Yen Craters To 20 Year Low As BOJ Stuns Markets With Daily Fixed-Rate Operations To Defend YCC

 A long, long time ago, Japan was on the verge of overtaking the American economy. Then in 1990 the bubble popped. In 2000, the Japanese income per person was still 5 times higher than Korea. Today, Korea is above Japan on PPP (purchase parity prices)... and it won't stop there.

 Today the choice is between crashing the economy and crashing the Yen. As the Bank of Japan just announced: It will be the Yen. It makes sense. There is really no choice left. But in 10 years, it is Vietnam that will overtake Japan!

 I wonder if Japan will congratulate Mr Kuroda by then for avoiding tough decisions for so long? In 2022 already, Japan is importing gas from Russia, manufactured goods from China and 60%+ of its food from abroad while its population and industry are crashing. The cliff ahead is already spectacular. A very likely major earthquake will make it twice as high still... 

Yen Craters To 20 Year Low As BOJ Stuns Markets With Daily Fixed-Rate Operations To Defend YCC

It was a little over a month ago - on March 24 - when we first laid out the big dilemma facing the Bank of Japan, which on one hand was hoping to avoid a currency collapse (for obvious reasons) and prevent a crash in the yen, while on the other hand, was also hoping to keep the 10Y yield below its extremely dovish 0.25% yield curve control rate ceiling. The problem is that while the BOJ can control one or the other, it can't control both; this is what we said then: 

Japan, that paragon of MMT crackpots everywhere, suddenly finds itself trapped in a lose-lose dilemma: intervene in the bond market and spark a furious, potentially destabilizing and uncontrolled plunge in the yen which would also lead to galloping (if not worse) inflation, which could collapse what little faith remains in the BOJ, or do nothing and contain the slump in the yen while risking far higher yields which in a country where the debt is orders of magnitude greater than GDP, could also spell fiscal and monetary doom.

As a result, the market - having long gotten used to amicable interventions from the BOJ - will now surely test one of these two outcomes, and how the BOJ responds could have dramatic consequences for this original MMT test case. Should the BOJ's reaction spark further erosion of faith in either Japan's fiscal or monetary policies, the outcome for the world's most indebted nation would be disastrous.

Sure enough, the market did test both outcomes, and after pushing the 10Y JGB yield to the upper bound of the YCC corridor of 0.25% and finding the BOJ willing to defend Japanese yields from further spikes, decided to focus its hammering on the yen instead, pushing it to two decade lows.

It's also why we were paying particularly close attention to what the BOJ would announce in its decision early on Thursday - would it double down on Yield Curve Control defense, or would it finally turn its attention to the crashing yen and prop it up, perhaps by extending the YCC ceiling from 0.25% to 0.50% or higher (in line with what all other developed central banks are doing)?

Well, we got the answer and it was a doozy: the Bank of Japan on Thursday sparked a furious sell-off in the yen (and also the yuan) after shocking the market by doubling down on its Yield Curve Control and keeping its loose monetary policy intact, despite the crashing of the yen and growing pressure of inflation due to costlier imports.

The yen cratered below 130 against the U.S. currency for the first time in 20 years in afternoon trading in Tokyo, when rather than introducing flexibility to its monetary policy, the central bank in a statement reiterated its commitment to the 10-year yield target, saying it will conduct an unlimited fixed-rate operation to buy 10-year Japanese government bonds at 0.25% every day, effectively ensuring a currency collapse.

Specifically, the BOJ maintained the status quo across all monetary policy parameters, including yield curve control (YCC), asset purchase programs, and forward guidance (some market observers were expecting adjustments to forward guidance). The central bank decided by an 8-1 majority vote to maintain the YCC, and by a unanimous vote to maintain guidelines for asset purchases. In regard to YCC, BOJ member Kataoka cast the dissenting vote (as he usually does), saying that it was desirable to lower short- and long-term interest rates "with a view to encouraging firms to make active business fixed investment for the post-COVID-19 era."

In a separately released economic outlook report, the board members offered a median forecast of sharply higher inflation coming at 1.9% for fiscal 2022, compared with 1.1% predicted just three months ago, and 1.1% for the next fiscal year. Economic growth is forecast to slow sharply to 2.9% for the current fiscal year, versus 3.8% predicted three months ago. The BOJ’s outlook assumes core CPI inflation will continue to fall short of the inflation target of +2%, calling for +1.1% in both FY2023 and FY2024, while it expects new core CPI inflation (excludes fresh food and energy) to grow steadily, calling for +0.9% in FY2022, +1.2% in FY2023, and +1.5% in FY2024, respectively.

But the highlight, as noted above, is what the BOJ said regarding YCC, where it explicitly added to the statement that “the Bank will offer to purchase 10-year JGBs at +0.25% every business day through fixed-rate purchase operations, unless it is highly likely that no bids will be submitted” cementing the bank's commitment to keeping yields in the world' most indebted country (relatively speaking) at or below 0.25% 

On policy rates, the BOJ maintained forward guidance indicating that it “expects short- and long-term policy interest rates to remain at their present or lower levels.” Commenting on the move, Goldman said that "while the BOJ introduced daily fixed-rate operations to keep consistency with this forward guidance, in our view, we think the market is likely to view it as a strong dovish message. Indeed, post the MPM, the 10-year yield is down and the yen depreciated against the US dollar."

It sure is, but more on that in a second.

• Speaking at a press conference later in the day, BOJ Governor Kuroda focused on the two key issues: inflation and the daily fixed-rate ops. Here are the highlights:
• Kuroda said "It Will Take Some Time to Get Sustainable Inflation" adding that current cost-push inflation will not be sustained as oil prices won’t keep rising.
• Kuroda said that "while inflation will rise temporarily to 2%, it won’t last as the effect of energy prices will ease", that ""Inflation expectations are rising, but are centered on the short-term"
• The BOJ governor emphasized that the surge in inflation is not sustainable, saying "cost-push inflation isn’t sustainable'' and that the "current rise in inflation expectations is also not sustainable"
• And even though risks are tilted to the upside for prices right now, and are tilted to the downside for the economy, there is no need to seek an exit from monetary stimulus now given the BOJ’s outlook for prices today

In short, the BOJ is quadrupling down on the wrong assumption that inflation is transitory. It won't be the first catastrophic mistake the BOJ has made.

Moving on, the BOJ's senile governor explained that the central bank's Fixed-Rate Bond operations are meant to stabilizing not jolt markets.

• "The Bank of Japan’s decision to clarify its bond purchasing plans is designed to prevent speculation", Kuroda said.
• Kuroda also said that "the clarification on fixed ops doesn’t mean the BOJ wants to buy fewer bonds" which is good beause soon the BOJ will be flooded with sellers.
• Finally, the central bank chief, said - or rather hoped - that fixed-rate ops aren’t causing excessive market moves

The outcome of this shocking announcement which basically cemented the BOJ's commitment to low rates at the expense of a plunging currency, was immediate and brutal: the Japanese currency immediately tumbled, sliding below 130 vs the USD...

... and sending the USDJPY to the highest level since 2002!

Not even vigorous if futile attempts by the Ministry of Finance to talk the yen up had any success. Moments after the BOJ broke 131 vs the USD, a Japanese finance ministry official says recent forex moves warrant extreme concern, adding that it was important that currencies move stably in line with fundamentals.

The USDJPY briefly dipped 75 pips and resumed its blow out.

Putting the move in context, since the Fed started raising rates on March 16, the yen has fallen from 118 to 131 versus the dollar, hitting a 20-year low earlier today, as investors moved out of yen and into dollars for better investment yields. Kuroda has argued that a weaker yen is "a net positive" for the economy, even as the public becomes increasingly frustrated with BOJ policy, according to Nikkei Asia.

"The latest policy statement has left me with an impression that Kuroda has even hardened his stance," said Hideo Kumano, chief economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute. He sure has, and as we said recently, the BOJ has found itself caught between a rock and a hard place. If it sticks to the loose monetary policy, it will exacerbate import-driven inflation. If it raises rates, it could hurt Japan's sluggish recovery from COVID.

