Tag Archives: Europe

Sit back and watch Europe commit suicide, by Pepe Escobar

Posted on April 9, 2022 | Leave a comment

The sanctions are destructive, but they’re destroying Europe far more than Russia. From Pepe Escobar at thecradle.com:

If the US goal is to crush Russia’s economy with sanctions and isolation, why is Europe in an economic free fall instead?

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Washington’s competition with rising power Russia is so fierce, it is willing to sacrifice Europe.

Photo Credit: The Cradle

The stunning spectacle of the European Union (EU) committing slow motion hara-kiri is something for the ages. Like a cheap Kurosawa remake, the movie is actually about the US-detonated demolition of the EU, complete with the rerouting of some key Russian commodities exports to the US at the expense of Europeans.

It helps to have a 5th columnist actress strategically placed – in this case astonishingly incompetent European Commission head Ursula von der Lugen – with her vociferous announcement of a crushing new sanctions package: Russian ships banned from EU ports; road transportation companies from Russia and Belarus prohibited from entering the EU; no more coal imports (over 4.4 billion euros a year).

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

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Why Renewables Can’t Solve Europe’s Energy Crisis, by Irina Slav

Posted on April 6, 2022 | Leave a comment

European energy was in crisis that renewables couldn’t address before Russia invaded Ukraine. From Irina Slav at oilprice.com:

  • Europe has been aggressively pursuing a clean energy future and the end of fossil fuels, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has highlighted the shortcomings of renewables.
  • The soaring prices of key metals and the length of time it takes to implement renewable energy projects have meant Europe is turning to fossil fuels to solve its energy crisis.
  • The EU is planning to replace Russian gas with LNG imports, coal, and even fuel oil, with a relatively small amount of the gas to be replaced by wind and solar.

Germany is preparing for gas rationing. France’s power grid operator is asking consumers to use less electricity. In the UK, protests are breaking out over the latest electricity price hike that plunged millions of households into what one local think tank called fuel stress. Europe has a serious energy problem.

The problem dates back years and points to a persistent complacency on the part of European governments that whatever happens, there will always be gas from Russia. After all, even during the Cold War Russia pumped billions of cubic meters of gas to European countries. Now, things are different, and it’s not just because of the war in Ukraine.

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Posted in Business, Economics, Economy, Energy, Governments, History, Politics, Propaganda, War

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Sanctions: the Blowback, by Michael Hudson

Posted on March 24, 2022 | 1 comment

Make no mistake, the blowback will be epic. From Michael Hudson at unz.com:

Ross [00:00:29] Welcome to Renegade Inc. Whatever the outcome in Ukraine, one thing is for sure the economic reverberations will be felt by everyone for years to come as the world divides between the West and a rapidly reshaping Eurasia.

Ross [00:00:49] Michael Hudson, always a pleasure to have you on the programme, welcome to Renegade Inc.

Michael Hudson [00:00:53] Thank you for inviting me.

Ross [00:00:55] Michael, sanctions, sanctions, sanctions is all we hear now. We’re sanctioning people. The West sanction people back to the Stone Age. What are the unintended consequences of sanctions?

Michael Hudson [00:01:05] Well, one is to serve very much like a protective tariff on the sanctioned country. For instance, when America made sanctions on European trade with Russia, Lithuania dutifully stopped exporting cheese to Russia. Well, the result is that Russia set up its own cheese’s sector, and now it’s self-sufficient in cheese. If you sanction a country, you force it to become more self-reliant and across the board, from agriculture to dairy products to technology, Russia is forced to become more self-reliant and at the same time to depend much more on trade with China for the things that it is still not self-reliant in. So America is bringing about exactly the opposite of what it intended. It’s hopeless to somehow isolate Russia and then be able to go after China without Russia. And instead, what it’s doing is integrating the Eurasian core, Russia and China, exactly the policy that Henry Kissinger warned against going all the way back to Mackinder a century ago that said, Eurasia is the world island, Russia and China could be the whole world centre. That’s what the fight is all about. Well, American sanctions are driving Russia and China together, and America has gone to China and said, Please don’t support Russia. It most recently, on Monday, March 14, Jake Sullivan came out and told China, we will sanction countries that break our sanctions against Russia. And basically, China said, fine. You know, we’ll just break off all the trade between East and West now and the East, Eurasia is pretty much self-sufficient. The West is not self-sufficient since it began to industrialise, and it’s heavily dependent on Russia for not only oil and gas, but palladium and many raw materials. So the sanctions are ending up driving a wedge between the European countries.

