The Syrian terror trap
The US, Russia and Iran are fracturing the Levant
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The US-Russia gas pipeline war in Syria could destabilise Putin
The US-Russia gas pipeline war in Syria could destabilise Putin
Military solutions are not the answer to the perfect storm of climate, energy, food, economic and geopolitical crises facing Russia
For the last few years, the Saudi kingdom’s insistence on pumping oil at high capacity has dramatically depressed oil prices. The result has undermined Saudi’s major oil rivals in OPEC – like Iran and Venezuela.
It has also hit Russia, hard.
Rating agency Standard & Poor forecasts that Russia’s budget deficit is set to swell to 4.4 per cent of GDP this year. Russia’s own finance ministry concedes that if expenditures continue at this rate, within sixteen months – by around the end of next year – its oil reserve funds will be exhausted.
Meanwhile, over the last year real incomes have dropped by 9.8 per cent, and food prices have spiked by 17 per cent, heightening the risk of civil unrest.
System failure
Rumbling along beneath the surface of such financial woes are deeper systemic issues.
A report from the Swedish Defence Research Agency notes that “prolonged dry periods in southern Russia are having the effect of reducing the level of food production”.
Most of Russia’s wheat imports come from Kazakhstan, “where climate change is expected to exacerbate droughts. These impacts would make farming harder and food more expensive,” observe Dr. Marina Sharmina and Dr. Christopher Jones of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.
Russia’s looming energy crisis is the other elephant in the room. In 2013, HSBC forecasted that Russia would hit peak oil between 2018 and 2019, experiencing a brief plateau before declining by 30 per cent from 2020 to 2025.
That year, Fitch Ratings came to pretty much the same conclusion. And last year, Leonid Fedun, vice-president of Russia’s second largest oil producer, Lukoil, predicted that the production could peak earlier due to falling oil prices and US-EU sanctions.
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Global Corporatocracy’s Unborn Baby Just Got A Lot Bigger
Global Corporatocracy’s Unborn Baby Just Got A Lot Bigger
The Trans-Pacific Partnership is not yet fully alive: the agreement has been signed but still needs to be ratified by the governments of its signatory nations. Nonetheless, the corporatocracy’s unborn baby is growing at a startling rate.
Last week, the agreement boasted a grand total of 12 signatories (the United States, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore) with a combined population of 800 million people. This week that number rose to 13 after Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo told U.S. President Barack Obama that the country he represents also wants a piece of the action.
“Indonesia is an open economy and with a population of 250 million, we are the largest economy in Southeast Asia. Indonesia intends to join the TPP,” Widodo said on Monday after meeting Obama in the White House.
If Indonesia does sign the agreement, it will bring the combined population of the TPP-bloc to over one billion people, not far off the population of the country the trade agreement was originally devised to encircle and corral — i.e., China (pop: 1.357 billion). The TPP bloc will also represent over 40% of the global economy.
Everyone But China?
The basic proposition behind TPP is disarmingly simple: either China joins or it will be isolated. This isolation would progress: first from its own back yard through the TPP and the Pentagon’s “Asian Pivot,” then from the West (through the TTIP and TISA), and ultimately from the rest of the global economy.
Such isolation could be ruinous, not only for China but the U.S, too. China and the U.S., when it comes to trade, are joined at the hip. China is the US’s most important trading partner. It has an enormous trade surplus with the US. If anything came in between Chinese exports to the US, China’s economy would collapse (and the US economy would grind to a halt).
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Yes, a new crisis is coming – and here’s why
Yes, a new crisis is coming – and here’s why
- Shortening economic cycle means more frequent crises
- ‘Great Divergence’ model saw China assuming the US’ leadership role
- We have likely reached the limits of adjusting monetary policy
- States have compromised a return to growth due to debt
Occupy Wall Street may been been a popular response to the financial crisis, but Wall Street was never actually occupied and business largely continued as usual. Photo: iStock
The oracles predicting an impending new global crisis are countless. Over the last two decades, economic cycles have been shortened due to deregulation, the financialisation of the economy, trade globalisation, and the acceleration of innovation cycles. During the last 25 years, the US economy has experienced three recessions: in 1991, 2001 and 2009. The outbreak of a new crisis in the coming years is inevitable. To forecast it amounts to acknowledging that capitalism now moves in cycles shorter than 10 years. There is no glory in that.
