Debt Rattle March 17 2023

[Raúl Ilargi Meijer]

Vincent van Gogh Corridor In The Asylum 1889   • Ukraine’s Death by Proxy (Chris Hedges) • ‘Serious Military Developments’ Are Coming In Ukraine
[See the full post at: Debt Rattle March 17 2023]

[chooch]

Regarding First Republic, I saw this chart and naturally your eyes are drawn to the bottom right, but what was caused reserves to spike up on 1/20 (both large and small banks) and the jump in reserves for MMF (money market funds?) on the 21st. Just curious.

[chooch]

Looks like the image didn’t post, Here is a link to the tweet that was in the last article that Raul linked.

So Big Banks are now parking their excess reserves/cash at Small Banks in a costless bailout funded by the Fed. Remember: Big Banks still have lots of reserves left; Small Banks are reserve constrainedhttps://t.co/wa2jVsCRFJ pic.twitter.com/3B6Wr3ROPj

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 16, 2023

[boilingfrog]

The view from Foreign Affairs magazine, FYI:

The Russia That Might Have Been
How Moscow Squandered Its Power and Influence. By Alexander Gabuev
March 13, 2023

“In the 12 months since Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine, the war has turned into an accelerating disaster for Russia. Although Ukrainians are the primary victims of the Kremlin’s unprovoked aggression, the war has already left hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers dead or wounded. Unprecedented Western sanctions have squeezed the Russian economy, and Moscow’s large-scale mobilization and wartime crackdown on civil society have caused hundreds of thousands of the country’s high-skilled workers to flee abroad. Yet the greatest long-term cost of the war to Russia may be in permanently foreclosing the promise of Russia occupying a peaceful and prosperous place in the twenty-first-century world order.”

[chooch]

The chart is plotted against years. Covid. My bad.

[CoolRunnerII]

There is something fishy about the Australian birth number graph.

Just looking at it, it looks like a registration lag issue. That the graph was compiled before all the numbers were added to the database.

Statistista sais the birth numbers for Australia were the highest in the last decade in 2021. at about 315.000.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/607878/australia-number-of-births/

[John Day]

Durn, you beat me to the Ellen Brown… Derivatives Bomb Ticking https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/derivative-bomb-ticking

Michael Hudson says a lot in this interview with ben Norton, with full transcript. A quick overview. Thanks Christine.
Today’s banking crisis stems from the “fixes” of 2008-2009, when the correction in asset-prices, like mortgages and mortgage-backed securities, was prevented. The Fed bought all of the trash at face value and held it, then lowered interest rates and kept buying trash, in order to inflate asset prices up to the price they paid for the trash. This was the opposite of what Obama had promised, writing-down mortgages and mortgage payments.
The progression of this reached the point where inflation finally hit the level of consumer prices. It was no longer contained in financial assets, so the stock “solution” was to squeeze the economy to force unemployment up nd wages down, which has been the “solution” so long that many people find some other way to live than work for sub-living wages.
Now, with interest rates rising, which was inevitable, bond values are falling, and the stock bubble is threatened, as there is a shortage of cheap borrowed money to borroow to bid up asset prices. There are more details about Silicon Valley Bank and Silvergate, and the types of customers they each served.
Structurally, there is no way out of a financial crisis at this point, because of the actions of 2008-2009, which prevented financial speculators from realizing losses, blew the bubbles bigger, and have locked in the inevitable reset.