Commenting on the BOJ announcement, Noriatsu Tanji, chief bond strategist at Mizuho Securities in Tokyo said that the BOJ's announcement to buy bonds with no limit was a surprise: "To make the announcement of buying unlimited bonds at a fixed rate in the policy statement, the BOJ is sending a very strong message that it is firmly committed to continuing the super-easy policy." He added that “as days go by, players will cease to sell to the BOJ and will stop challenging the 0.25% level, driving down 10 year yields” and said that “this commitment should also help ease upward pressure on super-long yields” which are outside the BOJ’s YCC.

He' may be right, but he didn't say anything about what happens next to the crashing yen. And it is here that the move to 150 is now certain.

And while the collapse in the yen was viewed aken favorably by Japanese stocks, with the Topix spiking over 2% following the announcement, the Japanese decision to let the yen plunge was immiedately noted by its far bigger and more important neighbor China, whose offshore yuan also tumbled yen 0.8% lower, sending the USDCNH above 6.65, the highest level since November 2020...

... as suddenly the "The Biggest Story No-One Is Talking About" is what everyone is talking about - namely how long before the unprecedented easing divergence in Japan and China vs the tightening in the US and the west, leads to a historic crash.

As a reminder, in a note published late last week (available to all professional subscribers), SocGen' Albert Edwards looked at the moves in the yen and yuan, and wrote that "surely all of us working in finance realize by now that something is likely to snap in the financial system and probably quite soon."

Why? Because according to the SocGen strategist, "the rapidity of current market moves and the polarisation of the now extreme Fed (hawkish) and BoJ (dovish) policies almost guarantees that outcome.... Maybe the outcome wouldnt be so ugly if central bankers had not spent recent decades ramping up asset prices to todays grotesque levels through their monetary incontinence. But they did."

Comparing the monetary policy divergence between the US and Japan to "a car crash in slow motion", Edwards writes that polarization in central bank monetary policy between the US Federal Reserve and Bank of Japan is being stretched ever wider to the point where "at some point soon your life might even flash before you ."

If he is right, today's BOJ decision may have just planted the seeds for the next monetary collapse. If so, keep a close eye on gold and cryptos, both of which will likely be trading far, far higher by the time the market realizes what just happened.

A Mostly Wind- & Solar-Powered US Economy Is A Dangerous Fantasy

 Yes it is! as I have argued for years.

"No sane, let alone competent, government would ever be headed down this path."

Of course not! But when you hear Kamala Harris giggling, or Biden babbling it is rather hard to argue that the US has a sane or competent government!

And forget about the German energy "Talibans". We will have a revolution in Europe long before we have "clean" energy! We simply cannot afford it!

Authored by Francis Menton via The Gatestone Institute,

• When President Biden and other advocates of wind and solar generation speak, they appear to believe that the challenge posed is just a matter of currently having too much fossil fuel generation and not enough wind and solar; and therefore, accomplishing the transition to "net zero" will be a simple matter of building sufficient wind and solar facilities and having those facilities replace the current ones that use the fossil fuels.

• They are completely wrong about that.

• The proposed transition to "net zero" via wind and solar power is not only not easy, but is a total fantasy. It likely cannot occur at all without dramatically undermining our economy, lifestyle and security, and it certainly cannot occur at anything remotely approaching reasonable cost. At some point, the ongoing forced transition... will crash and burn.

• [I]t doesn't matter whether you build a million wind turbines and solar panels, or a billion, or a trillion. On a calm night, they will still produce nothing, and will require full back-up from some other source.

• If you propose a predominantly wind/solar electricity system, where fossil fuel back-up is banned, you must, repeat must, address the question of energy storage. Without fossil fuel back-up, and with nuclear and hydro constrained, storage is the only remaining option. How much will be needed? How much will it cost? How long will the energy need to remain in storage before it is used?

• There should be highly-detailed engineering studies of how the transition can be accomplished.... But the opposite is the case. At the current time, the government is paying little to no significant attention to the energy storage problem. There is no detailed engineering plan of how to accomplish the transition. There are no detailed government-supported studies of how much storage will be needed, or of what technology can accomplish the job, or of cost.

• It gets worse:.... Ken Gregory calculated the cost of such a system as well over $100 trillion, before even getting to the question of whether battery technology exists that can store such amounts of energy for months on end and then discharge the energy over additional months. And even at that enormous cost, that calculation only applied to current levels of electricity consumption.... For purposes of comparison, the entire U.S. GDP is currently around $22 trillion per year.

• In other words: we have a hundred-trillion-or-so dollar effort that under presidential directive must be fully up and running by 2035, with everybody's light and heat and everything else dependent on success, and not only don't we have any feasibility study or demonstration project, but we haven't started the basic research yet, and the building where the basic research is to be conducted won't be ready until 2025.

• Meanwhile the country heads down a government-directed and coerced path of massively building wind turbines and solar panels, while forcing the closure of fully-functioning power plants burning coal, oil and natural gas. It is only a question of time before somewhere the system ceases to work.... [I]t is easy to see how the consequences could be dire. Will millions be left without heat in the dead of winter, in which case many will likely die? Will a fully-electrified transportation system get knocked out, stranding millions without ability to get to work? Will our military capabilities get disabled and enable some sort of attack?

• No sane, let alone competent, government would ever be headed down this path.

The Biden Administration's proposed transition to "net zero" via wind and solar power is not only not easy, but is a total fantasy. It likely cannot occur at all without dramatically undermining our economy, lifestyle and security, and it certainly cannot occur at anything remotely approaching reasonable cost. At some point, the ongoing forced transition will crash and burn.

(Photo by VCG via Getty Images)

With or without Congressional support, President Joe Biden has determined to move the U.S. as quickly as possible toward an economy predominantly powered by wind- and solar-sourced electricity. In his earliest days in office, Biden issued multiple Executive Orders directing the federal bureaucracy to bend all efforts to achieve this goal. One of those early Executive Orders, dated January 27, 2021 and titled "Tackling the Climate Crisis At Home and Abroad," stated:

"It is the policy of my Administration to organize and deploy the full capacity of its agencies to combat the climate crisis to implement a Government-wide approach that reduces climate pollution in every sector of the economy..."

When burned to generate energy, fossil fuels -- coal, oil and natural gas -- all emit carbon dioxide, otherwise known in Biden-speak as "climate pollution." Thus, under Biden's directive, they are all to be suppressed. The alternative of expanding nuclear power has meanwhile equally been made impractical by regulatory obstruction; and our potential hydro-electric capacity is already mostly in use. That leaves as the principal remaining option the generation of more electricity from wind and solar facilities; and indeed, the wind/solar electricity option is currently the subject of great regulatory favor, including extensive government subsidies and tax benefits.

On last year's Earth Day, April 22, 2021, Biden issued a press release expanding on his Executive Orders and setting specific goals for the elimination of fossil fuels from the U.S. economy. Although Congress has not acted on any such proposals, the Earth Day press release supposedly committed the United States by unilateral executive action to "100 percent carbon pollution-free electricity by 2035," and to a "net zero emissions economy by no later than 2050."

We are thus as a country embarked on a government-ordered crash program to eliminate our fossil fuel electricity generation within a very short 13-year period, and to eliminate all usage of fossil fuels within a not-much-longer 28 years. When Biden and other advocates of wind and solar generation speak, they appear to believe that the challenge posed is just a matter of currently having too much fossil fuel generation and not enough wind and solar; and therefore, accomplishing the transition to "net zero" will be a simple matter of building sufficient wind and solar facilities and having those facilities replace the current ones that use the fossil fuels.

They are completely wrong about that.

The green energy advocates, including our President and his administration, entirely misperceive the challenge at hand. The proposed transition to "net zero" via wind and solar power is not only not easy, but is a total fantasy. It likely cannot occur at all without dramatically undermining our economy, lifestyle and security, and it certainly cannot occur at anything remotely approaching reasonable cost. At some point, the ongoing forced transition, should it continue, will inevitably hit physical and/or financial limits, and will crash and burn. But the circumstances under which the crashing and burning will occur are currently unknown. Thus, worse than being a mere fantasy, the attempt to accomplish a "net zero" transition is a highly dangerous fantasy, putting the lives, health, and security of all Americans at risk as the attempted transition proceeds to its inevitable failure.