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Posted in Banking, Business, Economics, Economy, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, Propaganda, War

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Doug Casey on What Happens Next in the Conflict With Russia

Posted on March 17, 2022 | Leave a comment

The Ukraine-Russia war will inflict more damage on the U.S. empire than it will on Russia. From Doug Casey at internationalman.com:

Russia

International Man: Prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we discussed the rising tensions between the US and Russia over Ukraine.

What is your take on what has transpired since then?

Doug Casey: I think it makes sense first to recount the genesis of this war.

It started when an American-backed coup overthrew the Ukrainian government in 2014. A US-backed thug replaced a Russian-backed thug— nothing unusual, except that Ukraine shares a long border with Russia. The Russians viewed that much as the Americans would if the Russians had put a puppet government in Ottawa.

Next, the two Russian majority provinces in Ukraine, Donetsk and Luhansk (Donbas) seceded from Ukraine. Secession is usually the best way of solving a political problem between groups with radically differing religions, ethnicities, cultures, or what-have-you. It’s much better than staying “united,” with one group dominating the other. The Russians simultaneously took back Crimea, which Nikita Kruschev had arbitrarily transferred to the Ukrainian SSR from the Russian SSR in 1954.

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The Ukrainian War and the Insufferable Hypocrisy of Western Politicians, by Vasko Kohlmayer

Posted on March 17, 2022 | Leave a comment

Repeatedly ignoring Russian concerns is stupid. Making Ukraine an instrument of the faltering U.S. empire is evil. From Vasko Kohlmayer at lewrockwell.com:

“Canada sending another $50 million in specialized equipment to Ukraine,” reads a recent headline.

“Vladimir Putin has made a terrible mistake, and he’s going to lose this war,” declared Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during his recent trip to Warsaw. “He’s going to lose this war because the ferocity, strength and resolve of the Ukrainian people defending their territory is inspiring us all” added the Canadian PM.

How brave of Justin Trudeau to give Ukrainians some light weapons and then encourage them to go and battle the overwhelmingly superior Russian armies. How brave of him to ask them to die as they fight their lost cause.

How paradoxical that Justin Trudeau would extoll others to die such a heroic death.

Just a few weeks ago he himself had his opportunity to show the world something of his own courage as the peaceful Canadian truckers drove to Ottawa to protest his onerous lockdowns and vaccine mandates.

Do you remember what the brave Trudeau did?

He quickly ran away well before the truckers even reached the outskirts of his capital!

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Bonfire of the Governments, Part One, by Robert Gore

Posted on March 16, 2022 | 42 comments

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Expect chaos to continue making new highs.

When Machiavelli wrote The Prince he had Vladimir Putin in mind. The president of Russia has adroitly sought, maintained, and used power, the theme of Machiavelli’s masterpiece (see “The Black Belt Strategist,” Robert Gore. SLL, July 19, 2018). That he is an amoral snake is both true and laughable as a criticism coming from the amoral snakes who populate Western power structures. Nobody who slithers to the top of those pits is anything other than an amoral snake. Western snakes hate Putin because he’s repeatedly outsnaked them.

Call Putin a rattlesnake for he clearly rattled before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. That he was ignored is a worrisome indication of the epistemological breakdown that grips the West. Its leaders are unable to grasp that Putin meant what he said because they rarely mean what they say. Facts are not facts and the truth is whatever narrative they’re promoting at the moment. It’s become axiomatic that power flows from control of the narrative.

