Steve Bull's Blog, page 1161
March 17, 2018
Syrian War For Dummies – Three Versions
As the Ghouta campaign continues to unfold, we should expect that both politicians and mainstream media will give us – in the words of philosopher and theologian Reinhold Niebuhr – “necessary illusion and emotionally potent oversimplifications” intended to shape our perceptions of events.
It goes without saying that such “emotionally potent oversimplifications” on Syria have formed the dominant paradigm through which the American public has received its information over the past seven years of war. From the State Department officials to think tank “experts” to the Graham/McCain axis to CNN panelists to the neocon twitterati and all the usual interventionistas who cast everything in terms of Manichean good vs. evil, darkness vs. light, bloodthirsty tyrants vs. noble populace – we’ve had to endure and fight seven years of a constant stream of propaganda on Syria.
Image source: Thierry Ehrmann via FlickrThis worldview is what BBC filmmaker Adam Curtis accurately characterized as a ‘goodies and baddies’ dualistic vision of global eventswhich keeps the Western public under the illusion that its own political leaders are perpetually driven by concern over human rights, defending the weak and oppressed, and spreading democracy over and against the unenlightened megalomaniac dictators of the world who are simply bent on brutalizing their own people.
The BBC’s Curtis concluded of the “humanitarian” wars that followed in the wake of the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ (especially Libya and Syria) :
The question at the heart of this whole story is – Who was the ventriloquist? And who was the dummy? Maybe we were the dummy? By allowing perception management with its simplifications, falsehoods and exaggerations to create a simplified vision of the world – we fell into a fake universe of certainty when really we were just watching a pantomime.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
March 16, 2018
How Much Longer Can We Get Away With It?
Alas, fakery isn’t actually a solution to fiscal/financial crisis..
This chart of “debt securities and loans”–i.e. total debt in the U.S. economy–is also a chart of the creation and distribution of new money, as the issuance of new debt is the mechanism in our financial system for creating (or “emitting” in economic jargon) new currency: when a bank issues a new home mortgage, for example, the loan amount is new currency created out of the magical air of fractional reserve banking.
Central banks also create new currency at will, and emitting newly created money is how they’ve bought $21 trillion in assets such as bonds, mortgages and stocks since 2009. Is there an easier way to push asset valuations higher than creating “money” out of thin air and using it to buy assets, regardless of the price? If there is an easier way, I haven’t heard of it.
Which brings us to the question: how much longer can we get away with this travesty of a mockery of a sham? How much longer can we get away with creating “money” by issuing new debt/liabilities to grease the consumption of more goods and services and the purchases of epic bubble-valuation assets?
Since humans are still using Wetware 1.0 (a.k.a. human nature), we can constructively refer to the Roman Empire’s experience with creating “money” with no intrinsic value. The reason why the Roman Empire (Western and Eastern) attracts such attention is 1) we have a fair amount of documentation for the period, something we don’t have for other successful empires such as the Incas, and 2) we’re fascinated by the decline and collapse of the Western Empire, a structure so vast and successful that collapse seemed impossible just a few decades before the final unraveling.
One of the books I’m currently enjoying is The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire, a new exploration of the impact of climate change and pandemics on the Roman Empire’s final few centuries.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Russia Mulls Additional Trillion Ruble Bailout For Failing Banks
In August 2017 we noted Russia’s largest private lender was in trouble and required a bailout. Then a month later, a second bank hit the wall and was bailed out. And now, five months later, Russia’s central bank is mulling a further capital injection of a trillion rubles to rescue Otkritie and B&N Banks.
In August, Otkritie Bank, which according to Interfax, “ranks 1st among privately-owned banks and 4th by assets among banking groups in Russia,” was rescued by the central bank because “the bank is a systemically important credit organization, it occupies the 8th place in terms of assets. The Bank’s infrastructure includes 22 branches and more than 400 internal structural subdivisions.”
Interestingly, as the FT wrote at the start of 2017, “the breakneck expansion at Otkritie is raising fears that it is creating risks the state will eventually have to deal with.
“It’s not a business, it’s all relations,” a senior Russian investor says. “They want to become too big to fail.” Adds a senior Russian banker: “They are not a bank, they are a very risky hedge fund. Why should this be done with regulators’ [the central bank’s] money?“
The market did not love it…
Ironically, Otkritie’s predecessor was the aptly named Shchit-bank:
And then, less than a month later, already nervous Russian depositors shifted their attention to another domestic lender, Russia’s B&N Bank, the country’s 12th biggest lender by assets, also sought a bailout from the central bank.
