Money Flow Trading Method along with Risk Management

https://www.investopedia.com/news/so...ating-vix-vxx/

Is Someone Manipulating the VIX?

ByDavid Floyd

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Updated June 25, 2019

The Cboe Volatility Index (VIX) is often called the "fear gauge," because market watchers use it to measure expected volatility over the coming 30 days. It lived up to its name on Feb. 6, when—following months of relative placidity—the index spiked 199% from the previous day's low to a high of 50.3. Volatility shorts, whose bets were facilitated by niche exchange-traded products, were wiped out: the VelocityShares Daily Inverse VIX Short-Term ETN (XIV) fell 92.6% in a single session.

Allegations have long circulated that some traders have their fingers on the VIX's scale. On Feb. 12, following the market turmoil, Jason Zuckerman and Matt Stock of Zuckerman Law, a K Street firm, wrote to the enforcement divisions of two financial regulators, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The letter laid out allegations of "rampant manipulation of the VIX index" on behalf of "an anonymous whistleblower who has held senior positions at some of the largest investment firms in the world."

The manipulation, according to the letter, is ongoing and "costs investors hundreds of millions of dollars each month," or $2 billion per year. The scheme allegedly exploits a flaw in the VIX, which allows traders to influence the index without risking any capital, simply by posting S&P options quotes. The profits from this activity amount to "multiple billions," according to the letter. (See also: The SEC Whistleblower Program's Quiet Success.)

It further alleges that the manipulation was in part responsible for extensive losses in VIX-linked exchange-traded products earlier in the month.
Zuckerman Law calls disclosures of the risk of VIX manipulation "woefully inadequate," given the length of the documentation—several hundred pages—and the fact that there is no need to directly risk money to influence the options quotes that determine the VIX, making the index "quite vulnerable." The law firm therefore alleges "a breach of fiduciary responsibility" on the part of Cboe Global Markets Inc. (CBOE), which the letter says earns 20% to 25% of its revenues from the VIX. The document attributes the "inadequate" disclosures to the CME Group Inc. (CME), however, which is distinct from Cboe and not involved in the VIX.

Cboe told Bloomberg that the letter "is replete with inaccurate statements, misconceptions and factual errors" – the Cboe-CME confusion being one example – and therefore "lacks credibility"; a Cboe spokesman confirmed that statement to Investopedia. Bill Speth, head of research at Cboe, cast doubt on the allegations, saying, "If you talk to any trader who's actively involved in the VIX, you know that nobody pays attention to the spot value," but rather to the prices of derivatives based on the VIX.
CFTC spokeswoman Erica Richardson said in an emailed statement that the regulator does not publicly comment on whistleblower complaints, which are "an integral part of the CFTC's enforcement program." A message left at the SEC's enforcement division was not returned.

Citing an unnamed source, the Wall Street Journal reported on Feb. 13 that the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (Finra) is probing alleged VIX manipulation, calling the probe separate from the whistleblower's request that regulators investigate. The private, self-regulatory body has provided Cboe with "market surveillance, financial surveillance, examinations, investigations, and disciplinary services" since 2015. Spokesman Ray Pellechia told Investopedia that Finra does not comment on whether they're conducting specific investigations. (See also, Finra: How It Protects Investors.)

Not the First Time
This is not the first time the fear gauge has come under fire. A paper published in May 2017 by John Griffin and Amin Shams of the University of Texas at Austin, detailed "interesting" patterns in trading related to the VIX.

The index works by tracking the implied volatility of a range of S&P 500 index options. Since traders buy and sell these options in order to hedge against or profit from future moves in the market, the options' implied volatility indicates the turbulence that traders expect—if not necessarily the turbulence they get. (See also: Strategies to Trade Volatility Effectively With VIX.)

Griffin and Shams hypothesized that the VIX's mechanics leave it open to manipulation. Say you have a long position in VIX futures. If you're willing to get your hands dirty to ensure a profit, you can submit "aggressive" buy orders for S&P 500 options during the pre-open auction period—7:30 to 8:15 a.m. CST—driving up the index options' clearing prices and with them the VIX.

According to the authors, this scenario is not just hypothetical. On settlement days for VIX derivatives contracts—at least in months when the VIX gains significantly— the price of S&P options has tended to rise until 8:15, suggesting they are being bid up in attempt to inflate the VIX. The price then tends to list back downward for the final 15 minutes before settlement, when trading is only allowed in options unrelated to open VIX positions. This movement indicates that "other traders put in orders to sell the overpriced options and adjust the prices downward. However, the prices are not fully reversed, and we observe more downward adjustment from settlement to open."
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Images sourced from Griffin and Shams.
For example, most options see increases in trading volume as expiration approaches. Not so with S&P 500 options, for which trading volume spikes exactly 30 days prior to expiration. "This is not due to any kind of obvious S&P 500 market-related event," the authors write, "but it is the date that the VIX settles." The authors also find that the spike in trading occurs only in out-of-the-money options, which factor into the VIX's calculation. In-the-money options, which don't affect the VIX, barely budge. (See also: What Is Option Moneyness?)
https://www.investopedia.com/thmb/N6...edfd0026fcf961

The authors explored two alternative explanations, hedging and pent-up demand for liquidity, but conclude that these do not explain the patterns they see in the trading data.

Cboe emailed a statement to Investopedia in June 2017 saying that Griffin and Shams' work was based on "fundamental misunderstandings" of the index's mechanics. Patterns suggestive of manipulation are "entirely consistent with normal and legitimate trading behavior," the statement said, and the paper's authors were not privy to all relevant data. "CBOE takes seriously any market abuse, including manipulation of the VIX settlement process," the statement added, "and maintains a regulatory program that surveils for violative activity, and takes appropriate disciplinary action when warranted." A Cboe spokeswoman told Investopedia that the exchange has never taken disciplinary action against a party for manipulating the VIX.

In an email to Investopedia, Griffin and Shams wrote, "Contrary to CBOE's assertions, we have studied the VIX settlement thoroughly, presented our paper widely, and have talked to various trading professionals who corroborate our understanding of the settlement process and findings." They called on the CBOE to release any data "they think would be useful to better understand and design the settlement" to academics, "as is commonly done with other exchanges." They expressed surprise at the Cboe's "apparent defensive posture" and said it was "disappointing that CBOE doesn't seem concerned that settlement deviations are extremely costly to the investors using their products."

In a Bloomberg column, Matt Levine put forward another, more "innocent" explanation for the apparent manipulation: traders taking cash delivery when their VIX derivatives expire (since physical delivery of volatility is impossible) and using it to purchase the underlying S&P 500 options so as to maintain similar volatility exposure. "We do test that possibility as one our hedging hypotheses in the paper," Griffin told Investopedia. "We discuss it and rule it out as a complete explanation."
Writing to Investopedia, Griffin and Shams likened potential manipulation of the VIX to past scandals surrounding LIBOR​, gold, silver and the foreign exchange market, "all of which were obviously gamed." (See also: The LIBOR Scandal.)

By Graham Summers, MBA

Throughout this week, I've pounded the table on the fact that the economic data the U.S. government has put out recently is a huge pile of BS.

We've covered everything from the jobs data, to inflation, and the recent retail sales results. By quick way of review, the highlights from my research are:

1) The reason the U.S. economy supposedly “added” 500,000+ jobs in January was due to an accounting gimmick, NOT because those jobs were actually created.

2) The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) openly admits this, citing that without its “population control effect” the economy added… 84,000 jobs.

3) The only part of the inflation data that has dropped has been in Energy prices.

4) The reason Energy prices dropped was because the Biden administration dumped over 250 MILLION barrels of oil in the last two years.

5) Retail sales are booming because of INFLATION (things cost more), not because of consumer spending. The jump on credit card debt and massive decline in consumer savings confirms that Americans are maxing out their credit just to get by.

Perhaps the single most disturbing element of the above items is that they reveal the complete failure of the Federal Reserve to tame inflation. Indeed, according to the Taylor Rule which is widely considered one of the best indicators of where rates should be the Fed should have ALREADY raised rates to over 9% to stop inflation.

Instead the Fed has raised rates to 4.75% and is now talking about possibly one or two more rate hikes of just 0.25%.

Everywhere you look, the Fed is failing miserably at curtailing inflation.

1) Financial conditions are now as loose it not looser then they were before the Fed began tightening monetary policy.

2) Meme stock mania is back with garbage companies rallying 30%, 50% even 100% or more in the last few weeks... again just like before the Fed began tightening monetary policy.

3) The inflationary data is being revised upwards: December's -0.1% CPI report has been revised upwards to 0.1%, November and October's CPI numbers were also revised higher.

4) The Producer Price Index results for January 2023 were reported yesterday. They showed inflation rising 0.7% month over month. On an annualized basis this puts inflation over 9%.

And all of this is AFTER the Fed raises rates 4.5% and drains over $500 billion in liquidity from the system!

The Fed now has a choice: get serious about ending inflation and trigger a market meltdown... or face a debt crisis in the near future as bond yields roar to new highs, forcing the government to spend more and more money on debt payments.

Ether way, the U.S. is heading for a crisis in the near future. And most investors are being lead like sheep to the slaughter!

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The Everything Bubble is the result of over a decade of research and analysis of the financial markets and economy by noted investment analyst, Graham Summers. This book is intended for anyone who wants to understand how the US financial system truly operates as well as those interested in the Federal Reserve’s future policy responses when the Everything Bubble bursts.

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February 18, 2023

“Propaganda Rather Than Evidence And Logic” Used By West Meets Putin “Long Game” Reality

By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers

An enlightening new Security Council (SC) report circulating in the Kremlin today first noting President Putin spoke via video link at an event dedicated to the 30th Anniversary of state energy company Gazprom, says he assessed that natural gas will continue to be a valuable resource with high global demand for a considerable period to come, noted that global gas consumption has nearly doubled in the last 30 years, and is expected to increase by at least 20% in the next 20 years, and stated: “Well, here are the Bovanenkovskoye and Kharasaveyskoye gas fields...The first one contains 4.9 trillion cubic meters of proven reserves, almost five trillion...The second one about two trillion cubic meters...These are astronomical reserves for any country”.

Over the last 30 years, this report notes, Russia, the largest country on the world’s biggest continent Eurasia, was able to fuel the economic growth of Europe and Asia with cheap natural gas via pipelines, that the United States couldn’t in any way compete with because it had to first liquefy its natural gas and transport it via shipping tankers—in a bid to capture the European natural gas market for itself, the United States used its NATO military bloc to provoke a war with Russia, then along with natural gas rich Norway blew up the Nord Stream pipelines owned by Russia in a deliberate act of war—and in knowing the truth of what his own socialist government has done, yesterday it caused world-renowned American legendary Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh to observe: “It’s impossible to believe just how dumb Biden’s leadership was...It was suicidal to think you can win that war, that Ukraine can win the war against Russia...There’s just too much corruption...That was a very, very bad decision...Biden basically blew off NATO in Europe by telling allies that he is backing Ukraine with its totally corrupt government that glorifies Stepan Bandera, the great pro-Nazi who killed Jews like crazy during World War II”.

Earlier today at the Munich Security Conference, this report continues, Director Wang Yi of the Chinese Central Foreign Affairs Office told the socialist Western colonial powers that China will come up with a position paper on Ukraine by the end of the month, and stated: “China’s position boils down to supporting talks for peace”—after which Chinese Ambassador Zhang Jun to the United Nations observed and warned: “The main reason for Europe’s current security plight is NATO’s insistence on pursuing absolute security and political exclusion against specific countries...NATO’s self-contradictory behavior, where it promotes itself as a defensive alliance while at the same time constantly seeking to breach its geographic confines and expand its agenda, stoke division and tensions, create fears and confrontations...Europe, and even the whole world, will be caught up in greater turmoil unless NATO changes its mindset”.

