Sep 162019
 
 September 16, 2019  Posted by at 9:20 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,


Pablo Picasso Night fishing at Antibes 1939

 

Oil Explodes 20% Higher, Biggest Jump On Record (ZH)
Trump Says US ‘Locked And Loaded’ As Iran Blamed For Saudi Attack (AP)
Liquidity Dies in Darkness (Rivelle)
‘Very Difficult’ For China’s Economy To Grow 6% Or Faster: Premier Li
China’s August Industrial Output Growth Grinds To 17.5-Year Low (R.)
General Motors Faces Strike By Almost 50,000 Staff (BBC)
OxyContin Maker Purdue Pharma Files For Bankruptcy Protection (R.)
Industrialized Militaries Are A Big Part Of The Climate Emergency (IC)
Farming Subsidies Destroy The World (G.)
The World’s Most Important Political Prisoner (Craig Murray)

 

 

It went down a little after, but then the war threats started.

Oil Explodes 20% Higher, Biggest Jump On Record (ZH)

Shanghai Oil futures are halted limit up.


Source: Bloomberg

With traders in a state of near-frenzy, with a subset of fintwit scrambling (and failing) to calculate what the limit move in oil would be (hint: there is none for Brent), moments ago brent reopened for trading in the aftermath of Saturday’s attack on the “world’s most important oil processing plant”, and exploded some 20% higher, to a high of $71.95 from the Friday $60.22 close, its biggest jump since futures started trading in 1988. As Bloomberg notes, “for oil markets, it’s the single worst sudden disruption ever, surpassing the loss of Kuwaiti and Iraqi petroleum supply in August 1990, when Saddam Hussein invaded his neighbor. It also exceeds the loss of Iranian oil output in 1979 during the Islamic Revolution, according to data from the U.S. Department of Energy.”

Furthermore, in light of news that the Saudi outage could last for months, this could be just the start. As a reminder, according to Morningstar research director, Sandy Fielden, “Brent could go to $80 tomorrow, while WTI could go to $75… But that would depend on Aramco’s 48-hour update. The supply problem won’t be clear right away since the Saudis can still deliver from inventory.” Of course, should Aramco confirm that the outage – which has taken some 5.7mmb/d in Saudi output after 10 drones struck the world’s biggest crude-processing facility in Abqaiq and the kingdom’s second-biggest oil field in Khurais – will last for weeks, expect the crude juggernaut to continue until the price hits $80, and keeps moving higher.


Source: Bloomberg

Read more …

Does any of this make any sense to you?

Trump Says US ‘Locked And Loaded’ As Iran Blamed For Saudi Attack (AP)

The U.S. government produced satellite photos showing what officials said were at least 19 points of impact at two Saudi energy facilities, including damage at the heart of the kingdom’s crucial oil processing plant at Abqaiq. Officials said the photos show impacts consistent with the attack coming from the direction of Iran or Iraq, rather than from Yemen to the south. Iraq denied Sunday that its territory was used for an attack on the Kingdom and U.S. officials said a strike from there would be a violation of Iraq’s sovereignty. The U.S. officials said additional devices, which apparently didn’t reach their targets, were recovered northwest of the facilities and are being jointly analyzed by Saudi and American intelligence.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, did not address whether the drone could have been fired from Yemen, then taken a round-about path, but did not explicitly rule it out. The attacks and recriminations are increasing already heightened fears of an escalation in the region, after a prominent U.S. senator suggested striking Iranian oil refineries in response to the assault, and Iran warned of the potential of more violence. “Because of the tension and sensitive situation, our region is like a powder keg,” said Iranian Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh. “When these contacts come too close, when forces come into contact with one another, it is possible a conflict happens because of a misunderstanding.”


[..] “Amid all the calls for de-escalation, Iran has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply,” Pompeo wrote. “There is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen.” [..] U.S. officials previously alleged at least one recent drone attack on Saudi Arabia came from Iraq, where Iran backs Shiite militias. Those militias in recent weeks have been targeted themselves by mysterious airstrikes, with at least one believed to have been carried out by Israel. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi on Sunday dismissed Pompeo’s remarks as “blind and futile comments.” “The Americans adopted the ‘maximum pressure’ policy against Iran, which, due to its failure, is leaning toward ‘maximum lies,’” Mousavi said in a statement.

