Jun 042016
 
 June 4, 2016  Posted by at 11:29 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,


Walker Evans Street Scene, Vicksburg, Mississippi 1936

The Funniest BLS Jobs Report Ever (Quinn)
US Payrolls Huge Miss: Worst Since September 2010 (ZH)
This Financial Bubble Is 8 Times Bigger Than The 2008 Subprime Crisis (SM)
Lew Says China’s Overcapacity Skewing Markets (BBG)
UBS Tells Clients To Stick With Cash-Bleeding Hedge Funds (BBG)
Schroedinger’s Assets (Coppola)
Homes Should Be Lived In, Not Traded (G.)
EC Wants “Immunity” For EU Technocrats At Greek Privatization Fund (KTG)
Greek Banks Mulling Special NPL Vehicles (Kath.)
A Russian Warning (Dmitry Orlov et al)
20,000 Migrants Wait For Boats To Take Them To UK (DM)
At Least 117 Bodies Of Migrants Found After Boat Capsized Off Libya (AP)
Hundreds Rescued, At Least 9 Die In Shipwreck Off Crete (Kath.)

Is the narrative falling apart?

The Funniest BLS Jobs Report Ever (Quinn)

Only a captured government drone could put out a report showing only 38,000 new jobs created, with the working age population rising by 205,000, and have the balls to report the unemployment rate plunged from 5.0% to 4.7%, the lowest since August 2007. If you ever needed proof these worthless bureaucrats are nothing more than propaganda peddlers for the establishment, this report is it. The two previous months were revised significantly downward in the fine print of the press release. It is absolutely mind boggling that these government pond scum hacks can get away with reporting that 484,000 people who WERE unemployed last month are no longer unemployed this month.

Life is so fucking good in this country, they all just decided to kick back and leave the labor force. Maybe they all won the Powerball lottery. How many people do you know who can afford to just leave the workforce and live off their vast savings? In addition, 180,000 more Americans left the workforce, bringing the total to a record 94.7 million Americans not in the labor force. The corporate MSM will roll out the usual “experts” to blather about the retirement of Baby Boomers as the false narrative to deflect blame from Obama and his minions. The absolute absurdity of the data heaped upon the ignorant masses is clearly evident in the data over the last three months.

Here is government idiocracy at its finest:
• Number of working age Americans added since March – 406,000
• Number of employed Americans since March – NEGATIVE 290,000
• Number of Americans who have supposedly voluntarily left the workforce – 1,226,000
• Unemployment rate – FELL from 5.0% to 4.7%

Talk about perpetrating the BIG LIE. Goebbels and Bernays are smiling up from the fires of hell as their acolytes of propaganda have kicked it into hyper-drive. We only need the other 7.4 million “officially” unemployed Americans to leave the work force and we’ll have 0% unemployment. At the current pace we should be there by election time. I wonder if Cramer, Liesman, or any of the other CNBC mouthpieces for the establishment will point out that not one single full-time job has been added in 2016. There were 6,000 less full-time jobs in May than in January, while there are 572,000 more low paying, no benefits, part-time Obama service jobs. Sounds like a recovery to me.

Read more …

“..a massive surge in people not in the labor force..” We’re approaching negative employment.

US Payrolls Huge Miss: Worst Since September 2010 (ZH)

If anyone was “worried” about the Verizon strike taking away 35,000 jobs from the pro forma whisper number of 200,000 with consensus expecting 160,000 jobs, or worried about a rate hike by the Fed any time soon, you can sweep all worries away: moments ago the BLS reported that in May a paltry 38,000 jobs were added, a plunge from last month’s downward revised 123K (was 160K). The number was the lowest since September 2010! The household survey was just as bad, with only 26,000 jobs added in May, bringing the total to 151,030K. This happened as the number of unemployed tumbled from 7,920K to 7,436K driven by a massive surge in people not in the labor force which soared to a record 94,7 million, a monthly increase of over 600,000 workers.

As expected Verizon subtracted 35,000 workers however this was more than offset by a 36,000 drop in goods producing workers. Worse, there was no offsetting increase in temp workers (something we caution recently), and no growth in trade and transportation services. What is striking is that while the deteriorationg in mining employment continued (-10,000), and since reaching a peak in September 2014, mining has lost 207,000 jobs, for the first time the BLS acknowledged that the tech bubble has also burst, reporting that employment in information declined by 34,000 in May. The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for March was revised from +208,000 to +186,000, and the change for April was revised from +160,000 to +123,000.