Here are four macroeconomic scenarios for 2016:
Until recently, the consensus assumed a strengthening of the global economy in 2016. Various downward revisions of growth forecasts by major international organisations, however, confirm that this assumption is becoming less and less likely.
Gross domestic product growth momentum, particularly in the US, is still the main driver of global growth. It is also weaker than it used to be during the previous recoveries, as shown by potential GDP growth which has been reduced to 2% for the 2015-2015 period, compared to 3% for 2000-2007.
The weakness of this recovery can be seen in the substantial slowdown of international trade growth. The increase of global imports in volume is significantly lower compared to the years from 1992 to 2008. The adverse effects of the subprime crisis still influence global dynamics.
The prospect of a new crisis brought the Great Divergence theory back to life. However, this circumstance has failed to materialise. In 2008, this model was steadily evoked but didn’t happen because it is based on the illusion that Asia, and particularly China, will prove able to take over from the US.
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Schadenfreude – How the US Is Helping China Create a New Financial Order
Schadenfreude – How the US Is Helping China Create a New Financial Order
Here we have an image of a Chinese banknote, featuring Chairman Mao, followed by a seemingly incongruous German word – schadenfreude. Is there an error here?
Happily, no. We’ll begin with the word, schadenfreude, which means “harm-joy.” It’s used to express an occurrence that’s destructive, yet brings about happiness.
This would seem to be a conflict in terms, but, looked at a bit more deeply, it could be said that the killing of an enemy may mean that peace will soon prevail – and so the event brings happiness. Or, another analogy: the bulldozing of an old structure may mean that a new one – a better one – will soon be under construction.
And that’s the case here. The world’s most powerful (and most oppressive) political/economic power structure has begun to go under the bulldozer. Its replacement will hopefully be a better one.
The Brussels SWIFT system is currently the largest economic settlement system in the world. Almost all financial transfers are made possible through this system. As such, those who control SWIFT have the power to threaten financial institutions and sovereign nations that, if they don’t do as they’re told, can be denied access to the system.
The controllers of SWIFT have been far from fair in making these judgements. Much of their agenda has been provided by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a cabal made up of many of the world’s most powerful nations, but primarily Europe and the US. The US is the heavy here and they’ve used their power to create FATCA, a means of applying draconian economic pressures on their own citizens. In doing so, they’ve also succeeded in creating a global shakedown racket aimed at financial institutions. If a bank anywhere in the world is found to have a US citizen as a client and the bank fails to regulate that client sufficiently, the bank itself is “held up” – the US imposes a massive fine on the bank.
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Deal defies global call for arms embargo over mounting evidence of the Saudi dictatorship’s war crimes in Yemen.
Deal defies global call for arms embargo over mounting evidence of the Saudi dictatorship’s war crimes in Yemen.
Defying the international call for an arms embargo over war crimes concerns, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) announced Tuesday it has approved an $11.25 billion deal to sell combat ships to Saudi Arabia, which has been waging a military assault against Yemen for more than six months.
“The selling of arms in the middle of a war will obviously send the message that the Saudis can do whatever they want and get away with it,” Farea Al-Muslimi, Beirut-based Yemeni writer and visiting scholar with Carnegie Middle East Center, told Common Dreams.
The U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which is part of the DoD, announced Tuesday that is has rubber-stamped the export of four “Multi-Mission Surface Combatant (MMSC) Ships and associated equipment, parts and logistical support for an estimated cost of $11.25 billion” to Saudi Arabia.
“This proposed sale will contribute to the foreign policy and national security goals of the United States by helping to improve the security of a strategic regional partner, which has been, and continues to be, an important force for political stability and economic progress in the Middle East,” the U.S. agency stated.