Also at the Munich Security Conference today, this report notes, it saw NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg proclaiming like a madman: “Some worry that our support to Ukraine risks triggering escalation…Let me be clear: there are no risk-free options, but the biggest risk of all is if Putin wins...This will make the world more dangerous and us more vulnerable”—and in quick response to, Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev observed: “Well, how did they screw up there in NATO…Stoltenberg said that the risk of Russia's victory is much higher than the risk of an escalation of the conflict in Ukraine…I translate into understandable Russian: the risk of starting a third world war is significantly less than the risk of our country winning…Freaks…They hate and fear”.

Among those sane enough to know the truth that Russia winning in Ukraine is much more preferable than World War III, this report details, is famed American investigative journalist Brandon Smith, who throughout the entirety of the conflict has near accurately predicted everything that’s happened due to his impartial examination of facts and truth, in his just released article “What Happens Next In The Ukraine Proxy War?” factually assessed: “Putin has been playing the long game” and observed: “It is important to put these events in context of the bigger picture; the mainstream media and a majority of pro-Ukraine people argued that these scenarios were not going to happen…They were wrong…They will continue to make wrong predictions because they are basing their conclusions on propaganda rather than evidence and logic”.

Also using “evidence and logic” instead of “propaganda” to assess the current conflict, this report concludes, is world-renowned American geopolitical investment risk advisor James Rickards, who, in his just released open letter “The Horrifying Endgame In Ukraine”, observed and warned:
Today I’m discussing what is by far the most alarming topic on the geopolitical landscape today. That’s the war in Ukraine and the dangers of escalation.

The first is that Russia is actually winning the war.
U.S. outlets such as The New York Times (a channel for the State Department) and The Washington Post (a channel for the CIA) report endlessly about how Russian plans have failed, about how incompetent they are about how the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) have pushed back Russians in the Donbass, and how NATO weapons such as U.S. Abrams tanks, U.K. Challenger tanks and German Leopard tanks will turn the tide against Russia soon.
This is all nonsense. None of it is true.

Reality Check
First off, the Ukrainian advances that took place in late summer were against lightly defended positions that the Russians quickly conceded to conserve forces. The Russians were willing to give up the land so that they wouldn’t lose valuable men and materiel.

The Russians withdrew to more defensible positions and have been badly mauling Ukrainian attacking forces ever since. Ukraine has wasted incredibly large amounts of men and equipment in these futile and ill-advised attacks.

In all, credible reports indicate that Armed Forces of Ukraine casualties are nearing 500,000 and are increasing at an unsustainable rate.
On the other hand, reports of 100,000 Russian dead are almost certainly wild exaggerations put out by Ukraine. The BBC attempted to verify these numbers and could only find about 20,000 confirmed Russian dead based on extensive searches on funeral notices, public records, etc.

Send in the Tanks — Eventually!
What about the tanks NATO is supposedly sending? Well, the tanks have not been delivered yet and most won’t be for months or longer. Our own M1 Abrams tanks might not even arrive for a year or more.

We actually have to custom build these tanks so that they don’t have the special armor and other advanced systems that our own M1s have. The Pentagon doesn’t want them falling into Russian hands if they’re destroyed or captured. Besides, we’re only sending 31 tanks anyway.

When the NATO tanks do arrive, they’ll likely quickly be destroyed by Russian artillery, anti-tank weapons and precision missiles. They’re good tanks, but far from invincible. For decades, the Russians have been developing powerful weapons specifically designed to destroy these NATO tank models. The Russians aren’t particularly worried about them.

Aside from that, tanks rely on effective air cover for protection, which Ukraine lacks. They’ll be sitting ducks on the battlefield. It doesn’t really make sense to send tanks to Ukraine unless you send combat aircraft to give them cover.

Russia’s Winning on the Battlefield
Meanwhile, Russian forces have nearly encircled the city of Bakhmut, which is a major transportation and logistics hub, with several key roads and rail lines passing through it. It’ll probably fall to the Russians within weeks.

Losing Bakhmut will be a major blow to Ukraine, despite claims in the western media that it really isn’t very important. Ukraine’s entire 800-mile defensive line would probably begin to crumble, and they don’t have heavily fortified positions to fall back on. Ukrainian troops, while brave and competent soldiers, are exhausted and running out of supplies as it is.

On top of that, it appears likely that Russia is preparing a devastating offensive with massive amounts of men, tanks, armored personnel carriers, artillery, helicopters, drones and fixed-wing aircraft.
This Russian army is not the same army that invaded Ukraine a year ago. It’s much better trained, led and equipped. It’s learned from the mistakes it made during its initial invasion last February. Ukraine shouldn’t expect them to repeat those mistakes.

Does all this mean I’m cheering on a Russian victory in Ukraine? No, I’m just observing the facts on the ground and consolidating them to perform an objective analysis.
That analysis leads me to believe that Russia will win the war militarily. Western military assistance may prolong the fighting but won’t affect the ultimate outcome. It’ll just delay the inevitable and get a lot more people needlessly killed.

The Much Greater Risk
The second facet of this war not reported in the media, or at least downplayed, is the growing risk of nuclear war.

This risk increases with every escalatory step by both sides. The U.S. is the leader in reckless escalation by supplying long-range artillery, Patriot anti-missile batteries, intelligence, surveillance, and now the tanks. Russia responds at each step.

There’s a number of steps before the two sides arrive at the nuclear level, but neither shows a willingness to step back.

By the way, Russia has every legal right to attack those NATO countries supplying arms to Ukraine. By supplying arms to a party to the conflict, they’ve given up their neutrality and have become, in effect, combatants. Russia hasn’t done this because it doesn’t want to bring NATO directly into the fight. But legally, it can.

Is Anyone Really Prepared for This?
The U.S. won’t end the weapons deliveries because Joe Biden is afraid of losing face and his closest advisors such as Victoria Nuland have an irrational hatred for Russia and are total warmongers.
Now, we can add a new danger, resulting from desperation. This is the fact that the U.S. itself may be the biggest loser in the war.

As Ukraine disappears under a massive Russian onslaught, the U.S. will grow increasingly desperate. Its credibility is on the line after committing so much money, materiel and moral weight to Ukraine’s defense.
The Biden administration has essentially turned the war in Ukraine into an existential crisis for the U.S. and NATO, when it never should have been. Ukraine has never been a vital U.S. interest. But the war is existential for Russia, and won’t give up.

Is the U.S. just going to throw up its hands and concede Russian victory? NATO may actually disintegrate in the face of such spectacular failure. So, we’ll probably double down.
Maybe a desperate Biden orders troops into western Ukraine as a buffer against a complete Russian takeover of the country. You can imagine what could go wrong. That situation may quickly devolve into a direct war between the U.S. and Russia rather than the proxy war that it is now.

The American people and investors in particular are not prepared for any of this. They should be. It’s becoming increasingly likely.

[Note: Some words and/or phrases appearing in quotes in this report are English language approximations of Russian words/phrases having no exact counterpart.]

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February 18, 2023 EU and US all rights reserved. Permission to use this report in its entirety is granted under the condition it is linked to its original source at WhatDoesItMean.Com. Freebase content licensed under CC-BY and GFDL.

[Note: Many governments and their intelligence services actively campaign against the information found in these reports so as not to alarm their citizens about the many catastrophic Earth changes and events to come, a stance that the Sisters of Sorcha Faal strongly disagree with in believing that it is every human being’s right to know the truth. Due to our mission’s conflicts with that of those governments, the responses of their ‘agents’ has been a longstanding misinformation/misdirection campaign designed to discredit us, and others like us, that is exampled in numerous places, including HERE.]

[Note: The WhatDoesItMean.com website was created for and donated to the Sisters of Sorcha Faal in 2003 by a small group of American computer experts led by the late global technology guru Wayne Green (1922-2013) to counter the propaganda being used by the West to promote their illegal 2003 invasion of Iraq.]
[Note: The word Kremlin (fortress inside a city) as used in this report refers to Russian citadels, including in Moscow, having cathedrals wherein female Schema monks (Orthodox nuns) reside, many of whom are devoted to the mission of the Sisters of Sorcha Faal.]

Unvaccinated “Have Blood On Their Hands” For Failing To Warn Vaccinated

Western Tank Fantasy Collides With Putin’s AI Robot “War Toys”

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WILL NUCLEAR WAR, DEBT COLLAPSE OR ENERGY DEPLETION FINISH THE WORLD?

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By Egon von Greyerz

February 16, 2023



Fragility has probably never been greater in history. Just three words encapsulate the destiny of the world.
The THREE words are: WAR, DEBT, ENERGY

A FOURTH word will financially save the ones who understand its significance. It will also play a major role in the world’s future monetary system. The word is obviously GOLD. As the world moves from a fragile debt based Western system to a commodity and energy based system in the East and South, gold will assume a strategic role in the monetary system.

WAR – WWIII
War is obviously a potentially catastrophic threat since the sheer existence of the world and mankind is now at maximum risk. Wars are horrible whoever starts them. Since the beginning of mankind there have probably been over 100,000 important wars and conflicts.

Wars are horrible whoever starts them. Most wars end in major fatalities and injuries and a massive human and financial cost. And at the end of the war, the situation is often worse than when it started, like in for example Afghanistan, Vietnam, Iraq and Libya which countries the US invaded unprovoked. The same will most probably be the case in Ukraine.

There are always two sides to a war. I learnt many years ago that before we judge someone, we must walk three moon laps in his moccasins.

So let us first walk in Putin’s moccasins.

The whole West hates Russia and have personalised it to Putin. Few realise that many of the people behind Putin are extreme hardliners and much more dangerous.

Historically, Ukraine (like many European countries) has had a motley existence. Since the late 1700s to 1991 Ukraine was part of Russia / Soviet Union with a brief interruption after the Bolshevik revolution in 1917.

After the Maidan Revolution in Ukraine in 2014, the Minsk agreement brokered by Germany and France stipulated that parts of the Donbas region should be granted self-government. There should also be a ceasefire and withdrawal of heavy weapons by the Ukrainians. The Minsk agreement was never honoured and Ukraine continued to kill over 20,000 Russians in the region and to bomb the Donbas. As the bombing intensified in early February 2022, (allegedly at the insistence of the US), Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

So the above is how Russia and Putin sees the Ukrainian situation.

Wearing America’s moccasins, the US Neocons are extremely worried about losing the US hegemony. Since WWII, the US has basically failed with every war they have been involved in. But in their view, if they fail in the present conflict, that will be the end of US dominance both politically and financially.

Ukraine is clearly just a pawn in a much bigger game between the two titans – USA and Russia.

I watched Zelensky’s latest speech live to UK parliamentarians where he was begging for planes, weapons and money. This is obviously the role of a defending leader although he is clearly sacrificing his people.

But wars are really really bizarre. Clapping every sentence that Zelensky uttered about the evil Russian invaders were around 1,000 politicians whose British ancestors, over a 400 year period, had invaded, conquered and ruled over 400 million people and 25% of the world’s landmass including major parts of Asia, Australia, Africa, Middle East and America. But today the shoe is on the other foot.

Politicians are masters at throwing stones whilst sitting in glass houses.

But wars are always about CONSEQUENCES. It is clear at this pointthat the West is sadly ignoring the potential consequences of this war as they keep sending money and weapons but no peace makers. The US has no desire for peace at this stage and Europe just follows blindly whatever the US initiates without thinking of the consequences which both economically and militarily are much graver for Europe.

Zelensky has asked for tanks and is getting them. He is now asking for planes which the NATO countries are also considering. There are not yet any NATO troops in Ukraine officially but it is clear that there are many NATO soldiers there without the official uniforms. An Austrian colonel confirms that if a NATO solider takes off his uniform, he is a mercenary and this seems how NATO sends troops to Ukraine unofficially. Also the Mozart group led by a retired US Marine Corps Colonel acts in Ukraine as mercenaries.

So what is clear that there are not only NATO weapons in Ukraine but also soldiers. This by definition is as close to WWIII as the world can get.

It seems very unlikely that Russia will lose this war with their military superiority. Even with major additional help from NATO, Ukraine is unlikely to stand a chance.

