Like a pathetic school bully, the United States targets and attacks the weak and vulnerable. Its extraordinary, perhaps to be expected that the US hasn't fought a country that has a decent air force since the Korean War 1950-53.
The US military in stark contrast to the propaganda of its media, are pathetic cowards and bullies. The US has no qualms about destroying and raping countries like Vietnam and Iraq. But would never dare to fight Russia or China. Or even moderately armed countries like Iran or Venezuela. Thanks to Russian and Chinese arms, the free world can live free!
92 comments:
Double digit SAMS, Legacy aircraft, SUV35's and, and, and, is this where we want to go? Terrfic weapons sytems - and no food on the table? And even with all they have in their arsenal, Russia and China more often than not behave like schoolboys compelled to obey the master. World saviours? Doesn't quite look like it.
Pentagon war spending tops $685 billions, whereas 70% of Pentagon's largest weapons programmes overspend by $296 billion more than original estimates.
Ams being cut down to size, all right. But parity will come too late for the unarmed millions they have cut down on their murderous rampages. Ban the cowardly west and let's see how the rest of the world fares.
The Fed's plan to increase the money supply 15-fold
But the real story starts to unfold when you realize the Federal Reserve is now hell bent on multiplying the U.S. money supply by a whopping fifteen times in 2009! This excellent article explains how this number is derived: http://www.marketskeptics.com/2009/...
Now think about this: If the Federal Reserve increases the U.S. money supply by a factor of fifteen, that means your dollars will be worth only 1/15th the value they represent right now. So a loaf of bread that costs a dollar right now could cost $15 when all this extra money ripples through the system. (Which will obviously take a couple of years, but 2009 will be the beginning of it.)
This is called "hyperinflation." We're talking about a loss of over 93% of the purchasing power of the dollar. That, my friends, is called a collapse of the currency.
And once it starts, the floodgates will be opened and the tsunami of investors and nations offloading dollars will be catastrophic and irreversible. By the time it's all done, the dollar might end up losing 99.9% of its value, and you can use greenbacks to light a fire or wipe your back side, as they will be useless for anything else.
Why America's currency -- and government -- is headed for total collapse
That's why I say America's days are numbered. The America as we know it, at least. This repeated creation of trillions of dollars in new money by the Federal Reserve is the last great looting of the U.S. economy by the wealthy elite. The Titanic is sinking, and high officials have monopolized the life rafts, leaving everyone else to drown with the ship. And while they're rowing away from the doomed vessel that's taking on water, they shout back to the low-income workers clinging to the rails, "Don't worry! The ship isn't really sinking. It's just 'correcting!'"
The truth is that America IS sinking -- and it's not just the currency I'm talking about here: America's criminal health care system has sickened the population and outlawed any real healing practices, too. Meanwhile, the FDA and FTC have attempted to destroy all knowledge of natural remedies that can prevent and cure disease, further compromising the future of the American People.
On the dollars-and-cents side, America's economy is a fictitious mish-mash of corporations selling poisons to the people, and people buying junk they don't need, and everybody paying through the nose for disease care services that ultimately provide no net benefit to the population.
America's infrastructure is crumbling, its industries are already gutted, and its exports resemble third-world agricultural nations more than first-world developed nations. Its political leadership is, with very few exceptions, a band of diseased, ignorant influence peddlers who sell out their constituents at every opportunity.
Perhaps more importantly, America has abandoned the principle of law. Laws no longer matter in America because they are selectively enforced only against those who threaten powerful institutions or corporations. America is no longer a nation of freedom and justice for all. Rather, it is a nation of greed and profit for the few, followed by oppression and bankruptcy for everybody else.
What's coming soon for America
Given these circumstances, it is not difficult to predict the demise of America as we know it. The U.S. dollar will eventually collapse or be abandoned. This could happen literally overnight, or it could take years, but make no mistake: The American people will not be forewarned of the collapse of the dollar. It will be a sudden, surprise announcement, and all the politicians and banking elitists who engineered the whole thing will pronounce their "shock" that such a thing could happen! "We could never have predicted this," they will insist, even while the whole thing was actually engineered by the very same people.
One day, Americans will wake up and discover that all banks are on "bank holidays" (which means that someone in Washington is taking a holiday with your money while YOU can't access it).
Within hours, the National Guard will roll into the cities of the United States, and Americans will find themselves penniless prisoners in their own country. Anyone who protests will be arrested or shot. Law will be dispensed at the end of military rifles, and the President will get on television and explain how this is all being done for YOUR benefit! It's for your own safety and protection, didn't you know?
From here, it's difficult to say exactly what will unfold. We could see UN troops on U.S. soil, the IMF taking over the U.S. banking system, and the forced transition to a global currency. Other possibilities include the Balkanization of the formerly-united States of America, with regional nation-states declaring their own independence from Washington.
During this chaos, just-in-time delivery of food and products will grind to a halt. Store shelves will be emptied. A healthy economy of barter will immediately spring up to fill the void. Those who have things to trade (toilet paper, butter, salt, sugar, matches, gold, silver, food, fuel, etc.) will eat. Those who don't will starve. Health will plummet and infectious disease will become a very real threat in many cities. The conventional medical system will, of course, be utterly useless and will run out of medicine within days or weeks.
This economic transition chaos will be short-lived, however, and from the ashes of economic turmoil will spring a new nation (or nations) of People who have finally awakened from their complacency. New governments will be forged, and the fields of economic ruin will be ripe for the planting and sprouting of new ideas from a new generation of visionary leaders.
Mike Adams
Americans also signing on to the Panarin predictions. Only thing wrong in above, the words "visionary leaders" neither of which word has ever applied to the USans since they took over Indian land.
A F22 Raptor fighter crashed only last week. Seems it is no more than scrap metal. And they claim their super laser to update their aged nuclear weapons is now ready. Seeing is believing.
Back to comment one. The tribunal of history will also condemn Russia and China for non-assistance to humanity in danger. Mad dog America should be shot down and buried in one of its own innumerable mass graves.
Economic Meltdown: The "Dollar Glut" is What Finances America's Global Military Build-up - By Prof. Michael Hudson (31/3/09)
Prof. Michael Hudson
Monday, 30 March 2009 19:09
29 March, 2009 Global Research
I am traveling in Europe for three weeks to discuss the global financial crisis with government officials, politicians and labor leaders. What is most remarkable is how differently the financial problem is perceived over here. It's like being in another economic universe, not just another continent.
The U.S. media are silent about the most important topic policy makers are discussing here (and I suspect in Asia too): how to protect their countries from three inter-related dynamics: (1) the surplus dollars pouring into the rest of the world for yet further financial speculation and corporate takeovers; (2) the fact that central banks are obliged to recycle these dollar inflows to buy U.S. Treasury bonds to finance the federal U.S. budget deficit; and most important (but most suppressed in the U.S. media, (3) the military character of the U.S. payments deficit and the domestic federal budget deficit.
Strange as it may seem and irrational as it would be in a more logical system of world diplomacy the "dollar glut" is what finances America's global military build-up. It forces foreign central banks to bear the costs of America's expanding military empire effective "taxation without representation." Keeping international reserves in "dollars" means recycling their dollar inflows to buy U.S. Treasury bills U.S. government debt issued largely to finance the military.
To date, countries have been as powerless to defend themselves against the fact that this compulsory financing of U.S. military spending is built into the global financial system. Neoliberal economists applaud this as "equilibrium," as if it is part of economic nature and "free markets" rather than bare-knuckle diplomacy wielded with increasing aggressiveness by U.S. officials. The mass media chime in, pretending that recycling the dollar glut to finance U.S. military spending is "showing their faith in U.S. economic strength" by sending "their" dollars here to "invest." It is as if a choice is involved, not financial and diplomatic compulsion to choose merely between "Yes" (from China, reluctantly), "Yes, please" (from Japan and the European Union) and "Yes, thank you" (Britain, Georgia and Australia).
It is not "foreign faith in the U.S. economy" that leads foreigners to "put their money here." This is a silly anthropomorphic picture of a more sinister dynamic. The "foreigners" in question are not consumers buying U.S. exports, nor are they private-sector "investors" buying U.S. stocks and bonds. The largest and most important foreign entities putting "their money" here are central banks, and it is not "their money" at all. They are sending back the dollars that foreign exporters and other recipients turn over to their central banks for domestic currency.
When the U.S. payments deficit pumps dollars into foreign economies, these banks are being given little option except to buy U.S. Treasury bills and bonds which the Treasury spends on financing an enormous, hostile military build-up to encircle the major dollar-recyclers China, Japan and Arab OPEC oil producers. Yet these governments are forced to recycle dollar inflows in a way that funds U.S. military policies in which they have no say in formulating, and which threaten them more and more belligerently. That is why China and Russia took the lead in forming the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) a few years ago.
Here in Europe there is a clear awareness that the U.S. payments deficit is much larger than just the trade deficit. One need merely look at Table 5 of the U.S. balance-of-payments data compiled by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) and published by the Dept. of Commerce in its Survey of Current Business to see that the deficit does not stem merely from consumers buying more imports than the United States exports as the financial sector de-industrializes its economy. U.S. imports are now plunging as the economy shrinks and consumers are now finding themselves obliged to pay down the debts they have taken on.
Congress has told foreign investors in the largest dollar holder, China, not to buy anything except perhaps used-car dealerships and maybe more packaged mortgages and Fannie Mae stock the equivalent of Japanese investors being steered into spending $1 billion for Rockefeller Center, on which they subsequently took a 100% loss, and Saudi investment in Citigroup. That's the kind of "international equilibrium" that U.S. officials love to see. "CNOOK go home" is the motto when it comes to serious attempts by foreign governments and their sovereign wealth funds (central bank departments trying to figure out what to do with their dollar glut) to make direct investments in American industry.
So we are left with the extent to which the U.S. payments deficit stems from military spending. The problem is not only the war in Iraq, now being extended to Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is the expensive build-up of U.S. military bases in Asian, European, post-Soviet and Third World countries. The Obama administration has promised to make the actual amount of this military spending more transparent. That presumably means publishing a revised set of balance of payments figures as well as domestic federal budget statistics.
The military overhead is much like a debt overhead, extracting revenue from the economy. In this case it is to pay the military-industrial complex, not merely Wall Street banks and other financial institutions. The domestic federal budget deficit does not stem only from "priming the pump" to give away enormous sums to create a new financial oligarchy. It contains an enormous and rapidly growing military component.
So Europeans and Asians see U.S. companies pumping more and more dollars into their economies, not only to buy their exports in excess of providing them with goods and services in return, and not only to buy their companies and "commanding heights" of privatized public enterprises without giving them reciprocal rights to buy important U.S. companies (remember the U.S. turn-down of China's attempt to buy into the U.S. oil distribution business), and not only to buy foreign stocks, bonds and real estate. The U.S. media somehow neglect to mention that the U.S. Government is spending hundreds of billions of dollars abroad not only in the Near East for direct combat, but to build enormous military bases to encircle the rest of the world, to install radar systems, guided missile systems and other forms of military coercion, including the "color revolutions" that have been funded and are still being funded all around the former Soviet Union. Pallets of shrink-wrapped $100 bills adding up to tens of millions of the dollars at a time have become familiar "visuals" on some TV broadcasts, but the link is not made with U.S. military and diplomatic spending and foreign central-bank dollar holdings, which are reported simply as "wonderful faith in the U.S. economic recovery" and presumably the "monetary magic" being worked by Wall Street's Tim Geithner at Treasury and Helicopter Ben Bernanke at the Federal Reserve.