The ships will replace older naval models, also built in the United States. While the transfer is being reportedas a U.S. effort to bolster Saudi Arabia’s defenses in the wake of the nuclear deal between world powers and Iran, the arms sales are part of an ongoing trend. The IHS Jane’s 360 report, released in March, foundthat Saudi Arabia was the “number one” defense trading partner with the United States in 2014.
U.S. Congress now has 30 days to block sale of the ships before the deal goes into effect. While both Lockheed and Austal Ltd. manufacture such vessels, the deal applies to the “Freedom” versions produced by Lockheed.
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Snowden leaks reveal harmfulness of US monopoly on internet – Russian minister
Snowden leaks reveal harmfulness of US monopoly on internet – Russian minister
The NSA’s mass surveillance would not be possible if the internet wasn’t controlled by just a few major US companies, Nikolay Nikiforov, Russia’s communications minister, told RT after the first BRICS ministerial meeting on the de-monopolization of IT.
“Snowden’s disclosures showed exactly the harmfulness of the monopoly because it would not be possible if the world IT sector should be structured in a more balanced way,” Nikiforov said, adding that, as things stand, US security agencies have the power to just “come to several companies and to force them… to actually provide absolutely illegal access to hundreds of millions records of private data of users globally.”
In 2013, whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked thousands of documents revealing the US National Security Agency’s mass surveillance programs, proving that Google, Facebook and other US tech giants have been passing information to the spy agency.
Russia’s Communications and Mass Media minister stressed that, in purely economic terms, the monopoly is also harmful for BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and the international community as a whole.
“The monopolist could dictate you the certain price level… each country in the world is actually sending out billions of dollars outside its national economies as the license fees… for key technologies,” he explained.
Nikiforov said that BRICS nations are dissatisfied with the current state of affairs, where a particular state or company controls up to 90-95 percent of certain IT market niches, such as the assigning of domain names performed by the American ICANN company under contract with the US government.
During the maiden meeting in Moscow, the BRICS communications ministers agreed that their countries want fair competition and “want it to be balanced, not to depend on one country or several companies,” he said.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Tomgram: Peter Van Buren, The Great War in the Middle East
Tomgram: Peter Van Buren, The Great War in the Middle East
Sometimes I imagine the last 14 years of American war policy in the Greater Middle East as a set of dismal Mad Libs. An example might be: The United States has spent [your choice of multiple billions of dollars] building up [fill in name of Greater Middle Eastern country]’s army and equipping it with [range of weaponry of your choosing]. That army was recently routed by the [rebel or terrorist group of your choice] and fled, abandoning [list U.S. weaponry and equipment]. Washington has just sent in more [choose from: trainers/weaponry/equipment/all of the above] and [continue the sentence ad infinitum]. Or here’s another: After [number, and make it large] years and a [choose one or more: war, air war, drone assassination campaign, intervention, counterinsurgency program, counterterror effort, occupation] in [Greater Middle Eastern country of your choice] that seems to be [choose from: failing, unraveling, going nowhere, achieving nothing], the [fill in office of top U.S. official of your choice] has just stated that a U.S. withdrawal would be [choose from: counterproductive, self-defeating, inconceivable, politically unpalatable, dangerous to the homeland, mad] because [leave this blank, since no one knows].
The president recently made just such an announcement about Afghanistan 14 years after the U.S. first invaded. Undoubtedly, his “legacy” would have been at stake if he had withdrawn U.S. forces from that country (as he promised to do in 2013) and the Afghan army and police into which the U.S. has sunk an estimated $65 billion had unraveled, as American officials clearly now fear might happen. This means that a baby born somewhere in the United States on September 12, 2001, who is already 14 years old, will turn 16 with America’s second Afghan War still ongoing and, given the trend in American wars in the Greater Middle East (always in, never out), might at 18 be able to join the U.S. military and continue the fight either there, in Iraq, or perhaps in Syria or elsewhere.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
America Waiting to Explode: “If Supply Lines Go Down… Millions of FDA-Approved Drug Addicts Go Psycho”
America Waiting to Explode: “If Supply Lines Go Down… Millions of FDA-Approved Drug Addicts Go Psycho”
How bad can things get?