If NATO decides to escalate the war with major troops and equipment, not only Russia will respond strongly but possibly also China and maybe India and Korea.
But there are clearly only losers in a nuclear war.

If that happens, major parts of the world and population will be gone and we won’t have to worry about deficits and debts or stocks and gold.

Let’s hope that world leaders and the ones pulling their strings come to their senses.

DEBT BUBBLE
According to Genesis in the Bible, Nimrod (grandson of Noah) built the Tower of Babel. The Babylonians desire was to make it “with its top in the heavens”. But god punished them for this deed, stopped the construction and scattered the people all around the world. Before that point spoke the same language but thereafter they all spoke different languages so they couldn’t understand each other.
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Since then Central Bankers have built themselves towers or structures which haven’t quite reached heaven but both their aspirations and the money they have printed probably have.

What will pull these buildings down will probably not be the wrath of god but the wrath of the people as they realise that these monuments are a sign of bankers’ hubris based on fake money. And this fake money has not just built grandiose buildings like the Bank of International Settlement – BIS – tower in Babel Basel or the Eccles building that houses the FED in Washington.

No, fake money has also built astounding wealth for the top few percent of wealthy people and impoverished the rest.

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The French Revolution in the late 18th century or the Russian Revolution in 1917 were caused by significantly smaller differences between the rich and the poor than today.

The poverty & famine which many people in the world are already experiencing will in coming years/decades likely cause social unrest and revolutions on a major scale. In the last quarter, civil unrest rose in over 100 countries and more than 30 countries are currently at war. A collapse of the financial system which is less stable than a House of Cards will obviously exacerbate the situation and could easily cause major upheaval in many parts of the world.

GLOBAL DEBT BUBBLE OF $2.3 QUADRILLION
As I have outlined in many articles, these towers mentioned above have been instrumental in creating a global debt bubble of $300 trillion plus derivatives and unfunded liabilities of around $2 quadrillion, most of which will turn into debt in the next decade or less.
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So even if the world can avoid a major nuclear war, it is likely to suffer massive repercussions from the financial calamity coming next.

As Gandhi said:
“THERE IS SUFFICIENCY IN THE WORLD FOR
MAN’S NEED BUT NOT FOR HIS GREED.”

To create $2.3 quadrillion of global liabilities has nothing to do with man’s need but only with the greed of a few at the expense of mankind.

When the nuclear financial bubble bursts in the next few years, we will see an implosion of asset prices in real terms by 75-90% as I have outlined in many articles like here.

In my article “IN THE END THE $ GOES TO ZERO AND THE US DEFAULTS” , I also explain that “there is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion” as von Mises stated.

So even if the world survives the threat of a nuclear war, a collapse of the financial system is absolutely inevitable. The greed and the adoration of the golden calf that some parts of the world have practised in the last 50 years, will not go unpunished.

This major transformation coming will be like a financial nuclear event. After a difficult transition, the world will not only come out of it with a much sounder foundation but also based on much better human values than currently.

OIL – ENERGY
As the world moves from a debt based and fake money system to a much sounder one, resting on real values, especially energy and other commodities, the balance of power will continuously shift from West to East and South.

I outlined in this article, the decline of the West and the rise of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the Eurasia Economic Union.

The final move down of the dollar is likely to involve a US default even though the US hubris will prevent them from using that word. It will instead be called a reset but the whole world will know that this disorderly reset will involve the US currency having lost all of its value.

The Fed will obviously invent a new digital currency that the rest of the world should not touch with a barge pole. Remember that the dollar, like most currencies, has already lost 98% since 1971. But the final 2% fall represents a 100% fall from today.

Throughout history the same total destruction has happened to every currency. Hubristic governments and central bankers clearly deserve this punishment. But sadly it is always the undeserved people who will suffer the most.

ENERGY
Another major economic crisis for the world is the contracting energy system.

The world economy is driven by energy. Without sufficient energy the living standards would decline dramatically. Currently fossil fuels account for 83% of the world’s energy. The heavy dependence on fossil fuels is unlikely to change in the next few decades.

The scale shows billion tonnes of oil equivalent energy.
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As the graph shows, the energy derived from fossil fuels has declined for the last few years. This trend will accelerate over the next 20+ years as the availability of fossil fuels decline and the cost increases. The economic cost of producing energy has gone up 5X since 1980.

What very few people realize is that the world’s prosperity does not improve with more debt but with more and cheaper energy.
But sadly as the graph above shows, energy production is going to decline for at least 20 years.

Less energy means lower prosperity for the world. And remember that this is in addition to a major decline in prosperity due to the implosion of the financial system and asset values.

The graph above shows that energy from fossil fuels will decline by 18% between 2021 and 2040. But although Wind & Solar will proportionally increase, it will in no way compensate for the fall in fossil fuels. For renewable energy to make up the difference, it would need to increase by 900% with an investment exceeding $100 trillion. This is highly unlikely since the production of Wind & Solar are heavily dependent on fossil fuels.

Another major problem is that there is no efficient method for storing Renewable energy.

Let’s just take the example of getting enough energy from batteries. The world’s largest battery factory is the Tesla Giga factory. The annual total output from this factory would produce 3 minutes of the annual US electricity demand. Even with 1,000 years of battery production, the batteries from this factory would produce only 2 days of US electricity demand.

So batteries will most probably not be a viable source of energy for decades especially since they need fossil fuels to be produced and charged.

Nuclear energy is the best available option today. But the time and cost of producing nuclear means that it will not be a viable alternative for decades. Also, many countries have stopped nuclear energy for political reasons. The graph above shows that nuclear and hydro will only increase very marginally in the next 20 years.

Of course the world wants to achieve cleaner and more efficient energy. But today we don’t have the means to produce this energy in quantity from anything but fossil fuels.

So stopping or reducing the production of fossil fuels, which is the desire of many politicians and climate activists, is guaranteed to substantially exacerbate the decline of the world economy.

We might get cleaner air but many would have to enjoy it in caves with little food or other necessities and conveniences that we have today.

So what is clear is that the world is not prepared for even the best scenario energy case which entails a major decline in the standard to living in the next 20-30 years at least.

GOLD
Digital currencies are the perfect means for controlling the people in a totalitarian world. It gives Big Brother total power in relation to the people’s money. They can be taxed, fined or directed by any whim of the government. This would include arbitrary taxation or confiscation.

Thus CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies) are a total disaster in relation to personal freedom. But in many countries the serfs have already been trained for this. Take Sweden where cash hardly exists and credit cards are used for all spending, even buying a newspaper or a loaf of bread. Most shops don’t even accept cash.

Thus the placid Swedes would happily hand over control over their money to the government, totally oblivious of the consequences.

As a lover of freedom, I would hate to live under such circumstances even though I was born in Sweden and really like many aspects of this country.

The people will not have a vote on digital money in any country just like they have no say when their leaders start a war. Personally I would do everything to avoid such oppressive circumstances but I do realise that it would be difficult for most people.

With the coming fall of the dollar and many other currencies, as well as the end of the petrodollar, gold is likely to play a major role in the monetary system dominated by the East and South.

With government spending out of control in most countries, gold is the only currency you can trust just as it has been for 1,000s of years.

The BRICS, with China, Russia and India as major gold countries, are likely to make gold an important part of the future monetary system.

Gold is not for investment or speculation.

Gold is insurance and wealth preservation.

Gold is saving and financial survival.
2023 is likely to be the year of gold. Both fundamentally and technically gold looks like it will make major up moves this year. Any correction must be used to accumulate.

Much better to buy low than on breakouts.

But please buy only physical gold and store it in a safe jurisdiction away from kleptocratic governments.

Tags: Debt Gold Inflation

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Egon von Greyerz

Founder and Managing Partner
Matterhorn Asset Management
Zurich, Switzerland
Phone: +41 44 213 62 45

Matterhorn Asset Management’s global client base strategically stores an important part of their wealth in Switzerland in physical gold and silver outside the banking system. Matterhorn Asset Management is pleased to deliver a unique and exceptional service to our highly esteemed wealth preservation clientele in over 80 countries.
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Articles may be republished if full credits are given with a link to GoldSwitzerland.com.

“We are pleased to deliver decades of exceptional service to our distinguished clientele in over 80 countries”

MAM’s commitment to wealth preservation involves 100% direct client ownership of the highest quality precious metals, refined in Switzerland and stored in the world’s most secure private vaults. Our experienced executive team assists clients in every step of the process of storing gold and silver to insure their wealth against global economic risk.

The minimum investment is $400,000 for the Zurich and Singapore vaults and $5M for the Swiss Alp vault.

Risk-Management Origins
MAM was founded by Egon von Greyerz in the 1990s as a private investment company. Egon had always held a deep respect for analyzing and managing risk in both his corporate operations and personal investment activities.

By the end of the 90s, Egon determined that global risk was growing increasingly apparent as debts and derivative levels rapidly rose. He had already been interested in physical gold as the ultimate protection-asset against accelerating risks in the financial system.

In the early 2000s, MAM set up a system for buying and storing gold, choosing the highest quality refinery and vaulting partners for acquiring and storing the same.

From Personal Conviction to Global Enterprise
The system was initially set up for Egon’s own family funds and those of a few key investors and business partners. At that point, there was no intention to open the initiative to outside investors.

In early 2002, Egon made major investments into physical gold when the price was $300 per ounce.

Due to the growing demand from other investors around the world, MAM became a Swiss regulated company in 2005. Since then, MAM has grown from a private risk management operation for personal funds into a global enterprise.

MAM now serves sophisticated clients in over 75 countries in their wealth protection through the acquisition and storage of physical precious metals.

Guiding Principles
Shared Convictions, Shared Principles

Although proud of our credentials and global market experience, our team at MAM share a common vision of prioritizing wealth preservation through precious metals.

In addition, our executives share a belief in the guiding principles of modesty, straight-talk, high-conviction and a genuine interest in both protecting and honouring the personal and financial trust granted to us by our clients.

Candour and Values
We know that wealth preservation is not just about currencies and metals, but family ideals, goals and the protection of wealth that has been carefully earned and nurtured for years, and often, generations.

Our objective has never been to dazzle, scare or impress, but to candidly share what we have learned and deduced after decades of combined experience in the global markets.

Thus, we treat each investor with the same degree of honesty, clarity and transparent counsel that we would expect for ourselves and our own families.

A Needed Service in Times of Increased Uncertainty
Versed in every aspect of portfolio management, macro-economics and risk assets, we built MAM not as a “niche” opportunity, but as the result of a passionate commitment to share our carefully-evolved skills and convictions.

We see our unique service as a necessary and timely solution to the wide range of risks facing the global markets, currencies and economies—and hence our clients’ wealth preservation.

In short: We created and built MAM for the simple reason that we believe in its service to others.

1. Client assets held at MAM represent the culmination and protection of years of wealth creation, and we cannot ignore the immense trust our clients have placed in selecting us to guide them in acquiring, protecting and securing that wealth.
2. Our aim is to honour client trust with absolute clarity and transparency, confirming not only our conviction in precious metals as a timeless asset class in everything we advise, author and transact, but our equal conviction that our clients deserve our complete dedication in the unique service we provide.
3. Our deep concerns regarding the current and future conditions of the global economy and markets are not a marketing tool or bias toward bearish forecasting. Instead, our views and service stem from years of careful and blunt analysis of objective market risk.
4. Such risk is far too often ignored or downplayed by conventional wealth advisory services and sell-side optimism. The extraordinary hubris as well as experimental desperation of global central banks “accommodating” a debt bubble via the creation of more debt has both a mathematical as well as historically-confirmed culmination, one for which the vast majority of uninformed investors are simply unprepared.
5. We see no reason to over-complicate what are otherwise simple, elegant and obvious solutions to portfolio and currency risk. Our principals are fluent in credit and equity market vernacular, but understand that the most effective strategies are often simple in historical design, structure and satisfaction. And when it comes to complex market, banking, currency and historical risk, silver and gold are no exception to such simplicity as a timeless asset and risk manager.
6. We are participants, not just advisors in the service and counsel we offer. MAM was founded to protect the family wealth of its founder and business partners, and our interests, as well as assets, are entirely aligned with those of the clients we serve.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitic...-full-throttle

Escobar: Raisi In Beijing - Iran-China Strategic Plans Go Full Throttle

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by Tyler Durden

Saturday, Feb 18, 2023 - 11:30 PM

Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Cradle,

Raisi's visit to Beijing, the first for an Ira
nian president in 20 years, represents Tehran's wholesale 'Pivot to the East' and China's recognition of Iran's centrality to its BRI plans...
https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-pu...?itok=A9B-1hum

The visit of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi to Beijing and his face-to- face meeting with counterpart Xi Jinping is a groundbreaking affair in more ways than one.
Raisi, the first Iranian president to officially visit China in 20 years, led an ultra high-level political and economic delegation, which included the new Central Bank governor and the Ministers of Economy, Oil, Foreign Affairs, and Trade.

