to prevent unrest from boiling over and those in charge use it well. When people do rise up, achieving reform is more difficult to accomplish than simply promising it. The head may change but it often inherits the same old body of government workers that are resistant to change. True improvement tends to flow from evolution rather than revelation. The reason rebellions fail is often because those rebelling generally replace one bad government with another.
The idea that a large government hanging above us to regulate our lives will solve our problems has proven to be a fallacy. It could be argued the larger governments become the less responsive they become. Government bureaucracies tend to get bogged down in their mission to serve the people. They also have a huge problem balancing their mission to serve with their natural inclination to extend control over just about everything including our lives. This is often done under the claim it is for the “greater good.”
Mega global companies and big government are the two largest threats to our freedom. Throughout history, monopolies of any kind have demonstrated a natural propensity to abuse the people, and governments have exhibited the ability to do dumb things that benefit the few rather than the masses. We see this in their inclination to rush to war and how they rapidly include cronies in anything they do which corrupts the fruit of their efforts.  Top 10 Biggest Companies in the World Big Companies Tend To Be Predatory For years many economists have discounted how the greed of these companies has created and added to the many problems the world faces. For example, the main reason we have the military-industrial complex and companies rushing to make bombs is that by doing so, they gain power and add to their profits. This train of thought brings front and center the question of whether mega-global companies are working in the direction of taking over the world and even dominating governments and countries. This is in some ways an extension of the New World Order with CEOs pulling the strings. The power these companies wield is often masked behind the facade of a figurehead leader but it is very real.
Developments over the last several decades portend a shift in power from country to corporations. The argument can be made that corporations are well on their way to supplanting the state as the world’s dominant organizational structure in the future. Knowledge is power and this means power is flowing to large conglomerates and internet companies. Those that are most prominent control the communication networks collecting and storing data on all of us. They are now in a position to manipulate us in every way.
Over the years, this has resulted in a blurring of the lines between business and state. It has also shaped the world as we know it. By weaponizing the data they have collected as propaganda in a battle for our hearts and minds technology companies may hold an advantage over national governments in persuading individuals to align with their interests. This translates into enormous persuasive power and could be the key to providing corporations with a path to ultimately control populations, governments, and even nations. As they have gained power it seems these powerful global entities often lead governments around by the nose placing and have taken to placing people in a position of servitude.  Joe Biden Speech – Philadelphia PA 1September2022 Getty Images Biden’s Recent Speech Was About Control The idea that a world controlled by mega companies will be benevolent and kind ignores the greed and ambitions of those who control them and how little regard they can have for those ranked below them. In his novels, Orwell depicted how governments could take on a life of their own and criticized totalitarianism throughout his writings. Totalitarianism, the most extreme and complete form of authoritarianism is a political concept that prohibits opposition parties, restricts individual opposition to the state, and exercises an extremely high degree of control over public and private life.
As an added bonus for these behemoths they can hide behind the governments they control sucking the blood from them while remaining aloof and shielded from the evil they inflict. It is difficult to deny that in our modern world many large companies already have more power than most nations and their power continues to grow at an alarming rate. The bottom line here is the power of the people is at a strong disadvantage when it comes to reforming society. The reality of sustained “power to the people” is as rare as a unicorn in your backyard. When all is said and done, in their effort to control us, the ugly forces of monopolistic conglomerates and governments continue to turn people into pawns. |
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naked capitalismSilicon Valley Bank Fails, With Deposits of Many Venture-Backed Companies Frozen. How Bad Will the Fallout Be?Posted on March 11, 2023 by Yves Smith Silicon Valley Bank, the 16th largest in the US, was shut down and put under the control of California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation on Friday. This failure is set to send ripples across smaller technology companies. Even though there is good reason to think that uninsured depositors will eventually be made whole or nearly whole, some may have had so much of their working funds tied up at Silicon Valley Bank that it may be hard for them to find work-arounds, particularly with so many other companies in the same pickle. While is it is likely someone will cobble together financing, at what speed and on what price? One seldom-acknowledged issue with the American banking regime is that it is pretty much impossible for small to medium sized business to protect themselves from the risk of a bank failure. For operational reasons, they pretty much have to keep the money they will use for payroll at a single bank. Similarly, many companies have routine transactions that exceed the $250,000 deposit guarantee.
Reader Zephyrum explained that was no accident:
Business Insider explained that Silicon Valley Bank acted as a merchant bank, and as a result, many tech executives also had large deposits at the bank:
And based on the response of at least some customers, the collapse will have knock-on effects. From Daily Mail:
Tyrner claimed that despite having had only $56 million in revenues last year, the freezing of her >$10 million corporate account (the article discusses her CEO trying to process a wire transfer) will not impair the viability of her business, since she diversified her banking relationships. A second Daily Mail story argued that the Silicon Valley Bank deposit freeze will have serious effects:
One of our running buddies from the financial crisis days, bank stock analyst Chris Whalen, confirmed our early take yesterday, that we could soon see a rerun of the Volcker rate hikes, where the Fed had to reverse gear sooner than Volcker wanted due to damage to the banking system:
Politicians tied to Silicon Valley are calling for a bailout. But if the bank was solvent, as many claim, and just hit by a panic, a bigger bank should absorb it once it has kicked the tires. From the Economist:
And even if the bank is wound up with no losses to depositors, the failure will still make like harder for new tech companies. Again from Business Insider:
Other information about the windup courtesy Wolf Richter:
The fact that the California regulator calls itself the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation is an omen of sorts, since “financial protection” and innovation do not go together. As we wrote in ECONNED:
Admittedly, at this point, it does not look like Silicon Valley Bank walked all that much on the wild side, but was overly concentrated, both in its industry focus and its skew toward comparatively few and large depositors. But the tech industry looks set to at least have a very bad case of intestinal distress over this failure. And it’s likely, as usual, that the smaller fry, the employees, company owners, and suppliers, will take much more of a beating than the venture capitalists. |
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Aftershock: Life After Silicon Valley Bankby Tyler Durden, 15March2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/aftershock-life-after-silicon-valley-bank Authored by Michael Lebowitz via RealInvestmentAdvice.com, While headlines of bank failures and bailouts consume the media, few are contemplating the economic and financial aftershocks that will follow.
Hockey great Wayne Gretzky famously commented, “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” Let’s take his advice and consider where the economic puck will be tomorrow. The Silent Bank RunThe banking sector was experiencing a silent bank run well before Silicon Valley Bank made the headlines. Unlike the Great Depression, where lines of people clamoring for their money were blocks long, this bank run is quiet and calm. For starters, online banking makes moving money from one bank to another financial institution simple and instantaneous. Second, unlike the Depression, which happened suddenly, this bank run has been happening for a year.
Despite much higher interest rates, banks were not increasing interest rates for most of their depositors. Consequently, customers gradually moved money from banks to higher-yielding options outside the banking sector. This bank run is not necessarily about the risks of holding money at a bank, as it was in the Depression, but about the opportunity to earn higher yields elsewhere.
As we share below, commercial bank deposits are doing something they haven’t done since 1948. They are trending lower for an extended period.  commercial bank deposits-1973-2023
Bank Runs and Bank Balance SheetsTo better understand the economic implications of declining deposits and their potential aftershocks, it’s worth summarizing bank balance sheets.
Commercial bank liabilities, in the aggregate, as shown below, are primarily deposits. Deposits allow banks to lend money and therefore are the lifeline of the banking system.  Commercial bank liabilities
As the amount of bank deposits decline banks must commensurately shed assets. The following pie chart shows the assets commercial banks hold in the aggregate.  Commercial banks assets
Banks sell from the pies in the chart above to meet withdrawals. However, from an economic perspective, as we will explain, it’s not necessarily what they sell but to whom they do not lend to going forward.
Further, given the Fed’s new BTFP facility, banks are incented to hold on to Treasury and mortgage assets. As such, other asset types will be sold or, at a minimum, not added to. The other assets are loans which drive economic activity. The Bank Reaction FunctionSo, how do banks gear up for the aftershock? Banks can significantly increase deposit rates and hope to grow or at least not lose more deposits. However, doing so will reduce their profit margins and put further pressure on their stock prices. Most bank executives are paid dearly in stock. Therefore, we doubt many executives will support competitive deposit rates.
We think banks will sell assets and let existing assets mature without replacing them to match declining deposits. For such a leveraged economy, this will be a big aftershock.
Financial lending standards quantify how easy or hard it is to attain a loan. The Federal Reserve graph below shows that the number of banks tightening lending standards for various loan types is increasing. The percentage of banks with tighter standards is on par with typical recession periods. The data for the graph was taken before the Silicon Valley Bank was on anyone’s radar. We suspect the percentages will proliferate as the aftershocks of the crisis are felt.  lending standards
The spotlight on banks will force a more conservative stance. Consequently, they will lend less money and become choosier in who they lend to. This new objective will keep loans out of the hands of riskier companies and individuals. Reducing loans available throughout the system will also raise borrowing costs for needier borrowers. Zombie Companies at RiskThe graph below shows there are about 600 zombie companies out of the approximate 3000 companies in the Russell 3000 small-cap index. One in five companies in the index does not produce enough profit to pay interest on their debt. They must continually borrow to remain a growing concern. Many of these and smaller mom-and-pop companies will either pay much higher interest rates for working capital or not get needed funding. In either case, higher unemployment and bankruptcies are sure to follow.  corporate zombies
The Leverage TaxIn Speak Loudly Because You Carry A Small Stick, we share the graph below. The point was to highlight how dependent the economy has become on debt. To that end, economic growth has become conditional on easy borrowing conditions and low-interest rates.  debt to GDP Composition
While interest rates have fallen recently, they are still well above the levels of the last ten years and in time will add to what we call a leverage tax on the economy. As we wrote:
The process whereby higher interest rates slowly but increasingly weaken the economy is known as the lag effect. In the aftershock of the banking crisis, tighter lending standards and higher interest rates will increase the leverage tax on the economy. Economic growth is sure to falter as a result. Fed Pivot?The graph below shows that year-end Fed Funds expectations fell by over 1% in just the last week.  fed pivot
Are investors jumping to the conclusion that the Fed will pivot, or should they be concerned that the Fed will remain steadfast in its fight against inflation? The possible silver lining from the Fed’s perspective is that the banks, via tighter lending standards and likely higher interest rates, will curb economic demand and therefore dampen inflationary pressures. Such a circumstance may keep the Fed from not increasing interest rates as much as they thought they might have to.
If banks significantly tighten standards, the Fed may be dealing with disinflationary pressures sooner than expected. Banks, not the Fed, create money as they make loans. If fewer loans are made, less money is created. Subsequently, the nation’s money supply will decline further.
Yes, we said, “further.” The year-over-year change in the money supply has declined for the first time since the Depression, as the re:venture consulting graph shows. Each previous decline was met with an economic depression or financial crisis.
 Nick Gerli-tweet-8March2023-Money Supply is officially contracting Barring a pickup in monetary velocity, a decline in the money supply is deflationary.As we saw in this week’s CPI data, the flip side of the deflationary argument is that inflation remains sticky. The economy may brush the banking crisis aside for a while. Accordingly, the Fed may think they have the crisis ring-fenced. Such a mindset could enable the Fed to raise interest rates higher than the market believes. As we have written on many occasions, the economic and market impact of higher interest rates will lead to financial and economic difficulties down the road.Both Fed paths are problematic! Consumer SentimentConsumers account for about 70% of economic activity. Banking crises hit home as the safety of our own money is at stake. As a result, consumers tend to tighten the reins on spending as banking crises are never welcome economic news.
Consumer confidence will likely decline from current levels, and consumption will follow. It may take a few weeks or even a month before consumer surveys, and economic data reflect the new mindset of the consumer. Stock market volatility will also weigh on consumer sentiment.
The Fed and many economists believe the stock market drives the economy. When people have more wealth, they tend to spend more so goes the Fed’s logic. Following similar logic, recent stock market volatility will likely dampen consumer confidence. SummaryThe banking earthquake is sending shockwaves through the financial markets. The financial and economic aftershocks, soon to follow, are underappreciated and may prove worse than the earthquake.
We have been warning that interest rate hikes take time to affect the economy fully, but in time, the Fed will break something. The combination of the lag effect of last year’s rate hikes and the recent crisis leads further credence to a hard landing scenario. As we wrote in The No Landing Scenario and UFOs: While the economy may seem unpredictable, the economic future is predictable. The no landing scenario assumes economic cycles have ceased to exist. The economic cycle is alive and well. But timing its ups and downs with unprecedented amounts of fiscal and monetary stimulus still flowing through the economy and markets is proving incredibly challenging.
We believe timing the economic downs has just become a little less challenging! |
Dollar Weaponization Expands – FDIC Message To Foreign Depositors Is Don’t Trust The USby Tyler Durden, 15May2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/political/dollar-weaponization-expands-fdic-message-foreign-depositors-dont-trust-us Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com, The weaponization of the US dollar by US agencies continues with a ruling by the FDIC…  What does China do with a dollar that is no longer risk free? In March, the FDIC seized nearly $14 billion in foreign deposits at Silicon Valley Bank, most of of the deposits were from Asia. Foreign depositors have been waiting access to their money. The FDIC now affirms, sorry, too bad. Poof. The Pain of Silicon Valley Bank’s Collapse Is Being Felt by These DepositorsThe Wall Street Journal reports The Pain of Silicon Valley Bank’s Collapse Is Being Felt by These Depositors
Systemic Risk AssessmentThe FDIC made a “systemic risk exception” for SVB to protect depositor funds beyond its limit of $250,000 per bank account.
FDIC’s stated “insurance” is for US depositors only. But the exception to make all US depositors whole means foreign depositors bear 100% of responsibility for the collapse of SVB.
Since bond holders rate higher than unsecured depositors, and the FDIC had significant losses rated to SVB, foreign depositors may get zero cents on the dollar. Get Out NowThe clear message by the FDIC is don’t bank in the US. If you do, it better be at a one of the giant too big to fail banks. If you are a foreign depositor at any small or midsized bank, the FDIC is affirming that you better get your money out now. Let the foreign deposit run begin. Federal Reserve ActThe Federal Reserve Act mandates that the Federal Reserve conduct monetary policy “so as to promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates.”
Nowhere does the act give the Fed the right or power to confiscate the reserves of sovereign nations. But that is exactly what the Fed did when it seized Russia’s US dollar reserves.
If the Fed can confiscate Russia’s reserves, who’s next? Weaponization of the US Dollar
 Joseph Wang-tweet-7March2022-By weaponizing the banking system against enemies What Does China Do With a Dollar That’s No Longer Risk Free?In light of Fed actions against Russia, I pinged Michael Pettis at China Financial Markets some questions on China’s reserves on March 18, 2022. Please consider my Pettis Q&A post What Does China Do With a Dollar That’s No Longer Risk Free? Buy Gold?
The Hard PartThe hard part is precisely why all the discussion on BRICs and a new currency backed by gold or some sort of weighted or commingled currency is 95% hot air. I previously stated 99% hot air, but I have reassessed.
The 5% that isn’t hot air is the significant recognition phase that what the US foolishly did to Russia, it implicitly threatens do to any country it wants.
Recall that the EU was in a similar situation in wanting to trade with Russia’s Gazprom and also with Iran. Regarding Gazprom, Trump threatened to sanction any company that helped complete a natural gas pipeline to the EU.
Regarding Iran, the EU announced am effort to end reliance on SWIFT, part of an international payment system, but failed. SWIFT avoidance by the EU never got off the ground. What Is SWIFT, and Could Sanctions Impact the U.S. Dollar’s Dominance?Please consider the Richmond Fed article What Is SWIFT, and Could Sanctions Impact the U.S. Dollar’s Dominance?
The Richmond’s Fed’s assessment is self-serving. Yet, it appears accurate. Importantly the Fed even admits weaponization, the emphasis was mine.
But if it was so easy to avoid the dollar, the EU would have done that years ago, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Every country is tired of the US setting sanction policy for the entire world. As a Libertarian, so am I. Frankly, we all should be.
As a side note, Trump and Biden are amazingly close on sanction policy, tariff policy, trade wars, China foreign policy, and willingness to weaponize the dollar. Brazil’s President Calls for End to US Dollar Trade Dominance, So What?On April 1, I commented Brazil’s President Calls for End to US Dollar Trade Dominance, So What?
That post is accurate other than my reassessment of the hot air percentage. Please give it a look.
BRIC-talk is compounded by the fact that the yuan does not float. And none of these countries have much of anything in common other than a desire to escape the dollar. Not Now Does Not Mean NeverThe demise of the current US-dollar financial system with SWIFT at the heart of it is underway. I just cannot tell you when the system crumbles, nor can anyone else.
Although the dollar avoidance the BRICs seek is much easier said than done, not now doesn’t mean never. The recognition phase has started.
Most do not realize the EU is involved even though it wants no part of the BRIC structure. Importantly, the EU’s annoyance at SWIFT is far more significant than any yapping by Brazil.
So, don’t be surprised if something truly significant starts with the EU, not the BRICs. That’s an idea I have not seen anyone else suggest. And the EU nations do all have something in common making Swift avoidance much easier in theory.
Regardless of where de-dollarization picks up steam, it will mark the end of global sanction madness by Trump and dramatically escalated by Biden. Bring it on. * * * |
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“It’s A Big Sea-Change”: Many Countries Bringing Their Gold Home For Safekeepingby Tyler Durden, 12July2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/its-big-sea-change-many-countries-bringing-their-gold-home-safekeeping In the wake of Western sanctions on Russia after the invasion of Ukraine, many central banks are bringing their gold home for safekeeping, according to an Invesco survey of central banks and sovereign wealth funds.
Many central banks and sovereign wealth funds hold their gold reserves in overseas vaults in London and other Western nations, but there is a growing gold repatriation trend due to concerns about sanctions and security.
Eighty-five percent of the 85 sovereign wealth funds and 57 central banks surveyed indicated they think price inflation will be higher in the next decade than the last.
They also expressed concern about growing geopolitical tensions and the trajectory of the US dollar. As a result, central bankers and sovereign wealth fund managers are “fundamentally” rethinking their strategies.
Nearly 80% of the 142 institutions surveyed cited geopolitical tensions as the biggest risk over the next decade. Eighty-three percent cited inflation as a concern over the next 12 months.
Gold is perceived as a good bet in that environment. Central banks and sovereign wealth funds have always included gold in their asset mix, and over the last several years, many central banks have been adding more gold to their reserves. According to the 2023 Central Bank Gold Reserve Survey released by the World Gold Council, 24% of central banks plan to further increase gold reserves in the next 12 months. Seventy-one percent of central banks surveyed believe the overall level of global reserves will increase in the next 12 months. That was a 10-point increase over last year.
But according to the Invesco survey, a “substantial share” of central banks expressed concern about how the US and other Western countries froze almost half of Russia’s $650 billion gold and forex reserves. As a result, 68% of the banks surveyed said they are keeping their gold reserve within their country’s borders. This was up from 50% in 2020.
One central bank official, who was quoted anonymously, said, “We did have it [gold] held in London… but now we’ve transferred it back to our country to hold as a safe haven asset and to keep it safe.”
Invesco head of official institutions Rod Ringrow oversaw the survey and said the anonymous central banker reflected a widely-held view.
A number of countries have publicly repatriated their gold reserves over the last decade. In 2019, Poland brought home 100 tons of gold. When he announced the move, National Bank of Poland Governor Adam Glapiński told reporters, “The gold symbolizes the strength of the country.”
Hungary and Romania also repatriated some of their gold reserves around that same time period. In the summer of 2017, Germany completed a project to bring half of its gold reserves back inside its borders. The country moved some $31 billion worth of the yellow metal back to Germany from vaults in England, France and the US. In 2015, Australia launched efforts to bring half of its reserves home. The Netherlands and Belgium have also initiated repatriation programs.
Gold repatriation underscores the importance of holding physical gold where you can easily access it. Gold-backed exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and “paper gold” have their place. But true security and stability come from the physical possession of precious metals. If you can’t hold it in your hand, you don’t really possess it. That’s exactly why these countries are bringing their gold home — to keep it safe within their own vaults. |
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JerusalemCats Comments: If they are targeting conservatives they are also targeting Jews as in Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream in the US!Dozens of major U.S. corporations now targeting conservatives – here’s how to fight back07March2023 by: JD Heyes, https://www.naturalnews.com/2023-03-07-major-u-s-corporations-now-targeting-conservatives-fight-back.html This article may contain statements that reflect the opinion of the author (Natural News) An op-ed published at FoxNews.com last week by Justin Haskins, the director of the Socialism Research Center at The Heartland Institute, highlighted recent research indicating that dozens of major U.S. corporations and businesses have now officially chosen sides, politically, and are targeting conservative and traditionalist Americans.
“It is not a secret that over the past decade, hundreds of large U.S. corporations have adopted woke policies, regularly injecting left-wing ideals into their products, services and employment practices,” he begins in his column. “But some of these businesses have recently gone much further than merely promoting social justice causes; they have chosen to target conservative customers and employees, coercing or forcing Americans to abandon their deeply held beliefs in order to receive important goods or services or to stay employed.”
Conservatives have frequently come across tales of corporate discrimination in recent times, but often find it challenging to keep tabs on which businesses have supported this movement and which have refrained from doing so, Haskins notes. To address this significant issue, a nonprofit organization called the 1792 Exchange [https://1792exchange.com/]has initiated a new project aimed at illuminating the matter.
The 1792 Exchange recently launched its Spotlight Report, which assesses over 1,000 companies’ “policies, practices, and other relevant criteria to determine the likelihood a company will cancel a contract or client, or boycott, divest, or deny services based on views or beliefs,” the group notes on its website, adding that businesses are assigned one of three categories: “Lower Risk,” “Medium Risk,” and “High Risk.”
Haskins explains that, per the organization’s website, the “High Risk” companies are the ones that have typically terminated or denied business associations based on differences in opinion or pose an increased risk of canceling individuals and companies who do not align with their viewpoints. Among the over 1,000 companies evaluated, 147 are currently labeled as “High Risk,” indicating that they are more prone to indulge in outright discrimination than other companies.
“Perhaps the most influential groups of woke companies in the report are banks. Numerous large banks are using their financial might to effectively force business customers into adopting climate change policies, even when it will require that those customers dramatically change their business practices,” he noted.
“The 1792 Exchange determined that five large transportation companies fall into its ‘High Risk’ category — Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, and XPO Logistics” he added.
The 1792 Exchange identified 15 major companies in the “Retailing” sector as “High Risk” entities, including well-known physical stores such as Best Buy, Home Depot, Kohl’s, Lululemon, Macy’s, Madewell, Target, and Walmart. The list also includes prominent online retailers like Alibaba, Amazon, Chewy, eBay, Etsy, Shopify, and Warby Parker, the analyst noted further.
The 1792 Exchange report classified ten large food and beverage companies as “High Risk” as well, including Altria, Ben & Jerry’s, Cargill, Coca-Cola, HelloFresh, Kellogg’s, McDonald’s, PepsiCo, Starbucks, and the JM Smucker Company. Haskins added: Unfortunately, the 51 companies mentioned throughout this article are just the tip of the iceberg. Numerous other important corporations are also actively undermining conservatives and/or discriminating against families or businesses who do not share their radical views.
The 1792 Exchange outlined nearly 100 additional “High Risk” companies in its report, including some of the most powerful in the world, like Alphabet (the owners of Google), Disney, and Apple.
But he also noted there are solutions for conservatives who don’t simply want to just ‘take it’ from these companies. The initial measure is to spread the word about cases of woke discrimination and reports such as the one created by the 1792 Exchange with individuals who share similar opinions and values.
Conservatives can take action by identifying alternative businesses that offer similar products or services to those offered by the discriminatory companies and switch to them whenever possible. It’s important to communicate with both the business being abandoned and the new non-discriminatory business about why the switch is being made, he recommended.
“Finally, conservative lawmakers need to prioritize policies that reject ESG social credit scores and other systematic attempts meant to coerce companies into embracing leftist causes. The legislation proposed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis earlier this month that would limit the use of ESG scores in banking is a great place to start,” Haskins said. Sources include: |
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“It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.”– Henry KissingerAsk the Afghans, ask the Kurds. Ask the Israelis. Ask the Germans. Ask Ghadaffy. Ask the Ukrainians.JerusalemCats Comments: Another COLOR REVOLUTION brought to you by Victoria Nuland and the 2014 Ukraine Maidan NAZI coup lead US State departmentThey’ve been heavily involved in this from the beginning, and probably were instrumental in initiating it! State Dept is funding Group bankrolling Anti-Netanyahu Protests08March2023 https://www.israpundit.org/state-dept-is-funding-group-bankrolling-anti-netanyahu-protests/
How Taxpayer Funds Are Flowing to a Group Bankrolling Anti-Netanyahu ProtestsBy Adam Kredo, FREE BEACON 06March2023 https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/how-taxpayer-funds-are-flowing-to-a-group-bankrolling-anti-netanyahu-protests/ The U.S. government has been funneling taxpayer money to the left-wing group bankrolling protests against Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to Israeli funding documents reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.
The documents indicate that, since 2020, Foggy Bottom has sent over $38,000 to the Movement for Quality Government (MQG), the Israeli nonprofit stoking nationwide anti-Netanyahu protests that have seen protesters clash with police and target Netanyahu’s family members. MQG is seeking to takedown Netanyahu’s government over his support for major reforms to the Israeli supreme court that would significantly limit its power. The organization petitioned Israel’s Supreme Court earlier this year to oust Netanyahu, claiming he is unfit for office due to ongoing investigations into allegations of political corruption and bribery.
The State Department, which confirmed the funding, calls the group a nonpartisan organization, but its work opposing Netanyahu raises questions about how the group was able to obtain U.S. funding. The United States typically avoids funding foreign partisan groups to avoid claims of political meddling. Even before MQG emerged as the leading force behind the current wave of anti-Netanyahu protests, it made a name for itself as a leading critic of the Israeli right, which has long seen Netanyahu as its leader. Given the Biden administration’s chilly diplomatic relationship with Netanyahu—which includes repeated criticism of Israeli settlement construction and the decision to launch an unprecedented FBI probe into Israel’s anti-terrorism operations—the U.S. funding to MQG has come under new scrutiny.
“The State Department should never fund foreign partisan organizations in allied democracies,” Rep. Jim Banks (R., Ind.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, told the Free Beacon. “If the shoe was on the other foot, the Biden administration would accuse Israel of interfering in our elections. Congress should absolutely review the State Department’s potential funding of partisan politics in Israel.”
The State Department downplayed its funding for MQG and would not answer questions about whether U.S. funds could have been diverted to the organization’s anti-Netanyahu activities.
“The State Department has provided small grants to the Movement for Quality Government, including a grant signed in 2020 during the previous administration and continued under the Biden administration that focused on teaching civic education and supporting good governance,” a State Department official told the Free Beacon. The last tranche of funding was awarded in September 2022. The money was meant to be used for democracy training programs in the Israeli school system.
The State Department described MQG as “a respected, independent, non-partisan, grassroots non-governmental organization committed to promoting values of democracy, transparency, good governance, and civic participation.”
The United States provided funding to the group beginning in 2020, near the end of the Trump administration. One former senior U.S. official familiar with the matter said the grant was likely approved by career State Department officials and that the small amount of money likely went unnoticed by Trump administration political appointees who could have blocked it.
The State Department typically allows its grantees to self-report how the money is used, meaning there are few guardrails in place to prevent it from being spent on other causes, according to Gerald Steinberg, founder of NGO Monitor, a watchdog group that monitors these issues. “Few if any funders even attempt to monitor the actual use of grants,” he said.
Steinberg, who has closely followed MQG’s activities, noted that “if a foreign government had funded a similar NGO operating in the United States, the Biden administration would have taken immediate action.”
Grant information shows that MQG received grants of around $10,000 to $15,000 dollars in 2020, 2021, and 2022. In each of those years, the State Department was listed as the group’s sole foreign donor.