Until it doesn’t. Power flows from understanding reality and making use of what it can offer. If narratives were power, Ukraine’s army would be in Moscow by now. We haven’t seen this kind of excessive excrement from governments and their media minions since . . . Covid. Narratives are for simple-minded sheep and the wolves who devour them.The propaganda is devoid of any mention of: the 2014 U.S.-sponsored coup against a democratically elected government; rampant corruption within the Ukrainian oligarchy; Ukranian payola to American political figures (e.g., the Bidens and Clintons); widespread neo-Nazi infestation of Ukraine’s military and government; their eight-year war on its Russian-heritage citizens in eastern Ukraine; the government’s willful failure to adhere to the Minsk accords that were meant to resolve that conflict, or the latest—U.S. supported bioresearch labs in Ukraine.

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Posted in Banking, Business, Collapse, Crime, Cronyism, Currencies, Debt, Economics, Economy, Energy, Environment, Eurasian Axis, Financial markets, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, History, Media, Military, Morality, Politics, Propaganda, Technology, Trade, Tyranny, War

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Europe Energy Independence Is Impossible with The Current Policies, by Daniel Lacalle

Posted on March 15, 2022 | Leave a comment

Europe would have to deemphasize wind and solar, allow more development of oil and natural gas, and promote nuclear energy to get within field-goal range of energy independence. From Daniel Lacalle at dlacalle.com:

Europe is not going to achieve a competitive energy transition with the current interventionist policies. Europe does not depend on Russian gas due to a coincidence, but because of a chain of mistaken policies. Banning nuclear in Germany, prohibiting the development of domestic natural gas resources throughout the European Union, added to a massive and expensive renewable roll-out without building a reliable back-up.

Solar and wind do not reduce dependency on Russian natural gas. They are necessary but volatile and intermittent. They need back-up for security of supply from nuclear, hydro, and natural gas. Dependency rises in periods of low wind and little sun, just when prices are highest.

“Solar goes to zero for twelve hours a day, and that is guaranteed. The wind blows sometimes, and sometimes it does not, also guaranteed. They both depend on weather, which is 100% out of human control. They are on their best day a supplement” wrote a Navy pilot follower.

Batteries are not an option either. It is impossible to build an industrial-size network of enormous batteries, the cost would be prohibitive and the dependency on China build them (lithium etc.) would be even more of a problem. At current prices, a battery storage system of Europe’s size would cost more than $2.5 trillion, according to an MIT Technology Review paper. Massively more expensive than any other alternative.

Just the added cost of a battery grid plus the distribution and transmission network would make household bills soar even further.

Inflation was already out of control in Europe before the invasion of Ukraine was even a risk. CPI in Spain was 7.6%, in Portugal it was 4.2% and in Germany, 5.1%. Euro area CPI was 5.8%.

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Putin’s Options, by James Rickards

Posted on March 12, 2022 | Leave a comment

Western sanctions on Russia will leave the West in worse shape than Russia. From James Rickards at dailyreckoning.com:

Putin’s Options

There’s no doubt that the financial sanctions put on Russia by the U.S., the U.K., EU members and others are the most severe ever imposed. The U.S. Treasury has announced 15 separate sanctions programs in recent days and no doubt more are on the way.

The targets of these sanctions include Russian banks, Russian stocks and bonds and various payment channels. Most significantly, the U.S. froze the accounts of the Central Bank of Russia. That’s the first time a major central bank’s assets have been frozen since the Cold War, and possibly ever.

Yet the financial attacks on Russia go far beyond official sanctions.

Numerous private companies including Microsoft, Exxon Mobil, Shell and some major airlines have ceased their business activities in Russia. Visa and Mastercard have stopped accepting credit card charges from Russia. Google and Apple have turned off the mobile payment apps on phones held by Russian citizens.

Shipping giant Maersk has stopped its vessels from unloading or taking cargo from Russian ports. Stock index funds are pushing Russian companies out of their indexes and the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund is divesting Russian stocks. The list of public and private embargoes and boycotts goes on.

The financial impact on Russia will be extreme. The Russian economy may be expected to collapse by 20% or more in the first half of 2022, an amount comparable to the economic collapses in the second quarter of 2020 during the first lockdown stage of the pandemic.