Preppers know the scenarios – any major crisis from economic breakdown, to civil unrest and riots, an EMP, natural disaster or plain out martial law can bring things to a halt with shocking quickness. And chaos is nearly always the end result.
But this article examines just how far America has fallen into desperation. The closer that the nation spirals towards disintegration, the worse things seem to get.
Between the extremely vulnerable economic system and looming financial crisis, the decline of American values and morality and the utter dependence of Americans upon centralized supply chains, the feds and corporations for everything, the United States population stands all-too-close to disaster. Sam Gerrans at RT says that America is a bomb waiting to explode:
The United States is in decline. While not all major shocks to the system will be devastating, when the right one comes along, the outcome may be dramatic.
We can see how fragile the U.S. is now by considering just four tendencies.
1. Destruction of farms and reliable food source
2. Weak economic system
3. Americans increasingly on mind-altering drugs
4. Morals in decline
According to Gerran’s numbers, less than 5 million people are in a position to feed themselves with the SHTF. With preppers and backyard homesteaders, that number is hopefully much higher, but in any case, it still leaves well over 95% of the population utterly dependent on the grocery store or the government – and the shelves will empty out of literally every store within hours if a real crisis hits.
The average American might have three days of food in their pantry – but that still puts collapse and disorder on a schedule of nearly immediate:
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
“Proxy” War No More: Qatar Threatens Military Intervention In Syria Alongside “Saudi, Turkish Brothers”
“Proxy” War No More: Qatar Threatens Military Intervention In Syria Alongside “Saudi, Turkish Brothers”
Earlier this week, Saudi foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir had the following message for Tehran:
“We wish that Iran would change its policies and stop meddling in the affairs of other countries in the region, in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. We will make sure that we confront Iran’s actions and shall use all our political, economic and military powers to defend our territory and people.”
In short, Riyadh and its allies in Doha and the UAE are uneasy about the fact that the P5+1 nuclear deal is set to effectively remove Iran from the pariah state list just as Tehran is expanding its regional influence via its Shiite militias in Iraq, the ground operation in Syria, and through the Houthis in Yemen.
Thanks to the fact that Tehran has more of an arm’s length relationship with the Houthis than it does with Hezbollah and its proxy armies in Iraq, the Saudis have been able to effectively counter anti-Hadi forces in Yemen without risking a direct conflict with Iran, but make no mistake, Sana’a is not the prize here. Yemen is a side show. The real fight is for the political future of Syria and for control of Iraq once the US finally packs up and leaves for good. Iran is winning on both of those fronts.
Over the last several weeks, we and others have suggested that one should not simply expect Washington, Riyadh, Ankara, and Doha to go gently into that good night in Syria after years of providing support for the various Sunni extremist groups fighting to destabilize the regime. There’s just too much at stake.
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Obama Unveils Roadmap To ‘Bailout’ Puerto Rico: “New” Bankruptcy Rules & Federal Fiscal Oversight
Obama Unveils Roadmap To ‘Bailout’ Puerto Rico: “New” Bankruptcy Rules & Federal Fiscal Oversight
America is not Greece, but judging from the Obama administration’s just-unveiled plans to bailout Puerto Rico’s disastrous debt situation, the American territory may have to sacrifice a little more sovereignty to get some relief. Obama is pressing for Congress to give Puerto Rico (PR) sweeping powers to reduce its $73 billion debt burden through a form of bankruptcy protection not now available to American territoriesand will also ask lawmakers to establish an independent body to monitor the island’s fiscal affairs (a la Troika). While the proposals likely face an uphill battle in Congress, as NYTimes reports, both Democrats and Republicans are under pressure to respond because Puerto Ricans are flooding the US, particularly in central Florida, and are becoming an increasingly important voting block in the 2016 presidential race.
Puerto Rico is teetering under debt amassed from years of borrowing as the economy failed to grow and residents left for the U.S. mainland. Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla is seeking to persuade investors to accept less than they’re owed, saying tax increases and spending cuts alone won’t be sufficient to eliminate the government’s budget shortfalls.