Read more …

“Trouble is, while loanable funds can be created without limit, the things that can be purchased with these funds is finite.”

Liquidity Dies in Darkness (Rivelle)

If democracy dies in darkness, so does liquidity in that embodiment of economic democracy, i.e., the capital markets. When information is scarce, investors must color in between the lines. That which is not known nor well quantified must be assumed or modeled. The door is therefore open to different investors reaching quite different conclusions about the underlying value of an asset leading, of course, to illiquidity. More so perhaps than any other in history, this cycle is the wellspring of the theories and actions of the central bankers who, in their infinite wisdom, determined that they could model interest rates better than markets could price them. Central banks have flooded the system with what they call “liquidity” but which are actually nothing more–nor less–than electronically conjured “loanable funds.”


Under the banner of “doing whatever it takes,” trillions in loanable funds were created so that now $17 trillion in global debt is priced to yield less than nothing. The magic trick of inverting economic logic with negative rates results from the capacity of the central banks to create unlimited quantities of loanable funds at no cost. Trouble is, while loanable funds can be created without limit, the things that can be purchased with these funds is finite. But, “free money” not only makes loans cheap, it also erodes the capacity of lenders to ask for such reasonable terms as traditional loan covenants and basic financial disclosure.

Read more …

Preparing the people for bad news?!

‘Very Difficult’ For China’s Economy To Grow 6% Or Faster: Premier Li

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said it is “very difficult” for China’s economy to grow at a rate of 6% or more because of the high base from which it was starting and the complicated international backdrop. The world’s No.2 economy faced “certain downward pressure” due to slowing global growth as well as the rise of protectionism and unilateralism, Li said in an interview with Russian media which was published on the Chinese government’s website, gov.cn. China’s GDP grew 6.3% in the first half of the year, and Li said the economy was “generally stable” in the first eight months of the year.


“For China to maintain growth of 6% or more is very difficult against the current backdrop of a complicated international situation and a relatively high base, and this rate is at the forefront of the world’s leading economies,” Li was quoted as saying. Analysts say China’s economic growth has likely cooled further this quarter from a near 30-year low of 6.2% in April-June. Morgan Stanley says it is now tracking the lower end of the government’s full-year target range of around 6-6.5%.

Read more …

4.4% it is.

China’s August Industrial Output Growth Grinds To 17.5-Year Low (R.)

The slowdown in China’s factory and consumer sectors deepened in August, with industrial production growing at the weakest pace in 17-1/2 years, a sign of increasing weakness in an economy lashed by trade headwinds and soft domestic demand. Production rose 4.4% in August year-on-year, slower than the 4.8% growth in July. Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast output would rise 5.2%. August’s data is the slowest growth since February 2002. [..] The data also showed retail sales growth at 7.5%, below the 7.9% expected in a Reuters poll and the 7.6% increase in July.


Fixed-asset investment for the first eight months of the year rose 5.5%, according to data published by the National Bureau of Statistics, compared with a 5.6% rise forecast by analysts. Data last week showed factory-gate prices fell at their fastest pace in three years and analysts predict that producer deflation will continue to worsen in the coming months. It also follows a factory survey that showed activity shrank for the fourth straight month as the U.S. trade war dragged on. China’s imports of unwrought copper also fell 3.8% year-on-year in August, a metal with wide use in infrastructure, power and consumption.

Read more …

America’s dying unions.

General Motors Faces Strike By Almost 50,000 Staff (BBC)

Almost 50,000 General Motors workers have been called out on strike after the car giant failed to reach a pay and conditions deal with the United Auto Workers union (UAW). “We do not take this lightly. This is our last resort,” UAW vice-president Terry Dittes told reporters in Detroit. The sides had set a Saturday night deadline to reach agreement. The strike – from midnight (04:00 GMT) on Monday – is the first at GM, America’s biggest carmaker, since 2007. In that strike, a two-day stoppage cost $300m (£240m). The union’s previous four-year contract with GM expired this weekend, and the two sides had been holding negotiations on wide-ranging issues, including wages, healthcare, profit sharing, and job security.

Read more …

Right after the Sackler family had transferred their billions to safe locations.

OxyContin Maker Purdue Pharma Files For Bankruptcy Protection (R.)

OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP filed for bankruptcy protection Sunday night, succumbing to pressure from more than 2,600 lawsuits alleging the company helped fuel the deadly U.S. opioid epidemic. Purdue’s board met Sunday evening to approve the long-expected bankruptcy filing, which the company is pursuing to restructure under terms of a proposal to settle the widespread litigation. Purdue, which filed for Chapter 11 protection in a federal bankruptcy court in White Plains, New York, reached a tentative deal to resolve lawsuits with 24 states and five U.S. territories, as well as lead lawyers for more than 2,000 cities, counties and other plaintiffs, the company said.


Two dozen states remain opposed or uncommitted to the proposed settlement, setting the stage for contentious legal battles over who bears responsibility for a public health crisis that has claimed the lives of nearly 400,000 people between 1999 and 2017, according to the latest U.S. data. Thousands of cities and counties, along with nearly every state, have sued Purdue and, in some cases, its controlling Sackler family. The lawsuits, seeking billions of dollars in damages, claim the company and family aggressively marketed prescription painkillers while misleading doctors and patients about their addiction and overdose risks.

Read more …

I’d rather have a look at overall pollution, not just emissions.

Industrialized Militaries Are A Big Part Of The Climate Emergency (IC)

A British doctor who co-authored two studies on the environmental impact of U.S. military operations in Fallujah said that the city’s population suffers “the highest rate of genetic damage in any population ever studied.” Much of this impact can be blamed on the use of depleted uranium munitions by U.S. forces. Despite vowing to cease their use, a study by the independent monitoring group Airwars and Foreign Policy Magazine found that the military continued to use the toxic munitions during its most recent bombing campaign in Syria. The fact that fossil fuel emissions have been the major driver of climate change adds another grim irony to these wars.


For decades, the heavy U.S. military footprint in the Middle East has been justified by the need to preserve access to the region’s oil reserves. The industrial extraction of those same reserves has been one of the major drivers of global carbon dioxide emissions. In other words, we have been killing, dying, and polluting to ensure our access to the same toxic resource most responsible for our climate disruption. It took this perfect symmetry between industrial warfare and industrial exploitation of the earth to bring about the unspeakable emergency we now face.

Read more …

$1 million every minute. And look at the sugary crap we’re eating.

Farming Subsidies Destroy The World (G.)

The public is providing more than $1m per minute in global farm subsidies, much of which is driving the climate crisis and destruction of wildlife, according to a new report. Just 1% of the $700bn (£560bn) a year given to farmers is used to benefit the environment, the analysis found. Much of the total instead promotes high-emission cattle production, forest destruction and pollution from the overuse of fertiliser. The security of humanity is at risk without reform to these subsidies, a big reduction in meat eating in rich nations and other damaging uses of land, the report says. But redirecting the subsidies to storing carbon in soil, producing healthier food, cutting waste and growing trees is a huge opportunity, it says.

The report rejects the idea that subsidies are needed to supply cheap food. It found that the cost of the damage currently caused by agriculture is greater than the value of the food produced. New assessments in the report found producing healthy, sustainable food would actually cut food prices, as the condition of the land improves. “There is incredibly small direct targeting of [subsidies at] positive environment outcomes, which is insane,” said Jeremy Oppenheim, principal at the Food and Land Use Coalition (Folu), the collaboration of food, farming and green research groups that produced the new report. “We have got to switch these subsidies into explicitly positive measures.”


He said the true global total was likely to be $1tn a year, as some subsidies are difficult to quantify precisely: “That trillion dollars of public funding is available and is a massive, massive lever to incentivise the farming community across the world to act differently.”

Read more …

“..all the excuses for Assange’s imprisonment which so-called leftists and liberals in the UK have hidden behind will evaporate.”

The World’s Most Important Political Prisoner (Craig Murray)

We are now just one week away from the end of Julian Assange’s uniquely lengthy imprisonment for bail violation. He will receive parole from the rest of that sentence, but will continue to be imprisoned on remand awaiting his hearing on extradition to the USA – a process which could last several years. At that point, all the excuses for Assange’s imprisonment which so-called leftists and liberals in the UK have hidden behind will evaporate. There are no charges and no active investigation in Sweden, where the “evidence” disintegrated at the first whiff of critical scrutiny. He is no longer imprisoned for “jumping bail”.