The root of the mostly-unrecognized problem is that wind and solar generation facilities produce something fundamentally different from what fossil fuels produce. Fossil fuels produce energy that is reliable and dispatchable, that is, available when wanted and needed. The wind and sun produce energy that is intermittent, that is, available only when weather conditions permit, which often does not correspond to consumer demand.

Here is something that ought to be blindingly obvious, but unfortunately goes largely unmentioned in discussions of the green energy transition: No amount of incremental wind and solar power generation on their own can ever provide a reliable 24/7 electricity grid. Electricity gets produced the moment it is consumed, and therefore a reliable grid must provide electricity to meet consumer demand at all hours. To take just the most obvious example, wind turbines produce nothing when the wind is calm, and solar panels produce nothing at night; and therefore, a combined wind/solar system produces nothing on a calm night. Unfortunately, peak electricity demand often occurs in the evening, shortly after sunset, when the wind is calm or close to it. Without full back-up from some source, an electrical grid powered by the wind and sun will experience, as just this one example, a full blackout on every calm night. And it doesn't matter whether you build a million wind turbines and solar panels, or a billion, or a trillion. On a calm night, they will still produce nothing, and will require full back-up from some other source.

Fossil fuels, and particularly natural gas, are fully capable of providing the back-up needed by a principally wind/solar electricity generation system. But our President now directs that fossil fuel back-up is "carbon pollution" and must be eliminated. The remaining option is storage of the energy from the time when it is produced (e.g., in the case of a wind/solar system, at noon on a windy June day) until the time when it is needed for consumption (e.g., 7 PM on a calm December night).

Which brings us to blindingly obvious statement number two: If you propose a predominantly wind/solar electricity system, where fossil fuel back-up is banned, you must, repeat must, address the question of energy storage. Without fossil fuel back-up, and with nuclear and hydro constrained, storage is the only remaining option. How much will be needed? How much will it cost? How long will the energy need to remain in storage before it is used? And, do storage systems exist that can store the energy for that period of time and return it without significant loss and at the rate required to keep the lights on?

If our government officials were remotely competent, while proposing a green energy transition for the country over a short period of years -- and with hundreds of billions of dollars, if not trillions, being spent on the imminent transition -- these questions should be at the forefront of their attention every day. Long before the U.S. ever got committed to transition to an energy system based mostly on wind and sun, it should quite obviously have been far down the road toward demonstration of the feasibility and cost of the energy storage systems that are capable of enabling the transition.

There should be highly-detailed engineering studies of how the transition can be accomplished. The requirements for amounts of batteries measured in gigawatt hours should be known at a high level of precision. The amounts of materials needed to produce the batteries should be known with an equally high level of precision. The technological capabilities of the batteries should be known with an also equally high level of precision (e.g., What is the optimum chemistry of the batteries to be used in the system? What will be loss of energy between input into the battery and consumption? How much in the way of additional generation facilities must be built to provide for this loss? How long can the batteries hold the charge? If charge added in June needs to be stored until December, do the proposed batteries have that capability? Do the proposed batteries need expensive climate control systems to enable them to hold the charge before it is used? And so on, and so on.)

Indeed, by this time, supposedly only 13 years from when we will have a carbon-free electricity system, there should be existing demonstration projects showing clearly what technology will be used, and that the proposed technology works and can be deployed at grid scale and at reasonable cost.

But the opposite is the case. At the current time, the government is paying little to no significant attention to the energy storage problem. There is no detailed engineering plan of how to accomplish the transition. There are no detailed government-supported studies of how much storage will be needed, or of what technology can accomplish the job, or of cost.

It gets worse: In the absence of any serious government effort to address the engineering challenge of energy storage necessary to back up a predominantly wind/solar electricity system, the task has instead fallen to a small number of volunteer amateurs, mostly retired engineers of one sort or another. Several such people have produced credible calculations indicating that backing up a predominantly intermittent wind/solar electricity system using only battery storage will require storage in the range of approximately 30 days of average usage to avoid significant risk of the batteries running out of charge and the system crashing. The high amounts of storage required are largely a consequence of the seasonality inherent in either wind or solar generation, e.g., solar facilities produce far more electricity in the summer than the winter.

One example of a serious effort to determine how much and what type of energy storage would suffice to back up a fully wind/solar electricity system was produced in 2018 by a man named Roger Andrews, a retired engineer then living in Mexico. Andrews's work appeared on a website called Energy Matters in November 2018. Andrews considered two cases, one for California and the other for Germany, and obtained detailed data of electricity usage and of production by existing wind and solar facilities in those places in order to make his calculations.

Andrews' spreadsheets, and charts appearing in his post, demonstrate that, largely due to seasonality of production from both the sun and wind, it would take approximately 30 days of stored electricity usage to get through an entire year with a wind/solar system. Andrews showed that batteries to hold that amount of charge would cost in excess of a full year's GDP for either California or Germany, although, based on existing technology, batteries even at such enormous cost would not have the capability to hold the charge for sufficient months to fulfill their task. At the end of his post, Andrews concluded: "[B]attery storage is clearly not an option for a low-cost 100% renewable future."

In a more recent example, in January 2022, a man name Ken Gregory -- a retired engineer living in Calgary, Canada -- undertook to produce a spreadsheet calculating storage requirements and costs for backing up a wind/solar electricity system for the case of the entire United States. Gregory's work is accessible at this link. Gregory's spreadsheet is based on detailed (in this case, hourly) data for actual consumption and generation from existing wind and solar facilities, with their wildly fluctuating output.

Gregory's principal result is that full back-up by storage of the U.S. electricity system at current levels of consumption, and assuming all generation comes from wind and solar, would require something in the range of 250,000 gigawatt hours of battery capacity. Some of that energy would need to remain in storage for over six months, and be discharged over the course of months. Since U.S. electricity consumption is currently in the range of 3.7 million GWH per year, the 250,000 GWH storage requirement calculated by Gregory represents about 24 days of average usage, a result in the same range as the result reached by Andrews. Gregory calculated the cost of such a system as well over $100 trillion, before even getting to the question of whether battery technology exists that can store such amounts of energy for months on end and then discharge the energy over additional months. And even at that enormous cost, that calculation only applied to current levels of electricity consumption. The Biden "net zero" plan for 2050 involves the approximate tripling of electricity consumption, which by Gregory's calculations would drive the cost of the necessary storage up to the range of some $400 trillion. For purposes of comparison, the entire U.S. GDP is currently around $22 trillion per year.

Obviously Gregory's calculations could be questioned or modified as to many of his assumptions, and perhaps his calculation of the cost of such a system is too high -- or maybe, too low. The fact remains that if the U.S. government were even slightly competent, it would have its own detailed engineering studies of how to accomplish its coerced energy transition, let alone, at this late date, demonstration projects for small cities or towns establishing the feasibility and cost of what is being proposed. None of that exists. Indeed, none of it is even in the works.

To fully understand the depths of incompetence with which the U.S. government is approaching this energy transition, consider the current effort of the federal Department of Energy called the Energy Storage Grand Challenge. Under this program, the DOE proposes to hand out grants to study the challenges of creating batteries to back up the electricity grid when the grid has gone almost fully wind/solar, and particularly to study the subject of the "long duration" batteries that will clearly be needed to store and then discharge massive amounts of energy over the course of months on end to deal with the issue of seasonality.

According to a piece that appeared in Energy Storage News in September 2021, here is the status of that effort: "The DOE is also helping to get a US $75 million long-duration energy storage research centre built at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which is expected to open by or during 2025." In other words: we have a hundred-trillion-or-so dollar effort that under presidential directive must be fully up and running by 2035, with everybody's light and heat and everything else dependent on success, and not only don't we have any feasibility study or demonstration project, but we haven't started the basic research yet, and the building where the basic research is to be conducted won't be ready until 2025.

Meanwhile the country heads down a government-directed and coerced path of massively building wind turbines and solar panels, while forcing the closure of fully-functioning power plants burning coal, oil and natural gas. It is only a question of time before somewhere the system ceases to work. It is impossible to predict exactly when and where that will occur. But it is easy to see how the consequences could be dire. Will millions be left without heat in the dead of winter, in which case many will likely die? Will a fully-electrified transportation system get knocked out, stranding millions without ability to get to work? Will our military capabilities get disabled and enable some sort of attack?

