Steve Bull's Blog, page 1350
July 10, 2017
MSM, Still Living in Propaganda-ville
Exclusive: The stakes in U.S.-Russia relations could not be higher – possible nuclear conflagration and the end of civilization – but the U.S. mainstream media is still slouching around in “propaganda-ville,” says Robert Parry.
As much as the U.S. mainstream media wants people to believe that it is the Guardian of Truth, it is actually lost in a wilderness of propaganda and falsehoods, a dangerous land of delusion that is putting the future of humankind at risk as tension escalate with nuclear-armed Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses a crowd on May 9, 2014, celebrating the 69th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany and the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Crimean port city of Sevastopol from the Nazis. (Russian government photo)
This media problem has grown over recent decades as lucrative careerism has replaced responsible professionalism. Pack journalism has always been a threat to quality reporting but now it has evolved into a self-sustaining media lifestyle in which the old motto, “there’s safety in numbers,” is borne out by the fact that being horrendously wrong, such as on Iraq’s WMD, leads to almost no accountability because so many important colleagues were wrong as well.
Similarly, there has been no accountability after many mainstream journalists and commentators falsely stated as flat-fact that “all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies” concurred that Russia did “meddle” in last November’s U.S. election.
For months, this claim has been the go-to put-down whenever anyone questions the groupthink of Russian venality perverting American democracy. Even the esteemed “Politifact” deemed the assertion “true.” But it was never true.
It was at best a needled distortion of a claim by President Obama’s Director of National Intelligence James Clapper when he issued a statement last Oct. 7 alleging Russian meddling. Because Clapper was the chief of the U.S. Intelligence Community, his opinion morphed into a claim that it represented the consensus of all 17 intelligence agencies, a dishonest twist that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton began touting.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
National Geographic’s Guide To The Yellowstone Supervolcano
Amid a growing ‘swarm’ of over earthquakes (now over 1000), and Montana’s largest quake ever, scientists are growing increasingly concerned that the so-called ‘super-volcano’ at the heart of Yellowstone National Park could be building towards a Category 7 eruption.So what is a ‘super-volcano’ and what does its explosion mean for life on earth? NatGeo explains…
As National Geographic details…
Think of Yellowstone as a gigantic pressure cooker, fueled by a massive supervolcano. Water from rain and snowmelt, much of it centuries-old, percolates through cracks in the Earth’s crust until heated by molten rock reservoirs deep below. The water then filters upward, eventually finding release in the thousands of geysers, hot springs, and other hydrothermal wonders.
Eruptions of this supervolcano expel so much material that the crust caves in, creating a craterlike depression called a caldera.
Yellowstone is known as a supervolcano because of the violence and size of its explosions.
The plume of hot rock has been calculated at more than 600 miles deep. But scientists suspect it actually descends as far as 1,800 miles, all the way to what’s known as the Earth’s outer core-mantle boundary.
The reservoirs and plume are superheated, spongelike rock holding pockets of molten material called magma. The reservoirs’ heat, which originates in the plume, is what keeps the area’s geysers boiling.
Ancient rain and snowmelt seep down to just above the volcano’s magma reservoirs, until they are superheated and rise again through the fractures. Volcanic heat and gases help propel steam and water toward the surface, where they escape through hot springs or geysers.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
July 5, 2017
EXCLUSIVE: Documents expose how Hollywood promotes war on behalf of the Pentagon, CIA and NSA
US military intelligence agencies have influenced over 1,800 movies and TV shows
Plato’s Cave reimagined for the Hollywood era — copyright Derek Swansonn
Tom Secker and Matthew Alford report on their astonishing findings from trawling through thousands of new US military and intelligence documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
The documents reveal for the first time the vast scale of US government control in Hollywood, including the ability to manipulate scripts or even prevent films too critical of the Pentagon from being made — not to mention influencing some of the most popular film franchises in recent years.
This raises new questions not only about the way censorship works in the modern entertainment industry, but also about Hollywood’s little known role as a propaganda machine for the US national security apparatus.
When we first looked at the relationship between politics, film and television at the turn of the 21st century, we accepted the consensus opinion that a small office at the Pentagon had, on request, assisted the production of around 200 movies throughout the history of modern media, with minimal input on the scripts.
How ignorant we were.
More appropriately, how misled we had been.
We have recently acquired 4,000 new pages of documents from the Pentagon and CIA through the Freedom of Information Act. For us, these documents were the final nail in the coffin.
These documents for the first time demonstrate that the US government has worked behind the scenes on over 800 major movies and more than 1,000 TV titles.
The previous best estimate, in a dry academic book way back in 2005, was that the Pentagon had worked on less than 600 films and an unspecified handful of television shows.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
July 4, 2017
MEXICO Oil Reserves and Production
In dollar terms, since mid 2015 Mexico has been a net importer of hydrocarbons (oil, natural gas, petroleum products and petrochemicals combined). To date it has been a relatively small and fairly constant amount, but with their oil production declining, and oil prices apparently continuing to fall while natural gas prices may be on the rise, the net cost could now start to increase.
2017 reserve numbers were issued in early June. These used to come from PEMEX, but now look like they come from the government through the National Hydrocarbon Commission (probably as a result of the initiative for oil industry deregulation). Overall all categories of reserves have been falling for some years. The chart below shows oil and total (i.e. including condensate, NGL and natural gas) for proved, probable and possible. The production, discoveries and revisions for total petroleum (no figures for crude alone) are also shown – a bit fiddly but the trends can be seen – falling production, small and declining discoveries and some big recent revisions.
Note that the usual confusion holds here in that reserves are for crude only (condensate is included in the total numbers), but total flow rates (discussed further below) have crude and condensate numbers included (but clearly specified). To add to the confusion the datasets below are labeled P1, P2 and P3, but because the charts are stacked they should be read on the axis as 1P, 2P and 3Ps (the bar chart increments don’t really work out very well like this because the revisions can be positive or negative).
Mexico has four oil producing regions, Northeast Marine, which includes KMZ and Cantarell – the biggest fields, Southwest Marines, Northern Region onshore and Southern Region Onshore. The changes from 2016 to 2017 for these are shown below.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Rosen Slams Canadian Accountants: “Investors Are Being Swindled” – Peter Diekmeyer
(In one famous fraud case, Bre-X, auditors couldn’t be bothered to check if the company’s gold mine, its only major asset, actually existed. External accountants instead essentially relied on a manager’s claim that he had “found gold” in the core samples he presented to a valuation firm, when they signed off on the statements).…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Why Quantitative Tightening Will Fail
After nine years of unconventional quantitative easing (QE) policy the Federal Reserve is now setting out on a new path for quantitative tightening (QT).
QE was a policy of money printing. The Fed did this by buying bonds from the big banks. The banks would then deliver bonds to the Fed, and the Fed would in turn pay them with money from thin air. QT takes a different approach.
Instead, the Fed will set out policy that allows the old bonds to mature, while not buy new ones from the banks. That way the money will shrink the balance sheets ahead of any potential crisis.
For years leaders at the Federal Reserve have been rolling over the balance sheet to keep it at $4.5 trillion.
Here’s what the Fed wants you to believe.
The Fed wants you to think that QT will not have any impact. Fed leadership speaks in code and has a word for this which you’ll hear called “background.” The Fed wants this to run on background. Think of running on background like someone using a computer to access email while downloading something on background.
This is complete nonsense. They’ve spent eight years saying that quantitative easing was stimulative. Now they want the public to believe that a change to quantitative tightening is not going to slow the economy.
They continue to push that conditions are sustainable when printing money, but when they make money disappear, it will not have any impact. This approach falls down on its face – and it will have a big impact.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Russia-China Tandem Shifts Global Power
Exclusive: Official Washington’s arrogance in trying to push around Russia and China has pushed the two countries together, creating a dangerous new dynamic in international relations, explains ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
Top Russian and Chinese leaders are busy comparing notes, coordinating their approach to President Donald Trump at the G20 summit in Hamburg this weekend. Both sides are heralding the degree to which ties between the two countries have improved in recent years, as Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visits Moscow on his way to the G20. And, they are not just blowing smoke; there is ample substance behind the rhetoric.
President Donald Trump welcomes Chinese President Xi Jinping to a state dinner during their summit at Mar-a-Lago, Florida, on April 6, 2017. (Screen shot from whitehouse.gov)
Whether or not Official Washington fully appreciates the gradual – but profound – change in America’s triangular relationship with Russia and China over recent decades, what is clear is that the U.S. has made itself into the big loser.
Gone are the days when Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger skillfully took advantage of the Sino-Soviet rivalry and played the two countries off against each other, extracting concessions from each. Slowly but surely, the strategic equation has markedly changed – and the Sino-Russian rapprochement signals a tectonic shift to Washington’s distinct detriment, a change largely due to U.S. actions that have pushed the two countries closer together.
But there is little sign that today’s U.S. policymakers have enough experience and intelligence to recognize this new reality and understand the important implications for U.S. freedom of action. Still less are they likely to appreciate how this new nexus may play out on the ground, on the sea or in the air.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Government Monopoly Money vs. Personal Choice in Currency
For more than two hundred years, practically all of even the most free market advocates have assumed that money and banking were different from other types of goods and markets. From Adam Smith to Milton Friedman, the presumption has been competitive markets and free consumer choice are far better than government control and planning – except in the realm of money and financial intermediation.
This belief has been taken to the extreme over the last one hundred years, during which governments have claimed virtually absolute and unlimited authority over national monetary systems through the institution of paper money.
At least before the First World War the general consensus among economists, many political leaders, and the vast majority of the citizenry was that governments could not be completely trusted with management of the monetary system. Abuse of the monetary printing press would always be too tempting for demagogues, special interest groups, and shortsighted politicians looking for easy ways to fund their way to power, privilege, and political advantage.
The Gold Standard and the Monetary “Rules of the Game”
Thus, before 1914 the national currencies of practically all the major countries of what used to be called the “civilized world” were anchored to market-based commodities, either gold or silver. This was meant to place money outside the immediate and arbitrary manipulation of governments. Any increase in gold or silver money required private individuals to find it profitable to prospect for it in various parts of the world, mine it out of the ground and transport it to where it might be refined into usable forms, and then mint part of any new supplies into coins and bullion, with the rest made into various commercial and industrial products demanded on the market.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
We Must Declare Independence
As Independence Day comes around again we should spend a few moments between barbecue and fireworks to think about the meaning of independence. The colonists who rebelled against the British Crown were, among other things, unhappy about taxation. Yet, as economist Gary North points out, the total burden of British imperial taxation was about one-to-two percent of national income.
Some 241 years later, Washington claims more of our money as its own than King George could have ever imagined. What do we get in this bargain? We get a federal government larger and more oppressive than before 1776, a government that increasingly views us as the enemy.
Think about NSA surveillance. As we have learned from brave whistleblowers like William Binney and Edward Snowden, the US intelligence community is not protecting us from foreigners who seek to destroy our way of life. The US intelligence community is itself destroying our way of life. Literally every one of our electronic communications is captured and stored in vast computer networks. Perhaps they will be used against “dissidents” in the future who question government tyranny.
We have no privacy in our computers or our phones. If the government wants to see what we are doing at any time, it simply switches on our phone camera or computer camera – or our “smart” television. Yet today we continue to hear, “I’ve got nothing to hide.”
In a recent interview on our Liberty Report, Edward Snowden made the excellent point that, “saying that you don’t care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
India: Cash is Back
But the Crisis has Deepened and has Become More Entrenched (Part XIV)
Nobody for President
On 17th July 2017, India will elect a new President through a vote of the elected representatives. The two real choices are between Ram Nath Kovind and Meira Kumar. Afraid of looking completely ignorant, I asked a few people who Kovind is. No-one knew of him and people only vaguely remembered Ms. Kumar.
Adults and juveniles have been arrested in different parts of India for celebrating Pakistan’s victory over India in a recently held cricket match. They have been charged with sedition, a charge that has serious legal ramifications and can potentially send these people to prison for life. With the British gone for 70 years, India’s laws and institutions have lost all mooring to their rational anchors. Photo credit: Amnesty India
India will get a complete nobody as its next President. Both candidates are from the Indian province of Bihar. If it were a country, Bihar with its 119 million inhabitants would be the 12th most populated in the world. With a GDP of USD 420 per capita, it would also be among the world’s ten poorest countries.
A scene from a slum in Patna, Bihar’s capital. Photo credit: Yuri Birukov
Kovind is from the “lower caste” and is the choice of the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, who would like to make up for recent atrocities against the “lower caste”. While he is a nobody with hardly any public credentials and a yes-man to the system, Kovind is sympathetic to the cause of Hindu fanatics and has their support.
Why pull a passionate street fighter and rabble-rouser out of the street and place him in a position where he might compete with Modi for visibility?
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
