Congressmen Are "Terrified Of The Intel Agencies"; Tucker Carlson Warns They'll Frame Them With "Kiddie Porn"

  As we have documented many times on this blog, the takeover of America by the intel agencies is almost over. The methods are simple, blackmail and bribery. The purpose obvious, immediate profit and power.

  It is a complex web of deception from political "lobbyist" to pure blackmail, "Epstein" style, with pedo-islands, wired mansions in New York and trafficking of young children. The sky, or rather the depth of your wallet being the limit. 

  At the core of the deception is of course the CIA but more fundamentally Israel and the Jewish banking interests which manipulate the whole Western hemisphere since the Westphalia "peace" (Takeover in fact!) of 1648. 

  This is what is truly at stake in the confrontation between East and West. To believe that Western powers (Not the countries but the banking interests which truly control the system!) will relinquish power to China without a fight is utterly naive.   

Congressmen Are "Terrified Of The Intel Agencies"; Tucker Carlson Warns They'll Frame Them With "Kiddie Porn"

Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson sat down for a wide-ranging three-hours-plus discussion last week, touching on everything from UFOs, spirituality, and religion; from artificial intelligence costs and benefits to questioning 'science' consensus; and from government secrecy and lying to the threat to democracy driven by our domestic intelligence agencies.

They begin by discussing a recently leaked government project named "Project Aqua" which involves advanced aerospace vehicles and their interaction with humans, leading to medical injuries and even deaths.

"Here's what we know is that US servicemen have died as a result of contact with or being in the proximity of these vehicles and we know that because there are a lot of suits working their way through the VA system."

The conversation turns specifically to the nature of UFOs, suggesting they could be more than just physical or technological phenomena, potentially tied to spiritual or supernatural origins.

On supernatural explanations for UFOs:

"It's pretty clear to me that they're spiritual entities whatever that means are Supernatural and which is to say Supernaturals means above the natural above the observable uh nature."

The troublesome twosome highlighted how certain revelations or events can lead to a deeper questioning of what is commonly accepted as truth, fostering a mindset of skepticism and curiosity.

On questioning assumptions:

"I began a process still ongoing of reassessing a lot of other things like okay well if that was not true what else is not true and what else that they told me was a conspiracy theory might actually have some basis in fact."

Rogan reiterates his long-held fear of the potential for artificial intelligence to evolve beyond human control, transforming into a new form of life that could dramatically alter our understanding and existence.

On artificial intelligence and humanity's future:

"Digital Life it's going to give birth to a new life form and I think we're real close to that I think we're way closer than that to that than most people would ever want to admit."

Carlson then opens up on his views about the current state of politics and society, particularly criticizing the dishonesty and manipulation in governmental and media structures.

The perennial topic of power corruption comes up next, with the two men comparing the intoxication of leadership to the historical behaviors of cult leaders and tyrants.

On power and control:

"It's very intoxicating and it's common in that it's always existed throughout human history. It's a thing that people do when they get power—they abuse the fuck out of it."

On ideological indoctrination:

"Woke is clearly a cult; it's a mind virus... it's very similar to all kinds of religions... everybody has to believe very specific things and you can't differ from the doctrine."

The pair elaborate further on the influence of ideologies that suppress dissenting views and the impact of governmental lies on public trust, emphasizing the importance of honesty in communication, slamming the government's tendency to prioritize power over transparency and the well-being of its citizens.

On the facade of democracy:

"When they stand up and pass a $60 billion funding bill for Ukraine when 70% of the population doesn't want it... and they call it a democracy, that will drive you insane because it's just too dishonest."

On personal and governmental honesty:

"Maybe just assess everything that way - is someone lying? I don't care what your justification for it is... You can't participate in lying... try to tell the truth all the time."

"You can't lie. You can't lie about anything, just don't lie about anything. Try to tell the truth all the time," he says.

"If you just stick with that, you get pretty quickly back to reason and order, don't you?"

Joe Rogan contunues by pointing out the themes of control and misinformation, particularly in the context of media, that are growuing more and more powerful. He points out the shift in what is considered mainstream media, highlighting the growing significance of platforms like Twitter and YouTube over traditional news outlets. Rogan stresses the increasing visibility of lies and the public's growing ability to discern truth from misinformation due to the accessibility of alternative information sources online.

On the problem with mainstream media:

"Mainstream media used to be CNN; it's not really anymore. Mainstream media is what in terms of the volume consumed, more people are consuming things on X [Twitter] than there are on anything else."

The former Fox News host exclaims his clear disdain for the manipulation and deceit he perceives at the highest levels of power.

"This is not self-government. You don't run this country, we do. Shut up and obey," says Carlson regarding what the reality of our government really is, adding that "what makes it particularly galling and hard to live with is when you call that system a democracy."

Rogan and Carlson also touch upon the effects of technology and social media on personal interactions and societal norms. They discuss the negative impacts of constant connectivity, lamenting the loss of meaningful face-to-face interactions.

"When people lie and when people bullshit and gaslight, it's more offensive now than it's ever been before," Rogan points out.

"The lies aren't sophisticated. It's something incredibly insulting and demeaning to tell me a lie when I know it's a lie."

And then the discussion gets ominously dark as the pair reflect on the re-authorization of the 'spying on Americans' bill (we note that the two gentlemen met before the bill was re-authorized).

'Kiddie Porn' blackmail fear...

Stunningly, Carlson tells Rogan that congressmen were "terrified" that intelligence agencies will frame them with "kiddie porn" if they openly opposed the "warrantless spying" bill.

Specifically, he says US lawmakers "told" him that they are "worried" about being punished by intel agencies if they oppose reauthorizing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

"People don't say that because they're worried about being punished. They’re worried about someone putting kiddie porn on their computer. Members of Congress are terrified of the intel agencies. I'm not guessing at that. They've told me that — including people on the intel committee, including people who run the intel committee," Carlson said.

"The people whose job it is to oversee and keep in line these enormous, secretive agencies whose budgets we can't even know - their 'black budgets'," Carlson continued, raising his hands into air-quotes.

That it is "tyranny", not democracy, for "unelected people who are not accountable to anyone making the biggest decisions", Carlson raged, to force congressmen to support reauthorizing "warrantless spying" of American citizens because "they're threatened."

"They're the parents, the agencies are the children. They're afraid of the agencies. That's not compatible with democracy."

“It’s playing out in front of everyone, and no one cares and no one does anything about it,” Carlson said.

"I think the reason is because they’re threatened. And if you look at the committee chairman who allowed this shit to happen year after year, they’re all - and I don’t know, people say, ‘Oh, they’re compromised or being blackmailed,’ whatever. I don’t have evidence of that. But I know them. And they have all the things to hide. I know that for a fact."

“It’s not a stretch of imagination to imagine that, you know, some committee chairman who’s allowing warrantless spying on Americans to continue, or whatever abuse they’re allowing... It’s not impossible to imagine that some guy with a drinking problem or a weird sex life — and that’s very common, very common up there — that’s why they’re doing it. Because they don’t want to be exposed,” Carlson added.