No sane, let alone competent, government would ever be headed down this path.

The Great Game Morphs into the GREAT RESET

 This article is just food for thoughts. Some ideas are nutty but the overall picture is extremely interesting and goes a long way in explaining the mad fanaticism emanating mainly from London towards Russia. 

 The Great Game was a 19th Century vision of the world. But can we really believe that those in power have given up on their quest to control the World? Or is it just the method which has morphed over the years into a more "modern" form?

 The West is clearly in an all out assault against Russia, and ultimately China. We will be extremely lucky if the new cold war does not turn hot sooner or later. The constant reminders of Putin about the Russian nuclear arsenal and regular missiles testing are not anodyne. They are warning about limits which are regularly on the verge of being breached. 

 Our financial system has reached its limits so a "Great Reset" is indeed unavoidable. But although it is sold to the population on the absurd dream of clean energy which would in the best scenario power half our current lifestyle, in reality it must be based on new resources to generate a new growth cycle. What other place that the huge Russian landmass offer such prospects? 

Via State of the Nation

British Press and Politicos Spew More Warmongering Propaganda and Prevarication Against Russia than any other nation on Earth … … … all paid for by the London Banksters

There’s a very good reason why no one does warmongering propaganda and naked prevarication like the Brits, especially when it’s aimed at Russia.

Having mastered the English language several centuries ago, the Brits have had a lot of time, and have spent a considerable amount of money and effort, becoming the world’s premier word merchants.

It was on London’s Fleet Street where the British Press really perfected the art of writing whatever outright lies were necessary to start a war, bring down a government, trigger a revolution, demonize a head of state, bankrupt a corporation, etc., etc., etc.  After all, the world’s wealthiest banksters and predatory capitalists were situated right down the street in the City of London’s all-powerful Financial District ready to pay whatever price was needed to “stop the presses” so a new distracting disaster (à la disaster capitalism) could be instantly manufactured.

See how the Bank of England (“Bank” location in RED) is literally right down the road from Fleet Street (to the left) in the City of London’s Financial District.

This terribly incestuous relationship, between the press and the banksters in Merry Old England, goes back way before the Rothschild banking family took over the UK government.  But, regardless of when those serpentine institutional arrangements were solidified between London’s mainstream media and the predatory banksters and capitalists, the founding of the East India Company in 1600 was really the start of it all.

As the first commercial corporation on the planet, the entire leadership of the East India Company was populated by hardcore predatory capitalists whose motto was essentially “we’re gonna take what you’ve got”.

Remember, these London banksters and financiers, British capitalists and plutocrats, English merchants and industrialists, etc. lived on a dreary little island that was not very rich in natural resources.  Besides, the landed gentry did not want to tear up the turf England-wide lest they have too small plots on which to built all their magnificent castles and sprawling manors.

“England is said to be home to over 4,000 castles, built many hundreds of years ago and scattered throughout the UK countryside and coastline.” [1]

What’s the crucial point?

Not only did those highfalutin British pirates and warlords have very little to rape, pillage and plunder in their own back yard, being natural-born reptilian predators they were always on the prowl for the biggest catch of all.   Of course, that “biggest catch” is nothing short of the conquest of the largest nation on Earth—RUSSIA.

Welcome to the Great Game!

What the entire planetary civilization is now witnessing is the final stages of the Great Game where the Western powers are determined to conquer the Russian Federation in order to steal everything in sight from Saint Petersburg in the west to Uelen in the Far East.

There is simply nothing that the Zio-Anglo-American Axis will not do at this point to steal Russia’s vast lands and resource-rich territories—NOTHING!  Once the Brits were kicked out of India in 1947 and the Hong Kong handover took place in 1997, they have set their sights squarely on Russia with great focus and resolve.

This is exactly why Russia is forever bashed by the mainstream media, especially in Great Britain and America.  It’s why the UK and US have relentlessly vilified all things Russian for many decades.  It’s why President Putin has been demonized as no other head of state since Adolf Hitler.

---

The bottom line here is that with the final end of the Great Game just
around the corner, there comes the ending of everything …
as in EVERYTHING.
Both sides of this British purposefully misnamed Great Game,
which is really an epoch-ending world war,
are playing for keeps.

---

Because no one really knows what the highly consequential outcomes will be, what can be stated with certainty is that a series of unparalleled worldwide cataclysms will soon transpire is quick succession.  This unprecedented leveling of the international order will shake things up so that everything we see today will likely be gone tomorrow.  However, as this devastating Great Game morphs into the even more destructive GREAT RESET, there is a tremendous amount of uncertainty about the actual outcomes and especially the aftermath insanely anticipated by The Powers That Be.

East vs. West

No matter what the end result, there will be astonishing and unexpected eventualities experienced by the two main players of this Great Game—the East and the West, respectively.

The Zio-Anglo-American Axis of the West has always treated the BRICS-aligned nations of the East with tremendous disrespect and disdain.  Russia, China and India, in particular, have born the brunt of British-American imperialism.  Of course, several Asian Rim nations such as North and South Korea, Japan, Philippines and South Vietnam have also suffered greatly.

At this crucial point of the Third Millennium, the UK-US Empire incorrectly believes it holds all the cards to finally win this Great Game that’s really an out-out war on national sovereignty and individual freedom.  On the macro level, this is a real “War of the Titans”, that is, one where the victor takes all and the loser is left with nothing.

However, because the Global South has become such a strong independent force within the world community of nations, the tables have been turned on the power elite who rule from Rome and the Vatican, London and Brussels, Berlin and Paris, New York City and Washington, DC.

For The Powers That Be to be successful in establishing their New World Order via the GREAT RESET, a critical mass of collective consent throughout all of humanity is absolutely necessary.  In order to successfully carry out their nefarious plans toward the formation of a One World Government and imposition of a One World Currency (digital, of course), universal consent is definitely required; otherwise, the whole place will devolve into total anarchy and pandemonium.

In the absence of that essential worldwide consent, the implementation of the New World Order agenda becomes more difficult by the day.  Thanks to the Internet, folks on all seven continents are quickly waking up to the slow-motion tyranny overtaking the whole world today.

Although this epochal war between East and West may not appear to be such a “black and white” conflict, this clash of civilizations does pit the now atheistic, highly self-destructive and ultra-liberal Western powers against the much more spiritual, traditional and conservative as well as family-centered nations of the East.Given this stark reality, the NWO globalist cabal knows it must destroy all the major religions throughout the world community of nations.  Which is why the US-UK-UA-NATO warmongers have deliberately started the Ukraine War—a war which they refuse to put an end to.

As always, Russia is their main target because of the extraordinary nationwide revival of the Orthodox Christian Church that was vigorously encouraged by President Putin.  Putin himself has shown himself to be an enthusiastic practitioner of Orthodox mysticism as evidenced by his annual retreat at Valaam Monastery, “a stauropegic Orthodox monastery in Russian Karelia located on Valaam, the largest island in Lake Ladoga”.[2]

Russian President Vladimir Putin parked near the Valaam Orthodox Monastery on Lake Ladoga

President Putin has even closely collaborated with Patriarch Kirill of Moscow to frame the current “special military operation in Ukraine as nothing short of an all-out religious war.  Of course, Putin, among all world leaders has been — BY FAR — the most courageous and outspoken is his condemnation of the exceedingly catastrophic LGBTQ agenda.  Many of his most aggressive presidential initiatives have shown that he is an arch enemy of Cultural Marxism, which has so devastated the West.

China, too, is being targeted with juvenile provocations centered around the sovereignty of Taiwan.  With the presidency of Xi Jinping, China has also seen a resurgence of its venerable spiritual traditions such as Buddhism, Confucianism and Daoism.  With the advent of corrupt crony capitalism Chinese-style, Jinping earnestly cultivated this religious development across the People’s Republic of China as a countervailing force.  He wisely perceived that China’s profound religious and philosophical systems would serve as a compensatory influence to the rampant crime and corruption associated with the nation’s mushrooming capitalistic society.

