Apr 202014
 
 April 20, 2014  Posted by at 11:58 am Finance


Jack Delano Farwell, Texas, at the New Mexico state line. March 1943

LEAP2020 is a European political/economic research institute that doesn’t shy away from volunteering opinions on the topics it researches, something that works both for and against it. It publishes a new GEAB (Global Europe Anticipation Bulletin) report every month. I thought I’d share the ‘public announcement’ of the April 2014 issue with you, because it provides a clear idea of what some people think is going on with regards to the US/EU involvement in Ukraine and the war of verbal bellicosity they have initiated with Russia. Some voices, among them former US government official Paul Craig Roberts, are convinced there is a new neocon attempt aimed at provoking war with Putin happening. Others have pointed to the arms race many US allies in the Middle East and Asia appear to be conducting.

Personally, I prefer to remain on the cautious side for now, but I do think Americans and Europeans alike should demand their media and politicians explain what really goes on, instead of merely shouting insults at anyone who looks remotely Russian. What did the US spend the $5 billion+ on that Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland has stated was handed to an alphabet soup of Ukraine NGOs? What was Nuland doing in Kiev in the months leading up to the February coup in the first place? Ukraine had a poorly functioning government, true, but then so do dozens of other countries. Why Ukraine? Why did NATO rapidly expand eastward after the break-up of the Soviet Union despite explicit promises not to do that? Why is the US apparently about to deploy perhaps as many as 10,000 soldiers to Poland when it just signed a de-escalation deal with Russia? Are we going to hold back on asking these questions until the military chest thumping stand-off has reached a point of no return?

For LEAP2020, the issues are primarily economic, not military. It sees the US as a nation on the verge of breaking down economically, which seeks to drag others (Europe) with it in order to disguise its own troubles:



Europe Dragged Into A Division Of The World Between Debtors And Creditors: The United States’ Desperate Solutions For Not Sinking Alone

In the present confrontation between Russia and the West over the Ukrainian crisis, the image of the Cold War inevitably comes to mind and the media are obviously fond of it. However, contrary to what it gives us to understand, it’s not Russia that seeks the return of an iron curtain but really the US. An iron curtain separating the old powers and emerging nations; the world before and the world afterwards; debtors and creditors. And this in the crazy hope of preserving the American way of life and the US influence over its camp in the absence of being able to impose it on the whole world. In other words, go down with as many companions as possible to give the impression of not sinking.

For the US, these are the current stakes in fact: drag along the whole Western camp with them to be able to continue dominating and trading with enough countries. So, we are witnessing a formidable operation of turning round opinion and leaders in Europe to ensure docile and understanding rulers vis-a-vis the American boss, supported by a blitzkrieg to link them permanently with the TTIP and to cut them off from what could be their lifeline, namely the BRICS, their huge markets, their vibrant future, their link with developing countries, etc. We are analyzing all these aspects in this GEAB issue, as well as the subtle use of the fear of deflation to convince Europeans to adopt US methods.

In the light of the extreme danger of these methods used by the US, it goes without saying that leaving the US ship wouldn’t be an act of betrayal by Europe, but really a major step forward for the world as we have already extensively analyzed in previous GEAB issues. Unfortunately, the most reasonable European leaders are completely paralyzed and the best strategy that they are still capable of currently putting into effect, in the best case scenario, seems to be simply to delay, certainly useful and welcome but hardly sufficient …

Layout of the full article:
1. LOWER THE MASKS
2. QUICK A TTIP
3. AN ECONOMIC ABERRATION
4. INSTIL THE FEAR OF DEFLATION IN EUROPE, THE SECOND US WEAPON
5. DEBTORS VERSUS CREDITORS, THE WORLD CUT IN TWO

This public announcement contains excerpt from sections 1 and 2.

LOWER THE MASKS

With the internet and leak type issues, keeping a secret has become difficult for secret agents and countries with dirty hands. Besides Snowden’s or WikiLeaks disclosures, we have further learned recently that the US was behind a social network in Cuba targeting the destabilization of the government in power. We have been able to watch a video opportunely leaked on YouTube showing the Americans at work behind the coup d’etat in the Ukraine. Or again, it would seem that they are not innocent in Erdogan s current destabilization in Turkey, a country whose situation we will go into in more detail in the next GEAB issue … The masks are falling, certainly on the evidence, but that nobody can ignore.