Here's the problem: The Coca Cola company recently tried to buy China's largest fruit-juice producer and distributor. China already holds nearly $2 trillion in U.S. securities way more than it needs or can use, inasmuch as the United States Government refuses to let it buy meaningful U.S. companies. If the U.S. buyout would have been permitted to go through, this would have confronted China with a dilemma: Choice #1 would be to let the sale go through and accept payment in dollars, reinvesting them in what the U.S. Treasury tells it to do U.S. Treasury bonds yielding about 1%. China would take a capital loss on these when U.S. interest rates rise or when the dollar declines as the United States alone is pursuing expansionary Keynesian policies in an attempt to enable the U.S. economy to carry its debt overhead.
Choice #2 is not to recycle the dollar inflows. This would lead the renminbi to rise against the dollar, thereby eroding China's export competitiveness in world markets. So China chose a third way, which brought U.S. protests. It turned the sale of its tangible company for merely "paper" U.S. dollars ¬ which went with the "choice" to fund further U.S. military encirclement of the S.C.O. The only people who seem not to be drawing this connection are the American mass media, and hence public. I can assure you from personal experience, it is being drawn here in Europe. (Here's a good diplomatic question to discuss: Which will be the first European country besides Russia to join the S.C.O.?)
Academic textbooks have nothing to say about how "equilibrium" in foreign capital movements speculative as well as for direct investment is infinite as far as the U.S. economy is concerned. The U.S. economy can create dollars freely, now that they no longer are convertible into gold or even into purchases of U.S. companies, inasmuch as America remains the world's most protected economy. It alone is permitted to protect its agriculture by import quotas, having "grandfathered" these into world trade rules half a century ago. Congress refuses to let "sovereign wealth" funds invest in important U.S. sectors.
So we are confronted with the fact that the U.S. Treasury prefers foreign central banks to keep on funding its domestic budget deficit, which means financing the cost of America's war in the Near East and encirclement of foreign countries with rings of military bases. The more "capital outflows" U.S. investors spend to buy up foreign economies the most profitable sectors, where the new U.S. owners can extract the highest monopoly rents the more funds end up in foreign central banks to support America's global military build-up. No textbook on political theory or international relations has suggested axioms to explain how nations act in a way so adverse to their own political, military and economic interests. Yet this is just what has been happening for the past generation.
So the ultimate question turns out to be what countries can do to counter this financial attack. A Basque labor union asked me whether I thought that controlling speculative capital movements would ensure that the financial system would act in the public interest. Or is outright nationalization necessary to better develop the real economy?
It is not simply a problem of "regulation" or "control of speculative capital movements." The question is how nations can act as real nations, in their own interest rather than being roped into serving whatever U.S. diplomats decide is in America's interest.
Any country trying to do what the United States has done for the past 150 years is accused of being "socialist" and this from the most anti-socialist economy in the world, except when it calls bailouts for its banks "socialism for the rich," a.k.a. financial oligarchy. This rhetorical inflation almost leaves no alternative but outright nationalization of credit as a basic public utility.
Of course, the word "nationalization" has become a synonym for bailing out the largest and most reckless banks from their bad loans, and bailing out hedge funds and non-bank counterparties for losses on "casino capitalism," gambling on derivatives that AIG and other insurers or players on the losing side of these gambles are unable to pay. Such bailouts are not nationalization in the traditional sense of the term bringing credit creation and other basic financial functions back into the public domain. It is the opposite. It prints new government bonds to turn over along with self-regulatory power to the financial sector, blocking the citizenry from taking back these functions.
Framing the issue as a choice between democracy and oligarchy turns the question into one of who will control the government doing the regulation and "nationalizing." If it is done by a government whose central bank and major congressional committees dealing with finance are run by Wall Street, this will not help steer credit into productive uses. It will merely continue the Greenspan-Paulson-Geithner era of more and larger free lunches for their financial constituencies.
The financial oligarchy's idea of "regulation" is to make sure that deregulators are installed in the key positions and given only a minimal skeleton staff and little funding. Despite Mr. Greenspan's announcement that he has come to see the light and realizes that self-regulation doesn't work, the Treasury is still run by a Wall Street official and the Fed is run by a lobbyist for Wall Street. To lobbyists the real concern isn't ideology as such it's naked self-interest for their clients. They may seek out well-meaning fools, especially prestigious figures from academia. But these are only front men, headed as they are by the followers of Milton Friedman at the University of Chicago. Such individuals are put in place as "gate-keepers" of the major academic journals to keep out ideas that do not well serve the financial lobbyists.
This pretence for excluding government from meaningful regulation is that finance is so technical that only someone from the financial "industry" is capable of regulating it. To add insult to injury, the additional counter-intuitive claim is made that a hallmark of democracy is to make the central bank "independent" of elected government. In reality, of course, that is just the opposite of democracy. Finance is the crux of the economic system. If it is not regulated democratically in the public interest, then it is "free" to be captured by special interests. So this becomes the oligarchic definition of "market freedom."
The danger is that governments will let the financial sector determine how "regulation" will be applied. Special interests seek to make money from the economy, and the financial sector does this in an extractive way. That is its marketing plan. Finance today is acting in a way that de-industrializes economies, not builds them up. The "plan" is austerity for labor, industry and all sectors outside of finance, as in the IMF programs imposed on hapless Third World debtor countries. The experience of Iceland, Latvia and other "financialized" economies should be examined as object lessons, if only because they top the World Bank's ranking of countries in terms of the "ease of doing business."
The only meaningful regulation can come from outside the financial sector. Otherwise, countries will suffer what the Japanese call "descent from heaven": regulators are selected from the ranks of bankers and their "useful idiots." Upon retiring from government they return to the financial sector to receive lucrative jobs, "speaking engagements" and kindred paybacks. Knowing this, they regulate in favor of financial special interests, not that of the public at large.
The problem of speculative capital movements goes beyond drawing up a set of specific regulations. It concerns the scope of national government power. The International Monetary Fund's Articles of Agreement prevent countries from restoring the "dual exchange rate" systems that many retained down through the 1950s and even into the 60s. It was widespread practice for countries to have one exchange rate for goods and services (sometimes various exchange rates for different import and export categories) and another for "capital movements." Under American pressure, the IMF enforced the pretence that there is an "equilibrium" rate that just happens to be the same for goods and services as it is for capital movements. Governments that did not buy into this ideology were excluded from membership in the IMF and World Bank ¬ or were overthrown.
The implication today is that the only way a nation can block capital movements is to withdraw from the IMF, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization (WTO). For the first time since the 1950s this looks like a real possibility, thanks to worldwide awareness of how the U.S. economy is glutting the global economy with surplus "paper" dollars ¬ and U.S. intransigence at stopping its free ride. From the U.S. vantage point, this is nothing less than an attempt to curtail its international military program.
Rather than all this about parity and proliferation, I prefer the thought that 182 days remain till mayhem breaks out in the USA.
The Dollar is Gonna Drop Like a Stone
By: informatron
Peter Schiff: The Dollar is Gonna Drop Like a Stone
Video: Sunday, March 29, 2009
http://article19-videoblog.tumblr.com/post/91275740/sunday-march-29-2009-peter-schiff-the-dollar-is
China can't buy Sukhoi jets
Su-33 shipborne fighters.
by Andrei Chang
Hong Kong (UPI) Mar 25, 2009
Some Western media have reported that China is negotiating with Russian aircraft manufacturer Sukhoi Co. for the procurement of 14 Su-33 shipborne fighters, claiming that the contract on the deal will be signed soon.
However, Boris D. Bregman, first deputy general director of Sukhoi, said the talks with China are still only at the consultation stage. While confirming that contacts were ongoing, he said no official negotiations had been initiated so far.
The information that China intended to import 14 Sukhoi Su-33 fighters came from the Russian military industry delegation attending the Zhuhai Air Show in 2006. Members of the delegation said China had indicated it would eventually require about 50 Sukhoi Su-33s to arm several aircraft carrier battle groups.
China had initially requested only two fighters, then raised its request to 14, to be procured in two groups of seven, a Russian military-industry source said. However, given its past record of copying Russian technology, suspicions were high that the Chinese intended to produce their own version of the fighter plane, using the Sukhoi Su-33 as a model.
A Russian official told United Press International that producing only seven aircraft in one batch was not feasible, as production of the Sukhoi Su-33 had already been suspended and the cost of reconstructing the production facilities was too high for such a small order.
However, Bregman told the author that his company could produce an upgraded variant of the Sukhoi Su-33 for export, according to the purchaser's requirements, if the deal was right.
Some reports have suggested that a version of the aircraft specifically designed for China — referred to as the Sukhoi Su-33K — could be built to the standard of the Sukhoi Su-30MK2, which has upgraded electronics that support anti-ship missiles, or even fitted with Irbis or Bars phased-array radar systems. The former is currently installed on Sukhoi Su-35 fighters.
However, these modifications seem unlikely. The Irbis has a maximum power output of 20 kilowatts; therefore, the Sukhoi Su-33's power supply would be far from enough to support it.
The Bars passive phased-array radar is mainly employed on the Sukhoi Su-30MKM/MKI fighters currently in use by the Malaysian and Indian air forces. The Russian Defense Ministry has not yet officially approved the export of this type of radar system to China.
China and Russia have not yet been able to reach agreement on the procurement of the Sukhoi Su-33 fighters. Negotiations on the deal are still only in the initial stages, and China will place its priorities elsewhere in 2009.
The Chinese navy will continue its work on constructing an aircraft carrier; at the same time, it will consider its options with regard to the selection of shipborne fighter aircraft. Since the aircraft carrier construction is likely to take at least another five to six years, it is not impossible that China may develop a shipborne variant of its own J-10A and J-11BH fighters during this period.
However, Sukhoi may eventually restart its Su-33 production line because the Russian navy is about to resume its own "grand aircraft carrier program."
Aviation weapons observers based in Moscow say that a more realistic purchase order of Sukhoi Su-33 fighters would be 24 or more in order to make the start-up of the production line cost-effective. Therefore, China may either have to increase its order or find another solution to the problem of procuring shipborne fighter aircraft.
(Andrei Chang is editor in chief of Kanwa Defense Review Monthly, registered in Toronto.)
This is very weird if true. What is wrong with Russia that it is selling all its technology to India who most probably passes everything on to the zioentity.
So China is not acceptable at the same time China is potenatially the Major trade partner of Russia.
The ruling class in Russia is not running things in the interests of the Russian Orthodox people but in the interests of the ziotalmudic gang.