Michael Hudson Talks to Ben Norton About SVB and Bank Failures

Ellen Brown has this about The Looming Quadrillion Dollar Derivatives Tsunami.
SVB was the 16th largest bank in the country and its bankruptcy was the second largest in U.S. history, following Washington Mutual in 2008. Despite its size, SVB was not a “systemically important financial institution” (SIFI) as defined in the Dodd-Frank Act, which requires insolvent SIFIs to “bail in” the money of their creditors to recapitalize themselves.
​ ​Technically, the cutoff for SIFIs is $250 billion in assets. However, the reason they are called “systemically important” is not their asset size but the fact that their failure could bring down the whole financial system. That designation comes chiefly from their exposure to derivatives, the global casino that is so highly interconnected that it is a “house of cards.” Pull out one card and the whole house collapses. SVB held $27.7 billion in derivatives​..​
​..​As of the third quarter of 2022, according to the “Quarterly Report on Bank Trading and Derivatives Activities” of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (the federal bank regulator), a total of 1,211 insured U.S. national and state commercial banks and savings associations held derivatives, but 88.6% of these were concentrated in only four large banks: J.P. Morgan Chase ($54.3 trillion), Goldman Sachs ($51 trillion), Citibank ($46 trillion), Bank of America ($21.6 trillion), followed by Wells Fargo ($12.2 trillion). A full list is here. Unlike in 2008-09, when the big derivative concerns were mortgage-backed securities and credit default swaps, today the largest and riskiest category is interest rate products.
​ ​The original purpose of derivatives was to help farmers and other producers manage the risks of dramatic changes in the markets for raw materials. But in recent times they have exploded into powerful vehicles for leveraged speculation (borrowing to gamble). In their basic form, derivatives are just bets – a giant casino in which players hedge against a variety of changes in market conditions (interest rates, exchange rates, defaults, etc.). They are sold as insurance against risk, which is passed off to the counterparty to the bet. But the risk is still there, and if the counterparty can’t pay, both parties lose. In “systemically important” situations, the government winds up footing the bill.
​ ​Like at a race track, players can bet although they have no interest in the underlying asset (the horse). This has allowed derivative bets to grow to many times global GDP and has added another element of risk: if you don’t own the barn on which you are betting, the temptation is there to burn down the barn to get the insurance. The financial entities taking these bets typically hedge by betting both ways, and they are highly interconnected. If counterparties don’t get paid, they can’t pay their own counterparties, and the whole system can go down very quickly, a systemic risk called “the domino effect.”
​ ​That is why insolvent SIFIs had to be bailed out in the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2007-09, first with $700 billion of taxpayer money and then by the Federal Reserve with “quantitative easing.” Derivatives were at the heart of that crisis. Lehman Brothers was one of the derivative entities with bets across the system. So was insurance company AIG…
..Derivatives are largely a creation of the “shadow banking” system, a group of financial intermediaries that facilitates the creation of credit globally but whose members are not subject to regulatory oversight. The shadow banking system also includes unregulated activities by regulated institutions…
..According to a December 2022 report by the BIS, $80 trillion in foreign exchange derivatives that are off-balance-sheet (documented only in the footnotes of bank reports) are about to reset (roll over at higher interest rates). Financial commentator George Gammon discusses the threat this poses in a podcast he calls, “BIS Warns of 2023 Black Swan – A Derivatives Time Bomb.”
​ ​Another time bomb in the news is Credit Suisse, a giant Swiss derivatives bank that was hit with an $88 billion run on its deposits by large institutional investors late in 2022. The bank was bailed out by the Swiss National Bank…
..Interest rate derivatives are particularly vulnerable in today’s high interest rate environment. From March 2022 to February 2023, the prime rate (the rate banks charge their best customers) shot up from 3.5% to 7.75%, a radical jump. Market analyst Stephanie Pomboy calls it an “interest rate shock.” It won’t really hit the market until variable-rate contracts reset, but $1 trillion in U.S. corporate contracts are due to reset this year, another trillion next year, and another trillion the year after that.
​ ​A few bank bankruptcies are manageable, but an interest rate shock to the massive derivatives market could take down the whole economy…
..Lev Menand, author of The Fed Unbound, is an Associate Professor at Columbia Law School who has worked at the New York Fed and the U.S. Treasury. Addressing the problem of the out-of-control unregulated shadow banking system, he stated in a July 2022 interview with The Hill, “I think that one of the great possible reforms is the public banking movement and the replication of successful public bank enterprises that we have now in some places, or that we’ve had in the past.”
​ ​Certainly, for our local government deposits, public banks are an important solution. State and local governments typically have far more than $250,000 deposited in SIFI banks, but local legislators consider them protected because they are “collateralized.” In California, for example, banks taking state deposits must back them with collateral equal to 110% of the deposits themselves. The problem is that derivative and repo claimants with “supra-priority” can wipe out the entirety of a bankrupt bank’s collateral before other “secured” depositors have access to it.​..
​..​The current financial system is fragile, volatile and vulnerable to systemic shocks. It is due for a reset, but we need to ensure that the system is changed in a way that works for the people whose labor and credit support it…
The Looming Quadrillion Dollar Derivatives Tsunami

​ Such public-minded corporate citizens!​ They are pitching in $30 billion to show their support for “the little guys “that “are critical to the health and functioning of our financial system”. [it’s not because they fear “the domino effect”. Don’t be so cynical.]
Action by the largest U.S. banks reflects their confidence in the country’s banking system and helps ensure First Republic has the liquidity to continue serving its customers.
​ ​Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo announced today they are each making a $5 billion uninsured deposit into First Republic Bank.
Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are each making an uninsured deposit of $2.5 billion​. (Well, that is the Big-5 derivative banks there.)​
BNY-Mellon, PNC Bank, State Street, Truist and U.S. Bank are each making an uninsured deposit of $1 billion, for a total deposit from the eleven banks of $30 billion.
​ ​This action by America’s largest banks reflects their confidence in First Republic and in banks of all sizes, and it demonstrates their overall commitment to helping banks serve their customers and communities.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/first-republic-bank-shares-crash-exploring-strategic-options

[John Day]

​ Consciousness of Sheep says the current global financial reset will be worse than the 1970s for developed countries, and will be further worsened by the not-yet-unveiled BRICS currency, rumored to be based on gold and commodities.​
​ ​According to Pilkington, were this BRICS currency to emerge – and western leaders’ actions make it likely sooner rather than later – we can expect roughly a 33 percent devaluation of the western currencies… something which would result in what can only be described as hyper-stagflation, with prices of imports – including essentials like food and fuel – rising beyond the reach of all but the wealthiest westerners, even as that mountain of unrepayable debt comes tumbling down so rapidly that it will render most of what we still consider repayable bad as well.