“I said to somebody, a very powerful person, the other day, in a conversation in my kitchen, an elected official - holds a really senior position...

But I was like, ‘All these people are controlled. They’ve all got weird s*x lives, and all these things they’re hiding, and they’re being blackmailed by the intel agencies.’

And he said, and I’m quoting, ‘I know.’ I was like, okay, so at this point, we’re just sort of admitting that’s real? Like, why do we allow that to continue?”

Finally, and in a more calming conclusion, Carlson reminisces about his unconventional childhood, emphasizing the value of communal meals and genuine conversations, which he contrasts starkly with the superficial interactions encouraged by social media platforms. Rogan agrees, but fears we have gone to far to ever be able to come back.

On the value of personal interaction:

"When you get people in a club and you take their phones away and just have them just be actual human beings and not be filming everything, just being completely trapped with this idea of capturing something and then putting it online, then you get to have a human experience."

The dialogue shifts to the topic of creativity and its survival in modern America.

On the state of creativity:

"Creativity, art has been completely destroyed and eliminated in the United States. There’s like, you can’t be creative if you’re not honest. It’s that simple, and we can’t be honest so there’s no creativity."

Carlson expresses a belief that true creativity cannot exist without honesty, asserting that a lack of genuine expression has led to a decline in artistic and cultural development, except in fields like comedy and music which still manage to thrive amidst societal constraints.

On the power of rhythm in music:

"I love the fact that they had two drummers... the architecture is rhythm and it’s the universal sound that every culture appreciates because it reflects something that’s pre-existing that’s in you."

On societal change and comedy:

"Comedy’s never been better. Amazing time. It came close, oh yeah, the walls got breached... It felt like, oh wow, you know, people can’t tell jokes anymore. We kept doing it."

Both hosts discuss the vitality of art forms that manage to operate outside the mainstream narratives, suggesting that these are crucial for maintaining a vibrant cultural landscape.

Overall, the discussion encapsulates a broad critique of contemporary societal issues, from government secrecy and the erosion of personal freedoms to the challenges facing creative expression and public discourse in the digital age.

Both Carlson and Rogan advocate for a more open, honest, and engaged society that values personal interaction and intellectual freedom above conformity and control.

"I'm going to go crazy because I just can't deal with the lying," Carlson concludes.

China Economic Growth Shocks Wall Street! US Dollar is in SERIOUS Trouble (Video - 24mn)

  Without minimizing the long term real estate problem of China which still has got  to be fixed, the financial problems of the US are much bigger still and growing fast. At some stage in the not too distant future the problem will become existential. Then what?

  A very interesting discussion which touches on the BRICS and gold market.

 

House Passes Ukraine Funding Bill On Hitler's Birthday

  Maybe just a coincidence. Maybe not. In the end it doesn't matter.

  What matters is that Congress has voted for war in Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, Starting the process of confiscation of Russian assets which will endanger the status of the US dollar and renewed the foreign spying act which is as anti-democratic as can be. 

  But as if all this was not enough yet, it pales in comparison to what Tucker Carlson confirmed: That members of Congress are actually being blackmailed by the "agencies" which are in fact the core of what we call the deep state. 

 The days of the US as a super state are numbered. The empire will now start costing more than it brings in and add to the deficit until it all crumbles in a huge pile of debt. The timing is unpredictable but the outcome unavoidable.

House Passes Ukraine Funding Bill On Hitler's Birthday

A man poses in front of flags representing Ukrainian Neo-Nazi groups, including the aptly-named Misanthropic Division. 

Congress Passes $95 Billion America Last Package

As Zero Hedge reported today, Congress passed a package of bills to fund the Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan while not providing any additional money for U.S. border security. That Congress passed Ukraine funding on Hitler's birthday probably won't go unnoticed by Ukrainian Neo-Nazis, who have been among the most enthusiastic opponents of Russia since the Donbass conflict that preceded the current war started in 2014. 

One of the funding packages also allows for the confiscation of Russian assets in the U.S. That got me wondering when the last time the U.S. confiscated a foreign countries assets was (as opposed to freezing them), so I asked ChatGPT: 

When is the last time the U.S. confiscating another country's assets (as opposed to freezing them)? The U.S. froze Iranian assets after Iran invaded the U.S. embassy and took embassy staff hostage, but if I recall correctly, those assets were eventually return to Iran.

Its response: 

The distinction between freezing and outright confiscation of assets is significant in international law and diplomacy. When it comes to the United States, cases of asset freezing are more common than outright confiscation, particularly concerning diplomatic or geopolitical disputes.

In the case you mentioned, the U.S. did indeed freeze Iranian assets following the 1979 hostage crisis, where Iranian militants seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took 52 American hostages. The assets were frozen to apply pressure on Iran to resolve the crisis. These assets, however, were not confiscated permanently; they were indeed returned as part of the Algiers Accords in 1981, which was a settlement that facilitated the release of the hostages and resolved various claims between the U.S. and Iran.

Regarding actual confiscation of another country's assets, historical instances where the U.S. might have taken such a step are less frequent and typically tied to periods of open warfare or similar extreme circumstances. One notable example is during World War II, when the U.S. confiscated German and Japanese assets. This was done under the context of the Trading with the Enemy Act, where assets owned by countries at war with the U.S. were seized. These assets were used to fund war efforts and were not returned post-war, representing a rare instance of outright asset confiscation rather than mere freezing.

Is It Worth Risking Dollar Supremacy Over The Ukraine War? 

One of the reasons the U.S. dollar is the world's reserve currency is because, historically, foreign assets have been pretty safe here (unless your country is actually at war with us, as Germany and Japan were in World War II). We've already raised the inflation risk of foreign nations holding assets here with our out-of-control deficit spending; if we add the risk of outright confiscation, presumably China and other countries with significant U.S. dollar assets will want higher interest rates to compensate them for that risk. At a time when we have unprecedented levels of debt, this seems inauspicious. 

Confiscating Russia's assets also eliminates obvious leverage we could have used to end the Ukraine War: offering to unfreeze their assets as part of a broader settlement (which might have included paying the Ukraine for land annexed by Russia, as we did with Mexico after the Mexican-American War). Now U.S. dollar supremacy may eventually end up being another casualty of the Ukraine War, which has led to so much unnecessary human suffering since Western leaders sabotaged a Russia-Ukraine peace deal early on.

Why Is Gold Rising Now, Where Is It Headed Tomorrow?

 

  This article is just food for thoughts. There are plenty of reasons for gold to go up as explained below but these reasons were already present years ago. In a world where there is no real market left, i.e. everything is manipulated, clearly someone wants gold to be revalued now All is not going well behind the curtain. We are not there yet, but a dollar crisis is now just over the horizon!

Authored by Matthew Piepenburg via VonGreyerz.gold,

Needless to say, we at VON GREYERZ spend a good deal of time thinking about, well… gold.

The Complex, the Simple, the Math and the History

Year after year, and week after week, there is always a new way to examine gold price moves and decipher the obvious and not-so obvious forces which flow behind, ahead, above and below its monetary and, yes, metallic, move through time.