With these revisions, employment gains in March and April combined were 59,000 less than previously reported. Over the past 3 months, job gains have averaged 116,000 per month. There is no way to spin this number as anything but atrocious.

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And growing..

This Financial Bubble Is 8 Times Bigger Than The 2008 Subprime Crisis (SM)

On July 1, 2005, the Chairman of then President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors told a reporter from CNBC that “We’ve never had a decline in house prices on a nationwide basis. So, what I think is more likely is that house prices will slow, maybe stabilize, might slow consumption spending a bit. I don’t think it’s gonna drive the economy too far from its full employment path, though.” His name was Ben Bernanke. And within a year he would become Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Of course, we now know that he was dead wrong. The housing market crashed and dragged the US economy with it. And Bernanke spent his entire tenure as Fed chairman dealing with the consequences. One of the chief culprits of this debacle was the collapse of the sub-prime bubble.

Banks had spent years making sweetheart home loans to just about anyone who wanted to borrow, including high risk ‘sub-prime’ borrowers who were often insolvent and had little prospect of honoring the terms of the loan. When the bubble got into full swing, lending practices were so out of control that banks routinely offered no-money-down mortgages to subprime borrowers. The deals got even sweeter, with banks making 102% and even 105% loans. In other words, they would loan the entire purchase price of a home plus closing costs, and then kick in a little bit extra for the borrower to put in his/her pocket. So basically these subprime home buyers were getting paid to borrow money.

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They know this already, Jack.

Lew Says China’s Overcapacity Skewing Markets (BBG)

The U.S. will push China to reduce excess capacity in its economy at upcoming talks in Beijing, with Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew calling it an “area of central concern” Friday in Seoul. The issue bears watching when “excess capacity is distorting markets and important global commodities,” Lew said in remarks to reporters ahead of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, scheduled for June 6-7 in Beijing. China Vice Premier Wang Yang, State Councilor Yang Jiechi and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will attend the meeting along with Lew. A senior Treasury official told reporters China has made a commitment to take serious action to reduce excess capacity in areas like steel and aluminum.

It’s a tough transition, especially as millions of workers would have to find new jobs. However, if the actions aren’t taken, excess capacity will continue to erode China’s economic growth prospects, said the official, who asked not to be identified. Chinese authorities are cutting excess capacity in industries including coal and steel while striving to keep growth above their 6.5% minimum target for this year. The economy has endured four years of factory-gate deflation, though forecasters expect that to turn around. Producer prices will improve in each of the next four quarters and turn positive in 2018, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg in April.

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At what fee for UBS?

UBS Tells Clients To Stick With Cash-Bleeding Hedge Funds (BBG)

UBS is advising its wealthiest clients to stick with hedge funds even after the $2.9 trillion industry had its worst start to a year since 2008. While the days of “double-digit and triple-digit returns” for hedge funds are over, they still generate enough to satisfy yield-hungry clients who face negative interest rates, said Mark Haefele, global CIO of UBS Wealth Management. “Their performance in the first half hasn’t been impressive but they provide diversification,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg. “They still provide a better risk-reward or different risk-reward than other parts like sovereign bonds.”

UBS in April boosted its recommended allocation to hedge funds to 20% from 18%, saying the strategy will provide stability from volatile markets. The move comes as a net $15 billion was pulled from the global hedge-fund industry in the the first quarter and as some of world’s largest institutions including MetLife said they will scale back their holdings. Hedge funds may lose about a quarter of their assets in the next year as performance slumps Blackstone’s billionaire president, Tony James, predicted last week. The HFRI Fund Weighted Composite Index declined 0.6% in the first quarter, its worst start to a year since 2008.

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The number of non-dead assets is much higher than we let on.