The sole reason for his incarceration will be the publishing of the Afghan and Iraq war logs leaked by Chelsea Manning, with their evidence of wrongdoing and multiple war crimes. In imprisoning Assange for bail violation, the UK was in clear defiance of the judgement of the UN Working Group on arbitrary Detention, which stated:

“Under international law, pre-trial detention must be only imposed in limited instances. Detention during investigations must be even more limited, especially in the absence of any charge. The Swedish investigations have been closed for over 18 months now, and the only ground remaining for Mr. Assange’s continued deprivation of liberty is a bail violation in the UK, which is, objectively, a minor offense that cannot post facto justify the more than 6 years confinement that he has been subjected to since he sought asylum in the Embassy of Ecuador. Mr. Assange should be able to exercise his right to freedom of movement in an unhindered manner, in accordance with the human rights conventions the UK has ratified,”


In repudiating the UNWGAD the UK has undermined an important pillar of international law, and one it had always supported in hundreds of other decisions. The mainstream media has entirely failed to note that the UNWGAD called for the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – a source of potentially valuable international pressure on Iran which the UK has made worthless by its own refusal to comply with the UN over the Assange case. Iran simply replies “if you do not respect the UNWGAD then why should we?”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

Home Forums Debt Rattle September 16 2019

Viewing 22 posts - 1 through 22 (of 22 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #49895

    Pablo Picasso Night fishing at Antibes 1939   • Trump Says US ‘Locked And Loaded’ As Iran Blamed For Saudi Attack (AP) • Liquidity Dies in Darkne
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle September 16 2019]

    #49896
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Pablo Picasso Night fishing at Antibes 1939
    Love it.

    I think we’re all bozos on the same bus…

    …comes to mind. (Firesign Theater: 1971)
    It’s true.
    But so few of us realize it…

    #49899

    And now Iran captures a UAE-flagged tanker in the Strait of Hormuz. Way to go.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/irgc-seizes-emirati-flagged-ship-strait-hormuz-suspicion-smuggling-diesel

    #49905
    zerosum
    Participant

    There are many reasons by many factions for the attack on the oil refineries. Only a very organized group of +20 operators could keep it a secret and have enough money to carry out this attack.

    Here is a good reason to do the attack.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/saudis-considering-delaying-aramco-ipo-output-recovery-expected-take-longer
    Saudis Considering Delaying Aramco IPO As Output Recovery Expected To Take Longer

    Here is some logic for thinkers to considerr
    Most drones are made in ???
    Should ??? be blamed for the attack?
    Should the USA attack ???? for making those drones?

    The USA sold billions of war machines to UAR

    Should the USA be blamed for the deaths from those war machines?

    Should the USA be attacked for causing those deaths?
    Should the world condemn the USA for murdering?

    https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-nw-bin-laden-son-killed-20190914-mh2xqsdhzbe3vjsiwcccylboie-story.html
    White House says the son of Osama bin Laden has been killed in a U.S. operation

    #49907

    Poor Houthis. They finally got together the skills and equipment to hit key Saudi targets, and then do it, and then everyone denies they did it. They showed video, Iran denied it all, but no, Pompeo says it couldn’t have been them. Can’t catch a break those guys.

    The thing about this is they’ve been killed in their Yemen slaughterhouse for a very long time, and they’ve always known where KSA is vulnerable. In that sense, it’s obvious what they would do, and where. And just because of how long they’ve outlasted the barbarious attacks, you’d think it would be obvious they have capabilities. But no, it was Iran, who had just been given hopes of easing sanctions.

    #49908
    zerosum
    Participant

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-16/photos-that-show-how-attack-crippled-saudi-arabia-s-oil-output
    The U.S. administration released images on Sunday that it said highlights the precision and sophistication of the attack on Saudi Arabia’s biggest oil-processing plant at Abqaiq.

    One photo appears to show a row of four spherical tanks each with similar puncture marks, indicating a highly accurate strike. Those vessels are important because they are part of a process to remove hydrogen sulfide, a highly corrosive chemical that needs to be taken out of crude before it can be refined. Without that, most refineries would struggle to process Saudi crude.

    This wider angle view shows damage to other parts of the Abqaiq complex, where there were 17 different points of impact, according to the U.S. government.

    #49909
    zerosum
    Participant

    http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-black-swan-is-drone.html

    (Some published estimates place the total cost of the 10 drones deployed in the strike at $15,000. Highly capable commercially available drones cost around $1,200 each.)