NATO plans to rebase F-16 jets from Italy to Poland. Russia signals concern
Global Research, March 29, 2009
Voice of Russia
There has been more Russian reaction to Friday’s reports that NATO is to rebase some of its F-16 jets from Italy to Poland.
Defence spokesman General Nogovitsin told the press that Russia expects NATO and the US to comply with their international obligations to issue advance notification of any such redeployment.
He also dismissed as far-fetched the American argumentation that Europe has to protect itself against missile attack from Iran. The General believed it will be at least ten more years before the Iranians have acquired Europe-reaching missiles.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12948
Russia to test launch Topol ballistic missile in April
30/ 03/ 2009
MOSCOW, March 30 (RIA Novosti) - Russia will test launch on April 10 a Topol intercontinental ballistic missile from the Plesetsk space center in northern Russia, the Strategic Missile Forces (SMF) said on Monday.
The RS-12M Topol (SS-25 Sickle) is a single-warhead intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) approximately the same size and shape as the U.S. Minuteman ICBM. The first Topol missiles were put into service in 1985.
"The goal of the upcoming launch is to confirm the reliability of the technical characteristics of the missile during an extended service period," the SMF said in a statement.
The missile has a maximum range of 10,000 km (6,125 miles) and can carry a 550-kiloton nuclear warhead.
Although the service life of the SS-25 was extended to 21 years after a series of successful test launches last year, the missile will be progressively retired over the next decade and be replaced by a mobile version of the Topol-M (SS-27 Stalin) missile.
According to open sources, Russia's SMF has a total of 541 ICBMs, including 306 Topol missiles and 59 Topol-M missiles.
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20090330/120815060.html
the west is a beast but an extremely cowardly one. it slakes its blood lust exclusively on unarmed civilians, preferably children. it's that diseased!
twixt 1945-2000, west attacked 68 nations murdering 30-35M civilians spreading genocide, war, disease, poverty, and pestilence. and we've seen their war against kids in Gaza, Iraq since 2000.
for armed nations, they require proxies.
there are no problems facing the planet other than this fiendish bizarre DNA child murdering animal. west is the disease.
hell, those bastards do medical experiments on African kids TODAY...
but Africa like the Freeworld's rising and the accounts shall be settled. if Iraqi partisans can rip the west beast a few new arse slits, imagine what the Mighty Continent's gonna do with the diamond grubbing saxonic ugliness.
Russia to deliver 2 MiG-29 fighters to Lebanon by November
By: Xinhua - 29.03.2009
BEIRUT, March 29 (Xinhua) — Russia will deliver two MiG-29 jetfighters, out of ten promised, to Lebanon on Lebanese independence day (Nov. 22), local An-Nahar daily reported Sunday.
Russia has promised to deliver 10 MiG-29 jet fighters to Lebanon during a visit by Lebanese Defense Minister Elias Murr to Moscow last December, to show "new military relationship" between he two countries.
However, The Lebanese government was advised in February to "wait" before accepting the fighters that are "possibly unsafe," according to a report by An-Nahar.
A pilot was killed in a MiG-29 crash in southern Siberia of Russia on Dec. 5, and another MiG-29 crashed in October, the report said.
Lebanese military sources said the donated MiG-29s would be checked by Lebanese army before they are shipped to Lebanon.
Lebanese President Michel Suleiman announced earlier that Lebanon welcomes any arms donation on condition that no political concession is given to any country.
The MiG-29 jet fighter was designed in 1970s to challenge the U.S. F-15 fighter.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-03/29/content_11094971.htm
Example of "proliferation" deplored on the vids.
Prof. Hudson's article above on how the world finances America's wars was extremely informative. Hope others read it too and open their eyes before it is too late.
Mandolin
US warships creep into N. Korea backyard
By: Pres TV - 31.03.2009
The USS McCain and the USS Chafee were warships that previously joined Japanese and South Korean vessels in the Sea of Japan.
Japan, South Korea and the US move warships into offensive positions as tensions rise over North Korean plans to test a ballistic missile.
The US, South Korea and Japan warn that North Korea will face UN sanctions under a 2006 Security Council resolution banning the country from any ballistic activity.
"This provocative action, in violation of the United Nations mandate, will not go unnoticed and there will be consequences," said US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during a recent visit to Mexico.
Clinton warned that Washington would itself put the issue before the UN Security Council for punitive measures.
The Japanese parliament has also taken an aggressive stance on the issue and passed a resolution on Tuesday, urging North Korea to abandon its planned launch.
According to Japan, the launch could "damage peace and stability, not only in Japan but also in north-east Asia".
Japan has deployed its own missile boats in its bases in the Sea of Japan while more US-made Patriot missiles arrived in Japan Monday to be transferred to the region.
Meanwhile, Pyongyang says the test-launch — scheduled for sometime between April 4 and 8 — is a "satellite test" allowed by international law.
A US Navy spokesman has nevertheless announced that two US destroyers had left the Sasebo port in the southwest of South Korea after holding military exercises with the South Korean Navy.
The spokesman did not mention the warships destination but there is every indication that they have departed for waters near North Korea to intervene in case a rocket is launched.
Pyongyang sees any intervention as an act of war.
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=90077§ionid=3510203o antidote to west poison anywhere?
U.S. warship visits Black Sea port in Georgia
TBILISI, March 31 (RIA Novosti) - A U.S. missile frigate arrived in Georgia on Tuesday for an official visit that will include exercises with the Georgian navy and a number of cultural events, the Novosti-Georgia news agency said.
The USS Klakring (FFG 42) frigate entered the Black Sea on March 20 and earlier paid a 5-day visit to the port of Sevastopol in Ukraine's Crimea, where it was greeted by protests from local pro-Russia supporters.
During the visit to the port of Batumi, which will last until April 3, the frigate's crew of about 220 will participate in joint training sessions with Georgian coast guard personnel.
Georgia, which is actively seeking NATO membership, signed in January a strategic partnership treaty with the United States, which has long provided economic and military support for Tbilisi, including training its troops.
President Mikheil Saakashvili pledged on Tuesday to build new and stronger armed forces in the light of Georgia's recent military conflict with Russia, expressing the hope that Washington would provide stronger support to Tbilisi in developing its military.
The USS Klakring is an Oliver Perry-class frigate equipped with a 76-mm naval gun, torpedo tubes, a Phalanx point-defense system, as well as two SH-60 Seahawk multi-purpose helicopters.
http://en.rian.ru/world/20090331/120838180.html
US General checks Georgia’s armed forces
General James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is paying visit to Georgia. The main aim of the visit was to check the conditions of Georgian armed forces after the war in South Ossetia. Gen. Cartwright met with President Saakashvili and Defense Minister, Davit Sikharulidze. He traveled to the town of Gori and visited the Gori-based first infantry brigade and the first artillery brigade.
And Russia still doesn't get it. Policy overhaul, that's what it needs, not more of the same.
Since you've chosen to launch a purely military theme this time, we'd like to say that if Asia is doing its bit to undermine US military supremacy and the mighty African continent is preparing to do the same, the natural alliance China-Russia seem to go about their business untroubled by what's happening in their own backyard.
What is missed by the these Zio propaganda movies (we need to spend more on our "defence") is that all these weapons are obsolete.
What counts is on the ground resistance.
You will recall there are two schools of thought: Air supremacy v/s boots on the ground.
Unless they are talking about carpet bombing, AIDS, and Monsanto Crop Control: That is another story.
Carry over from NbN: "In the meantime, anyone who believes the Taliban would blow up a mosque probably imagines the Waterloo Warriors are some kind of new pop group."
Exactly right. Methods in the criminal manual we down-loaded some time ago. They call it a-symmetric warfare. Nobody believes this crap of blowing up Mecca to fight the occupation of Saudi Arabia.
What intelligent remarks, Anon 18:15. True, even while the weapons are being developed and manufactured they are turning obsolete. For boots on the ground, we all know the Anglo-Saxons plus companions are incapable of even fighting a determined resistance. Carpet bombing, Ah, yes, à la Gaza. Probably the only way to go for the enlightened west.
Monsanto GM-corn harvest fails massively in South Africa
The damage-estimates are being undertaken right now by the local farmers' cooperative, Grain-SA. Monsanto claims that 'less than 25%' of three different corn varieties were 'insufficiently fertilised in the laboratory'.
However Mayet says Monsanto was grossly understating the problem.According to her own information, some farms have suffered up to 80% crop failures.
And, if the botched genes that led to the failure of these corn crops spreads to other farms, (as it is already proven does happen) then those crops will fail in succeeding years.
With Monsanto carpet bombing, what need of high-tech weapons, zio or otherwise?
Indict Bush not Bashir, Chavez says at Arab summit(Reuters - 31.03.2009)
The anti-American president of Venezuela said on Tuesday that international prosecutors should indict former U.S. President George W. Bush for crimes in Iraq rather than Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir over Darfur.
"The recent indictment against the Sudanese president Bashir is one of these ridiculous cases. It's a farce," President Hugo Chavez said at a summit of Arab and South American countries in Qatar.
"So why doesn't the international court indict President Bush, who committed atrocities over eight years, for example, and annihilated the Iraqi people?" he added.
Bashir flew this week to Qatar, where an Arab summit gave him strong support against his indictment by the International Criminal Court over atrocities in the Darfur region of western Sudan.
Bush, who left office in January, ordered the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, toppling former strongman Saddam Hussein. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have died in the insurgency and sectarian violence that ensued, and hundreds of thousands have fled their homes.
Chavez made the comments in a speech that attacked Israel over its attack on the Palestinian territory of Gaza in January and tried to ridicule Israel's argument that its military offensives against Palestinians are in self-defence.
He praised Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, among the few Arab leaders who stayed behind after Monday's Arab summit to attend the second meeting of Arab and South American leaders.
Leaders from countries such as Saudi Arabia and Jordan, which are generally aligned with the United States and back the U.S. political and military presence in the region, had already left Doha.
Another gladdening thing from that particular meeting: Ghadafi said either Israel gives up on nuclear weapons and accepts the right to return of Palestinian refugees or it can forget Arab recognition.
New tactics by French workers. For the third time in recent weeks they have taken firm (Caterpillar) executives hostage.
Iraqwar-ru down again this morning. Who's behind it?
So much for Britain being the sick man of Europe. We are sick, of course. Who isn't? But, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, not nearly as sick as some other leading countries.
The IMF predicted back in January that Britain would have the worst-performing economy of any large industrialised country. Output was forecast to shrink by 2.8 per cent. Only Japan, with a predicted fall of 2.6 per cent, came close.
Now the OECD says Britain will contract by 3.7 per cent. Hardly cause for celebration, except when compared with America (down 4 per cent), Italy (down 4.3 per cent), Germany (down 5.3 per cent) and Japan (down a stomach-churning 6.6 per cent).
Rogues together marching down the road to runination.
'Dead' Pakistan Taleban Chief Takes Credit for Lahore Terror Attack (1.4.09)
'It's a miracle! Pakistan Taleban chief Baitullah Mehsud -- who supposedly died from kidney failure six months ago -- takes credit for three recent deadly terror attacks, including Monday's attack on a police academy in Lahore.'