Bigger than you can imagine

​ Sergey Glazyev is a Russian economist with the kind of clear nderstanding of currency flows that Michael Hudson has and John Maynard Keynes had. He has long been frustrated that the Russian central bank comports itself in the same manner as western central banks. if his advice had been taken, Russia would not have had $300 billion of national assets frozen. He is the cheif economist working out the BRICS currency.​ Pepe Escobar interviewed him recently.
​ ​What Glazyev repeatedly emphasized is that as long as there’s no reform of the Russian Central Bank, any serious discussion about a new Global South-adopted currency faces insurmountable odds. The Chinese, heavily interlinked with the global financial system, may start having new ideas now that Xi Jinping, on the record, and unprecedentedly, has defined the US-provoked Hybrid War against China for what it is, and has named names: it’s an American operation.
​ ​What seems to be crystal clear is that the path toward a new financial system designed essentially by Russia-China, and adopted by vast swathes of the Global South, will remain long, rocky, and extremely challenging. The discussions inside the EAEU and with the Chinese may extrapolate to the SCO and even towards BRICS+. But all will depend on political will and political capital jointly deployed by the Russia-China strategic partnership.
​ ​That’s why Xi’s visit to Moscow next week is so crucial. The leadership of both Moscow and Beijing, in sync, now seems to be fully aware of the two-front Hybrid War deployed by Washington.
​ ​This means their peer competitor strategic partnership – the ultimate anathema for the US-led Empire – can only prosper if they jointly deploy a complete set of measures: from instances of soft power to deepening trade and commerce in their own currencies, a basket of currencies, and a new reserve currency that is not hostage to the Bretton Woods system legitimizing western finance capitalism.
https://thecradle.co/article-view/22457/interviews

Greek War News site says Russia has located the MQ9 Reaper drone at the bottom of the Black Sea with underwater drones and has positioned a specialized ship above it to recover it. The US has released a video clip of Russian Su 27 fighter(s) making 2 runs and dumping jet fuel, which caused propeller damage after the second run, though the drone camera footage shown did not show the drone to be grossly unstable at that point.
The Pentagon has claimed that a Russian fighter clipped the propeller with a wingtip, which Russia specifically denies.
It is likely that Russian pilots were trying to get the drone to turn around, to stop flying towards Crimea.
The $65 million Reaper drone happens to have fallen very close to Russia’s South Stream pipeline.

Ναυτικό αποκλεισμό επέβαλλαν οι Ρώσοι: Υποβρύχιο ρομπότ εντόπισε το αμερικανικό drone MQ-9 Reaper σε βάθος 900 μέτρων κοντά στη Σεβαστούπολη (upd)

​ ​The hidden security clauses of the Iran-Saudi deal
Although the Beijing statement primarily addresses issues related to diplomatic rapprochement, Iranian-Saudi understandings appear to have been brokered mainly around security imperatives. Supporters of each side will likely claim their country fared better in the agreement, but a deeper look shows a healthy balance in the deal terms, with each party receiving assurances that the other will not tamper with its security.
While Iran has never declared a desire to undermine Saudi Arabia’s security, some of its regional allies have made no secret of their intentions in this regard. In addition, MbS has publicly declared his intention to take the fight inside Iran, which Saudi intelligence services have been doing in recent years, specifically by supporting and financing armed dissident and separatist organizations that Iran classifies as terrorist groups.
The security priorities of this agreement should have been easy to spot in Beijing last week. After all, the deal was struck between the National Security Councils of Saudi Arabia and Iran, and included the participation of intelligence services from both countries. Present in the Iranian delegation were officers from Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and from the intelligence arms of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
On a slightly separate note related to regional security — but not part of the Beijing Agreement — sources involved in negotiations confirmed to The Cradle that, during talks, the Saudi delegation stressed Riyadh’s commitment to the 2002 Arab peace initiative; refusing normalization with Tel Aviv before the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital. What is perhaps most remarkable, and illustrates the determination by the parties to strike a deal without the influence of spoilers, is that Iranian and Saudi intelligence delegations met in the Chinese capital for five days without Israeli intel being aware of the fact. It is perhaps yet another testament that China — unlike the US — understands how to get a deal done in these shifting times.
https://thecradle.co/article-view/22445/exclusive-the-hidden-security-clauses-of-the-iran-saudi-deal