Today, deep into the early decades of the 21st century, and well over 100 years since the not-so immaculate conception of the Fed in the early 20th century, we could (and have) spent pages and paragraphs on key turning points in the rigged to fail history of paper vs. metallic money.

At times, this effort can and has seemed intense and even complex, with all kinds of historical facts, mathematical comparisons and “big events.”

The turning points of gold’s relationship with fiat currencies, and its role in preserving wealth, for example, are known to an admitted minority—as only about 0.5% of global financial allocations include physical gold.

Gold’s Language

Yet the need, role and direction of gold is fairly blunt, at least for those with eyes to see and ears to hear.

History, for example, has some clear things to say about paper money.

And so does gold.

From the Bretton Woods promises of 1944 and Nixon’s open and subsequent welch on the same in 1971 to the 2001 outsourcing of the American dream to China under Clinton (and the WTO) or the recent weaponization of USD in Q1 of 2022, gold has been watching, acting and speaking to those who understand her language.

The Big Question: Why Is Gold Rising Now?

And this year, with gold reaching all-time-highs, piercing resistance lines and racing toward what the Wall Street fancy lads call “price discovery,” we are understandably getting a lot of interview requests, phone calls and even emails from friends otherwise silent for years and now suddenly asking the same thing:

“Why is gold rising now?”

The Wall Street side of my odd brain, like it or not, gets all excited by such questions.

Never at a loss for words, my pen and mouth rapidly seek to wax poetic on the many answers to why gold matters forever in general, and why it is rising in particular now.

Toward that end, the list of the fancy and not-so-fancy answers to this question in recent years, articles and interviews could look as simple (or as complex) as the following list of 7 key factors:

The Malignant Seven

1. Every debt crisis leads to a currency crisis—hence: Good for gold.

2. All paper currencies, as Voltaire quipped, eventually revert to their paper value of zero, and all debt-soaked nations, as von Mises, David Hume and even Ernest Hemingway warned, debase their currencies to retain power—hence: Good for gold.

3. Rising rates (and fiscal dominance) used to “fight inflation” are too expensive for even Uncle Sam’s wallet, thus he, like all debt-soaked nations, will debase his currency to pay his own IOUs—hence: Good for gold.

4. Global central banks are dumping unloved and untrusted USTs and stacking gold at undeniably important levels—hence: Good for gold.

5. After generations of importing US inflation and being the dog wagged by the tail of the USD, the BRICS+ nations, prompted by a weaponized Greenback, are now turning their tails slowly but surely away from the USD dog—hence: Good for gold.

6. The Gulf Cooperation Council oil powers, once seduced (circa 1973) into a Petrodollar arrangement by a high-yielding UST and globally revered USD, are now openly selling oil outside of the 2024 version of that far less-yielding UST and far less-trusted USD—hence: Good for gold.

7. That legalized price-fixing sham otherwise known as the COMEX employed in 1974 to keep a permanent boot to the neck of the gold price, is running out of the physical gold needed to, well…price fix gold—hence: Good for gold.

In short, each of these themes–from sovereign (and unprecedented) debt levels, historical debt lessons, the secrets of the rate markets, global central banks dumping USTs or the implications of changing oil markets to the OTC derivatives scam masquerading as capitalism–all DO explain why gold is rising now.

This list, of course, may be simple, but the forces, indicators, lingo, math and trends within each theme can be admittedly complex, as each theme is in fact worthy of its own text book rather than bullet point.

Indeed, currencies, markets, history, bonds, geopolitics, energy moves and derivative desks are complicated little creatures.

But despite all this complexity, study and deliberation, if you really want to address the question of “why is gold rising now?”—the answer is almost too simple for those of us who wish to appear, well… “complex.”

The Too-Simple Answer to the Big Question

In other words, the simple answer—the answer that cuts through all the fog, lingo and math of “sophisticated” financial markets–boils down to this:

GOLD IS NOT RISING AT ALL. THE USD IS JUST GETTING WEAKER AND WEAKER.

At VON GREYERZ, we never measure gold’s value in dollars, yen, euros or any other fiat currency. We measure gold in ounces and grams.

Why?

Because history and math (as well as all the current and insane financial, geopolitical, and social events staring us straight in the eyes today) teach us not to trust a currency backed by man (or the “full faith in trust” of the UST or a Fed’s mouse-clicked currency), but instead to seek value in monetary metals created by nature.

Fake Money & Empty Promises

Once a currency loses a gold backing (nod to Nixon), it is nothing more than the empty promise of a government now free to print and spend without a chaperone to buy votes, market bubbles and even a Nobel Prize (i.e., what Hemingway called “temporary prosperity”) but then hand the bill and inflation to future generations (what Hemingway then called “permanent ruin”).

Gold Does Nothing

So yes, gold, as Buffet and others have quipped, “does nothing.” It just sits there and stares at you.

But while this yield-less pet rock sits there “doing nothing,” the currency by which you measure your wealth is in fact quite busy melting like an ice cube–one day, month and year at a time.

Here’s to Doing Nothing: Price vs. Value

Sometimes a picture can say a thousand words and make the most complex economic topics or themes, like “price vs. value” or “store of value,” make immediate sense.

Think, for example, about a 1-ounce bar of gold just doing nothing in say… 1920.

Well, if you had 250 of those do-nothing ounces in a shoe box in 1920, which was “priced” then at around $20 USD per ounce, you could afford the average US home, then priced at $5000.

Today, however, the average price of a US home is $500,000.

So, if your grandfather left you a shoebox with 5000 crumpled Dollars inside, it would not even pay for the landscaping needed for that same house today.

But if your grandfather had instead handed you a shoebox with those same 250 singe-ounce bars of gold (today “priced” at 2300/ounce), you could buy the same average home and the landscaper too—with a nice tip for the latter.

So, do you still think those little gold bars just stared back at you, doing nothing?

After all, the shoe box with the 5000 USDs inside was very busy doing one thing very well, namely: Losing its value like snow melting off a spring mountainside…

So, which shoebox would you want to measure your wealth?

The one measured in fiat dollars actively losing value? Or the one measured in gold ounces “doing nothing” but retaining its value?

Sometimes the complex really is that simple.

The Next Big Question: Where’s Gold Headed Tomorrow?

The pathway to answering such a question is just as clear as the one we just traveled.

The aforementioned “Malignant Seven” are each factors which we believe will continue to push the USD down and hence gold higher, because, and to repeat: It’s not that gold will get stronger, it’s just that all fiat currencies in general, and the weaponized, distrusted and over-indebted USD in particular, get weaker.

But for those still understandably and realistically convinced that despite its myriad and almost endless flaws, the US (and its Dollar) is still, for now at least, the best horse in the glue factory, a case can be made that measured relative to other currencies (i.e., the DXY), that the USD is supreme, and that when and as financial markets weaken, investors will flock to it like a lifeboat in a tempest.

Milkshake Theory?

Such a credible view is held by very smart folks like Brent Johnson, with whom I have discussed the USD at length.

Brent’s “milkshake theory” intelligently argues that powerful demand forces from the euro dollar, SWIFT and derivative markets, for example, create a massive, “straw-like” sucking sound for the “milky” USD, which demand will keep it strong, and send it stronger, in the seasons ahead.