The fact that Raisi and Xi jointly supervised the signing of 20 bilateral cooperation agreements ranging from agriculture, trade, tourism and environmental protection to health, disaster relief, culture and sports, is not even the major take away.

This week’s ceremonial sealing of the Iran-China comprehensive strategic partnership marks a key evolution in the multipolarity sphere: two Sovereigns – both also linked by strategic partnerships with Russia – imprinting to their domestic audiences and also to the Global South their vision of a more equitable, fair and sustainable 21st century which completely bypasses western dictates.

Beijing and Tehran first established their comprehensive strategic partnership when Xi visited Iran in 2016 – only one year after the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or Iranian nuclear deal.

In 2021, Beijing and Tehran signed a 25-year cooperation deal which translated the comprehensive partnership into practical economic and cultural developments in several fields, especially energy, trade and infrastructure. By then, not only Iran (for decades) but also China were being targeted by unilateral US sanctions.
Here is a relatively independent analysis of the challenges and prospects of the 25-year deal. And here is an enlightening perspective from neighboring Pakistan, also a strategic partner of China.

Iran: gotta modernize everything
Beijing and Tehran are already actively cooperating in the construction of selected lines of Tehran’s subway, the Tehran-Isfahan high-speed railway, and of course joint energy projects. Chinese tech giant Huawei is set to help Tehran to build a framework for a 5G telecom network.

Raisi and Xi, predictably, stressed increased joint coordination at the UN and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), of which Iran is the newest member, as well as a new drive along the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

While there was no explicit mention of it, underlying all these initiatives is the de-dollarization of trade – in the framework of the SCO but also the multipolar BRICS group of states. Iran is set to become one of the new members of BRICS+, a giant step to be decided in their upcoming summit in South Africa next August.

There are estimates in Tehran that Iran-China annual trade may reach over $70 billion in the mid-term, which will amount to triple the current figures.
When it comes to infrastructure building, Iran is a key BRI partner. The geostrategy of course is hard to match: a 2,250 km coastline encompassing the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, Sea of Oman and the Caspian Sea – and huge land borders with Iraq, Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Every think tank in China sees how Iran is irreplaceable, not only in terms of BRI land corridors, but also the Maritime Silk Road.

Chabahar Port may be a prime Iran-India affair, as part of the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) – thus directly linked to the Indian vision of a Silk Road, extending to Central Asia.

But Chinese port developers do have other ideas, focused on alternative ports along the Persian Gulf and in the Caspian Sea. That will boost shipping connections to Central Asia (Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan), Russia and the Caucasus (Azerbaijan).

And that makes perfect sense when one combines port terminal development with the modernization of Iran’s railways – all the way to high-speed rail.
An even more revolutionary development would be China coordinating the BRI connection of an Iranian corridor with the already in progress 3,200 km-long China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), from Kashgar in Xinjiang to Gwadar port in the Indian Ocean.

That seemed perfectly plausible when Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was still in power, before being ousted by a lawfare coup. The key of the whole enterprise is to build badly needed infrastructure in Balochistan, on both sides of the border. On the Pakistani side, that would go a long way to smash CIA-fed “insurgents” of the Balochistan Liberation Army kind, get rid of unemployment, and put trade in charge of economic development.

Afghanistan of course enters the equation – in the form of a China-Afghan-Iran corridor linked to CPEC. Since September 2021, Beijing has explained to the Taliban, in detail, how they may profit from an infrastructure corridor – complete with railway, highway and pipeline – from Xinjiang, across the Wakhan corridor in eastern Afghanistan, through the Hindu Kush, all the way to Iran.

The core of multipolarity
Iran is perfectly positioned for a Chinese-propelled boom in high-speed cargo rail, connecting Iran to most of Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan).

That means, in practice, cool connectivity with a major logistics cluster: the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) of Khorgos, only 330 km from Almaty on the Kazakh-China border, and only four hours from Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital.

If China pulls that off, it would be a sort of BRI Holy Grail, interconnecting China and Iran via Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Nothing less than several corridors in one.

All that is about to happen as the Islamic Revolution in Iran celebrates its 44th year.

What is already happening now, geopolitically, and fully recognized by China, might be defined as the full rejection of an absurdity: the collective west treating Iran as a pariah or at best a subjugated neo-colony.

With the diverse strands of the Resistance embedded in the Islamic Revolution finally consolidated, it looks like history is finally propelling Iran as one of the key poles of the most complex process at work in the 21st century: Eurasia integration.

So 44 years after the Islamic Revolution, Iran enjoys strategic partnerships with the three top BRICS: China, Russia and India.
Likely to become one of the first new members of BRICS+, Iran is the first West Asian state to become a full member of the SCO, and is clinching a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU).

Iran is a major strategic partner of both BRI, led by China, and the INSTC, alongside Russia and India.
With the JCPOA all but dead, and all western “promises” lying in the dust, Tehran is consolidating its pivot back to the East at breakneck speed.
What Raisi and Xi sealed in Beijing heralds Chinese pre-eminence all across West Asia – keenly perceived in Beijing as a natural consequence of recognizing and honoring Iran’s regional centrality.

Iran’s “Look East” strategy could not be more compatible with BRI – as an array of BRI projects will accelerate Iran’s economic development and consolidate its inescapable role when it comes to trade corridors and as an energy provider.

During the 1980s Tehran was ruled by a “Neither East nor West” strategy – faithful to the tenets of the Islamic Revolution. That has now evolved, pragmatically, into “Look East.” Tehran did try to “Look West” in good faith, but what the US government did with the JCPOA – from its murder to “maximum pressure” to its aborted resuscitation – was quite a historical lesson.

What Raisi and Xi have just demonstrated in Beijing is the Sovereign way forward. The three leaders of Eurasia integration – China, Russia and Iran – are fast on their way to consolidate the core of multipolarity.

https://www.oftwominds.com/blog.html

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Musings My Books Archives Books/Films


The Core of the Economy--The Middle Class--Is Crumbling
February 17, 2023
The net result of hyper-globalization and hyper-financialization is the crumbling of the middle class.


Neofeudal societies and economies lack a vibrant middle class. This is the defining feature of feudalism and its updated V2.0, neofeudalism: a nobility (based on birth or finance, it doesn't matter) controls the vast majority of wealth, political power and productive capital, all served by a powerless peasantry.

The modern versions of capitalism emerged when a European middle class arose and became powerful enough economically and politically to dismantle feudalism. The fundamentals of the middle class are:

1. A mindset / set of values embracing (as highlighted by writer Peter Frost) "thrift, prudence, negotiation, and hard work."

2. Access to markets and credit so enterprises could be established and expanded.

3. Sufficient education to navigate regulations and the requirements of enterprise.

4. The free flow of labor, capital, goods and services.

Feudal economies lacked these fundamentals by design. All these forces were restricted to enforce the power and perquisites of the Nobility.

Neofeudalism is a trickier beast. Neofeudal economies and societies make a big PR show of being open to new enterprise, but the real-world reality is not so warm and fuzzy: new cartels and monopolies arise in a fierce struggle to stamp out competition and influence regulators to not just enable predatory cartels/monopolies but defend them.

The past 30 years can be characterized by the ascent of capital and the decline of labor. As the chart below shows, wages' share of the economy has been in a 45-year decline. The recent uptick may be a false breakout or it might be a change in trend. It's too early to tell. But in any event, wages--the bedrock not just of the working class but of the middle class--have been chipped away to the tune of $50 trillion siphoned away by capital. (Source: Trends in Income From 1975 to 2018 RAND Corporation)

Another mechanism is visible in the charts below showing the Share of Total Net Worth of the top 1% and the middle class, i.e. the households between 50% and 90% (this broad definition includes the spectrum fron lower middle class, households with incomes around the median, and upper-middle class households earning considerably more).

As the chart below shows, the top 10% own the vast majority of income-producing assets:, stocks bonds, income real estate and enterprises. The relative share owned by the middle class is at best modest, at worst negligible.

The key economic dynamic of the past 30 years is central bank-driven credit-asset bubbles which propel the assets owned by the top 10% to the moon. Those who own few such assets do not benefit from these asset bubbles, so their share of net worth (wealth) declines accordingly.

The two primary forces in the past 30 years are financialization and globalization, forces which accelerated under central bank / Neoliberal trade policies into hyper-financialization and hyper-globalization: hyper-financialization constantly inflates ever-larger asset bubbles, enriching the already-rich, while hyper-globalization forces labor to compete with lower-cost workforces globally, effectively transferring wages to capital, which can optimize labor / regulatory /credit / currency arbitrage to maximize corporate profits at the expense of the bottom 90% who depend on wages for their income rather than capital.

The most striking feature of the fortunes of the top 1% and the middle class is clearly visible: the share of total wealth of the top 1% soars to new heights in every bubble, while the share of the middle class dives.

The share of the middle class only rises when asset bubbles pop. This is the result of the top tier of US households owning the vast majority of assets: as bubbles pop, those who own few assets suffer far less than those who own most of the assets that bubble higher on the back of central bank stimulus and easy credit.

When the bubbles inevitably pop, the share of the top 1% crashes as the share of the middle class makes a temporary gain.

Please take a look. It's rather remarkable, isn't it?

https://www.oftwominds.com/photos202...top1-2-23b.png

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https://www.oftwominds.com/photos202...rship2-21a.jpg

The net result of hyper-globalization and hyper-financialization is the crumbling of the middle class, which has seen its share of the nation's wealth and income eroded for the past 45 years, a trend that accelerated in the past 20 years.

Neofeudal economies and societies are static, brittle, dysfunctional and incapable of generating broad-based prosperity. Does that sound like an economy we know?

My Credo of Liberation: I no longer care if the power centers of our society--the distant, fortified castles of our financial feudal system--are changed by my actions, for I am liberated by the act of resistance. I am no longer complicit in perpetuating fraudulent feudalism and the pathology of concentrated power. I no longer covet signifiers of membership in the Upper Caste that serves the plutocracy. I am liberated from self-destructive consumerist-State financialization and the delusion that debt servitude and obedience to sociopathological Elites serve my self-interests. (Thank you, Klaus-Peter L., for reminding me)

https://finviz.com/futures_charts.ashx?t=YM&p=m5

5 Minute Chart of Dow 30.

The Dow 30 was 33,500 at 4:00 AM on Friday, February 17, 2023.

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https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitic...lintering-nato

Whitney: A US-Led 'Coalition Of The Willing' Foreshadows The Splintering Of NATO

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by Tyler Durden

Sunday, Feb 19, 2023 - 07:00 AM

Authored by Mike Whitney,

The destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline was a gangster act that reveals the cancer at the heart of the “rules-based order”.
https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-pu...?itok=STtXqOfD

How can there be peace and security when the world’s most powerful nation can destroy the critical infrastructure of other countries without deliberation or judicial proceedings? If Hersh’s report can be trusted—and I think it can—then we must assume that senior-level advisors in the Biden administration as well as the president himself deliberately perpetrated an act of industrial terrorism against a long-term friend and ally, Germany.