The majority of MQG’s funding comes from its membership dues and from donations made by charitable organizations. The group says it “is not willing, by principle, to receive any assistance from the governmental system,” but does not include a similar prohibition on foreign government funding. MQG did not respond to a Free Beacon request for comment about how the U.S. funds were used. Israeli political observers also have raised concerns about whether the U.S. funding is helping to fuel opposition to Netanyahu’s government.
“The Movement for Quality Government has worked for decades to subvert Israeli democracy,” Caroline Glick, an Israel-based political pundit who first raised questions about State Department funding for the group in a column last month, told the Free Beacon. “It is a slap in the face of the Israeli public and an expression of contempt for Israeli democracy that the State Department is funding this radical group.”
The State Department has come under fire in the past for funding foreign groups opposed to Netanyahu. During the Obama administration, the State Department was caught deleting emails that showed it funded the OneVoice Movement, a liberal group that was waging an anti-Netanyahu smear campaign at the time.
The Biden administration also has come under fire for pushing an anti-Israel agenda through the Justice Department, which announced last year that it is conducting an unprecedented FBI investigation into Israel’s accidental shooting of a Palestinian-American reporter. |
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Iran, Israel, and the United States governmentBy Jerold Levoritz 02February2023 https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/02/iran_israel_and_the_united_states_government.html No one offers a reasonable explanation for Biden begging Iran to rejoin the debunked, tawdry, ineffective, and cynical agreement to keep nuclear weapons out of Iranian hands, if just for a while. Israel keeps providing updates on how close the Iranians are to completing their weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. government “cooperates” with Israel, holding joint exercises, but keeps weapons out of Israel’s hands that could bring the Iranian project to a screeching halt — namely, bunker-busters and the means to deliver them.
Speculation is rife, and facts are hard to come by. I have a theory about what’s going on, though. The United States government seems to want the Iranian conflict with Israel to continue or to explode because peace has no value. Israel’s defensive requirements keep the American arms industry buzzing along. American aid to Israel (roughly $3 billion a year) mostly gets funneled back into arms purchases from the United States, sales that might flag under conditions of peace.
Moreover, cooperation between Israel and the U.S. arms companies gives the U.S. government access to Israeli innovation. American industry is perfectly capable of its own innovation, but the integration between the government and its domestic arms industry is cozy to the point of corruption. For both, cost overruns and extended development times are valuable commodities.
However, anytime America really needs to do something, relying on Israeli innovations reduces time. For example, think of the rushed development of U.S. laser weapons that had been dragging along for decades until it became important or, perhaps, even imperative, given Russian and Chinese supersonic cruise missiles.  Iranians burn Israel’s flag Image: Iranians burn Israel’s flag. YouTube screen grab.
It’s possible that America has abetted the Israel-Iran conflict for more nefarious purposes than just polishing our arms industry. In the end, I predict, Iran and Israel will have at it. They will go to war with unknown consequences.
Both these nations hold their military self-defense as critical to their national independence. If they can weaken or destroy each other, that would be seen as a triumph for leftists and demonic globalists, whose goal it is to ensure that no nation should ever be able to defend itself.
The Russian-Ukraine war has been designed to weaken Russia just as a conflict between Israel and Iran would weaken both sides. That is just a fine outcome for American policy wonks. Even if Israel were to defeat Iran, Israel’s loss of life, wealth, and vitality would weaken her as well, all without American boots on the ground. In the same way, America will fight to the last Ukrainian.
In the case of Israel’s defeat, that, too, would be an acceptable outcome for American policy experts, especially since it would reduce competition for American companies. Israeli innovation offends American businesses and, especially, intelligence agencies because Israel’s dominance in cyber-security, water management, and agriculture technology gives Israel greater expertise than they have.
If poor countries can learn to feed themselves with Israeli instruction and technology, what will happen to American agribusiness? If Israeli innovation can cure diseases, what will be left of Big Pharma, where the only good drug is one that must be taken forever?
The most painful part of writing this essay occurred when I finally had to admit to myself that the U.S. government does not care about Israel’s survival. The Jews have always been expendable and still are. The Jews’ attempt to survive in their own state is being undermined by U.S. policies that support continual conflict.
Forget about words of sympathy from the U.S. State Department after a tragic loss of life. All meaningless! Regarding Israel, watch only what our government policies support.
The insistence on a “two-state solution” supports continued conflict. (Other factions in and out of government that favor one state of “all its people,” meaning anyone, Jewish or not, who ends up in Israel, no matter their genocidal intent, would certainly cause continued conflict because that would bring an end to a state for the Jews.)
U.S. monetary support for the corrupt Palestinian Authority causes continued conflict. The U.S. government’s acquiescence to the Palestinian policy of paying those who murder Jews is a cause of continued conflict. Contributions to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) purposefully developed only to criticize Israel cause continued conflict. Financial support for the Iranian regime, which pays for terrorist projects inside Israel and along its borders, causes continued conflict.
Pressing for a return to the ’67 borders causes continued conflict because those borders caused the ’67 Six-Day War in the first place.
Demands for both parties to practice restraint cause continued conflict, making slaughtering Jews leaving their synagogue on the Sabbath equivalent to battling terrorists who receive funding from Iran and the Palestinian Authority to murder unarmed civilians.
Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy, sadism, cultural decrepitude, and limited intellectual capacity on the part of U.S. career foreign policy experts are all potential causes for continued conflict both for Israel and for many other places around the world. What would these hordes of pension-seeking policy wonks do to earn a living if peace broke out? They might have to learn to solve problems instead of creating them. |
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JerusalemCats Comments: Mexico needs to get out of the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) for it’s own interest or be a US vassal state
Corporate-infested US government panicking over Mexico’s rejection of GMO crops27January2023 by: Ethan Huff, https://www.naturalnews.com/2023-01-27-washington-panicking-over-mexico-rejecting-gmo-crops.html This article may contain statements that reflect the opinion of the author (Natural News) The biotechnology industry, which largely controls United States government policy, is livid with Mexico over the country’s plans to phase out all imports of genetically modified (GMO) corn.
Since the U.S. is a GMO powerhouse, the move represents a serious threat to the profit streams of Big Biotech. Because of this, American authorities are expressing “grave concerns” about the direction Mexico is taking as it seeks to preserve clean, biotech-free food for its citizens.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is very anti-GMO, having announced in 2020 plans to completely phase out all imports of GMO corn and anything tainted with glyphosate (Roundup) herbicide by the year 2024. That date was recently extended to 2025.
“We made it clear today that if this issue is not resolved, we will consider all options, including taking formal steps to enforce our rights under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA),” threatened office of U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Katherine Tai in a statement to Mexico.
“Mexico’s proposed approach, which is not grounded in science, still threatens to disrupt billions of dollars in bilateral agricultural trade, cause serious economic harm to U.S. farmers and Mexican livestock producers, and stifle important innovations needed to help producers respond to pressing climate and food security challenges.”(Related: In 2013, Mexico banned all plantings of GMO corn throughout the country.) America is the world bullyAmerica’s goal seems to be to genetically engineer everything, while Mexico is working towards keeping a clean food supply the way nature intended. This disagreement between the two neighboring countries is causing U.S. interests to have a meltdown over the prospect of losing trade opportunities with Mexico.
It turns out that most of the world wants nothing to do with America’s transgenic poison “crops,” which are tainted with chemical herbicides and pesticides, not to mention foreign genetics that render the product toxic for consumption.
Obrador and other Mexican authorities seem to recognize this fact while American authorities continue to issue threats against Mexico that the country either comply or face the consequences of U.S. ire.
Every year, some 17 million tons of mostly GMO yellow corn is sent from the U.S. to Mexico. The majority of that corn is fed to animals because Mexican standards do not allow transgenic corn to be fed to humans.
For the time being, transgenic corn will continue to flow from the U.S. into Mexico to feed animals, but even that is scheduled to end by the year 2025. The U.S. is trying to stop this by forcing Mexico to abide by its standards instead.
U.S. officials are “making it crystal clear,” according to Reuters, that Mexico will have to abide by the USMCA commitments it is bound by. This threat, said Tom Haag, president of the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA), “is a significant development and good news for corn growers.”
The biotechnology industry group BIO also said that it appreciates U.S. efforts to bully Mexico into “maintain[ing] a science-based risk regulatory system,” to quoted Beth Ellikidis, vice president for agriculture and environment.
“There is a far more sinister plan here than most people realize,” wrote a commenter at Natural News. “The seeds they send these countries are designed not to re-germinate. One crop and ooops, hmm the corn won’t grow again. This happened in India causing mass farmer suicides and starvation.”
“The legislature should have never been signed to allow seed patents. I don’t know what that drunk Bush and his cronies were thinking,” this person added about how the Bush family dynasty helped pave the way for GMO crops in the U.S. “You can’t patent plants, why would they allow seed patents?” The latest news about the fight against GMOs can be found at GMO.news. Sources for this article include: |
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JerusalemCats Comments: Israel needs to take this recommended advice
If Red States Want Protection From Collapse They Will Have To Build Alternative Economiesby Tyler Durden 28October2022 – https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/if-red-states-want-protection-collapse-they-will-have-build-alternative-economies Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us Economic centralization is the ultimate form of organized conspiratorial power, because it allows a small group of people to dictate the terms of trade for a society and therefore dictate the terms of each person’s individual survival.
For example, the Federal Reserve as a banking entity has free rein to assert policy controls that can disrupt the very fabric of the US economy and the buying power of our currency. They can (and do) arbitrarily create trillions of dollars from thin air causing inflation, or arbitrarily raise interest rates and crash stock markets. And according to former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, they answer to no one, including the US government.
I have started to see a new narrative being spread within mainstream media platforms as well as alternative media platforms suggesting that the Fed is necessary because it is working to “counter” the agenda of Joe Biden and the Democrats. Some people claim the central bank is “protecting” America from the schemes of the UN and European interests.
This is perhaps the most moronic theory I’ve ever heard, but it makes sense that the central bank and its puppets would be trying to plant the notion that the Fed is some kind of “hero” secretly fighting a war on our behalf. The money elites associated with the Fed have inflated perhaps the largest financial bubble in the history of the world over the past 14 years. They did this with bailouts, they did this with QE, they did this with covid pandemic checks and loans, and now the bubble is popping. They know it is popping, because they WANT it to pop.
As I have warned for years, the Fed has been staging a massive controlled demolition of the US economy. Why? Because the US economy must be diminished in order to make way for the “Great Reset,” a term created by the World Economic Forum to describe an unprecedented paradigm shift in the global economy and how it operates, and a complete upending of society. The end game is openly admitted – A one world digital currency system and one world governance controlled by a league of corporate partners working in concert with politicians.
This is not conspiracy theory, this is conspiracy reality. This is undeniable fact. The Fed does not care about the US economy, its loyalty is to a global agenda and it takes its marching orders from a consortium of banking institutions called the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). This is how global central banking policies are coordinated to either work in harmony to create artificial stability, or to work in conflict, creating artificial crisis events.
The truth is, the foundations of global governance already exist, but what the establishment does not have is public acceptance and total submission to their authority. What the banks want is to create a crisis so profound that the masses will run to THEM, begging for help. Once a population begs their captors for relief or resolution and it is given, it’s far less likely that the people will revolt against those captors in the future.
Psychologically, the central banks and the establishment elites are trying to create a planetary Stockholm Syndrome, and we are seeing it already with the Federal Reserve being painted as the “shield” holding back the tide of economic ruin that they actually engineered.
The initial stages of the Great Reset have already been launched. With the economic bubble expanded to incredible levels, the Fed is now staging an aggressive implosion using interest rate hikes into economic weakness.
There are multiple threats that come with this dynamic:
StagflationWith stagflation, normal credit market interventions do not necessarily work right away. As we saw recently with the official CPI print rising despite the Fed’s rate hikes, prices are not going to go down that easily. During the last stagflation event 40 years ago, the Fed raised rates to around 20% before prices finally stopped their epic climb, and back then the US did not have $31 trillion in debt nor did it just print over $8 trillions in the span of two years. Rates are likely to go much higher than many people expect.
Treasury Bond CrisisThe Fed replaced foreign investors like Japan and China as the primary buyers of US government Treasury Bonds, and they did so years ago. Now, with the Fed cutting purchases, reducing its balance sheet and raising rates, who is going to buy all that US debt and keep the government funded? Well, the answer is no one. For now, foreign purchases are enough to give a semblance of stability, but with geopolitical tensions rising it’s only a matter of time before countries like China dump their T-bond and dollar holdings completely. Then, the dollar’s world reserve status will come into question and inflation becomes an even greater threat as the trillions of greenbacks held overseas come flooding into the US again. Stock Market SpiralWithout the Federal Reserve as the backstop fueling corporate share buybacks with cheap money, stocks will continue to slide. They’ll jump every now and then on rumors that the Fed will pivot away from tightening, and when the Fed doesn’t, stocks will start dropping again. Without stimulus and near zero rates there is no hope for equities beyond the occasional jawboning.
The Fed has the ability to slow down or speed up all of the conditions above, and so far they appear to be speeding things up. We obviously can’t rely on the Biden Administration to do anything about these problems; in all likelihood Biden and his handlers are joyful in the prospect of the inevitable calamity. No one in government is trying to do anything legitimate to stop the landslide and no one is trying to prepare Americans for the consequences.
In fact, Americans are being told there are no consequences. Thus, it’s up to individuals to prepare and warn their friends and family, but what about a larger organized response?
Despite numerous claims that conservatives would “do nothing” to stop the rise of medical fascism in the name of the covid pandemic, almost half the states in the US stood their ground against the mandates and the push for vaccine passports. If this had not happened, America would look like China does today with endless lockdowns and draconian tracking apps. I don’t think enough people understand just how close we came to losing every freedom we have left – We were on the doorstep of an Orwellian hell, and probably civil war.
The red state defiance of covid restrictions represented an organized action at the state and interstate level. What if these states did the same thing in the face of the economic crisis?
Without organization at the state level to create alternatives to the mainstream economy the plight of the public becomes much more daunting and dangerous. Rather than trying to start completely from scratch, there are solutions that can be pursued at the state level to help mitigate the disaster.
 Safe Crisis Economic Balloon
Currency AlternativesStates like Texas, Utah and Louisiana (currently Dem controlled) all have legislation in place to utilize gold and silver as legal tender. Such efforts need to be expanded to as many states as possible, and the list of alternatives needs to grow. Gold, silver, copper, and other commodities like oil, electricity, wheat and grains could be used to back a state recognized currency system. Is it constitutional? Not technically, but the federal government violated the constitutional money creation mandate over a century ago when they allowed the institution of the Federal Reserve. The system is already broken.
If states were to offer commodity backed currencies in parallel with the dollar, then they could actually stave off price inflation and possibly reverse it. This can’t be achieved by only one or two states, though. It would have to be organized among multiple states with multiple trade agreements in place.
State BanksNorth Dakota has its own state run bank that provides credit opportunities specifically to ND locals and ND businesses. It has operated successfully for decades. Why has no other state adopted this model? Why should we rely on banks that are all tied back to corporate conglomerates that want to destroy us? State banks are the answer to the problem of leftists and globalists using corporate banks as a weapon against conservatives and liberty activists. Localized Trade AlternativesStates should be utilizing the resources within their own borders to generate real jobs (rather than precarious and temporary service sector jobs) and economic prosperity. Why are states and citizens in those states allowing the federal government under Biden to dictate the terms of how they grow their economies?
Leftists will claim that resource management needs to be supervised by federal agencies, but why? These people have consistently proven themselves to be incompetent and destructive. Why should they be trusted to control our ability to expand in our own states?
Conservation and intelligent handling of state resources should not be relegated to bureaucrats who live outside of those states and who care nothing about the citizens of those states. State Incentives For IndustryThe vast majority of retail goods purchased by US citizens are made outside the US. It is a simple matter of profit incentives involving cheap labor overseas. But, what if there were big tax reductions for companies that manufacture in America? What if state banks offered easier credit to companies that build factories within that state’s borders and hire American workers at a reasonable wage? It can be done in the US – It’s been done in the past. If we don’t restart domestic production, our country is doomed to remain dependent on international corporations and foreign entities that do not have our best interests in mind.
The only hope any state has to weather the coming storm is to localize production and manage their resources to kick-start trade. Local production would act as a redundancy should the mainstream economy collapse (which it will). States don’t need Biden’s permission to make this happen. They don;t need the Federal Reserve’s permission either. They can and should take action now before it’s too late. |
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 Gab News https://news.gab.com The Parallel Economy Goes MainstreamAndrew Torba, 15September2023 https://news.gab.com/2023/09/the-parallel-economy-goes-mainstream/
This week a comprehensive article in progressive magazine The New Republic delved into the emergence of the parallel economy with a particular emphasis on Gab’s role in spearheading it.
It seems that what ultimately grabbed the interest of our enemies was the broader adoption of the Parallel Economy concept by the Conservative establishment gatekeepers. As is often the case, whenever the Conservative Establishment detects an opportunity for profit and personal gain, they seize dissident right concepts and ideas, dilute them, and attempt to profit from them without achieving significant impact beyond their own financial enrichment.
Numerous opportunistic ventures are emerging, presenting themselves as the “Y of the parallel economy.” This proliferation is an encouraging sign, as it indicates the growing acceptance and normalization of this concept. However, it is essential to exercise discernment to distinguish genuine efforts from deceptive ones.
Constructing a parallel society and economy revolves around establishing lasting, sustainable solutions and bolstering family-owned enterprises and individuals who align with our principles. It should not serve as a means to bolster the wealth of opportunistic figures associated with the conservative establishment, seeking to exploit the momentum of our collective endeavor, but I digress.
The most effective economic strategy within the parallel economy is also the most straightforward: avoid purchasing from those who hate you, and instead, support businesses that align with your values. It’s extraordinarily simple, but powerful enough to topple a brand like Bud Light.
The remarkable aspect of our situation is that there’s no means for them to impede our progress. It all comes down to us sticking to these core principles. It’s your choice to stop supporting a brand like Bud Light and opt instead to support businesses that align with your values. They have no control over your ability to make that choice and they hate it.
Our most potent instrument for peaceful resistance against the Regime isn’t in the voting booth. It’s in your wallet. It’s in how, when, and where we choose to spend our time and money. It’s our collective purchasing power and our spirit of entrepreneurship. We have reached a pivotal moment. The Regime and the controlled opposition gatekeepers can no longer dismiss us as inconsequential. The recent Bud Light controversy and the burgeoning parallel economy within the American right-wing have genuinely unsettled them—and for good reason. We are a tangible force and our economic influence is undeniable.
As I’ve stressed before, by uniting and harnessing our collective purchasing power, we hold the potential to financially undermine virtually any business that aligns with the “woke” ideology. The Bud Light incident marked just the beginning, the initial skirmish in a two-pronged spiritual battle for the soul of our nation. Our mission isn’t solely to boycott the established system but also to continue constructing our own.
The economic influence of Christians is immense, yet currently, our collective efforts lack organization. It’s crucial that we come together with a shared purpose: first, to support businesses that align with our values and stand firm against the pressures of the “woke” movement and use our substantial purchasing power to hold accountable those businesses that impose their anti-Christ ideology on our families. Next, we need to build. Build businesses, schools, entertainment, infrastructure, technology, and community.
We need to stop funding our own destruction and the defilement of our culture and instead start building our own—everything—from the ground up. That’s exactly what we are doing here at Gab.com. We’re committed to providing a comprehensive set of tools and infrastructure to ensure a thriving parallel economy on Gab.
At Gab we have set our sights on revolutionizing the way we live and work by creating a parallel economy that aligns with American and Christian values from start to finish. This visionary approach aims to connect consumers and businesses, empowering families and small business owners to break free from the constraints of the current system and lead a sovereign and fulfilling life.
At the heart of Gab’s vision for the parallel economy is the idea of connecting consumers and businesses that share common values. This approach spans the entire spectrum of economic activity, from marketing and advertising to payment processing and customer support. Gab serves as a parallel economy platform where like-minded individuals can come together to support businesses that align with their beliefs and organize to boycott ones that don’t.
Businesses on Gab can reach a dedicated and engaged audience that shares their values. By leveraging Gab’s advertising capabilities, businesses can connect with new customers who appreciate their commitment to American and Christian principles.
GabPay, Gab’s payment processing system, offers users the ability to make purchases with ease while supporting businesses that uphold their values. It’s not just about convenience; it’s about empowering consumers to vote with their wallets, endorsing businesses that echo their beliefs.
Gab’s messaging system facilitates direct communication between businesses and customers, ensuring that inquiries and issues are resolved efficiently. This personal touch fosters a sense of community and trust between consumers and the businesses they patronize.
From discovery to purchase to customer support the tools and services that Gab has built over the past several years cover the full commerce cycle and infrastructure needed for a parallel economy. Empowering Families and Small Business OwnersGab’s vision extends beyond economic transactions; it aims to transform the way families and small business owners lead their lives. The ultimate goal is to liberate families from the chains of a corrupt system and the grind of modern life, providing them with the freedom to pursue their dreams and spend more time with their children.
We envision a future where both parents can work from home, running their small businesses entirely on the Gab platform in the parallel economy. This allows families to spend more time together and actively participate in their children’s lives while also keeping their minds and souls safe from the wicked ideologies of the Regime.
By promoting a parallel economy rooted in American and Christian values, Gab aims to create a world where families are self-reliant, businesses thrive, and individuals have the opportunity to lead sovereign and fulfilling lives. Our bold vision is a testament to the power of innovation and community in shaping a brighter future for all who embrace its principles. We’d love for you to join us. Gab is currently selling shares in its business in a Regulation Crowdfunding investment round conducted pursuant to Section 4(a)(6) of the Securities Act of 1933. You can learn more about investing and becoming a Gab Shareholder here. Andrew Torba
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10 Promising Signs That The Insidious Mind-Control-Matrix The Elite Have Created Is Starting To Crumbleby Tyler Durden 04August2022 – https://www.zerohedge.com/political/10-promising-signs-insidious-mind-control-matrix-elite-have-created-starting-crumble Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com, Are we witnessing the start of some sort of a mass awakening in the western world? For years, I have been writing about the extremely complex systems that are designed to shape and control what we think. Today, the vast majority of the “news” and “entertainment” that most of us consume is controlled by just a very small handful of immensely powerful corporations. And of course those corporations are ultimately owned and controlled by the elite of the world. To a very large degree, the elite have been able to determine what we focus on, what we think about current events, and how we feel about the world around us. For such a long time, most of the population would take whatever narratives that were pushed upon them by their corporate overlords as the gospel truth, and that always greatly frustrated me. Fortunately, there are indications that times are changing.  Mind Control Pixabay In order for any society to function effectively, there must be a high level of trust. Unfortunately for the elite, we simply do not trust them anymore. Trust in our politicians has fallen to an all-time low. Trust in the media has fallen to an all-time low. Trust in our corporations has fallen to an all-time low. Trust in our health care system has fallen to an all-time low. Trust in our education system has fallen to an all-time low. Trust in the tech industry has fallen to an all-time low. We no longer are buying into the crap that they keep shoveling our way. And that is a really, really good thing. It is morally wrong for them to try to control what we think. It is absolutely imperative that we all learn to think for ourselves, because that is the only way that we will ever be truly free. I have been writing about this stuff for years and years, and a number of recent trends have given me hope that people are starting to wake up on a widespread basis. The following are 10 promising signs that the insidious mind control matrix the elite have created is starting to crumble… #1 According to a recent Gallup survey, only 16 percent of U.S. adults have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in newspapers and only 11 percent of U.S. adults have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in television news. #2 All over the Internet I am seeing article after article speaking out against the World Economic Forum. That is an incredibly hopeful sign. #3 In the Netherlands, a new government plan would “cut fertilizer use and reduce livestock numbers so drastically that it will force many farms out of business”. This plan is deeply evil, but the massive farmer protests that have been sparked as a result are a really beautiful thing. #4 After being arrested, a British man was told this: “Someone has been caused anxiety based on your social media post. And that is why you’re being arrested”. But the good news is that there has been a tremendous backlash on social media and so far the video of his arrest has already been viewed more than 2 million times. #5 As more people on the west coast wake up, the exodus out of the state of California is rapidly becoming a stampede. #6 Despite all of the spin from the Biden administration, 66 percent of Americans say that they believe that we are either in a recession or a depression right now. #7 Joe Biden’s overall approval rating has fallen to an all-time low of 36 percent. #8 Joe Biden’s economic approval rating has fallen to an all-time low of 30 percent. #9 A recent CNN poll discovered that a whopping 75 percent of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters actually want their party to nominate someone other than Biden in 2024. #10 According to a recent Pew Research survey, only 24 percent of U.S. adults are satisfied with the current state of the country. Almost all of us can see that our society is on the wrong track, and that is the first step in getting back on the right track. As time rolls along, I believe that more and more of us will wake up. And in the end I believe that the current “world order” that the western elite have tried so hard to establish will fall. That process will be incredibly chaotic, but the end result will be worth it. Before I end this article, there is one more thing that I wanted to mention. According to scientists, we just experienced the shortest day ever recorded…
Are the days being shortened? I often tell people that it feels like the days are going by faster than ever, but I thought that it was just my imagination. I have been told that as we get older it can seem like time is passing more quickly, and without a doubt 2022 seems like it is the fastest year yet. It is hard to believe that the beginning of August is already here. 2023 will arrive before we know it, and I believe that 2023 will be a year that changes everything. I know that there are a lot of bad things that are happening right now, and a lot of my articles tend to focus on those bad things. But the truth is that there are a lot of good things happening too. In fact, there is no other time in all of human history that I would have rather lived than right now. It is when times are the darkest that the greatest heroes are needed, and the years ahead will provide plenty of opportunities for you to be the kind of hero that you were always meant to be. * * * |
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If We No Longer Pay Attention To Things We Don’t Control, What’s Left For Us To Focus On?by Tyler Durden, Feb 22, 2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/political/if-we-no-longer-pay-attention-things-we-dont-control-whats-left-us-focus Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog, Our time is better invested in actually learning about trends that impact us directly. Imagine making this simple change in your life: whatever you don’t control, you stop paying attention to it. This includes a vast array of “news” and “crises” that we have zero control over: the wretched flooding in Timbukthree, geopolitics, distant wars, macro-economic trends, politics above the micro-local level, and so on.  S & P 500 Bubble Symmetry
Once we stop paying attention to everything we don’t control, what’s left to focus on? The simple answer is “whatever we do control,” which tends to be in our household or individual sphere of influence: the duties, habits and rituals of everyday life. In other words, we control our responses to whatever forces we don’t control.
But wait a minute. Aren’t we supposed to be “engaged, informed citizens” so we can make informed decisions? And doesn’t this require us to pay attention to everything presented to us as “newsworthy,” “a dangerous crisis” and of “pressing national interest”?
That sounds nice, but precisely what “decisions” do we have a say in? We can vote for a toxic political party (there’s two choices! Wow!) or a candidate who raised big bucks by promising the moon to constituents and big-money contributors, and we can vote for or against a local bond issue or a local regulation that’s on the ballot.
How great is our control of whatever we’re voting on? Shall we admit it’s negligible? Did anything we watched or read in the past few years change our minds, or do we vote pretty much as we’ve done for years because our views remain the same? For most people, the answer is “nothing I watched or read changed my views.” So what was the point of squandering hundreds of hours watching/reading “news,” “crises” and “commentary”?
These “decisions” come up every two years in some form. The rest of the time, exactly what is our control/influence? Posting tweets and social media comments? Uploading video rants? And how many people completely change their minds based on hyper-ventilating tweets or partisan outbursts, all of which tend to be one or two sentences long?
In today’s hyper-partisan divide, the short answer is “no one.” People tend to read what confirms their existing views and rage at whatever they disagree with. Neither changes any minds, nor engages those who have no interest in the staged spectacles in the Coliseum.
If the entire media/social media “industry” boils down to bias confirmation and outrage that changes nothing, then isn’t the whole thing nothing but perverse, deranging entertainment? In other words, we enjoy confirming our biases and trashing those who disagree with us, and switching seamlessly between puppies and kittens and dire warnings of doom.
The owners of media/social media know this, and so they go to great lengths to make their junk food for the mind especially addictive.