Schroedinger’s Assets (Coppola)

In a new paper, Michael Woodford has reimagined the famous “Schroedinger’s Cat” thought experiment. I suspect this is unintentional. But that’s what happens when, in an understandable quest for simplicity, you create binary decisions in a complex probability-based structure. Schroedinger imagined a cat locked in a box in which there is a phial of poison. The probability of the cat being dead when the box is opened is less than 100% (since some cats are tough). So if p is the probability of the cat being dead, 1-p is the probability of it being alive. The problem is that until the box is opened, we do not know if the cat is alive or dead. In Schroedinger’s universe of probabilities, the cat is both “alive” and “dead” until the box is opened, when one of the possible outcomes is crystallised. Now for “cat”, read assets. In Woodford’s model, when there is no crisis, the probability of asset collapse is zero. But if there is a crisis, the probability of an asset collapse is greater than zero but less than 100%:

“The sequence of events, and the set of alternative states that may be reached, within each period is indicated in Figure 1. In subperiod 1, a financial market is open in which bankers issue short-term safe liabilities and acquire risky durables, and households decide on the cash balances to hold for use by the shopper. In subperiod 2, information is revealed about the possibility that the durable goods purchased by the banks will prove to be valueless. With probability p, the no crisis state is reached, in which it is known with certainty that the no collapse in the value of the assets will occur, but with probability 1-p, a crisis state is reached, in which it is understood to be possible (though not yet certain) that the assets will prove to be worthless. Finally, in subperiod 3, the value of the risky durables is learned.”

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Close to my heart, but very incomplete in its argumentation.

Homes Should Be Lived In, Not Traded (G.)

The problem is twofold: the move to viewing houses as assets, a predictable investment that lets you turn a profit and offers more return on the pound than a pension, means there’s an incentive for wealthy buyers to invest in bricks and mortar without bothering with tenants. But also, as long as our economy gets sucked into a south-east vortex, more people will head to the capital for work, as the rest of the country struggles. George Osborne’s northern powerhouse claims to address this imbalance, twinned with the excruciatingly named “Midlands engine”. But with the announcement that 250 jobs in the very department responsible for rolling out the northern powerhouse are moving from Sheffield to London, that commitment looks as weak as the efforts to give it a catchy moniker.

As long as jobs fail to materialise in post-industrial towns, empty terraces will multiply. Conservative politicians have long opined that people seeking work should “get on their bike”, without stopping to observe that many do: hence the brain drain from the north and Wales, and the exponential demand for housing in the south-east England. Houses should be lived in, most people would agree: so the government’s move to criminalise squatting is key to understanding the problem of empty houses. Contrary to scare stories, people don’t pop out for a pint of milk and find that squatters have moved in to their home. Squatters often took up residence in vacant buildings, and used the houses for their intended purpose: living in.

Prosecuting squatters reasserts people’s right to treat homes as assets, not shelter. When it comes to empty houses, it’s the inequality stupid. The inequality that means some can buy multiple houses, while others cannot rent one. That sees London swallowing up wealth, jobs and land value hikes, while parts of the country grow desolate. There shouldn’t be empty homes while some people sleep on the streets, but the fact that so many lie empty should worry us: many houses aren’t homes, they’re investment vehicles, and long term, they scupper all our chances of financial and social security.

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Selling off a country in peace.

EC Wants “Immunity” For EU Technocrats At Greek Privatization Fund (KTG)

The European Commission directly intervened in the work of the Greek Justice and demanded that EU technocrats working at the Greek Privatization Fund enjoy “immunity.” The EC intervenes two days after corruption prosecutors in Athens raised charges against 3 Greeks and 3 EU-nationals of the HRADF for selling public assets thus causing losses of several millions of euro to the state. On Friday, EC spokesman Margaritis Schinas told reporters in Brussels that EU experts working in Greece under the Greek program, should enjoy some kind of ‘guarantee’. “For us, satisfactory operating margins should be guaranteed for all European experts assisting Greece to improve its economy and find its way back to growth,” Schinas said.

At the same time, he stressed that “there is full respect to judicial procedures” currently under way against 6 members of the old Privatization Fund.but the invervention was clear. Schinas did not elaborate on the Eurogroup request referring to immunity for EU technocrats who will work for the new Greek Privatization Fund. The EC intervention came right after the corruption prosecutors raised charges against 6 members of the TAIPED for the sale of 28 public assets. Three of those members are Greeks, the other three from Italy, Spain and Slovakia appointed by the Eurogroup. The six have been investigated for the period 2013-2014 and have been called to testify before corruption investigator Costas Sargiotis.

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Yeah, let’s create some more creativity.

Greek Banks Mulling Special NPL Vehicles (Kath.)