(Names of real perpetrators: India, Israel and US)
Lots of loose talk about the NWO this morning. UN-led NWO, Yankee-led NWO, EU-led NWO, Guantanamo Bay-led NWO. I say why on earth when there's something better staring us in the face. Let's have another 100 years of British Empire.
Sorry but the Pakistani Army is afraid of no one and nothing.
Hey Anonymous 09:47. You're a person after my own heart. Of course the Pak army is a super-trained body and little fear in its heart. What the country has to contend with is mainly the enemy within, i.e. the politicians in power. But these will be straightened out too before year's end.
April Fool joke, right? Isn't Pakistan on its last legs prior to partition?
08:46
Cyber attack maybe?
The pound stirling is worth only 1 euro now at the money changers. Its falling like a stone.
Oh, good. Soon it won't even be worth that. Then it will be the turn of the euro, the Swiss franc and the dollar.
Arabs, Latin Americans unite on economy
Arab-South American summit: financial speculation should be fought to tackle global economic crisis.
DOHA - South American and Arab leaders agreed on Tuesday on that financial speculation needs to be fought to tackle the global economic crisis.
Ahead of Thursday's G20 forum in London, leaders of the 22-member Arab League and 12 South American states staged their second summit in four years in the Qatari capital, Doha, aiming to create political and economic fronts.
The final declaration said that "in addition to international efforts, instruments of financial cooperation should be put in place."
The participants insisted on the "necessity of establishing an international financial system that prevents financial speculation and takes into account adequate regulations" of the markets.
The declaration also called for "an urgent solution to the crisis in Darfur" and highlighted the "importance of defending human rights" there.
South America and the Arab world are geographically far apart, but each contains a major oil producer, with Venezuela and Saudi Arabia among the world's top exporters.
Gulf kingpin Saudi Arabia is the only Arab nation that will join emerging countries at the summit of the Group of 20 most industrialised and developing nations, which will also be attended by Brazil and Argentina.
The summit is aimed at pulling the world economy out of its worst downturn in decades and rewriting the financial rulebooks.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva insisted that the Doha gathering provided leaders with "an extraordinary opportunity" to endorse proposals for reform, namely "the reform of international organisations."
"The world will follow carefully to see if South America and the Arab countries are capable of taking measures to prevent the financial crisis from becoming a social and political earthquake," he said.
South American and Arab leaders seek to bolster their economic ties, buoyed by the fact that trade between them has almost tripled to around 18 billion dollars since their first summit in Brasilia in 2005.
Leaders also hope to make progress towards forming an economic partnership and a political alliance in global institutions, diplomats said.
Among the South American representatives that attended are eight heads of state, including Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
Chavez, who announced a clampdown on government spending last week to offset tumbling oil revenue, called for a "multipolar world," saying "we think that (the Doha summit) is a good opportunity for this to happen."
"The hour has come for the final fall of the American empire," Chavez told reporters.
"Why don't they order the arrest of (former US president George W.) Bush, why don't they order the arrest of the Israeli President (Shimon Peres)," Chavez asked.
"It is important for the new government in Israel to commit itself firmly to the peace process and respect peace agreements previously reached," he said.
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=31285
Now we know all there is to know about the Raptor. Who believed anything coming out of the US was reliable or worth the money?
G20 protests: Thousands flood into City of London
Protesters flood into central London as world leaders prepare to discuss the global economic meltdown.
Keep an eye on this one, fellows. Might be a big one.
China and Argentina in currency swap
By Jude Webber in Santiago - 31.3.09
China, which is pushing to end the dominance of the dollar as a worldwide reserve, has agreed a Rmb70bn ($10.24bn, £7.18bn, €7.76bn) currency swap with Argentina that will allow it to receive renminbi instead of dollars for its exports to the Latin American country.
Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, said the deal was signed on Sunday by Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People’s Bank of China, and Martín Redrado, Argentine central bank president, in Medellín, Colombia, where they are attending a meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank.
Japanese unemployment hits three-year high. 2.99m jobless = 4.4%.
German joblessness rises. 69.000 more jobseekers in March, unemployment rate = 8.1%.
As long as we are still with things military, let's forget air supremacy for a bit and look at ground foces. We maintain the best army in the words are the Pakistan armed forces.
G20 protesters break into Royal Bank of Scotland
Wednesday April 1, 2009
LONDON (AP) -- G-20 protesters clashed with riot police in downtown London on Wednesday, breaking into the heavily guarded Royal Bank of Scotland and smashing its windows. Earlier, they tried to storm the Bank of England and pelted police with eggs and fruit.
At least 4,000 anarchists, anti-capitalists, environmentalists and others jammed into London's financial district for what they called "Financial Fool's Day." The protests were called ahead of Thursday's summit of world leaders, who hope to take concrete steps to resolve the global financial crisis that has lashed nations and workers worldwide.
Some protesters spray-painted the side of the RBS building with the phrases "class war" and "thieves." Others pushed against columns of riot police who swatted them away with batons.
Demonstrators shouted "Abolish Money!" and clogged streets in the area known as "The City" even as Prime Minister Gordon Brown and President Barack Obama held a news conference elsewhere in the British capital.
At least eight people were arrested but there were no serious injuries reported.
15.40 Your news is old. If you were following the twitter ticker you would know by now that the number arrested so far is 29 at the g20 london.
Here is the twitter ticker for G20 (enjoy)
http://twitterfall.com/?trend=G-20&trend=%23G20
and here is audio boos near live from G20:
By citizen embedded Boo journalist:
http://audioboo.fm/profile/matthew_weaver
Courtesy by
and sincerely yours,
informatron
So sorry about the inaccuracy. The question remains though: genuine demonstrators or what some like to call agents provocateurs?
Thanks informatron. Share this boo made one feel one was also at the heart of things, the intense atmosphere, a mingled sense of fear and joy and finlly something achieved maybe. We can only pray they don't run out of rotten eggs and fruit.
16.52: G20 protestors beware of police provocateurs. Here is an example Montebello Quebec. The police admitted they were thier officers. Brave CEP President Dave Coles confronts men with rocks and sticks.
If you doubt the video, here is photo proof from the shoes they wear:
http://article19-videoblog.tumblr.com/post/91942235/g20-protestors-beware-of-police-provocateurs-here
Never mind the dirty provocateurs. This one we must win. Too much is at stake.
these are such fun times:
USA whiplashingly squeezed twixt Iran and israel.
China/Russia and Freeworld going for the coup de grace to put west out of its misery.
and Chavez, of course, putting the blade on west neck with offer to Arab oil monarchies to go for petrocurrency. this is precise reversal of USA money dictate. it seems baseless but if Arab USA lackeys don't listen to Chavez's sage counsel, they're not only gonna lose everything sticking to the gangrene dollar, but they'll likely to gamble their heads in the upcoming sweeping Arab revolution against the west scourge and traitors.
GAME OVER WEST BOYS!
what's west next move? sic Ukraine, the beat up dog with fleas, on Russia? Roil Georgians, the castrates, against Russia again and make them lose everything? Kick Japan to shoot at N Korea and provoke a local war there perhaps? Bully some of the drug Colombian bitches USA still befriends against neighbours? Keep provoking Russia with Poland/Czech bullshit? Keep writing warrants for everyone?
What? See.... the west is out of options and time. What a wonderful story this. Remember that in 2000, not too long ago, USA/UK set out to wipe out half the planet and enslave the rest. Inside a decade, the biggest world serial killer has been bled dry and pushed against the wall. Anyone wanna help me write a book on this amazing feat, perhaps the greatest on this planet?
Good points there, poiuytr. Don't know much about how a book gets written, but sure would love to read your "Amazing Feat" if you get the time to put it all down on paper.
Mandolin
Prez Zigzag Bananas honours Europe with a visit. Previously he'd sacked the Chief Executive of General Motors, one of the most seriously influential men in the US. What else can he do? He can travel about in an armour-plated limousine. His approval ratings, they say, is in the range of 60%. He can also spread wars to every corner of the planet. And tomorrow maybe he'll be put in his place by just about every client state the US ever managed to acquire. When empires fail, everyone holds their breath.
We also second Mandolin's comment on "Amazing Feat". You've got the whole thing clear in your head. Write the damn thing. The world will be so much the richer for it.
Dear poiuytr, If you write anything in one of the western languages, there might be no one around to read it anymore in the west. Even those lucky enough to ecape from west debacle will be so assimilated in their new environment, they'll no longer be able to speak or understand their mother tongue. Therefore, please to use Russian, if possible, Mandarin, Arabic or Urdu at a pinch. Best of luck with the book. It's a splendid idea.
King
Chavez arrives in Tehran
Thu, 02 Apr 2009
The Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has arrived in Tehran for a four-day visit to hold talks with Iranian officials.
Iranian Foreign Minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, welcomed the Venezuelan president in Tehran's Mehrabad Airport on Wednesday night, IRNA reported.
During Chavez' visit to Tehran, Iran and Venezuela will launch a joint bank.
The Venezuelan president will leave Tehran for Tokyo after meeting with Iranian officials
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=90227§ionid=351020101
mandolin, king:
what a book it would be, maybe even a film for youtube. but i fear it's beyond my energy levels. i've got 7 articles i've been promising, one on USA cash crash, Africa, etc... and i barely get NBN done. believe me, i'm cursing myself for failing like this.
like today though. i filled my weekly argument quota in one day. and i must say they take toll on me. then you look at news and you either laugh or cry or watch your blood pressure explode over the crimes, endless, absolutely endless crimes.
but that's the thing today. there's a lot of news, as always, and the plot of west collapse is lost and hazy because of them. many blame global collapse which happens apparently cyclically like ice age. many blame what they're told to blame: financial crises. those that dig deeper are told to blame derivative market. noone, absolutely no one knows what that is because derivatives are secret, not just the amounts but the actually investment. that's cuz it's all war cash. but many walk away happy thinking they understand it mumbling to themselves 'derivatives' or 'bank toxicity' like little kids humming nursery rhymes.
those that still want more get crap like bailout, stimulus, housing bubbles, and other bubbles, and mortgage oversight, mark to market policies, easy loans, subprime implosion, and endless such nonsense.
and the more one reads, the less one gets it and the overall picture of the west deliberate taking down is lost. that bothers me!
and i promised articles on some of it and failed like the NWO. in fact, i've got one on NWO, their goals and their results. it's a pitiful balance, thank goodness.
but anyway, so there's this gigantic tale to be told and retold for generations to come. but not many see it because it's lost in the noise of daily tragedies like israel doing a hit on Erdogan. (now this oughtta be funny. one would think that Erdogan's gonna take this one personally.) and other such news, which aren't irrelevant but they blur the whole main issue of the 2006 petrodollar destruction and the flushing of the whole west down the bog, which has been beyond amazing because, notice, west doesn't even know where to fire off its arsenal of nukes.
and yes, it needs be in Mandarin and Russian, Arabic, African languages... not just because USA/UK wouldn't get it at all but they won't be able to afford the paperback by the time it's done.