But there is an opportunity cost to investing so much of our time and energy in perverse entertainment, for those hours could have been invested in what we do control, i.e. our own lives.  Dot-Com Bubble and Pop
This is the point of Self-Reliance: focus our time, capital and energy on what we do control and stop wasting time and energy on time-sinks and emotional mudpits we don’t control or influence at all.
Our time is better invested in actually learning about trends that impact us directly. Real learning takes time and study. This is the purpose of books. Other media are designed to influence without providing context or alternate histories. There is no way to cram the context and critiques into a short video program or a slide deck.
Unfortunately, reading books that are substantial enough to add to our understanding is losing ground to spectacles, which are of course designed to be more fun than actual learning.
Self-Reliance isn’t about controlling or influencing others, it’s about modifying our response to macro-trends so we not just survive but thrive. We don’t control our governance, economy or society, but we do control our response to unfavorable trends. We can change careers, change where we live, change who we associate with, expand our network of makers and producers and pursue many other consequential, positive actions.  Net domestic populatin migration
I’m not immune to the charms of puppies and kittens and impending doom, but the trick is to limit one’s exposure as one might do to any dangerous form of radiation: a few minutes is OK but then shut down the source and return to investing in our own life. * * * |
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Gold’s Steady Migration From West To Eastby Tyler Durden, 27June2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/golds-steady-migration-west-east Authored by Michael Maharrey via SchiffGold.com, There has been a steady migration of gold from West to East over the last three decades.  China Panda Goldmünze 2016 Rückseite
When the World Gold Council published its first Gold Demand Trends report 30 years ago, Asian demand made up 45% of the world’s total. Today, the Asian share of global gold demand is approaching 60%.
China and India have driven this migration of gold East. The World Gold Council describes the two countries as “super consumers” of gold. Thirty years ago, China and India accounted for about 20% of annual consumer gold demand. Today, the two countries make up nearly 50% of gold demand.  China and India have become the dominant gold markets
The Indian gold revolution started in the early to mid-1990s when government policy changes freed up the market. In 1992, gold demand in India accounted for 340 tons. In 2022, that had more than doubled to 742 tons.
India now ranks as the second-largest gold-consuming country in the world behind China. Gold is not just a luxury in India. Even poor people buy gold in the Asian nation. According to an ICE 360 survey in 2018, one in every two households in India purchased gold within the last five years. Overall, 87% of households in the country own some amount of the yellow metal. Even households at the lowest income levels in India own some gold. According to the survey, more than 75% of families in the bottom 10% had managed to buy gold.
Indians traditionally buy and hold gold. Collectively, Indian households own an estimated 25,000 tons of gold and that number may be higher given the large black market in the country. The yellow metal is interwoven into the country’s marriage ceremonies and cultural rites. Indians also value gold as a store of wealth, especially in poor rural regions. Two-thirds of India’s gold demand comes from these areas, where most people live outside the official tax system.
We’ve seen a similar trajectory in China. The country also has played a significant cultural role in China, but through the last half of the 1900s, Chinese individuals were banned from buying gold. The government eased restrictions in the 1990s, and in 2002, the Shanghai Gold Exchange. Within two years, the market was completely liberalized.
China’s annual gold consumption rose fivefold from just over 375 tons in the early 1990s to a record high of 1,347 tons in 2013. Since then, China has ranked as the world’s largest gold-consuming country.
Economic growth has helped spur demand for gold in the East. As the World Gold Council explained, “This surge in demand was not just an expression of exuberance by Chinese investors free to buy gold. It was also driven by explosive economic growth, rapid urbanization and the desire for a simple alternative to the limited range of investments available domestically. The industry, acknowledging this desire for gold investment products, responded with innovation and speed.”
In other words, rising affluence is intersecting with the East’s traditional affinity for gold.Turkey, Thailand and Saudi Arabia have also reported increased imports of gold in recent years. We also see the eastward shift of gold in central bank gold buying. The biggest buyers in recent years have all been in the East. Countries steadily increasing gold reserves include China, India, Turkey, and Singapore.
We saw the migration of gold from West to East on a micro level in late 2022. Many Western investors – particularly at the institutional level – were dumping bullion. Meanwhile, Asian buyers took advantage of lower prices to snap up less expensive jewelry, coins, and bars.
According to a fall 2022 Bloomberg report, “large volumes of metal are being drawn out of vaults in financial centers like New York and heading east to meet demand in Shanghai’s gold market or Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar.”
New York and London vaults reported an exodus of more than 527 tons of gold between April and October 2022, according to data from the CME Group and the London Bullion Market Association. At the same time, gold imports into China hit a four-year high in August 2022.
In the East, many people use gold as their primary form of savings and wealth preservation. An article published by Seeking Alpha summarizes this dynamic.
Trying to get gold when a crisis rears its ugly head is a little like trying to get insurance when your house is on fire. Western investors spurn gold to their own detriment. |
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10Y Treasury Auction Prices On The Screws At Highest Yield Since Nov 2007by Tyler Durden, 12September2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/10y-treasury-auction-prices-screws-highest-yield-nov-2007
Following yesterday’s subpar 3Y auction, moments ago the US Treasury sold $35BN in 10Y paper in a stronger auction that saw solid, if not spectacular, metrics.
After last month’s 10Y auction priced just shy of 4% (3.999% to be precise), this time it was no longer possible to contain the tidal wave of rising rates, and today’s auction priced at a high yield of 4.289%, up 29bps in the past month, and the highest level since Nov 2007. It also priced on the screws to the When Issued, which was also trading at 4.289% at 1pm. This was the first on the screws auction since Oct 2020.
The bid to cover was 2.52, down from 2.56 last month, but above the six-auction average of 2.43.
The internals were in line with averages, as foreign buyers were awarded 66.3%, also below last month’s 72.2% (and the lowest since June), but just above the recent average of 65.8. And with Directs taking down 19.9% or right on top of the recent auction average, Dealers were left holding 13.8%, higher from last month’s 9.5% but below the six auction average of 13.8%.
Overall, this was a solid, if hardly spectacular, auction and not surprisingly it had zero impact on the secondary bond market with 10Y yields at 4.28% and unchanged for much of the day.  10Y Treasury Auction Prices September2023
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“Russia is done with the West. The divorce is nearly complete”- Analysisby VBL 23June2022 – 0:16 https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2022-06-22/russia-done-west-divorce-nearly-complete-analysis Housekeeping: Thank you to all the new subscribers. We hope you see GoldFix’s value. ZH reader rate here Russia’s New RulesIntro: We thought this latest missive by Tom Luongo very complementary to our recent post What Russia Thinks Will Happen Next. It’s always interesting when someone comes to similar conclusions using different (Political/realpolitik here) metrics. If you enjoyed our post, you should like this one as well.- GoldFix Russia is done with the West. The divorce is nearly complete. In the past few days we’ve heard from all major Russian leaders the same thing, “The West will play by our rules now.”  Vladimir Putin You can decide for yourselves whether Russia is writing checks they can’t cash, but in the words of Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov telling the BBC bluntly, “We do not care about the eyes of the West.” Lavrov has always been the soul of politeness and discretion when dealing with European media.
His open hostility towards his BBC interviewer was not only palpable, it was hard to argue with. He followed that up with:
Russia’s leadership never talks in such openly blunt terms. It’s almost like Lavrov was channeling comedian Dennis Miller who used to say, “Feeling froggy, take that leap.”
See where it gets you.
IRussia knows it has the West on the ropes. We need what they produce and now they are determined to set the rules on who gets them and for what price. It knows that European leaders are puppets with Klaus Schwab’s hand up their asses.
And it knows Davos has zero leverage over Russia’s actions from here on out.
Which brings me to the statements linked above by Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller, speaking at a panel at the St. Petersburg Economic Investment Forum (SPEIF) who just put the situation in the starkest terms there is.
Miller’s statement should be thought of as a statement of principle across all theatres of operation for Russia. This doesn’t just apply to natural gas or oil. This is everything, all of Russia’s dealings with the West from here on out will be on its terms not the West’s.
This is clearly the biggest geopolitical middle finger in the post WWII period.
Miller is clearly laying out the rules for a new, commodity-centric monetary system, one based on what Credit Suisse’s Zoltan Poszar called ‘outside money’ — commodities, gold, even bitcoin — rather than the West’s egregious use of ‘inside money’ — debt-based fiat and credit — to perpetuate old colonialist behavior well past its use-by date.
I laid out the basic problem in an article from March after Russia soft-pegged the ruble to gold.
Miller is definitely a glass full kinda guy now.
These comments came after Gazprom began cutting gas flows to Europe through the Nordstream 1 pipeline using the cover story of repaired gas turbines trapped in fascist Canada which couldn’t be shipped back to Siemens because of sanctions.
Now Germany and Canada are trying to figure out how to circumvent the sanctions to get these turbines back. At the same time Miller pledged more gas to China (up 67% yoy through May) because Russia is interested in energy stability for its friends, while its enemies can starve.
The arrogance of EU commissars never ceases to amaze me. These people all but declare war on Russia and then act shocked (Shocked, I say!) that Russia then treats them like that.
On the same day that four members of the EU Commission — France, Italy, Germany and Romania — approve fast-tracking Ukraine’s membership application, France’s Emmanuel Macron urges Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to go to the bargaining table with Russia.
Even if Zelenskyy were to make those overtures to Russia, given his public statements on what his terms are, there would be absolutely zero chance that Russia would agree to show up for talks.
At this point I see nothing more than Russia continuing to grind out the Ukrainian army, taking what territory they want and then shepherding through local elections by the conquered territory to either become independent states or part of Russia.
It’s likely the latter at this point since Russia is now issuing Russian passports in regions they’ve taken from Ukraine, which the EU, of course, will refuse to honor until no one cares what they think anymore.
The rules are changing rapidly. Looking ahead there is a real danger that what Russia has set in motion leads to something no one wants to contemplate. Of course the West helped create this situation by forcing Putin’s hand to invade Ukraine, so who’s to blame about where this all leads to may, ultimately, be an irrelevant point.
Let’s hope the noises coming from the West about the sanctions having gone too far and the chest-beating of the worst US and British neocons is no longer being taken seriously by anyone with their fingers anywhere near the launch codes.
If that’s the case than these new rules will be grudgingly accepted only after a lot of borders have been redrawn, new alliances formed and a different world order established.
This morning at the President Putin declared the old world order dead. He finished his speech where he detailed how the West was committing suicide to suit the wishes of The Davos Crowd with the following definitive statement:
Putin is correct here. Russia is getting stronger by the day. The West took their best shot at destroying Russia and missed the mark. He clearly identified the real culprits for Europe’s and the US’s problems, subservience to an oligarch class who feel entitled to rule the world.
When the war started I wrote about what I thought Putin’s intentions were. Then it was speculation:
Today it is fact. When Putin made his move on Ukraine the ultimate goal was the end of Russia treating the West as an equal and leading the Global South out of what he has called “vassalage.” The reason Putin is hated is because he realizes there are two types of countries, “sovereigns” and “vassals.”
It’s been his life’s work to make Russia into a ‘sovereign’ state free from the West.
From Russia’s perspective their military operation in Ukraine was their Declaration of Independence from the old ‘rules-based order’ of the post-WWII era. Justified or not, we are now in a new age.
The question is now, how many will survive into it. * * * |
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Luongo: China Queues Up To Join The Davos Beatdownby Tyler Durden 07July2022 – 04:25 AM https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/luongo-china-queues-join-davos-beatdown Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog, The headlines are full of abject terror that Germany’s vaunted industrial base can collapse, and with it the banking sector, if Russia pulls all natural gas supplies.
Of course, this is exactly what the EU said they wanted, and the question now is will they get it, to quote H.L. Mencken, “good and hard.”
So, finally, after destroying their own economy, the politicians in Europe are considering the right question, “Did we do this to ourselves?”
The Euro’s collapse yesterday morning to a new twenty-year low below $1.03 is answering a resounding, “Yes. Yes you did.” I’m sure the board at Uniper, now staring at a $9+ billion bailout after Vice-Chancellor Robert Haebeck and the rest of his Green/Neocon zealots destroyed their investment in the Nordstream 2 pipeline, would agree with the market.
And so much of this is because now the markets are fully handicapping a global recession based on a spate of terrible economic news, including Germany running a trade deficit in May for the first time in 30 years.
So much for that argument that Europe has a positive cash flow statement and can’t/won’t break down because of it, c.f. my podcast from February with Peter Boockvar.
But to understand why things are accelerating this quickly, beyond the Fed’s hawkishness, I think it’s high time we look at what China’s role in this is and will be.
There’s been a lot of discussion about China’s lockdown policy since the beginning of the War in Ukraine.
What did it mean? Are they seriously paranoid or was this their very Chinese way of supporting Russia’s efforts in Ukraine by exacerbating the massive supply chain breakdown created by Davos’ Coronapocalypse? You know I side with the latter position.
So, after a successful BRICS Summit which saw both Iran and Argentina apply for member status (and China inviting Saudi Arabia to join it and the SCO), China announced a week ago they are loosening the COVID restrictions on foreign travelers into the country.
The result is, as Zerohedge pointed out at the time, the return of capital inflow to China’s equity markets on the announcement. But the markets had been forecasting capital flight into China for weeks since bottoming in April.
 Capital flight into China-2022 That said, this is a perfect example of what I talk about all the time with respect to potential changes in the US political situation. Markets are always looking for changes in intentions by the political class.
These little changes are seen by traders and investors as edges to be played. They may not pan out, but are bets based on a probability calculation of a state change in public policy.
To this end, Fungal Joe is going to lift the Trump tariffs on Chinese imports this week to buy votes by hoping inflation moderates. I’m okay with him doing this trying to right the ship. Tariffs are never the answer, just like sanctions. Notice also this has zero to do with monetary policy and everything to do with supply disruptions caused by government diktat.
This change by China signals an intention by the CCP to open China back up to tourism and business development that isn’t likely to be reversed. I expect this to be real and for China to make even more little moves like this as the summer drags on and markets churn in the West.
With that change, capital inflow lessens the pressure on both the Hong Kong dollar (HKD) and the Hang Seng while giving China more cover to loosen monetary policy without necessarily raising rates and creates another place for capital to flow now that the ECB has capitulated.  We’re gonna need a bigger boat
Christine Lagarde’s recent statements about fighting inflation being “more art than science” is just saying the quiet parts out loud. But it was what came out of the ECB’s emergency meeting a couple of weeks ago that finally signaled the end for the euro in the minds of investors.
Not only is Germany’s industrial base being literally destroyed gleefully by its government, now the ECB is going to sell German debt to buy Italian and Spanish debt to keep from drowning. This is akin to bailing water out of one end of the boat only to throw it in the other end.
Couple these things with the frankly, disastrous G-7 Summit where the biggest collection of unserious buffoons gathered to ban the sale of Russian gold and contemplate a global price cap on oil.
… words fail me.
Honestly, after this G-7 the rush into the BRICS Alliance as well the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) will be unstoppable. What serious investor with real capital appreciation goals is going to look at this group of committed (and committable) lunatics and think, “Yes! I can trust my money with Boris Johnson, Joe Biden and Ursula Von der Leyen!”
No, they are looking at this crap and opening up Tradestation.
The fact that Justin Trudeau was even invited should have been your sell signal.
While the BRICS were talking about a new trade settlement currency and adding members, the G-7 was talking World War III while getting caught spending more time on photo ops than substantive dialogue.
Unserious people with sophomoric ideas and an antiquated sense of their global importance (especially true of the UK and Germany) is not a recipe for global capital inflow over the long term.
When you look at the fragility of the EU, the UK, and Canada you realize that the only thing propping up global markets at this point is the hope that the U.S. mid-terms are a complete refutation of the Davos agenda.
If that doesn’t happen, if somehow Soros and Davos steal enough seats and put a bunch of RINOs back into Congress and the Senate to freeze any reform of Washington D.C. the collapse of the West will accelerate very quickly.
Again, go back to what I said at the outset, the markets are looking for early indicators, edges, they can play to front run a big change in a country’s domestic/foreign policy.
If the US has an honest political revolution in November replete with the stirrings of entitlement reform and fiscal sanity while the Fed continues raising rates, then that would be a massive buy signal for not only the US but also China.
If not the US begins its collapse and happens for multiple reasons.
The first is obvious. Insane Progressives and Commies will be emboldened to destroy what’s left of the Rule of Law in the US.: pack the SCOTUS, ban guns, etc.
That will send capital fleeing to relatively safe places like Pakistan.
The second is almost as obvious. It will confirm and solidify for a critical mass of people that the government is irredeemable and it’s time for either a new convention of States, per my recent conversation with Bill Fawell, or secession as the only real options left.
Because when all peaceful means of revolt are taken away from people, violence ensues.
While these evil people think they are unassailable, the reality is that they are not. If you doubt me, go look at video of the Dutch Farmer’s Revolution for confirmation of just how angry people truly are.
None of the issues surrounding the Dems have worked at this point.
No amount of SSRI-addled, known-to-law-enforcement-enabled shootings will roll out gun control in the US.
No amount of screeching from unfuckable purple-hairs will bring back Roe v. Wade.
No amount of sexual deviance at the public schools will usher in legalized pedophilia.
These are the positions Democrats have staked their future as a party on and most of America is sincerely fed up with it while their businesses are looted, their bank accounts are emptied and their kids sexually-assaulted at school by strippers.
This is why I fully expect voter fraud costs to soar this November and for the 2000(00) Mules strategy to fail as a result. Proud Boys and Oathkeepers will gladly stand outside drop boxes looking for some douchebag with a handful of fake ballots to “question.”
This means they will just print votes out of thin air, but they can only really do that in places like California.
China opening back up for business is good news. Ending COVID restrictions are necessary to shifting the flow of capital from mattresses back into the global economy. But it won’t happen fast enough without a political revolution in the US to stave off a year or two of messy activity as supply chains reroute.
If China opens up more and the mid-terms are a blowout for normal people there is ample room for the Fed to keep going higher with rates from a US gov’t budget perspective. A good article recently from Wolf Street reminds us (and me) that only new debt is subject to the higher rates the Fed is now charging.
We have historically low debt servicing costs.  US government Interest Payments as percentage of GDP
The budget is still a mess and it’s why entitlement reform is the key political issue going forward. So, if Soros wins this fall and Davos remains firmly in control of Washington, then there is no hope for America’s future as a 50-state compact. They will burn the rest of this country to the ground before giving up control of it.  worried George Soros
Even if the mid-terms go well, the transition period before the new Congress is sat will be horrific.
Between now and then expect them to push a NATO casus belli in Ukraine on us to try and save Biden’s Depends budget, Johnson’s terrible hair and Scholz’s saggy man boobs.
This is how they will counter China moving to attract capital, by starting another war.
The problem for all of them is that China ultimately wins either way. All they will do is delay the inevitable because as I pointed out the other day, there isn’t the productive capacity TODAY to fight a two-front war in Europe and the Pacific.
If NATO moves on Russia, China will move on Taiwan. The Russians are salivating at the prospect of the Brits coming in to fight them in Ukraine to free up the US to take on China.
And the West will lose both wars simultaneously, on the off-chance the whole thing doesn’t go nuclear. I do believe pushing the US into political crisis is the ultimate Davos play here. The problem is, since Putin moved on Ukraine the way he did, there is no pulling that off without atomizing Europe in the process.
So, for once, Davos is staring at a Hobson’s Choice rather than their victims. That Vlad, what a card!
China doesn’t want war with the US anymore than Russia does. So opening up China’s economy and Biden lifting tariffs here are the right capital-attracting moves to force even more instability on Europe.
If we avoid WWIII, along with the Fed putting Congress in a fiscal straightjacket, then we can effect real political change in the US
Everyone wins.
I do believe this is the single most important point every other analyst has missed over the past couple of years. The point of beating Davos is to stop WWIII, stop the messy dissolution of the US which would be a catastrophe for everyone, and end the cycle of violence which has emanated from the European colonial powers for centuries.
The US can survive this fiscally and politically. The SCOTUS just flipped off the commies. The people are rejecting woke anti-storytelling like Lightyear and nearly everything Netflix and Amazon produce.
Seen recently in the Financial Times, even Blackrock is seeing the light.  BlackRock warns it will vote against climate resolutions
This tells me that Blackrock’s balance sheet is in serious trouble. It tells me their AUM is falling and their ESG/DEI strategy is gutting the company from within. I wouldn’t doubt for a second that Larry Fink bet the farm on Obama/Schwab getting rid of Powell and now they are staring at a collapse as Powell says, “My turn.”
For all of their power, this is still a company with just $36 billion in shareholder equity. Apple sells that many iPhones in 2 months.  Apple’s iPhone revenue 2007-2022
I’d love nothing more than to see Blackrock become the next Lehman Moment. I’m sure most of Wall St. wouldn’t either. There is blood in the water folks and the sharks are circling Europe. Maybe Jamie Dimon will change his middle name to Bruce just to make the point clear to everyone.
I’m sad I gave up popcorn.
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China’s Xi Says Regional Alliance Will Thwart ‘Color Revolutions’by Tyler Durden, 18September2022 – 04:00 AM https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/chinas-xi-strong-regional-alliance-will-thwart-color-revolutions President Xi Jinping called for China’s central Asian security partners at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to take common steps block external efforts at destabilizing countries through “color revolutions” – a reference to a series of externally backed revolutions which have rocked Middle East and ex-Soviet satellite countries in recent years.
“We should prevent external forces from instigating a color revolution,” Xi said in a Friday speech, offering as part of a potential initiative toward that end to train 2,000 police officers. These officers, he suggested, could be sent through a regional counterterrorism training center which will “strengthen law enforcement capacity building” which would help prevent destabilizing threats from outside.  Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Uzbekistan on Friday via AP Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Uzbekistan on Friday, via AP.He asked for countries represented at the conference to “guard against attempts by external forces to provoke a color revolution, and jointly oppose interference in other countries’ internal affairs under any pretext.”
He agreed with prior opening remarks of Vladimir Putin at the summit which emphasized a theme of declining US power as the unipolar world is disappearing. Xi said the regional SCO allies must stand together for a “just, democratic, multipolar world order based on international law and the central role of the UN, and not some rules that somebody invented and attempts to impose on others without even explaining what they are.”
Below is what Xi said regarding regional security cooperation to block external interference and promote a stable order, according to an official translation and transcript:
And further on resisting efforts of hegemonic powers in the West to subvert rival strong centers of power, Xi said, “we need to uphold multilateralism. Obsession with forming a small circle can only push the world toward division and confrontation.”
 ABC News-tweet-16September2022-Chinese President Xi Jinping has warned his Central Asian neighbors against allowing outsiders to destabilize them with “color revolutions. At the summit, Putin had thanked President Xi for China’s “balanced” approach to the Ukraine crisis. Regarding color revolutions, it’s long been the Kremlin’s position that starting in 2014 the US and NATO allies sponsored the Maidan uprising in order to overthrow the Russia-friendly Viktor Yanukovych.
Interestingly, Putin himself had at the SCO summit spoken of the West’s drive to dismantle Russia itself through penetrating and destabilizing actions, particularly in neighboring Ukraine…
 Putin Direct-tweet-16September2022-Putin The West has for decades sought to dismantle Russiaand is now trying to use Ukraine as a tool for achieving this goal. |
Saudi Arabia Joins Shanghai Cooperation Organization As It Embraces Chinaby Tyler Durden, 01April2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/saudi-arabia-joins-shanghai-cooperation-organization-it-embraces-china While the US continues to splinter and cannibalize itself as it turns into a third world country, China is expanding its zone of economic and military influence that covers virtually all global commodity producers as it prepares for the next stage in the Sino-US cold war.
On Wednesday, Saudi Arabia’s cabinet approved a decision to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, as Riyadh builds a long-term partnership with China despite – or perhaps due to – US security concerns. Saudi Arabia has approved a memorandum on granting the kingdom the status of a dialogue partner in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), state news agency SPA said.
The SCO is a political and security union of countries spanning much of Eurasia, including China, India and Russia. Formed in 2001 by Russia, China and former Soviet states in Central Asia, the body has been expanded to include India and Pakistan, with a view to playing a bigger role as counterweight to Western influence in the region. Iran also signed documents for full membership last year.
 Shanghai Cooperation Organization Joining the SCO was discussed during a visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to Saudi Arabia last December, sources told Reuters, adding that dialogue partner status will be a first step within the organization before granting the kingdom full membership in the mid-term.
The decision followed an announcement by Saudi Aramco which raised its multi-billion dollar investment in China on Tuesday, by finalizing a planned joint venture in northeast China and acquiring a stake in a privately controlled petrochemical group.  Participants of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit attend an extended-format meeting of heads of SCO member states in Samarkand, Uzbekistan Riyadh’s growing ties with Beijing have raised security concerns in Washington, its traditional ally but increasingly less so, especially following Biden’s catastrophic attempts to force OPEC+ to boost oil production, an overture which backfired spectacularly and to global humiliation by the Biden admin.
Meanwhile, Washington says Chinese attempts to exert influence around the world will not change U.S. policy toward the Middle East, which of course is a lie.
Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have voiced concern about what they see as a withdrawal from the region by main security guarantor the United States, and have moved to diversify partners, shifting their alliance to the biggest US challenger in the global arena. Washington says it will stay an active partner in the region.
Countries belonging to the organisation plan to hold a joint “counter-terrorism exercise” in Russia’s Chelyabinsk region in August this year. |
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Why Arabs Do Not Trust the Biden Administrationby Khaled Abu Toameh
 It is evident that the Saudis feel so offended by President Joe Biden that they are willing to move closer to Iran and Russia if that enables them to steer clear of the American president. It will take more than a visit by Biden or Secretary of State Antony Blinken to repair the damage that has been done to America’s relations with Arab countries that used to respect the US. Pictured: Blinken meets with Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on June 7, 2023. (Photo by Ahmed Yosri/Pool/AFP via Getty Images) Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states apparently still do not trust the Biden Administration, largely because of its perceived abandonment of its traditional Arab allies in the Middle East and President Joe Biden’s hostility to Saudi Arabia. This view began with then-presidential candidate Biden declaring the kingdom a “pariah” state — and is continuing with US attempts, still ongoing, to revive a “nuclear deal” that will enable an expansionist Iran to have nuclear weapons potentially to topple other countries in the region.
Saudi Arabia is not likely to improve its relationship with the Biden Administration in the aftermath of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to the Kingdom in early June, according to Arab political analysts and columnists.
“The Biden administration has misjudged its approach to the Middle East,” noted Jason Greenblatt, former Representative for International Negotiations for the Trump administration. “It alienated the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, and wasn’t particularly great with the United Arab Emirates.”
Meanwhile, the same Biden Administration has continued to cozy up to the Iranian regime, which the US’s own Department of State has called the “top state sponsor of terrorism” and which has, until recently, has not only been attacking both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates through Iran’s proxy militia, the Houthis in Yemen, but has also been supplying troops and weapons to Russia for attacking Ukraine.
The message being sent is that being America’s enemy pays handsomely, but, as with Afghanistan, being its friend can be fatal.
“US President Joe Biden visited Jeddah last summer and met King Salman bin Abdulaziz and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman,” noted Syrian author and political analyst Fatmeh Yasmin.
Referring to Blinken’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia, Yasmin said that the Biden administration is pretending that the old alliance between the Saudis and Americans has not changed.
Yasmin added that Saudi Arabia is not expected to make a full turn once again towards the US administration, as Biden’s last year in office is approaching and he will devote his time to his critical reelection campaign.
Yasmin pointed out that Saudi Arabia’s current policy was based on strengthening its relations with China and achieving reconciliation with Iran, Turkey and even Syria. “The current Saudi effort is completely devoted to building a Middle East in which the Kingdom would play a major role and strengthen its own economy and that of its neighbors,” she said.
The London-based Rai Al-Youm online newspaper said that Blinken’s visit to Saudi Arabia failed to achieve most of its goals, including promoting normalization between the Kingdom and Israel. According to Rai Al-Youm, the Saudi media ignored Blinken’s visit, while playing up the arrival of former Real Madrid soccer player Karim Benzema in the Kingdom after he joined the Saudi club Al-Ittihad.