What Biden’s involvement in the act implies, is that the United States now claims the right to arbitrarily decide which countries may engage in commerce with which others. And, if for some reason, the buying and selling of energy supplies conflicts with Washington’s broader geopolitical objectives, then the US believes it has the right to obliterate the infrastructure that makes such trade possible. Isn’t this the rationale that was used to justify the blowing up of Nord Stream?

Sy Hersh has done the world a service by exposing the perpetrators of the Nord Stream sabotage. His expose not only identifies the people involved but also infers that they should be held accountable for their actions. But while we don’t expect any thorough investigation in the near future, we do think the magnitude of the attack has been a “wake up” call for people who cling to the belief that the Unipolar model can produce morally-acceptable outcomes. What the incident shows is that unilateral action inevitably leads to criminal violence against the weak and defenseless. Biden’s covert operation hurt every man, woman and child in Europe. It’s a real tragedy. Here’s a quote from a recent interview with Hersh:
“I think this story has the same potential for destroying the ability of our president to rally the American people behind the war because it shows something that is so dark and so Unamerican. You know, this isn’t us. We’re not talking about us. This is a bunch of intelligence officers and CIA people….” Seymour Hersh 2:29 min
#SeymourHersh, whom the war media now wants to smear for exposing #Biden's act of environmental and energy security #Terrorism, represents the best of journalism in the #USA, having exposed US crimes like the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and the torture at Abu Ghraib prison. pic.twitter.com/YwjS3dPZWB
— tim anderson (@timand2037) February 13, 2023

He’s right, isn’t he? The Biden administration has vastly miscalculated the impact these revelations will have on the public. The reputational damage alone is going to be immense, but they will also be used as the prism through which many critics see the war. In fact, there are signs that that may already be happening. On Sunday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov confirmed that the real objective of Washington’s war was not simply to “weaken” Russia and eventually splinter it into smaller pieces, but to force a split between Germany and Russia. Here’s what he said on Saturday:
According to Lavrov, the US decided that Russia and Germany cooperated “too well” over the past 20-30 years, establishing a powerful alliance based on Russian resources and German technology.

“That began to threaten the monopoly position of many American corporations. Therefore, it was necessary to somehow ruin it, and do it literally,” the minister said.
“There is an aspect here that’s related to the fact that friendship between countries, national reconciliation between them, as it happened between Russians and Germans, has become an eye sore for those who don’t want anyone to appear somewhere on this planet, who will compete with the main hegemon, which the US has declared itself to be,” Lavrov added.” (Lavrov says US officials essentially acknowledge Nord Stream blasts were US handiwork”, Tass)

Lavrov’s comments reinforce our own view that the conflict was concocted by Washington’s foreign policy experts who realized that German-Russo economic integration posed a serious threat to America’s dominant role in the global order. That is why Nord Stream became the primary target of US aggression, because the pipeline was the vital artery that connected the two continents and drew them closer together into an economic commons that would eventually become the world’s biggest free trade zone.

This is what Washington feared most, and that is why Biden and Co. took such desperate steps to prevent the strengthening of economic relations between Germany and Russia. In short, Nord Stream had to be destroyed because Nord Stream marked the end of the unipolar world order.
https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-pu...?itok=SH3t9rci

Instead, of expanding on this belabored theory, let’s take a minute and see if we can figure out something about Hersh’s shadowy “source” of information. Allow me to frame it in the form of a question:
Why did Sy Hersh’s source provide him with detailed, top-secret information about the Biden administration’s sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline?

a. The source is a Kremlin stooge who wanted to subvert the war-effort and inflict serious damage on the United States
b. The source is an America-hating “Commie” who loathes democracy and freedom
c. The source is an adrenaline junkie who enjoys putting himself, his family, his career and his freedom at risk.
d. The source is a concerned American who thought that revealing information about the destruction of Nord Stream would prevent the neocons from leading the country into a catastrophic war with Russia.

If you chose “d” then pat yourself on the back, because that is the right answer. No one in their-right-mind would take the risks that Hersh’s source took unless he felt the country was in grave danger. And, keep in mind, we might not even know what that what that danger is yet, since we don’t know what future escalations the neocons are planning. For example, it could be that US plans are already underway to deliver F-16s and long-range missile systems that will be used to strike deeper into Russian territory.

It could be that the neocons want to detonate a nuclear device in Ukraine as part of a “false flag” operation. Or it could be that Biden plans to organize a ‘coalition of the willing’ (Uk, Poland, Romania) that will fight alongside US Special Forces in combat operations in east Ukraine. Any of these developments represent a serious escalation in the hostilities which would increase the probability of a direct clash with nuclear-armed Russia. In Joe Biden’s own words, “That’s what you call World War 3.”

He’s right, it would be WW3, which might explain why Hersh’s source summoned the courage to provide the author with the damning information about Nord Stream. He might have believed that the world was on the fasttrack to nuclear annihilation, so he risked his own life for ours. “No greater love hath any man…”.

And the source is not the only person who put himself at risk. Hersh could face charges as well. In fact, I would argue, that if Hersh was not as widely-respected as he is, he would probably be sharing a cell with Julian Assange right now. After all, what is the difference between what Assange did and what Hersh did?

Not much, except for the fact that Hersh’s stellar reputation makes him “untouchable. (We hope.)
https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-pu...?itok=Qx3MW_9h

In any event, if the motive behind the article was to prevent nuclear Armageddon, then we are very grateful for their bravery and selflessness.

Even so, there might have been other motives driving the article which are worth our consideration. Let’s imagine, for a minute, that Hersh’s source has information concerning the neocons plans for the near future. In other words, it is quite possible that the sabotage of Nord Stream alone was not the main impetus for Hersh’s report, but some other sinister plan on the horizon, that is, a military escalation that could trigger a catastrophe of unprecedented severity.

As we said earlier, such a plan might involve F-16s and long-range missile systems, or a nuclear “false flag” operation, or it could be that Biden will organize a ‘coalition of the willing’ that will fight alongside US Special Forces in combat operations in east Ukraine. US combat troops in Ukraine would make a direct clash with Russia effectively unavoidable. It would put the US on-track for another World War, which is what the neocons want. Unfortunately, I suspect that this is the most probable near-term scenario; the forming of a US-backed coalition organized to directly engage Russia in Ukraine. Here’s a “Statement from Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on President Biden’s Travel to Poland:
From February 20th – 22nd, President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. will travel to Poland. He will meet with President Andrzej Duda of Poland to discuss our bilateral cooperation as well as our collective efforts to support Ukraine and bolster NATO’s deterrence. He will also meet with the leaders of the Bucharest Nine (B9), a group of our eastern flank NATO Allies, to reaffirm the United States’ unwavering support for the security of the Alliance.

In addition, President Biden will deliver remarks ahead of the one year anniversary of Russia’s brutal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, addressing how the United States has rallied the world to support the people of Ukraine as they defend their freedom and democracy, and how we will continue to stand with the people of Ukraine for as long as it takes.” (The White House, Washington DC)

As it says in the official statement, Biden will not merely talk to the Polish president about “collective efforts to support Ukraine”, but will also discuss US-Polish “bilateral cooperation as well”. But what type of bilateral cooperation does Biden want besides more weapons? Combat troops? Is that what Biden is looking for; coalition boots-on-the-ground to make up for Ukraine’s heavy casualties? Here’s an article from a website called Notes From Poland that announces a sharp uptick in Polish recruitment goals. Not surprisingly, the article does not explain the reason why Poland intends to more-than-double the size of its army within a year’s time.

Up to 200,000 people can be called up for military exercises in Poland next year, including some who have never put their name forward for service but are deemed to have “useful skills”…. The exercises can last up to 90 days, and failure to attend is punishable by jail or a fine….

The pool of people who can be called up are those aged 55 and under who have been through so-called military qualification, which is compulsory for all men turning 19 and during which the candidate’s health category and fitness for military service are determined….

Poland will increase defence spending to 3% of GDP next year, one of the highest levels in NATO, to protect itself from “voracious imperial Russia”.

Its new Homeland Defence Act will also more than double the number of troops serving in the armed forces https://t.co/KlEA1cHOo — Notes from Poland (@notesfrompoland) March 19, 2022

Until 2009, Poland had compulsory military service for men, but that was scrapped in favour of a fully professional army. However, in recent years the growing threat of Russia has pushed the government to seek to increase the size and strength of the armed forces.

In 2017, a new Territorial Defence Force was established. This year’s Homeland Defence Act foresees a doubling in the size of the armed forces, from the current 143,500 troops…” (“Up to 200,000 Poles to be called up for military training next year“, Notes From Poland)

Are we expected to dismiss this sudden expansion of the Polish military as a mere coincidence or is it more likely that a deal has already been made with Washington regarding future troop deployments to Ukraine?

According to the White House statement, Biden will “also meet with the leaders of the Bucharest Nine (B9)” which is a group of nine NATO countries in Eastern Europe that became part of the US-led military alliance after the end of the Cold War…and includes Romania, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and the three Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All nine countries were once closely associated with the now dissolved Soviet Union, but later chose the path of democracy.

Romania, Poland, Hungary, and Bulgaria are former signatories of the now dissolved Warsaw Pact military alliance led by the Soviet Union…Check it out:
All members of the B9 are part of the … NATO (and all) have been critical of President Vladimir Putin’s aggression against Ukraine since 2014… Last year NATO adopted its new Strategic Concept, in which all Allies agreed that the Russian Federation is the most significant and direct threat to the Allies' security and to peace and stability in the Euro–Atlantic area”. Now, on the road to the Vilnius Summit we should make sure that the Alliance is fully prepared to face this threat.” (“Who are the Bucharest Nine, countries on NATO’s eastern flank?”, Indian Express)

An army of Russophobes; is that what they want to create?
It sure looks like it.
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Maybe, we’re making a ‘mountain out of a molehill’; that’s certainly a possibility. But now that the Russian army is advancing on all fronts along the Line of Contact, we think that the desperate neocons are bound to do something colossal. In fact, we are sure of it. Check out this clip from an article at Larry Johnson’s web site, “The Son of a New American Revolution”:
Now for the bad news. The Biden Administration and our European allies either are preparing for a major military action in the Ukraine war or they know something bad is going to happen soon, probably in Belarus, because warnings were just issued for foreign citizens to bug out of Belarus and Russia:
The French Foreign Ministry urged its citizens to leave Belarus without delay.

Canada urges its citizens to leave Belarus immediately because of the risk of arbitrary application of local laws and hostilities in Ukraine — Canadian Foreign Ministry.

The U.S. on Monday issued a top-level advisory telling American citizens to leave Russia immediately and cease travel to the country as Russia’s war against neighboring Ukraine continues, citing risks of harassment and wrongful detention for Americans specifically.

“Do not travel to Russia due to the unpredictable consequences of the unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russian military forces, the potential for harassment and the singling out of U.S. citizens for detention by Russian government security officials, the arbitrary enforcement of local law, limited flights into and out of Russia, the Embassy’s limited ability to assist U.S. citizens in Russia, and the possibility of terrorism,” reads the alert.

I do not believe in coincidence. This is a coordinated action and signals the situation in Russia and Belarus is going to turn dangerous in the near future. Maybe it has something to do with the United States training Islamic radicals to carry out terrorist attacks in Russia and Belarus.” (“Sy Hersh Speaks and NATO Warns of Escalation in the War in Ukraine?“, Son of a New American Revolution)

Something is afoot although we cannot be certain whether it will materialize or not. But—keep in mind—there would be no need for terrorist attacks, false flags or additional combat troops if the official narrative was actually true and the Ukrainian army was winning the war. But that is not what’s happening. The Ukrainian Armed Forces are losing and losing badly. In fact, they don’t even have sufficient ammunition stockpiles to sustain long-term fighting. Here’s the story from Reuters:
“NATO is expected to ask its members to raise its ammunition stockpiles which have been badly depleted by the war in Ukraine... the pace of deliveries to Ukraine, where Kyiv’s troops are firing up to 10,000 artillery shells daily, has drained Western inventories and exposed holes in the efficiency, speed and manpower of supply chains.