Greece’s core banks are considering the creation of special purpose companies which will receive large portfolios of nonperforming loans and then be sold so that they stop burdening the lenders’ financial figures, as NPLs now exceed €100 billion in total. The ECB is asking bank managers to proceed with tackling this huge matter at a speedier pace and to make brave decisions for the drastic slashing of bad loans from their finances. In this context, one of the plans being examined concerns the special vehicles to be created with NPL portfolios and sold off not to third parties but to the existing stakeholders of the banks.

This creation of what would resemble a “bad bank” for each lender would serve to immediately lighten the credit sector’s financial reports, while the transfer of those vehicles to the existing stakeholders could offer them future benefits from the active management of those bad loans. Nowadays the biggest obstacle to the sale of NPLs to third parties is the great distance between buyers and sellers. The buyers of bad loans want to acquire such portfolios at exceptionally low prices, due to the country risk, the devaluation of assets owing to the protracted recession in Greece, the inefficient legal system etc. On the other hand, the sellers – i.e. the banks – are refusing to sell at such low prices as they appear certain that among the current NPL stock that reaches up to 55 percent of all loans there is a huge volume of debts that could revert to normality with the right management.

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They are not kidding.

A Russian Warning (Dmitry Orlov et al)

We, the undersigned, are Russians living and working in the USA. We have been watching with increasing anxiety as the current US and NATO policies have set us on an extremely dangerous collision course with the Russian Federation, as well as with China. Many respected, patriotic Americans, such as Paul Craig Roberts, Stephen Cohen, Philip Giraldi, Ray McGovern and many others have been issuing warnings of a looming a Third World War. But their voices have been all but lost among the din of a mass media that is full of deceptive and inaccurate stories that characterize the Russian economy as being in shambles and the Russian military as weak—all based on no evidence. But we—knowing both Russian history and the current state of Russian society and the Russian military, cannot swallow these lies. We now feel that it is our duty, as Russians living in the US, to warn the American people that they are being lied to, and to tell them the truth.

And the truth is simply this: If there is going to be a war with Russia, then the United States will most certainly be destroyed, and most of us will end up dead. Let us take a step back and put what is happening in a historical context. Russia has suffered a great deal at the hands of foreign invaders, losing 22 million people in World War II. Most of the dead were civilians, because the country was invaded, and the Russians have vowed to never let such a disaster happen again. Each time Russia had been invaded, she emerged victorious. In 1812 Nepoleon invaded Russia; in 1814 Russian cavalry rode into Paris. On June 22, 1941, Hitler’s Luftwaffe bombed Kiev; On May 8, 1945, Soviet troops rolled into Berlin.

But times have changed since then. If Hitler were to attack Russia today, he would be dead 20 to 30 minutes later, his bunker reduced to glowing rubble by a strike from a Kalibr supersonic cruise missile launched from a small Russian navy ship somewhere in the Baltic Sea. The operational abilities of the new Russian military have been most persuasively demonstrated during the recent action against ISIS, Al Nusra and other foreign-funded terrorist groups operating in Syria. A long time ago Russia had to respond to provocations by fighting land battles on her own territory, then launching a counter-invasion; but this is no longer necessary. Russia’s new weapons make retaliation instant, undetectable, unstoppable and perfectly lethal.

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Be afraid! There’s only 60 million of you!

20,000 Migrants Wait For Boats To Take Them To UK (DM)

A file lying in the drawer of the manager’s office at a small French seaside hotel provides intriguing clues about the gangsters who smuggle migrants across the Channel to Britain. It contains the passport details of four shadowy men who booked in for a night to pull off an audacious crime by trafficking 30 Pakistanis and Albanians by sea into the UK. Gangs of people smugglers now operate along all 450 miles of the north French coast — from Calais on the Belgian border to Cherbourg and beyond — as 20,000 migrants wait to get to England for a new life. During the past week they have used small fishing vessels, private yachts and speedboats to slip migrants onto England’s South Coast beaches under cover of darkness.

Early last Sunday, 18 migrants were rescued in Dymchurch, a coastal village in Kent, after their rubber dinghy began to sink offshore. The same morning, eight migrants were rescued by a lifeboat in Portsmouth harbour as they floated adrift in a fishing boat. The determination of migrants and the greed of traffickers has not been diminished by the French government’s demolition in March of the ‘Jungle’ migrant camp in Calais, an unhygienic shanty town of 4,000. The migrants simply moved on — initially 30 or so miles away to Dunkirk, where thousands live in a camp near the port, paying traffickers to cross the Channel, and then spreading further along the coast.