“It was remarkable that the official Saudi media ignored, and certainly deliberately, the two-day visit of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the Kingdom,” the newspaper said.
Rai Al-Youm noted that Saudi newspapers published news about Blinken’s meetings with the Saudi Crown Prince and the foreign ministers of the Gulf states on the inside pages and in small print.
“Whoever wanted to read the news needed a magnifying glass,” the newspaper said.
The newspaper said that Blinken failed to convince the Saudis to normalize their relations with Israel. “The Saudi leadership had decided on its options and has redrawn the map of its international strategic alliances,” it argued.
Aziz Alghashian, a Saudi analyst specializing in Gulf-Israel ties, said that Saudi Arabia does not want to present a gift to the Biden Administration by normalizing the Kingdom’s relations with Israel:
In what appears as another sign of disrespect towards the Biden Administration, the Saudi Crown Prince was talking on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin while Blinken was meeting with Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan. According to some reports, Putin and the Saudi Crown Prince praised cooperation between their countries within the framework of OPEC+.
Despite the continued lack of clarity in Washington’s policy, wrote Lebanese columnist Sam Mansi, the visits to Saudi Arabia by Blinken and Sullivan aimed to allow the US to play three roles: reproduce the Chinese-brokered normalization between Saudi Arabia and Iran so it could be used for other purposes; stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons by returning to the negotiations with Tehran, and confront Iran’s activities in Gulf waters while activating the American role in protecting the security of the region in general.
“These three roles are considered reactions to the course of changes in the region that were anchored by the recent agreement between Riyadh and Tehran,” Mansi remarked.
Mansi added that the Biden administration has not yet understood that Saudi Arabia, like the Gulf countries in general, gives priority today to its national interests and the aspirations of its people, and is trying to balance its relations between East and West, in addition to pursuing a policy of “zero problems” with everyone, and accordingly it is worth reading the Saudi-Iranian reconciliation from this lens. Do the three roles constitute an American strategy towards the region? The answer is no. Everything that the US administration is doing to restore its involvement in the region remains weak in the face of the Chinese openness.
Mansi continued:
Judging from the reactions of these Arabs to Blinken’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia, it is clear that the Saudis and other Arabs have lost confidence in the Biden administration and are not pinning any hopes on it to bring security and stability to the Middle East.
Moreover, it is evident that the Saudis feel so offended by Biden that they are willing to move closer to Iran and Russia if that enables them to steer clear of the American president. It will take more than a visit by Biden or Blinken or Sullivan to repair the damage that has been done to America’s relations with Arab countries that used to respect the US. In fact, it is safe to assume that the Arabs’ attitudes toward the Biden administration will remain steady regardless of any effort that this administration might choose to make.
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Why the Belt and Road Initiative Is Back With A Bang In 2023
Escobar: Why BRI Is Back With A Bang In 2023by Tyler Durden, 09January2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/escobar-why-bri-back-bang-2023 Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Cradle, As Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative enters its 10th year, a strong Sino-Russian geostrategic partnership has revitalized the BRI across the Global South…  Belt and Road Initiative-and-De-Dollarization Photo Credit: The Cradle Photo Credit: The Cradle The year 2022 ended with a Zoom call to end all Zoom calls: Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping discussing all aspects of the Russia-China strategic partnership in an exclusive video call.
Putin told Xi how “Russia and China managed to ensure record high growth rates of mutual trade,” meaning “we will be able to reach our target of $200 billion by 2024 ahead of schedule.”
On their coordination to “form a just world order based on international law,” Putin emphasized how “we share the same views on the causes, course, and logic of the ongoing transformation of the global geopolitical landscape.”
Facing “unprecedented pressure and provocations from the west,” Putin noted how Russia-China are not only defending their own interests “but also all those who stand for a truly democratic world order and the right of countries to freely determine their own destiny.”
Earlier, Xi had announced that Beijing will hold the 3rd Belt and Road Forum in 2023. This has been confirmed, off the record, by diplomatic sources. The forum was initially designed to be bi-annual, first held in 2017 and then 2019. 2021 didn’t happen because of Covid-19.
The return of the forum signals not only a renewed drive but an extremely significant landmark as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), launched in Astana and then Jakarta in 2013, will be celebrating its 10th anniversary. BRI version 2.0That set the tone for 2023 across the whole geopolitical and geoeconomic spectrum. In parallel to its geoconomic breadth and reach, BRI has been conceived as China’s overarching foreign policy concept up to the mid-century. Now it’s time to tweak things. BRI 2.0 projects, along its several connectivity corridors, are bound to be re-dimensioned to adapt to the post-Covid environment, the reverberations of the war in Ukraine, and a deeply debt-distressed world.  Belt and Road Initiative 2.0 Map of BRI (Photo Credit: The Cradle)
Map of BRI (Photo Credit: The Cradle) And then there’s the interlocking of the connectivity drive via BRI with the connectivity drive via the International North South Transportation Corridor (INTSC), whose main players are Russia, Iran and India.
Expanding on the geoeconomic drive of the Russia-China partnership as discussed by Putin and Xi, the fact that Russia, China, Iran and India are developing interlocking trade partnerships should establish that BRICS members Russia, India and China, plus Iran as one of the upcoming members of the expanded BRICS+, are the ‘Quad’ that really matter across Eurasia.
The new Politburo Standing Committee in Beijing, which are totally aligned with Xi’s priorities, will be keenly focused on solidifying concentric spheres of geoeconomic influence across the Global South. How China plays ‘strategic ambiguity’This has nothing to do with balance of power, which is a western concept that additionally does not connect with China’s five millennia of history. Neither is this another inflection of “unity of the center” – the geopolitical representation according to which no nation is able to threaten the center, China, as long as it is able to maintain order.
These cultural factors that in the past may have prevented China from accepting an alliance under the concept of parity have now vanished when it comes to the Russia-China strategic partnership.
Back in February 2022, days before the events that led to Russia’s Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine, Putin and Xi, in person, had announced that their partnership had “no limits” – even if they hold different approaches on how Moscow should deal with a Kiev lethally instrumentalized by the west to threaten Russia.
In a nutshell: Beijing will not “abandon” Moscow because of Ukraine – as much as it will not openly show support. The Chinese are playing their very own subtle interpretation of what Russians define as “strategic ambiguity.” Connectivity in West AsiaIn West Asia, BRI projects will advance especially fast in Iran, as part of the 25-year deal signed between Beijing and Tehran and the definitive demise of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – or Iran nuclear deal – which will translate into no European investment in the Iranian economy.
Iran is not only a BRI partner but also a full-fledged Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member. It has clinched a free trade agreement with the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), which consists of post-Soviet states Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
And Iran is, today, arguably the key interconnector of the INSTC, opening up the Indian Ocean and beyond, interconnecting not only with Russia and India but also China, Southeast Asia, and even, potentially, Europe – assuming the EU leadership will one day see which way the wind is blowing.  Map of International North South Transport Corridor Map of INSTC (Photo Credit: The Cradle) Map of INSTC (Photo Credit: The Cradle) So here we have heavily US-sanctioned Iran profiting simultaneously from BRI, INSTC and the EAEU free trade deal. The three critical BRICS members – India, China, Russia – will be particularly interested in the development of the trans-Iranian transit corridor – which happens to be the shortest route between most of the EU and South and Southeast Asia, and will provide faster, cheaper transportation.
Add to this the groundbreaking planned Russia-Transcaucasia-Iran electric power corridor, which could become the definitive connectivity link capable of smashing the antagonism between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
In the Arab world, Xi has already rearranged the chessboard. Xi’s December trip to Saudi Arabia should be the diplomatic blueprint on how to rapidly establish a post-modern quid pro quo between two ancient, proud civilizations to facilitate a New Silk Road revival. Rise of the Petro-yuanBeijing may have lost huge export markets within the collective west – so a replacement was needed. The Arab leaders who lined up in Riyadh to meet Xi saw ten thousand sharpened (western) knives suddenly approaching and calculated it was time to strike a new balance.
That means, among other things, that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MbS) has adopted a more multipolar agenda: no more weaponizing of Salafi-Jihadism across Eurasia, and a door wide open to the Russia-China strategic partnership. Hubris strikes hard at the heart of the Hegemon.
Credit Suisse strategist Zoltan Pozsar, in two striking successive newsletters, titled War and Commodity Encumbrance (December 27) and War and Currency Statecraft (December 29), pointed out the writing on the wall.
Pozsar fully understood what Xi meant when he said China is “ready to work with the GCC” to set up a “new paradigm of all-dimensional energy cooperation” within a timeline of “three to five years.”
China will continue to import a lot of crude, long-term, from GCC nations, and way more Liquified Natural Gas (LNG). Beijing will “strengthen our cooperation in the upstream sector, engineering services, as well as [downstream] storage, transportation, and refinery. The Shanghai Petroleum and Natural Gas Exchange platform will be fully utilized for RMB settlement in oil and gas trade…and we could start currency swap cooperation.”
Pozsar summed it all up, thus: “GCC oil flowing East + renminbi invoicing = the dawn of the petroyuan.” And not only that. In parallel, the BRI gets a renewed drive, because the previous model – oil for weapons – will be replaced with oil for sustainable development (construction of factories, new job opportunities).
And that’s how BRI meets MbS’s Vision 2030. Apart from Michael Hudson, Poszar may be the only western economic analyst who understands the global shift in power: “The multipolar world order,” he says,” is being built not by G7 heads of state but by the ‘G7 of the East’ (the BRICS heads of state), which is a G5 really.” Because of the move toward an expanded BRICS+, he took the liberty to round up the number.
And the rising global powers know how to balance their relations too. In West Asia, China is playing slightly different strands of the same BRI trade/connectivity strategy, one for Iran and another for the Persian Gulf monarchies.
China’s Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with Iran is a 25-year deal under which China invests $400 billion into Iran’s economy in exchange for a steady supply of Iranian oil at a steep discount. While at his summit with the GCC, Xi emphasized “investments in downstream petrochemical projects, manufacturing, and infrastructure” in exchange for paying for energy in yuan. How to play the New Great GameBRI 2.0 was also already on a roll during a series of Southeast Asian summits in November. When Xi met with Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha at the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) Summit in Bangkok, they pledged to finally connect the up-and-running China-Laos high-speed railway to the Thai railway system. This is a 600km-long project, linking Bangkok to Nong Khai on the border with Laos, to be completed by 2028.
And in an extra BRI push, Beijing and Bangkok agreed to coordinate the development of China’s Shenzhen-Zhuhai-Hong Kong Greater Bay Area and the Yangtze River Delta with Thailand’s Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC).
In the long run, China essentially aims to replicate in West Asia its strategy across Southeast Asia. Beijing trades more with the ASEAN than with either Europe or the US. The ongoing, painful slow motion crash of the collective west may ruffle a few feathers in a civilization that has seen, from afar, the rise and fall of Greeks, Romans, Parthians, Arabs, Ottomans, Spanish, Dutch, British. The Hegemon after all is just the latest in a long list.
In practical terms, BRI 2.0 projects will now be subjected to more scrutiny: This will be the end of impractical proposals and sunk costs, with lifelines extended to an array of debt-distressed nations. BRI will be placed at the heart of BRICS+ expansion – building on a consultation panel in May 2022 attended by foreign ministers and representatives from South America, Africa and Asia that showed, in practice, the global range of possible candidate countries. Implications for the Global SouthXi’s fresh mandate from the 20th Communist Party Congress has signaled the irreversible institutionalization of BRI, which happens to be his signature policy. The Global South is fast drawing serious conclusions, especially in contrast with the glaring politicization of the G20 that was visible at its November summit in Bali.
So Poszar is a rare gem: a western analyst who understands that the BRICS are the new G5 that matter, and that they’re leading the road towards BRICS+. He also gets that the Quad that really matters is the three main BRICS-plus-Iran.
Acute supply chain decoupling, the crescendo of western hysteria over Beijing’s position on the war in Ukraine, and serious setbacks on Chinese investments in the west all play on the development of BRI 2.0. Beijing will be focusing simultaneously on several nodes of the Global South, especially neighbors in ASEAN and across Eurasia.
Think, for instance, the Beijing-funded Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway, Southeast Asia’s first: a BRI project opening this year as Indonesia hosts the rotating ASEAN chairmanship. China is also building the East Coast Rail Link in Malaysia and has renewed negotiations with the Philippines for three railway projects.
Then there are the superposed interconnections. The EAEU will clinch a free trade zone deal with Thailand. On the sidelines of the epic return of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to power in Brazil, this past Sunday, officials of Iran and Saudi Arabia met amid smiles to discuss – what else – BRICS+. Excellent choice of venue: Brazil is regarded by virtually every geopolitical player as prime neutral territory.
From Beijing’s point of view, the stakes could not be higher, as the drive behind BRI 2.0 across the Global South is not to allow China to be dependent on western markets. Evidence of this is in its combined approach towards Iran and the Arab world.
China losing both US and EU market demand, simultaneously, may end up being just a bump in the (multipolar) road, even as the crash of the collective west may seem suspiciously timed to take China down.
The year 2023 will proceed with China playing the New Great Game deep inside, crafting a globalization 2.0 that is institutionally supported by a network encompassing BRI, BRICS+, the SCO, and with the help of its Russian strategic partner, the EAEU and OPEC+ too. No wonder the usual suspects are dazed and confused. |
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And you thought Game of Thrones was just a TV show…by Capitalist Exploits, 13February2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2023-02-13/and-you-thought-game-thrones-was-just-tv-show Chris MacIntosh | Insider #265 NewsletterSticking with the bifurcation of the world… This happened a few weeks ago now but is worth pointing out. France seems to be losing grip of former colonies as Burkina Faso expels French ambassador
It’s worth reminding you of something we wrote about in a previous issue. The fact that the French central bank essentially steals 50% of the wealth of West African states. Giorgio Meloni pointed this out after Macron called her a fascist when she declined to take another boat load of migrants fleeing these very countries the French have been raping for decades. Prime Minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni On CFA Franc. Straight. Fire. Prime Minister of Italy Giorgia Meloni On CFA Franc Giorgia Meloni is an Italian politician. This, of course, after we had the rumblings of this taking place about a year ago. You may recall it. Mali expels French Ambassador, changes national language from French to Bambara language
To better understand why this is taking place we need only look at the economics underlying this.  China vs USA Trade War in 1980 vs 2018 China vs USA trade war in 1980 vs 2018 What Else Is Breaking Up? Well…China reveals plans for military cooperation with Arab states Where trade goes, so goes protection of trade. It is like peanut butter and jelly — as god awful as it may be, it’s just the way that it is. Sticking with the topic of restructuring. As you’re well aware, we’ve long since said that Hungary was going to leave the EU. It is just a question of time. Hundreds of high-ranking military officers sacked in Hungary
To be clear, I don’t know if this is true. But as with most things, you piece together multiple bits of information and a picture forms providing probabilities. It is with these probabilities that we begin to price outcomes and assets accordingly. Where most probable outcomes coincide with cheap or expensive asset classes is where we find asymmetry. So what we do know is that Hungary has been against the Ukraine war from the get go.  The high cost of Orban’s pro-Russia policy Hungry is Anti-Ukraine War Orban has been a thorn in the EU’s side, refusing to bow to ever increasing levels of control and mismanagement. He is extraordinarily popular at home and this has the pointy shoes in Brussels in a tizz. How dare he? The article goes on to explain the mass sacking.
What may have prompted this? Well, I did note this…  Oleksiy Arestovich resigns as advisor to Zelensky’s office Oleksiy Arestovich resigns as advisor to Zelensky’s office This guy with the dress sense of a circus clown just resigned. He is — or should I say was — advisor to Zelensky’s chief of staff. Oleksiy Arestovich resigns as advisor to Zelensky’s office
After his resignation he went on political analyst Yuri Romanenko’s Youtube channel and had this to say.
Then having said that, spat this out…
This is particularly interesting since the former actor (I know right, it’s like the entire cabinet are actors) coined the name. I’d say propagandist but whatever. His job, as far as I can tell, was to run a Youtube channel, which earned him the nickname “Therapist-in-Chief” and was devoted to assuring Ukrainians that the situation was under control, Ukraine had the upper hand, and that the war would be over soon. So basically a professional liar. A Ukrainian version of the BBC and CNN.
So as you can see, quite a turnaround for the “everything’s under control” kid. I guess the cocaine dwarf didn’t funnel enough of the Western taxpaying serfs’ money through Europe’s laundromat to him in order to keep up the charade. Or he quite possibly actually fears for his life because at some point a Russian bullet may exit the back of his head. Who knows? ZeroHedge highlighted the wave of rats jumping ship… urgh, I mean “resignations.”  Pandora Papers: Where are the 336 politicians from? ZeroHedge highlighted the wave of rats jumping ship And I know what you’re thinking. “Where did they get all the money from?” It is a good question.  Countries Donating Weapons to Ukraine The Zelensky regime thanks you, American taxpayers! The Zelensky regime thanks you, American taxpayers, for your service. Lambos and French villas don’t just land in your pocket on their own, ya know. So there are at least two things to consider here. A top Ukraine official acknowledged what we’ve been saying all along — that the mighty Ukrainian military is NOT about to win. On the contrary, they’re getting hammered. A meat grinder. And now Hungary is preparing. Preparing for what, you ask? Well, what is the step for the US… urgh, I mean Ukraine when they’re winning so hard that Russia will be in control by spring? As I mentioned in a recent issue, the US/NATO/EU cannot lose. The harm to the US military hegemony would be a game changer. The rest of the world and all the military intelligence, from Delhi to Beijing to Ankara and even Tel Aviv, knows full well this is a US war. So what do they do? If their previous actions are anything to go by, they ramp up the conflict, attempting to ensure other so-called participants “HAVE TO” join. This was what the bombing of the Nordstream pipeline was designed to do. To cut off all options, forcing Germany in particular to follow Washington’s policy.
Now, ahead of time, Orban is preempting a declaration of war by NATO. Hungary wants no part in this, but under their current NATO and EU membership they’d be obliged regardless.
Is Orban prepping for the time when he has to take his country out of the EU and out of NATO? If he was to do that (and I’m not saying that this is what he’s doing, merely that it is a logical and possible explanation), then he’d get rid of all the pro-NATO military because, by golly, he’s going to need a strong ideological position domestically within the military if he is to succeed in doing so. He’d almost certainly understand that the CIA would be active in promoting a “colour revolution” that would appear out of nowhere like a military myocarditis. In a recent speech Orban had this to say:
Aristotle, 2,500 years ago, wrote a book on the constitutions of Greece. He wrote, “All these constitutions call themselves democracies, but they are really oligarchies.” Look around you and tell me that today’s so-called democracies are not run by a financial oligarchy. Many call it the deep state, but what exactly is the deep state? It is a financial oligarchy. Takeaways?Well, I think the euro is F.U.K.T (fragile, useless, korrupt, and terminal). So there’s that, but you know what else I’ll be looking out for? Should this indeed be the case, then when or if Hungary announces its exit, I expect Hungarian assets to immediately be sold by European institutions, not because they necessarily disagree but because everything has become so politicised that holding assets of Hungary would be immediately deemed “unpatriotic” and/or sanctioned.
We’ll wait for that to play out and then go hunting and probably buy the snot out of Hungary. If they can extract themselves from the WEF puppets, then there is hope.
I do realise that Hungary is a tiny landlocked country and really this works only where it gains momentum as/if others join. Serbia? Quite possibly. Italy under Maloni? Sure, I can see that, though for reasons stated other than the Russkie angle. Croatia, sensing the tide turning? I wouldn’t discount it.
So as you can see, lots going on and lots to keep our beady eye on. For now, get out of the euro if you are long and realise that as screwed as the dollar is, it looks positively glorious compared to the klustafuk that is Europe and the euro. Here’s current short positioning in the greenback — once again approaching extreme levels of pessimism.  Broad USD net options positioning 2020 – 2022 Here’s current short positioning in the greenback — once again approaching extreme levels of pessimism<If you’ve the stomach for it and put your FX trader hat on (if you have one), you’d be buying some of that USD/EUR trade.
To be clear, we’re not doing so as we feel there are bigger fish to fry, but simply pointing out to you that all the negativity around the dollar (most of it totally justified) tends to entirely forget the fact that there really are no alternative currencies with deep enough pools of liquidity to take large capital flows, and — as you can see — the euro, which is roughly half of the dollar index is… well, screwed. – Chris MacIntosh Contributor posts published on Zero Hedge do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of Zero Hedge, and are not selected, edited or screened by Zero Hedge editors. |
In Moscow, Xi and Putin bury Pax AmericanaIn Moscow this week, the Chinese and Russian leaders revealed their joint commitment to redesign the global order, an undertaking that has ‘not been seen in 100 years.’By Pepe Escobar , 22March2023 https://thecradle.co/article-view/22818/in-moscow-xi-and-putin-bury-pax-americana  Xi and Putin Photo Credit: The Cradle What has just taken place in Moscow is nothing less than a new Yalta, which, incidentally, is in Crimea. But unlike the momentous meeting of US President Franklin Roosevelt, Soviet Leader Joseph Stalin, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in USSR-run Crimea in 1945, this is the first time in arguably five centuries that no political leader from the west is setting the global agenda.
It’s Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin that are now running the multilateral, multipolar show. Western exceptionalists may deploy their crybaby routines as much as they want: nothing will change the spectacular optics, and the underlying substance of this developing world order, especially for the Global South.
What Xi and Putin are setting out to do was explained in detail before their summit, in two Op-Eds penned by the presidents themselves. Like a highly-synchronized Russian ballet, Putin’s vision was laid out in the People’s Daily in China, focusing on a “future-bound partnership,” while Xi’s was published in the Russian Gazette and the RIA Novosti website, focusing on a new chapter in cooperation and common development.
Right from the start of the summit, the speeches by both Xi and Putin drove the NATO crowd into a hysterical frenzy of anger and envy: Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova perfectly captured the mood when she remarked that the west was “foaming at the mouth.”
The front page of the Russian Gazette on Monday was iconic: Putin touring Nazi-free Mariupol, chatting with residents, side by side with Xi’s Op-Ed. That was, in a nutshell, Moscow’s terse response to Washington’s MQ-9 Reaper stunt and the International Criminal Court (ICC) kangaroo court shenanigans. “Foam at the mouth” as much as you like; NATO is in the process of being thoroughly humiliated in Ukraine.
During their first “informal” meeting, Xi and Putin talked for no less than four and a half hours. At the end, Putin personally escorted Xi to his limo. This conversation was the real deal: mapping out the lineaments of multipolarity – which starts with a solution for Ukraine.
Predictably, there were very few leaks from the sherpas, but there was quite a significant one on their “in-depth exchange” on Ukraine. Putin politely stressed he respects China’s position – expressed in Beijing’s 12-point conflict resolution plan, which has been completely rejected by Washington. But the Russian position remains ironclad: demilitarization, Ukrainian neutrality, and enshrining the new facts on the ground.
In parallel, the Russian Foreign Ministry completely ruled out a role for the US, UK, France, and Germany in future Ukraine negotiations: they are not considered neutral mediators. A multipolar patchwork quilt The next day was all about business: everything from energy and “military-technical” cooperation to improving the efficacy of trade and economic corridors running through Eurasia.
Russia already ranks first as a natural gas supplier to China – surpassing Turkmenistan and Qatar – most of it via the 3,000 km Power of Siberia pipeline that runs from Siberia to China’s northeastern Heilongjiang province, launched in December 2019. Negotiations on the Power of Siberia II pipeline via Mongolia are advancing fast.
Sino-Russian cooperation in high-tech will go through the roof: 79 projects at over $165 billion. Everything from liquified natural gas (LNG) to aircraft construction, machine tool construction, space research, agro-industry, and upgraded economic corridors.
The Chinese president explicitly said he wants to link the New Silk Road projects to the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU). This BRI-EAEU interpolation is a natural evolution. China has already signed an economic cooperation deal with the EAEU. Russian macroeconomic uber-strategist Sergey Glazyev’s ideas are finally bearing fruit.
And last but not least, there will be a new drive towards mutual settlements in national currencies – and between Asia and Africa, and Latin America. For all practical purposes, Putin endorsed the role of the Chinese yuan as the new trade currency of choice while the complex discussions on a new reserve currency backed by gold and/or commodities proceed.
This joint economic/business offensive ties in with the concerted Russia-China diplomatic offensive to remake vast swathes of West Asia and Africa.
Chinese diplomacy works like the matryoshka (Russian stacking dolls) in terms of delivering subtle messages. It’s far from coincidental that Xi’s trip to Moscow exactly coincides with the 20th anniversary of American ‘Shock and Awe’ and the illegal invasion, occupation, and destruction of Iraq.
In parallel, over 40 delegations from Africa arrived in Moscow a day before Xi to take part in a “Russia-Africa in the Multipolar World” parliamentary conference – a run-up to the second Russia-Africa summit next July.
The area surrounding the Duma looked just like the old Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) days when most of Africa kept very close anti-imperialist relations with the USSR. Putin chose this exact moment to write off more than $20 billion in African debt. In West Asia, Russia-China are acting totally in synch. West Asia. The Saudi-Iran rapprochement was actually jump-started by Russia in Baghdad and Oman: it was these negotiations that led to the signing of the deal in Beijing. Moscow is also coordinating the Syria-Turkiye rapprochement discussions. Russian diplomacy with Iran – now under strategic partnership status – is kept on a separate track.
Diplomatic sources confirm that Chinese intelligence, via its own investigations, is now fully assured of Putin’s vast popularity across Russia, and even within the country’s political elites. That means conspiracies of the regime-change variety are out of the question. This was fundamental for Xi and the Zhongnanhai’s (China’s central HQ for party and state officials) decision to “bet” on Putin as a trusted partner in the coming years, considering he may run and win the next presidential elections. China is always about continuity.
So the Xi-Putin summit definitively sealed China-Russia as comprehensive strategic partners for the long haul, committed to developing serious geopolitical and geoeconomic competition with declining western hegemons.
This is the new world born in Moscow this week. Putin previously defined it as a new anti-colonial policy. It’s now laid out as a multipolar patchwork quilt. There’s no turning back on the demolition of the remnants of Pax Americana. ‘Changes that haven’t happened in 100 years’ In Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250-1350, Janet Abu-Lughod built a carefully constructed narrative showing the prevailing multipolar order when the West “lagged behind the ‘Orient.’” Later, the West only “pulled ahead because the ‘Orient’ was temporarily in disarray.”
We may be witnessing a similarly historic shift in the making, trespassed by a revival of Confucianism (respect for authority, emphasis on social harmony), the equilibrium inherent to the Tao, and the spiritual power of Eastern Orthodoxy. This is, indeed, a civilizational fight.
Moscow, finally welcoming the first sunny days of Spring, provided this week a larger-than-life illustration of “weeks where decades happen” compared to “decades where nothing happens.” The two presidents bid farewell in a poignant manner. Xi: “Now, there are changes that haven’t happened in 100 years. When we are together, we drive these changes.” Putin: “I agree.” Xi: “Take care, dear friend.” Putin: “Have a safe trip.” Here’s to a new day dawning, from the lands of the Rising Sun to the Eurasian steppes. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle. |
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Escobar: Eurasian Heartland Rises To Challenge The Westby Tyler Durden, 29May2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/escobar-eurasian-heartland-rises-challenge-west President Xi Jinping telling President Putin at the end of their summit last March in Moscow that we’re now facing “great changes not seen in a century” directly applies to the new spirit reigning across the Heartland.  A meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Moscow. March 21, 2023 – Sputnik International, 1920, 26.05.2023 © Sputnik / Pavel Byrkin A meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Moscow. March 21, 2023 – Sputnik International, 1920, 26.05.2023 © Sputnik / Pavel Byrkin
Cue to the China-Central Asia summit last week in Xian, the former imperial capital, where Xi solidified the expansion of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) from Western China in Xinjiang to its western neighbors and then all the way to Iran, Turkiye and Eastern Europe.
Xi in Xian particularly stressed the complementing aspects between BRI and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), once again showing that all five Central Asian “stans”, acting together, should counter-act the proverbial external interference via “terrorism, separatism and extremism”.