But the United States is no longer satisfied with developing countries or banana republics. In Europe, they are also managing to turn round the leaders one after the other, so that they obediently follow American interests. It’s no longer what’s good for General Motors is good for America as Charles Wilson (former GM CEO) said in 1953, but what’s good for the US is good for Europe. It already has Cameron, Rajoy, Barroso and Ashton’s support. It has succeeded in getting Donald Tusk’s Poland’s whilst he was strongly resistant at the beginning of his term of office, Italy’s thanks to Renzi s opportunist coup d’etat, and France’s Hollande/Valls thanks in particular to a ministerial reshuffle and a Prime Minister little suspected of anti-Americanism. Unlike the beginning of his term of office when he played the independence card on Mali or on other fronts, Francois Hollande seems to be completely submissive to the United States. What pressure has been put on him? As for Germany, it s still resisting somewhat but for how long (9)? We will expand on these remarks in the Telescope.

Europe is thus dragged towards US interests that aren’t its own, neither in terms of politics, geopolitics, or trade as we will see. Whilst the BRICS have chosen an opposite path and are seeking to withdraw from the henceforth profoundly negative influence of the US at any price, Europe is now being taken for a ride. Evidenced, for example, by Belgium’s purchase of $130 billion worth of US Treasuries in three months from October 2013 to January 2014, being at an annual rate greater than its GDP. It’s certainly not Belgium itself which is responsible for this aberration, but Brussels of course, that’s to say the EU as a little US soldier. Politically Europe is stifled by the US which can take heart in the absence of any leadership. And the way to permanently seal this American stranglehold over Europe is called the TTIP …

QUICK A TTIP

We have already amply documented it: unlike the triumphant discussions of recovery based on rising real estate prices and the stock exchange which is at its highest, the real US economy is in dire straits. Food shortages are higher than in Greece.


On the right, percentage of the population which can’t afford food, by country (on the left, change 2007-2012). Source : Bloomberg / OECD.

Shops, even good value ones, are closing through lack of customers. Demand for real estate loans are at their lowest, which bodes ill for what follows next and presages an imminent reversal, as we anticipated in the GEAB no 81.

[…]

But as we have already said, this isn’t the most important thing. The TTIP’s major stake is the Dollar’s preservation in trade and keeping Europe in the US lap in order to avoid the constitution of a Euro-BRICS bloc able to counterbalance the US. Thus, the Ukrainian crisis, under the pretext of Russian aggression and gas supply, is a good way, in the panic, of imposing the US and the lobbies’ agenda in the face of European leaders who are too weak to act. What wasn’t expected is that the lobbies‘ interests are not necessarily going in the direction one thinks …

[…]

Home Forums The United States’ Desperate Solutions For Not Sinking Alone

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  • #12419

    Jack Delano Farwell, Texas, at the New Mexico state line. March 1943 LEAP2020 is a European political/economic research institute that doesn’t shy awa
    [See the full post at: The United States’ Desperate Solutions For Not Sinking Alone]

    #12420
    chettt
    Participant

    How can this one sided rant masquerading as objective analysis be taken seriously? There is no master plan. I wish there were.

    #12421

    Fair enough, chettt, but maybe the question is: what other “analysis” could be taken more seriously than this one? I can’t think of any, other than my own. And that”s not me tooting my own horn, I simply see all sorts of people jumping to all sorts of conclusions, likely because they’re all out of their league, while I only ask questions.

    #12422
    rapier
    Participant

    Well Obama just declared war on Russia

    ” Mr. Obama is focused on isolating President Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia by cutting off its economic and political ties to the outside world, limiting its expansionist ambitions in its own neighborhood and effectively making it a pariah state.”

    Funny the article doesn’t mention methane. Good luck with cutting off that economic tie with the “outside world”. Is China the outside world? No, I think they are destined to be the enemy too.

    This will now function as a line in the sand to determine domestic enemies. Show me a skeptic about the popular version of events in Ukraine and I will show you a subversive. Since Obama did it no Democrat can be against it. Except the occasional back bencher. Nobody running for president is going to be soft on Russia. Instead our national politicians are going to be falling all over themselves to be the toughest on Russia.

    #12425
    chettt
    Participant

    While you are a tad cynical yourself Raul, you do not start with the conclusions before you do the analysis. I appreciate that.
    A review of past publications from LEAP2020 show their analysis to be primarily anti-american hyperbole and a poor predictor of future events. I only wish that the US were as cunningly effective at world domination as the folks at LEAP seem to think. Unfortunately it seems the priority for the US and everyone else is myopic self preservation. The world needs and will eventually have a world government. It’s the only way the big problems can possibly be addressed. The question in my mind is how do we get from here to there.

    #12426

    LEAP2020 is not anti-American, it’s a European view. Tons of university degrees and all that, but as I said it works for and against them at the same time. The world will never have one government, so you can shove that notion aside and engage in more fruitful thinking. Or maybe I should say that as soon as there is a one world government, all hell’s going to break loose all over the globe; that we already effectively have such a government is a whole other issue. And it is the worst possible way, not the only, to address “the big problems”.