    This is asymmetric warfare on a new scale: $20,000 of drones can wreak $20 million in damage and financial losses of $200 million–or $2 billion or $20 billion, if global markets are upended.
    If it’s impossible to defend against coordinated drone attacks, and impossible to differentiate “good” drones from “bad” drones, then the only reliable defense is to ban drones entirely from wide swaths of territory.

    Small hobby drones may only carry 3 KG (roughly 6 pounds), but how much damage can 3 KG of high explosives cause? The answer is “considerable” if the target is flammable, or lightly shielded electronics.

    The mainstream media will be under permanent pressure to downplay the consequences of this attack, but the cat is out of the bag: the Black Swan is a drone. What was “possible” yesterday is now a low-cost proven capability, and the consequences are far from predictable.

    #49910
    John Day
    Participant

    http://www.johndayblog.com/2019/09/global-resource-war.html
    ​Satellite images say it will take months to fix the extensive damage done by the drones and cruise missiles.
    ​https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/declassified-satellite-images-reveal-it-would-take-months-fix-saudi-oil-facility

    Moon of Alabama has more specific details of the precisely targeted damage today.
    Damage At Saudi Oil Plant Points To Well Targeted Swarm Attack
    Saturday’s attack on the Saudi oil and gas processing station in Abqaiq hit its stabilization facility:
    ​ ​The stabilization process is a form of partial distillation which sweetens “sour” crude oil (removes the hydrogen sulfide) and reduces vapor pressure, thereby making the crude oil safe for shipment in tankers. Stabilizers maximize production of valuable hydrocarbon liquids, while making the liquids safe for storage and transport, as well as reduce the atmospheric emissions of volatile hydrocarbons. Stabilizer plants are used to reduce the volatility of stored crude oil and condensate.
    ​ ​The pictures show some 17 points of impact. There are cars visible in the second more detailed picture that demonstrate the gigantic size of the place. The targets were carefully selected. At least 11 of those were egg shaped tanks with a diameter of some 30 meter (100 foot). These are likely tanks for pressurized (liquidized) gas that receive the condensate vapor from the stabilization process. They all have now quite neat holes in their upper shells.
    ​ ​The piping to and from the egg shaped tanks shows that these were configured in groups with double redundancy. Two tanks beside each other share one piping system. Two of such twin tanks are next to each other with lines to their processing train. There are a total of three such groups. Damage to any one tank or group would not stop the production process. The products would be routed to another similar tank or group. But with all tanks of this one special type taken out the production chain is now interrupted.
    ​ ​Two processing areas were hit and show fire damage. At least the control equipment of both was likely completely destroye​d..​.
    ​ ​The hits were extremely precise. The Yemeni armed forces claimed it attacked the facility with 10 drones (or cruise missiles). But the hits on these targets look like neither. A total of 17 hits with such precise targeting lets me assume that these were some kind of drones or missiles with man-in-the-loop control. They may have been launched from within Saudi Arabia.​ (Distant launch with nearby control?)
    ​ ​There is no information yet on the damage in Khurais, the second target of the attacks.
    ​ ​The U.S. and Israel are able to commit such attacks. Iran probably too. Yemen seems unlikely to have this capability without drawing on extensive support from elsewhere. The planing for this operation must have taken months.​..
    ​U.S. President Donald Trump was way more careful in attributing the strike than his Secretary of State.
    ​ ​Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump – 0:50 UTC · Sep 16, 2019
    ​ ​Saudi Arabia oil supply was attacked. There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on verification, but ​ ​are waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed!
    ​ ​Any direct attack on Iran would result in swarms of missiles hitting U.S. military installations in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. Saudi water desalination plants, refineries and ports would also be targets.
    ​ ​It is doubtful that Trump or the Saudis are ready to risk such a response.​..
    ​ ​Saudi Arabia has no defenses against this kind of attacks. The U.S. has no system that could be used for that purpose. Russia is the only country that can provide the necessary equipment. It would be extremely costly, and still insufficient, to protect all of the Saudi’s vital facilities from similar swarm attacks.
    ​ ​Attacks of this kind will only end when Saudi Arabia makes peace with Yemen and when the U.S. ends its sanctions of oil exports from Iran. As Iran’s President Rouhani said:
    “If one day they want to prevent the export of Iran’s oil, then no oil will be exported from the Persian Gulf”
    https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/09/damage-at-saudi-oil-plant-points-to-well-targeted-swarm-attack.html#more