He may in fact be right.

But I think differently.

Why?

Two primary reasons stick out.

No “Straw” for the UST

First, despite the undeniably powerful demand forces at play for the USD, demand for USTs is, and has been, tanking around the world since 2014.  That is, foreigners don’t trust the US IOUs as much as they did before America became a debt trap.

Ever since foreign (central bank) interest in USTs began net-selling in 2014, and gold interest began net-buying in 2010, the only buyer of last resort for US public debt has been the US Fed, and the only tool the US Fed has to purchase that debt is a mouse-clicker (“money printer”) at the Eccles Building.

Unfortunately, creating money out of thin air is not a sustainable  policy but a near-term fantasy. More importantly, such a policy is inherently, and by definition: Inflationary.

My US Realpolitik Theory…

The second, and perhaps more important reason the USD’s declining future is fairly easy to see (or argue), is this:

EVEN UNCLE SAM WANTS AND NEEDS A WEAKER DOLLAR.

Why?

Because the only way out of the biggest debt hole the US has ever seen is to inflate its way out of it by debasing the currency to “save” an otherwise rotten system.

We’ve argued this for years, and the facts supporting this historically-repeated pattern (and view) haven’t changed; they’ve just grown worse.

That is why it was easy to foresee that inflation would not be “transitory” despite all the useless commentary (and Fed-speak) arguing to the contrary.

That is also why it was easy to see that Powell’s “war on inflation” was a political ruse—an optics play.

Powell’s real aim was (and remains) inflationary via negative real rates (i.e., inflation higher than 10Y bond yields).

Thus, even while pursuing his “higher-for-longer” and anti-inflationary rate hikes, actual inflation, which Powell needed, was still ripping.

But he (and the BLS) was able get around this embarrassing CPI reality by simply lying about the actual inflation…

In other words: Classic DC fork-tonguing…

China is Not Turning Japanese

But in case you still need further proof that the US wants and needs a weaker USD to fake its way out of their self-created debt disaster via an increasingly diluted USD at YOUR expense, just consider what’s happening with China.

Unbeknownst to many, Yellen has been scurrying off to Asia to convince, cajole or even threaten China into accepting a weaker USD vs the CNY.

Why?

Because the prior, “stronger” 40-year version of the Dollar has rendered expensive US exports (and trade deficits) unable to compete with cheaper Chinese goods.

This floating currency game was a trick the US played on Japan when I was a kid—i.e., weaken the USD to fight the then-rising Sun of Japan’s then rising power.

But China ain’t Japan. It won’t float its currency in dollar terms.

So, what then can the US do to weaken the USD without upsetting China?

Does DC Finally Want Higher Gold Prices?

Well, as Luke Gromen once again makes beautifully clear, the easiest path forward for all parties concerned is to simply (and finally) let gold go much, much higher.

The surest and steadiest path to a weaker USD is higher gold.

Yellen’s Treasury Department could use its Exchange Stabilization Fund to buy/sell gold and other financial securities to control the USD without having to rely so much on the Fed’s now embarrassing money printer.

Gold is now a critical pivot point and tool for the US. If gold went, for example, to $4000 while CNY gold sits at 16,000, China’s central bank would have to re-rate higher in Dollar terms, pushing the CNY higher.

But such an arrangement won’t upset China, as it holds a lot more gold than the World Gold Council reports.

Rather than float the CNY in Dollar terms, China could instead float its CNY in GOLD terms.

In short: A veritable win-win for the China and the US, with gold now leading the way.

Or stated otherwise, you know it’s gonna be a gold tailwind, when both China and DC are seeking higher gold.

Based on the foregoing, do you still think gold does nothing?

Think harder.

David Stockman on Why the Great Labor Arbitrage is Coming to an End

  I like reading David Stockman's articles because they remind us how the economic mess we're in happened and what comes next based on sound financial analysis.

  This is a good antidote to many conspiracy theories as when you look at the details you realize that the people in charge do not control as much as they or their detractors believe. It doesn't mean powerful people do not conspire, their full time job IS conspiring! But it means that a lot of what's going on is not under the control of anybody and most policies are ad-hoc reactions to unforeseen events. (Unlike the few events which actually are provoked such as 9/11 or the Covid crisis... But let's not get into that now. Here, we are talking about monetary policies.) 

 PS: But here too, like the previous video of Joel Skousen, I find David Stockman Old School. His cheap shots at AI and its "black Vikings" is a misunderstanding. AI does change everything and may in fact completely upend his analysis which  nevertheless remains good enough as far as the historic part is concerned to be read in full. Bottom line: We are facing the end of a financial system which will have to be reset one way of the other! Different people have different ideas on how this should happen. The most likely outcome is unfortunately war. Anything else would require social and economic compromises that are unheard of in history. Quite the opposite in fact. Social system tend to lose flexibility when under stress, not the opposite.

Guest Post by David Stockman

When it comes to Keynesian central banking, it might well be said that if you paint by the numbers you are stuck with the brush. That is to say, the Fed has turned its 2.00% target into an economic holy grail and therefore does not dare risk a rebound of the 40-year high inflationary pressures that remain directly in the rearview mirror.

Yes, the inflation gauges have cooled considerably since the 9% CPI (Consumer Price Index) peak of June 2022, but the Fed is not yet remotely out of the woods. In fact, when the inflation tide is viewed through the more stable and reliable lens of the 16% trimmed mean CPI, which peaked at a somewhat lower 7.2% level in 2022, the year-over-year (Y/Y) gain at 3.7% in January was still barely halfway back to the sacrosanct 2.00% goal.

Indeed, the annualized three-month rate of change in the trimmed mean CPI has rebounded to 4.0% already, while the annualized rate for January came in at a red hot 5.7%.

So, as much as the boys and girls on Wall Street insist on getting their juice, the paint-by-the-numbers crowd in the Eccles Building (Fed HQ) is not nearly there yet.

Y/Y Change in the 16% Trimmed Mean CPI, April 2020 to January 2024

For avoidance of doubt, just recall the horrific charts of 1967 to 1982. Back then the good folks in charge of the Fed were not even explicitly in the Greenspanian monetary central planning business but still had to generate four recessions during that span in order to get the inflation genie back in the jar.

To be sure, the twentysomething traders on Wall Street, who are braying ever more insistently for initiation of the next rate cut cycle, undoubtedly confuse the 1970s with the 1790s. It’s all an ancient blur in their minds, apparently.

The graybeards working toward their pensions in the Eccles Building, however, are not quite so nonchalant. They recall the triple peak of inflation from that era and undoubtedly still have the chart on their dashboards. The thundering central bank failure implicit in three inflationary surges (red bars) and four recessionary contractions (white areas) in just over a decade nearly destroyed the Fed’s open-ended remit as the nation’s unelected monetary politburo, to say nothing of its credibility on both ends of the Acela Corridor (New York and Washington, D.C.).

Y/Y Change in the CPI, 1967 to 1984

Therefore the current gang in charge is not about to flinch on their “higher for longer” call until they can see clearly the whites of those 2.00% inflationary eyes.