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How many boats and bodies sink that we never hear about?

At Least 117 Bodies Of Migrants Found After Boat Capsized Off Libya (AP)

More than 110 bodies were found along a Libyan beach after a smuggling boat of mostly African migrants sank, while a separate search-and-rescue operation across the Mediterranean saved 340 people Friday and recovered nine bodies. The developments were the latest deadly disasters for refugees and migrants seeking a better life in Europe, and they followed the drownings of more than 1,000 people since May 25 while attempting the long and perilous journey from North Africa to southern Europe. As traffickers take advantage of improving weather, officials say it is impossible to know how many unseaworthy boats are being launched — and how many never reach their destination. Naval operations in the southern Mediterranean, co-ordinated by Italy, have been stretched just responding to the disasters they do hear about.

At least 117 bodies — 75 women, six children and 36 men — washed up on a beach or were pulled from the water near the western Libyan city of Zwara Thursday and Friday, Mohammed al-Mosrati, a spokesman for Libya’s Red Crescent, told The Associated Press. All but a few were from African countries. The death toll was expected to rise. The children were aged between 7 and 10, said Bahaa al-Kwash, a top media official in the Red Crescent. “It is very painful, and the numbers are very high,” he said, adding that the dead were not wearing life jackets — something the organization had noticed about bodies recovered in recent weeks. “This is a cross-border network of smugglers and traffickers, and there is a need for an international effort to combat this phenomenon,” he said.

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Crete is a somewhat novel destination.

Hundreds Rescued, At Least 9 Die In Shipwreck Off Crete (Kath.)

Hundreds of migrants were rescued on Friday after a smuggling boat sank in international waters south of Crete, while the Hellenic Coast Guard recovered the bodies of at least nine drowned migrants. The 25-meter vessel capsized in the early hours of Friday morning under circumstances that remained unclear, leaving hundreds of migrants in the sea, some 70 nautical miles south of Crete. According to the International Organization for Migration, around 700 migrants had been aboard the vessel. Five ships – cargo and commercial vessels – had been near the scene and offered assistance, rescuing scores of migrants. The Hellenic Coast Guard sent two vessels while the navy dispatched two Super Puma helicopters to scour the area.

By late Friday, 340 migrants had been rescued and the bodies of nine migrants pulled out of the sea by rescue workers. Another vessel capsized off the coast of Libya on Friday, leading to a larger death toll, with more than 100 bodies found in the sea. Meanwhile authorities on the islands of the eastern Aegean expressed concern as tensions are rising at detention centers and frequently escalating into brawls. The influx of migrants to the islands, which had all but stopped in recent weeks, following a deal between the European Union and Ankara to return migrants to Turkey, appears to have picked up again, unnerving authorities. A group of 120 migrants arrived on Chios Friday and another 25 on Lesvos.

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Home Forums Debt Rattle June 4 2016

Viewing 12 posts - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)
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  • #28534

    Walker Evans Street Scene, Vicksburg, Mississippi 1936 • The Funniest BLS Jobs Report Ever (Quinn) • US Payrolls Huge Miss: Worst Since September 2010
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle June 4 2016]

    #28535
    Babble
    Participant

    A Russian Warning article is not a letter from Russian – Americans, it is a total propaganda article, most likely approved by Putin. They talk about their fight in WWII which was heroic but with no choice (Stalin order anyone not fighting to be shot) they had to fight and die. Russia would have lost if the United States had not supplied them with weapons and ammunition and also entered the war. Russia would have been destroyed if the US had chosen to be its enemy and nuked it too. Russia chooses to be an enemy to the west because it is the only way the corrupt and criminal government can hold together the country.

    Quoting the article:”Thus, if tomorrow a war were to break out between the US and Russia, it is guaranteed that the US would be obliterated. At a minimum, there would no longer be an electric grid, no internet, no oil and gas pipelines, no interstate highway system, no air transportation or GPS-based navigation. Financial centers would lie in ruins. Government at every level would cease to function. US armed forces, stationed all around the globe, would no longer be resupplied. At a maximum, the entire landmass of the US would be covered by a layer of radioactive ash. We tell you this not to be alarmist, but because, based on everything we know, we are ourselves alarmed. If attacked, Russia will not back down; she will retaliate, and she will utterly annihilate the United States.”