“If Europe were to fight Russia, some countries would run out of ammunition in days,” a European diplomat told Reuters… the stockpiles are running even lower due to the conflict in Ukraine…. The war also cast a spotlight on the lack of industrial capacity necessary to ramp up production quickly, after decades of dwindling government orders saw many production lines vanish….

“I don’t necessarily think that within the next year our stockpile levels will increase massively,” the NATO official said. “Any additional stockpiles we will have will be heading to Ukraine.” (“NATO expected to raise munitions stockpile targets as war depletes reserves”, Reuters)

How do you take a country to war with Russia without enough ammo to fight the enemy?
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The incompetence is mind-boggling, and it’s not a short-term problem either. Western nations no longer have the industrial base to provide the necessary supplies and equipment for “large-scale, high-intensity warfare.” Building up capacity will take years. In the meantime, the war will be settled by well-equiped Russian combat troops who will continue to grind away at the demoralized Ukrainians who increasingly find themselves outmanned and outgunned at every turn. This is from an article at the UK Telegraph:
“With Russia back on the offensive after significant Ukrainian combat successes around Kharkiv and Kherson in the second half of 2022, the past few weeks have been the bloodiest so far of an already bloody war, with both sides taking extraordinarily heavy casualties. Expect it to get worse.

Ukrainian defence minister Oleksii Reznikov says Russia has mobilised “much more” than 300,000 troops, perhaps up to half a million, and these are pouring into Ukraine in preparation for what is expected to be a major offensive in the coming days and weeks. Although Kyiv has also been building up its forces and supplying them with modern equipment donated by the West, Putin has a much greater advantage in troop numbers than he did when he invaded a year ago. Despite repeated optimistic reports of Russia running low on artillery shells – a battle winner in this conflict – Putin’s war stocks are vast, and his factories have been working around the clock to churn out even more.

Under pressure towards the end of last year, Russia withdrew its forces to positions of strength, trading ground for time as it massed resources for a planned hammer blow while grinding down the Ukrainians in the east, softening them up for the assault to come.

Until now, the narrative in the West has been that Ukraine is comfortably winning this war…The reality is more complex….: the truth is that recent promises of new combat equipment for Ukraine – especially longer range missiles, tanks and other armoured vehicles – are unlikely to be fulfilled in time to have an impact in this battle if Putin launches his offensive on the timetable Kyiv predicts….

We must therefore be prepared for significant Russian gains in the coming weeks. We need to be realistic about how bad things could be – otherwise the shock risks dislodging Western resolve. The opposite occurred last summer and autumn, as flagging support in parts of Europe and the US was galvanised by Ukrainian success.” (“Vladimir Putin is about to make shock gains“, UK Telegraph)

And this is from the New York Times:
Exhausted Ukrainian troops complain they are already outnumbered and outgunned, even before Russia has committed the bulk of its roughly 200,000 newly mobilized soldiers. And doctors at hospitals speak of mounting losses as they struggle to care for fighters with gruesome injuries.

The first stages of the Russian offensive have already begun. Ukrainian troops say that Bakhmut, an eastern Ukrainian city that Russian forces have been trying to seize since the summer, is likely to fall soon. Elsewhere, Russian forces are advancing in small groups and probing the front lines looking for Ukrainian weaknesses.
The efforts are already straining Ukraine’s military, which is worn out by nearly 12 months of heavy fighting.

Losses among Ukrainian forces have been severe. Troops in a volunteer contingent called the Carpathian Sich, positioned near Nevske, said that some 30 fighters from their group had died in recent weeks, and soldiers said, only partly in jest, that just about everyone has a concussion.

At one frontline hospital in the Donbas, the morgue was packed with the bodies of Ukrainian soldiers in white plastic bags. In another hospital, stretchers with wounded troops covered in gold foil thermal blankets crowded the corridors, and a steady stream of ambulances arrived from the front nearly all day long.” (“Outnumbered and Worn Out, Ukrainians in East Brace for Russian Assault”, New York Times) Note: Lifted from Moon of Alabama

And one more excerpt from the Paper of Record:
The problem is that Ukraine is losing the war. Not, as far as we can tell, because its soldiers are fighting poorly or its people have lost heart, but because the war has settled into a World War I-style battle of attrition, complete with carefully dug trenches and relatively stable fronts.

Such wars tend to be won — as indeed World War I was — by the side with the demographic and industrial resources to hold out longest. Russia has more than three times Ukraine’s population, an intact economy and superior military technology. At the same time, Russia has its own problems; until recently, a shortage of soldiers and the vulnerability of its arms depots to missile strikes have slowed its westward progress. Both sides have incentives to come to the negotiating table.” (“Russia and Ukraine Have Incentives to Negotiate. The U.S. Has Other Plans”, New York Times)

Get the picture? The war will undoubtedly drag on for some time, but the outcome is now certain. And as the noose tightens in the east and the prospects for success grow more remote, we think the neocons are bound to do something even more desperate, foolhardy and violent. We expect the next move will be an attempt to build a coalition of the willing (UK, Romania, Poland and US) that will push the reluctant NATO allies to the breaking point by pitting a makeshift US-led Army against Russia Forces on Ukraine’s killing fields. With every reckless action, Uncle Sam increases the probability of a critical split within NATO that will end Washington’s stranglehold on Europe and lay the groundwork for a new order.

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MARCH OF FOLLY: FALL OF AMERICAN EMPIRE

“Folly is a child of power.” ― Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
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“A phenomenon noticeable throughout history regardless of place or period is the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests. Mankind, it seems, makes a poorer performance of government than of almost any other human activity. In this sphere, wisdom, which may be defined as the exercise of judgment acting on experience, common sense, and available information, is less operative and more frustrated than it should be. Why do holders of high office so often act contrary to the way reason points and enlightened self-interest suggests? Why does intelligent mental process seem so often not to function?” ― Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam

The term “folly” is particularly apt at this stage in the decline of the great American empire. Folly is defined as: criminally or tragically foolish actions or conduct; an excessively costly or unprofitable undertaking. If ever a word captured the actions of American political leaders in the 21st Century and reflect the tragic downfall of an empire borne out of the ashes of the Second World War, it is the term “folly”.

For the last two decades I’ve been befuddled by the inane foolishness of our leaders, as they have driven the nation into a bottomless pit of debt at an astoundingly ridiculous pace, initiated military conflict across the globe, and in the last three years initiated anti-human policies guaranteed to destroy our economic system, depopulate the planet, increase human suffering, and turn the world into a techno-gulag where we will own nothing, eat bugs, and bow down to the commands of globalist overlords.

None of what is being jammed down our throats is based upon reason, facts, or common sense. Why do governments initiate policies destined to destroy the nations they have been entrusted to administer? Is it purely incompetence and stupidity, or is it purposeful and evil?
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When I heard the term folly last week, it triggered a memory of reading Barbara Tuchman’s 1984 book – The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam. After reading her Pulitzer Prize winning treatise on the opening days of World War I – The Guns of August – I immediately became a huge fan of her work. She had the ability to bring the boring dry facts of history to life with her vivid descriptions of events and making it interesting for the average person.

Her storytelling acumen was second to none. She made you feel like you were part of the story. I subsequently read her other Pulitzer Prize winning tome – Stillwell and the American Experience in China, along with The Zimmerman Telegram, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World before the War – 1890–1914, and A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century. But it is her March of Folly book which captures the absurdity of our world at this time in history.
Tuchman addresses four instances throughout history when, paradoxically, governments pursued policies clearly contrary to their own interests. The first three were: the Trojans’ decision to move the Greek horse into their city, the failure of the Renaissance popes to address the factors that would lead to the Protestant Reformation in the early sixteenth century, and England’s policies relating to American colonies under King George III.

But Tuchman spent half of her 1984 book discussing the most recent government folly – the Vietnam War. Vietnam was still an open wound in the mindset of Americans, after the deaths of 58,000 U.S. boys, over 150,000 wounded in action, and the emotional and physical toll on those who came back haunted by what they saw and had to do to survive. This epic folly also resulted in the deaths of over 2 million Vietnamese. It appears the arrogant leaders of all empires fall into the trap of committing foolish acts out of hubris and overestimation of their intellectual and political power.
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“The follies that produced the loss of American virtue following Vietnam begin with continuous overreacting, in the invention of endangered national security, the invention of vital interest, the invention of a commitment which rapidly assumed a life of its own.” ― Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
For an empire which only came into existence in 1946 through the destruction of Europe and Japan, along with agreement by the vanquished and the nearly bankrupt victors to elevate the USD as the currency to rule the world. This path towards empire began shortly after Jefferson warned to not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt and Washington warned to not engage in foreign entanglements and costly alliances. Lincoln’s consolidation of Federal power, while pushing the nation further into debt, and setting a precedent of using military might to accomplish political ambitions.

As our industrial strength grew, imperialist tendencies continued to blossom, with the government and media (Randolph Hearst) joining forces to instigate the Spanish American war. After being elected on a platform of not getting the U.S. into World War I, Woodrow Wilson reneged on his promise and sent American troops to fight in a war we had no business entering. This after he had already handed the financial future of our nation over to a private banking cabal and set in motion the perpetual creation of debt and taxation which would eventually create the dynamics of collapse, now on our doorstep.
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“The process of gaining power employs means which degrade or brutalize the seeker, who awakes to find that power has been possessed at the cost of virtue or moral purpose lost.” ― Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam

Wilson’s global machinations and involvement in the vengeful Treaty of Versailles laid the groundwork for WW2, where the supremacy of the American Empire began its ascension and power-hungry men put a final nail in the coffin of the idea of an American Republic of the people, by the people, and for the people. America has squandered any claim to being a virtuous and moral light in a darkening world. Instead, those who have degraded and discarded the Constitution over the last several decades have captured the levers of power within government and are inflicting their tragically foolish intrigues upon a world gone mad.
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Ever since Bretton Woods insured the USD would reign supreme across the globe, at the point of a gun, the American empire has expanded and bullied the rest of the world into falling in line. When bribery didn’t work, missiles and boots on the ground were employed. Not once in the seventy-eight years since WW2 has our nation faced a threat requiring the use of our military, but somehow our political leaders, at the behest of the military industrial complex, have intervened militarily more than 250 times in countries around the world.

Not one conflict since WW2 has been waged with a formal declaration of war as required by the U.S. Constitution. The Korean War, Persian Gulf War, Bosnia, Libya, Afghanistan, and now Ukraine have all been fought under the cover of UN Resolutions. Vietnam, Iraq, and the never-ending War on Terror were all authorized by Congress, without a formal declaration of war. Essentially, the U.S. president can bomb anyone he wants anywhere in the world, with no accountability to anyone.
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Tuchman concentrated the majority of her book on the greatest folly of the American empire, until that point, the Vietnam War. The persistent aspects of folly all played a part in the disastrous outcome of that foolish bloody conflict.

“Their three outstanding attitudes – obliviousness to the growing disaffection of constituents, primacy of self-aggrandizement, illusion of invulnerable status – are persistent aspects of folly”. ― Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
Lyndon Johnson, an arrogant power-hungry politician, listened to his soulless neocon warmongering Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and bloviating incompetent generals in using the fake Gulf of Tonkin attack as the motivation to broaden the war in Vietnam. Johnson saw the U.S. as the last bastion against the expansion of communism by the Soviet Union and China.

He and the military industrial complex, warned about by Eisenhower, saw themselves as invulnerable and able to defeat any foe. They found it laughable that a mighty military empire could be defeated by lowly peasants in rice paddies. He was so arrogant he thought he could even defy the law of economics which said you had to choose between guns and butter. He chose guns, butter, and his Great Society welfare state. These insane choices set in motion a tsunami of inflation, debt creation, and a never-ending cover-up operation to give the empire the continued appearance of stability and power.
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As Johnson dropped tons of bombs, napalmed villages, sprayed agent orange to defoliate jungles while poisoning his own soldiers, and sent 550,000 young men into the swamps of hell on earth, the American public began to realize there was no vital strategic interest in Vietnam. He ignored the violent protests and growing discontent sweeping across the land, led by the youth of the country. McNamara realized the war was unwinnable and resigned in 1968.