We don’t expect this prayed-for condition to be attained any time soon. That’s because the truth of the “lowflation” mirage of the last several decades cannot be buried indefinitely, nor even for much longer.

We are referring, of course, to the fact that there was a whole lot of inflation from the Fed’s madcap money printing even before it pulled out the stops on its printing presses in response to the so-called COVID-crisis in March 2020. But most of that came out in financial asset prices and in the real estate sector, bubbles that Wall Street pronounced to be a swell thing.

At the same time, most of the rest was temporarily exported to the rest of the world via the Fed’s flood of dollar liabilities, which were compliantly scooped up by mercantilist central banks in China, the petro-states and elsewhere in the rapidly mushrooming low-cost global manufacturing supply chains.

The chart below is not simply striking evidence that the 1.8% average inflation rate during the first two decades of this century was an aberration; it is actually the smoking gun!

Index of US Unit Labor Costs, 1970 to 2020

The Fed had grotesquely inflated the US economy during the 1970s cycles shown above and had been merely content to slow the further rise of these drastically higher price levels by the aforementioned 2.0% per annum during the later 1980s and 1990s. This occurred even as Mr. Deng was converting Mao’s ossified Communist economy into a manufacturing powerhouse by dint of a red hot capitalist style printing press at the People’s Bank of China and several hundred millions of newly-minted industrial workers flushed out of the rice paddies and subsistence villages of China.

American industry and wage workers had no chance. Thanks to the pro-inflation policies of the Fed both before and after Greenspan — save for the short interval of “Tall Paul” Volcker’s rescue of the American economy from the inflationary abyss — unit labor costs by the year 2000 were 235% higher than they had been in 1970 and by the eve of the pandemic crisis in March 2020 were actually up by 310%.

Of course, the soaring purple line in the chart above wasn’t supposed to matter according to the Keynesian economists running US economic policy. If America’s trade deficit got too large owing to massive offshoring and mushrooming trade deficits, surplus countries abroad like China were supposed to experience exchange rate appreciation and thereby an offsetting reduction in their competitive cost advantage.

Alas, that assumed printing-press money in the US would be countered by sound money abroad. Fat chance!

Foreign central banks printed stride for stride and then some with the Fed under what is best described as the “dirty float.” So doing, they bought up trillions of unwanted dollars, expanding their own money supplies as they did so, thereby keeping their trade surpluses intact and showering their export industries with cheap credit and capital.

So offshoring never slowed down. The exchange rate corrections and rebalancing of trade accounts never happened.

There is no mystery, therefore, about the cause of the great labor arbitrage and resulting offshoring of America’s industrial economy over the last 40 years. To wit, the objective condition of the global economy and internet linkages of producers and consumers everywhere on the planet meant that the US needed a sustained period of cost deflation to purge the inflationary excesses of the 1970s and after, not the pro-inflation policy that the Fed actually conducted.

For want of doubt, the chart below tells you all you need to know. Shortly after the turn of the century, the manufacturing wage gap between the US and China was 22X and even by 2015 it was still in the 5X range. And yet, the foolish Keynesian academics in the Eccles Building saw fit to essentially contend that still more inflation was the key to prosperity, a la their 2.00% target.

Nevertheless, the great labor arbitrage is now drawing to a swift close, in large part because China has completely drained its rice paddies. That is to say, as a matter of demographics and the legacy of its one-child policy, the Red Ponzi labor force peaked in 2015 and is now shrinking and will be shrinking as far as the eye can see.

Accordingly, wage costs are rising rapidly in China because even the Red Ponzi has not found a way to repeal the laws of supply and demand. Accordingly, the wage gap has narrowed to less than 20% and will likely disappear entirely before the end of the current decade.

The Great Labor Cost Arbitrage, 2000 to 2025

The underlying truth is that the Great Labor Arbitrage was a one-time event, not a permanent condition of the global economy. There are simply no more Chinas left on planet earth or even the nearby solar system.

And that gets us exactly to the Fed’s impending monetary Waterloo. It was able to print with relative impunity during the 1990 to 2020 period because the one-time export of the US industrial economy caused an utterly aberrant split screen deformation of the domestic price level.

To wit, the merchandise goods coming back into the US economy from offshore production were priced at levels far below the hideously inflated level of domestic production costs. As a result, the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) deflator for durable goods (black line) actually declined by nearly 40% between 1995 and early 2020. That reflected not only the surging import share of durable goods, but the fact that on-margin imports set the price of domestically produced goods as well.

PCE Deflator: Durable Goods Versus Services, 1995 to 2020

There has never been anything like this sweeping deflation in the modern economic era. It was literally a freak of economic history, beyond any plausible avenue of continuation or replication.

By contrast, the PCE deflator for services, which are largely produced domestically and therefore within the Fed’s realm of influence, rose by more than 85% during the same period.

In annualized terms, therefore, the durables index declined by 2% per annum for a full quarter-century while the services index rose by 2.5% per year. It was a pure statistical anomaly and gift of dumb luck to the Eccles Building that the resulting overall PCE deflator rose, on the math, at 1.85% per annum.

And yet, and yet. The Keynesian pointy heads at the Fed declared this spat of dumb luck to be a “lowflation” problem requiring aggressive and sustained operations of its printing presses. In effect, they were looking a gift horse in the mouth and pretending it was an ogre.

Needless to say, with Chinese wages and costs rising rapidly and the arbitrage gap nearly closed, there is not a snowball’s chance in the hot place that the black line in the chart above will take another 40% dump lower. Not in a million years.

And that means, in turn, that the yawning gap in the above chart between goods deflation and services inflation will not recur. As it happens, the underlying services inflation is still in the +5% Y/Y range and will dominate the topline price level going forward far more heavily than it did during the aberrant era of 40% durables deflation.

Accordingly, the “lowflation” excuse for money printing is now deader than a doornail.

The fact is inflation isn’t and won’t be contained even at the Fed’s specious 2.00% target. And the last two decades have proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that aggressive money printing does not spur domestic investment and productivity, and therefore overall economic growth either.

What it does do is inflate asset bubbles on Wall Street because ultra-low interest rates purportedly justify higher price-to-earnings multiples. And that’s been the excuse all along for taking the Fed’s balance sheet from $300 billion when Greenspan was hit with the Black Monday meltdown in October 1987 to a peak of $9 trillion a few months back.

Alas, financial asset bubbles aren’t indefinitely sustainable either. They actually rang the bell on Wall Street Thursday when NVIDIA brushed up against a market cap of $2 trillion, representing 30X sales of chips that enable the likes of Google’s generative AI to render portraits of black people dressed as Vikings.

Even the Tulip Bulb Mania of 1637 never went that crazy.

Y/Y Change in CPI for Services, 2011 to 2024

A WARNING FROM A WISE OLD MAN, "THE TRIGGER EVENT FOR WW3" by Joel Skousen (Video - 1h20mn)

  Many interesting points in this video although I do disagree with quite a few fundamental aspects of the analysis. It is still far more intelligent and better grounded ideologically than most of what you hear in the media so well worth your time. China and Russia are presented as the enemy. I disagree, but you are entitled to think so if you defend the US hegemony and believe it must be maintained at all costs as most people do in the West, even if implicitly. 