    Do you really think that Russia could destroy the most powerful country on earth and suffer only minor damage? There would be nothing left, not even an ice cube in Siberia. NATO expanded because of the belligerence of Russia and Putin’s decision to once again play the part of an enemy to the west to protect his own power and corruption. The Russian people are smart but fools since they only get their information from a government controlled press and media. It is the same lying propaganda that the Soviet Union used and the people have never recovered from that brainwashing. Look at all the countries that ran from that awful dictatorship when they got the chance. These countries wanted to join NATO for protection. Russia is an becoming equal to Hitler’s Germany except with more powerful weapons. The US and NATO will not cower in from of them. They are evil.

    #28536
    Raleigh
    Participant

    Here’s what happened in Afghanistan before the Russians went in:

    “Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.

    Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?

    Brzezinski: It isn’t quite that. We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.

    Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn’t believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don’t regret anything today?

    Brzezinski: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

    Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic [integrisme], having given arms and advice to future terrorists?

    Brzezinski: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?”

    How Jimmy Carter and I Started the Mujahideen

    That’s how the U.S. works, poking at countries until they react, and then they have the audacity to say: “Oh, look, they’re getting all aggressive!” As one journalist said, “NATO moves closer to Russia then blames Russia for being closer to NATO.”

    Babble, you’re not Brzezinski, are you?

    #28537
    Nassim
    Participant

    Babble,

    It is hard to answer all the misleading points that you bring up. Hollywood and the US educational system did a good job.

    This letter by Orlov et al. is about the present situation. I know it must be frustrating for an American to be told that their country will turn to radioactive ash should they dare attack Russia with nuclear weapons – but that is an incontrovertible fact that the MSM is hiding from you. Orlov is trying to open your eyes so do not take it out on him.

    90% of the wealth and power in the USA resides along the coasts. Russian unmanned long-range torpedoes can create 1000 foot tsunamis that would destroy all of that – without resorting to ICBM’s. You can call it unfair if you wish, but that is the way things stand today.

    As regards your historical narrative be advised that total war and foreign invasion is something that the USA has never had to contend with. The Russians know all about it. Here are some points:

    1- Even in WW1, the British and French executed thousands of young men who could not or would not fight. In WW2, the Germans preferred to guillotine them. The British and French had very few military casualties in WW2 – when compared to WW1.

    2- The Americans invaded Normandy in June 1944 – a full three years after the Germans had invaded the Soviet Union (June 1941). During those 3 years, the Russians had destroyed a huge part of the Germans army – and had millions of German, Italian, Hungarian, Austrian, Romanian and Bulgarian prisoners. The German soldiers in Normandy were not comparable in quantity or quality to the German army that had invaded Russia. Their best units had been wiped out. Their officer corps had been decimated. Germany was conscripting teenagers and middle-aged men into their army by then.

    3- After the fall of Berlin (to the Soviets), the USSR sent armies east to attack invade Japan – something they never tell you at school in the USA.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese_War_%281945%29

    In no time at all, these armies destroyed Japan’s formidable Kwantung army in China and Korea and proceeded to occupy northern Japanese Islands – they are now a part of Russia.

    4- The USA dropped atomic bombs on Japan largely as a warning to the Soviet Union. The ruling class of Japan – which is still in power today – rapidly made peace with the Americans and let them occupy Japan.

    5- The Americans and British planned to drop 300 nuclear weapons on Soviet cities – but luckily desisted.

    https://sputniknews.com/politics/20150815/1025789574/us-planned-to-wipe-out-ussr.html

    Today, both Japan and Germany are largely controlled by the USA – soft power. You only have to look at how German newspapers are describing what is happening in Ukraine to understand that. Much of the German public is disgusted with their media’s pro-American slant.

    #28538
    Nassim
    Participant

    Washington Military Planners Have Gone Mad

    This sort of nonsense does not really threaten Russia – merely annoy them. Putin said that Poland and Romania have merely put themselves in the crosshairs – for no gain.