Creditors say that the island’s government has been seeking to portray the fiscal situation in Puerto Rico as beyond repair, hoping to force the administration and Congress to act. As The NY Times reports, on Wednesday, Puerto Rico took the unusual step of announcing that talks over restructuring about $750 milllion of the island’s debt had broken off, a move that some creditors saw as posturing to Washington for help.
It appears to have worked… (as Bloomberg details)
President Barack Obama is pressing for Congress to give Puerto Rico sweeping powers to reduce its $73 billion debt burden through bankruptcy, escalating administration involvement as the Caribbean island’s access to cash dries up.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
America Looks A Lot Like Nazi Germany Did Just Prior To World War II
America Looks A Lot Like Nazi Germany Did Just Prior To World War II
Once upon a time America fought a great war to rid the world of the Nazis, but now we have become just like them. In fact, I would venture to say that the Nazification of the United States is pretty much complete. As you will see below, we have a heavily socialized economy where tax rates are out of control and lots of freebies are given out just like the Nazis did. And just like the Nazis, our society has become highly militarized and our government has become increasingly obsessed with watching, tracking, monitoring and controlling the general population. But more than anything else, all of the pageantry and beauty in our society masks an evil which has grown to a level that is almost unspeakable. The other day, my wife and I were watching some footage of the beautiful parades and celebrations that were held in Germany before World War II, and they certainly were very impressive. But under the surface, a great evil was growing. Just because something happens behind closed doors does not make it okay, and just like the Nazis, our society is about to learn an exceedingly painful lesson in that regard.
Let’s start out by talking about the economy. Most people tend to regard the Nazis as “far right”, but the truth is that they were socialists. By heavily taxing and spending, the Nazis were able to temporarily restore economic prosperity after the great economic crisis that occurred under the Weimar Republic, and this helped fuel their wild popularity. The following comes from Wikipedia…
In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazis restored economic stability and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending and a mixed economy. Extensive public works were undertaken, including the construction of Autobahns (high speed highways). The return to economic stability boosted the regime’s popularity.
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The Syrian terror trap
Leaked US diplomatic cables show that the US sought to undermine the Assad regime nearly a decade ago. But that’s not the whole story. In 2011, as peaceful protestors rallied across Syria, Assad was courted by the Obama administration as a potential client and regional partner. Only because the US eventually abandoned him, did he revert fully to the trappings of Russian and Iranian power. Yet in supporting Assad’s state-terrorism in the name of fighting terror, the new Russia-Iran military axis in Syria is falling into a trap of its own making. Rather than constituting a new ‘anti-imperialist’ front, the Russia-Iran alliance could see the conflict escalate into a protracted regional, sectarian war of attrition culminating in the permanent dismemberment of Syria.
Russia’s invasion of Syria has provoked excitement amongst some antiwar activists, who see Putin’s macho muscle-flexing in the Middle East as a welcome geopolitical check on American hegemony.
But just because the United States is — as Boston University historian and military veteran Professor Andrew Bacevich has shown — the world’s pre-eminent imperial superpower, that doesn’t make angels out of its rivals.
Russia Today (RT) and Press TV (Iran’s satellite news channel) would have us believe that Russia and Iran are waging a Good ‘war on terror’ in Syria.
In reality, both Russia and Iran are, like the US, neo-imperial state structures engaging in geopolitical expansionism.
Without an ounce of shame, the Russians and Iranians have eagerly co-opted the language of the US-led ‘war on terror’ to justify their own imperial violence in Syria.
It is not the ‘war on terror’ they oppose, but merely US encroachment on their regional interests.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Saudi Arabia Cuts Spending, Slows Payments, Hits Spain Inc.
Saudi Arabia Cuts Spending, Slows Payments, Hits Spain Inc.
Ugly for Spain’s over-indebted, liquidity-challenged construction giants.
It’s almost a whole year since the House of Saud shocked the world by announcing its scheme to let market forces determine oil prices. It then did the unthinkable: it cranked up oil production. What followed was arguably the biggest price war of this fledgling century, as the price of oil fell by more than 50% in six months.