  PS: Forget his anti-communism and rabid anti-Putin ranting. Old man he certainly is! More interesting when he talks about the Globalists although his conspiracies are convoluted. Some may be correct, others less so. Plenty of little known facts still.

 

The Internet is starting to Break - Here's Why.

 The business model of the Internet was to make money, not to offer you a good deal. And so it started with the deals but come on, you did not think that was going to be the future, right?

 

EMERGENCY UPDATE: WTF JUST HAPPENED? ISRAEL NEARLY STARTS NUCLEAR WW3 BUT SOMETHING ISN'T RIGHT (Video - 17mn)

 Indeed, WTF JUST HAPPENED?

 

BRICS - The Project Of The Century

  While the world is on the brink of Armageddon, the BRICS move on step by step.

  Be certain that at some stage, the project will be interfered with by the G7. This is unavoidable.

  In the meantime here's a very complete assessment of the BRICS' project and where they are going. 

Authored by Peter Hanseler via VoiceOfRussia.com,

The Western media are prioritizing the Ukraine conflict, the green revolution and the woke revolution. In the shadow of this media coverage, BRICS is changing the world.

We bring you the latest figures and place them in the current geopolitical environment. – An analysis.

Introduction

One of the main topics of this blog is BRICS. We have written numerous articles, followed and analyzed the development of this organization. Significantly, the first independent post on this blog was dedicated to BRICS on November 18, 2022 “The unstoppable rise of the East“.

Our last dedicated BRICS-only article from 24 September 2023 “BRICS will change the world – slowly” gave an overview of the development and summarized the results of the BRICS summit in South Africa in August 2023. This article was published by ZeroHedge, the GloomBoomDoom report by Dr. Marc Faber and Weltwoche (print and online).

From the density of our coverage, it is clear that we ascribe paramount importance to BRICS for the geopolitical and geo-economic development of the world. Based on the facts, we have come to the conclusion that BRICS will change the world more than all other developments of the last 100 years put together. The developments around BRICS have already triggered a tectonic shift in the geopolitical balance of power; the Ukraine conflict and the accelerating crisis in the Middle East are merely pieces of the mosaic by comparison.

The Western media are setting their priorities differently and focusing on topics that we believe are of lesser importance: Mortal enemy Russia, wokeness and green ideology.

Reporting on BRICS in the West, if it takes place at all, is limited to portraying BRICS either as an instrument of China to achieve world power – as the Financial Times put it,

«How the BRICS nations risk becoming satellites of China»

FINANCIAL TIMES – 26 JULY 2023

or to trivialize the success of BRICS – according to the NZZ,

“We explain in the video why this extension only promises limited success.”

NZZ, 14 DECEMBER 2023

Preliminary remarks on the figures

We proceed as we always do and develop a fact-based foundation for a discussion.

Membership doubled as of January 1

Since January 1, Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Ethiopia have joined the existing members (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) as new members.

Argentina not participating

In August 2023, Argentina was invited to become the sixth member. However, the new president of Argentina, Javier Milei, decided not to accept this invitation and to rely on the USA and Donald Trump to rescue his economy.

It is impossible to judge at this point whether this decision will prove to be the right one. For the second largest country in South America, which was once one of the richest countries in the world, it is to be hoped that Milei can pull the cart out of the deep mire. Milei is fighting against the establishment in Argentina, which has driven the country economically to the wall. These former rulers are serious opponents who are fighting for sinecures that Milei must wrest from them if he wants to save Argentina. We hope that Javier Milei can prevail and wish him every success and good luck. The first signs of success appear to be emerging: The country was able to report a positive budget for the first time last month. It seems to be heading in the right direction.

Saudi Arabia

According to Western media reports, Saudi Arabia is not yet fully on board. South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor is reported to have told Reuters that “Saudi Arabia has not yet responded to the invitation to join BRICS. It is still being considered”.

Saudi Arabia, or rather the ruling Saud family, has been an ally of the USA since the end of the Second World War, and this relationship has been further strengthened since the agreement of the ” Petrodollar” in 1974.

Since President Biden has been in power, the relationship with the USA has suffered massively, while at the same time cooperation with China and Russia has strengthened to an unprecedented level.

The problem that Saudi Arabia now has is the gigantic investments that the state and private individuals have made, particularly in the USA and the UK. Government investments in the USA alone amount to over USD 35 billion and investments in the UK are said to be around USD 75 billion. Due to the geopolitical situation in the world and the West’s aggressive sanctions policy, the concerns of Saudi Arabia that these investments could be confiscated in the event of a BRICS accession are definitely justified. As Saudi Arabia is important to BRICS and China has overtaken the US as Saudi Arabia’s largest trading partner, we expect Saudi Arabia to join BRICS as soon as China might make commitments to the Saudis in the event of Western expropriation.

BRICS-10 in numbers

Map

Dark green BRICS until August 2023 – light green – the new BRICS members – Source: VoicefromRussia

Numbers

In our figures, we compare the BRICS-10 with the G7 and the world as a whole to give you a feel for the ratios. The parameters we use are population, GDP (adjusted for purchasing power), oil production, gas production and gold production.

We show the gross national product adjusted for purchasing power. If you use the US dollar as a measure of GDP, the economic power of a country is distorted: if you want to measure financial strength realistically, it makes a big difference whether, for example, a Big Mac in US dollars costs twice as much in one place as elsewhere. The so-called Big Mac Index is reason enough to use purchasing power-adjusted figures when comparing GDP figures. The reason why Western media use the unadjusted figures is pure marketing to disguise the devaluation of the US dollar and make it appear stronger than it is.

Charts

Graphical representation of the figures – Source: VoicefromRussia.

Interim result

All factors show that the BRICS 10 far outstrip the G7 and it seems incomprehensible that the West is simply suppressing this fact. A look beneath the surface reveals facts that reinforce the impression of the bare figures.

Assessment of these figures

Oil production

The following additional facts should be taken into consideration when evaluating the oil production figures:

Firstly, although the USA is still the largest oil producer in the world, accounting for around 18% of global production, it also consumes the most oil, with a share of over 20%. This means that the USA is currently not even able to cover its own consumption. This fact alone is a compelling reason for the US to pressure Saudi Arabia not to join BRICS.

Secondly, the major oil-producing members of BRICS have a great deal of influence or even control over OPEC. As BRICS thus also controls OPEC and therefore controls the price and distribution of a large proportion of oil, BRICS can be said to have an (indirect) monopoly position.

Thirdly, the production costs for US oil are around 2.5 times higher than the production costs for Saudi oil.

These factors therefore further strengthen the BRICS’ position of power with regard to oil.

Natural gas

With regard to natural gas, it should be noted that with Iran’s accession to BRICS, the two largest natural gas producers in the world are joint members of BRICS: Russia and Iran.

The largest non-BRICS gas producer is Qatar, which is (still) allied with the USA. BRICS is therefore also a real center of power when it comes to natural gas.