RBS = False Flag? Twitter message:
interesting that th #RBS was completely unprotected on threadneedle & bartholomew… every other shop on th street was boarded up
tristamsparks
tristam sparksFooter© 2009 Twitter
Swahili's fine by me too.
King
The G-20's summit of fear
By Walden Bello
The Group of 20 (G-20) is making a big show of getting together to come to grips with the global economic crisis. But here's the problem with the summit in London on April 2: It's all show. What the show masks is a very deep worry and fear among the global elite that it really doesn't know the direction in which the world economy is heading and the measures needed to stabilize it.
The latest statistics are exceeding even the gloomiest projections made earlier. Establishment analysts are beginning to mention the dreaded "D" word and there is a spreading sense that a tidal wave just now gathering momentum will simply overwhelm the trillions of dollars allocated for stimulus spending. In this environment, the G-20 conveys the impression that it is more commanded by than in command of developments (In addition to the seven wealthy industrial nations (the US, Japan, Germany, the UK, France, Italy and Canada) that belong to the Group of Seven, the G-20 includes China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Australia, South Korea, Turkey, Italy, and South Africa.).
Indeed, perhaps no image is more evocative of the current state of the global economy than that of a World War II German U-boat depth-charged in the North Atlantic by British destroyers. It's going down fast, and the crew doesn't know when it will hit rock bottom. And when it does hit the ocean floor, the big question is: Will the crew be able to make the submarine rise again by pumping compressed air into the severely damaged ballast tanks, like the sailors in Wolfgang Petersen's classic film Das Boot? Or will the U-boat simply stay at the bottom, its crew doomed to contemplate a fate worse than sudden death?
The current capitalist crew manning the global economy doesn't know whether Keynesian methods can re-inflate the global economy. Meanwhile, an increasing number of people are asking whether using a clutch of Social Democratic-like reforms is enough to repair the global economy, or whether the crisis will lead to a new international economic order.
A new Bretton Woods?
The G-20 meeting has been trumpeted as a new Bretton Woods. In July 1944, in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, representatives of the state-managed capitalist economies designed the postwar multilateral order with themselves at the center. In fact, the two meetings couldn't be further apart.
The London meeting will last one day; the Bretton Woods conference was a tough 21-day working session. The London meeting is exclusive, with 20 governments arrogating to themselves the power to decide for 172 other countries. The Bretton Woods meeting tried hard to be inclusive to avoid precisely the illegitimacy that dogs the G-20's London tryst. Even in the midst of global war, it brought together 44 countries, including the still-dependent Commonwealth of the Philippines and the tiny, now-vanished Siberian state of Tannu Tuva.
The Bretton Woods Conference created new multilateral institutions and rules to manage the postwar world. The G-20 is recycling failed institutions: the G-20 itself, the Financial Stability Forum (FSF), the Bank of International Settlements and "Basel II", and the now 65-year-old International Monetary Fund (IMF). Some of these institutions were established by the elite G-7 after the 1997 Asian financial crisis to come up with a new financial architecture that would prevent a repetition of the debacle brought about by IMF policies of capital account liberalization. But instead of coming up with safeguards, all these institutions bought the global financial elite's strategy of "self-regulation".
Among the mantras they thus legitimized were that capital controls were bad for developing economies; short-selling, or speculating on the movement of borrowed stocks, was a legitimate market operation; and derivatives - or securities that allow betting on the movements of an underlying asset - "perfected" the market. The implicit recommendation of their inaction was that the best way to regulate the market was to leave it to market players, who had developed sophisticated but allegedly reliable models of "risk assessment".
In short, institutions that were part of the problem are now being asked to become the central part of the solution. Unwittingly, the G-20 are following Marx's maxim that history first repeats itself as tragedy, then as farce.
Resurrecting the IMF
The most problematic component of the G-20 solution is its proposals for the IMF. The US and the European Union are seeking a doubling of the capital of the IMF from US$250 billion to $500 billion. The plan is for the IMF to lend these funds to developing countries to use to stimulate their economies, with US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner proposing that the fund supervise this global exercise. If ever there was a non-starter, this is it.
First of all, the representation question continues to exercise much of the global south. So far, only marginal changes have been made in the allocation of voting rights at the IMF. Despite the clamor for greater voting power for members from the south, the rich countries are still overrepresented on the fund's decision-making executive board. Developing countries, especially those in Asia and Africa, are vastly underrepresented. Europe holds a third of the chairs in the executive board and claims the feudal right to have a European always occupy the role of managing director. The US, for its part, has nearly 17% of voting power, giving it veto power.
Second, the IMF's performance during the Asian financial crisis of 1997, more than anything, torpedoed its credibility. The IMF helped bring about the crisis by pushing the Asian countries to eliminate capital controls and liberalize their financial sectors, promoting both the massive entry of speculative capital as well as its destabilizing exit at the slightest sign of crisis.
The fund then pushed governments to cut expenditures, on the theory that inflation was the problem, when it should have been pushing for greater government spending to counteract the collapse of the private sector. This pro-cyclical measure ended up accelerating the regional collapse into recession. Finally, the billions of dollars of IMF rescue funds went not to rescuing the collapsing economies but to compensating foreign financial institutions for their losses - a development that has become a textbook example of "moral hazard" or the encouragement of irresponsible lending behavior.
Thailand paid off the IMF in 2003 and declared its "financial independence". Brazil, Venezuela, and Argentina followed suit, and Indonesia also declared its intention to repay its debts as quickly as possible. Other countries likewise decided to stay away, preferring to build up their foreign exchange reserves to defend themselves against external developments rather than contract new IMF loans. This led to the IMF's budget crisis, for most of its income was from debt payments made by the bigger developing countries.
Partisans of the fund say the IMF now sees the merit of massive deficit spending and that, like Richard Nixon, it can say, "we are all Keynesians now". Many critics do not agree. Eurodad, a non-governmental organization that monitors IMF loans, says the fund still attaches onerous conditions to loans to developing countries. Very recent IMF loans also still encourage financial and banking liberalization. And despite the current focus on fiscal stimulus - with some countries, like the US, pushing for governments to raise their stimulus spending to at least 2% of GDP - the IMF still requires low-income borrowers to keep their deficit spending to no more than 1% of GDP.
Finally, there is the question of whether the fund knows what it's doing. One of the key factors discrediting the IMF has been its almost total inability to anticipate the present financial crisis. In concluding the 2007 Article IV consultation with the US, the IMF board stated that "the financial system has shown impressive resilience, including to recent difficulties in the subprime mortgage market." In short, the fund hasn't only failed miserably in its policy prescriptions, and despite its supposedly top-flight stable of economists, it has drastically fallen short in its surveillance responsibilities.
However large the resources the G-20 provide the IMF, there will be little international buy-in to a global stimulus program managed by the Fund.
The way forward
The north's response to the current crisis, which is to revive fossilized institutions, is reminiscent of Keynes's famous saying: "The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones." So, in Keynes's spirit, let's try to identify ways of abandoning old ways of thinking.
First, since legitimacy is a very scarce commodity at this point, the UN secretary general and the UN General Assembly - rather than the G-20 - should convoke a special session to design the new global multilateral order. A Commission of Experts on Reforms to the International Monetary and Financial System, set up by the president of the General Assembly and headed by Nobel Prize laureate Joseph Stiglitz, has already done the preparatory policy work for such a meeting. The meeting, like the Bretton Woods Conference, would be an inclusive process, and like Bretton Woods it should be a working session lasting several weeks. One of the key outcomes might be the setting up of a representative forum such as the "Global Coordination Council" suggested by the Stiglitz Commission that would broadly coordinate global economic and financial reform.
Second, to immediately assist countries to deal with the crisis, the debts of developing countries to northern institutions should be cancelled. Most of these debts, as the Jubilee movement reminds us, were contracted under onerous conditions and have already been paid many times over. Debt cancellation or a debt moratorium will allow developing countries access to greater resources and will have a greater stimulus effect than money channeled through the IMF.
Third, regional structures to deal with financial issues, including development finance, should be the centerpiece of the new architecture of new global governance, not another financial system where the countries of the north dominate centralized institutions like the IMF and monopolize resources and power. In East Asia, the "ASEAN Plus Three" grouping, or "Chiang Mai Initiative", is a promising development that needs to be expanded, although it also needs to be made more accountable to the peoples of the region.
In Latin America, several promising regional initiatives are already in progress, such as the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas and the Bank of the South. Any new global order must have socially accountable regional institutions as its pillars.
These are, of course, immediate steps to be made in the context of a longer-term, more fundamental and strategic reconfiguration of a global capitalist system now on the verge of collapsing.
The current crisis is a grand opportunity to craft a new system that ends not just the failed system of neoliberal global governance but the Euro-American domination of the capitalist global economy, and put in its place a more decentralized, deglobalized, democratic post-capitalist order. Unless this more fundamental restructuring takes place, the global economy might not be worth bringing back to the surface.
Walden Bello is president of the Freedom from Debt Coalition, senior analyst at the Bangkok-based Focus on the Global South, and professor of sociology at the University of the Philippines.
Why don't the penurious USans borrow money from IMF? And when will the debt rating agencies be a thing of the past?
The secrets of Obama's surge
By Pepe Escobar - 2.4.09
Is United States President Barack Obama telling it like it is as far as his new strategy for the Afghanistan and Pakistan war theater - AfPak, in Pentagonspeak - is concerned? There are reasons to believe otherwise.
Obama's relentless media blitzkrieg stressed the new strategy is refocusing on al-Qaeda. Washington, we got a problem. Why deploy 17,000 troops against "the Taliban" in the poppy-growing province of Helmand, not in the east near the Pakistani tribal areas, where "al-Qaeda" is holed up, plus 4,000 advisers to train the Afghan Army, when Washington actually wants to fight no more than 200 or 300 al-Qaeda jihadis roaming in Afghanistan, plus another 400 maximum in the Pakistani tribal areas? And by the way they are not Afghans - they are overwhelmingly Arabs, with a few Uzbeks, Chechens and Uyghurs thrown in.
President Hamid Karzai, the puppet in Kabul which has left Washington beyond exasperated, loved Obama's plan to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat" al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Especially because it involves the improbable "hunt for the good Taliban" (always bribable by loads of US dollars) mixed with Special Ops inside Pakistan, and not Afghanistan.
Former Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto's widower, President Asif Ali Zardari, the puppet in Islamabad, loved it too. But as the Pakistani daily Dawn revealed, his Foreign Office diplomats definitely did not.
The Afghanistan-Pakistan war has got to be 2009's prime theater of the absurd. It took the New York Times and the usual "American officials" something like 13 years to "discover" that the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) - a Central Intelligence Agency twin - helps the Taliban. And this while the CIA, alongside their ISI pals, is compiling a mega hit list in the Pashtun tribal areas inside Pakistan. Maybe this is what US Central Command supremo General David "I'm always positioning myself for 2012" Petraeus means by a "trilateral" love affair, as he told CNN's State of the Union.