Then there is India, the real spiritual center of planet Earth.  Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first official act after his election was to make a high-profile religious pilgrimage to the Ganges River, also known as Mother Ganga.  The wildly popular Indian leader also quite intentionally became a Member of Parliament representing Varanasi—the unrivaled spiritual center of the Hindu nation.  Modi has also personally overseen the massive reconstruction project surrounding the most sacred temple in Hinduism—the Kashi Vishwanath Temple dedicated to Lord Shiva located in Varanasi.  The unusually austere Prime Minister actually lives his life as a sadhu (or ascetic politician).

Back to the British plot: The reason why the far western fringes of the Russian Motherland were chosen as the initial theater of armed combat of World War III (and this rapidly unfolding Great Game and evolving GREAT RESET) is because of Russia.  That’s because Russia represents both the land bridge and global platform for cultural, scientific and philosophical exchange between the East and the West.  Western Russia is not only considered part of Europe, Moscow’s proximity to all of the other capitals of Continental Europe makes it the perfect and primary go-between between East and West.  Which is exactly why the British establishment is so determined to blow up the bridge.

Russia: Bridge to the Future of Humanity

Russia knows that it occupies a very unique position in the world today.  Not only does it pose a formidable countervailing nuclear deterrent to the Western powers, Russian borders also carve out an extraordinary land mass linking East to West.  In this way it serves as a bridge — a bridge for trade via the new Silk Road; a bridge for science and technology transfers as well as philosophy and spirituality interchanges;  and, most importantly, a bridge for the exportation/importation of peace and brotherhood.

Like no other country on Earth, Russia’s geographical location has conferred upon it great gifts, both mundane and metaphysical.  Extremely rich in natural resources it is why the Bolshevik Revolution was used by Western bankers to steal her wealth via the imposed Soviet communism.  Stretching from Alaska in the East to the Ukraine in the West, Russia’s land mass is unequaled in both its great distance across the planet as well as its enormous size.

The vast, unbroken Russian steppes have long been known to convert any man into a philosopher, so stirring to the soul is the expansiveness of the sky.  The Russian national temperament has always bent toward brotherhood and generosity of spirit, as Vladimir Putin has repeatedly demonstrated in world affairs. These and other noble characteristics have shown the Russian people to be the natural vessels of peace and reconciliation.  As Edgar Cayce once uttered, “the hope of the world” lies with Russia.

It is highly significant that the land mass of Russia is contiguous to an extraordinary number of other countries, from the USA in the east to those of the European continent in the west.  In fact, the Russian Motherland shares more boundaries with more nations than any other on Earth.  In each case, Russia has been infused with the cultures and traditions, religions and philosophies, languages and customs that have traveled across her borders. Known as the Motherland, she has been responsible for the an unparalleled transfer of culture and wealth, from both East to West and North to South, throughout all of history.

Conclusion

Whereas the most intense Russophobia issues forth from London, its original source is found in the Ukraine, the modern location of the ancient Kingdom of Khazaria.  For it is the Jewish Khazars who took their deep and irrational hatred of Russia to the far reaches of Western civilization, via multiple diasporas, in order to compel every country allied with the Zio-Anglo-American Axis to join their world war against the Russian Federation.

But it ought be clear that this clash of civilizations — East vs. West — goes way beyond just conquering Russia (again), subjugating China (again) and enslaving India (again).  Truly, we are witnessing a singularly historic war for the very soul of humanity.

While Ukraine appears to be the main battlefield of this monumental war against the human spirit, every nation on Earth has been drawn into this global conflict, one which has been divided into two camps—the Zio-Anglo-American Axis led by Western powers vs. the BRICS-aligned nations led by Russia and China, which includes the entire Global South.

Lastly, it’s of paramount importance to correctly understand the central and critical role that Russia (spearheaded by President Putin) has in this unparalleled international drama occurring right on time during the “Shift of the Ages”.  Putin’s role in upholding the cosmic dharma — the righteous order — cannot be overstated.  Therefore, if anyone hopes and/or prays for only one outcome, may it be that righteousness prevails over evil.  For only in this way is there any hope for the present race of humanity.

Not only does the fate of humankind lie in the balance, the future of the planet is at stake.

 

My Energy Is Your Problem - The Birth Of A New Europe

  "In a hyper-financialized world", everything seems not to matter until suddenly it does! Japan is now learning the lesson with the painfully crashing Yen. Europe will be next with its unrealistic woke energy policies. As each country is slowly painting itself into a corner, eventually war will look more and more like an acceptable option as I predicted almost two years ago.

 Anyway, by then democracy will be little but a vague afterthought so there won't be much left to defend. The Covid crisis and it's intolerance of dissent was the appetizer. Just as being pro-Putin will now get you punished in some European countries, being anti-whatever the government's decree of the day is, won't, can't be tolerated much longer. If you are not missing yet the good old days of 2019, you soon will!

Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, 'n Guns blog,

“Energy makes energy anyhow

So spend yourself and get rich right now”

- Marillion “Rich”

This day has been a long time coming. From the moment, more than a decade ago, when it was finally admitted that Europe was destined to be an energy importer, we were going to see the climax of the showdown between the West and Russia.

Europe as energy importer always meant that time was on Russia’s side. All it had to do was draw the conflict out long enough, survive long enough, to force Europe into submission. Russia has the energy Europe needs, no one else can supply it, therefore the final decision will be to accept this fate.

No amount of financial wizardry, pathetic virtue signaling about Climate Change, malinvestment into inefficient and unsustainable ‘renewables,’ or military threats would ultimately change the outcome of this story.

Output off the North Slope has fallen off and Groningen’s gas fields are drying up faster than Hillary’s va-jay-jay with each twist of John Durham’s investigation into RussiaGate.

Every gambit to secure energy from Ukraine (Donbass coal, gas fields in the Sea of Azov) and the Middle East (Syria, EastMed Pipeline, Iran) have also failed.

This is the basic problem the EU faces in its quest for political hegemony.

How does it get around this basic fact without fomenting 1) a political crisis at home and 2) a war with Russia and the rest of the Global South who support her, it cannot win?

Force Majeure

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, a conflict created by EU complicity in NATO’s long-standing war on Russia, the EU has tried to play the victim of US/UK aggressiveness while happily going along with it for their own purposes.

That purpose is to advance their agenda of erecting a total surveillance state under the guise of a radical response to Climate Change. Their problem is they have no viable replacement for Russian energy, be it oil, coal or gas, that is capable of sustaining them in the interim.

All of their refusals were met with Russian intransigence. After gleefully going along with the theft of Russian foreign exchange reserves, as well as forcing the abandonment of Russian state assets like seizing Gazprom’s subsidiary in Germany, Europe still tried to say Russia had no legal right change the terms of payment for Russian energy.

It was hilarious to watch as EU sycophants tried to argue Russia had no legal right to claim to force majeure after the EU prohibited Gazprom from spending the euros they would be paid for its gas.

The Russian government responded with a demand for payment for all exports to legally-defined ‘unfriendly countries’ in either gold or Russian rubles. And the howls were heard all around the world.

Even though acts of war, including sanctions, are a typical clause in all Gazprom supply contracts:

So, after a couple of weeks of denying reality, of playing to the moral high ground about punishing Vladimir Putin the butcher of Bucha, the EU as always caved to reality.

Ruble Roulette

The EU finally figured out a way to avoid US sanctions to buy Russian energy in rubles.

Moscow has warned Europe it risks having gas supplies cut unless it pays in roubles. In March it issued a decree proposing that energy buyers open accounts at Gazprombank to make payments in euros or dollars, which would then be converted to rubles.

The Commission said earlier this month that the decree risked breaching EU sanctions since it would put the effective completion of the purchase – once the payments are converted to rubles – into the hands of the Russian authorities.

In an advisory document sent to member states on Thursday, however, the Commission said Moscow’s proposal does not necessarily prevent a payment process that would comply with EU sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine conflict.

This is their way out. As always, the EU will just define things however they need to in order to save face, while ultimately capitulating when forced to show their hole cards.

We watched this same pathetic display for more than three years over Brexit. And if not for a complicit, nee treasonous performance by Former Prime Minister Theresa May, Brexit negotiations would have been finalized in around six months.

All she had to do was set terms and walk away from these people. All she had to do was what Putin just did.

