Tag Archives: Europe

The U.S. Is Winning Its War On Europe’s Industries And People, by Moon of Alabama

Posted on September 27, 2022 | Leave a comment

The U.S.’s proxy war against Russia via Ukraine isn’t going too well, but it’s war against Europeans, who don’t even know they’re U.S. enemies, is going splendidly. From Moon of Alamaba at moonofalabama.org:

Disclose.tv @disclosetv – 10:03 UTC · Sep 26, 2022JUST IN – German economy deteriorated significantly in September. IFO business climate index continues to fall.

On February 7 Professor of Economics Michael Hudson explained why America’s Real Adversaries Are Its European and Other Allies:

What worries American diplomats is that Germany, other NATO nations and countries along the Belt and Road route understand the gains that can be made by opening up peaceful trade and investment. If there is no Russian or Chinese plan to invade or bomb them, what is the need for NATO? And if there is no inherently adversarial relationship, why do foreign countries need to sacrifice their own trade and financial interests by relying exclusively on U.S. exporters and investors?These are the concerns that have prompted French President Macron to call forth the ghost of Charles de Gaulle and urge Europe to turn away from what he calls NATO’s “brain-dead” Cold War and beak with the pro-U.S. trade arrangements that are imposing rising costs on Europe while denying it potential gains from trade with Eurasia. Even Germany is balking at demands that it freeze by this coming March by going without Russian gas.

Instead of a real military threat from Russia and China, the problem for American strategists is the absence of such a threat.

What the U.S. needed was to provoke Russia, and later China, into reacting to U.S. arranged threats in a way that would oblige its ‘allies’ to follow its sanction policies.

The rather dimwitted European leadership fell for the trick.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Energy, Geopolitics, Governments, Military, Politics, War

Tagged , ,

Europe’s Biggest Enemy Isn’t Russia Nor Islamic Terrorism, but Israel, by Martin Jay

Posted on September 26, 2022 | 2 comments

Europe shouldn’t mistake either the U.S. or Israel as a friend. From Martin Jay at strategic-culture.org:

When Joe Biden took office, many pundits said that at least relations between the U.S. and EU would be restored. But the Iran deal is the ultimate test of just how much he loves the old continent.

Just how far will Israel go to scupper the so-called Iran deal from being signed by both Iran and the West? And will it play a fair game or use underhand and covert tactics to achieve its goal of the deal never being signed? Recently, we have seen the talks in Vienna progress as even the Americans say that certain key negotiating points have been taken out of the deal from the Iranians which has made the negotiations move closer to an agreement; we have also seen though Israel pulling out all the stops, from a PR and lobbying perspective at least.

And then there is the murky subject of skullduggery to destroy the talks. If you’re one of these people who believes in fairies at the bottom of the garden or that certain toothpastes can make your teeth whiter, then you might not buy into Israel using Mossad to derail the deal. Attacks on U.S. forces for example in Iraq, supposedly carried out by Iran-backed militias would normally have most people pointing the finger at Iran, proclaiming that Tehran is not at all serious about the deal but just playing along for time so that it can roll out a nuclear bomb. Then there is the curious case of the Salman Rushdie attack, which, again, many would point out could be attributed to the Iranians who still have a very much ‘alive’ fatwa against the British writer. Indeed, even the Supreme Leader is reported to have made a comment against Rushdie when he heard of the knife attack.

Continue reading →

2 Comments

Posted in Energy, Geopolitics, Governments, Politics

Tagged , ,

What the End of the Fed Put Actually Means, by Tom Luongo

Posted on September 18, 2022 | Leave a comment

It means there’s a chance that U.S. finances  and its economy are restored to sanity, although I wouldn’t advise holding your breath waiting for it. From Tom Luongo at tomluongo.me:

gold-dollar-trap

For more than a year I’ve been arguing that the Fed was tightening US dollar supply. When I first put the idea out there it was met with intense skepticism and, for the most part, it still is.

The Fed has long been the punching bag of hard money and alternative finance types because, frankly, it always deserved it. For nearly the past generation, until June of 2021, the Fed acted as the Central Bank of the World.