Gold

With regard to gold, it should be briefly mentioned that China and Russia are number 1 and 2 in global gold production respectively. I mention gold here because there is a good chance that gold will again play an important role in future monetary systems at some point – more on this below.

Russia holds the BRICS chairmanship in 2024

Over 220 BRICS conferences will be held in Russia over the course of 2024. The topics are diverse: science, high technology, healthcare, environmental protection, culture, sport, youth exchange and civil society.

President Putin’s statements at the beginning of the year at the opening event of BRICS 2024 in Moscow were interesting. He mentioned several times the closer cooperation between the members on security issues. It seems that BRICS will therefore not only focus on economic aspects, but also on security-related aspects more and more. The apparent coordination of the BRICS states in connection with the Middle East conflict at the UN in New York clearly indicates close cooperation on non-economic issues.

Various non-official sources have reported that the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) is moving closer to BRICS and may even merge with it. In addition to China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, Iran has also been a member of the SCO since July 2023.

This is extremely important due to the heightened geopolitical tensions and the two major conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. If these two organizations were to merge, there would be a new counterweight to NATO. NATO is already increasingly being characterized by experts as a mere chattering club, particularly due to its performance in the Ukraine conflict, which was not a success. As a result, NATO has almost lost its threatening potential. If the BRICS-SCO merger becomes a reality, NATO would finally degenerate into an empty shell.

Formal applications for admission – BRICS+

Candidates

Algeria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Kuwait, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestine, Senegal, Thailand, Venezuela, Vietnam and Belarus have formally applied for membership.

Green: BRICS 10 (light green Saudi Arabia) – Yellow: formal membership applications

Figures

Charts

Assessment

It should be noted in this list that the formal applicants will probably not all be admitted in 2024. This illustration shows the maximum and the broad formal interest in this organization. The applications for admission from some countries harbor great potential for conflict with the USA.

In my opinion, the greatest potential for conflict from an American perspective is the possible accession of Mexico, Cuba and Venezuela. Mexico’s membership would be seen by the USA in the same way as the Soviet stationing of nuclear missiles in Cuba in 1962 – “enemy on the doorstep of the USA”. This is probably also the reason why it was reported on March 3 that Mexico had not submitted a formal application for membership. Fear is breathing down the necks of the Mexicans and the USA is exerting pressure in the background.

In Venezuela, the country with the world’s largest oil reserves, the US has been trying for years to overthrow President Maduro and install a puppet.
Last August, it was not enough to gain admission and the USA will do everything in its power to prevent this oil giant from joining. However, the USA has a losing hand with the Venezuelan population, as it is imposing sanctions on the beleaguered country to bring about a collapse and accepting that the Venezuelan people are suffering from hunger.

The list of formal applications for admission could therefore change considerably between now and October, when the decisions on who will be invited to Kazan are made. What is certain, however, is that the G7 – especially the United States – is devoting huge energies to slowing down the development of BRICS. In my opinion, however, this organization is already too powerful to be weakened by the West.

BRICS turns its back on the US dollar

The petrodollar – US dollar as a reserve currency

The greatest danger of this ever stronger community is to the USA. We have discussed many times that the Petrodollar is the real foundation of American supremacy and not the American armed forces.

It is of existential importance for the USA that international trade, especially commodity trade, is conducted in US dollars. We explain why.

The US dollar as a global trading currency means that practically all countries have to hold US dollars in reserve in order to be able to settle their trade invoices. This makes the US dollar a reserve currency.

However, central banks do not hold the US dollar in cash, but in US government securities in order to earn interest. This makes the world’s central banks the biggest buyers of US government securities, regardless of whether they think they are a good investment. As a result, the US can refinance its debt on terms that are not based on the strength of the US economy, but on these systemic purchases. French President Giscard d’Estaing rightly described the petrodollar in the 1970s as an “exorbitant privilege”, as it leads to the automatic refinancing of the USA.

Abuse of this exorbitant privilege

However, the USA has been abusing this privilege for decades. Whenever a country implements something that the US does not like, it is cut off from the US dollar. The US can implement this without any problems, as all US dollar transactions go through the US. The consequences for the country concerned are catastrophic, as it is effectively banned from the commodities trade.

Theft of Russian central bank reserves

However, by blocking the foreign currency reserves of the Russian central bank in March 2023, the US has overstepped the mark, because now the entire Global South is afraid to hold US dollars, as they may suffer the same fate. Although every legal expert declares that the freeze was already carried out without an international legal basis, the West is about to go one step further and prepare the confiscation. This is the unequivocal statement made by Janet Yellen on February 27:

“I also believe it is necessary and urgent for our coalition to find a way to unlock the value of these immobilized assets to support Ukraine’s continued resistance and long-term reconstruction.”

JANET YELLEN AT THE PRESS CONFERENCE BEFORE THE G20 ON FEBRUARY 27, 2024

 

The EU under Ms. von der Leyen and even exponents in Switzerland are preparing to put this planned raid into practice and thus not only continue to block these funds, but to steal them.

De-dollarization is already here

Until 2022, Russia conducted 80% of its trade in USD and EUR, 50% in US dollars. Today it is only 13%.

In the same period, Russia’s trade activity in roubles and yuan rose from 3% to 34% for both currencies.

These figures are clearly the result of the sanctions against Russia. However, it is a declared goal of all BRICS countries to no longer trade with each other in US dollars, but in the respective local currencies.

If you look at the current size of BRICS – 36% of global GDP – this will herald a tectonic development away from the US dollar; if you add the formal applicants, this figure rises to 42% of global GDP.

According to Bloomberg, the use of the US dollar as a reserve currency is collapsing.

Source: Bloomberg

Consequences for the US

De-dollarization poses an existential threat to the USA, as it will result in the loss of buyers of US government bonds and thus the USA’s ability to refinance its highly deficit-ridden national budget. As US government bonds are a product like any other, whose price is determined by supply and demand, a collapse in demand also leads to a collapse in the price of US government bonds. As the interest rate on bonds moves inversely to the price, the interest rate on bonds and therefore inflation will rise.

Debt in the USA is currently accelerating at an unprecedented rate. Debt currently amounts to over USD 34 trillion. It will soon take just one month to accumulate the next trillion in debt – apocalyptic. When President Reagan was in power, the total US debt amounted to less than one trillion. It therefore took just under 200 years to build up the first trillion in debt; soon this amount of debt will be a reality within a month.

One of the reasons for this is that the USA will already have to pay one trillion US dollars (1,000,000,000,000) in interest payments on its own debt this year alone. This is more than the USA spends on its entire military expenditure, which is gigantic in itself, as the USA spends more money on its military than the next 13 countries combined.

Source: Wikipedia

If the willingness of the countries of the Global South, and in particular the BRICS members, to buy decreases, the USA will sooner or later find itself in an existentially dangerous situation.

BRICS’ own currency

Trading currency

There is a lot of talk about a new currency that would serve as a payment and financing instrument for the BRICS. There were voices – including James Rickards – who were convinced last August that a BRICS single currency would be created as early as 2023. We were skeptical about this timing and took the view that it would take longer, and we were right. However, this does not mean that James Rickards was wrong, he was just a little early.