    #28539
    Raleigh
    Participant

    After the simultaneous destruction of both Russia AND the United States via nuclear weapons, some would be happy to mutter with their last breath: “But WE won!” They actually believe there will be a winner here. The whole world will be destroyed. Seems like some are bent on pushing and pushing, and then just like the bullies they are, daring the other side to act. Insanity. Or they say that they’ll just use conventional weapons. Yeah, right, until somebody doesn’t.

    Under the NATO-Russia Founding Act of 1997 (which Russia was foolish enough to trust and sign):

    “NATO’s pledge to Russia was conditional, not unconditional. It was that, as long as there was no security threat to Eastern Europe, there would be no permanent NATO troops stationed there. On these terms, the NATO-Russia Founding Act was agreed to, signed, and ratified:

    ‘NATO reiterates that in the current and foreseeable security environment, the Alliance will carry out its collective defence and other missions by ensuring the necessary interoperability, integration, and capability for reinforcement rather than by additional permanent stationing of substantial combat forces.'”

    https://www.atlantic-community.org/-/the-myth-that-nato-committed-to-having-no-permanent-troops-in-eastern-europe

    Now I understand why somebody mentioned that NATO just keeps moving their troops around in order to get around the “permanent stationing” clause in the above quote.

    Russia should have learned by now that the U.S. will just manufacture or engineer a humanitarian problem (using their NGO’s), create chaos and havoc through proxies, and then say, “Look, there’s a big security threat; we’ll have to go in.” Whatever fits, they’ll do it. They are great at dismantling countries. That is what they’re “exceptional” at.

    #28540
    Raleigh
    Participant

    “…but it was the Clinton administration’s Doctrine of Humanitarian Warfare before 9/11, that shut the door on the prohibition of aggressive wars by the UN Charter, remaking the map of the world into a borderless American hunting reserve by removing the principle of sovereignty and replacing it with “right to protect” (R2P)—or humanitarian pretext for use of force.

    Clinton’s doctrine was an act of supreme, even witty, exploitation of liberal principles and commitment to policies of human rights. It was how the liberal left was induced to embrace war and imperialism as the means of defending human rights. The Carnegie Endowment cooked up the doctrine in 1992. Its report, “Changing Our Ways: America’s Role in the New World,” urged “a new principle of international relations: the destruction or displacement of groups of people within states can justify international intervention.” The report recommended that the US use NATO as the enforcer. It must be noted, too, that the principle of “humanitarian war” has no authority in international law. The Charter of the United Nations sought to outlaw war by making it impossible for unilateral interventions in the business of sovereign states by self-appointed guardians of human rights. The reason behind the proscription was not heartlessness but the consciousness that WW II had been the result of serial violations of sovereignty by Germany, Italy, and Japan—by militarist imperialism, in other words.”

    The Great Leap Backward: America’s Illegal Wars on the World

    Clinton came up with the Doctrine of Humanitarian Warfare: “The destruction or displacement of groups of people within states can justify international intervention”. As I said in my above post, that is what the U.S. is so exceptional at, displacing people. Syria, anyone?

    So you just go around creating humanitarian problems and, voila, you and your NATO bully friends can pound whatever country isn’t doing your bidding into the ground.

    #28541
    Nassim
    Participant

    Raleigh,

    I think that the best way of avoiding Armageddon is for Putin to tell Netanyahu that Israel will go first. The Zionists and their media are behind it all and he alone can call off these hyenas.

    #28543
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    @ Nassim
    Babble,

    It is hard to answer all the misleading points that you bring up. Hollywood and the US educational system did a good job.

    Indeed, Babble is aptly self identified. No further response needed…

    #28553
    bluebird
    Participant

    Russia? Why so much discussion about Russia? What’s really going on with China?

    #28555
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    bluebird
    Russia? Why so much discussion about Russia?
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    It’s really quite simple; The U.S. is aggressing on Russia’s borders with artillery within range of St. Petersburg and an anti-missile shield across the whole of Europe.
    Your question rings of a lack of being currently informed.
    Or, you’re another victim of Hollywood and the U.S. educational system as Nassim puts it…
    China is also in the U.S. hegemon’s sights for challenging the U.S.’s control of the world’s oceans.
    Jeez, maybe we’ll be fighting China and Russia at the same time? Won’t that be exciting…not!

    #28560
    John Day
    Participant

    Good thread, guys, especially Nassim.
    Netanyahu DOES listen when Putin speaks to him, doesn’t he?
    You are suggesting a Reverse-Samson-Option?

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