The message was stark: these hybrid war strategies are all integrated with the attempt by the Hegemon to continue fostering serial color revolutions. The purveyors of the “rules-based international order”, Xi implied, will go no holds barred to prevent ongoing Heartland integration.
The usual suspects in fact are already spinning that Central Asia is falling into a potential trap, fully captured by Beijing. Yet this is something Kazakhstan’s “multi-vector diplomacy”, coined way back in the Nazarbayev years, would never allow.
What Beijing is developing, instead, is an integrated approach via a C+C5 secretariat with no less than 19 separate channels of communication.
The heart of the matter is to turbo-charge Heartland connectivity via the BRI’s Middle Corridor.And that, crucially, includes technology transfer. As it stands, there are dozens of industrial transfer programs with Kazakhstan, a dozen in Uzbekistan, and several in discussion with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. These are extolled by Beijing as part of “harmonious Silk Roads”.
Xi himself, as a post-modern pilgrim, detailed the connectivity in his keynote speech in Xian: “The China-Kyrgystan-Uzbekistan highway that runs across the Tian shan Mountains, the China-Tajikistan expressway that defies the Pamir Plateau, and the China-Kazakhstan crude oil pipeline and the China-Central Asia Gas Pipeline that traverse the vast desert – they are the present-day Silk Road.” The Revival of the Heartland “Belt”Xi’s China is once again mirroring lessons from History. What’s happening now brings us back to the first half of the first millennium B.C., when the Persian Achaemenid empire established itself as the largest to date, stretching from India in the east and Central Asia in the northeast to Greece in the west and Egypt in the southwest.
For the first time in history, territories that spanned Asia, Africa and Europe were brought together; and that led to a boom in trade, culture and ethnic interactions (what BRI defines today as “people to people exchanges”).
That’s how we had the Hellenistic world first getting in touch with India and Central Asia – as they set up the first Greek settlements in Bactria (in today’s Afghanistan).
By the end of the first millennium B.C. all the way to the first millennium A.D. an immense area from the Pacific to the Atlantic – encompassing the Han Chinese empire, the Kushan kingdom, the Parthians and the Roman empire, among others – formed “a continuous belt of civilizations, states and cultures”, as Prof. Edvard Rtveladze of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan defined it.
This, in a nutshell, is at heart of the Chinese concept of “belt” and “road”: the “belt” refers to the Heartland, the “road” refers to the Maritime Silk Road.
So slightly less than 2,000 years ago, that was the first time in human history that the borders of several states and kingdoms were immediately adjacent to each other along no less than 11,400 km, from east to west. No wonder the fabled Ancient Silk Road – actually a maze of roads -, the first transcontinental thoroughfare, emerged at the time.
That was a direct consequence of a series of political, economic and cultural whirlwinds involving the peoples of Eurasia. History, in the high acceleration 21st century, is now retracing these steps.
Geography, after all, is destiny. Central Asia was traversed by countless migrations of Near Eastern, Indo-European, Indo-Iranian and Turkic peoples; was the focus of serious intercultural interaction (Iranian, Indian, Turkic, Chinese, Hellenistic cultures); and criss-crossed virtually all major religions (Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Christianity, Islam).
The Organization of Turkic States, led by Turkiye, is even engaged in rebuilding the Turkic identity overtones of the Heartland – a vector that will be developing in parallel to the influence of China and Russia. That Greater Eurasia PartnershipRussia is evolving its own path. A key debate was held аt a recent Valdai Club session on the Greater Eurasian Partnership when it comes to the interaction between Russia and the Heartland and neighbors China, India and Iran.
Moscow regards the concept of a Greater Eurasian Partnership as the key framework for achieving much desired “political cohesion” in the post-Soviet space – under the imperative of indivisibility of regional security.
This means, once again, maximum attention towards serial attempts of provoking color revolutions across the Heartland.
As much as in Beijing, there are no illusions in Moscow that the collective West will take no prisoners in regimenting Central Asia to the Russophobic drive. For over a year now Washington for all practical purposes already addresses the Heartland in terms of threats of secondary sanctions and crude ultimatums.
So Central Asia matters only in terms of the evolving hybrid war – and otherwise – against the Russia-China strategic partnership. No fabulous trade and connectivity prospects under the New Silk Roads; no Greater Eurasia Partnership; no security arrangements under the CSTO; no mechanism of economic cooperation like the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU).
Either you’re a “partner” in the sanctions dementia and/or a secondary front in the war against Russia, or there will be a price to pay.
The “price”, set by the proverbial Straussian neocon psychos currently in charge of US foreign policy, is always the same: proxy war via terror, to be provided by ISIS-Khorasan*, whose black cells are ready to be awakened in selected backwoods of Afghanistan and the Ferghana valley.
Moscow is very much aware of the high stakes. For instance, for a year and a half virtually every month a Russian delegation arrives in Tajikistan to implement, in practice, the “pivot to the East”, developing projects in agriculture, health care, education, science and tourism.
Central Asia should have a leading role in BRICS+ expansion – something supported by both BRICS leaders Russia and China. The idea of a BRICS + Central Asia is being seriously floated from Tashkent to Almaty.
That would imply establishing a strategic continuum from Russia and China to Central Asia, South Asia, West Asia, Africa and Latin America – spanning the logistics of connectivity trade, energy, manufacture production, investment, technological breakthroughs and cultural interaction.
Beijing and Moscow, each in their own way, and with their own formulations, are already setting the framework for this ambitious geoeconomic project to be viable: the Heartland back in action as a protagonist in the forefront of History, just like those kingdoms, merchants and pilgrims of nearly 2,000 years ago.  Sputnik International-Telegram-26May2023-Growing number of countries flock to Russo-Asian economic, political blocs |
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Escobar: Russia’s New Roadmap For Multipolar Worldby Tyler Durden, 18June2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/escobar-russias-new-roadmap-multipolar-world The St. Petersburg International Economic Forum is not only the premier platform for discussing everything that matters in business and geoeconomics concerning Russia and the wider Eurasia.  St. Petersburg International Economic Forum 2023 It’s a privileged space where trends of the past, present and future are explored in detail: a microcosm of multipolarity at work.
The business program is usually an intellectual feast. It’s impossible to convey its breadth and reach in only a few lines, not to mention the exhilarating atmosphere of jumping from room to room in search of the perfect expose.
What follows could be regarded as a sort of incomplete Greatest Hits of the Thursday, June 15 sessions – packing enough punch to drive multipolarity-heavy debates for weeks if not months ahead.
The heavyweight-laden panel How The Russian Economy Will Develop featured Governor of the Russian Central Bank Elvira Nabiullina, Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov and top Putin aide Maksim Oreshkin.
The unflappable Nabiullina stressed now “inter-operability” will help “the Russian paying system to be integrated in the global system”. She remains in favor of “selected privatization”, keeping “confidence in capital markets”, and low inflation.
Siluanov was keen on the “need to change the paradigm”; the importance of the State creating demand; and the need to reduce subsidies. Macro-stability is important – “but we should not overdo it.” Oreshkin agrees: the government should get rid of assets “it does not really need”.
A De-Dollarization panel debated the plausibility of transitioning from the US dollar towards a “fundamentally new supranational currency, overseen by a broad consortium of states operating on principles of partnership”. That’s essentially what’s being discussed at the heart of both the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) and BRICS.
The future of Russia was at the center of the Horizon 2040 debate. Andrey Bezrukov, president of the Technological Sovereignty Exports Association and a professor at MGIMO, stressed how in 2024 Russia holds the chairmanship of BRICS: it’s time, right now, to “turn it not only into an alliance of equal partners but also a financial, technological and economic force.”
Alexander Dugin engaged in a stunning presentation, explaining paths towards development in parallel to how Russians should understand identity.
That led to an inevitable critique of ethnocentrism: “The West chooses itself as the only subject. It holds a system of values deemed to be universal – that everybody else must follow.” That’s “the West as the whole of humankind”, coupled with a drive to “de-subjectify the rest. The global subjectivity of the West is built in”. Dugin described it as “a virus”, developed “over centuries.”
Integration in the Global West, according to Dugin, “leaves Russia without a future.” Rather, Russia should declare the West to be “one force among several. Not an existential threat.” Russia can “proclaim itself as a sovereign state. Exercise a “mental de-colonization of society.” That’s how a “civilization-state that defines its own goals” should act.
Showing a diagram in three steps, “between red and lilac”, Dugin illustrated how Russia can perform the transition from “understanding itself in the Western world” towards “sovereign development.” All about SCO, EAEU, ASEAN, INSTC, BRICSZhang Ming, the SCO-secretary general, and Bakhtiyer Khakimov, Putin’s special representative at the SCO, were particularly helpful in a panel that came with a game-changer: just like the BRICS, with its New Development Bank (NDB), the SCO is also working to create a development bank, integrated into an “open world economy” against sanctions.
The SCO secretariat in Tashkent already works as a forum for local and Central Asian governments. This is a true multilateral organization whose members are already responsible for no less than 2/3 of global trade cargo turnover.
Sergey Pavlov, First Deputy Managing Director of Russian Railways, made a key connection: SCO-INSTC. The potential of the International North South Transportation Corridor, he said, is “unbelievable”. He reminded everyone of Russia recently signing an agreement to build the “missing part of INSTC in Iran.” And he stressed how the strategic Kazakh-China border at the Khorgos dry port is ready for an export boom.
A much awaited BRICS discussion examined how different mechanisms may improve socio-economic sustainability. Enormous potential is to be explored by the African Continental Free Trade Area: 1.3 billion people, overwhelmingly young.
Alexander Isaev, an expert from the Directorate of International Transport Corridors, stressed the importance of “good quality logistic chains”. As foreign trade is fundamentally based on sea transportation, BRICS and future BRICS+ members will need to do their homework on “port infrastructure and road improvements”. Not to mention curtail red tape: “Companies spend 50% of total time in transit shipment. We need to speed up the process of crossing borders.”
A key question was posed: when there will be a “Made in BRICS”? Not before the “harmonizing of technical regulations”, as it’s already happening with “several groups” working between China and Russia.
An immensely important round table focused on the INSTC, with representatives from Iran, Pakistan and Azerbaijan as well as Evgenii Moskvichev, chairman of a Duma committee and one of the world’s leading transportation experts. The Iranian Minister of Transport, Mehrdad Bazrpash, was keen to stress that Iran carries “an enormous logistical potential.”
ASEAN featured in a crucial panel celebrating the 5th anniversary of a memorandum of understanding with the EAEU on economic cooperation as well as the Russia-ASEAN strategic partnership.
This Eurasia-Southeast Asia interlink carries immense potential in transportation, logistics, digital economy and of course payment systems bypassing the US dollar.
The indispensable Sergey Glazyev, the Eurasia Economic Commission’s Minister of Integration and Macroeconomics, had to be part of the discussion. Evgeny Zaganyov, Russia’s representative at ASEAN (they have a Jakarta office), stressed how the time is now to “set up ASEAN as a hub of global growth”; work towards a “joint tax environment”; and invest in transport connectivity.
All that within the crucial framework of “mutual settlements in local currencies”. The Philippines, meanwhile, is keen to bill itself as the ideal gateway for the EAEU to reach ASEAN. Dis-integration?The traditional Valdai Club discussion tried to concisely identify the new world already in its title: “The New World Economy: Not Global, but Interconnected”.
Russia’s First Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Belousov came up with a necessary short recap, pointing how the “great globalization beneficiary in the 1990s was China, which doubled its GDP.” But then, “by the second half of the 2000s the Americans started to dismantle the standards.” Protectionism became the norm.
Belousov does not “believe the WTO will come back to life.” He prefers to focus on the “new countries” who will be key players in the new world order: Brazil, India, Indonesia, Mexico.
He sees three possible scenarios ahead: a new “Pax Americana based on digital technology, protectionist, a closed Western club”, with the use of force basically regimented against China; a “regionalization around centers of development”, such as China, India and Vietnam; or “controlled chaos”, submitted to the food crisis and the water resources crisis.
Gong Jiong, from the University of International Business and Economics (UIBE), focused on what he defined as “The Great Re-Orientation”. China of course is at the center: its biggest trade partner is in fact ASEAN. In parallel, China trade with Russia increased 40% last year and it may reach “way more than $200 billion by the end of 2023”, with no less than 70% – and counting – settled in yuan and ruble. The Russian Central Bank already holds 40% of its reserves in yuan. Welcome to the multipolar currency world.
Eldor Aripov, from Uzbekistan, offered a precious Central Asian perspective. The cost of food imports is “considerable”; in many cases “trucks from Europe take 2 and ½ months to reach Uzbekistan – with transportation costs doubled.”
Still, Tashkent expects a hefty 5,5% growth this year. The least one can say is that the “Eurasian Balkans” prediction (by the late Zbig Brzezinski) collapsed. Uzbekistan is now focused on – what else – transportation corridors; via Afghanistan to South Asia, as well as the Chinese project of a China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway.
Belousov for his part noted that Russia is able to use no less than four basic corridors. Two are operational: the Eastern Corridor, developed for coal and now being restructured for fertilizers, and the Southern Corridor, via the Black Sea to Turkey.
The two developing corridors are the North Sea Route – shorter and faster by two weeks compared to Suez – and the three branches of the INSTC: East, to Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan via Iran; the Trans-Caspian – with Astrakhan as the main port via Iran to the south; and the
Western corridor – also an alternative transit to Suez. Not surprisingly to make it all work, like clockwork, requires “a lot of investment and political stability.” Benedict Weerasena, from the Bait al-Amanah think tank in Malaysia, introduced a youthful, cheerful, optimistic element to the proceedings, stressing how ASEAN’s GDP per capita, congregating 690 million people, is “way higher than the global average”. He waxed lyrical over the rise of the ASEAN Monetary Fund (AMF), stressing how “regional bodies need to fight the supremacy of the IMF. AMF is not just a dream.”
Arvind Gupta, from India, engaged in a sharp critique of the weaponization of technology and financial systems, as well as the weaponization of supply chains “being forced into nations. He came up with a neat formulation: “The current system promotes either technology for profit or for surveillance.” India tries to “promote technology for good, for development.”
So that was only a sample of a full day of discussions at the forum. Nothing remotely similar, and digging so deep, takes place anywhere across the collective West. Welcome to St. Petersburg as a true capital of the emerging multipolar world. |
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Escobar: Waiting For The End Of The Worldby Tyler Durden, 14April2023 – 06:40 AM https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/escobar-waiting-end-world
We cannot even begin to fathom the non-stop ripple effects deriving from the 2023 geopolitical earthquake that shook the world: Putin and Xi, in Moscow, de facto signaling the beginning of the end of Pax Americana.  global chess
This has been the ultimate anathema for rarified Anglo-American hegemonic elites for over a century: a signed, sealed, comprehensive strategic partnership of two peer competitors, intertwining a massive manufacturing base and pre-eminence in supply of natural resources – with value-added Russian state of the art weaponry and diplomatic nous.
From the point of view of these elites, whose Plan A was always a debased version of the Roman Empire’s Divide and Rule, this was never supposed to happen. In fact, blinded by hubris, they never saw it coming. Historically, this does not even qualify as a remix of the Tournament of Shadows; it’s more like Tawdry Empire Left in the Shade, “foaming at the mouth” (copyright Maria Zakharova).
Xi and Putin, with one Sun Tzu move, immobilized Orientalism, Eurocentrism, Exceptionalism and, last but not least, Neo-Colonialism. No wonder the Global South was riveted by what developed in Moscow.
Adding insult to injury, we have China, the world’s largest economy by far when measured by purchasing power parity (PPP), as well as the largest exporter. And we have Russia, an economy that by PPP is equivalent or even larger than Germany’s – with the added advantages of being the world’s largest energy exporter and not forced to de-industrialize. Together, in synch, they are focused on creating the necessary conditions to bypass the US dollar.Cue to one of President Putin’s crucial one-liners: “We are in favor of using the Chinese yuan for settlements between Russia and the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America.”
A key consequence of this geopolitical and geoeconomic alliance, carefully designed throughout the past few years, is already in play: the emergence of a possible triad in terms of global trade relations and, in many aspects, a Global Trade War.
Eurasia is being led – and largely organized – by the Russia-China partnership. China will also play a key role across the Global South, but India may also become quite influential, agglutinating what would be a Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) on steroids. And then there is the former “indispensable nation” ruling over the EU vassals and the Anglosphere rounded up in the Five Eyes. What the Chinese really wantThe Hegemon, under its self-concocted “rules-based international order”, essentially never did diplomacy. Divide and Rule, by definition, precludes diplomacy. Now their version of “diplomacy” has degenerated even further into crude insults by an array of US, EU and UK’s intellectually challenged and frankly moronic functionaries.
It’s no wonder that a true gentleman, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, has been forced to admit, “Russia is no longer a partner of the EU… The European Union ‘lost’ Russia. But the Union itself is to blame. After all, EU member states… openly declare that Russia should be dealt a strategic defeat. That is why we consider the EU to be an enemy organization.”
And yet the new Russian foreign policy concept, announced by Putin on March 31st, makes it quite clear: Russia does not consider itself an “enemy of the West” and does not seek isolation.
The problem is there’s virtually no adult to talk to on the other side, rather a bunch of hyenas. That has led Lavrov to once again stress that “symmetrical and asymmetrical” measures may be used against those involved in “hostile” actions against Moscow.
When it comes to Exceptionalistan, that’s self-evident: the US is designated by Moscow as the prime anti-Russia instigator, and the collective West’s overall policy is described as “a new type of Hybrid War.”
Yet what really matters for Moscow are the positives further on down the road: non-stop Eurasia integration; closer ties with “friendly global centers” China and India; increased help to Africa; more strategic cooperation with Latin America and the Caribbean, the lands of Islam – Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt – and ASEAN.
And that brings us to something essential that was – predictably – ignored en masse by Western media: the Boao Forum for Asia, which took place nearly simultaneously with the announcement of Russia’s new foreign policy concept.
The Boao Forum, started in early 2001, still in the pre-9/11 era, has been modeled on Davos, but it’s Top China through and through, with the secretariat based in Beijing. Boao is in Hainan province, one of the islands of the Gulf of Tonkin and today a tourist paradise.
One of the key sessions of this year’s forum was on development and security, chaired by former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who is currently Boao’s president.
There were quite a few references to Xi’s Global Development Initiative as well as the Global Security Initiative – which by the way was launched at Boao in 2022.
The problem is these two initiatives are directly linked to the UN’s concept of peace and security and the extremely dodgy Agenda 2030 on “sustainable development” – which is not exactly about development and much less “sustainable”: it’s a Davos uber-corporate concoction. The UN for its part is basically a hostage of Washington’s whims. Beijing, for the moment, plays along.
Premier Li Qiang was more specific. Stressing the trademark concept of “community of shared future for mankind” as the basis for peace and development, he linked peaceful coexistence with the “Spirit of Bandung” – in direct continuity with the emergence of NAM in 1955: that should be the “Asian Way” of mutual respect and building consensus – in opposition to “the indiscriminate use of unilateral sanctions and long-reaching jurisdiction”, and the refusal of “a new Cold War”.
And that led Li Qiang to the emphasis on the Chinese drive to deepen the RCEP East Asian trade deal, and also advance the negotiations on the free trade agreement between China and ASEAN. And all that integrated with the new expansion of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), in contrast to trade protectionism.
So for the Chinese what matters, intertwined with business, is cultural interactions; inclusivity; mutual trust; and a stern refusal of “clash of civilizations” and ideological confrontation.
As much as Moscow easily subscribes to all of the above – and in fact practices it via diplomatic finesse – Washington is terrified by how compelling is this Chinese narrative for the whole Global South. After all, Exceptionalistan’s only offer in the market of ideas is unilateral domination; Divide an Rule; and “you’re with us or against us”. And in the latter case you will be sanctioned, harassed, bombed and/or regime-changed. Is it 1848 all over again?Meanwhile, in vassal territories, a possibility arises of a revival of 1848, when a big revolutionary wave hit all over Europe.
In 1848 these were liberal revolutions; today we have essentially popular anti-liberal (and anti-war) revolutions – from farmers in the Netherlands and Belgium to unreconstructed populists in Italy and Left and Right populists combined in France.
It may be too early to consider this a European Spring. Yet what’s certain in several latitudes is that average European citizens feel increasingly inclined to shed the yoke of Neoliberal Technocracy and its dictatorship of Capital and Surveillance. Not to mention NATO warmongering.
As virtually all European media is technocrat-controlled people won’t see this discussion in the MSM. Yet there’s a feeling in the air this may be heralding a Chinese-style end of a dynasty.
In the Chinese calendar this is how it always goes: their historical-societal clock always runs with periods of between 200 and 400 years per dynasty. There are indeed intimations that Europe may be witnessing a rebirth.The period of upheaval will be long and arduous – due to the hordes of anarco-liberals who are such useful idiots for the Western oligarchy – or it could all come to a head in a single day. The target is quite clear: the death of Neoliberal Technocracy.
That’s how the Xi-Putin view could make inroads across the collective West: show that this ersatz “modernity” (which incorporates rabid cancel culture) is essentially void compared to traditional, deeply rooted cultural values – be it Confucianism, Taoism or Eastern Orthodoxy. The Chinese and Russian concepts of civilization-state are much more appealing than they appear.
Well, the (cultural) revolution won’t be televised; but it may work its charms via countless Telegram channels. France, infatuated with rebellion throughout its history, may well be jump to the vanguard – again.
Yet nothing will change if the global financial casino is not subverted. Russia taught the world a lesson: it was preparing itself, in silence, for a long-term Total War. So much so that its calibrated counterpunch turned the Financial War upside down – completely destabilizing the casino. China, meanwhile, is re-balancing, and is on the way to be also prepared for Total War, hybrid and otherwise.
The inestimable Michael Hudson, fresh from his latest book, The Collapse of Antiquity, where he deftly analyzes the role of debt in Greece And Rome, the roots of Western civilization, succinctly explains our current state of play:
So “creditor oligarchy”, in fact, can be explained as the toxic intersection between globalist wet dreams of total control and militarized Full Spectrum Dominance.
The difference now is that Russia and China are showing to the Global South that what American strategists had in store for them – you’re going to “freeze in the dark” if you deviate from what we say – is no longer applicable. Most of the Global South is now in open geoeconomic revolt.
Globalist neoliberal totalitarianism of course won’t disappear under a sand storm. At least not yet. There’s still a maelstrom of toxicity ahead: suspension of constitutional rights; Orwellian propaganda; goon squads; censorship; cancel culture; ideological conformity; irrational curbs of freedom of movement; hatred and even persecution of – Slav – Untermenschen; segregation; criminalization of dissent; book burnings, show trials; fake arrest mandates by the kangaroo ICC; ISIS-style terror.
But the most important vector is that both China and Russia, each exhibiting their own complex particularities – and both dismissed by the West as unassimilable Others – are heavily invested in building workable economic models that are not connected, in several degrees, to the Western financial casino and/or supply chain networks. And that’s what’s driving the Exceptionalists berserk – even more berserk than they already are. * * * Pepe Escobar is a Eurasia-wide independent geopolitical analyst and author. His latest book is Raging Twenties (Nimble Books, 2021). Follow him on Telegram at @rocknrollgeopolitics |
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Escobar: Putin And What Really Matters On The Chessboardby Tyler Durden, 17june2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/political/escobar-putin-and-what-really-matters-chessboard It’s fascinating to see how Russian war correspondents are now playing a role similar to the former political commissars in the USSR.  President of Russia: Meeting with war correspondents
President Putin’s meeting with a group of Russian war correspondents and Telegram bloggers – including Filatov, Poddubny, Pegov from War Gonzo, Podolyaka, Gazdiev from RT – was an extraordinary exercise in freedom of the press.
There were among them seriously independent journalists who can be very critical of the way the Kremlin and the Ministry of Defense (MoD) are conducting what can be alternatively defined as a Special Military Operation (SMO); a counter-terror operation (CTO); or an “almost war” (according to some influential business circles in Moscow).
It’s fascinating to see how these patriotic/independent journalists are now playing a role similar to the former political commissars in the USSR, all of them, in their own way, deeply committed to guiding Russian society towards draining the swamp, slowly but surely.
It’s clear Putin not only understands their role but sometimes, “shock to the system-style”, the system he presides actually implements the journalists’ suggestions. As a foreign correspondent working all over the world for nearly 40 years now, I have been quite impressed by the way Russian journalists may enjoy a degree of freedom unimaginable in most latitudes of the collective West.
The Kremlin transcript of the meeting shows Putin definitely not inclined to beat around the bush.
He admitted there are “operetta Generals” in the Army; that there was a shortage of drones, precision munitions and communication equipment, now being addressed.
He discussed the legality of mercenary outfits; the necessity of sooner or later installing a “buffer zone” to protect Russian citizens from systematic Kiev regime shelling; and he stressed that Russia will not answer Bandera-inspired terrorism with terrorism.
After examining the exchanges, a conclusion is imperative: Russian war media is not staging an offensive even as the collective West attacks Russia 24/7 with its massive NGO/soft power media apparatus. Moscow is not – yet? – fully engaged in the trenches of information warfare; as it stands Russian media is only playing defense. All the way to Kiev?Arguably the money quote of the whole encounter is Putin’s concise, chilling evaluation of where we now stand in the chessboard:
In a nutshell: this will only end on Russia’s terms, and only when Moscow evaluates all its objectives have been met. Anything else is wishful thinking.
Back on the frontlines, as pointed out by the indispensable Andrei Martyanov, first-class war correspondent Marat Kalinin has conclusively laid out how the current Ukrainian metal coffin counter-offensive has not been able to reach even the first Russian line of defense (they are a long – highway to hell – 10 km away). Everything NATO’s top proxy army ever assembled was able to accomplish so far was to get mercilessly slaughtered on an industrial scale.
Meet General Armageddon in action.
Surovikin had eight months to place his footprint in Ukraine and from the beginning he understood exactly how to turn it into a whole new ballgame. Arguably the strategy is to completely destroy the Ukrainian forces between the first line of defense – assuming they ever breach it – and the second line, which is quite substantial. The third line will remain off limits.
Collective West MSM is predictably freaking out, finally starting to show horrendous Ukrainian losses and giving evidence of the utter accumulated incompetence of Kiev goons and their NATO military handlers.
And just in case the going gets tough – for now a remote possibility – Putin himself has delivered the road map. Softly, softly. As in, “Do we need a march on Kiev? If yes, we need a new mobilization, if not, we do not need it. There is no need for mobilization right now.”
The crucial operative words are “right now”. The end of all your elaborate plansMeanwhile, away from the battlefield, the Russians are very much aware of the frantic geoeconomic activity.
Moscow and Beijing increasingly trade in yuan and rubles. The ASEAN 10 are going all out for regional currencies, bypassing the US dollar. Indonesia and South Korea are turbo-charging trade in rupiah and won. Pakistan is paying for Russian oil in yuan. The UAE and India are increasing non-oil trade in rupees.
Everyone and his neighbor are making a beeline to join BRICS+ – forcing a desperate Hegemon to start deploying an array of Hybrid War techniques.
It’s been a long way since Putin examined the chessboard in the early 2000s and then unleashed a crash missile program for defensive and offensive missiles.
Over the next 23 years Russia developed hypersonic missiles, advanced ICBMs, and the most advanced defensive missiles on the planet. Russia won the missile race. Period. The Hegemon – obsessed by its own manufactured war against Islam – was completely blindsided and made no material missile advances in nearly two and a half decades.
Now the “strategy” is to invent a Taiwan Question out of nothing, which is configuring the chessboard as the ante-chamber of no holds barred Hybrid War against Russia-China.
The proxy attack – via Kiev hyenas – against Russophone Donbass, egged on by the Straussian neocon psychos in charge of US foreign policy, murdered at least 14,000 men, women and children between 2014 to 2022. That was also an attack on China. The ultimate aim of this Divide and Rule gambit was to inflict defeat on China’s ally in the Heartland, so Beijing would be isolated.
According to the neocon wet dream, all of the above would have enabled the Hegemon, once it had taken over Russia again as it did with Yeltsin, to blockade China from Russian natural resources using eleven US aircraft carrier task forces plus numerous submarines.