    Houthis Say It’s Not Over – Saudi Oil “Still Within Range”; Iraq Denies Its Territory Used
    ​ ​While US officials were quick out of the gate to allege an Iranian attack on Saudi Aramco facilities launched from Iraq early Saturday, a theory which the WSJ said was focus of an ongoing US-Saudi investigation, Iraq’s government issued a firm denial on Sunday, which followed Iran’s own denial that condemned Washington’s “maximum lies”.
    ​ ​Saying there was no link to Iraqi soil and the attack which caused oil prices to spike to record levels the moment markets opened, initially surging to as much as 18% before retreating after President Trump authorized use of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to “keep the markets well-supplied,” the Iraqi government further vowed to “punish anyone who intended to use Iraq as a launchpad for attacks in the region.”
    ​ ​Despite Yemen’s Houthis themselves claiming responsibility for the precision strike using ten drones, unleashing explosions that rocked Abqaiq facility and the Khurais field, US officials have long eyed Iraq’s Shia paramilitary forces also as bad actors which Iran deploys as proxies from Iraqi soil.
    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/houthis-say-its-not-over-saudi-facilities-still-within-range-iraq-denies-its-territory

    ​”Iranian Weapons Used”, Saudi Arabia (Duh)​
    ​ ​Update: It’s official — after Trump over the weekend put the ball squarely in the Saudis’ court, saying the US was “waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed!” — Saudi Arabia has responded by saying it was indeed Iran, confirming that “Iranian weapons” were used to attack its oil facilities.
    ​ ​After the US apparently ruled out Iraq as a launching pad on Monday, following Baghdad’s firm denial, it looks like Riyadh appears to be pointing to a potential direct cruise missile or drone attack from Iran.
    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/houthis-say-its-not-over-saudi-facilities-still-within-range-iraq-denies-its-territory
    Charles Hugh Smith says “The Black Swan is a Drone”:
    ​What was “possible” yesterday is now a low-cost proven capability, and the consequences are far from predictable.
    Predictably, the mainstream media is serving up heaping portions of reassurances that the drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities are no big deal and full production will resume shortly. The obvious goal is to placate global markets fearful of an energy disruption that could tip a precarious global economy into recession.
    The real impact isn’t on short-term oil prices, it’s on asymmetric warfare: the coordinated drone attack on Saudi oil facilities is a Black Swan event that is reverberating around the world, awakening copycats and exposing the impossibility of defending against low-cost drones of the sort anyone can buy.
    (Some published estimates place the total cost of the 10 drones deployed in the strike at $15,000. Highly capable commercially available drones cost around $1,200 each.)
    The attack’s success should be a wake-up call to everyone tasked with defending highly flammable critical infrastructure: there really isn’t any reliable defense against a coordinated drone attack, nor is there any reliable way to distinguish between an Amazon drone delivering a package and a drone delivering a bomb.
    http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-black-swan-is-drone.html

    #49911
    John Day
    Participant

    Oops, Zerosum got Charles Hugh Smith’s “Black Swan is a Drone” article in just before my screen refreshed after I sent my news dredge. No intentional redundancy…

    #49912

    How is that “Oops”? Tons of stuff you post has been in Debt Rattles before.

    #49913
    zerosum
    Participant

    My favorite drone delivery system is “re-useable”

    Check out this cheap version to deliver explosives.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/5/18654044/amazon-prime-air-delivery-drone-new-design-safety-transforming-flight-video

    The new drone can fly vertically, like a helicopter, and in a new, aerodynamic airplane mode
    By James Vincent and Chaim Gartenberg Jun 5, 2019, 1:23pm EDT

    The new drone uses a combination of thermal cameras, depth cameras, and sonar to detect hazards. With the help of machine learning models, onboard computers can automatically identify obstacles and navigate around them. “From paragliders, power lines, to the corgi in your backyard, this drone has safety covered,” said Wilke.

    Amazon claims its goal for the finished Prime Air service is create “fully electric drones that can fly up to 15 miles and deliver packages under five pounds to customers in less than 30 minutes.”

    #49914
    seychelles
    Participant

    Much of this impact can be blamed on the use of depleted uranium munitions by U.S. forces.

    Slow genocide. A crime against humanity. Using Iraq as a freebie dump for radioactive waste.