The Pentagon's preferred pal is doubtless Pakistani Army Chief General Ashfaq Kayani, who happens to approve of what's not in Obama's presentation of the surge: the relentless drone war - with inevitable "collateral damage" - over what is for a fact Pashtunistan. As for the Pakistani masses, which have no say in all of this, they see the whole thing as a charade, and al-Qaeda as a threat to the US - not to Pakistan.
Obama is selling the surge basically as nation building, based on trust. A hard sell if there ever was one - as Washington cannot trust the ISI or the Pakistani government, while the Pakistani masses don't trust Washington.
Insistent rumors in Washington point to a troika - Holbrooke-Petraeus-Clinton - finally being able to convince Obama that the surge should be just the first step towards long-range nation building. Anyone with minimal familiarity with Afghanistan knows this is an impossible strategic target.
The Salvador option
And then Richard Holbrooke, Obama's special envoy to AfPak, finally let it slip on CNN: the "people we are fighting in Afghanistan" are essentially ... Pashtuns. This was followed by a stark admission: "In the informational side ... we don't have a strong enough counter-informational program to combat the Taliban and al-Qaeda."
So this amounts to the State Department admitting that the Pentagon/Petraeus "humint" (human intelligence) component of counter-insurgency in AfPak, hailed as a gift from the Messiah all across US corporate media, is essentially useless. This also means there's no way of winning local hearts and minds.
In the absence of "humint", what prevails is inevitably The Salvador option, performed by a Dick Cheney-supervised-style "executive assassination wing", as investigative icon Seymour Hersh first revealed in a talk at the University of Minnesota on March 10, "going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or to the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving". The "assassination wing" is in fact the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) - a shadowy, ultra-elite unit including Navy Seals and Delta Force commandos immune to Congressional investigations.
So if you have such a unit killing "al-Qaeda" jihadis at random from Iraq to Kenya, from Somalia to countries in South and Central America (these are not necessarily "al-Qaeda"; let’s say they are inimical to "US interests"), why not let them loose in Afghanistan and the Pakistani tribal areas? Instead of a $5 million bounty on his head, why not send a crack JSOC commando to South Waziristan and take out Pakistani Taliban superstar Baitullah Mehsud, who has just boasted his outfit will "soon launch an attack on Washington that will amaze everyone in the world?"
Well, maybe because US "humint" on South Waziristan is negligible - and even JSOC cannot infiltrate. JSOC by now should have been more than fully equipped to find Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. Anyway, Vice-President Joseph Biden, to whom the unit would have to answer to, could at least come clean and state the "Salvador option" is not on the cards anymore. Or maybe it still is. The Obama administration is mum about it.
A priceless, self-described "hip pocket" manual prepared by the US Army Training and Doctrine Command - TRADOC, one more wonderful, Pentagon acronym to memorize - and available only to "US government personnel, government contractors and additional cleared personnel for national security purposes and homeland defense" spells out what's (visibly) going on. On page 5, one learns this is a US war against, yes, Pashtuns, as Holbrooke said on CNN. The overwhelming majority of the "insurgent syndicate", they are funded by drug smuggling and US allies in the Gulf such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the Emirates, and are trained and assisted by, yes, the ISI, with some - in fact marginal - al-Qaeda assistance.
Al-Qaeda is a detail here. TRADOC does not seem to understand that al-Qaeda has a pan-Islamic agenda while the various groups bundled as "Taliban" are essentially in a war against foreign occupation and interference, with no dreams of establishing a Caliphate.
On page 7, TRADOC estimates the Taliban in Afghanistan to be around 30,000, half of them Pakistani, and supported by the ISI. That's correct. But they overestimate al-Qaeda to be 2,000; these "Arab-Afghans" plus some recently arrived "white moors" (European Arabs) are probably no more than 700.
On page 10, TRADOC finally admits that Karzai in Kabul is supported by a myriad of "warlord militias" profiting from crime, narco-trafficking and smuggling. The key element here is not "terrorism" - but regional wars for control over ultra-profitable poppy/heroin manufacturing and smuggling routes.
Then there's this stark admission, by former Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Salam, currently governor of a town in poppy-infested Helmand province. He told Reuters that the Taliban are not the real enemy. If Kabul was not so corrupt, and capable of providing security to the rest of the country, most Pashtuns would not even be Taliban. No wonder the Obama administration has stacks of reasons to get rid of Karzai.
An opening in The Hague
Asia knows this whole thing is upside down. The crucial Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), grouping China, Russia and the Central Asian "stans", all concerned neighbors of Afghanistan, met in Moscow last Friday to discuss it, ahead of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) meeting in The Hague this Tuesday privileged by the US.
This is how Asia sees it - and that's an absolutely taboo issue for Obama to touch upon every time he faces American public opinion: Asians simply don't want US military bases in Central Asia. No wonder Iran, which is currently an observer, and soon to become a full member, officially said the SCO is the right forum to solve the Afghan tragedy, not NATO. A minimum of 40% of Afghans are either Shi'ites or they speak Dari, a Persian language.
Well, at least Holbrooke admits "the door is open" for Iran to have a say on Afghanistan, but always with conditions attached ("plus our NATO allies"). If Holbrooke is clever, he should immediately buy dinner for legendary mujahid Ishmail Khan, the Lion of Herat, in Western Afghanistan. Khan, a complex mix of feudal warlord and economic developer, told al-Jazeera English "friendship between Iran and America" is essential to solve the Afghan riddle.
What Washington has to admit is that Iran has been deeply involved for years in visible, post-Taliban reconstruction in Afghanistan - from roads and railroads to restoration of mosques, financing of libraries and madrassas and the provision of electricity. The Iranian Consulate in Herat, for instance, houses no less than 40 diplomats. Khan - the key Iranian liaison in Herat - was so successful in spite of Kabul that Karzai, under US pressure, stripped him off his enormous powers as local governor and gave him an innocuous ministry in Kabul.
At the UN-sponsored, US-backed international conference on Afghanistan this Tuesday in The Hague, Mohammad Mehdi Akhundzadeh - one of Iran's deputy foreign ministers - officially broke the ice, offering to help the rebuilding and stabilization of Afghanistan, something that Iran is already doing anyway.
Akhunzadeh was specifically referring to projects fighting drug trafficking - which badly affects Iranian society. But he was also very clear on how Iran views NATO: "The presence of foreign forces has not improved things in the country and it seems that an increase in the number of foreign forces will prove ineffective, too."
But, significantly, he tipped his hat to Obama's decision to send those 4,000 trainers for the Afghan Army, when he stressed "Afghanization should lead the government-building process". As for US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, she described corruption in the Kabul government, ie Karzai and his gang, as a "cancer" as threatening to Afghanistan as the Taliban. One more sign from Washington that Karzai’s days may be numbered.
Follow the money
Did Obama's "strategic reviewers" read this Carnegie Endowment report (http://carnegieendowment.org/files/afghan_war-strategy.pdf)? Apparently not. It states flatly "the mere presence of foreign soldiers fighting a war in Afghanistan is probably the single most important factor in the resurgence of the Taliban".
So the question Americans must ask themselves is this: Would you buy a used car - sorry - war from people like Mullen, Petraeus, McKiernan? Well, former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, who's seen them all since John F Kennedy, wouldn't. For him, "they resemble all too closely the gutless general officers who never looked down at what was really happening in Vietnam. The Joint Chiefs of Staff of the time have been called, not without reason, 'a sewer of deceit'."
So what if the AfPak quagmire had nothing to do with "terrorists" but with these facts:
1. A Cold War mentality in action still prevailing at the Pentagon. That explains a Vietnam-style surge - expanding the war to Cambodia then, expanding it to Pakistan now. As University of Michigan's Juan Cole has pointed out, the rationale is the same old fallacious domino theory (communism will take over Southeast Asia, terrorism will take over Central/South Asia). The Taliban are simply not able to take over and control the whole of Afghanistan (they didn't from 1996 to 2001). Al-Qaeda simply can't have bases in Afghanistan: they would be bombed to smithereens by the 80,000-strong Afghan Army plus Bagram-based US air strikes.
2. The US Empire of Bases still in overdrive, and in New Great Game mode - which implies very close surveillance over Russia and China via bases such as Bagram, and the drive to block Russia from establishing a commercial route to the Middle East via Pakistan.
3. The fear of a spectacular NATO failure. NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, absolutely despised by progressives in Brussels and assorted European capitals, is pressuring everyone for more troops to avoid what he calls the "Americanization" of the war. No one is impressed - especially because Scheffer himself was forced to admit troops will have to stay on the ground "for the foreseeable future".
4. Last but not least, the energy wars. And that involves that occult, almost supernatural entity, the $7.6 billion Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline, which would carry gas from eastern Turkmenistan through Afghanistan east of Herat and down Taliban-controlled Nimruz and Helmand provinces, down Balochistan in Pakistan and then to the Pakistani port of Gwadar in the Arabian Sea. No investor in his right mind will invest in a pipeline in a war zone, thus Afghanistan must be "stabilized" at all costs.
So is AfPak the Pentagon's AIG - we gotta bail them out, can't let them fail? Is it a Predator drone war disguised as nation building? Will it become Obama’s Vietnam? Whatever it is, it's not about "terrorists". Not really. Follow the money. Follow the energy. Follow the map.
Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).
G 20 - Seven hours to save the world? More than enough for this farce. Think what 21-day Bretton Woods brought to the world in terms of suffering and poverty.
Medvedev sucking up to B. Obama, for all the world like a second Pak president Zardari. Russians wake up. Reality check on the horizon.
Argentine media hails Argentina-China currency swap deal
www.chinaview.cn 2009-03-31
Special Report: Global Financial Crisis
BUENOS AIRES, March 30 (Xinhua) - Local media on Monday hailed the recently signed China-Argentina currency swap agreement, insisting that Argentina is able to pay for imported products from China in RMB.
Local media expressed different points of view on the agreements, a report from the daily "Clarin" headlined "China to loan 10 billion USD to BCRA (the Central Bank of Argentina) to calm the dollar," while the daily "La Nacion" said "Historical agreement with China to eliminate the USD on commercial exchange."
La Nacion said that the agreement signed in Medellin, Colombia's second largest city, enabled "Argentina to pay its imported products from China in RMB."
However, both newspapers mentioned that the Chinese Central Bank has signed similar agreements with emerging economies in Asialike Malaysia, the Republic of Korea, Hong Kong SAR of China, Belarus and Indonesia.
The currency swap agreement is valued at 70 billion Chinese yuan (around 10.2 billion U.S. dollars).
The agreement will help to stabilize the local exchange market, and give the Central Bank of Argentina more space to carry out the "managed floating" policy, the aim of which is to regulate the price of U.S. dollars.
Freeworld, this is the way to go.
You can judge the efficacy of this G-20 Sniff'n'Greet if and only if it does not devolve into a global outcry of...
'Every Bristle-back for himself!'
In such a case, look for for wide-eyed amazement, whoops and cries, tumult, and ear-splitting shrieks as the ENTIRE troop scatters...