But we’re rapidly reaching the moment where a lot of people are finally beginning to realize maybe the vaunted “Fed Put,” the belief that the Fed always comes to the market’s rescue isn’t going to show up anytime soon, if at all.

Whenever there was a major crisis on the horizon the Fed was always there to provide the world with the dollars needed to keep things from collapsing completely. This was especially true in the aftermath of Lehman Bros. and the 2008 housing crisis which broke the post-Bretton Woods Dollar Reserve Standard ushered in by Paul Volcker’s extreme monetary policy of the early 1980’s.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Banking, Business, Currencies, Economics, Economy, Governments

Tagged , ,

WHY Is Germany Committing Suicide? by David Chu

Posted on September 18, 2022 | Leave a comment

Is the U.S. government draining the life out of Europe to sustain, for just a short while longer, it’s own unsustainable profligacy” From David Chu at unz.com:

The Same Reasons WHY the EU/UK is Being Deindustrialized!

Well that’s the real question, isn’t it? Why? The how and the who is just scenery for the public. Oswald, Ruby, Cuba, the Mafia. Keeps ’em guessing like some kind of parlor game, prevents ’em from asking the most important question, why? Why was Kennedy killed? Who benefited? Who has the power to cover it up? Who?

~ Mr. X in JFK movie

Why is Germany committing harakiri (or seppuku)?

Because the Americans ordered them to do so!

Recently, William F. Engdahl wrote a very interesting article titled, “Europe’s Energy Armageddon From Berlin and Brussels, Not Moscow” which was re-worked in Pepe Escobar’s “Germany’s Energy Suicide: An Autopsy”.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/57224.htm

https://www.unz.com/pescobar/germanys-energy-suicide-an-autopsy/

Both articles give a fascinating explanation of HOW Germany is committing suicide. Green Agenda 2030. The Great Reset. Etc.

I emailed Engdahl about the following statement that he wrote in his article and asked him, “What is the real reason for the complete deindustrialization of Germany? Besides the Green Energy or Great Reset bullshit.”:

It is not because politicians like Scholz or German Green Economy Minister Robert Habeck, nor EU Commission Green Energy Vice President Frans Timmermans are stupid or clueless. Corrupt and dishonest, maybe yes. They know exactly what they are doing. They are reading a script. It is all part of the EU plan to deindustrialize one of the most energy-efficient industrial concentrations on the planet. This is the UN Green Agenda 2030 otherwise known as Klaus Schwab’s Great Reset. [Bolded emphasis is mine.]

For whatever reasons, Engdahl didn’t reply to my email. But in my email to him, I basically answered my question when I asked the following:

Is it to emasculate Europe completely so as to make Europe completely dependent on the US for both energy and technology? The rest of the world is moving towards BRI and BRICS. The only block left to harvest aka rape and pillage for the Americans is Europe (plus Japan and South Korea).

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments

Tagged

Existential Disquiets: Financial War Against the West Begins to Bite, by Alastair Crooke

Posted on September 6, 2022 | Leave a comment

The U.S. government is writing checks its overdrawn bank account can’t cash. From Alastair Crooke at strategic-culture.org:

Europe sinks into being a distant backward province to a falling ‘Imperial Rome’, Alastair Crooke writes.

The Club of Rome, founded in 1968 as a collective of leading thinkers pondering global issues, took as its leitmotiv the doctrine that to view the problems of humankind individually, in isolation or as “problems capable of being solved in their own terms”, was doomed to failure – “all are interrelated”. Now, fifty-years on, this has become an unquestioned ‘revealed truth’ to a key segment of western populations.

The Club of Rome subsequently attracted immediate public attention with its first report, The Limits to Growth. Published in 1972, the Club’s computer simulations suggested that economic growth could not continue indefinitely because of resource depletion. The 1973 oil crisis increased public concern about this problem. The report went ‘viral’.