Obviously military science-impaired neocons are oblivious to the fact that Russia is now the strongest military power on the planet.
In Ukraine, the neocons were hoping that a provocation would cause Moscow to deploy other secret weapons apart from hypersonic missiles, so Washington could better prepare for all-out war.
All those elaborate plans may have miserably floundered. But a corollary remains: the Straussian neocons firmly believe they may instrumentalize a few million Europeans – who’s next? Poles? Estonians? Latvians? Lithuanians? And why not Germans? – as cannon fodder as the US did in WWI and WWII, fought over the bodies of Europeans (including Russians) sacrificed to the same old Mackinder Anglo-Saxon power grab.
Hordes of European 5th columnists make it so much easier to “trust” the US to protect them, while only a few with an IQ over room temperature have understood who really bombed Nord Stream 1 and 2, with the connivance of the Liver Sausage German Chancellor.
The bottom line is that the Hegemon simply cannot accept a sovereign, self-sufficient Europe; only a dependent vassal, hostage to the seas that the US control.
Putin clearly sees how the chessboard has been laid out. And he also sees how “Ukraine” does not even exist anymore.
While no one was paying attention, last month the Kiev gang sold Ukraine to $8.5 trillion-worth BlackRock. Just like that. The deal was sealed between the Government of Ukraine and BlackRock’s VP Philipp Hildebrand.
They are setting up a Ukrainian Development Fund (UDF) for “reconstruction”, focused on energy, infrastructure, agriculture, industry and IT. All remaining valuable assets in what will be a rump Ukraine will be gobbled up by BlackRock: from Metinvest, DTEK (energy) and MJP (agriculture) to Naftogaz, Ukrainian Railways, Ukravtodor and Ukrenergo.
What’s the point in going to Kiev then? High-grade toxic neoliberalism is already partying on the spot. |
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Escobar: BRICS problems, BRI solutions
BRICS problems, BRI solutionsWhile the five original BRICS states have their geopolitical differences, they are finding enormous common ground on the geoeconomic front as trade volumes surge and trade routes multiply.Pepe Escobar 24July2023 https://new.thecradle.co/articles/brics-problems-bri-solutions
As the BRICS approach the most important summit in their history on August 22-24 in Johannesburg, South Africa, some fundamentals need to be observed.
The top three BRICS cooperation platforms are politics and security, finance and the economy, and culture. So the notion that a new BRICS gold-backed reserve currency will be announced at the South Africa summit is spurious.
What is in progress, as confirmed by BRICS sherpas, is the R5: a new common payment system. The sherpas are only in the preliminary stages of discussing a new reserve currency which could be gold or commodities-based. The discussions within the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), led by Sergey Glazyev, by comparison, are way more advanced.
The order of priorities is to get R5 rolling. All current BRICS currencies start with an “R”: renminbi (yuan), ruble, real, rupee, and rand. R5 will allow current members to increase mutual trade by bypassing the US dollar and reducing their US dollar reserves. This is only the first of many practical steps in the long and winding road of de-dollarization.
That’s a long way away, to put it mildly. Frequent discussions with sherpas from Russia and also independent financial operators in the EU and the Persian Gulf always touch on the key problem: imbalances and weak nodes inside the BRICS, which will tend to serially proliferate with the imminent BRICS+ expansion.
Within BRICS, there’s a wealth of serious unsolved dossiers between China-India, while Brazil is squeezed between a list of imperial dictates and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s natural drive to fortify the Global South. Argentina has been all but forced by the usual suspects to “postpone” its admission request to join BRICS+.
South Africa decided not to receive Russian President Vladimir Putin and opted instead for the presence of Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov – as Pretoria first suggested to Moscow. The other BRICS members validated the decision.
The compromise means that Russia will be physically represented by Lavrov while Putin will participate in the whole process – and subsequent decisions – via videoconference.
Translation: Putin tested Pretoria and exposed it to the whole Global South as a fragile node of the “jungle” – actually the Global Majority – easily threatened by the western “garden” gang and not a real independent foreign policy practitioner. St. Petersburg-Shanghai via the ArcticThis South African decision by itself raises serious questions about whether BRICS-led geopolitics is just an illusion. Geoeconomically though, the group has entered a whole different ball game, illustrated by the multiple BRICS interconnections with the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Chinese trade with BRI nations increased 9.8 percent in the first half of 2023 – compared to the same period last year. That contrasts sharply with the 4.7 percent overall contraction of trade between China and the collective west: Down with the EU by 4.9 percent, and down with the US by 14.5 percent.
Chinese trade with Russia, meanwhile, alongside exports to South Africa and Singapore, raised exponentially by 78
Zhou Liqun, chairman of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Russia, went straight to the point – this is just the start of the “routine operation of the Arctic freight shipping route between China and Russia.” It’s all about “the security of logistical channels” inbuilt in the Russia-China strategic partnership.
The Arctic Silk Road, from now on, will be increasingly strategic. The Chinese can keep it open at least from July to October every year. And as a bonus, a warming Arctic allows better access to oil/gas resources. A trademark “win-win” – no wonder since 2017 the development of the Arctic Silk Road is part of BRI.
All of the above shows a sharp shift in the Chinese commercial drive towards the Global South. Trade with China’s BRI partners now amounts to 34.3 percent of China’s total global trade in terms of value – and that number is rising. From the UAP railway to the Greater Bay AreaOn the Russian front, all eyes are on the 7,200 km-long, multimodal International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) – which alarms the collective west as a de facto replacement of the Suez Canal. The INSTC cuts shipping costs by about 50 percent and saves up to 20 days of travel compared to the Suez route.
INSTC trade – via ship, rail, and roads linking Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, India, and Central Asia – should triple over the next seven years, as Russian Transport Minister Vitaly Saveliev noted at the recent St. Petersburg forum. Russia will invest over $3 billion in the INSTC up to 2030.
Increasing trade between Russia, Iran, and India via the INSTC connects to something that until recently would be regarded as a UFO: the Trans-Afghan Railway.
The Trans-Afghan will emerge as a follow-up to something very important that happened last week, when Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan signed a joint protocol to connect the Uzbek and Pakistani networks via Mazar-i-Sharif and Logar in Afghanistan.
Welcome to the UAP railway – which could be hailed not only as a BRI but also as a Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) project – where Tashkent and Islamabad are full members, and Kabul is an observer. Call it a much-needed trade corridor doubling up as a classic Chinese “people-to-people exchange” platform.
The Uzbeks estimate that the 760 km-long railway will reduce travel time by five days and costs by at least 40 percent. The project could be finished by 2027.
The subsequent 573 km-long Trans-Afghan Railway has already got its road map: it’s bound to connect the intersection of Central and South Asia to ports on the Arabian Sea.
All of the above expands Chinese trade in several directions. Which brings us to a fascinating symbiosis in progress between south China and West Asia – symbolized by the Greater Bay Area.
As Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman turbo-charges his immensely ambitious Vision 2030 modernization project, the Greater Bay Area is being hailed by Saudis as no less than “the future of Asia.”
Every investor from Jeddah to Hong Kong knows that Beijing is aiming to turn the Greater Bay Area into a prime global tech center, centered in Shenzhen, with Hong Kong playing the role of privileged global finance hub and Macau as the cultural hub.
The Greater Bay Area, not by accident, is a key BRI plank. As a whole, the nine cities in Guangdong, plus Hong Kong and Macau (more than 80 million people, 10 percent of Chinese GDP), will be configured as an astonishing first-class economic powerhouse by 2035, largely overtaking Tokyo Bay, the New York Metro Area, and the San Francisco Bay Area.
With Saudi Arabia aiming to become a full member of both BRI and SCO, Beijing and Riyadh will turbo-charge their tech cooperation on top of energy and infrastructure.
All eyes on South Africa next month are on how BRICS will work to solve its internal issues while organizing the expansion to BRICS+. Who will get to join the club? Saudi Arabia? UAE? Iran? Kazakhstan? Algeria? The top two BRICS countries, China and Russia keep investing in a geoeconomic roll that has dozens of countries lining up to join. |
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Escobar: First We Go For Moscow, Then We Take Beijingby Tyler Durden, 02August2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/escobar-first-we-go-moscow-then-we-take-beijing
The new multipolar order will of course not be without its own conflicts and growing pains…  Escobar: First We Go For Moscow, Then We Take Beijing The Global Majority is free to choose two different paths to counteract the rabid, cognitive dissonant Straussian neocon psychos in charge of imperial foreign policy; to relentlessly ridicule them, or to work hard on the long and winding road leading to a new multipolar reality.
Reality struck deep at the Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg, with its astonishing breadth and scope, reflected in the official declaration and key facts such as Russia writing off no less than $23 billion in African debt, and President Putin calling for Africa to enter the G20 and the UNSC (“It’s time to correct this historical injustice.”)
Three interventions in St. Petersburg summarize the pan-African drive to finally get rid of exploitative neocolonialism. President of Eritrea Isaias Afwerki:
President of Burkina Faso, Ibrahim Traoré, the face of a resurgent Global South and the world’s youngest leader:
President of Uganda Yoweri Museveni:
In a nutshell: pan-Africa should go all-out creating their own brands and value-added products, without waiting for “approval” from the West. The South African dramaSouth Africa is an immensely complex case. Under extreme pressure from the usual suspects, Pretoria had already succumbed to the collective West hysteria related to Putin’s attendance of the upcoming BRICS summit, settling for the physical presence of Foreign Minister Lavrov and Putin via videoconference.
Then, during a personal meeting with Putin in St. Petersburg, President Cyril Ramaphosa decided to speak in the name of all African leaders, thanking Russia for the offer of free grain, but stressing they had not come to “receive gifts; Africa proposes the return of the grain deal.”
Translation: this is not about free grain offered for several African nations; this is about Pretoria wanting to cash in on the deal, which privileges globalist oligarchs and their Kiev vassal.
Now compare it with the Russian position. Putin once again made it very clear: fulfill our demands and we return to the grain deal. Meanwhile, Russia remains a leader in wheat production – as it was before; and while prices keep rising on global markets, Moscow will share the income with the poorest African nations.
Tensions inside BRICS, as illustrated in this case, are painfully real, and come from the weakest nodes. For all the devious rhetoric, the fact is India and Brazil prefer BRICS+ to proceed slowly, as sherpas confirm off the record.
Among the over 40 nations – and counting – which are dying to become part of the club, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia are very well positioned to be accepted in the first tier of BRICS+ members, unlike Argentina (which basically paid an IMF loan so it can continue to be paying IMF loans).
Reality is dictating the slow approach. Brasilia – under extreme pressure from the “Biden combo” – has a minimalistic margin of maneuver. And New Delhi is proposing first an “observer” status for prospective members, before full admission. Very much like in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), whose recent summit was decided by New Delhi to be held online. For a very simple reason: India did not want to sit on the same table with China.
What’s worrying is that the practical, gargantuan work schedule for both BRICS and the SCO is being slowed down by a toxic mix of internal squabbles and foreign interference. Yet the Russia-China strategic partnership must have anticipated it – and there are contingencies in place.
Essentially, broader discussions are accelerated while minor partners get their act together (or not…) What’s clear is that, for instance, Indonesia, Iran and Saudi Arabia possibly being admitted to BRICS+ will immediately change the internal balance of power, and the weak links will necessarily have to catch up. EAEU to the rescueSt. Petersburg also demonstrated something crucial in the evolving multilateral organization front: the renewed importance of the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU). The EAEU is fast expanding beyond Central Asia towards Southeast Asia (a free trade agreement with Indonesia is imminent), Africa and crucially, the DPRK: that was discussed in detail during Defense Minister Shoigu’s rock star welcome in Pyongyang.
All that spells out a road map like this: the EAEU in the vanguard, in parallel to China’s BRI (crucial forum coming up in Beijing in October) until BRICS+ and SCO gridlock is solved.
Only one BRICS member without which is impossible to build Eurasia integration has serious problems with China: India (and that includes rivalry for influence in Africa, West Asia and Central Asia).
Simultaneously, there’s only one BRICS member capable of influencing India: Russia. Now that’s a challenge for the ages. Yet Moscow does have the potential – and the competence – for regulating the whole new, emerging system of international relations. The timing for implementing what will be in fact a new world system is now, and immediately ahead: from 2025 to 2030.
So Russia-India relations will arguably become the key to fully unlock BRICS+. Issues will include an iron-clad Russian oil road to India via Rosneft; solving the Afghanistan riddle (with Moscow keeping Beijing and New Delhi in sync); a more muscular presence within the SCO; closer security deliberations among the three Ministries of Defense; including Chinese and Indian observers in the Russia-Africa process; and all of the above micro-managed by Putin himself.
If China-India competition is already a big deal, we should expect it to become even more complex after 2030. So here’s Russia facing yet another primordial historical/cultural mission. This goes way beyond the Himalayas. It spans the full arc of China-India competition. And don’t forget to call the Steel KittenIt’s always immensely enlightening to follow BRICS-related analyses by Sergey Glazyev, the Minister of Integration and Macroeconomics at the EAEU’s Economic Commission.
Glazyev, in two major interviews, has confirmed that a “sanction-proof” BRICS digital unit of account is under discussion, based not only on BRICS national currencies but also a basket of commodities.
He also confirmed that “we” are working to establish an internal BRICS group to design and establish the new system (by the way, these discussions within the EAEU are way more advanced).
According to Glazyev, a payments system outside of SWIFT can be set up through a network of state-run digital currencies – not to be confused with cryptocurrencies backed only by private speculators.
Glazyev also forcefully defends the adoption of the digital ruble. He argues that’s the way to track blockchain transactions and prevent non-intended use of funds – as in diversion into speculative markets.
Apart from all the huge challenges, the optimal path ahead spells out EAEU and BRICS+ observing international law and slowly but surely building the payments system capable of circumventing massive imperial choke points. A new BRICS currency can wait. What matters is the evolution of so many interconnections as the new system’s infrastructure is being built. And that brings us once again to North Korea. The Shoigu visit de facto cleared the path for the DPRK to totally align with the Russia-China strategic partnership in the massive Eurasian integration/development/mutual security process.
Oh, the ironies of “post-everything” History. The Hegemon may have actually been trapped into destroying NATO as a credible military force just as Russia-China reinvigorated a major ally in Northeast Asia and the Far East – complete with nuclear power, ballistic missiles, and a hyper-productive industrial military complex.
So the Straussian neocon psychos want to expand their unwinnable Forever War to rabid hyena Poland and the Baltic chihuahuas? As in first we go to Moscow, then we take Beijing? Be our guest. But first be sure to place a call to Global South powerhouse DPRK. Steel Kitten Kim Yo-jong, Kim Jong Un’s younger sister, will be delighted. |
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Escobar: Geopolitical Chessboard Shifts Against US Empireby Tyler Durden, 30July2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/escobar-geopolitical-chessboard-shifts-against-us-empire The geopolitical chessboard is in perpetual shift – and never more than in our current incandescent juncture… global chess A fascinating consensus in discussions among Chinese scholars – including those part of the Asian and American diasporas – is that not only Germany/EU lost Russia, perhaps irretrievably, but China gained Russia, with an economy highly complementary to China’s own and with solid ties with the Global South/Global Majority that can benefit and aid Beijing.
Meanwhile, a smatter of Atlanticist foreign policy analysts are now busy trying to change the narrative on NATO vs. Russia, applying the rudiments of realpolitik.
The new spin is that it’s “strategic insanity” for Washington to expect to defeat Moscow, and that NATO is experiencing “donor fatigue” as the sweatshirt warmonger in Kiev “loses credibility”.
Translation: it’s NATO as a whole that is completely losing credibility, as its humiliation in the Ukraine battlefield is now painfully graphic for all the Global Majority to see.
Additionally, “donor fatigue” means losing a major war, badly. As military analyst Andrei Martyanov has relentlessly stressed, “NATO ‘planning’ is a joke. And they are envious, painfully envious and jealous.”
A credible path ahead is that Moscow will not negotiate with NATO – a mere Pentagon add-on – but offer individual European nations a security pact with Russia that would make their need to belong to NATO redundant. That would assure security for any participating nation and relieve pressure on it from Washington.
Bets could be made that the most relevant European powers might accept it, but certainly not Poland – the hyena of Europe – and the Baltic chihuahuas.
In parallel, China could offer peace treaties to Japan, South Korea and the Philippines, and subsequently a significant part of the US Empire of Bases might vanish.
The problem, once again, is that vassal states don’t have the authority or power to comply with any agreement ensuring peace. German businessmen, off the record, are sure that sooner or later Berlin may defy Washington and do business with the Russia-China strategic partnership because it benefits Germany.
Yet the golden rule still has not been met: if a vassal state wants to be treated as a sovereign state, the first thing to do is to shut down key branches of the Empire of Bases and expel US troops.
Iraq is trying to do it for years now, with no success. One third of Syria remains US-occupied – even as the US lost its proxy war against Damascus due to Russian intervention. The Ukraine Project as an existential conflictRussia has been forced to fight against a neighbor and kin that it simply can’t afford to lose; and as a nuclear and hypersonic power, it won’t.
Even if Moscow will be somewhat strategically weakened, whatever the outcome, it’s the US – in the view of Chinese scholars – that may have committed its greatest strategic blunder since the establishment of the Empire: turning the Ukraine Project into an existential conflict, and committing the entire Empire and all its vassals to a Total War against Russia.
That’s why we have no peace negotiations, and the refusal even of a cease fire; the only possible outcome devised by the Straussian neocon psychos who run US foreign policy is unconditional Russian surrender.
In the recent past, Washington could afford to lose its wars of choice against Vietnam and Afghanistan. But it simply can’t afford to lose the war on Russia. When that happens, and it’s already on the horizon, the Revolt of the Vassals will be far reaching.
It’s quite clear that from now on China and BRICS+ – with expansion starting at the summit in South Africa next month – will turbo-charge the undermining of the US dollar. With or without India.
There will be no imminent BRICS currency – as noted by some excellent points in this discussion. The scope is huge, sherpas are only in the initial debating stages, and the broad outlines have not been defined yet.
The BRICS+ approach will evolve from improved cross border settlement mechanisms – something everyone from Putin to Central Bank head Elvira Nabiullina have stressed – to eventually a new currency way further down the road.
This would probably be a trade instrument rather than a sovereign currency like the euro. It will be designed to compete against the US dollar in trade, initially among BRICS+ nations, and capable of circumventing the hegemonic US dollar ecosystem.
The key question is how long the Empire’s fake economy – clinically deconstructed by Michael Hudson – can hold out in this wide spectrum geoeconomic war. Everything is a ‘national security threat’On the electronic technology front, the Empire has gone no holds barred to impose global economic dependency, monopolizing intellectual property rights and as Michael Hudson notes, “extracting economic rent from charging high prices for high-technology computer chips, communications, and arms production.”
In practice, not much is happening other than the prohibition for Taiwan to supply valuable chips to China, and asking TSMC to build, as soon as possible, a chip manufacturing complex in Arizona.
However, TSMC chairman Mark Liu has remarked that the plant faced a shortage of workers with the “specialized expertise required for equipment installation in a semiconductor-grade facility.” So the much lauded TSMC chip plant in Arizona won’t start production before 2025.
The top Empire/vassal NATO demand is that Germany and the EU must impose a Trade Iron Curtain against the Russia-China strategic partnership and their allies, thus ensuring “de-risk” trade.
Predictably, US Think Tankland has gone bonkers, with American Enterprise Institute hacks rabidly stating that even economic de-risking is not enough: what the US needs is a hard break with China.
In fact that dovetails with Washington smashing international free trade rules and international law, and treating any form of trade and SWIFT and financial exchanges as “national security threats” to US economic and military control.
So the pattern ahead is not China imposing trade sanctions on the EU – which remains a top trade partner for Beijing; it’s Washington imposing a tsunami of sanctions on nations daring to break the US-led trade boycott. Russia-DPRK meets Russia-AfricaOnly this week, the chessboard went through two game-changing moves: the high-profile visit by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to the DPRK, and the Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg.
Shoigu was received in Pyongyang as a rock star. He had a personal meeting with Kim Jong-Un. The mutual goodwill leads to the strong possibility of North Korea eventually joining one of the multilateral organizations carving the path towards multipolarity.
That would be, arguably, an extended Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). It could start with an EAEU-DPRK free trade agreement, such as the ones struck with Vietnam and Cuba.
Russia is the top power in the EAEU and it can ignore sanctions on the DPRK, while BRICS+, SCO or ASEAN have too many second thoughts. A key priority for Moscow is the development of the Far East, more integration with both Koreas, and the Northern Sea Route, or Arctic Silk Road. The DPRK is then a natural partner.
Getting the DPRK into the EAEU will do wonders for BRI investment: a sort of cover which Beijing does not enjoy for the moment when it invests in the DPRK. That could become a classic case of deeper BRI-EAEU integration.
Russian diplomacy at the highest levels is going all out to relieve the pressure over the DPRK. Strategically, that’s a real game-changer; imagine the huge and quite sophisticated North Korean industrial-military complex added to the Russia-China strategic partnership and turning the whole Asia-Pacific paradigm upside down.
The Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg, in itself, was another game-changer that left collective West mainstream media apoplectic. That was nothing less than Russia publicly announcing, in words and deeds, a comprehensive strategic partnership with the whole of Africa even as a hostile collective West wages Hybrid War – and otherwise – against Afro-Eurasia.
Putin showed how Russia holds a 20% share of the global wheat market. In the first 6 months of 2023, it had already exported 10 million tons of grain to Africa. Now Russia will be providing Zimbabwe, Burkina Faso, Somalia and Eritrea with 25-50 thousand tons of grain each in the next 3-4 months, for free.
Putin detailed everything from approximately 30 energy projects across Africa to the expansion of oil and gas exports and “unique non-energy applications of nuclear technology, including in medicine”; the launching of a Russian industrial zone near the Suez Canal with products to be exported throughout Africa; and the development of Africa’s financial infrastructure, including connection to the Russian payment system.
Crucially, he also extolled closer ties between the EAEU and Africa. A forum panel, “EAEU-Africa: Horizons of Cooperation”, examined the possibilities, which include closer continental connection with both the BRICS and Asia. A torrent of free trade agreements may be in the pipeline.
The scope of the forum was quite impressive. There were “de-neocolonialization” panels, such as “Achieving Technological Sovereignty Through Industrial Cooperation” or “New World Order: from the Legacy of Colonialism to Sovereignty and Development.”
And of course the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) was also discussed, with major players Russia, Iran and India set to promote its crucial extension to Africa, escaping NATO littorals.
Separate from the frantic action in St. Petersburg, Niger went through a military coup. Although the end-result remains to be seen, Niger is likely to join neighboring Mali in reasserting its foreign policy independence from Paris. French influence is also being at least “reset” in the Central African Republic (CAR) and Burkina Faso. Translation: France and the West are being evicted all across the Sahel, one-step at a time, in an irreversible process of decolonization. Beware the Pale Horses of DestructionThese movements across the chessboard, from the DPRK to Africa and the chip war against China, are as crucial as the coming, shattering humiliation of NATO in Ukraine. Yet not only the Russia-China strategic partnership but also key players across the Global South/Global Majority are fully aware that Washington views Russia as a tactical enemy in preparation for the overriding Total War against China.
As it stands, the still unresolved tragedy in Donbass as it keeps the Empire busy, and away from Asia-Pacific. Yet Washington under the Straussian neocon psychos is increasingly mired in Desperation Row, making it even more dangerous.
All that while the BRICS+ “jungle” turbo-charges the necessary mechanisms capable of sidelining the unipolar Western “garden”, as a helpless Europe is being driven to an abyss, forced to split itself from China, BRICS+ and the de facto Global Majority.
It doesn’t take a seasoned weatherman to see which way the steppe wind blows – as the Pale Horses of Destruction plot the trampling of the chessboard, and the wind begins to howl. |
The Burning Platform
“SAY NOTHING” PHASE OF THIS FOURTH TURNINGAdministrator Posted on September 5, 2022 https://www.theburningplatform.com/2022/09/05/say-nothing-phase-of-this-fourth-turning/
 Say Nothing
It has become clear to me, since the installation of dementia patient Biden as the illegitimate figurehead president by his globalist Deep State handlers, their agenda is to tear down our modern civilization and replace it with a totalitarian techno-gulag where you will be electronically monitored, disarmed, own nothing, be judged by social credit score, live in fear, and be happy – or else.
I’ve been pondering in which direction this Fourth Turning will flow, while observing the words and actions of our pedophile president and the other World Economic Forum puppets like Trudeau, Macron, and a myriad of other EU lackeys. I intellectually understand all Fourth Turnings reach their climax after immense bloodshed, climactic battles which could have gone either way, and in some cases saw citizens slaughtering fellow citizens. But I have tried to avoid thinking about the reality of what is likely to happen over the next five to ten years, as this Crisis turns from rhetoric and debate to violence and death. Keyboard warriors will yield to real warriors.
After reading Patrick Radden Keefe’s – Say Nothing – a fascinating tale of the brutal violence which lasted for three decades from the 1960’s through the 1990’s in Northern Ireland, I’ve come to the realization of what civil war might look like here in America. In reality, the conflict in Ireland between the Catholics and Protestants dated back centuries.
 Woman shooting AR-15 Rifle
The vitriolic discord and purposeful fracturing of our shared societal values, which have bound this nation since its inception, has situated the country in an 1860 moment, a veritable powder keg with a lit fuse. The country has been gravely splintered for at least two decades, but the fissure has expanded at an accelerated velocity since the unanticipated election of Donald Trump in 2016. The rule of law no longer exists.
A four-year coup against Trump, with Clinton, Obama, DOJ, CIA, FBI, Congress, Judiciary, legacy media, and social media titans as co-conspirators, has now devolved into an Orwellian police state, with the Constitution trashed and government tyranny reaching unthinkable heights. The third world totalitarian tactics being used by Biden’s handlers to destroy the opposition party and its leader is being cheered on by the left and their media mouthpieces. Biden’s diabolically dark, hateful speech, with satanic blood red background, on the sacred ground where our Founding Fathers declared our independence from a tyrannical despot, appears to be the spark which will ignite real violence in the coming years.
 Biden Calls to Stop MAGA The simmering hatred between the left and right has been rising towards a boiling point since the 2016 election. Everything Biden and his Obama handlers have done since his installation as president in the rigged 2020 election has been designed to sow discord, create chaos, and tear apart the fabric of this country. Authoritarian despots always accuse the opposition of crimes they themselves are guilty of having committed.
When you control the levers of power and the propaganda machine known as the media, you can literally flaunt the laws of the land and persecute those who disagree or fail to comply with your dictates. Elevating a protest by a few goofballs who were lured into the Capital by undercover FBI plants (Ray Epps) as an armed insurrection (with no arms), has been a pitiful display of partisanship and failed to accomplish the task of having Trump charged with a crime. This after two failed impeachment attempts based on actual crimes committed by the Biden crime family.
 Ray Epps With the approach of the November midterms, Covid fear being replaced by vaxx injury outrage, inflation raging at 17% (the way it was measured in 1980), a recession in progress, layoffs beginning to ramp up, stock market falling, Russia sanctions only hurting the American and European working class, and Biden’s approval rating at 38%, the globalist Deep State invisible government have decided it’s time for some civil chaos to further their New World Order agenda.
It all began with pitting those who chose to let their immune systems do their jobs and/or using safe effective cheap treatments like ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, zinc/quercetin, and vitamin D, against Fauci, Biden and their Big Pharma benefactors forcing an untested, dangerous, experimental gene therapy into the bodies of every human on the planet. They lied about its effectiveness, spike protein remaining confined in arms, safety, immunity power, and length of efficacy.
They colluded with Twitter, Facebook, and Google to censor and suppress the truth about the vaccines, doctors with contrary opinions, and the safe effective alternatives. All done to enrich Big Pharma, who paid off politicians, doctors, hospitals, and a plethora of apparatchiks willing to sell their souls and sacrifice lives for the almighty buck.