    #49915

    15 miles: Nice drones if you have neighbor issues, zero, but that’s it. The Houthis need a whole other level

    #49916

    Seychelles, the impact of what can be blamed on depleted uranium?

    #49917
    anticlimactic
    Participant

    SAUDI

    This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever!

    The idea that a fleet of slow moving drones could wander across Saudi Arabia, bomb a facility, and wander back out again, without being detected, let alone intercepted, seems totally unbelievable.

    The Saudis had no idea where they came from or where they went to, which meant their radar systems must have been inoperative. The Patriot missile systems failed to detect and intercept the drones. No fighters were scrambled to destroy them even after the event.

    Despite spending hundreds of billions on Western weapons Saudi Arabia was totally defenseless!

    If the Saudi systems were working normally then the drones MUST have been completely stealthy and WERE undetectable. That should be worrying!

    I remember reading about a research paper from a US/Chinese team which described how to make anything stealthy – I think it involved a tunable mesh on the craft’s surface to absorb radar waves. Perhaps.

    If these drones are undetectable then it explains how the Houthis obtained them – they simply flew there!

    If the drones were Iranian [from wherever] then they defeated all of Saudi Arabia’s advanced weapons systems – the implications are truly enormous. No country would be safe. Also, the bombs seem to be extremely accurate.

    Alternatively, if the drones were US or Israeli flying out of Iraq then the US could have turned off all of the Saudi’s defense systems.

    #49918
    zerosum
    Participant

    Could an Amazon type drone have been used?

    Someone thinks so ….
    https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/09/damage-at-saudi-oil-plant-points-to-well-targeted-swarm-attack.html#more

    The hits were extremely precise. The Yemeni armed forces claimed it attacked the facility with 10 drones (or cruise missiles). But the hits on these targets look like neither. A total of 17 hits with such precise targeting lets me assume that these were some kind of drones or missiles with man-in-the-loop control. They may have been launched from within Saudi Arabia.

    If you want to keep a secret you need to limit the number of people in the “know”.

    The U.S. and Israel are able to commit such attacks. Iran probably too. Yemen seems unlikely to have this capability without drawing on extensive support from elsewhere. The planning for this operation must have taken months.

    Saudi Arabia has no defenses against this kind of attacks. The U.S. has no system that could be used for that purpose. Russia is the only country that can provide the necessary equipment. It would be extremely costly, and still insufficient, to protect all of the Saudi’s vital facilities from similar swarm attacks.

    #49919
    seychelles
    Participant

    Ilargi re depleted uranium: “A British doctor who co-authored two studies on the environmental impact of U.S. military operations in Fallujah said that the city’s population suffers “the highest rate of genetic damage in any population ever studied.”

    #49920
    seychelles
    Participant

    Also Ilargi, from Wikipedia ” A 2005 epidemiology review concluded: “In aggregate the human epidemiological evidence is consistent with increased risk of birth defects in offspring of persons exposed to DU.”[13]

    #49921
    anticlimactic
    Participant

    POMPEO, TRUMP SAY IRANIAN DRONES COMPLETELY IMPERVIOUS TO PATRIOT MISSILE SYSTEMS – WESTERN WEAPONS INEFFECTIVE

    [Well, in effect!]

    #49922
    lasttwo
    Participant

    google or look up what tulsi has to say where are the chosen ones from the dnc

    #49923
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    If it’s impossible to defend against coordinated drone attacks, and impossible to differentiate “good” drones from “bad” drones, then the only reliable defense is to ban drones entirely from wide swaths of territory.
    zerosum

    But it is not impossible to defend against swarms of drones; Russia has done it repeatedly at their Syrian, Hmeimim air base.
    The Russian Pantsir – S1 AA system has been hugely successful against exactly that; swarms of drones. Only one very minor failure occured and the damage was negligible.
    The Pantsir system was designed for exactly those kind of attacks.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantsir_missile_system

    #49932
    John Day
    Participant

    Ilargi: How is that “Oops”? Tons of stuff you post has been in Debt Rattles before.

    John: Yeah, but intentionally for completion. I usually try to leave out what’s up today, unless it is core to the progression of ideas. This is one of my go-to sites, and has been since early 2008.
    You, Ilargi, have been a tutor.

Viewing 22 posts - 1 through 22 (of 22 total)
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.