We know the story: A group of western thinkers were posed three questions: Can the planet sustain a European-style level of consumption spreading everywhere, across the globe? The answer from these thinkers was ‘clearly not’. Second question: Can you imagine western states voluntarily relinquishing their standard of living by de-industrialising? Answer: A definite ‘No’. Must a lower plane of consumption and use of energy and resources then be coerced upon reluctant populations? Answer: Definitely ‘Yes.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in Currencies, Debt, Economics, Economy, Eurasian Axis, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, Military, Politics, Propaganda, War

Tagged , , ,

How the War Is Choreographing Russia’s New Stance, by Ted Snider

Posted on September 6, 2022 | Leave a comment

Vladimir Putin knows when he and Russia are not wanted. He also knows where he and Russia are wanted—in Asia and the Middle East. From Ted Snider at antiwar.com:

The horrific war in Ukraine is, tragically, far from over with no end in sight. Whether the world that emerges will be unipolar or multipolar, one thing is certain: the world is now more polarized.

The war in Ukraine is a threshold that, having been crossed, forces Russia to face two certain premises. The first is that the West will not take into consideration Russia’s security concerns. For that reason, for the foreseeable future, Russia will turn away from the West in a stance of hostility and defensiveness. The second is that Russia will no longer trust the West or trust being integrated into the Western system. For that reason, Russia will turn toward the East and reinforce its relationships with China, India and other non-European nations who are unaligned with the US or who line up with a multipolar world not locked to American hegemony.

The previous Russian foreign policy approach of persuading the West to take seriously Russia’s security concerns is over. This hope has been killed by empirical reality. NATO’s decades long march toward Russia’s borders finally pulled the life support from that hope when it refused to make the commitment not to cross Russia’s red line into Ukraine. Its threatened 800 mile expansion along the Finnish border and its announced opening of a permanent military headquarters in Poland in violation of the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act demonstrate its future intentions. Putin’s spurned December 2021 request for negotiations and Russia’s accompanying proposal on mutual security guarantees likely represents the last effort by Russia in the foreseeable future to preserve friendly relations with the West by attempting to negotiate the acceptance of Russia’s security concerns.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Eurasian Axis, Geopolitics, Governments, History, Politics

Tagged ,

Russia Admits Weaponization Of Gas, Halts NS1 Shipments “Until Sanctions Lifted” As EU Prepares Response To Energy Crisis, by Tyler Durden

Posted on September 6, 2022 | Leave a comment

Russian strategy is to gradually notch up the pain while staying open to negotiations. That’s not a deep secret. You’d think someone from the West, particularly Europe, might want to negotiate. Apparently not; they’d rather freeze this winter. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

Putin is done playing around.

Two days after Russia indefinitely halted nat gas supplies via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline for the amusing reason that there was an “oil leak” (shown below)…

… on Monday Russia finally admitted what everyone has known since February – namely that it has weaponized commodities in response to the West’s weaponization of currencies (as Zoltan Pozsar has said all along),when the Kremlin said that Russia’s gas supplies to Europe via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline will not resume in full until the “collective west” lifts sanctions against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.

Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, blamed EU, UK, and Canadian sanctions for Russia’s failure to deliver gas through the key pipeline, which delivers gas to Germany from St Petersburg via the Baltic sea.

“The problems pumping gas came about because of the sanctions western countries introduced against our country and several companies,” Peskov said, according to the Interfax news agency. “There are no other reasons that could have caused this pumping problem.”

Peskov’s comments were the most stark demand yet by the Kremlin that the EU roll back its sanctions in exchange for Russia resuming gas deliveries to the continent. It also confirms that Russia no longer needs to pretend it needs to export commodities to Europe – after all it has more than enough demand in China and India – and is willing to give Europe just enough to rope to… well, you know the rest.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Energy, Geopolitics, Governments, Military, Politics, War

Tagged , ,

Europe’s Coming Winter From Hell: Thanks for Your Sanctions War, Washington! By David Stockman

Posted on September 1, 2022 | 1 comment

Europe is caught in a vice grip between its green energy policies and Washington’s proxy war in Ukraine. From David Stockman at antiwar.com:

Europe’s impending depression is not to be discounted in terms of its relevance to this side of the Atlantic pond. Since the turn of the century, US exports to the European Union have soared from $12.3 billion per month to $30.4 billion. That latter amounts to $365 billion on an annual basis.

Needless to say, when European GDP descends into a double-digit slide, demand for US exports will plunge, causing declines in production and employment on this side of the Atlantic.