 COVID-is-a-HOAX When Biden and his handlers decided to scapegoat and vilify those who chose to not become guinea pigs in the unwarranted vaccine war against a relatively non-lethal flu (unless you were 85 years old and/or extremely obese), knowing his national vaccine mandate was un-Constitutional and unenforceable, those with critical thinking skills could see the budding authoritarianism from Biden, along with the other WEF acolytes like Trudeau, Macron, and Boris Johnson.
Biden’s willingness to have people fired, ostracized, and destroyed for exercising bodily autonomy regarding a vaccine that didn’t prevent you from getting it, spreading it, being hospitalized, or dying was a flashing warning light of what was going to happen in the last month. The lockdowns, destruction of small businesses while promoting big business, forced masking as a mark of obedience and compliance, and utter disregard for the education of our children, were all part of this Great Reset scheme to remake the world in the vision of Gates, Schwab, Soros, and the rest of the Davos billionaire satanic cult.
 Klaus Scwab-World Economic Forum The Pandemic represents These acts of vengeance against those with differing political, economic, and social viewpoints have intensified over the last several months as a sense of impending doom has shrouded the totalitarian, communist, woke, incompetent Biden administration, with the looming loss of both the House and Senate leading to gridlock, increasing conflict, and more desperate executive orders from the senile pedophile.
The ramping up of grooming children at drag queen shows and encouraging children towards irreversible mutilation of their bodies in the name of gender choice is beyond evil and can only be explained as further attempt to destroy our society as part of the Great Reset agenda. The FBI raid on Biden’s chief political adversary and likely opponent in 2024 over some documents requested by the National Archives is a red herring in the never-ending coup against Trump and a last-ditch attempt to keep him from running in 2024.
During his first term Trump made the drastic mistake of not purging the DOJ, FBI, CIA, and State Department of his enemies. He hired swamp creatures and neo-cons into his cabinet whose sole purpose was to thwart whatever he tried to do. And his biggest blunder was believing Fauci, Birx, and the rest of the Covid cultists in locking down the country, schools, and businesses, while cheering on and promoting the Big Pharma jabs which have killed and injured more people than they supposedly saved.
His continued support for these never-ending shots from hell is mind bogglingly idiotic and should make anyone question his ability to succeed in a second term. Is he better than Dementia Joe, the Kneepads Kackler, or any of the other left-wing loons on the Democrat bench? Yes. But is that good enough with an economic collapse, civil war, and global war just over the horizon? The skies are darkening, and the direst days of this Fourth Turning are almost upon us.
 The Storm is coming I know the degradation of the intellectual, moral, and critical thinking skills of the American populace due to decades in government indoctrination centers known as public schools along with relentless propaganda and misinformation spewed from our boob tubes and now “smart” phones has reached critical mass, with little hope for a reversal until a full-out societal collapse. Well, that is where we are headed, because that is the course set in motion by those we trusted to lead this country. What ails this country, and the world is too much debt, too much corruption, too much materialism, too many lies, too much propaganda, too much delusion, too much stupidity, too much evil, and absolutely no solutions put forth which are capable of saving us from the course we chose decades ago.
We are hurtling towards an abyss and there is no way of voting ourselves out of it. The uniparty agrees on 90% of the issues and pass trillions in spending bills while jointly supporting never ending wars and unaccountable central bankers who print fiat to infinity. Political parties have failed the people and rooting for our team is still used to keep us divided and unaware of how badly we have been screwed over by these politician puppets doing the bidding of the globalist billionaire cabal who really run the show.
 US UNIPARTY-Dems and RINOs This all set the stage for Biden’s Satanic Verses speech this past week. The Trojan Horse president didn’t write that hateful war declaration against half the country. He didn’t choose the location of Independence Hall. He didn’t ask for the blood red and dark palette as his background. He didn’t station marines in the background as a symbol of war. He didn’t remember what he read off the teleprompter the next day.
He and his left-wing apparatchiks can try to walk back his declaration of war, but his satanic hate manifesto will forever be burned into the minds of the 74 million Americans who voted for Trump and the millions more who voted for Biden, thinking his unifier drivel during his basement campaign was truthful. Biden’s handlers purposefully designed this speech to ignite civil chaos.
It was a dog whistle to the left-wing BLM, ANTIFA and other violent hate groups that it is open season on Trump and his supporters. Declaring them extremists and an imminent threat to the country, Biden dehumanized anyone who does not support his authoritarian regime. We have already seen the attempted assassination of Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh and harassment and threats of violence against other justices.
There has been a concerted effort by the left (and possibly operatives within the government) to have Steve Bannon and Marjorie Taylor Greene assassinated by the police through technologically advanced swatting calls. Next, we will have any home flying a Trump or MAGA flag burned to the ground by Biden’s army of woke thugs. Biden’s managers and his diversity hire spokesbimbos continue to fan the flames of violence. They are attempting to goad Trump supporters into acts of violence so they can declare an emergency and either cancel the November elections or institute mail-in voting once again to steal them as they did in 2020.
 Steve Bannon and Marjorie Taylor Greene Despite Biden’s repulsive war-mongering rhetoric, and threats to use F-15s against those who don’t bow down to his demands, it is highly unlikely Trump supporters will take the bait and initiate violence against the government or their Soros funded left wing lackey militias. The average hard-working American, getting destroyed by Biden’s policies, is content to watch Democrat controlled shithole cities go up in flames as lawlessness reigns, mass murder occurs on daily basis, and businesses flee to safer confines.
They are told by the GOP portion of the uniparty to vote republican in November and save the country. Of course, the RINOs in control of the republican party don’t have the guts or desire to change anything. If they were to take Congress, they would not impeach Biden, investigate Hunter, prosecute Fauci, or stop the DOJ and FBI from conducting their ongoing vendetta against Trump.
 US President Trump:FBI raiding Mar-A-Lago Biden and the left have already declared war. They will do whatever it takes to win. It’s already clear the Constitution, election laws, and First Amendment are meaningless in their thirst for power, control, and wealth. As of now only the Second Amendment keeps them from forcefully putting us in re-education camps. It’s only the 400 million legally owned guns (give or take a few) keeping Biden and his totalitarian hordes at bay.
Biden’s speech was an act of desperation, as his handlers seeing their Great Reset agenda going awry, are trying to initiate another engineered “Covid-like” national emergency they can utilize to subdue dissent. The next two months may decide the future course of history in this country. They appear to be laying the groundwork for a false flag of immense proportions.
 Vladimir Putin eating Popcorn The apparent suicidal actions being taken by European leaders regarding Russian gas and Putin shutting the Nordsteam 1 pipeline until the West revokes their sanctions will either lead to surrender by the EU and splintering of their subservient submission to the American Empire or actual conflict between NATO and Russia, with China and India supporting Russia. We already know it is just a matter of time until the U.S. financial markets break under the strain of reality, with stocks, bonds and real estate all poised to fall by at least 50% over the coming years.
Has the globalist cabal concluded their dementia ridden sucker is expendable and will engineer another JFK moment, with an assassination attributed to some Trump dupes? The FBI already engineered the fake Whitmer kidnapping plot. Taking out their useful idiot Biden to further their agenda wouldn’t give these vile Deep State operatives a second thought. Combining a global conflict, with a financial implosion, and a false flag event blamed on Trump would be the perfect storm to cancel the November elections and lockdown the country once again.
 There be a shit storm a brewin All signs point toward something big about to ignite the powder keg and propel this Fourth Turning to a new level of violent upheaval. Here is where Patrick Radden Keefe’s documentation of the violence, retribution, hatred, and resolve of “civilized” Irishmen during the battle for Northern Ireland, known as The Troubles, from the 1960’s through the 1990’s until an uneasy accord was reached in 1998, offers a glimpse into what a civil war might look like in America.
A key point is when the definition of humanity in the minds of those at war stops at the border of their tribe. The enemy is not considered human; therefore, it is not murder when you kill them or blow them up. The ethical justification for killing “innocents” becomes easier when your enemy is not considered human. Biden has already set in motion that anyone who voted for or supports Trump is a dangerous sub-human, providing the justification for his side, including his government police thugs and woke military, to treat us as the enemy.
 IRA tried to assassinate Margaret Thatcher at the Brighton Hotel in 1984 During The Troubles, the Irish Republican Army planted car bombs in London and in Northern Ireland business districts, killing and maiming whoever happened to be in the vicinity. They blew up Lord Mountbatten on his boat. They attempted to blow up the Queen in Scotland in 1981. They came very close to assassinating Margaret Thatcher at the Brighton Hotel in 1984, killing five and injuring dozens. British soldiers were lured into traps and executed.
Over the three decades of The Troubles there were 3,500 deaths, with more than half being civilians. Factions within the IRA killed each other. There were undercover agents and double agents for each side. If you said something while under British interrogation, you were likely to be disappeared into the Irish bogs. It was a violent and ruthless conflict with no rules and no mercy. The British committed as many atrocities as their Irish opponents. Legality and rule of law was paid no heed. As Keefe documented, the conflict began as a dispute between the unionists and loyalists and grew into a vicious civil war of neighborhoods versus neighborhoods.
 IRA bombing 1973 “We beat them with stones at first, and they had guns. Our people had to go and get guns. Wouldn’t they have been right stupid people to stand there? Our people got shotguns at first and then got better weapons. And then the British, who were supposed to protect us, came in and raided our homes. What way could you fight? So you went down and you blew them up.” ― Patrick Radden Keefe
The political and religious hatreds had been brewing for centuries in Ireland. The level of vitriol and hate in the U.S. has really only reared its ugly head over the last two decades, with a notable hastening since Obama’s election in 2008. He proceeded to divide America through his communist agenda and blatant efforts to create racial and gender rifts, while still kowtowing to the Wall Street and globalist cabal which placed him in power.
The ascendancy of Trump to the throne drove the left mad, as burning, and looting cities over the perceived fake race issues enflamed by Obama was cheered on by the left-wing media and politicians. Violence has been promoted and condoned by the left. The question is, what will it take to provoke a violent response by the right, who happen to own most of the firearms in this country. What will it take to turn Twitter warriors into armed warriors? Keefe laid out thoughts about Irish Americans during The Troubles which addresses real war versus verbal war.
“Indeed, it could occasionally seem that support for the armed struggle was more fervent in Boston or Chicago than it was in Belfast or Derry. The romantic idyll of a revolutionary movement is easier to sustain when there is no danger that one’s own family members might get blown to pieces on a trip to the grocery store. Some people in Ireland looked askance at the “plastic Paddies” who urged bloody war in Ulster from the safe distance of America.” ― Patrick Radden Keefe
Most of those on the right are hardworking, law abiding, family-oriented individuals who are slow to anger and do not react violently to incoherent left-wing rhetoric, verbal threats, or even being called dangerous extremists. When they or their families are threatened with violence, all bets are off. The left can allow their cities to burn and the inhabitants to shoot each other over drugs, but once the threat of violence reaches the countryside and suburbs, where a considerable number of awakened critical thinking citizens are armed, Biden and his cronies will get their civil war.
The extremist MAGA minions will not shoot first, but once alerted to the threat from what passes for our government and their BLM/ANTIFA terrorist arm, they will be poised to fight back. If this powder keg ignites, it will make the three decades of violence in Northern Ireland look like a walk in the park.
 World-War-3-Nuclear-Biden Those who live their lives with a linear mindset, brainwashed by public school indoctrination, distracted by their myriad of electronic gadgets, and trapped on the hamster wheel of trying to accumulate more material goods while going further in debt, are unprepared for the coming level of violent upheaval about to be unleashed upon this nation. No one with a conscience and morality is rooting for a civil war, but our figurehead president has already declared war, with the shooting yet to commence.
It feels much like the ambiguous period between Lincoln’s election in November 1860 and the attack on Fort Sumter in April 1861. We are waiting for the event and/or act which will initiate the vicious phase of this Fourth Turning. We know it will happen, but we don’t know when, where or who will pull the trigger.
“Picture yourself and your loved ones in the midst of a howling blizzard that lasts several years. Think about what you would need, who could help you, and why your fate might matter to anybody other than yourself. That is how to plan for a saecular winter. Don’t think you can escape the Fourth Turning. History warns that a Crisis will reshape the basic social and economic environment that you now take for granted.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning
 howling blizzard Our civilized society is about to turn into a barbarous hellscape, unrecognizable from the comfort and safety we have grown accustomed to since the last Fourth Turning. The cycles of history spin from highs to lows, with death and destruction always entering the picture at some point. Human nature never changes; therefore, we are condemned to repeat the errors of the past while creating new errors along the way. That feeling of doom you should be experiencing at this point in history is well founded. Prepping for the coming storms is a worthwhile expenditure of your time but making sure you tribe up with like minded armed individuals will be your best bet to survive. You have been declared an enemy of the state. That is all the incentive you should need to do whatever is necessary to win this coming war. Remember – Whatever You Say, Say Nothing. |
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naked capitalismJames K. Galbraith: The Gift of Sanctions – An Analysis of Assessments of the Russian Economy, 2022 – 2023Posted on April 12, 2023 by Yves Smith https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/04/james-k-galbraith-the-gift-of-sanctions-an-analysis-of-assessments-of-the-russian-economy-2022-2023.html
Yves here. James Galbraith politely and methodically questions some of the economic logic used to claim that the Western sanctions have done serious, lasting damage to Russia. As we and others have pointed out, readers in Russia and contacts who have even more connections to Russia say that stores are full and commerce goes on more or less as normal, with supply issues only in a few sectors like car parts.
Galbraith does not resort to anecdata, but instead points out that many of the dire claims about Russia’s performance are either not substantiated or draw incorrect inferences from data. He contends that while it is too early to tell, the sanctions may well have been beneficial to Russia by forcing reforms and restructurings (such as buying out foreign operations on the super cheap and having largely-looting oligarchs decamp) that would have been impossible otherwise.
We’ve published Galbraith’s short essay below. We strongly urge you to read his underlying, very accessible paper, which sadly is too large a file format to embed here.
By James K. Galbraith, Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr. Chair in Government and Business Relations, University of Texas at Austin. Originally published at the Institute for New Economic Thinking website Most assessments of the effectiveness of sanctions on Russia, with some exceptions, hold them to have been highly effective. My new INET Working Paper analyzes a few prominent Western assessments, both official and private, of the effect of sanctions on the Russian economy and war effort. It seeks to understand the goals of sanctions and bases of fact and causal inference that underpin the consensus view. Such understanding may then help to clarify the relationship between claims made by Western economist-observers and those emerging from Russian sources – notably from economists associated with the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). As we shall see, Russian views parallel those in the West on many matters of fact yet reach sharply different conclusions.
In the most important private assessment of sanctions, Sonnenfeld et al present a stark, even lurid, case for the “devastating” effect of sanctions, of business “retreats,” and of emigration and capital flight on the Russian economy as a whole in the year since the Ukraine war escalated in late February 2022. Their case boils down to the following major propositions:
Examining each of these propositions, we find no major errors of fact. The issue in each case is one of interpretation. Specifically:
By contrast with most private assessments, official statements of the goals of sanctions emphasize two narrow objectives: to undermine Russian military-industrial capacities and to “defund the war.” They do not focus on the effect on the Russian economy and civilian population.
The question of the effect of sanctions on “critical military inputs” is not one that can be answered from public sources. However, while it is possible that some key components for military goods were procured outside Russia, common sense suggests that war preparations would have included stockpiling a substantial supply – as well as reverse engineering and import substitution. Failure to take these steps would have amounted, at the very least, to gross negligence. The funding argument, as noted above, rests on a misconception. In addition, the policy of sanctioning individuals – if its goal was to bring pressure to bear on the Russian state – must be judged a failure.
A technical analysis from a senior economist at the US Treasury Department examines the effect of sanctions on Russia’s long-term economic prospects, and may be taken as representative of the official view, including, one surmises, intelligence assessments. This analysis rests on the familiar neoclassical production function: capital, labor, technology, and the burdens of state intervention. These factors, working together, are stated to have caused a “grim” decline in Russia’s prospects, such that the economy by 2030 will be 20 percent smaller than it would otherwise have been.
This application of growth theory appears to neglect two basic mainstream concepts: the profit motive and possibilities for technical substitution. By vastly reducing the presence of non-Russian firms on Russian soil, while restricting energy and other resource exports from Russia, so that resource prices within Russia have remained stable, sanctions have had a favorable effect on the potential profitability of Russian businesses. The Treasury assessment states that Russian firms will not be capable of taking advantage of this potential. But there is no evidence for this view, other perhaps than impressions of the Soviet past and the chaos of the early transition years. Such impressions are now decades out of date.
Finally, this essay reviews a recent assessment from the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). On matters of fact, there is a striking agreement between this assessment and the information published in the West; the sanctions are described as having “led to large-scale crisis processes that affected almost all areas of the Russian economy.” However, the RAS report notes the effective early crisis management by the Russian state, the “relatively favorable” decline of only 0.4 percent in GDP in the first half of 2022 (at an annual rate), and signs of a turnaround already in some key indicators, including business investment. The RAS report contains numerous cautions of the dangers ahead, including a blunt warning about the state budget, yet with recommendations on how the challenges can be met.
It is too early to state definite conclusions. However, a very recent Wall Street Journal analysis – coauthored by Evan Gershkovich, now detained in Russia – takes the view (expressed in the headline) that the Russian economy is “starting” to come apart. At a minimum, this logically contradicts any notion that it was collapsing already last year, under the first shock of the application of sanctions. It, therefore, undermines both the Sonnenfeld and the Treasury theses, suggesting that while the facts in those analyses appear impeccable, their conceptual underpinnings are problematic.
The contrast between the effects of sanctions on Russia and their effects on Europe is worth noting. With respect to Russia, resource prices remained stable, the internal market for Russian firms grew, physical assets were transferred to Russians at preferential rates, and financial assets were retained in the country that might otherwise have gone abroad. With respect to Europe, imported resource prices soared, markets for exports fell, physical assets had to be sold cheaply and financial assets fled to the United States. Thus one would expect improved market conditions in Russia and deterioration in Europe – and this is what we presently observe.
Could Russia have achieved such effects on its own? As late as early 2022, the Russian economy was deeply penetrated by foreign firms in virtually all sectors except the military. The oligarchs, deeply Westernized with vast investments and assets outside the country, were highly influential. Neoliberal economic ideas were prominent, with challenges from academic institutions favoring a stronger state industrial policy still at that time in a relatively weak position. The legal, political, institutional, and ideological climate would have, almost surely, prevented the Russian state from taking the steps that were imposed upon it by the sanctions.
We conclude that when applied to a large, resource-rich, technically-proficient economy, after a period of shock and adjustments, sanctions are isomorphic to a strict policy of trade protection, industrial policy, and capital controls. Such policies have been applied with success in other countries. They are policies that the Russian government could not plausibly have implemented, even in 2022, on its own initiative. Their success or failure in Russia will be determined over time. However, strong claims for the effectiveness of sanctions in this case, so far, do not appear warranted. |
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Top General Admits Pentagon Is Training Coup Leaders In Africaby Tyler Durden. 25March2023 – 06:30 PM https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/top-general-admits-pentagon-training-coup-leaders-africa Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com, Gen. Michael Langley, the head of US Africa Command (AFRICOM), was grilled by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) on Thursday about African soldiers who received US military training and went on to carry out coups.
Langley insisted only a “very small number” of Africans who receive US training later go on to be involved in coups against civilian governments and said the programs focus on “core values.”
 Rep. Matt Gaetz-tweet-23March2023-Africa coup leaders were trained by US Armed Forces When asked by Gaetz if the US shares “core values” with Guinea coup leader Col. Mamady Doumbouy, Langley replied, “Absolutely … In our curriculum, we do.” Doumboy and his forces carried out a coup in 2021 while US Green Berets were in the country training them, and he still leads Guinea to this day.
Gaetz also referenced a January 2022 coup in Burkina Faso, which was led by Lt. Col. Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damib, who had a long history of participating in US training exercises. Later that year, in September 2022, Damib was ousted in another coup led by Capt. Ibrahim Traore. When asked by journalist Nick Turse if Traore also received US training, the Pentagon said it didn’t know.
Writing for Responsible Statecraft, Turse said since 2008, US-trained soldiers in Africa have “attempted at least nine coups (and succeeded in at least eight) across five West African countries, including Burkina Faso (three times), Guinea, Mali (three times), Mauritania, and the Gambia.” AFRICOM Leader Claims U.S Government Shares Values with Coup LeadersLangley insisted that the “core values” AFRICOM’s training focuses on include “respect for civilian governance” and said the command will “continue with our persistence in assuring that they harbor democratic norms, democratic values, apolitical.” Gaetz said those values aren’t sticking.
“Just a moment ago, you said we shared core values with Colonel Doumbouya. You said that just moments ago in response to my question, and his core value seems to be leading a coup. So I don’t think it has stuck. I think we should at least know how many countries we train the coup plotters,” he said. |
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Biden Wants Sanctions Against Uganda Because Its Government Passed Anti-LGBT Lawsby Tyler Durden, 04June2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/political/biden-wants-sanctions-against-uganda-because-its-government-passed-anti-lgbt-laws Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute, In an excellent display of how US foreign policy can be used as a means of pandering to domestic interest groups, the Biden administration has threatened to impose sanctions on Uganda as punishment for that regime’s adoption of new laws criminalizing some types of homosexual behavior.
While it is abundantly clear that this move from the Ugandan state presents absolutely no threat to any vital US interest, the Biden administration apparently believes the situation requires immediate action by the US regime.
According to Axios, the Biden Administration’s proposed actions
What exactly are these new laws that require the State Department to get involved in the internal affairs of a country 8,000 miles away? According to The Hill,
Or put another way, the death penalty will be imposed in many cases on those found guilty of engaging in sex with children and with people unable to consent. Even in those cases, these are pretty harsh penalties, and certainly few Americans—from any part of the political spectrum—would support such measures.
The proposed method of punishing Ugandans is rather curious, however. Note that the sanctions being discussed include—ironically—cutting off AIDS relief dollars, plus dollars that the regime has long insisted are absolutely vital to economic development and poverty relief in the developing world. If that’s true, then the US regime proposes trying to impoverish ordinary Ugandans as punishment for acts of the Ugandan regime.
It is also notable that the US regime appears to now be fixated on such laws in Uganda when similar laws already exist on the books of several US allies. For example, the death penalty can be imposed for various homosexual acts in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. “Death by stoning” is also inflicted on alleged homosexuals in US ally Pakistan. Moreover, after 20-years of US occupation, Afghanistan imposes similar punishments. Those are just the places where the death penalty is potentially imposed. Homosexual acts are criminalized in a variety of countries that retain friendly relations with the US including Egypt—the top recipient of US foreign aid—plus Iraq, Jordan, South Sudan, and Nigeria. Homosexual sex between males can bring life imprisonment in Tanzania.
So why is Uganda now so much in the crosshairs while Saudi Arabia escapes notice?The fact is the US regime is threatening sanctions on ordinary Ugandans because it can. Given that there is no sizable or electorally powerful Ugandan population in the US, it costs the administration nothing to denounce Uganda while also virtue signaling to extremely powerful and well-funded domestic LGBT interest groups. Denouncing the Saudis or the Qataris, on the other, hand might bring geopolitical “complications” and thus you won’t hear much about Saudi or Qatari punishment of homosexual acts in the US media or in Washington. The US’s Moralistic and Imperialist ImpulsesMoreover, Washington’s willingness to immediately begin threatening sanctions against some faraway country has been part of the overall imperialist impulse that has prevailed in Washington since the end of the Cold War. This was when the US shifted toward become an ever-more-aggressive world morality police that would attempt to globally “protect right” in vague mimicry of how the federal government—via the federal courts and threats of cutting off federal funding—dictates to the states what counts as acceptable law.
This new scheme was apparent by 1994 when Murray Rothbard wrote a sarcastic article suggesting that the US be prepared to invade any foreign country where the local regime has not sufficiently embraced the American regime’s cultural ideals. The key, Rothbard contends, was to define every foreign “deviation” as a threat to US national security. Rothbard noted that even by the mid 1990s, American interventionists such as the neoconservatives had already “cunningly redefined ‘national interest’ to cover every ill, every grievance, under the sun.”
This naturally would lead, Rothbard suggested, to the need to intervene in nearly every foreign country on earth:
The good news in the Uganda case is that at least we’re not hearing any calls for actual regime change or “boots on the ground” in Uganda (so far).
Fortunately, many Americans haven’t yet bought into the idea that every objectionable act by foreign regimes can be defined as a threat to US national interests. This is why even today, when Washington targets some foreign regime for “regime change” or economic sanctions or a volley of cruise missiles, the American interventionists usually try to at least suggest that the target regime is some kind of threat to US “national interests.”
Experience suggests that if the regime really wants to get the American public riled up about a new war, Washington has to make the case for something beyond mere “humanitarian” intervention. This is why the Bush administration felt it had to trump up accusations of “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq. It’s why President Obama claimed the US has a “national security interest in … ensuring that we’ve got a stable Syria.” It’s why those who wanted a US war with Bosnia insisted that conflict in the Balkans in the mid 1990s provided a threat to “vital” US interests such as “European stability” and NATO unity.
Sometimes, though, some foreign countries are so obviously not a threat to the US that “humanitarian” meddling through military action isn’t politically viable. In those cases, the regime usually falls back on “sanctions.”
This strategy has been around a long time. Murray Rothbard noticed this trend in 1994 as well, and he listed just some of the real-life suggested sanctions that could be employed to whip foreign regimes into line:
Uganda is just one of a great many regimes targeted in this fashion in recent decades.Yet the landscape has changed considerably since 1994. In 2023, the US obsession with sanctioning dozens of countries has backfired and begun to isolate the US more and more from the developing world and from any regime that doesn’t enjoy taking orders from Washington. This includes the regimes in some of the world largest economies, including China, India, and Brazil. The US’s tendency to incessantly turn to sanctions to make a political point—and the apparent capriciousness with which the US regime is willing to do so—only motivates the world’s regimes to insulate themselves from the US, whether through minimizing dollar transactions or forming tighter alliances with potential allies outside the US orbit. We may soon find Uganda looking for a similar way out. Read More: |
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Morgan Stanley Shows Why US-China Decouple Is “Neither Possible Nor Desirable” In One Stunning Chartby Tyler Durden, 18May2023 –
The US and China have been locked in a five-year trade war. Lawmakers in Washington have been touting the economic “decoupling” of the world’s two biggest economies, but that has not yet happened.
It’s unclear if a full decoupling is even achievable. Western countries urge corporations to rejigger supply chains from China to other “friendlier” countries like India, Indonesia, Thailand, and Mexico.
However, there’s one problem: even if firms relocate their manufacturing base to other countries, components are still sourced from China. The reality of achieving full decoupling appears more challenging and complex than once thought (and costlier).
Morgan Stanley’s global director of research Katy Huberty told clients earlier this week that a complete “re-wiring” of the EV battery supply chain out of China would require a $7 trillion investment by the West through 2040.
In a separate Morgan Stanley report earlier this month, a team of strategists revealed:
With that understanding, the analysts provided a breathtaking view of how the world’s technology companies are interlinked. A full decoupling of China and the US is only possible if a war over Taiwan occurs. If that happens, global supply chains will crash overnight, essentially a reset.
World’s technology companies are interlinked
More recently, Jay Shambaugh, Treasury Undersecretary for International Affairs, told Bloomberg Television the US isn’t seeking to decouple its economy from China or limit the country’s growth:
Even though relations between US and China have deteriorated sharply in recent years, a full decoupling is impossible at the moment, and if the West were to friendshore and reshore supply chains, it would take decades and trillions of dollars.
So the whole decoupling narrative in the near term is unrealistic, given the chart we shared above. The only thing the West can do is reduce reliance on China and hope Beijing doesn’t invade Taiwan anytime soon. |
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A Grand Alliance To Overcome The Elite Betrayal Of Americaby Tyler Durden, 27April2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/political/grand-alliance-overcome-elite-betrayal-america Authored by Edward Ring via AmGreatness.com, The sooner we join together to save our civilization, the easier the path… For the first time in history, the ruling class of a powerful nation has abandoned its fellow citizens. What is happening in America today is more than a return to feudalism, although the new economic model into which we’re being herded is correctly compared to feudalism. The reality is actually much worse: America’s elites view ordinary citizens as no longer necessary. Because of globalism, they are replaceable. Because of automation, they are superfluous. Because of environmentalism, they are unsustainable.