Suicide Economics
For struggling energy consumer nations, the collapse of the oil price has been a godsend; for producer nations, it has been a source of incalculable economic pain and misery. When the Saudis had their all-in moment, it was widely assumed that Russia, as well as a host of other unsavory oil-dependent “regimes” (such as Venezuela), would be first to buckle.
Eleven months on, Venezuela’s economic edifice is in tatters, Russia has lost billions of dollars in crude revenues, and the U.S. shale industry – broadly assumed to be the Saudis’ second target – is being kept alive only by increasingly difficult-to-come-by and expensive infusions of debt.
Yet despite all the balance sheet carnage, the Saudis have not won their oil price war. Not yet. Indeed, as prices continue to bite, it is the Saudi economy that is beginning to feel the pain, especially with an aggregate deficit for 2015 to 2017 forecast to exceed $300 billion.
The effects are now ricocheting around the economy, hitting businesses in Saudi Arabia and beyond. Here’s more from Bloomberg:
Saudi Arabia is delaying payments to government contractors as the slump in oil prices pushes the country into a deficit for the first time since 2009, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.
Companies working on infrastructure projects have been waiting for six months or more for payments as the government seeks to preserve cash, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Will The Crazed Neocons Bring Us Nuclear Winter?
Will The Crazed Neocons Bring Us Nuclear Winter?
As readers know, I have emphasized that the declared neoconservative intention of achieving global hegemony has resurrected the threat of nuclear armageddon as Russia and China are most definitely not going to submit, as every European country, the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Columbia, and Japan have submitted, to being Washington’s vassals.
The president of Russia and the president of China have made this completely clear.
If the arrogance, ignorance and incompetence of the Western political systems permit the continuation of the crazed, totally unrealistic, neoconservative agenda, the planet will die.
Ronald Reagan is the only US president during the era of nuclear weapons who was committed to removing them from all arsenals. I know because I was a part of his effort. If you can’t believe me, ask Pat Buchanan who was with Reagan at Reykjavik. In previous columns on my website, I quoted Buchanan’s response to my statements. Buchanan wrote to me that I was correct, that Reagan wanted rid of every nuclear weapon. That was President Reagan’s primary goal and is the reason for his economic program, which he placed in my hands. Reagan reasoned that if the US economy could be restored, the inability of the Soviet economy to be restored would allow him to pressure the Soviets into agreement to end the cold war and rid the world of nuclear weapons. When I get letters from those denouncing Reagan for his crimes, I wonder at the pride that the writers show in their utter ignorance and stupidity.
What the neocons have done is to throw away every treaty and violate every agreement that had the world on the path to nuclear disarmament. These evil persons have caused massive moderization of Soviet and Chinese nuclear forces. There is no prospect whatsoever of American hegemony over the world.
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Russia “Confirms” It Has Plans To Restore Assad Government In Syria
Russia “Confirms” It Has Plans To Restore Assad Government In Syria
Watching the US attempt to explain to the public why Washington can’t join the Russians in targeting extremists in Syria has been entertainment gold. The fundamental PR problem revolves around the fact that the West has gone out of its way to hold up ISIS as the quintessential example of pure, unadulterated evil that must be eradicated at all costs and yet when Moscow began bombing ISIS targets and publicly implored the US to join in, Washington said no.
If you’re the public that seems strange. To be sure, everyday Westerners are accustomed to Russophobic propaganda in the news and in cinema and the public is thoroughly conditioned to think of The Kremlin as a weird, multi-colored palace complex staffed with hundreds of James Bond villains in a country where it’s always dark, and always snowing. That said, Western leaders have had a difficult time explaining why that’s somehow worse than ISIS, whose slickly-produced videos have so far depicted a series of beheadings, a Jordanian pilot being burned alive, “spies” being drowned in a cage, and four men being packed into a Toyota Corolla which is then destroyed at close range by a rocket launcher.
The answer, of course, is that ISIS and the various other extremist groups battling for control of Syria have almost all received training and funding from the US and its regional allies at one point or another and at the end of the day, destroying ISIS nets nothing for Washington in terms of geopolitics. In fact, were the group to go the way of the dinosaurs, it would help to restore the Assad regime which is the worst possible outcome in the eyes of the US, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