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Posted in Collapse, Economy, Energy, Financial markets, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, History, Military, Politics, Propaganda, Technology, Trade, War

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The end of fiat hoving into view… by Alasdair Macleod

Posted on March 11, 2022 | Leave a comment

Skyrocketing food and energy prices, rising interest rates, crashing financial markets, and economic depression will spell the end of Western fiat currencies. From Alasdair Macleod at goldmoney.com:

Tragic though the situation in Ukraine has become, the real war which started out as financial in character some time ago has now become both financial and about commodities. Putin made a huge mistake invading Ukraine but the West’s reaction by seeking to isolate Russia and its commodity exports from the global marketplace is an even greater one.

Furthermore, with Ukraine being Europe’s breadbasket and a major exporter of fertiliser, this summer will bring acute food shortages, worsened by China having already accumulated the bulk of the world’s grains for its own population. Inflation measured by consumer prices has only just commenced an accelerated rise.

Because they discount falling purchasing power for currencies, rising interest rates, and collapsing bond prices are now inevitable. Being loaded up with bonds and financial assets as collateral, the consequences for the global banking system are so significant that it is virtually impossible to see how it can survive. And if the banking system faces collapse, being unbacked by anything other than rapidly disappearing faith in them fiat currencies will fail as well.

Unforeseen financial and economic consequences

Back in the 1960s, Harold Wilson as an embattled British Prime Minister declared that a week is a long time in politics. Today, we can also comment it is a long time in commodity markets, stock markets, geopolitics, and almost anything else we care to think of. The rapidity of change may not be captured in just seven calendar days, but in recent weeks we have seen the initial pricking of the fiat currency bubble and all that floats with it.

This is turning out to be an extreme financial event. The background to it is unwinding of economic distortions. Through a combination of currency and credit expansion and market suppression, the difference between state-controlled pricing and market reality has never been greater. Zero and negative interest rates, deeply negative real bond yields, and a deliberate policy of artificial wealth creation by fostering a financial asset bubble to divert attention from a deepening economic crisis in recent years have all contributed to the gap between bullish expectations and market reality.

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Posted in Banking, Business, Collapse, Currencies, Debt, Economics, Economy, Eurasian Axis, Financial markets, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, History, Military, War

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Ukraine Implementing Minsk Accords & Ending Conflict ‘Very Last’ Thing US, UK Want, Ex-MEP Says, by Nick Griffin

Posted on February 20, 2022 | Leave a comment

The U.S. doesn’t want Russia and Europe, particularly Germany, to draw closer. From Nick Griffin at unz.com:

With the situation in eastern Ukraine deteriorating each day, the West keeps on promoting its “Russian threat” rhetoric and pledges “never-before-seen” sanctions on Russia should it invade Ukraine. Meanwhile, Kiev keeps violating the Minsk accord and continues to shell Donbass, forcing thousands of people to flee to Russia.

Nick Griffin, political analyst and former Member of the European Parliament, reflects on the geopolitical, economical and historical reasons for the West trying to force Russia into war with Ukraine, why the collective West turns a blind eye on systemic violations of the Minsk agreement by Kiev, and why no one in the West cares about the humanitarian disaster in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk republics in Donbass.

Sputnik: Why is the West not only ignoring but also encouraging Kiev’s provocations in Donbass?

Nick Griffin: The Washington and Westminster cabal are desperate to force Vladimir Putin to abandon his policy of self-restraint and negotiation. They intend to leave him no option but to use military force in defence of the Russian population of Donbass. So the NATO leaders are now engaged in the most blatant and irresponsible destabilisation and hybrid war operation since they used Islamic terrorists to destroy Libya and attempted to use them to break up Syria.

Their operation against Russia is in fact even more desperate than the campaign of lies and aggression against Syria, because the stakes are even higher. The West promoted conflict in the Middle East in the hope of gaining a geopolitical advantage. The attempt to force Russia into war in Ukraine, by contrast, is not really about promoting the geopolitical interest of the Dollar Empire – it is about its very survival.

The US is no longer the self-confident colossus that bestrode the world a few decades ago. America in 2022 is a financial, political, economic, military and social basket case, and its UK ally is in the same very leaky boat. The liberal Anglo world is further disturbed by the situation in Canada, which is now in the critical phase of a historic struggle between the Trudeau regime and a large and well-organised section of the working population.

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