These factors explain what is otherwise inexplicable: Constitutional conservatives and Christians, and the values they profess, are now stigmatized by establishment institutions as often, if not more often, than they are praised. Nationalism and religious faith empower individuals and communities to resist a ruling class that has abandoned them. That makes them a threat. They recognize that the ideology of America’s ruling elites is itself leading to disaster. They recognize that America’s elites have decided the nation’s middle class is disposable, and this is the real reason they are pushing an agenda of woke degeneracy and extreme environmentalism, designed to lower birthrates and reduce standards of living.
It’s hard to imagine how America’s elites could get things more wrong. Their transhuman and transnational vision is provoking a clash of civilizations at the same time as they are destroying the human foundation of their own civilization. Nations where nationalism or religion remains the prevailing ideology are not about to emasculate their populations and eviscerate their energy sectors.
If America’s elites attempt to impose this agenda worldwide, the world will fight back.. Do they intend to win this clash with robots? Because if they reduce America to a geriatric, poverty-stricken nation, ruled by a handful of billionaires, robots are all they’re going to have left at the rate we’re going. The Grand AllianceThe elites who have betrayed their own people are not invincible. America’s historical legacy has built a cultural unity and resiliency that should not be underestimated.
While America’s tradition of assimilation is under attack by an elite-driven obsession with multiculturalism, it remains the robust product of more than 200 years as a successful melting pot. Moreover, America’s Bill of Rights offers protection to people still fighting for the values of faith, family, and freedom—values that are not as easily undermined as they are in other Western nations with less explicit constitutional safeguards.
Winston Churchill titled the third volume of his World War II memoirs The Grand Alliance. It described an alliance against a threat more obvious and imminent than the one we face today, uniting partners more intrinsically opposed than those who need to join together today. Instead of Western democracies uniting with Communist Russia to fight the fascist dictatorships, we have merely to unite a critical mass of Americans who want to save their nation from an elite that has declared war on their way of life and their future. This isn’t as hard as it seems for two reasons.
The only thing normal Americans have to do in order to bring America’s swing voters back to the side of common sense is to promote an attractive vision. It is not enough to just explain how bad things have gotten. To begin that process they may start, they must start, by bringing the secular and religious wings of the common sense coalition together.
In his 2017 book, The Strange Death of Europe, British journalist Douglas Murray suggests those forces still extant in Western societies and still resisting the derangements of our time—the secular and the religious—put aside their differences and unite to save Western civilization.
Finding a new synthesis of Western culture capable of addressing the questions of the 21st century may be a topic of active debate in think tanks. Still, to date, it hasn’t filtered down to retail politics. On the street, politicians trying to overcome woke insanity have limited themselves, at most, to rolling back the insanity. They have not expressed a new vision for America that unites religious and secular conservatives.
This is regrettable, but it also presents a tremendous opportunity. If religious and secular conservatives reached a consensus, the political agenda they would share would necessarily have attenuated the most extreme positions held by either side, which in turn would attract millions of independent voters. Although it would still be declared extremist by elites who would now see their plans endangered as never before, in reality, it would form a new political center. It would be an irresistible force.
Vivek Ramaswamy, who at the very least is the second most interesting Republican candidate currently running for U.S. president, has made a centerpiece of his campaign answering the question of what it means to be an American. His positions are unequivocal. For example, there need to be clear limits to what we tolerate as normal. The prerequisites for prosperity include clean fossil fuel, and that is nonnegotiable. Meritocracy is the only equitable way to deliver equal opportunity to everyone. Freedom in America, as embodied in the Bill of Rights, must be defended. These are unifying issues because they reject the establishment’s manipulative narrative of anger, resentment, fear, and perpetual crisis, and instead, envision a future of growth and greatness.
Consider the wondrous possibilities a healthy political coalition could express to an electorate desperate for hope. Imagine a political platform centered on deregulation and infrastructure investments to deliver abundant and affordable energy, the foundation of all prosperity. Imagine a foreign policy oriented to helping all nations achieve these gains, instead of being limited to “renewables” that condemn them to poverty, famine, tyranny, and war.
Optimism is contagious. Imagine a strong and united America beginning to harvest the resources of the moon and the asteroids. Imagine a culture that celebrates beauty and talent again. Imagine a generation of youth inspired to work hard so they can play a meaningful part in the brilliant unfolding story of a proud nation in a peaceful world. Imagine good things happening from now on, not out of naïveté, but as the product of practical investment and steadfast resolve. The sooner we join together to save our civilization, the easier the path. |
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Constitutional revolution or a revolution of tanks?Having lost in Israel, globalists risk Israel setting a dangerous precedent and they must stop it. Op-ed.Alexander Maistrovoy 31January2023, http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/366735
For the third time in its short history, Israel, by the will of fate or metaphysical destiny, once again finds itself in the epicenter of the struggle of the Western world with supranational totalitarian systems. The first time, it had become an outpost on the path of the powerful Soviet empire, which sought to establish a communist world dictatorship. The second time, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was attacked by the Islamists, who practiced the most monstrous methods of “fighting the infidels” here. This onslaught was repulsed, and the jihadists were at least temporarily weakened. The newest episode is marked by the advent of another, perhaps the most sophisticated, totalitarian ideology – globalism. And again, as before, the Jewish state has become the main battlefield.
The goal of globalism as an ideological system is the elimination of national states and cultures and the transformation of Western states into a sterile territory with unlimited financial, material and intellectual resources. A human being in such system is doomed to turn into an infantile, ignorant and thoughtless consumer whose mind is filled with all sorts of ridiculous fantasies, such as “reptilian people”, “zombie apocalypse”, New Age beliefs and “flat earth”. They will be guided not by reason, but by spontaneous desires and emotions, and in fact, will turn into a pet, where their fate depends entirely on the desires and whims of their owners.
This offensive against the human being, as a thinking and independent creature, expands in all directions.
Finally, under the pretext of protecting democracy, cultural totalitarianism is established, in which ” dissenters” are pushed to the periphery of public and political life, declared racists, fascists or mentally ill people. It is as if the ‘fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly’ of prophet Daniel, has been resurrected from the dark depths, has come into the world.
All sorts of manipulations are used to take over the world, including an alliance with the progressives with their destructive agenda and Islamists – primarily the Muslim Brotherhood and their sponsors: Turkey and Qatar. There is a ruthless persecution of those who are trying to save their peoples from cultural destruction: first of all, Hungary and Poland, perhaps the last strongholds of Western civilization in the Old World.
However, the main tool of the globalists is now the judicial system – the one that was perceived by the fathers of democracy, from Alexis de Tocqueville, Jeremy Bentham and John Mill to Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, as the main pillar of democracy. Judicial institutions of Western countries have turned into supranational structures, often not controlled by anyone, a kind of closed elite “priesthood”. Those who try to get in the way of globalism immediately become the object of legal persecution, supported by the media, the Academy and the highest officials.
Trump in America, Netanyahu in Israel, Silveo Berlusconi and Matteo Salvini in Italy, Marine Le Pen in France, “Alternative for Germany”, Sebastian Kurz in Austria, Andrej Babiš in the Czech Republic – these are the most striking examples of modern auto-da-fé. The accusations range from fraud, as in the case of Trump, Netanyahu and Babiš, to “illegally keeping migrants on board a ship”, as in the case of Matteo Salvini, and sympathies for the Nazis and fascists, as in the case of Giorgia Meloni. In some cases, politicians become justified, like in the case of Marine le Pen. Even so she surprisingly softened her position on migrants. In some cases, like in the case of Kurtz, they are forced to leave politics completely.
Israel is a unique case where the most popular statesman, against whom four cases were initiated at once, managed to return to power thanks to the support of Israeli society. Moreover, he gave carte blanche to his Minister of Justice to implement a judicial reform, that is to deprive the judicial caste of the exclusive status and unlimited powers. In doing so, he jeopardized all the privileges enjoyed by the judicial elite.
If the new government wins the battle in Israel, the “bad example” could be contagious. This is a dangerous precedent for globalists. Globalists cannot allow any legitimate government of any country to disarm their “sacred establishment”, to take away their main instrument of power from them. This is a war of life and death, and this is what we are seeing today: mass hysteria, calls for defiance and rebellion, intimidation with threats of the collapse of democracy, civil war and destruction of the state, political liquidation of key right-wing politicians, as in the case of Arye Deri.
If this unbridled orgy does not force the government to capitulate, the situation will be deliberately aggravated. Bloody provocations, riots, assassination attempts, and mass clashes are possible. Just like for Lenin and his accomplices Russia was nothing more than an experimental field, so for the current globalists Israel and other countries are nothing more than a territory on which they, through their puppets, are “experimenting on people”*, according to Viktor Orban.
If at this stage the current government shows firmness and does not give in, or if the situation finally gets out of control, the elite will turn to their last resort – what ex-President of the Supreme Court Aaron Barak called the ” tanks revolution”.** In other words, tanks will be a response to the attempt to limit the power of judges – the world globalist elite will go for the establishment of a direct dictatorship. For they understand well that having lost in Israel they risk losing the entire West. All their achievements and aspirations are put at stake today. *“I don’t like experimenting on people. Human experimentation is dangerous.” (Viktor Orbán) ** “You have no greater evil than this as a constitutional revolution. The most parallel thing is a tanks revolution.” (Retired President of the Supreme Court, Aharon Barak) |
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Two Cowshttps://www.smart-jokes.org/two-cows-economics-explained.html and others “You have two cows” is the opening sentence of a series of jokes about different political & economical systems. Their humor is based on the description of the respective system, by using the analogy of what would happen to the eponymous cows. You have two CowsExplain Economics & Politics: Better Than Any ClassStrategy of certain political & economical systems, politicians, governments and companies at a glance! Or: What to do with two cows? FEUDALISM BUREAUCRATISM BUREAUCRACY BUREAUCRACY BUREAUCRACY — EUROPEAN UNION COVID BUREAUCRACY SOCIALISM SOCIALISM PURE SOCIALISM BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM COMMUNISM COMMUNISM PURE COMMUNISM PURE COMMUNISM RUSSIAN COMMUNISM RUSSIAN COMMUNISM COMMUNISM — CHINESE CULTURAL REVOLUTION CAMBODIAN COMMUNISM PERESTROIKA DICTATORSHIP FASCISM NAZISM NEW DEALISM MILITARIANISM MILITARY OLIGARCHY PURE DEMOCRACY REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY AMERICAN DEMOCRACY BRITISH DEMOCRACY CAPITALISM CAPITALISM TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM PAPA BUSH’S NEW CAPITALISM CLINTON’S NEW CAPITALISM W’S NEW CAPITALISM OBAMA’S NEW CAPITALISM – ???? DISNEY CAPITALISM MARTHA STEWART CAPITALISM AYN RAND CAPITALISM CALIFORNIAN CAPITALISM DICTATORSHIP PURE DEMOCRACY REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY BRITISH DEMOCRACY SINGAPOREAN DEMOCRACY TOTALITARIANISM LIBERTARIANISM PACIFISM TALIBANISM POLITICAL CORRECTNESS COUNTER CULTURE ANARCHO-CAPITALISM SURREALISM SURREALISM ANARCHISM ANARCHY PURE ANARCHY ENVIRONMENTALISM FEMINISM OLYMPICS-ISM UNITED NATIONS VENTURE CAPITALISM AMERICAN CORPORATE CAPITALISM EUROPEAN UNION BUREAUCRATISM AN AMERICAN CORPORATION A BRITISH CORPORATION BRITISH — MAJOR A FRENCH CORPORATION AN ITALIAN CORPORATION A JAPANESE CORPORATION A GERMAN CORPORATION A RUSSIAN CORPORATION A SWISS CORPORATION A CHINESE CORPORATION AN INDIAN CORPORATION AN IRAQI CORPORATION HONG KONG CAPITALISM AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION A GREEK CORPORATION |
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More on the meat Stop eating animals sign
20January2023 https://rivkalevy.com/more-on-the-meat/
I will pick up heliocentrism and Jewish heretics next week, BH.I am exploring some new avenues of information linking both together, which is already proving extremely interesting – but needs quite a bit of spade work before I can ‘lay it out nicely’ to share with you, so you can come to your own conclusions. In the the meantime, let’s just get back to the meat for a mo.
==== Someone asked one of Rav Berland’s gabbays about the frankenchicken.[See Next Post] Long story short, he was told that the Rav looked into it, and is still eating chicken. I don’t have more details than that. But, they also asked what hechsherim the Rav is eating himself, and this is the answer:
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We know the rabbis make the reality.The problem is, so many of our rabbis are currently Erev Rav fakers, it’s very hard to know if the ‘reality’ they are making is a good, holy one, or not. Each person has to continue to do their hitbodedut, and to ask God to show them the truth. What I can tell you, is that I recognised a lot of the names in the ‘frankenchicken’ pamphlet as belonging to people who ‘excommunicated’ the Rav.
And that gave me pause for thought right from the start, that these people may not be coming from a good place, spiritually.
Because ‘extra chumrot’ is also a Sabbatean thing, to make yiddishkeit so burdensome that people give up and drop out.==== In the meantime, my husband sent me this:
==== HERE‘s the actual headline:  David-Lau-Jpost-cultured meat is pareve but can’t be consumed with Dairy
==== It’s up to you if you rely on this ‘psak’ from David Lau.Let’s just say, I’m not. At all. (Go look at his family tree, btw, you’ll find it VERY INTERESTING!!!!)
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And while I was typing this, another reader, Alizah, sent me this from HERE:  David-Lau-Lab grown Cheeseburger kosher
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Snippet:
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Yuval Cherlow came out with a number of shocking statements during Covid 19.Like this:  Cherlow-covid-19 vaccine-refusers-limited sanctions-Jpost
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Snippet:
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Maybe, we need to re-define the word ‘ethicist’.Or at least, to understand that not all ‘ethicists’ with a rabbinic title are actually preaching ‘ethics’ that have any connection to what is good and true and moral.
HERE is his page on the ‘Elijah Interfath Institute’ website, who are hoping to build their massive interfaith centre in the heart of Meah Shearim, overlooking the Old City of Jerusalem. Those who will understand, understood how all this is linked.
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So, it’s up to you if you want to believe ‘religious zionist’ rabbis who are telling you pigs are kosher.Personally, I don’t. At all. And it’s up to you, if you want to believe fanatics from Meah Shearim who are telling you that nothing today is really kosher, including chickens. The rabbis – the real rabbis – make the reality.
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But we can see how this dance of despair works, can’t we?On the one hand, we have the ‘religious fanatics’ making the yoke of yiddishkeit so hard to bear, potentially, we all just feel like giving up on keeping kosher, because it’s too hard to do it properly, so what’s the point???
And on the other, we have the modernising ‘religious zionists’ who work for the Frankist-Freemason State of Israel telling us that pigs are now kosher. There is nothing new under the sun.And as different as they look, and pretend to be, they are actually just both working for the same boss, trying to pull Jews away from the Torah and God, and our true Tzaddikim.
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A lot of pieces of this puzzle are really starting to come together.
BH, when I put the stuff together about who has been pushing ‘heliocentrism’ in the Jewish community – for millenia! – I think the penny will start to fall big time, for a lot of us, that everything we’ve been covering here on the blog is connected, in some profound ways. And that those hellenising Sadduccess never went away, never stopped attacking ‘the perushim’, and never stopped trying to force Am Yisrael to ‘modernise’ and assimilate, in a million different ways.Both by joining forces with our enemies without, and by trying to subvert our ‘Holy of Holies’ from within. There is nothing new under the sun. More on that soon, BH.
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FRANKEN-CHICKEN matrix [picture changed] 31December2022 https://rivkalevy.com/franken-chicken/ I have been getting my chicken from the same kosher butcher in Jerusalem for years now.***UPDATES BELOW, WITH PICTURES*** It’s a small family business that is run by people who literally sit and read a gemara when there are no customers, and it’s been that way for decades. And the chicken and meat is good quality, and has a ‘badatz’ hechsher (for what that is worth….)
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A few weeks ago, I had a lot of guests for Shabbat, and no chicken in the freezer.I was in Bet Shemesh visiting friends that Thursday afternoon, so I decided to stock up on a different brand of ‘badatz’ chicken thighs and legs, for Shabbat. I got that stuff home – frozen, and I wasn’t really paying close attention to it. But the next day when I defrosted it, I was really puzzled: these chicken legs and thighs looked to be easily three times the size of the ones I usually bought, from my local place in Jerusalem.I double-checked that I hadn’t bought Turkey by mistake – Rebbe Nachman tells his followers not to eat Turkey, and there’s a rumor that part of the persecution of Rabbenu came about because he openly stated that Turkey is not a kosher bird. Nope – apparently, I had bought ‘chicken legs’. Wow, what sort of steroids are they pumping into this stuff, to get it to grow like this?! I wondered to myself.
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I made that franken-chicken the usual way I’ve been making my Shabbat chicken the last few years – and it came out weirdly gross.Instead of being juicy and yummy, the meat was kind of ‘stolid’ and unmoving, not in a good way. I didn’t touch it, and one of my kids ate half, then stopped. This tastes funny…. She said. But she couldn’t explain what was wrong with it.
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I had a whole fit about whether I should be serving that stuff to the guests, but my husband explained that:a) I had nothing else made; and b) most people apparently have been eating this ‘franken-chicken’ for a while, without noticing that something is not quite right here, because most people don’t get their meat from my usual butcher. So…. I kept my mouth shut, and the guests ate what they ate and apparently didn’t notice anything ‘off’ about the meat. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something really weird was going on with the chicken.
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In the meantime, the turmeric I’d been sprinkling over my hot lemon and honey health drink since I bought it at Pesach time finished, and I went and got a big, fat, new jar of turmeric from my local super-duper-super-kosher supermarket.That was right around the time we were having something of a discussion about the health benefits of turmeric on the blog here, connected to my husband’s infected foot. Long story short, this new turmeric started clumping together in my cup in a really weird way, and kind of went spongy and ‘chewy’. What in the world?! At exactly that same time, one of the regular commentators, Becky, posted a link to THIS in the comments section, translated snippet below:
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Could that yellow, weird-tasting clumpy stuff that I thought was turmeric actually be ‘residues of petrochemical fuels’?!I chucked that whole big jar of it away, and then wondered to myself: How would it be possible for these people to be labelling this stuff as ‘turmeric’ – and our kosher organisations, who are giving all these labels their ‘kosher OK’, apparently didn’t know that they are mixing this stuff with ‘residues of petrochemical fuels’ and I don’t know what else? While you are pondering that, let’s get back to the chickens. (And btw, HERE is some quick tests you can do to see if your turmeric is hopefully at least approaching the real deal.)
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Last week, someone we met on holiday handed me a leaflet, in Hebrew, entitled: The matter of the terrible prohibition of the chickens of our days.To cut a very long story short, someone says they have spent a couple of years investigating what is going on with the apparently super-duper-kosher chickens in Israel – and they have apparently discovered something shocking. They say that the chickens most of us are eating in Israel today are actually GM cross-breeds between the old-style ‘regular’ kosher chickens – and strange ‘birds’ that some are suspected to be unkosher, and some are known to be unkosher. They say that the big poultry firms in Israel (and also, most other places in the world….) decided a few years ago that they needed to genetically-modify the breeds of chickens they were slaughtering, to breed ‘franken-chickens’ that grow much bigger, much faster – and can be slaughtered at 30 days, instead of 120 days, saving a ton of money in feed costs.
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I am still half-way through reading that pamphlet. I will scan all four pages of it, and add it to the bottom of this post, for anyone out there who wants to print the stuff off and go through it in more detail. I’m not saying it’s true, I don’t know. But I DO know that the franken-chicken I bought in Bet Shemesh last month was ginormous, gross, and didn’t cook or taste exactly like ‘chicken’.(And again, I have to wonder, where are the kashrut supervisors in this whole story? Because clearly, something unnatural is happening with that super-duper badatz kosher ‘chicken’. Just we don’t know what exactly. Yet.)
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While we’re on the subject of ‘franken-food’, let’s just finish up with something called Hek 293, which I have a feeling you are about to hear a lot more about.Here’s a brief description of it, from Wikipedia:
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Another commentator, Daisy, started talking about ‘HEK 293’ being a in a whole bunch of products certified ‘kosher’ here on the blog last week, including lab-grown fake meat.To be clear, HEK 293 is literally a line of HUMAN EMBRYONIC KIDNEY CELLS. If you eat something with that in it, you are eating HUMAN EMBRYONIC KIDNEY CELLS. With great British understatement, let’s say that’s clearly not kosher. But from what I’m starting to hear from some of my contacts, this HEK 293 is being used as a chemical ‘flavoring’ in a whole bunch of bio-engineered food products that are carrying a kosher label. And that many leading Kashrut Organisations apparently have known about this for a while, but have kept shtum.(HERE is the updated list of brands and products using this stuff, that Daisy included in her original comment.)
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From what I’m reading HERE, it’s still not clear to me if the HEK 293 is actually IN these foods, or just being used to develop the flavorings for them…. BH, this will start to become clearer soon. But in the meantime… This is shaping up to be extremely challenging, on so many fronts. We Jews know that ‘you are what you eat’. If you eat traif ‘franken-chickens’, if you eat petrochemical byproducts instead of turmeric, if you eat human kidney cells from an aborted foetus (wow, can you believe I just typed that?) – that’s clearly going to affect you spiritually, never mind what it’s doing to your physical health.
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I don’t have an answer to all this. (Other than run away from massive ‘franken-chicken’ thighs, when you see them in the supermarket….) And pray a lot, for God to save us from all this.What else can we do, while we’re waiting for the truth to finally come out, and for the curtain to finally fall, this time on all those ‘rabbis’ who have been running the ‘super-duper-kosher-food’ racket? Are they also crossing chickens with pigs, and not telling us? If that sounds far-fetched, remember they already crossed a pig with a tomato back in the 1990s, snippet from here:
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Deep sigh. Wherever you have big money, you have big corruption.And we’ll just have to wait to see where this story of ‘franken-chicken’ is going to take us. But I have an inkling, that if you thought the spiritual corruption we saw with the Covid shots and our so-called ‘rabbis’ was bad – and it WAS bad – we ain’t seen nothing yet. TBC ====
UPDATE:Here are a couple of screenshots of the Hebrew original:  Chicken-scan
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 Chicken-scan-2
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To sum up what it’s saying: There is a new cross-bred chicken that the author calls a ‘Fatum’ (‘fattened’), in the Hebrew. I can’t find any references to a ‘Fatum’ breed in English, BUT, the one cross-bred ‘meat producing chicken’ that seems to be exactly what he’s talking about is called a ‘Cornish Cross’. You can read more about them HERE, this is the relevant snippet:
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The author also says that the meat of this ‘Fattum’ was genetically tested to see what cross of breeds it contains.The results show that many different species have gone into this hybrid ‘meat producer’, including:
Read more about ;Malay fowl’ HERE, snippet:
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There is no tradition of the ‘Malay’ being a kosher bird.There’s lots more to say, but ad kan. Do your own investigations, ask your own questions….come to your own conclusions and decisions.
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Re: HEK 293, this ‘flavor enhancer’ – based on aborted human embryonic kidney cells! – was originally the creation of a company called Senomyx, which you can read about on Wikipedia HERE. Senomyx was taken over by a massive ‘food and fragrance’ giant operating out of Switzerland (where else?) called: Firmenich.Here‘s a little of what that company has been up to:  Firmenich AI created flavor
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Snippet:
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Who would have believed Bill Gates has his sticky fingers in this pie, too?Pay attention, that HEK 293 (which stands for Human Embryonic Kidney) is considered to be a ‘natural product’, as it derives from dead aborted foetuses, and is not a chemical…. So, when you see that something is being called a ‘natural flavor’, that doesn’t mean it’s coming from an orange, or a herb. It could also be coming from the kidney cells of an aborted human foetus.
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Ad kan. (Before we all throw up….) And stay far, far away from processed foods as you can, even stuff misleadingly labelled ‘meat free’.That ‘meaty taste’ is coming from somewhere, and all this is just weasel words and disgusting manipulation and cover-up. As usual.
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UPDATE 2:I just got sent this over email, by a reader on this guy’s mail list. It’s from the ‘technophilosoph.com’ website, and it’s more of the usual puke-inducing ‘modern technology playing God’ stuff. Like this:
These people are total sickos. And of course, the ‘big secret’ here is that many of those ‘cell cultures’ they are using to create ‘cruelty free meat’ is of course…. from aborted human foetuses.And if you are relying on our kashrut organisations to save us from all this…. then that’s probably really dumb. The change begins with us.Stay away from as much processed foods as you can, and ask God to show you what’s good to eat, and what’s good to buy. And of course, remember to say your blessings over all the things going in to your mouth, because that is still a Jew’s first line of defense, against all the disgusting tumah-dik stuff being shoved in our food, until Moshiach finally shows up. Bring on the manna!!!!
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Franken-chicken Part 2: the trouble with turkey turkey 04January2023 https://rivkalevy.com/franken-chicken-part-the-trouble-with-turkey/ Following on from the Franken-Chicken post part 1, my husband did some research.Long story short, the same halachic arguments over today’s ‘Cornish Cross’ chickens apply to turkey, too. A few people wrote about the issue with turkey not being kosher, including this one: The Halachic Tale of Three American Birds: Turkey, Prairie Chicken, and Muscovy DuckSnippet:
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Notice just who was writing on this subject, and deciding the kashrut of birds 250 years ago.R’ Anthony Manning also has an interesting piece where he sets out the basic sources for the halachah very clearly, HERE. Screenshot:  R’ Antony Manning-kosher turkey Here’s a snippet of his conclusion:
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R’ Manning does a very good job of setting out all the information, go HERE to read the whole thing. The problem with turkey is that a) there is NO tradition that it was kosher, people just kind of starting eating it 300 years ago, and then the rabbis of the time just kind of shrugged their shoulders and said ‘ok then’. And b) – it’s got a lot of cruel, ‘dores’ tendencies.Like this
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And like this:
 Animal Equality UK-tweet-21December2018-No Christmas dinner is worth this cruelty
(These are two different stories, on two different occasions….)
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So… no wonder Rabbenu said Turkey shouldn’t be eaten.As to what we do about the chickens of our times…. I don’t know. I’m debating asking a shaila to the Rav, but part of me is also a little scared to do that, because if he says ‘no chicken’ that’s going to be hard to avoid, especially with my kids, who already think I have religious fanatic tendencies… I do know I’m not buying ‘Franken-chicken’ anymore, and it does seem to me most of the ‘chicken’ we’re buying today isn’t really chicken. But then, I’m starting to understand that this whole discussion is SO complicated, because no-one seems to know, anymore, what is really a ‘kosher chicken’ according to our masoret. So for now… I’m buying more red meat and pondering what to do next.
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What I can tell you, is that there is nothing new under the sun.All these arguments just seem to be coming back around again and again and again, on a monstrous loop. 300 years ago it was turkey, today it’s ‘cornish crosses’ And each time, the battle to do the right thing is so very hard. Personally, I’m still not sure what the right thing is to do, with all this chicken stuff. IF I could find a not cornish cross, presumed kosher chicken I for sure would go for that. In the meantime, I am starting to look into more organic options too, but I’m also wary of digging up to much information that I won’t know what to do with… So. That’s where I’m currently holding with all this.
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On a separate but related note, I also started thinking about how the whole heter to use ‘chalav nochri’ is based on the idea that the official organisations are trustworthy, and wouldn’t lie to anyone about mixing in a bit of pig milk with their cows’ milk.At this point…. that assumption seems naive in the extreme. If they are mixing in HEK293 from aborted foetuses into ‘veggie burgers’…. then what the heck are they NOT putting in the stuff labelled chalav nochri? Enquiring minds need to know.I personally don’t eat chalav nochri, but even in Israel, it’s getting into everything these days. And it’s probably long past time to revisit some of these assumptions about the trustworthiness of ‘official labels’ and FDA approvals, and even ‘vegan certifications’… TBC ====
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