This isn’t to say Putin’s handling of this growing crisis has been perfect. His biggest fault as Russia’s leader has been his continued underestimating the duplicity and sheer evil emanating from the European Commission.

However, I also feel Putin knew that Russia’s best strategy was to be the best neighbor it could be despite the obvious provocations. It cost him politically for years. This is why he tried so hard for so long to find common ground with these folks, attempting where he could to make allies and create political leverage.

This is why Putin has refused to shut off the gas to the EU, even while they dragged their feet on paying in rubles. He always knew where this would end up, and if you asked the Eurocrats in Brussels quietly, so did they.

The political costs to Brussels for turning off the gas would be too high a price for them to pay.

This issue has caused fracturing in German’s fragile ruling coalition. It has harmed France’s Emmanuel Macron’s re-election chances in France. It will cost Mario Draghi his government next year. Of course, by then Draghi’s destruction of Italy as a country will be nearly complete. One can only hope the Italians find their voice between now and then.

Hungry, Hungary Hypocrites

Putin’s most obvious victory was in Hungary, where Viktor Orban just won a major election. Orban has already leveraged that victory into frustrating the EU’s plans to sever energy ties with Russia and steadfastly refusing to up the military pressure on Russia, which I talked about on the eve of the election.

For this reason Hungary will be in the EU’s crosshairs going forward. It will be marginalized, if not kicked out eventually, over these issues. There are ideologues at the helm in Brussels and they will not be stopped in their quest to bring Europe to its knees under their control.

If Hungary say no to this, they will be punished for it. But punishing Hungary at this point is like trying to punish Russia. It’s actually a blessing for them.

For Hungary, once it is freed from the EU, will be the destination for foreign capital in a way that it is cannot be today. These are Orban’s hole cards, and they are powerful ones. In the meantime, he will stay in the EU to be a thorn in their side until they get rid of him.

The biggest embarrassment for Brussels would be for Hungary to thrive outside of the EU framework, the same fear that was on the table during Brexit negotiations. The difference, of course, is that the UK political establishment is all in on the Brussels agenda, it’s the people outside of London who aren’t.

Hungarians just proved that Orban doesn’t have that problem.

So, the benefits of ending its future relationship with the EU will be much more immediately apparent, when it happens.

European Unionicide

No matter what happens in the long run, however, the reality is that a new Europe is on the horizon. And it isn’t a pretty sight. The EU will, at best, muddle through without a couple of current pieces — Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania — and at worst break back apart as the common currency experiment reaches an ignominious end broken on the shores of a new energy-based reserve standard which it simply cannot compete against.

Just like Ukraine is quickly being carved up by Russia into a smaller pieces, so too will Europe balkanize over the EU’s failures to secure a reliable energy future for its people.

Russia’s demands that Europe pay for Russian exports through the unsanctioned Gazprombank, who will process the currency conversion (at the importer’s expense) into rubles, now give it the upper hand in all future trade dealings with the EU.

And since the ruble is now loosely tied to physical gold this means the possibility of the euro ever challenging the US dollar as a reserve currency is now officially over. That fate was sealed with Draghi’s move to negative interest rates back in 2014, turning it into the ultimate carry currency.

That status is quickly unwinding to the detriment of the Japanese Yen which is now grabbing the headlines caught in the middle between the war between the Fed and the ECB.

At the same time, the Eurodollar system has come under existential threat thanks to the coming end of LIBOR blunting the desires of a hawkish Fed. Because of this, the ECB is trapped in a maze where the exits have all been blocked off.

There is no reason now for anyone to hold euros or convert euros into European sovereign debt. The Russians are no longer going to support the eurodollar market by recycling its trade surplus into the European banking system, exactly as was predicted when the EU followed the US by seizing Russia’s foreign exchange reserves.

Who in their right mind would hold euros on your balance sheet beyond what you need to pay for goods is a losing proposition if Ursula Von der Leyen has deemed you an Untermensch?

Gazprombank will simply flip those euros into physical gold and add them to the country’s balance sheet, making it even stronger. This will ensure that the euro itself becomes a pariah currency and force the ECB to continue the path towards hyperinflation.

The birth of a new Europe is one where the currency risk is now all on the importer of commodities, not the exporter of commodities. I’ve been saying for years that Europe always thought that its huge share of Russian energy exports would give it monopsony power over Russia. That, they thought, without Europe as a buyer, Russia would be at their mercy.

In a hyper-financialized world, that assumption had always held true. But, in a new monetary regime, where the world is beyond debt saturation, the bills are due and there’s no more road to kick the can down, it simply isn’t true anymore.

By Russia tying the ruble to gold and both the US and EU weaponizing offshore dollar markets, that misperception of buying power is being laid bare. Sure, the EU has euros to offer but it does so into the revaluation of commodities versus fiat currencies which have ever-shrinking use cases.

This only feeds the downward spiral of the euro and the eurodollar system into the vortex that is physical gold and the demand for commodities on which all of its value is derived.

The mouse in Hungary has roared loud enough to finally get the apparatchiks in Brussels to listen to the tune the Russian bear has been quietly humming to itself for years.

Communist China Has Thrown Out The Old Rules of War

 Too late? What lessons are the Chinese supposed the learn from 200 years of American imperialism? Do what I say, not what I do? 

 As I mentioned earlier, the Russians and the Chinese are going for the jugular, crashing the US petro-dollar, whence the extreme reaction from the West. We are still in the early days, but the third world war is on, even if we still have the "light" version for now. 

 The Chinese communist system shares none of our values. Values which, we, ourselves respect less and less. 

 2019 was the top of the curve for almost everything. It's all down from now on. More population, less resources, less productivity (because of the lack of energy), less income and prosperity. It is unavoidable. Inflation and trumped up statistics will paper over the downfall for a while, but not much longer.

 So even though they may not be quite ready yet, the Chinese must have decided that this was the right time to challenge the West. And yes indeed, once you understand this, everything, absolutely everything must be read with this in mind...

Authored by Robert Spalding via RealClear Books & Culture,

When I first read the Chinese war manual “Unrestricted Warfare” in 1999, I thought it was wacky. I was flying B-2 Stealth bombers out of Whiteman Air Force Base in western Missouri and reading a lot about war. As an Air Force officer, I thought it was part of my day job to understand the bigger picture – even though the prevailing attitude in the military was “Just fly the planes.” “Unrestricted Warfare” was one of those books that caused a stir among some military folks because it had recently been translated into English. It had that insider whiff of mystery and secrets, a peek into the mind of the Chinese Communist Party.

(AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin, Pool)

Despite that mystique, not a lot of people were finishing the book. For one thing, regardless of its title, no one thought we were ever going to be fighting a war with China, so it seemed like a lot of work for very little payoff. For another, the book itself is not a light read. It is a dense compendium of strategy, economics, social theory, and futuristic thoughts about technology. It imparts centuries of military history, particularly as it relates to the United States, but I already knew a lot of that. It seemed vague and also a little sci-fi, not relevant to a U.S. bomber pilot – even one with a fascination for military history. My mistake.

If you look closely at everything China has done since 1999 – at all aspects of its economic, military, diplomatic, and technological relations with the rest of the world – it’s like watching “Unrestricted Warfare” come to life. One can find other glimpses into the secretive mentality of the CCP leaders, but this one is the single most important book for understanding the China of today. “Unrestricted Warfare” is the main blueprint for China’s efforts to unseat America as the world’s economic, political, and ideological leader. It shows exactly how a totalitarian nation set out to dominate the West through a comprehensive, long-term strategy that includes everything from corporate sabotage to cyberwarfare to dishonest diplomacy; from violations of international trade law and intellectual property law to calculated abuses of the global financial system. As one of the authors stated, “The only rule in ‘Unrestricted Warfare’ is that there are no rules.”

The book is the key to decoding China’s master plan for world domination, which has been progressing more steadily and successfully than most Americans realize – even accelerating in the reign of Xi Jinping. The manipulation of COVID policies, stonewalling the world about its origins, and mounting a massive disinformation campaign to blame the United States are merely recent examples.

So why is “Unrestricted Warfare” so obscure, even to people who study China professionally on behalf of the U.S. government, the Fortune 500, the investment world, the nonprofit world, academia, or the military? It’s not as if the book is some secret document that has never escaped the inner sanctum of the Chinese Communist Party. Just the opposite: The original translation by the U.S. government is in the public domain; you can google it and click on an English translation, for free, in less than a second.