    #12427
    chettt
    Participant

    European view? How civilized. More precisely it’s a “Why doesn’t Europe run the world?” point of view. The notion that future problems of resource scarcity, overpopulation and climate issues will be cordially work out between nation states is delusional. The planet gets smaller every year. And sure, I can see how sinister a one world government could potentially be but the task is not to dismiss the concept out of hand but to find a way to make it work.
    Each year technology makes it easier and easier to destroy life on earth as we know it. A century ago no single or combined entity was capable of destroying the earth. How many single entities are capable of it now? How many more in 20 years?
    Hoping that reason will prevail is certainly one strategy but I fear that rising that far above our human nature has long odds indeed.

    #12428
    Professorlocknload
    Participant

    Can’t imagine a “World Government” either, anytime soon. National constituencies are too fond of democracy for that to happen, along with the Internet Reformation creating new avenues in the opposite direction,,,ones of empowerment at more local levels.

    Even if a World governing body evolved into something viable, it would most likely be efficient at only one solution to the problems mentioned above, population eradication/control, at which central planning has so many times in history proven it’s mettle.

    As for LEAP, been on that page long enough to classify it as “average” in the doom-say department. No, I don’t see this quite as conspiratorial as I do Machiavellian-gone-haywire.

    Like, the Princes were absent the day the lesson turned to cat herding. Especially in this info age in which cats have so many alternate opinion formation choices available just a couple clicks away.

    I’ll posit, this mad scramble for survival taking place by all power centers isn’t as well orchestrated as some might imagine. In my estimation it more resembles a war, in that, in the beginning, intentions were noble and consensual, but the strategy was taken over by the random and unknowable forces all wars follow as they develop a life of their own. “The best made plans,” and all that.

    The power that rises to the thrones of Central Planning is most always psychopathic, but if today’s highly placed egos sprouted consciences and took an objective gander at this clusterfuck we all find ourselves in, they included,, do we suppose they might have done crisis management a bit differently, say, if they could be transported back 6 years, or even a few decades?

    Did Adolf and Franklin and Winston and Hirohito know the outcome when they all climbed into the ring together? Did the millions of innocent players who perished in the storm?

    So, yes, the road to hell is, as usual, paved by our great anointed leaders. Still, I gotta wonder where the revolution is?

    Thank’s all for enlightening to the work of Marquez. I’ll put all this financial turbulence back in the box for a while and give him a read. It will all pass anyway, given time.

    #12429
    Raleigh
    Participant

    Chettt – “I only wish that the US were as cunningly effective at world domination as the folks at LEAP seem to think.”

    I think they are cunningly effective. Smedley Butler, the most decorated Marine in history, describes fighting for U.S. banks in many of the wars he fought in.

    “I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

    I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”

    Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins is a really good read. Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein is excellent as well (and I couldn’t even finish reading all of it because it made me sick).

    Who’s advancing, Chettt? If we got answers to Ilargi’s above questions, that would sure help, but I somehow don’t think they’ll be answered. Who is the one country who’s aggressing all over the world?

    #12430
    D
    Participant

    LEAP’s prediction record seems to have been spotty in the times I have followed it. They may have an EU view, but that does not make them right all that often when the big dog USA is calling the shots.

    We have made a royal mess (as usual) of the Ukraine thing. We pissed away $6 BILLION so far there? for WHAT? Who made THAT dumbass decision? Heck we could give every US food stamp recipient roughly $125 (ALL 47 MILLION of them) and get better bang for the buck than this cluster***k.

    And now the Admin wants to “double down” on a guy who has beat them over and over again?

    Makes me long for the Bush years… The Bush team may have been stupid, but not stupid enough to poke the “the bear” with a stick.

    #12447
    pipefit
    Participant

    LEAP’s main argument is that the USA is more of a basket case than the EU. Using the Euro/dollar ratio as a crude proxy, they appear to be marginally correct.

    In all probability, the USA (and the dollar) will continue to lose ground to the EU (Euro). We are much more dependent on crude oil, which will continue to rise in price due the exhaustion of oil supplies from the legacy cheap oil fields. There is still plenty of oil, but it is expensive (to produce) oil.

    A 1-world, all powerful state is certainly inevitable, on an inhabited planet. The nuclear cleanup in Japan is going to take multiple decades. There are hundreds of these places around the world, and more are still being built.

    As far as when it will happen, they can force the issue whenever they want to, with a freezing up of the bank clearing system. They might blame it on terrorists, and say that we MUST have a 1-world currency immediately, to prevent a repeat. In the ensuing panic, it will be an easy sell.

    #12458
    chettt
    Participant

    Assuming that the euro survives is one huge bet

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