Johnson followed by choosing not to run for reelection in 1968. But the nature of a folly once set in motion is to continue in motion. Despite knowing the war was unwinnable in 1967, the politicians, bureaucrats and generals sacrificed the lives of 38,000 American boys between 1968 and 1975, when the war officially ended. These boys were cannon fodder so their leaders could save face and not admit they had made a dreadful decision in fighting that war.
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Weak men would rather let the awful murderous momentum carry-on rather than ceasing their folly. A lack of intelligent thought, use of reason, understanding the facts on the ground, a major dose of hubris, cognitive dissonance, and cowardliness in refusing to admit they were wrong, permanently damaged the reputation of the United States as a bastion of righteousness and integrity in the world. As usual, the only lesson learned from history is the leaders of empires never learn the lessons of why previous empires have fallen. As Tuchman noted, persistence in error is the ultimate folly.
“The folly consisted not in pursuit of a goal in ignorance of the obstacles but in persistence in the pursuit despite accumulating evidence that the goal was unattainable, and the effect disproportionate to the American interest and eventually damaging to American society, reputation and disposable power in the world.” ― Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam

Since Tuchman wrote her book in 1984, those calling the shots in this empire of debt have committed far more horrendous acts of folly as we approach the denouement and fall of this short-lived military realm. And the rapidity of these foolish ventures has only accelerated as each foolish venture leads to far more foolish responses to try and cover-up the previous acts of foolishness. The lessons of Vietnam were not learned, as we intervened in the Iraq-Iran War on the side of Sadaam, because Iran overthrew the dictator installed by a CIA coup in 1953.
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The CIA also armed Osama bin Laden and his Mujahideen groups to fight the Soviet Union during the Soviet–Afghan War. Then a few years later Sadaam was our mortal enemy because he invaded Kuwait over a border dispute. And Osama’s Al-Qaeda fighters become public enemy #1 after being tagged as the perpetrators of 9/11, launching the War on Terror folly.

Then Bush Jr. and his neo-con puppeteers Cheney and Rumsfeld feigned the threat of Sadaam’s WMDs as an excuse for the disastrous Iraq War, where thousands of American soldiers were killed and wounded for nothing, and generations of new Muslim enemies were created by the mass slaughter of Iraqis. The lesson of the Soviet empire dying in Afghanistan was lost on the egotistical psychopaths who then proceeded to spend the next two decades sacrificing more young men fighting the Taliban, to then withdraw in shameful failure and hand the country back over to the Taliban, who then tortured and killed anyone who collaborated with the U.S. and again took away all the rights of women. Mission Accomplished, as Bush Jr. would say.
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But it was during Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama’s reign of error where acts of folly ratcheted up to a new level of deceitfulness and chaos creation. Both Syria and Libya were run by dictators who marched to their own drumbeat and did not bow to the imperial American empire. They had oil revenue, modern cities, and fairly secular societies, with little terrorism or radical Islamist influences. Obama, his neo-con advisors, and the military industrial complex needed chaos and war to keep their racket going.
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A flailing empire faced with intractable economic decline needs foreign enemies to distract the masses and fill the coffers of the Deep State, as the nation circles the drain. Obama and his despicably evil Secretary of State Clinton created ISIS from the ashes of the Iraq War as the means to deposing Assad. He also funded the forces whose job was to overthrow and kill Muammar Gaddafi, along with pretending the humanitarian crisis in Yemen didn’t exist. These foolish actions have resulted in the inevitable blowback, a diminishing trust of the U.S. among nations, the deaths of millions, and the destruction of once thriving countries, leaving nothing but destruction and suffering in the wake of its imperial misadventures.
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The greatest act of folly during the Obama administration was the CIA and Victoria (“Fuck the EU”) Nuland initiated Maidan coup in the Ukraine in 2014, toppling the democratically elected president Viktor Yanukovych, and replacing him with a U.S. puppet Petro Poroshenko and his neo-Nazi allies. This coup was purposely conducted to diminish Putin’s influence in Ukraine, but set the stage for the tragedy still unfolding today and possibly leading to World War 3.
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Putin’s response to the coup was to annex Crimea, so the Russian navy retained its Black Sea port, and support the Russian speaking rebels in the Donbas. Obama revealed his yellow streak by avoiding direct confrontation with Putin, but used the old toothless sanctions card to pretend he was hurting Russia.
The propaganda war has never ceased, with the Ukraine nazis shooting down an airliner and attempting to pin the blame on the Russians. For eight years the nazis had bombed and slaughtered Russian speaking civilians in Eastern Ukraine. Meanwhile, the Biden crime family took advantage of the most corrupt country on earth by milking it like a dairy cow. Zelensky, a two-bit sitcom actor, was installed in 2019 by corrupt Ukrainian billionaire oligarchs and was given the task of provoking war with Russia by unleashing his nazi Azov legions in Donbas, slaughtering women, children, and other non-combatants. It worked. Putin’s invasion in February 2022 was meant to free the eastern provinces from the senseless slaughter and establish a new border between the Ukraine and Russia.
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Both sides were at the negotiating table in March 2022 when in an act of supreme folly, the US instructed their UK lackey – Boris Johnson – to threaten/bribe Zelensky into turning hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians into cannon fodder in order to further enrich the imperial empire’s military industrial complex and try to provoke Putin into a broader war, with the goal of deposing him. Of course, Putin is playing chess, while our pedo dementia patient in chief is playing checkers, but just wants some ice cream and his diaper changed.
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There is one thing for certain. Foolish acts, foolish interventions, and foolish policies are enacted by fools and supported by fools. The history of government folly makes perfect sense when you realize mediocre men with small minds and a lust for power are drawn to politics and passionately inflict their idiocy on the masses who were too stupid or too apathetic to care about who they chose to lead them. The quotes below perfectly describe what has occurred since 2020.
A basement dwelling dementia patient with anger issues, who likes to touch children, collect his 10%, and eat ice cream was installed by the Deep State in a rigged election, as a means to destroy what remains of our society as part of a globalist Great Reset agenda. The same strategy was used to get a brain damaged galoot, whose IQ before the stroke was sub-100, elected as a senator from PA, despite his inability to speak a coherent sentence or comprehend a basic question. These are little minds running a “great” empire. We deserve what we get and we’re gonna get it really hard.

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” ― H.L. Mencken
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“A great empire and little minds go ill together.” – Edmund Burke

The nearly insane actions, decisions, illegal mandates, and squandering of taxpayer funds to enrich pharmaceutical mega-corporations and arms dealers to fight the annual flu and an undeclared war against Russia are either the acts of a madman or someone who has been captured by malevolent mercenaries and is doing their bidding for fear of the consequences to himself and his family.

Biden has been an incompetent, lying, gaffe machine during his entire 40 years in politics, but his dementia has made him the perfect patsy for the Deep State and globalist banking interests. Going back to the definition of folly – criminally or tragically foolish actions or conduct – Biden’s actions and conduct most certainly meet the criteria. It seems no amount of failure and disastrous outcomes can shake Biden and his cronies from their senseless path of destroying the economy and cultural fabric of the nation, while provoking a global conflagration against two nuclear powers simultaneously.
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Do they really believe the ridiculous Great Reset agenda based on climate change falsehoods, depopulation, global rule over the peasants by a few billionaire oligarchs, and artificial intelligence programs running the world? Has their ideology blinded them to facts, reason and a course which would be most beneficial to mankind? Or are these the desperate acts of people trapped by the folly of their predecessors, who feel obligated to keep marching the world off a cliff and into the abyss because they have no answers?
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We know for a fact the national debt is $31.5 trillion and unfunded liabilities total in excess of $200 trillion and can never be honored. But the whole world is in the same boat, with total global debt exceeding $300 trillion and debt to GDP at 350%, up from 278% just prior to the Great Financial Crisis of 2008. The “China Century” narrative will also prove false, as they owe one-third of that global debt figure.
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There is no escape from this tsunami of unpayable debt. Central banks, trying to fend off hyper-inflation, have raised rates by 2% to 4%, which has increased interest expense on the debt by $3 trillion, on a path to $8 trillion. Facing this dire situation, politicians across the globe have insanely ramped up government spending, accelerating towards the cliff, disregarding the horrible consequences awaiting the citizens they are supposed to represent.

Are the covid scam, vaccine mandates, foreign interventions, UFO distractions, gender absurdity, wokeness tripe, and fake climate crisis all just engineered distractions to allow the perpetrators of this engineered demolition to continue their wealth pillaging operation until the last moment? In reality, no one will survive this debt induced folly if they trigger nuclear Armageddon because their psychopathic level of hubris blinds them to where they are driving this world.

As anyone awakened to the scam of political parties and media propaganda designed to distract and create fear knows, you won’t be able to vote yourself out of this predicament, put into motion 110 years ago. The options are few, as some sort of collapse is inevitable. The globalist Great Reset crowd want a collapse where they retain their wealth, power and control and you own nothing, eat bugs, live in a pod, and obey your masters.
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Once the collapse is initiated no one knows how it will proceed. They will lose control of the narrative and the path of events. This is where groups of rational thinking patriots will have an opportunity to reverse some of the follies inflicted upon them during this century and regain some of the liberties and freedoms taken from them, while inflicting punishment upon those guilty of treason. Serious men will need to take serious measures to triumph during the coming crisis.
The choices will be between disastrous and unpalatable. There are no good choices left. A future of little or no government, with local communities of like minded people working together to live a purposeful life should be the goal. But, as Plato noted over two thousand years ago, the masses will remain ignorant and distracted by their technological gadgets, unable to see beyond the shadows and lies of a culture manipulated to keep them from thinking or comprehending how badly they have been exploited and oppressed by their foolish government leaders. The march of folly is perpetual.
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The Bitcoin Delusion

Blog/Cryptocurrency

Posted Feb 20, 2023, by Martin Armstrong
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COMMENT: Mr. Armstrong, Now with Switzerland outlawing a cashless society, I understand your point that cryptocurrency is really a dead end. Without power, it cannot exist and as you said in times of war, you take down the power grid and they can do that with an EPM pulse. These Bitcoin zealots are clueless about history and humanity. It’s just another way to separate a fool from his money.
Thank you for the education
BH

REPLY: The whole blockchain was the perfect creation of a totalitarian state. They can trace everything. How would you bribe politicians? It would all have to revert to barter. Do this and I will give you that – off the grid. This is why people are still buying real estate, precious metals, ancient coins, art, collectibles, and various things that are tangible and are thus off the grid.

Having funds in any cryptocurrency is still on the grid. When I was one of the three top market-makers in gold back in the ’70s, the IRS walked in and said they declared me to be a bank. Thus, I was supposed to report every transaction of $10,000 or more. They acknowledged I did not realize I was a bank, so they waived the fines. They seized all my records and went off to audit over 3,000 clients. They claimed that gold was not DEMONETIZED as money, just suspended for a while. I retired because I was supposed to report customers but not everyone else in the field. My lawyers said I could fight it. It would take years. My model warned that gold would decline for 19 years anyway so I choose to retire. The clients still wanted the research and thus Princeton Economics was spun off separately.
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They can declare every person running an exchange in crypto is now a bank and must report every transaction. They can be put them out of business in the blink of an eye. These people have no idea who they are messing with. You will not win. All this is because of their twisted view of fiat money. They no more understand money and assets any more than Karl Marx.
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During inflation, assets rise in value, and money declines. That took place during the 19th century when a gold coin was money. MONEY has NEVER been of a constant value – NEVER! These people yelling fiat simply do not comprehend that for thousands of years, there has always been a business cycle and that means money rises and calls in purchasing power REGARDLESS of whatever it has been. The fiscal irresponsibility of governments is well documented throughout history long before paper money.