The problem is that “Unrestricted Warfare” is hard to read. While any American can access it, few can understand it. The prose is dense and confusing, even in the original Mandarin, and even more so in that crude, free translation you’ll find on the web. Its insights are clouded by endless repetitions and meandering discursions into military history, cultural theory, and attacks on U.S. policy. The colonels, Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, get tangled in semantics and draw on faulty citations and unsourced references. They obsess about the Persian Gulf War of 1990-91 to an extent that puzzles Americans who consider that war to be a minor footnote to history. And the authors’ metaphors are so weird to our ears as to seem utterly baffling. Just consider two chapter titles: “The War God’s Face Has Become Indistinct” and “What Do Americans Gain by Touching the Elephant?” Huh?

I mentioned “Unrestricted Warfare” several times in my previous book, “Stealth War: How China Took Over While America’s Elite Slept.” I noted that the book was well known to modern-day China scholars but that perhaps because of its strange complexity, Western strategists had failed to connect its strategic vision with the seemingly random actions of China’s misleadingly benign and smiling countenance. Although some of the text is pretty clear: “Using all means, including armed force or non-armed force, military and non-military, and lethal and non-lethal means to compel the enemy to accept one’s interest.”

As I wrote at the time, that strategy can justify meddling in all manner of another country’s affairs: silencing ideas or promoting political discord, stealing technology, dumping products to disrupt markets. I was intrigued with the idea of creating an “army” of academics who could be used to gather medical, technological, and engineering information. The list of incursions goes on – and has grown since then.

Consider just a small number of the things the Chinese Communists have done:

• Seized on COVID as a weapon to be used to their benefit, not a humanitarian crisis to be solved.
  
• Viewed the climate change issue as a bargaining chip to win them economic concessions from global elites in return for reforms that they never intend to make.
  
• Sponsored corporate espionage on a scale beyond what the United States acknowledges.
  
• Launched unrelenting cyberattacks against Western companies and governments.
  
• Fueled America’s deadly fentanyl drug crisis by allowing illegal smuggling of banned substances.
  
• Used slave labor to produce goods such as clothing for sale to Western shoppers.

Despite all of these actions by the CCP, since publication of “Stealth War,” I’ve encountered skepticism from some readers who simply can’t believe that China has been methodically undermining the rest of the world with a patient, long-term, multidisciplinary strategy. Some even dismissed “Stealth War” as the work of an alarmist.

In the wake of that reaction, I realized how useful it would be to make the Chinese manual of war accessible to American readers so that they can see it for themselves. I set out to write a user-friendly guide that would explain “Unrestricted Warfare” chapter by chapter, adding examples while editing out the irrelevant and distracting parts of the original text. In the process I’ve drawn on history, military strategy, and Chinese culture to explain the context in which “Unrestricted Warfare” was written and then applied. My goal is to show how “Unrestricted Warfare’s” advice to the leadership of the CCP maps with terrifying consistency onto the events of the past two decades.

This book has opened my eyes to how the CCP has essentially sneak attacked us in slow motion. And made me think hard about where they are going next. I hope it can have the same effect on others. I want to share with the men and women in our government, my respected former colleagues, who have to make some important – maybe life and death – decisions about how we deal with the Chinese government in the very near future.

I know it can seem excessive to compare any country with Nazi Germany. But as we rethink our views on China, what other comparison is appropriate for a regime that casually and cold-bloodedly allowed COVID-19 to spread to the rest of the world at the same time it was forcing its Muslim citizens into concentration camps? Hong Kong parallels the takeover of Austria in 1938. And how do you account for the increasingly warlike rhetoric and military movements directed at Taiwan?

Imagine the reaction during World War II if an American company had tried to export its goods to imperial Japan, or if a Wall Street firm had tried to underwrite the bonds of a Nazi arms manufacturer. Unthinkable, right? And yet today countless Americans are still trying to do business with and in China, misunderstanding or ignoring the CCP’s war without rules.

I am deeply concerned that the Biden administration, despite some positive moves, is seriously underestimating the malevolence and power of the Chinese threat. Our adversaries wrote up their long-term plans in 1999 and have been executing them relentlessly ever since. Our leaders have a moral obligation to understand what’s happening, sound the alarm, wake up the country, and inspire Americans of all political stripes to do everything in their power to stop this totalitarian regime.

I also want the average American to have access to this book. It’s time for every influential person in America – policy makers, diplomats, business executives, investors, journalists, scientists, academics, and more – to become part of the resistance to the Chinese Communist Party.

My hope is that by explaining “Unrestricted Warfare” and its consequences, this book will make it impossible for my fellow Americans to continue to deny the reality of our existential conflict with China. The simple, chilling truth is that the CCP is doing everything in its power – mostly via economics, technology, diplomacy, and the media, not yet via military power – to destroy our way of life. To understand that plan, you need to understand “Unrestricted Warfare.” The stakes couldn’t be higher.

*  *  *

Robert Spalding retired from the U.S. Air Force as a brigadier general after more than 25 years of service. He is the CEO of SEMPRE and the author of “War Without Rules: China's Playbook for Global Domination” (Sentinel, 2022).

To Fight Russia, Europe's Regimes Risk Impoverishment & Recession

 Or when ideology trump realism. The absurdity of the renewable fanaticism may soon be plain to contemplate for ignorant and soon to be much poorer Europeans. To cut oil and gas from Russia without securing supply first is akin to jumping from a tower and hoping to grow wings before you reach the ground! It is absurd. Europe is headed to totalitarianism or revolution. Maybe both. But misery first!

Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

European politicians are eager to be seen as “doing something” to oppose the Russian regime following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Most European regimes have wisely concluded—Polish and Baltic recklessness notwithstanding—that provoking a military conflict with nuclear-armed Russia is not a good idea. So, “doing something” consists primarily of trying to punish Moscow by cutting Europeans off from much-needed Russian oil and gas.

The problem is this tactic doesn’t do much to deter Russia in anything other than the short term because Russian oil can turn to numerous markets outside of Europe. Most of the world, after all, has declined to participate in the US and European embargoes and trade sanctions, opting for more measured approaches instead.

By limiting energy sources for Europeans, however, Europe’s regimes are likely to succeed in pushing up the cost of living for Europeans while doing little to cut off Russia’s economy from global markets.

Can Europe Totally Cut Itself Off?

For understandable reasons, most European regimes have been reluctant to completely cut themselves off from Russian oil and gas. This is because Europe has become increasingly dependent on Russian natural gas as Europe’s regimes have increasingly committed themselves to unreliable “renewable” energy sources. This is especially the case in Germany—Europe’s largest economy—which faces a “sharp recession” if it cuts off Russian gas. There has been much talk of heavy sanctions against Russia, but this has stopped short of a full-on ban on Russian oil and gas imports.

Nonetheless, the European Parliament last week began drafting a plan for a full embargo of Russian oil and gas.

Yet, even as pressure mounts for Europe’s regimes to be seen as doing more to stymie Moscow, European politicians want to proceed slowly. This, however, only gives Moscow more time to adjust logistics to transfer oil exports to other parts of the world.

If Europe were to fully ban oil immediately, this would send oil prices soaring for Europe and others. According to analysts at JP Morgan:

A full and immediate embargo would displace 4 million barrels per day of Russian oil, sending Brent crude to $185 a barrel as such a ban would leave "neither room nor time to re-route [supplies] to China, India, or other potential substitute buyers," the investment bank said in a note. That would mark a 63% surge from Brent's close of $113.16 on Monday.

This could trigger recessions across Europe’s economies, and policymakers know it. Hungary, for instance, has repeatedly opposed an embargo on Russian oil, out of concerns for ordinary Hungarians who already have a standard of living well below wealthier countries like Germany and France. Meanwhile, French policymakers have conveniently timed an embargo to occur after French elections this year.

Even beyond the short term, oil woes for Europe would not necessarily end because OPEC has already stated that it cannot pump enough oil to replace Russian oil.