We have seen above that the BRICS countries are in fact hardly using the US dollar among themselves any more, instead using their local currencies.

Use of local currencies

The consequence of this is that the BRICS members accumulate currencies of their trading partners over the course of a trading year if they sell more goods than they buy. Example: Russia and India use Roubles and Rupees in their trade. Since Russia sells more to India (especially raw materials) than India sells to Russia, the Russians are sitting on large amounts of Rupees at the end of the year. This problem arises regularly throughout the BRICS region among the various members in bilateral trade when deficits or surpluses build up.

Settlement with gold

I believe that the bilateral use of national currencies will continue for the time being, but that the first step will be to look for a mechanism to balance these surpluses or deficits at the end of a trading year.

Gold is an obvious choice here, not gold calculated in US dollars, Rupees or Roubles, but gold in units of weight. The trade differences at the end of a year or month would be settled in gold (kg or tons). Whether in this case the gold is actually physically delivered or merely recorded in a ledger depends on the trust between the parties. I also assume that in such a case, gold warehouses would be opened in various locations in the BRICS region, where the member countries would store their gold and their holdings would be confirmed by a BRICS auditing company.

A final issue would then be to determine the exchange rate of the local currencies. This seems to be one of the major sticking points so far.

Indications that the trend is towards gold

Evidence always comes from the facts. The world produces around 3,000 tons of gold per year.

According to the World Gold Council, central banks have been net buyers of gold since 2010 and the trend in gold purchases has increased steadily in recent years.

The Chinese bought the most gold (225 tons).

Caution is advised with regard to the official reported gold reserves.

It is very possible – and in my opinion probable – that the gold reserves of China and Russia are much larger than officially reported.

It is clear that central banks are buying more gold than they have since the 1960s. This is an indication that they are not only arming themselves against inflation, but also for the settlement of commodities.

It will be interesting to see what exactly will happen this year, but I assume that at the next BRICS summit, which will take place in Kazan in October, announcements will be made that will surprise the West. In addition to new members, I believe that a trade clearing system as described above or even more is within the realm of possibility.

Future of BRICS – many new members

Preliminary remarks

Looking to the future, BRICS has the potential to unite many countries of the Global South and completely eclipse the Collective West.

We have compiled the data of those countries that are interested in joining. This is for the future, but in times of geopolitical tensions and military conflicts, history teaches us that a lot can happen in a short time, especially after decades, without major changes. For this reason, we are merely providing a framework below and are not making any predictions regarding the timeline, but rather letting the figures speak for themselves and refraining from commenting at this stage.

Map

Green: BRICS 10 – Yellow: formal requests for membership – Blue: countries that show interest

Numbers

Charts

Conclusion

After BRICS became BRICS-10 last August by doubling its membership and thus far outstripping the previous economic colossus G7, the current year is set to continue in giant strides. The gap to the G7 will definitely widen further at the BRICS summit in Kazan. It is still uncertain which of the formal applicants will actually be invited and thus become new members on January 1, 2025.

In my opinion, however, one thing is already a fact: the hegemony of the USA will come to an end as a result of de-dollarization. The combination of astronomical debts, rampant new borrowing and the fact that more and more countries in the Global South are turning away from the US dollar is accelerating the demise of the hegemon that ascended to the throne in 1945 and is increasingly harming itself through its aggressive geopolitics.

No world power has ever left voluntarily and peacefully. The aggressive stance of the USA towards Russia and China and its adherence to the alliance with Israel are de facto proof of the aggressive behavior of the sick hegemon.

This attitude could lead to a war between Russia and NATO in Ukraine, where a local conflict is still taking place, all the more so as the Americans have so far been on the way to inciting France, Great Britain and Germany to wage war against the giant empire.

In the Middle East, the attitude is downright perverse. In order not to alienate the Jewish lobbies in the USA, which traditionally have a major influence on presidential elections, the USA is supporting a genocide that has been clearly designated as such by the International Court of Justice. In addition to purely electoral considerations in the USA, the USA also supports Israel in order not to lose its last power base in the Middle East. These two ends obviously justify the means – and the means is genocide. The Israeli attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon has already begun and so there is ever less in the way of a burning Middle East.

Finally, they are also trying to provoke a conflict over Taiwan – a conflict that would be fought between Chinese and would therefore be a civil war. China’s intention to reach a diplomatic agreement with Taiwan in the next 20 to 30 years – that was the plan – is in jeopardy due to Washington’s aggressive stance.

The behavior of the US is unfortunately typical – the downfall is predetermined, the facts and figures in this article prove it. Whether the smouldering fires already blazing in American society will bring about a change and whether they will be aggressive or more balanced cannot yet be guessed. We will have to wait for the presidential elections in the USA, but a lot can still happen between now and November.

For a geopolitician, the world could hardly be more exciting – but for humanity, a little less tension and pressure would be a blessing. After all, people under pressure, especially politicians, have a tendency to make big mistakes.

WW3! (Or just not yet?)

  As we have been documenting over the last couple of years, the world was slowly heading towards WW3 as an unavoidable consequence of the financial disaster of the last 30 years. The brazen attack of the Iranian Embassy in Syria followed by the retaliation bombing of Israel marked an acceleration of the slide. The bombing of Iran just now will probably be the threshold towards actual war. (Or just another step. It makes little difference. War is a process, not an event. History will decide later which were the significant "events".)

 To be continued! 

 Update-1: The air space over Iran is now closed. Bombing has been confirmed over several sites. 

 Update-2: Damage control. All "drones" intercepted...  A bombing without consequences, just for the sake of it? 

To be continued!

Futures Tumble, Oil And Gold Soar On Reports Of "Huge Explosions" In Central Iran, Israeli Airstrikes In Iraq And Syria

And just like that, Israel - having once again ignored Biden's pleadings not to escalate the already tense situation - is retaliating against Iran's weekend strike, which was itself a retaliation against Israel bombing Iran's embassy in Syria on April 1.

Moments ago futures dumped, oil prices spiked, and treasury yields slumped amid social media reports and Reuters headlines that there have been three "huge explosions" near the central Iran cities of Natanz (location of an Iranian nuclear power plant) and Isfahan (location of the Iranian Nuclear Technology Center which is suspected of being the center of Iran's nuclear weapons program), as well as simultaneous explosions in Iraq and Syria, where the Israel air force appears to be targeting pro-Iranian militias.

• IRANIAN MEDIA: 3 HUGE EXPLOSIONS WERE HEARD IN ISFAHAN, SOUTH OF TEHRAN

• JERUSALEM POST: SIMULTANEOUS EXPLOSIONS REPORTED IN IRAN, SYRIA, AND IRAQ ACCORDING TO INITIAL REPORTS

• IRAN'S FARS NEWS AGENCY SAYS EXPLOSIONS HEARD IN CENTRAL ISFAHAN AIRPORT, REASON UNKNOWN

• ISRAELI MISSILES HIT IRAN SITE, US OFFICIAL SAYS: ABC