Even under a gold standard, there were periods of inflation and deflation. Read the history of the California Gold Rush. https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...80%93-1878.jpg

During the 1849 Gold Rush in California, the journalist for the New York Tribune, Bayard Taylor (1825-1878), arrived in San Francisco by ship during the summer of 1849. He was shocked at what he encountered and did not think that anyone would even believe what he was going to write. His dispatches about the gold rush economy in California stunned many and helped to create the 1849 Gold Rush.

The average wage for a laborer in New York was about one or two dollars a day. In California, individual hotel rooms were rented to professional gamblers for upwards of $10,000 a month, which is the equivalent of about $300,000 today. The degree of inflation in terms of gold was astounding and lacks comparison in modern times. There was so much gold, that the value of goods rose even though they did not in New York. The inflation phenomenon was local.

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Gold became so common; they were even striking $50 gold coins in California when $20 was the highest denomination elsewhere and $1-dollar coins down to 25 cents all in gold. Eventually, there were $1 gold coins minted in the United States for general circulation throughout the USA. Indeed, Taylor wrote:
“[One] citizen of San Francisco died insolvent to the amount of forty-one thousand dollars the previous autumn. His administrators were delayed in settling his affairs and his real estate advanced so rapidly in value meantime that after his debts were paid, his heirs had a yearly income of $40,000 [$1.2 million today].
“These facts were indubitably attested; everyone believed them, yet hearing them talked of daily, as matters of course, one at first could not help feeling as if he had been eating ‘of the insane root.’”

It does NOT matter what is money. It will always rise and fall as measured against tangible assets as it has done since Babylonian times. In fact, the very first attempt to control inflation, as the central banks are doing right now, were the wage and price controls put in place by the legal codes of the Assyrians and Babylonians.
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So – stop the BS. Understand that there are times when CASH will be king regardless of what money is at that moment in time, and then it will fall in value when everyone wants tangible assets. There is a business cycle – learn to live with it and we will be better off. The hard-nosed cryptocurrency zealots will never admit they are wrong. They are like politicians and will cling to their theories no matter what evidence you show them.
I asked one once, to name a single period in history where money was constant and never declined in value. He could not!

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Bitcoin is an instrument for trading. This very chart CONFIRMS it is by no means a store of wealth. It rises and falls like ant commodity of stock. It is still influenced as part of the business cycle. Sorry – there is NOTHING that is a perfect store of wealth. Everything fluctuates. Trade Bitcoin, that is fine. But do not make a religion out of it for you will lose not just your shirt, but your pants as well.

Categories: Cryptocurrency

« Depression Scrip – Coming to a Region Near You

February 19, 2023

“Something Is Afoot” Warning Sounded As Lying Ukraine “Narrative” Disintegrates

By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers

A compelling new Security Council (SC) report circulating in the Kremlin today first noting President Putin will focus on the “Special De-Nazification Operation” to liberate Ukraine during his State of the Union address before the Federal Assembly on 21 February, says as it pertains to the current conflict fast leading to World War III, it caused top Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov to grimly observe this morning: “So far there is no readiness or openness towards peaceful initiatives on the part of the collective West”.

During the gathering of socialist Western colonial leaders at the Munich Security Conference yesterday, this report notes, French President Emmanuel Macron proclaimed: “I want Russia to be defeated in Ukraine, and I want Ukraine to be able to defend its position...I do not think, as some people do, that we must aim for a total defeat of Russia, attacking Russia on its own soil...Those observers want to, above all else, crush Russia… That has never been the position of France and it will never be our position”—a proclamation joined by NATO and European Union member leader Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban warning: “It started with helmets and now we are already at the delivery of tanks, in the future also of airplanes, and before long we will hear about the so-called peacekeeping units...Europe is getting immersed in war, in reality they’re already indirectly at war with Russia”, then he factually observed: “Sanctions have pulled over €10 billion out of the pockets of Hungarians...The punitive measures were supposed to hit Russia, but hit Europe...Leaders of the bloc were seeking to end to the conflict in Ukraine, but a year has passed, and this has not happened...We did not deprive Russia of resources, we gave Russia even more money, and Russian energy supplies, in monetary terms, grew by 70%”.

Also during the Munich Security Conference, this report continues, NATO doubled down on its warmongering pledging to do more against Russia—though not present, President Putin was on the lips of every socialist Western colonial leader—and this gathering of socialist Western colonial warmongers ended with the leftist Politico article “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It — And Munich Feels Nervous”, wherein it noted: “The only people smiling at this year’s security conference are the defense contractors...Arms sales are booming by all accounts...But even the Germans have woken up to the perils of the world’s current geopolitical state, this could well be the moment to really start worrying”.

Among those “really worrying” at the Munich Security Conference, this report details, was European Union top diplomat Josep Borrell, who fearfully warned his socialist Western colonial warmongering comrades: “We are in urgent war mode...This shortage of ammunition has to be solved quickly; it is a matter of weeks”—as Ukraine runs out of ammunition, the leftist Washington Post, in its just published article “How To Break The Stalemate In Ukraine”, declared: “To thwart Russia and safeguard Ukraine’s sovereignty, the United States and its European allies have little choice but to intensify their military, economic and diplomatic support for Kyiv…That means equipping Ukrainian forces with more decisive weapons and in greater numbers”—the leftist New York Times, in their just published article “America Can’t Go ‘Wobbly’ On Ukraine”, declared: “The modest numbers of new Western weapons may not be enough to decisively break Russian lines, especially given that Russia has had time to build an “immense” network of fortifications in the Donbas region…Ukraine needs both quality and quantity to defeat the Russian military, and while dribbling small numbers of tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and other weapons into the fight is much better than nothing, it is likely far short of adequate for the demands of combat on this scale”—and are leftist media declarations now joined by British Secretary of Defence Ben Wallace revealing: “Germany organized a meeting with its NATO allies this week to discuss tank deliveries...That's when the problems became obvious...The politicians sent their military to the depots only to find that their tanks are not operational or repaired for delivery to Ukraine...NATO has to face the painful truth that our armies have been more or less hollowed out over the last 30 years...There are numbers of how many tanks each country has...But then there is the reality that tells us that far too few of them are operational...In terms of ammunition stocks, too, we found that our peacetime plans were not sufficient...We didn't count on a real war, so the target numbers for the ammunition were too low”.

Also at the Munich Security Conference, this report notes, China’s highest-ranked diplomat Wang Yi observed: “The much-hyped shootdown of three unidentified flying objects, was absurd and hysterical...It does not show that America is strong, on the contrary it shows the opposite...Across the globe there are many balloons in the sky, from different countries...Do you want to down each and every one of them?”—an observation swiftly followed by articles appearing in America like “US Military Calls Off Recovery Operation For Chinese Spy Balloon And Search For Objects Downed Over Alaska, Lake Huron”, “Illinois Amateur Balloon Club Says Its Balloon Over Alaska Went Missing After US Fighter Jet Shot Down Unidentified Flying Object in Same Area” and “Biden Administration Spent Over $1.6 Million Shooting Down What May Be $12 Hobby Balloons”—all of which was joined by Sky News Australia host Cory Bernardi observing: “This is what the world’s greatest superpower has been reduced to...It merely watches communist spy blimps while shooting $600,000 missiles at $20 hobby balloons because they’re a strategic threat...The balloon saga was a distraction to cover up Biden bombing the Nord Stream pipelines as he leads the United States into World War III...And this is the mob that people entrust the future of the free world to”.

As the socialist Western colonial lying narrative about Ukraine continues to disintegrate, this report continues, it follows top French political leader Pierre De Gaulle, the grandson of the founder of the Fifth Republic General Charles de Gaulle, factually observing: “The West claims that Moscow is isolated, but two-thirds of the world's population supports Russia...We see the economic interests of many countries shift to the East, with Russia being the focus of this process”—and as to why two-thirds of the world’s population supports Russia, it saw African continent leader Ugandan Foreign Minister Jeje Odongo explaining yesterday: “We were colonized and forgave those who colonized us...Now, the colonizers are asking us to be enemies of Russia, who never colonized us, is that fair?...Not for us: their enemies are their enemies, our friends are our friends”.

With global concerns rising about what the godless socialist Western colonial powers will do as they watch the world rally behind Russia, instead of Ukraine, which is the most corrupt nation in Europe, led by The Biden Crime Family, this report concludes, the Ministry of Defense (MoD) warned that Ukraine was planning a massive provocation ahead of the 11th special session of the UN General Assembly to accuse Moscow of “grossly violating” the Convention on Nuclear Safety—and is a warning joined by American geopolitical analyst Mike Whitney, who, in his just-released open letter “A US-Led 'Coalition Of The Willing' Foreshadows The Splintering Of NATO”, assessed and warned: “The destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline was a gangster act that reveals the cancer at the heart of the “rules-based order”...How can there be peace and security when the world’s most powerful nation can destroy the critical infrastructure of other countries without deliberation or judicial proceedings?...What the incident shows is that unilateral action inevitably leads to criminal violence against the weak and defenseless...Biden’s covert operation hurt every man, woman and child in Europe...Now that the Russian army is advancing on all fronts along the Line of Contact, we think that the desperate neocons are bound to do something colossal...In fact, we are sure of it...Something is afoot although we cannot be certain whether it will materialize or not...But—keep in mind—there would be no need for terrorist attacks, false flags or additional combat troops if the official narrative was actually true and the Ukrainian army was winning the war...But that is not what’s happening...The Ukrainian Armed Forces are losing and losing badly...In fact, they don’t even have sufficient ammunition stockpiles to sustain long-term fighting”. [Note: Some words and/or phrases appearing in quotes in this report are English language approximations of Russian words/phrases having no exact counterpart

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Majority of the world (green in the map above) rallied around Russia to create new global economic order to prevent socialist Western colonial powers (red in the map above) from supporting The Biden Crime Family and its corrupt puppet state Ukraine.

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February 19, 2023, EU and US all rights reserved. Permission to use this report in its entirety is granted under the condition it is linked to its original source at WhatDoesItMean.Com. Freebase content is licensed under CC-BY and GFDL.

[Note: Many governments and their intelligence services actively campaign against the information found in these reports so as not to alarm their citizens about the many catastrophic Earth changes and events to come, a stance that the Sisters of Sorcha Faal strongly disagree with in believing that it is every human being’s right to know the truth. Due to our mission’s conflicts with that of those governments, the responses of their ‘agents’ has been a longstanding misinformation/misdirection campaign designed to discredit us, and others like us, that is exampled in numerous places, including HERE.]

[Note: The WhatDoesItMean.com website was created for and donated to the Sisters of Sorcha Faal in 2003 by a small group of American computer experts led by the late global technology guru Wayne Green (1922-2013) to counter the propaganda being used by the West to promote their illegal 2003 invasion of Iraq.]
[Note: The word Kremlin (fortress inside a city) as used in this report refers to Russian citadels, including in Moscow, having cathedrals wherein female Schema monks (Orthodox nuns) reside, many of whom are devoted to the mission of the Sisters of Sorcha Faal.]

Unvaccinated “Have Blood On Their Hands” For Failing To Warn Vaccinated

Western Tank Fantasy Collides With Putin’s AI Robot “War Toys”

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Congratulations Thickpipe.

You did very well in all the 4 Forex trades that you put on last night even though you should not have gone long 5000 ounces of Silver.

There was no logic in going long when I explained why the Dow 30 would most likely go down from the Friday close.

However, trading smaller amounts of units was brilliant, and putting on a second position of SP500 was a very good strategy that I have taught you.

You are on a scale of 1 to 10 now graded as 7.5 which is very very good in such a short period of learning. We will talk later this morning when you wake up. Once again excellent work.

5 Minute Chart from FINVIZ of Dow 30

https://finviz.com/futures_charts.ashx?t=YM&p=m5


Benny