Moscow rolls out the red carpet for Syrian President Basher al Assad
The statement also noted that Wednesday is the “anniversary of the conflict” which started 12 years ago in March 2011. Assad emerged victorious especially with Russia’s help, given the the Russian military intervention at the invitation of the Syrian leader in 2015…
According to details of Assad’s red carpet arrival in Moscow:
Assad was received by Putin’s special representative for the Middle East, Mikhail Bogdanov, at Moscow’s Vnukovo international airport.
Prior to a deadly Feb. 6 earthquake that killed 50,000 people in Turkey and Syria, Russia had been mediating talks between the two quake-hit countries.
Turkish representatives are expected to be present for events related to Assad’s visit, with The Associated Press detailing that “The Syrian, Turkish and Russian deputy foreign ministers as well as a senior adviser to their Iranian counterpart are also set to hold talks Wednesday and Thursday in Moscow to discuss ‘counterterrorism efforts’ in Syria.”
Given Assad and the Syrian Army have emerged victorious after over a decade of fighting, which also on multiple occasions saw the US bomb government-held cities and areas, including the capital, even Turkey appears to be warming to the idea of rapprochement. Both sides want US troops out of northeast Syria as well. President Erdogan has in particular bristled at Washington’s training and support given to Syrian Kurdish groups aligned with the outlawed PKK.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/putin-rolls-out-red-carpet-assad-rare-moscow-visit

After Mideast (West Asian) leaders meeting this week, Putin and Xi will make some joint announcement next week in Moscow. China seeks to maintain good relations with both Russia and Ukraine. Xi will speak to Zelensky remotely after meeting with Putin. China can offer a lot of carrot to Ukraine, not just stick. Ukraine is pivotal to pan-Eurasian “New Silk Road” trade, which China is very much promoting.

[John Day]

​ German Minister of Health, Karl Lauterbach has hedged his official position in an interview.
​In 2021 he claimed in a Tweet that COVID-19 ‘vaccines’ had no side-effects. Remarkably, his current admission is, “That was an exaggeration that I once made in an ill-considered Tweet. It did not represent my true position.“! It is egregious that a federal Minister of Health is admitting this AFTER coercing most people to get the shots and claiming everyone gave fully informed consent. After a desperate attempt to backpedal, all while looking incredibly uncomfortable, Lauterbach was called out by the interviewer for repeatedly promoting his message that the shots were “more or less free of side-effects”.
​ ​The interviewer to Lauterbach:
“So, you’ve always given the impression that side-effects aren’t really a thing.“
​ ​With respect to severe COVID-19 ‘vaccine’-induced injuries, Lauterbach stated:
“I’ve always been aware of the numbers. They have re​main​ed relatively stable. …1:10,000: some may say that’s a lot, and some may say it’s not that much.“
https://viralimmunologist.substack.com/p/bombshell-from-germanys-federal-minister

​ This report is all that I can find about the February 22 crash of an airplane at Clinton Airport in Arkansas, with a crew of chemical analysis experts headed to Ohio.​
​ ​This third part in an investigative series on the Ohio train derailing examines the mysterious plane crash in Little Rock, Arkansas, that killed five employees with the environmental laboratory contracted by Norfolk Southern for field studies of the chemical residues left from the EPA-ordered burn-trench disposal at East Palestine. The highly suspicious downing of a Beechcraft twin-prop plane, owned and operated by the Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health (CTEH), which has been revamped with a bright young team following its 2002 takeover by Irvine-based Montrose from the founding toxicologist, who had been widely criticized for laxity in favoring corporate polluters.
​ ​Despite exaggerated local media reports of strong winds at noon on Wednesday, February 22, the weather conditions posed no threat to flying, which raises serious questions of why the company-owned plane crashed within a minute of clearing Runway 18 at the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport. The irregularities surrounding the air-crash included an official cover-up of the actual crash location inside a 3M industrial complex, suspension of phone reception at Little Rock 911 and blatant disinformation by the Gannett newspaper group on the ill-fated Beechcraft’s destination.
​ ​Thus far, a review of that midair blast along with the registered flight destination suggests that the CTEH team was targeted for elimination under the pervasive Biden cover-up of chemical warfare agents in the tanker cars destined for secret use in Ukraine, which instead derailed at East Palestine, Ohio. Crashing a short distance from takeoff, the Beech BE20, an upgraded Beechcraft 200 Super King Air, which has an excellent reputation for flight performance and air safety, was blown to shreds midair before its fiery nose-dive into a 3M factory warehouse on the north end of the complex, barely averting a highway pile-up on Route 440, the link road between I-40 and I-30.​..​
​..​Just prior to noon on Wednesday, February 22, toxic site inspectors Micah Kendrick, Kyle Bennett, Gunter Beaty, and Glenmarkus Walker boarded the CTEH-owned twin-engine Beech BE20 (a 9-passenger business version of a Beechcraft 200 Super King Air) at the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport in Little Rock, Arkansas. Earlier predictions of light rainfall had not materialized and winds from the southwest were subsiding to below 40 mph. On takeoff from Runway 18, which is reserved for small aircraft, pilot Sean Sweeney planned to keep the plane climbing toward the south, into the wind, with the aim of circling leftward over the Arkansas River onto a northeasterly flight path toward Ohio with the added advantage of a tailwind. All systems were go, there was no cause for concern at takeoff.
​ ​After clearing the runway, at the start of ascent along a straight line and immediately after crossing the Highway 40 bypass (which connects I-40 with I-30), less than a mile from takeoff, the BE20 was suddenly blown to bits by a powerful explosion. The fragmenting plane nose-dived toward the rear of the 3M industrial complex, crashing through the roof of a large warehouse with truck-loading docks. A pillar of black smoke from burning aircraft fuel rose into the gray sky, and was caught on video by a nearby weather helicopter. The steep fast dive allowed no time for a bail-out by the passengers or pilot, who were likely killed in the powerful blast or within a few seconds after being crushed on impact.
​ ​Phone calls to 911 went unanswered over the next hour.
​ ​Meanwhile, as an emergency crew closed off the 3M grounds and hosed the flames, another team from an as-yet identified agency set up a fake crash-site farther south in a junkyard, hauling pieces of wreckage to that decoy site for reporters to snapsho​o​t.
https://rense.com/general97/arkansas-plane-crash-linked-to-ohio-trains-chem-weapons-for-ukraine.php

​ Forests draw water towards themselves in atmospheric flows, and it drops on them.
This is described here, with link to scholarly paper. Thanks Ugo Bardi.​
​ ​The Forest: a Holobiont that Creates Rain
https://theproudholobionts.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-forest-holobiont-that-creates-rain.html

[John Day]

Chhooch wrote: “I saw this chart and naturally your eyes are drawn to the bottom right, but what was caused reserves to spike up on 1/20 (both large and small banks) and the jump in reserves for MMF (money market funds?) on the 21st. Just curious.”

Te graphs show reserves % assets, so reserves as a percent of assets went up.
My guessis that assets (Treasuries, bonds, etc.) got sold, making the ratio of reserves to assets rise, by lowering assets.

[John Day]

Sigh, Spam blocker won’t let me fix typos from old keypad.

[Oroboros]

I thought the video of the carnivorous Horsfield’s tarsier was Fauci about to count all the money he made murdering people with the Clotshot

[Oroboros]

Joe-tard and Jill-tard were told to wake up the bear

[Oroboros]

The Ukronazis are close to annihilation at Artemivsk

Good judgement comes from experience

Experience comes from poor judgement

[Dr. D]

“Fed Announces Launch of ‘FedNow’ Real-Time Payment System,”

I’m sorry Mr. Powell, I’m afraid you are promoting misinformation and conspiracy theories. Don’t you know there are no CBDCs? They sure are in a hurry since they attacked and took out SIVB.

We counter attacked and took out Credit Suisse, already in receivership. Europe somehow appears stronger right now, unexpected…

“Big Banks Agree To Historic $30 Billion Unsecured Deposit Injection In First Republic Bank”

Saudi refused Suisse though… Gee I wonder if that’s because 5 years ago they stole all their gold and left an IOU in the empty vault…

“As Bank Crisis Looms, Biden’s Aggressive Focus On Firearms Is Suspicious”

Ya think? Since the answer is “Come make me” guns are relevant here. Sadly THEY are the ones making them relevant. “Government is FORCE. It is FIRE…” which is why we should use it to run everything, especially health care! And Day Care! Violence and Destruction are right up their alley, right?

“”This Is Sheer Idiocy”: Capital Gains Tax Can Exceed 100 Percent Under Biden Proposal”

Perhaps that is why? Anyone with Capital Gains are their Apparatichiks and Manager-enforcers. If you steal 110% of their goodies, I think you’ve lost the rest of your base. Billionaires robbing the Millionaires.

“FDIC Demands Signature Bank Buyers Stop All Crypto Business: Report”

Russia says they’re very happy to be insulated from the Western Banking collapse. The FDIC here is making sure Crypto will be well-insulated from the FDIC’s collapse here shortly. Thanks!

“Protests Erupt After France’s Macron Bypasses Parliament To Pass Pension Reform”

Democracy is so passe’. And no need to outlaw all other parties like Ze did: in France they are all cooperating with tyranny already…

“White House Responds To Poland Sending Jets To Ukraine”

“Game Changer” … which means it’s not. Poland is the 1st country, but they already had 20k? 50K? Troops there, and it’s their pilots, so…

…Don’t think Russia doesn’t know it. This may be why Turkey can get Finland into NATO, or Russia allows it: NATO is about to cease to exist and be a giant embarrassment to Finland.

“Target Shutters Downtown Philly Location Citing “Declining Performance”

That Black Representative from California said “Reparations are they only thing that can stop black people from stealing things.” That is, by constantly paying them off with extortion. …Nope, I don’t think I can come up with a more racist thing anyone can say with their mouths. Yet this is considered “good form, old chum” in the grand old state of Blue. Philly, same thing. Odd how every place Blue has every worst problem they rail against. Must be the fault of Jimmy John and his stupid red hat in Kentucky that Chicago, Baltimore, and Philadelphia are smoldering craters. Yes, that’s it!

“Victory, however, is not the point. The point is maximum destruction”

Yes, but not of Russia. They have erased Ukraine as a national people.

“West Warns Ukraine Not To Blow ‘Last Ditch Effort’ – NYT (RT) “

Sure is good to be the laptop class, sending memos from your nice warm office, or in your pajamas at home. Sean Penn, Lindsay Graham, AOC all want to help, so, so much. I’ll give them a plane ticket!

Oh so it’s DIFFERENT? You’re the Very Important People and are much too valuable to be shot in a frozen building? SO ARE THEY. If anything, your cowardice and narcissism makes you LESS valuable. Here’s a helmet. Hope you last the first 10 minutes.

Pentagon…Pfffft! “I wrote it right here on this spreadsheet that Ukrainians shouldn’t die…”

“Russia intimidated NATO nations, stopping them from giving Ukraine the weapons it needed” – Bolton

Kind of, yeah. It’s called “Full-scale WWIII and worldwide nuclear Armageddon”, you might have heard of it.

“Scott Ritter Loses It Over Lindsey Graham’s Mindless Warmongering”

I think Spetznaz should parachute in, give Graham a revolver, and let them fight it out in his house. If he wins, he’s defeated “Russia”, or at least those valuable soldiers, right? We’re only offering him a fair chance at the very thing he demands. The Pay-per-View can help fund Ukraine. I see no downside when this is what he believes.

“US Estimates ‘Upwards’ Of 100,000 Ukrainian Soldiers Killed – Politico (RT) “

Getting there. It may be 3x that by now. 300,000 men. Although some may be Poles and other Mercs.

“Kiev Has No Plans To Leave Bakhmut – DPR Head (TASS) “

That is their prerogative. The Russians will accommodate them.

“Desperate West Will Turn To Russia For Turnips – Putin (RT) “

I’m sorry to say he will be correct. Or did you think fighting a war with no food and no energy would end another way? Because you changed your avatar and got a rainbow flag?

“Dutch Farmers’ Protest Party Scores Big Election Win, Shaking Up Senate (R.) “

What a relief. And they’re not fooling around. They may not know government but they are NOT going to sell out in 6 months like AOC, The Greens or so many others.

“The records show Hallie Biden received $35,000 over two transfers in 2017 f… from State Energy HK Limited, a firm affiliated with CEFC China Energy.”

I’m sure she’s good for it. She’s probably an expert in playing video games or something, more expert than Hunter in either Russian or Energy. P.S. that’s a year’s salary in one go. Note all profit as the rest of us have living expenses during that year of life and therefore “make” sub $10k of it.

Anyway, they’re timing the Biden releases with the Biden bank crash. Too bad they can’t include Obama, who approved the whole thing.

“they have explicitly guaranteed that no matter how bad the deposit run is, they will keep the bank funded”

Or how corrupt (Epstein, Biden) or how failing, or how wasteful, or poorly run. And another thing: regardless of how criminal we must never, ever allow free competition. YOU can’t just start your own bank. And the Treasury/FDIC/SEC just said you’re not allowed in Crypto. (UNLESS it is as corrupt with deep money-laundering oceans as FTX was) Don’t you know No Bankruptcy, No law, No consequences, and No competition is Capitalism?

https://i.imgflip.com/1vntyc.png

Starbucks: This guy is English, in America it’s even easier. It says right on the note “This Note is for ALL debts public and private” and is REQUIRED to be accepted by law. That’s how it was installed in the first place. You can – and many have – sue Starbucks Pro Se and tie them up with about 150 million lawsuits that cost us nothing. And probably get a pleasant class action settlement. Nobody does though, which is disappointing as it’s really the easiest, quietest, and most profitable way to bring the system to a halt in 12 hours.

Apparently everyone has forgotten but THAT WAS THE POINT of the Civil Rights movement and the Buses, either the boycott (they go bankrupt) or the arrests (they have no facilities and go bankrupt). Now they whine and call a whaaaaaaambulance when they ARE arrested and create civil rights because: Civil Rights is all just painless, pointless Virtue Signaling, doncha know? If “Revolution” costs a nickel or inconveniences me for an hour, we won’t do it. Now excuse me I have to post my new Avatar flag for “the Latest Thing”.

Foreign Affairs: I guess we’re winning then. Let’s keep going on! Man that’s awesome. If I could plant such a story, I would.

“Blown to Bits”. In Clinton Arkansas airport. I do not find that suspicious at all. A bomb takes out a civilian aircraft practically every day for no reason whatsoever. Probably not even worth mentioning or investigating.

[zerosum]

Illusion of Winning
Logic – If you are not for me, then you must be against me

Empty cupboards, destruction and rubble everywhere, empty store shelves, a massive shortage of goods, and the failure of the service sector
Snowballs melting, ground turning to mud
No supplies, no ammunition, no food, and no more soldiers
Reapers of death still riding
Stench of death
No plan for peace

• Kiev Has No Plans To Leave Bakhmut – DPR Head (TASS)
———–
Betting both ways – derivatives

The original purpose of derivatives was to help farmers and other producers manage the risks of dramatic changes in the markets for raw materials. But in recent times they have exploded into powerful vehicles for leveraged speculation (borrowing to gamble). In their basic form, derivatives are just bets – a giant casino in which players hedge against a variety of changes in market conditions (interest rates, exchange rates, defaults, etc.). They are sold as insurance against risk, which is passed off to the counterparty to the bet. But the risk is still there, and if the counterparty can’t pay, both parties lose. In “systemically important” situations, the government winds up footing the bill.
That is why insolvent SIFIs had to be bailed out in the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2007-09, first with $700 billion of taxpayer money and then by the Federal Reserve with “quantitative easing.” Derivatives were at the heart of that crisis. Lehman Brothers was one of the derivative entities with bets across the system. So was insurance company AIG, which managed to survive due to a whopping $182 billion bailout from the U.S. Treasury; but Lehman was considered too weakly collateralized to salvage. It went down, and the Great Recession followed.
———-
Repetition needed for learning

Bailout – a vote of confidence for First Republic and the entire U.S. banking system

First Republic executives are relieved and expressed their thanks: “We would like to share our deep appreciation for Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of New York Mellon, PNC Bank, State Street, Truist, and U.S. Bank.
———-

[D Benton Smith]

@JohnDay
Every photo you’ve posted of your various and many construction/renovation projects remind me of me. We don’t tackle the work flow exactly the same way (your approach appears to be way more sequential and efficiently linear than mine). And we don’t organize tools the same way (your job site always looks tidy, with just the tools-in-use for the job at hand, whereas mine looks chaotic to everyone but me because I like to see every tool and material I will eventually need all visible at once), But the end product looks just like mine. Elegant simplicity, the beauty inherent in utility, with little or no non-essential adornment, almost Shaker Style in the aesthetics department. Two very different paths to an almost identical end. Which I suppose just goes to show you to be some kinda genius.

[zerosum]

Puzzle
How? … many people find some other way to live than work for sub-living wages.
How? …. “job site always looks tidy,” Maybe, because woman behind the scene. …. 🙂

[Oroboros]

Russian Army Quaking In Its Boots After Latest US Army Bootcamp Video

Lindsay Graham publicly shamed into joining up, first day of Basic, go get’ em killer!

Hahahahaha!

Loaded for bear

I’m sure the Wagner hardcores are impressed

[my parents said know]

I get an “age sensitive” warning on the tucker/macgregor bit, so here is a place to view it without having to sign in to twitter.

[zerosum]

MONEY JOKE
Slovakia expects to receive compensation in the amount of $900 million for the supply of MiG-29 fighters to Ukraine, which includes the cost of military equipment from the United States in the amount of $ 700 million. This was stated by the Acting Minister of Defense of the Republic.

“We are talking about the total amount of compensation in the amount of $900 million,” Slovak Radio quoted him as saying on Friday. – The Republic should receive funds from the [special fund] The European Union, and also received an offer from the United States to transfer [Slovakia] military equipment, the cost of which is approximately $ 700 million.”

Earlier, the Slovak Cabinet of Ministers decided to transfer to Kiev 13 MiG-29 fighters, decommissioned by the National Air Force at the end of August.

The transfer of aircraft to Ukraine, according to Nad, will take several weeks. At the moment, Bratislava is negotiating about this with Kiev and the allied states. “For security reasons, we will not inform about this in advance,” the minister added, specifying that at the moment the fighters are in Slovakia.

[anticlimactic]

NATO DIRECT

If NATO became directly involved in Ukraine AND if there was any attack on Russian soil or on Russian ships then ALL NATO countries become fair targets.

I read that the new NATO headquarters in Brussels cost a billion dollars – shame if anything happened to it. [Not really!]

It would escalate rapidly. The only question would be who would fire the first nuclear missile.

[tboc]

“You know the nearer your destination
The more you’re slip slidin’ away” – Paul Simon

Breaking News: The News is Broken

obviously the British guy hasn’t seen the Woody Harrelson vid about shepharding your expenditures. Big Bucks for tea, paid with cash, that’ll show em

no one seems to be asking what the people of the south thought would be the result of strip mining the entire US economy the way the garment industry was strip mined from their homes

“Home of the brave, land of the free
I don’t wanna be mistreated by no bourgeoisie
Lord, in a bourgeois town
Uhm, the bourgeois town
I got the bourgeois blues, I’m
Gonna spread the news all around” Huddie Ledbetter,Alan Lomax

[Oroboros]

When the Russian fighter jocks sprayed fuel on the Grim Reaper Peace & Love drone, symbolically they were pissing on the Empire of Lies® head, and telling them, “It’s rain!”

Hahahahahahaha!

The Russians have already scooped up the wreckage of this $100,000,000 boondoogle ‘weapon’

Made for profit, not performance.

Scott Ritter just added a detail about the fuel dump

He said the K-1 fuel pissed on the Grim Reaper by the happy go lucky Russian jet jocks coated it’s propellers, put them out of balance, distorted them, and put it into the Death Spiral.

Sweet

The Empire of Lies can’t run a railroad infrastructure, Duhmerica, no trophy for you!

Here is the level of competence, worth a watch.

[D Benton Smith]

@zerosum

“Behind every great carpenter there is a woman with high standards.”

[Oroboros]

Hey, the train track clusterfuck was in Arkansa

[zerosum]

Playing with bingchat
Sent me to
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-automatic-earth/
CONSPIRACY-PSEUDOSCIENCE
Sources in the Conspiracy-Pseudoscience category may publish unverifiable information that is not always supported by evidence. These sources may be untrustworthy for credible/verifiable information; therefore, fact-checking and further investigation is recommended on a per article basis when obtaining information from these sources. See all Conspiracy-Pseudoscience sources.

Overall, we rate The Automatic Earth Right Biased and a pseudoscience website based on the promotion of misinformation and pseudoscience during the covid-19 pandemic.
Detailed Report
Bias Rating: RIGHT-PSEUDOSCIENCE
Factual Reporting: LOW
Country: USA (44/180 Press Freedom)
Media Type: Website
Traffic/Popularity: Minimal Traffic
MBFC Credibility Rating: LOW CREDIBILITY
Analysis / Bias
The Automatic Earth publishes original blog posts with loaded wording such as this Institutionalization on Steroids. This story reports negatively on mask-wearing, Anthony Fauci, and vaccines as it relates to Covid-19. In other words, it is promoting pseudoscience. In fact, most recent stories promote pseudoscience and/or conspiracy theories related to anti-vaccination propaganda related to Covid-19, such as The Ethics of Child Vaccinations.
The blog also links to external articles that read like a who’s who of conspiracy and questionable sources such as RT, ZeroHedge, The National Pulse, and the OffGuardian. In general, The Automatic Earth is an unreliable site that lacks transparency and promotes anti-vaccine pseudoscience and conspiracy theories.

Overall, we rate The Automatic Earth Right Biased and a pseudoscience website based on the promotion of misinformation and pseudoscience during the covid-19 pandemic. (D. Van Zandt 6/3/2017) Updated (6/16/2021)

[Oroboros]

So after a year of Total Lies, the Collective West Mediawhores are having to admit that Ukronaziland’s performance isn’t all buttercups and unicorn farts.

There’s a crack in the Ukronaziland, that’s how the lighting gets in.

[zerosum]

bingchat

Searching for: Biden family china income

Generating answers for you…

According to a recent report by the House Oversight Committee, it appears that the Biden family allegedly received millions from a Chinese company1. Breitbart News senior contributor Peter Schweizer also revealed that while Joe Biden was vice president of the United States and continuing when he became president, his family received some $31 million from Chinese individuals who are linked to the highest levels of Chinese intelligence2.
Learn more:
1. rsbnetwork.com
2. breitbart.com
3. nypost.com
4. abcactionnews.com
5. nypost.com

[zerosum]

Link …..
5. https://nypost.com/2022/01/27/chinese-elite-have-paid-some-31m-to-hunter-and-the-bidens/
Chinese elite have paid some $31 million to Hunter and the Bidens
By Peter Schweizer

[Dora]

Matt Tiabbi new twitter files.

1.TWITTER FILES #19
The Great Covid-19 Lie Machine
Stanford, the Virality Project, and the Censorship of “True Stories” pic.twitter.com/v41dyC26ZR

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 17, 2023

[Oroboros]

Too big to fail Credit Suisse

The Duran kicks Credit Swisse up the road

The Swiss Central Bank has nationalized Credit Swisse

The Saudi lifted the lid, looked in, really didn’t like what it saw, and declined to help

That is not a vote of confidence

Confidence is the only thing holding up the Eurotard banking system

Credit Swisse was at $580 billion or so

That’s a lot of Swiss cheese and watches

The bailout by the Swiss Central Bank was $54 billion. Holy crap, that’s almost 10% of their cap.

Run for your life

Sacrifice
One of Us will be the Dinner
One of Us wil be the Diner

Bon Appétit!

But the real crisis is not enough money for Ukronaziland.

Seig Heil

[Oroboros]

[Oroboros]

The Empire of Lies® illegally occupying NE Syria and stealing the oil is despicable and cowardly enough but this takes the cake

From Gonzalo’s Twitter feed

“I wouldn’t put it past them. American soldiers in Syria are essentially pirates and brigands.”

https://twitter.com/PeImeniPusha/status/1636493703694155776/photo/2

[morongobill]

Ritter really called out Graham. As I wrote in a comment at Moon of Alabama, in the old days of the Confederacy they would duel over this, someone would die. My money would be on Ritter.

[zerosum]

Today …. payday …. the system got saved….. buried in QE money
Move on …. nothing to see ….

[my parents said know]

On guns in the US: callers on CSPAN- (including gun owners) seemed ready to accept “diagnosed mental illness” as a way to block gun ownership. I would urge everyone to recognize that “diagnosed mental illness” is the slipperiest of slopes. How many Americans take/took SSRIs? How many use benzodiazepines? How many have seen a counselor for depression, marriage issues, or any other thing out there?
This is what they’ll try, and The WHO will abet it as they see a “pandemic” of gun violence in the US. And if you use your gun to protect your right to having one, you are obviously crazy, right?

[Oroboros]

[Oroboros]

Hey, it’s a World War, very few rules

[my parents said know]

I don’t own a gun. I am bewildered about buying one. Shotgun? Rifle? Pistol? Cheapest, easiest to obtain ammunition?
I haven’t even shot a gun. (Except BB, pellet, disc, and squirt guns.)

[Author]

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