In any case, Europe does not appear to be succeeding at convincing OPEC to do much to punish or isolate Russia in oil markets. The Saudi regime has only announced increased cooperation with Russia in recent months, and the Ukraine War does not appear to be an important topic for OPEC.

This isn’t to say that none of this will hurt Moscow at all. Time will be necessary to modify Russian oil markets to serve other consumers outside Europe, and this will mean declining revenues, at least in the short term. Moreover, US financial sanctions make it more difficult for Russian merchants to do business globally.

In spite of the West’s claim that it’s fighting some kind of war for democracy against authoritarianism, though, it looks like the biggest beneficiaries of growing European embargoes on Russian oil at some of the world’s most authoritarian regimes. Beijing will happily accept oil and gas supplies no longer sold in the West, and possibly at a discount as potential markets for Russian oil shrink in number. Moreover, if oil prices are driven up by dislocations caused by European embargoes, this is likely to benefit at least some of the oil-fueled dictators among OPEC’s members.

Meanwhile, ordinary Europeans are likely to find themselves paying much more for energy—and consequently for other goods and services as well. Recession risk is also growing in Europe.

The United States to the Rescue?

As is so often the case, Europe has looked to the United States to bail it out yet again. Biden Administration has stated that it can send US liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe to largely replace Russia in meeting Europe’s energy needs. But, it’s not that simple. As David Blackmon has noted at Forbes:

While committing the US to help Germany and other European nations wean themselves off of Russian natural gas seems to be a noble goal, there is just one problem: The President apparently didn’t talk the US LNG industry about it before he made the agreement. Reading the quotes from executives at Tellurian in the New York Times article linked here, it is apparent that they were caught off-guard by the President's announcement. “I have no idea how they are going to do this…”

In the Age of Covid, federal politicians have no doubt become accustomed to conjuring whatever they want through the “miracle” of printing money. But in the real world, it’s still necessary to produce oil and gas (and other commodities) through actual physical production. Also complicating matters is the fact oil and gas industries in the United States are still largely in private hands. This means Biden can promise whatever he wants, but the private sector will still have to do the work, and market incentives may not necessarily favor selling everything to Europe.

Not even money printing can make oil and gas magically appear on the other side of the Atlantic.

Ultimately, the frenzy of sanctions and embargoes pursued by “the West” may do little more than raise the cost of living for its own residents. Even worse are the side effects of these sanctions for poorer countries in Africa and Asia which are need Russian grain and Russian oil in many cases to keep those countries residents living above subsistence levels.

These policies will make life more difficult to ordinary innocent people worldwide while failing to actually end the war in Ukraine. But that’s a price wealthy men like Biden and Macron are apparently willing to pay.

The Twitter Poison Pill Gets The Margin Call Treatment

 This is a superb parody of the movie "Margin Call" applied to Twitter and published on "Twitter". Indeed, watch the 10' clip and enjoy the update!

Jeremy Irons in Margin Call (2011).

 

The Best Explanation of Twitter's Poison Pill Approach Yet

There's a line in J.C. Chandor's excellent 2011 film Margin Call where Jeremy Irons' CEO character tells a subordinate to explain the company's dilemma simply to him: 

Maybe you could tell me what is going on. And please, speak as you might to a young child. Or a golden retriever. It wasn't brains that brought me here; I assure you that.

Twitter user Perpetua Hughes did just that for Twitter's poison pill defense against Elon Musk's takeover bid. Her thread riffs on the scene below, so if you haven't seen the movie, watch this scene first before reading her thread for maximum enjoyment.

"Thank you everyone for coming in at such an ungodly hour. The folks at Blackrock have informed me that we need the collective brain trust here urgently to deal with this Elon offer. So - why doesn’t someone tell me what they think is going on here?"

 "Over the last 5 years, Twitter has engaged in a process of what we used to call “denazification” - removal of any accounts pushing uncomfortable narratives; amplification of those voices committed to advancing what we like to call Real Change"

 "This has allowed us to get away with suppression of uncomfortable stories like the Hunter Biden laptop, for example, without raising any red flags. As a result, Twitter has built close working partnerships with legacy media outlets and intelligence agencies."

 "But Musk’s offer of $54.20 a share is so valuable that if Twitter were nothing more than what the average person thinks it is - a run-of-the-mill social media company - we would be required to sell to maximise value for our shareholders."

"So you’re telling me - Elon will buy Twitter, and remove the various censorship mechanisms we have in place. The music is about to stop, and we will be exposed for having run the greatest propaganda operation in the history of...capitalism."

 "Do you care to know why I’m in this chair? I’m here for one reason, and one reason alone. To ensure the narrative remains controlled. To ensure we keep making money while our populations remain distracted. To ensure the “normies” know what to think and when to think it."

 "Tell me, then - what are we to do with this...bid. > Poison pill. Dilute the value of the shares owned by everyday investors, sell more to those we can trust. Is that even possible?"

 "Yes. But who are we selling to? > The people we have always relied on to control the narrative that makes us money - Morgan Stanley, Saudi Arabia, Vanguard Group... If you do this, you will expose how corrupt the system is. No one will ever trust you, ever."

 "You think they’ll trust us if Musk gives them MORE access to information about how we operate? Give any Tom, Dick, or Harry access to a free marketplace of ideas? Let them speak openly about any issue, at any time? Are you aware of just how damaging that could be to all of us?"

 "Luckily, my friends at the SEC - or as Musk calls it, “the short selling enrichment commission” - have informed me they have a few surprises in store for Mr. Musk. By the time they’re through with him, he’ll be ready to send himself to Mars in one of those spaceships of his."

 

"The West Needs WWIII" - Martin Armstrong Warns "There's No Return To Normal Here"

 Interesting comments! Martin Armstrong is known for his views relatively extreme. But does that make them wrong? Russia and China are clearly crashing the Petrodollar balance of the last 50 years. No wonder the reaction is extreme. But are the US and Europe ready to go to war? Maybe. We will know soon enough!  

Via Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com,

Legendary financial and geopolitical cycle analyst Martin Armstrong thinks the New World Order’s so-called “Great Reset” plan for humanity now needs war to try and make it work. 

It could happen in the next few weeks. 

Armstrong explains, “What they are trying to do is deliberately poke the bear..."

"They are increasing the pressure on just about everything under the sun.  The West needs World War III.  They just need it.  The real problem here is they went to negative interest rates in 2014 in Europe.  They have been unable to stimulate the economy, and Keynesian economics have completely failed...

I would say this is mismanagement of government on a global scale.  The problem is that central banks have no control over the economy. 

Add to this, this type of inflation is substantially different than a speculative boom.  This inflation is based upon shortages.  These morons with covid... with lockdowns, ended up destroying the supply chains...

Things that are there, I buy extra of because next time it might be gone.  So, everybody is increasing their hoarding...

So, what we have with Europe, with its negative interest rates, they have wiped out all the pension funds.  They need 8% to break even, not negative rates.  There is not a pension fund in Europe that is solvent at this stage of the game. . . . The European government is collapsing.  If they end up defaulting, you are going to have millions of people down there with pitch forks storming the parliament.  So, to avoid that, they need war...

The Biden Administration has deliberately destroyed the world economy.”

If there is war in Europe, the “U.S. dollar will get stronger initially and not weaker” according to Armstrong.  Armstrong also says,

“This is all deliberate.  There is no return to normal here.  Unfortunately, this is where we are headed.”

Armstrong contends, war in Europe could break out in a couple of weeks, and the EU and NATO are pushing this.  Armstrong says,

“They want Russia to do something. . . . This thing with Russia is the same thing all over again.  Unfortunately, we are headed for war.”

Armstrong also talks in detail about the following subjects:  Digital currency and why the Deep State is pushing so hard for it; gold, silver, food and just about everything going way up in price because of shortages.

Armstrong recommends that people “stockpile two years of food.”  Armstrong has other tips for what the common man needs to stock up on; Armstrong also says President Trump is the only President he knew that cared about U.S. soldiers dying in combat.  This is why Trump wanted to bring the troops home, and the Deep State warmongers hated him for it. 

Armstrong also gives his predictions on who wins the midterm election this coming November.  Will it matter which party comes out on top?

In closing, Armstrong says,

“We are not getting back to normal.  The system is crumbling from within, and it’s just like the fall of Rome, basically."