B&N Bank, which is controlled by Russian oligarch Mikhail Gutseriev and was not on the central bank’s list of systemically important lenders, said it had under-estimated the problems within the banks it had bought during an expansion drive. “Our objective is, with the support of the central bank … to conduct an effective financial rehabilitation of the bank,” said Mikail Shishkhanov, who was named as chairman of B&N Bank, whose assets account for 2 percent of the Russian banking system, according to ratings agency Fitch.
We noted at the time, that perhaps, if the Russian central bank has unlimited funds to keep bailing out the Russian oligarch’s pet banks which they used mostly to launder illicit funds, then sure. Then again, where there are two bank runs in under a month, more are guaranteed, and all that would take to cripple the Russian financial system is a panic at one of the larger domestic banks, rekindling memories of the near collapse Russia experienced in late 2014 when crashing oil prices and a plunging ruble, sent Russian rates as high as 20% and pushed the country to the verge of hyperinflation.
In other words, if the “deep state” really wants to hurt Russia, it knows what to do.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
“Where Will It Stop?”: Libor Spread Blows Out Beyond Eurocrisis Highs, Central Banks Intervention Awaited
Until two days ago, the critical level for both the Libor-OIS and FRA-OIS spread was the “psychological level” of 50bps. This, however, was breached on Wednesday when as we reported Libor pushed significantly higher without a matching move in swaps. And yet, despite the sharp push wider, both spreads remained below the peak levels observed during the European sovereign debt crisis of 2011/2012, with some speculating that open central bank swap lines at OIS+50bps would limit the move wider.
That changed this morning when the day’s 3M USD Libor fixing jumped higher for the 27th consecutive session, rising to 2.2018% from 2.1775%, and the highest since December 2008. And, as has been the case for the past two months, the move was again not matched by OIS, resulting in the Libor-OIS spread jumping to 51.4bp, surpassing the 2011/2012 highs and the widest level since May 2009.
At the same time, the FRA-OIS also spread spiked to a new multi-year high of 53.3bps, the highest in years.
Commenting on the move, NatWest Markets strategist Blake Gwinn urgent clients “don’t fade FRA/OIS’ recommendation is still in effect, but certainly on watch”, adding that the most frequently asked question this week has been “where will Libor stop?”
While the clear answer – at least for now – is “not here”, Gwinn repeated what we said on March 14, noting that the Fed’s central bank swap lines should “theoretically put a cap on USD funding rates” as the banks are authorized to offer terms out to three months at OIS+50bp, and also echoed BofA’s comments on the topic, noting that among the impediments are haircuts that add roughly another 10bp to the effective rate, the stigma of going to central banks for funding, and lack of availability of swap lines.
And yet, should Libor keep pushing wider, the Fed will have to notice.
As we said two days ago, the Federal Reserve is increasingly monitoring the rise in LIBOR and is trying to understand what exactly is driving it. In fact, in the most recent dealer survey the Fed specifically asked about the 3m L-OIS spread widening.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
An American: “Why I Don’t Trust My Government, At All”
Would you trust your government if it were headed by a President who just now appointed to become the head of the CIA, the very same person who had headed the CIA’s interrogation of a 9/11 suspect whose interrogation consisted of 83 waterboardings (plus other tortures, which blinded his left eye), all in order to get him to say that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks, so as to ‘justify’ invading Iraq?
Current U.S. President Donald Trump has appointed, to head the CIA, Gina Haspel, who, as a CIA official in Thailand, the Chief-of-Base there, or Thai “COB”, in 2002, had headed the interrogation of suspect Abu Zubaydeh, and kept using waterboardings and other means of torture against him until he would implicate Saddam Hussein. He told them what he thought they wanted to hear, but didn’t know that this was what they wanted the most to hear. As Raymond Bonner described it at propublica on 22 February 2017:
chief of base and another senior counterterrorism official on scene had the sole authority power to halt the questioning.
She never did so, records show, watching as Zubaydah vomited, passed out and urinated on himself while shackled. During one waterboarding session, Zubaydah lost consciousness and bubbles began gurgling from his mouth. … At one point, Haspel spoke directly with Zubaydah, accusing him of faking symptoms of physical distress and psychological breakdown. …
The CIA officials in Thailand understood that the methods they were using could kill Zubaydah and said that should that happen, they would cremate his body. If he survived questioning, Haspel sought assurances that “the subject will remain in isolation and incommunicado for the remainder of his life.”
So far, that promise has been kept. Zubaydah is currently incarcerated at Guantanamo. His lawyers filed a court action in 2008 seeking his release, but the federal judges overseeing the case have failed to issue any substantive rulings [after now 16 years]. …
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Why Every Prepper Group Needs an Information Specialist (and How to Start Collecting Information)
Many preppers gather into groups of like-minded people to provide skills and equipment they themselves don’t have. One position or skill that is often overlooked is that of the “Information Specialist.”
“Someone who wants senior command should cultivate a lively curiosity. Technical competence (survival skills), even tactical competence (planning and execution of survival and military skills), isn’t enough. Strategy depends on intelligence (access to knowledge [books, articles, blogs, databases, maps, military intelligence, etc.]), and that depends on asking the right questions.” ~ “Winning Colors” by Elizabeth Moon (Comments in parentheses by the author of this article)
There is a great deal of information that is available to preppers publically and legally today that most likely won’t be available after the SHTF. Useful information that may help you survive and prosper during those bad times.
About the Information Specialist series
This article, the first of nine parts, does not discuss the basic prepper subjects of food (seeds, planting, growing, harvesting, cooking, saving, plus hunting and fishing), water, clothing, shelter, defense, first aid and medical, transportation, skills, gadgets, etc. This information is readily available in books and blogs. Prepper gadgets are available from numerous sources.
These articles will discuss the many sources of “important facts (that) are well known or may be gathered from public sources. This form of information collection is known as open source intelligence.” (Source). We will be discussing Internet sources of information, with links that you won’t find anywhere else, all free and legal.
For the purposes of discussion in these articles, there are two kinds of information. “Survival Information” (parts 1 – 6) and “The History of Technology and its Use in the Restoration of Civilization” (parts 7 – 9).
First are news and disaster warnings to let you stay up with what is happening now.
Second is information and gadgets that you can collect now that would be of use to the prepper now and after the SHTF. This includes maps, information about people and places local to you, in your state and nationally, radios, etc.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
BIGGEST BREAKTHROUGH IN ENERGY: Investor Warning
As the U.S. and global oil industry continue to cannibalize itself just to stay alive, the market is totally clueless because investors are being misled by the fallacy that technology will solve our peak oil crisis. While technology has allowed more oil to make it to the market, it has done so at a very high cost. Unfortunately, a significant percentage of the increased cost to produce this high-tech oil was subsidized by debt from unsuspecting investors.
Hundreds of billions of Dollars were invested in the U.S. Shale Energy Industry by investors who were looking for a higher return on their money than they could receive from banks or other financial institutions. Sadly, most investors will not see the return of their funds as the U.S. Shale Energy Industry isn’t making the profits to pay back this debt.
However, many resource analysts aren’t able to understand the ramifications of the falling EROI – Energy Returned On Investment and Thermodynamics in the energy industry. Thus, they believe in the fantasy of unlimited oil production and economic growth on a finite planet. Analysts and the public believe this nonsense due in part to claims of new revolutionary energy extraction technology. Once such company is Petroteq Energy that claims that it can produce oil sands at a low-cost of $20 a barrel.
Over the past several months, I have received countless emails from followers who provided links to articles promoting these amazing new energy technologies:
Why The Next Oil Boom Will Be Fueled By Blockchain
This Revolutionary Technology Could Deliver $22 Oil… In A $70 World
Interestingly, all of these articles were promoting the same company… Petroteq Energy.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
When Dealing with a Bear, Hubris Is Suicidal
Assuming mankind finds a way not to destroy itself in the near future and assuming that there will still be historians in the 22nd or 23rd centuries, I bet you that they will look at the AngloZionist Empire and see the four following characteristics as some of its core features: lies, willful ignorance, hypocrisy, and hysterics. To illustrate my point I will use the recent “Skripal nerve-gas assassination” story as it really encompasses all of these characteristics.
I won’t even bother debunking the official nonsense here as others have done a very good job of pointing out the idiocy of that narrative. If you are truly capable of believing that “Putin” (that is the current collective designator for the Evil Empire of Mordor threatening all of western civilization) would order the murder of a man whom a Russian military court sentenced to only 13 years in jail (as opposed to life or death) and who was subsequently released as part of a swap with the USA, you can stop reading right now and go back to watching TV. I personally have neither the energy nor the inclination to even discuss such a self-evidently absurd theory. No, what I do want to do is use this story as a perfect illustration of the kind of society we now all live in looked at from a moral point of view. I realize that we live in a largely value-free society where moral norms have been replaced by ideological orthodoxy, but that is just one more reason for me to write about what is taking place precisely focusing on the moral dimensions of current events.
Lies and the unapologetic denial of reality:
In a 2015 article entitled “A society of sexually frustrated Pinocchios” I wrote the following:
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
What Results When U.S. Invades a Country
The U.S. Government certainly leads the world in invasions and coups.
In recent years, it has invaded and occupied — either by military assault or by coup, but in either case followed by installing (or trying to install) a new regime there — a number of countries, especially Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, and Yemen.
U.S. propaganda says that its invasions and military occupations (and it denies its coups) are to benefit the people in the invaded and militarily occupied countries, or to bring them ‘democracy’, and are not done merely to benefit the people who control the U.S. Government (which itself is not a democracy, and even the neoconservative — pro-invasion or “imperialistic” — American magazine The Atlantic has finally acknowledged this fact, even though it contradicts their continuing neoconservatism).
Polling and other evidences within the invaded/occupied countries shows the opposite of the U.S. claim: America’s invasions/occupations (after World War II, and especially after 2000) destroy those countries, not help them.
The most authoritative such study that has yet been done on this matter was recently released, and its findings regarding this matter will here be presented, and then supplemented with other relevant data so as to provide a fuller picture.
The U.N./Gallup surveys of the happiness/misery of the residents in 155 countries, as reported in 2017, were physically in-person interviews in almost all countries, but there was at least one exception, as they explained: “In Libya, telephone survey methodology has been used since 2015 owing to the country’s high rate of mobile phone coverage and ongoing instability which has made it too dangerous to use face-to-face interviewers.” That’s a highly euphemistic way of saying, actually: Libya was too dangerous, and perhaps too miserable, for opinions to be sampled by the ordinary methodology, the scientifically sound methodology, which is in-person interviews. It’s a way of saying this without even mentioning the invasion and war there — as if those things don’t even count. Therefore, the finding that Gallup reported about Libya is presumably being included in Gallup’s otherwise excellent report purely for Western propaganda purposes — they know that it’s not an actual scientific finding about Libya, not a finding that can reasonably be compared to the survey-findings in the other countries. As a result, Libya, which might have been the most miserable of all countries after the U.S.-UK-France-Canada invasion, scored in the top half of all countries, #68, 5.525. But, all of the other countries that the U.S. has recently invaded (the nations that are boldfaced below) scored at or below #132, 4.096 — Ukraine’s score — as is shown here below from that U.N. report:
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Pentagon & Hollywood’s successful and deadly propaganda alliance
© U.S. Army
The Pentagon helps Hollywood to make money and, in turn, Hollywood churns out effective propaganda for the brutal American war machine.
The US has the largest military budget in the world, spending over $611 billion – far larger than any other nation on Earth. The US military also has at their disposal the most successful propaganda apparatus the world has ever known… Hollywood.
Since their collaboration on the first Best Picture winner ‘Wings’ in 1927, the US military has used Hollywood to manufacture and shape its public image in over 1,800 films and TV shows. Hollywood has, in turn, used military hardware in their films and TV shows to make gobs and gobs of money. A plethora of movies like ‘Lone Survivor,’ ‘Captain Philips,’ and even blockbuster franchises like ‘Transformers’ and Marvel, DC and X-Men superhero movies have agreed to cede creative control in exchange for use of US military hardware over the years.
View image on Twitter
[image error]U.S. Dept of Defense
@DeptofDefense
It’s #Oscars90 Sunday and did you know the #DoD works with #Hollywood to ensure the #military is correctly portrayed in films? Find out howthese partnerships work: https://go.usa.gov/xneSX .
Be sure to follow our #Oscars coverage over on @DoDOutreach! #cooljobs#KnowYourMil
8:50 PM – Mar 4, 2018
In order to obtain cooperation from the Department of Defense (DoD), producers must sign contracts that guarantee a military approved version of the script makes it to the big screen. In return for signing away creative control, Hollywood producers save tens of millions of dollars from their budgets on military equipment, service members to operate the equipment, and expensive location fees.
Capt. Russell Coons, director of the Navy Office of Information West, told Al Jazeera what the military expects for their cooperation: “We’re not going to support a program that disgraces a uniform or presents us in a compromising way.”
Phil Strub, the DOD chief Hollywood liaison, says the guidelines are clear. “If the filmmakers are willing to negotiate with us to resolve our script concerns, usually we’ll reach an agreement. If not, filmmakers are free to press on without military assistance.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