Staying' tuned for the next PANAROMA! LOL
LOL indeed. Sniff'n'Greet is a find of a lifetime. Congrats. The day is young yet. We'll know something by the time the shadows lengthen. You expecting sense or, first cousin, non? Cheers.
US jobless claims rise unexpectedly (hah!). 8.5% now pounding the streets.
Photo op was not bad. Sounds escaping the stronghold of capitalism: Regulations (hah!), Shame and Name fight against protectionism, Sanctions against tax havens and more in the same vein. And people get taken in by all this b.s. I'm looking a a bedsitter on Mars.
Do you think, boys and girls, that hand-shaker Medvedev bought back Alaska from Bananas at their first meeting ever? And Palin can carry on as governor giving the place a bit of class.
Re: Amazing Feat
Now that its tools down time at the ID Forum, I'm willing to give you a hand with above. You provide material and outline, we, the manpower, then you do the editing. Give or take a year and the book will be ready for public perusal. Consider it a task done by the entire ID blogging team.
So what exactly happened in 2000? "Remember that in 2000, not too long ago, USA/UK set out to wipe out half the planet and enslave the rest." George W was pushed down the throats of the US. What else? The book would be simply chronological.
2000 - George W. and all the rest of it.
2001 - 911, Afghanistan and all the rest of it
etc. etc.
If you're really interested, let us know.
Attila
G20 - Rioting police in London?
Suppose you all know that missile defence shield is obsolete as well. Which will not prevent Obama and Medvedev from getting together in Moscow to discuss further cuts in nuclear arsenal (LOL).
Population cull going on apace. So many living souls unsustainable for God's green earth, say the UKan-Usans plus friends. For Britain, the right population numbers have already been calculated: no more than 30 million.
And many other disgusting things happening all around us if only we would open our eyes.
China's currency swap deals extended to Argetina, Belarus, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia and SKorea.
Decoupling: Growth in Lebanon 4%. No toxic assets, just commerial banking. No leverage. Banks flourishing.
Report: Chinese Develop Special "Kill Weapon" to Destroy U.S. Aircraft Carriers
Advanced missile poses substantial new threat for U.S. Navy
U. S. Naval Institute
March 31, 2009
With tensions already rising due to the Chinese navy becoming more aggressive in asserting its territorial claims in the South China Sea, the U.S. Navy seems to have yet another reason to be deeply concerned.
After years of conjecture, details have begun to emerge of a "kill weapon" developed by the Chinese to target and destroy U.S. aircraft carriers.
First posted on a Chinese blog viewed as credible by military analysts and then translated by the naval affairs blog Information Dissemination, a recent report provides a description of an anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) that can strike carriers and other U.S. vessels at a range of 2000km.
The range of the modified Dong Feng 21 missile is significant in that it covers the areas that are likely hot zones for future confrontations between U.S. and Chinese surface forces.
The size of the missile enables it to carry a warhead big enough to inflict significant damage on a large vessel, providing the Chinese the capability of destroying a U.S. supercarrier in one strike.
Because the missile employs a complex guidance system, low radar signature and a maneuverability that makes its flight path unpredictable, the odds that it can evade tracking systems to reach its target are increased. It is estimated that the missile can travel at mach 10 and reach its maximum range of 2000km in less than 12 minutes.
Supporting the missile is a network of satellites, radar and unmanned aerial vehicles that can locate U.S. ships and then guide the weapon, enabling it to hit moving targets.
The ASBM is said to be a modified DF-21
While the ASBM has been a topic of discussion within national defense circles for quite some time, the fact that information is now coming from Chinese sources indicates that the weapon system is operational. The Chinese rarely mention weapons projects unless they are well beyond the test stages.
If operational as is believed, the system marks the first time a ballistic missile has been successfully developed to attack vessels at sea. Ships currently have no defense against a ballistic missile attack.
Along with the Chinese naval build-up, U.S. Navy officials appear to view the development of the anti-ship ballistic missile as a tangible threat.
After spending the last decade placing an emphasis on building a fleet that could operate in shallow waters near coastlines, the U.S. Navy seems to have quickly changed its strategy over the past several months to focus on improving the capabilities of its deep sea fleet and developing anti-ballistic defenses.
As analyst Raymond Pritchett notes in a post on the U.S. Naval Institute blog:
"The Navy's reaction is telling, because it essentially equals a radical change in direction based on information that has created a panic inside the bubble. For a major military service to panic due to a new weapon system, clearly a mission kill weapon system, either suggests the threat is legitimate or the leadership of the Navy is legitimately unqualified. There really aren't many gray spaces in evaluating the reaction by the Navy…the data tends to support the legitimacy of the threat."
In recent years, China has been expanding its navy to presumably better exert itself in disputed maritime regions. A recent show of strength in early March led to a confrontation with an unarmed U.S. ship in international waters.
At least the stockmarket found the G20 talk of new world order and handing over 1 trillion plus to the IMF to their liking and made healthy gains as one usually calls it. Te rest of us watching and waiting found only words in s to express our feelings like show, sham, shit.
Fast-Forward to the Present: The G-20's Secret Debt Solution
While world leaders might talk about a “New World Order” in global economics, they give few details of how this might be accomplished.
However, picking through the clues they've dropped and connecting the dots to fill in the missing parts, I've formed what I believe is the most plausible scenario of how the G-20 plan will shape up.
I unveiled this theory in my November 13 column of Money & Markets at the time of the first G-20 summit. It startled and shocked many readers as it spread across the Internet, quoted by numerous websites.
I know I've already spelled out the mass devaluation proposition in-depth with you. But let me review the highlights here again. I believe that the G-20 will agree to …
Actively intervene in the forex markets to depress the dollar's value, thereby re-igniting asset inflation and alleviating debt burdens.
Ultimately create three new monetary units (new dollar, new euro, new pan-Asian currency), to eventually replace the dollar as the world's sole reserve currency.
Establish a new fixed-rate currency regime, abolishing the present floating rate foreign exchange structure.
Re-calibrate currency values to a common basis of value, most likely involving gold.
And implement the currency overhaul via the IMF.
As far-fetched as this scenario sounds, it's no wild speculation on my part. I arrived at these conclusions by methodical, inductive reasoning, examining the facts, and following their trail to the logical conclusion.
Think it can't happen?
The historical record I've described shows that such a scenario is not only possible, but entirely credible and predictable given the behavior of governments in similar circumstances in the past.
The longer term forecast that the world will end up with three reserve currencies is based on references by various influential parties to a “tripartite” or “tri-polar” system. That would diversify reserve currency duties among the three major currencies instead of relying on just one, the dollar.
I suspect the names of the new currencies will be changed to divorce them from any stigmas attached to the current ones and to make the devaluation easier to sell. People would certainly not be happy with a new “dollar” that's worth only one-tenth of their old dollar (ditto for the euro and yen).
And by resurrecting the Bretton Woods fixed-exchange structure, officials eliminate currency speculation, which often throws trade balances into chaos suddenly and unexpectedly. With no up-down spreads, speculators would have no interest in currencies, theoretically ensuring stable exchange rates indefinitely.
Please don't misunderstand: I do not foresee a return to the gold standard. There's simply not enough gold available, at any price, for the world to go back to a gold standard.
Plus, it's too restrictive, and central bankers and politicians abhor being handcuffed by an outside force. So the world is not headed in that direction.
For savvy investors who understand the process of currency devaluations, there's no need to bet on the return of a gold standard.
Instead, all you need to know is that the process of a deliberate devaluation of the dollar has already largely begun … that the world's monetary system can and will be changed … and that through the process of changing the value of money, debts can be effectively and largely forgiven … and asset prices, albeit artificially, re-inflated.
How high would the price of gold ultimately go? How would currency devaluation and the concomitant inflating away of debts impact other asset prices, such as real estate and stocks?
My Answers …
The ultimate high for gold depends on how much of the U.S. debt the policymakers decide to “forgive” through reflation.
No one knows for sure what will be decided upon. But a little simple math based on just the debt position of the U.S. gives you an idea …
To monetize only 10 percent of the U.S.'s mountain of bad debts, gold would be priced a shade over $5,300 an ounce.
Money and Markets
The G20 strategy is to put a fresh coat of paint on a world which is collapsing. Only a strong popular mobilization will make it possible to lay solid foundations to build another world in which finance is at the service of people, and not the other way round. The 28 and 30 March demos were big ones: 40,000 people in London , thousands and thousands in Vienna , Berlin , Stuttgart , Madrid , Brasilia , Rome , etc. with the common motto “Let the rich pay the crisis!” The week of global action called for by the social movements from all over the world at the WSF at Belém last January thus had a gigantic echo. Those who had announced the end of the movement for another globalization were wrong. It has proved that it is able to bring large crowds together, and this is only the beginning. The success of the mobilizations in France on 29 January and 19 March (three million demonstrators were in the streets) is evidence that the workers, the unemployed and young people all want other solutions to the crisis than those which consist in bailing out bankers and imposing restrictions on the lower classes.
As a counterpoint to the G20 summit, the president of the UN General Assembly, Miguel d ‘ Escoto, has called a general meeting of Heads of States and Governments in June and asked the economist Joseph Stiglitz to chair a commission that will draft proposals to meet the global crisis. The suggested solutions are inadequate because too timid, but they will at least be discussed at the the UN general Assembly.
A new debt crisis is looming in the South, it is a consequence of the real estate private debt bubble bursting in the North. The recession that now affects the real economy of all countries in the North has led to prices of raw material plummeting, which considerably has reduced the strong currency revenues with which governments of countries of the South repay their external public debts. Moreover the current credit crunch has induced a rise in borrowing rates for countries of the South. The combination of these two factors has already resulted in suspensions in debt repayment by those governments that are most exposed to the crisis (starting with Ecuador ). Others will follow suit within one or two years.
The situation is absurd: countries of the South are net creditors to the North, starting with the US whose external debt is over US$ 6,000 billion (twice the total external debt of all the countries of the South). Central banks in countries of the South buy US Treasury bonds instead of setting up a democratic bank of the South to finance human development projects. They should leave the World Bank and the IMF, which are tools of domination, and develop South-South relations of solidarity such as those which exist between countries that are members of ALBA ( Venezuela , Cuba , Bolivia , Nicaragua , Honduras , and Dominica ). They ought to audit the debts they are asked to repay and put an end to the payment of illegitimate debts.
The G20 will see to it that the core of neoliberal logic is left untouched. Its principles are asserted again and again, even though they have blatantly failed: the G20 maintains its attachment to a global economy based on an open market. Its support to the god of free market is non-negotiable. Everything else is hocus-pocus.
Post G-20 Euphoria Rally: When A Person Has Suffered Massive Losses, Anything That Lifts Emotional Depression Is Considered Good News. But Should You Rely on Emotions To Invest? - By Matthias Chang (3/4/09)
By Matthias Chang
Friday, 03 April 2009 09:59
I have written so many articles and posted so many charts, graphs and statistics that show beyond all doubt that the global economy is skating on thin ice. And very soon, the weight of the US created financial mess will break the ice.
The turning point is the first quarter of 2009 and the fundamentals are that we are heading towards a global depression.
It is still early days yet, since we are only two days into the 2nd quarter.
It is no coincidence that the G-20 Summit was fixed for the 2nd April 2009. The spin doctors have decided and desperately hope that the financial circus in London would be sufficient to lift the “con – fidence” of the investors to spark a sustained rally. Notwithstanding that Keynes is dead and should remain buried for good, there are still adherents who believe that “animal spirits” will do the trick of reflating a depressed economy when all else have failed!
Good luck to those who rely on animal spirits to determine their wealth creation. They might as well look into a crystal ball.
I have today, posted two items to the website:
(1) Obama’s $3.5 trillion budget which has been approved on party lines in the Congress; and
(2) the joint press conference of President Obama and Prime Minister Brown.
All I can say in response to the above is that spin will not lift the economy!
Prior to the G-20 Summit President Sarkosy of France and Chancellor Merkel of Germany did a song and dance routine that they would not agree to any major quantity easing (printing money) as a solution to the financial woes, with the former even threatening to walk out of the Summit! This is all theatrics, so that when any stupendous figure for QE is announced, the spin will be that it must be reasonable as otherwise, Sarkosy would have walked out!
It has been announced that the major economies will print an extra $1 trillion to reflate the global economy. This is a mind-boggling figure! But the Joe-Sixpacks and Main Street will not even question this ridiculous figure, and will be led willingly by their noses to follow and listen to the pied-piper's fairytale.
This will not have any impact on the real economy, notwithstanding the pious pronouncements of helping the poor third world countries. This is the final episode in the global Central Banks’ efforts to bailout the insolvent global banks such as JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citigroup, HSBC, UBS, Barclays, Deutche Bank and others.
Please watch the video which I had posted to the website which exposed the scam and fraud of the Geithner Plan. Read also all the articles that I had posted in the last three days.
During the Great Depression, there were several Bear Rallies, each time sucking the stupid and gullible retail investors to part with their money so that the big boys can off-load their holdings and reduce their losses. I have no pity for such suckers. They deserve to be wiped out.
1997 Revisited
Those who went head-on in 1997 at the height of the Bull market are still holding scrips that have not even recovered 50% of their previous high! Some are still trading below the par value.
So, suckers throughout the world who bought Citigroup at $200 and now holding toilet paper scrips at less than $3, your wealth has been wiped out for good and there is no way that you can recover that loss.
In conclusion, just ask yourself this pertinent question:
Have you any confidence that the Dow can go back up to 14,000, or even 11,000 in a year’s time?
And how sure are you that even if the Dow were to recover somewhat, the price of your stocks will rise in tandem, so as to enable you to recover your loss?
Stop dreaming and come down to reality for once!
Futurefastfoward
Russian analyst says Putin to become monarch of post-Soviet space
17:31 | 01/ 04/ 2009
MOSCOW, April 1 (RIA Novosti) - An outspoken Russian political analyst, known for his apocalyptic predictions on the U.S., has said global events suggest that a new alliance could form in Eurasia, with Vladimir Putin at its helm.
Professor Igor Panarin, who grabbed headlines last November with his prediction that the United States would disintegrate, told the Izvestia newspaper that numerous factors, including last year's war with Georgia and the weakness of the global financial system, suggest that a new union will emerge around Russia.
The new bloc, a result of step-by-step economic integration, would "not be formed on the model of the Soviet Union, but on the model of the European Union... In describing the leader of such a union, I would use the word that Machiavelli liked to use - a prince," Panarin told the paper.
"The prince of the post-Soviet space would be Vladimir Putin. His main asset is that, firstly, he has authority among the national elites of the post-Soviet republics, and secondly, has produced effective results in the eight years he has led Russia. Our country is centralized and stable, and last August passed a test of its strength."
He called the August conflict between Russia and Georgia a turning point in Eurasian integration, as "Russia was then seen by the eyes of the world." The Americans and the Chinese decided not to interfere in the conflict, with the result that they lost all influence in the Caucasus region, he said.
The conflict also had wider-reaching repercussions, he added. "We can see now that countries have essentially stopped hurling allegations at us, continual attacks. A few days ago the EU admitted that Georgia was wrong in its actions."
Russia did not only succeed in ending the genocide in South Ossetia, but also "signed deals on placing military bases," setting the right political and military conditions for "processes of integration in the post-Soviet space."
Under the world system envisaged by Panarin, there will be three centers of power - China, the European Union, and the Russia-led "EU-2."
The first to join Russia's union will be Belarus and Kazakhstan, whose president Nursultan Nazarbayev recently proposed a single currency for the region; the rest of the ex-Soviet republics, including eventually the Baltic States, will join later, he said.
He noted China's support for Russia's idea of a new global reserve currency.
"China should conduct integration in the Pacific region, and Russia in the post-Soviet space, based on their national currencies. The ruble and the yuan could become centers of gravity for the two countries, the basis of the new world super-currency."
Panarin said that with the challenges facing the world amid the financial crisis, the process of integration in Eurasia can already be seen.
"The global economic and political system is on the verge of colossal changes. Now is the right time to think about the future of the global architecture - and its contours can already be seen."
"A unique situation is developing. Until recently there were many factors holding back the integration process in the post-Soviet space, but today the logic of the financial crisis demands new actions, which must succeed. In literally the past few days, several breakthrough foreign policy meetings have been held. An agreement was signed in Moscow on integration between Moldova and Transdnestr - the first breakthrough in 10 years. The unprecedentedly long talks between the presidents of Russia and Belarus - this is also no coincidence."
He suggested 2012 as a likely date for the process of forming a new union to be complete, with Putin initially elected for a five-year term.
When asked about the current system of leadership in Russia, with Putin as prime minister and Dmitry Medvedev as president, he said it is bound to end soon.
"The 'president-premier' system is very unstable for Russia. Our entire history has shown that two centers of power cannot strategically exist for long," he said.
Panarin, 50, heads the international relations department at the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and has authored several books on information warfare.
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20090401/120860766.html
The Panarin predictions growing bolder but not neccessarily closer to reality.
Does this US Businessman have the last word on the Gaza-, I mean, G-20?
http://realestateandhousing2.blogspot.com/
A poll was taken someplace in America to the question: "Who or what is the G-20?"
The Top 10 answers were...
1. A rock band,
2. A sexual position
3. Bingo Lingo (??)
4. A fancy g-string
5. A drug
6 A vodka
7 A vitamin
8 A dance
9 the name of the Shuttle.
10. I Don't know
Personally, I found some of these answers rather charming...
Glad some people can live on in blissful lignorance. As for the US Businessman, it only looks likehe had something to say. After the Muslim civlians in the war zones, he's probably got the lowest life expectancy rate.
About the book (or documentary film and script):
World Colonisation, plunder, and genocide, the opium wars, and the African slave trade. This stuff runs in the blood of the ZioWest. There you have all the European countries right in the spotlight as an introduction to the carnage described later on.
Of course poiuytr needs to tell us where we are headed. The conclusions, or what the manifesto is all about.
Book to be written by azerty slave labor (The N by N Collective) under the editorial direction of poiuytr.
May I suggest that a special blog page be set up where, with an appropriate draft outline of chapters, we may begin fleshing the flesh, and stuffing the stuff (documents, articles, videos, etc.), and begin discussing where S/S The New World Order is headed.
Attila, you there still?
thanks for the offer. honestly thank! ive got the outline and probably the meat too. it's just the sec'y stuff. i'm no good at that cuz computers keep failing and it's all scattered who knows where. so it's really discipline that i'm lacking. energy and discipline.
if you wanna talk let me know. send me email over the contact form. i just tried it and it worked. but you have to fill the fields with crap and make the email field look like a real email like crap@crap.org or whatever. it works now again and it filed the thing into my spam box.
---------------
17:40 thank you too....
yeah, we should try something like that. it would be a world's first, wouldn't it? totally virtual collective produces stuff.
and yes, different blog would be good actually for that. good idea!
and yes to the crimes you list. absolutely, it has to contain that giving rationale for unplugging it.
what i think is interesting isn't so much the data, although that's needed of course, but it's what's not being said.
for years, for generations, they'll wonder and study this, the west prolapse and it was actually quite simple. and notice no one tells you the reason. no one.
wtf is toxic asset? people think that's the answer but that's just more gibberish. so it would be fun to expose it, blow by blow.
it's really more a celebration of human winning over the beast, outsmarting the monster, making it dive into the Stalingrad traps, manipulating it with such amazing orchestration. it's been such a sweet symphony.
i realise many kids are getting killed but if this hadn't been done, they would have killed half the planet by now.
and to explain how the beast reacts we'd have to explain how west worked. again, tons think that capitalism was some sort of econ system in west and crap like that.
yeah, anyway, shoot me a msg too if you want, and give me your email in it and we'll talk.
film for youtube would be great but totally beyond my capabilities.
add'l
remember, was it Nero? lamenting 'if only Romans had one neck'?
that's exactly it. and amazingly west never learnt this lesson either. and as huge and spread of an octopus the west had become at one point it only had one neck. and that was the dollar.
take that away and you've taken down the entire behemoth juggernaut west monstrosity.
and it's most amusing here because it was the west arrogance that made it globalise west holdings, so they had ultimate control over their lands and slaves. and it was precisely this that made them so vulnerable. and the west morons thought that the attack's gonna come from military and they surrounded themselves with nukes but completely forgot about their own single gigantic aorta that feeds the whole of the west. and all it took was a little unnoticed blade to do the whole west in. once it was slashed in 2006, it became a academic.
and it makes for a very interesting study as to what is the optimal market/nation/monetary zone size. what's the correct monetary density, i guess. stuff like that.
anyway, try using the form and let's see if that works.
For reply to above, poiuytr, please to see comments under the latest posting, i.e. 911 video.
Attila
Narrow blood vessels lie alongside the intestines of the earthworm and they absorb the nutrients from the alimentary canal feeding the rest
of the body. *Rounds table format. Her father, Bruce Paltrow, produced the critically acclaimed TV series that is considered the precursor to many medical
shows today, St.
Here is my web site ... Pub Quiz Austin
(Thank you rounds are always welcome, of course.
Below are listed a few popular pubs where one can chill in
Mumbai. The food is decent and the drink specials on Tuesdays include $2.
Here is my page best pub quiz team names
On Sunday nights Erin Jaimes hosts a blues jam where anyone from Alan Haynes to Gary Clark,
Jr. Anna had been looking through my phone while I
was naked. The Bull's Head Pub, Bangkok.
Feel free to surf to my page - pub quiz area
Some were practical, of course, but others were psychological and emotional.
I believe my exact words were "I don't want to be your dirty little secret. 28.
Have a look at my page ... Pub Quiz Austin
In other words, they go against the grain of the careers their parents had.
* Team answer sheets - Basically a grid lined A4 type sheet with
answer write in numbered boxes and a line on top for the
team name. Theme Format: It is almost like standard format of the pub quiz.
Here is my blog: pub quiz answers and questions
Post a Comment