US Exports To The EU, 2000-2022

What looms on the far side of the pond, of course, is the possibility of an inflation-driven depression in Europe. Already the headline CPI has practically gone into orbit, posting at 8.9% Y/Y in July.

And today the August flash CPI came in even higher: To wit,  headline HICP inflation rose  another 21bp to 9.08% Y/Y.

Continue reading→

1 Comment

Posted in Banking, Business, Economy, Energy, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, War

Tagged ,

America’s Wars Take on a Divisive Edge, by Alastair Crooke

Posted on August 31, 2022 | Leave a comment

Sooner or later, Europe is going to start asking if it, not Russia, is the real target of the U.S. proxy war. From Alastair Crooke at strategic-culture.org:

Before Putin relinquishes the pressure on EU nations, he is still likely to insist that American influence from Western Europe is withdrawn.

It is August – Ukrainian Independence Day, and the anniversary, too, of Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Kabul. Washington is only too aware that these painful images (Afghans clinging to the undercarriage of Hercules planes) are about to be replayed, in the lead-up to the November elections.

Because events in Ukraine are unfolding badly for Washington – as the slow, calibrated steamroller of Russian artillery fire shreds the Ukrainian army. Ukraine has been notably unable to reinforce besieged positions, or to counterattack and to hold re-conquered territory. Ukraine has used HIMARS, artillery and drones to hit some Russian ammunition depots, but these, so far, are isolated incidents, and are more media ‘plays’, than constituting any shift in the strategic balance of the war.

So, let’s change the ‘narrative’: Over the last week, the Washington Post has been busy curating a new narrative. In gist, the shift is quite simple: U.S. intelligence, in the past, may have got things disastrously wrong, but they ‘nailed’ it this time. They warned of Putin’s plan to invade. They had it down to the Russian militaries’ detailed plans.

First Shift: Team Biden warned Zelensky multiple times, but the man stubbornly refused to listen. As a result, when the invasion blindsided Zelensky, the Ukrainians as a whole were hopelessly unprepared. Message: ‘It’s Zelensky to blame’.

Let’s not go into the egregious omission in this narrative of eight years of NATO preparation for a mega attack on Donbas that was bound to draw a Russian riposte. No need for a crystal ball to figure out ‘that’. Russian military structures had been sitting some 70 kms from the Ukrainian border for months.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in Eurasian Axis, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, History, Politics

Tagged , ,

China Is Aggressively Reselling Russian Gas To Europe, by Tyler Durden

Posted on August 31, 2022 | Leave a comment

Not only have Western sanctions benefited Russia, they’ve benefited the other half of the Eurasian dynamic duo—China. Russia sells its gas to China, who then sells some of it to energy-starved Europe, at a marked up price that includes recompense for the Chinese. So, Western sanctions benefit not one but two of its prime competitors, or enemies if you want to call it that. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

One month ago, we were surprised to read how, despite a suppressed appetite for energy amid its housing crash and economic downturn (for which “zero covid” has emerged as a convenient scapegoat for emperor Xi), China has been soaking up more Russian natural gas so far this year, while imports from most other sources declined.

In July, the SCMP reported that according to Chinese customs data, in the first six months of the year, China bought a total of 2.35 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) – valued at US$2.16 billion. The import volume increased by 28.7% year on year, with the value surging by 182%. It meant Russia has surpassed Indonesia and the United States to become China’s fourth-largest supplier of LNG so far this year!

This, of course, is not to be confused with pipeline gas, where Russian producer Gazprom recently announced that its daily supplies to China via the Power of Siberia pipeline had reached a new all-time high (Russia is China’s second-largest pipeline natural gas supplier after Turkmenistan), and earlier revealed that the supply of Russian pipeline gas to China had increased by 63.4% in the first half of 2022.

What was behind this bizarre surge in Russian LNG imports, analysts speculated? After all, while China imports over half of the natural gas it consumes, with around two-thirds in the form of LNG, demand this year had fallen sharply amid economic headwinds and widespread shutdowns. In other words, why the surge in Russian LNG  when i) domestic demand is just not there and ii) at the expense of everyone else?

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Business, Energy, Eurasian Axis, Geopolitics, Governments

Tagged , , ,

%d bloggers like this: