Debt Rattle March 8 2022
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March 8, 2022 at 11:25 pm #103806John DayParticipant
There’s another picture of the cabinet-plywood walls progressing in the living-dining area
https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/financial-biological-and-nuclear?s=wFinancial, Biological And Nuclear Weapons
Going for Broke, and Getting ThereGilbert Doctorow has a lot of points about the war in Ukraine which you won’t hear from CNN. “You Won’t Know What Hit You”
Russia has received documentation from Ukrainian health authorities on the production of biological weapons (anthrax, Siberian plague and much more) by Ukrainian labs in Kharkiv and elsewhere in cooperation with the United States. Stocks of such weapons were being stored in direct violation of international conventions. On 24 February, in advance of the start of Russia’s ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine, the Ukrainian health authorities destroyed these illicit biological weapons. However, Russia has obtained the official documentation certifying this destruction of what should never have been there. Moscow is now studying this documentation, which indicates United States participation in the development of the biological weapons and will publish the incriminating documents, starting from yesterday.
Russia has also obtained documentation proving that Ukraine, in cooperation with the United States, was since the presidency of Petro Petrushenko, actively developing nuclear weapons, including “dirty” nuclear devices using readily available fuel from its reactors. Such activity was going on in the Zaporozhye nuclear plants, and it is very likely that the fire reported at a ‘training unit’ adjacent to an active reactor two days ago related to destruction of incriminating papers, if it was not otherwise a ‘false flag’ operation to allege a Russian attack on the power station, in violation of international law.
From this list, the most threatening to European peace in the immediate days ahead is point 2, regarding Ukrainian aircraft based outside of Ukraine and being assigned missions to fly back into Ukrainian air space to thwart Russia’s ongoing military offensive. This bears directly on the patently insane plans of Secretary of State Blinken to allow the Poles to transfer to Kiev, its stock of Soviet era MIGs for missions into Ukraine.You won’t know what hit you and why
From Polish News: (The ball’s in your court, Joe…, Joe? Hey Joe!)
“The authorities of the Republic of Poland, after consultations with the President and the Government of the Republic of Poland, are ready to immediately and free of charge transfer all their MIG-29 planes to the base in Ramstein and place them at the disposal of the Government of the United States of America” – the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported.
“At the same time, Poland is asking the United States of America to provide it with used aircraft with similar operational capabilities. Poland is ready to immediately agree on the terms of the purchase of these machines,” …
https://polishnews.co.uk/russias-attack-on-ukraine-ministry-of-foreign-affairs-polish-authorities-are-ready-to-hand-over-the-mig-29-planes-to-the-us/#google_vignette
SouthFront says Russian and DPR forces have kettled Mariupol and have started “mopping up” operations. (The Saker confirms this.)
https://southfront.org/ldglfdlg098986/
March 8, 2022 at 11:27 pm #103807John DayParticipantPepe Escobar begins the big-picture financial-regime-war discussion:
…a decree on “foreign exchange obligations to foreign creditors” which allows Russian companies to settle their debts in rubles is already an eye-opener.
Economist Yevgeny Yushchuk defined it as a “nuclear retaliatory landmine”.
It all revolves around a new presidential decree, signed last Saturday: “On Temporary Order of Obligations to Certain Foreign Creditors”.
It works like this: to pay for loans obtained from a sanctioning country exceeding 10 million rubles a month, a Russian company does not have to make a transfer. They ask for a Russian bank to open a correspondent account in rubles under the creditor’s name. Then the company transfers rubles to this account at the current exchange rate, and it’s all perfectly legal.
Payments in foreign currency only go through the Central Bank on a case-by-case basis. They must receive special permission from the Government Commission for the Control of Foreign Investment.
As I discussed with Michael Hudson, what this means in practice is that the bulk of the $478 billion or so in Russian foreign debt may “disappear” from the balance sheets of Western banks. The equivalent in rubles will be deposited somewhere, in Russian banks, but Western banks, as it stands, can’t access it..[Russians can buy from international sites on their credit cards, with this new Chinese-finance modification]
Sberbank confirmed it will issue Mir cards co-badged with China’s UnionPay. Alfa-Bank – the largest private bank in Russia – will also issue UnionPay credit and debit cards. 40% of Russians already have a Mir card for domestic use. Now they will also be able to use it internationally – via UnionPay’s enormous network.
[Escobar also talks about the JCPOA negotiations, set to reopen global markets to Iranin oil, but Iran’s free trade with Russia is critical to that finalization, written into it long ago. The US can’t sanction signatory countries, which impairs the deal. The US, after cursing, starving, attacking and attempting regime change in Venezuela, now sends a delegation to Caracas to discuss reducing the beatings in return for Venezuelain oil, until the US gts things back to “normal”. Venezuela will want her gold back from London, and may want restitution for tankers taken by the American navy, and other little things, maybe some written guarantees.]
Oil and gas markets, meanwhile, are in total panic. No Western trader wants to buy Russian gas; and that has nothing to do with Gazprom, which continues to duly supply customers that signed contracts with fixed tariffs, from $100 to $300 (others are paying over $3,000 in the spot market).
European banks are less and less willing to grant loans for energy trade with Russia because of the sanctions hysteria…
..Europe imports roughly 400 billion cubic meters of gas a year, with Russia responsible for 200 billion. There’s no way Europe can find $200 billion anywhere else to replace Russia – be it in Algeria, Qatar or Turkmenistan. Not to mention its lack of necessary LNG terminals.
..So obviously the top beneficiary of all the mess will be the US…..The Russophobic all-out attack on Russian exports also targets palladium – vital for electronics, from laptops to aircraft systems. Prices are skyrocketing. Russia controls 50% of the market. Then there are noble gases – neon, helium, argon, xenon – essential for production of microchips. Titanium has risen by a quarter and both Boeing – by a third – and Airbus – by two thirds – rely on titanium from Russia.
Oil, food, fertilizers, strategic metals, neon gas for semiconductors: all burning at the stake, at the feet of Witch Russia.....The key issue for the whole Global South to digest is that the “West” is not committing suicide. What we have here, essentially, is the Empire of Lies willfully destroying German industry and the European economy.
Michael Hudson disagrees with Pepe by a shade… The American Empire self-destructs
Empires often follow the course of a Greek tragedy, bringing about precisely the fate that they sought to avoid. That certainly is the case with the American Empire as it dismantles itself in not-so-slow motion…
…During the half-century since the United States went off gold in 1971, the world’s central banks have operated on the Dollar Standard, holding their international monetary reserves in the form of U.S. Treasury securities, U.S. bank deposits and U.S. stocks and bonds. The resulting Treasury-bill Standard has enabled America to finance its foreign military spending and investment takeover of other countries simply by creating dollar IOUs. U.S. balance-of-payments deficits end up in the central banks of payments-surplus countries as their reserves, while Global South debtors need dollars to pay their bondholders and conduct their foreign trade.
This monetary privilege – dollar seignorage – has enabled U.S. diplomacy to impose neoliberal policies on the rest of the world, without having to use much military force of its own except to grab Near Eastern oil. The recent escalation of U.S. sanctions blocking Europe, Asia and other countries from trade and investment with Russia, Iran and China has imposed enormous opportunity costs – the cost of lost opportunities – on U.S. allies. And the recent confiscation of the gold and foreign reserves of Venezuela, Afghanistan and now Russia,[1] along with the targeted grabbing of bank accounts of wealthy foreigners (hoping to win their hearts and minds, enticed by the hope for the return of their sequestered accounts), has ended the idea that dollar holdings – or now also assets in sterling and euro NATO satellites of the dollar – are a safe investment haven when world economic conditions become shaky...
..But U.S. officials are forcing Russia, China and other nations not locked into the U.S. orbit to see the writing on the wall and overcome whatever hesitancy they had to de-dollarize...
(But WHY?) ..U.S. diplomats themselves have chosen to end international dollarization, while helping Russia build up its own means of self-reliant agricultural and industrial production. This global fracture process actually has been going on for some years, starting with the sanctions blocking America’s NATO allies and other economic satellites from trading with Russia. For Russia, these sanctions had the same effect that protective tariffs would have had...
..By imposing sanctions on the richest Russians closest to Putin, U.S. officials hoped to induce them to oppose his breakaway from the West, and thus to serve effectively as NATO agents-of-influence. But for Russian billionaires, their own country is starting to look safest.
For many decades now, the U.S. Federal Reserve and Treasury have fought against gold recovering its role in international reserves. But how will India and Saudi Arabia view their dollar holdings as Biden and Blinken try to strong-arm them into following the U.S. “rules-based order” instead of their own national self-interest? The recent U.S. dictates have left little alternative but to start protecting their own political autonomy by converting dollar and euro holdings into gold…...The consequences were anticipated. The neocons in control of U.S. foreign policy simply didn’t care….
..What foreign countries have not done for themselves to replace the IMF, World Bank and other strongarms of U.S. diplomacy, American politicians are forcing them to do. Instead of European, Near Eastern and Global South countries breaking away as they calculate their own long-term economic interests, America is driving them away, as it has done with Russia and China...
..The energy and food price squeeze is hitting Global South countries especially hard, coinciding with their own Covid-19 problems and the looming dollarized debt service coming due. Something must give. How long will these countries impose austerity to pay foreign bondholders?
How will the U.S. and European economies cope in the face of their sanctions against imports of Russian gas and oil, cobalt, aluminum, palladium and other basic materials?American diplomats have made a list of raw materials that their economy desperately needs and which therefore are exempt from the trade sanctions being imposed. This provides Mr. Putin a handy list of U.S. pressure points.....But the final breakaway from NATO’s adventurism must come from within the United States itself. As this year’s midterm elections approach, politicians will find a fertile ground in showing U.S. voters that the price inflation led by gasoline and energy is a policy byproduct of the Biden Administration’s blocking of Russian oil and gas exports. (Bad news for owners of big SUV gas guzzlers!)
https://thesaker.is/america-shoots-its-own-dollar-empire-in-economic-attack-on-russia/
Within hours of Joe Biden announcing a far-reaching ban on all US imports of Russian oil – while warning Americans that gas prices are about to “go up further” – Vladimir Putin is reported to have signed his own counter-measure decree.
Russia’s RIA news agency is reporting that the new decree blocks all exports and raw materials from Russia “of certain materials” – with state media reports noting the specific list will be made public in two days.March 8, 2022 at 11:45 pm #103808DimitriParticipantThe bio labs in Ukraine appear to be run by a company called Metabiota
Some interesting stuff about that company
1. Metabiota (thread) – produces bio agents under diplomatic cover at "secret" labs, then sells pandemic insurance and trackers to help countries get ahead of what they are putting out.
Company part of Pentagon's DRTA Program as well as funded by Rosemont Seneca (Hunter Biden) pic.twitter.com/TMfcqWLNKr— Blue Canaries (@CanariesBlue) October 17, 2021
March 9, 2022 at 12:24 am #103809aspnazParticipantEither Russia surrenders and is taken under US control, or this goes nuclear. The USA elites are so greedy and insane that they would rather destroy the world than be average citizens in the world.
Putin said “There is no need for the planet without Russia” but the USA elites are saying “There is no need for the planet if we are not the wealthiest and most powerful people in the planet”.
China and India know they are next in the USA’s list of targets, so they cannot do anything other than support Russia or surrender to the USA. Impossible to see this being sorted out by diplomacy.
Only a tragic shock has the potential to stop this escalation, but I doubt even if Putin were to order a nuclear strike on the US homeland – LA, San Fran, Boston – I still doubt the US elites would stop.
All we can hope is that this war cools down for a while – it will never stop – so that we have the time to live the rest of our lives before the rampant, insane, finished Americans destroy the planet.
March 9, 2022 at 12:26 am #103810Veracious PoetParticipantI hope all the TDS sheeple are enjoying the fruits of the 2016-2021 coups d’etat thrown upon your behalf by the party of chaos…
At least Trump was able to negotiate “in good faith” with the #derp~state’s boogeymen.
Does anyone actually think we’d be at one minute to thermal nuclear midnight if the psychos hadn’t been allowed to steal the election from him in 2020?
The mind boggles…
March 9, 2022 at 12:37 am #103811OroborosParticipantAn example
“Russia produces over 40% of global enriched Uranium.”
What most folks don’t understand is that any market, for any material, if the market is tight as a bull’s ass, can have it’s price significantly ‘influenced’ by even a very small up or down move in the price.
Think of a ‘just in time’ supply chain, let’s say for toilet paper.
Only a sudden 5% drop in availability, through the just in time chain, can leverage up the price many multiples more than just the 5% nominal short fall in supply. Let’s say it goes up 25%, produces some panic then jumps to 50%, all because of a 5% drop in supply.
BoogaBoogaBooga!!!
OMG it’s running out!.
People panic about their TP supply, even if it’s just personal paranoia, and generate a ‘moving wave form of anxiety’ in the mental map of imagined scarcity.
So let’s shift from TP to uranium.
German doesn’t need any, they deep-sixed their reactors (brilliant) for the amazingly unreliable sun and wind. A friend from Düsseldorf used to call it Drizzledorf, he said it was like Seattle, it was raining or drizzling 300 days most years. No solar for you!
But France, ahhshe loves the Yellow Cake, she loves it’s smell and the beautiful silky yellow texture, Magnifique!
A 10% drop in global uranium supply is enough to put the fear of god into the uranium futures market. Tough planning your electric future with that much uncertainty swimming around just below the surface like a 27′ Great White on the prowl.
A 40% drop will make the EU Muppet Reactor Crowd wish they’d bought more toilet paper.
March 9, 2022 at 1:29 am #103812choochParticipantTruckers met with senators Cruz and Johnson. Good on them. I guess they plan on circling DC until emergency is dropped? Not sure about the optics of this. I think the greatest impact was all the people they brought together along their journey.
Pentagon estimates Russian troop losses at 2 to 4K, a far cry from the 12k on social media.
Pentagon backs down of polish fighter jets. Putin does not appear to be bluffing, totally laying waste to towns (mop up) as they press on. The West has already telegraphed their response, doubt it will change. Russia wants towns/cities drained of civilians before commence with carpet bombing.
March 9, 2022 at 1:30 am #103813WESParticipantYes today is bat shit crazy! So where to start?
The National Post says Canadians are too cheap to buy Trudeau a new plane. Clearly kissing ass here! Why does Trudeau need a new plane when nobody wants him to visit them?
So Poland is going to give the US their Mig-29 airplanes. Actually sell them to the US government care of a certain airport in Germany. Actually this is a Polish joke that the US can’t figure out what the punchline is!
To help Americans neocons get the joke.
A polish guy is jumping up and down on top of a manhole cover in Washington, DC. yelling 46! A passing DC neocon stops and asks the Polish guy why he is jumping up and down yelling 46? The Polish guy says it is really exciting to do this and he should give it a try because he might find it really exciting too. So the DC neocon starts jumping up and down yelling 46! The Polish guy quickly removes the manhole cover and then puts it back in place. The Polish guy then starts jumping up and down on the manhole cover again yelling 47!
^
For some strange reason the Russian military likes to make cauldrons. They have made 4 of them in the Ukraine so far. Maybe it has something to do with America’s fascination with witches. Maybe the Russians are ust trying to drive the US mad using by toying with cauldrons. You know like Salem, where an early aunt of mine was hung as the first legal witch. Obviously the Russian are throwing Ukrainian babies into these cauldrons and saying witchy words, like real US witches do.Deflate where are you when we need you? Oh. I see you are busy going round and round DC on the beltway! Did they accidently close all of the exit ramps? Hope you like Hotel California!
I have seen with my very own eyes a Ukrainian health official reporting 59 dead, seen lying in moving body bags on the ground directly behind him. One of the closest dead, was especially busy trying to keep the wind from repeatably uncovering him! There is always a rotten actor in the casket!
I see Biden’s Build Back Better plan is finally going to be passed by the Republicans! He has discovered the winning formula by adding $14 billion in aid for the Ukraine, so Congress can get it’s last load of dirty laundry cleaned in it’s Ukrainian laundromat before Vlad shuts it down! Since the Ukraine isn’t going to exist shortly, nobody is going to ask stupid questions like what ever happened to that $14 billion?
So gold finally broke $2,000 US today. But oddly have you noticed that silver has barely moved from say $24 to $25 despite all of this crazy war talk? You see it only takes a measly $25 million to control a million ounces of silver. Ten million ounces of silver is only another measly $250 million! Mere chicken feed for the Fed! By suppressing silver prices they can neuter gold prices too without breaking a sweat. The current silver to gold ratio is about 80 to 1. So by controlling the 1 it gives the Fed amplified control over the 80. See how it works! Like stealing candy from a baby! It will keep on working until the baby wakes up “woke”, which is never, due to our educational brainwashing system.
March 9, 2022 at 1:55 am #103814WESParticipantChooch:
You were doing great with your comment until at the end you added that clip about Jake “the snake” Sullivan.
He reminds me of the Prince John’s evil snake in the animated animal movie Robin Hood. The drunk snake only started telling the truth, after escaping from being trapped inside a wooden barrel of ale!
March 9, 2022 at 3:12 am #103815choochParticipant⚡️Air raid sirens in Kyiv, Zhytomyr, and in Vasylkiv.
Residents are asked to go to the nearest shelter.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) March 9, 2022
March 9, 2022 at 3:33 am #103816WESParticipantSome commodities are up a bit like oil, wheat, and nickel. Just to be totally irrelevant here are the melt values of some olde US and Canadian pennies and nickels. Note the Canadian penny is no more. Only the US still has a worthless penny. (Quoted March 8th, 2022 for Nickel @ $17.32 USD / pound.)
US
Penny from 1909 to 1982 (98% copper) = 3.1 US cents
Penny from 1982 to 2014 (97.5% zinc) = 1.08 US cents
Nickel from 1946 to 2014 () = 8.6 US centsCanada
Penny from 1942 to 1977 () = 3.29 US cents
Penny from 1978 to 1979 () = 3.27 US cents
Penny from 1980 to 1981 () = 2.83 US cents
Penny from 1982 to 1996 () = 2.52 US cents
Penny from1997 to 1999 () = 0.096 US cents
Nickel from 1955 to 1981 () = 17.6 US cents
Nickel from 1982 to 1999 () = 7.9 US cents
(I don’t have % copper or Nickel of Cdn coins but the % kept dropping to zero!)As you can see the Canadian government of Justin’s father was real busy use debasing Canada’s currency, long before US did.
So if you still have some of these old coins then they are the only fiat money you have left that have kept some of their value.
All the new coins in both US and Canada are now made of worthless steel you can pick up with a magnet! Very magnetic they are! Will also rust if you aren’t careful!
Oh yeah, Nickel prices have gone limit up for the last week or two. That means no Nickel is being traded on the London Metal Exchange. That also means the exchange is busy changing the rules of the game. This is what governments everywhere do when they are losing! Change the rules of the game so they win! Suckers!
March 9, 2022 at 3:49 am #103817WESParticipantSo Nuland says the Russians might seize the US’s Ukrainian Bio labs and create a false flag incident!
(A perfect example of blaming your enemy for what you were doing!)
If you want to know exactly where the bio labs were located, just see the map of Rusiian missile strikes on the first night!
Then over lay the missile strike map with the bio lab map.if
Wow! A perfect 100% match!March 9, 2022 at 4:00 am #103818WESParticipantP.S. Did you know that it is illegal to take or export US nickels with nickel in them out of the US!
I think the law even applies to the now worthless US steel nickels too.
So don’t ever get caught with a roll of US nickels on you.March 9, 2022 at 4:41 am #103819those darned kidsParticipantnothing to see here:
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