ODDS AND ENDS ON THE WEST’S MELTDOWN
It's been quite a week, needless to say...Norway being bombed, Greek economic meltdown, the usual noise from the banksters that Greece needs more bailout money, Murdoch's News Corp caught hacking everybody... and hovering in the background is China. So let's start here:
Geopolitical Implications of the World Economic Crisis
Let's read that crucial passage again:"The origin of the crisis lies in deregulated credit derivatives of various types. The proper way to understand derivatives is that they are some form of paper based on paper. Anytime we are more than one step removed from an underlying asset we are dealing with derivatives. The Bank of International Settlements admits that there are around ~$600 trillion in derivatives out there (4). This is more than ten times the entire GDP of the Earth, which is about ~$58 trillion. Other sources indicate that the outstanding amount of derivatives of all types approached ~$1.5 quadrillion, and has now fallen to a mere ~$1 quadrillion (5). A dangerous feature of derivatives is that they are zero sum instruments, in that there is always a winner and a loser. This means that every derivative represents some amount of debt that someone will have to pay at some point in the future, with the notional fulfillment value much higher than the market value of the instrument.
"These derivatives are controlled by globalized finance oligarchs based primarily in New York and London. These oligarchs dominate the governments of most western countries, and they have abused their power by making the sole mission of the state that of propping them up. All of the other concerns of the nation states of the world are regarded as secondary to the effort to rehabilitate the cancerous mass of $600 trillion-$1.5 quadrillion of derivatives. The United States cannot recover until Wall Street is stopped and put into receivership by the federal government, and the derivatives are liquidated in bankruptcy proceedings."
Note that this article is saying substantially what I've been saying ever since the crisis began: you're witnessing the meltdown of the Anglo-American banking elite, who are now propping themselves up solely by military adventurism, their last substantial export, and in the process, are undermining the West's strategic position as more and more nations realize the predatory status of the USA and its client states, and more and more nations turn increasingly to China and Russia.
If that sounds impossible, consider Norway. When the bomb exploded, it did so on a national holiday in Norway, when there were few people in the office that was bombed. Yet, we're being told it's "terrorism". Or was it simply yet another message to a Norway that (1) announced its intentions to pull out of the "NATO" adventure in Libya, (2) voted to freeze a $42,000,000 payment to Greece (mere pocket change in a world awash in $1.5 quadrillion in derivatives), (3) supports statehood for Palestine, and, (4) let's not forget, is not a member of the European Union. Now, I always thought terrorists were all about killing as many people and breaking as many things as possible. Or was Norway's problem that it simply wasn't going along with the predators? Looks that way to me.
As for the other nations looking increasingly to China, Russia, India, Brazil (the so-called BRIC nations), can one really blame them? As for the USA, here it's politics and spinning as usual, with Dummycrooks and Republithugs pointing the fingers of blame at each other, while the real causes- clearly exposed in the linked article above - are simply ignored.
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Bank Of America’s Legal Woes Go Global After Norway’s Sovereign Wealth Fund Sues For Mortgage Fraud
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/bank-americas-legal-woes-go-global-after-norways-sovereign-wealth-fund-sues-mortgage-fraud
The concept I am putting forward is a bit complex so bear with me.
What do Norway and Libya have in common?
You may think nothing, but then you would be wrong.
Both nations are (were, at this time with Libya) holders of huge sovereign wealth funds.
Both funds are built on a foundation of the nation’s Oil sales.
It would seem that both nations have been targeted for take down.
http://pennyforyourthoughts2.blogspot.com/2011/08/norway-libya-correlations-and.html
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peteroborne/100098260/this-crisis-will-give-germany-the-empire-its-always-dreamed-of/
The euro crisis will give Germany the empire it’s always dreamed of
By Peter Oborne Politics Last updated: July 21st, 2011
1553 Comments Comment on this article
Angela Merkel greets Nicolas Sarkozy in Berlin, July 20 (Photo: AFP)
Many of the biggest losers from the Wall Street Crash were not those greedy speculators who bought at the very top of the market. There was also a category of investor who recognised that stocks had become badly overvalued, sold their shares in the summer or autumn of 1928, then waited patiently as the market surged onwards to ever more improbable highs.
When the crash came in October 1929, they felt thoroughly vindicated, and waited for the dust to settle. The following spring, when share prices had consolidated at around a third lower than the all-time high reached the previous year, they reinvested the family savings, probably feeling a bit smug. Then, on April 17, 1930, the market embarked on a second and even more shattering period of decline, by the end of which shares were worth barely 10 per cent of their value at their peak. Those prudent investors who had seen the Wall Street Crash coming were wiped out.
There was one crucial message from yesterday’s shambolic and panicky eurozone summit: today’s predicament contains terrifying parallels with the situation that prevailed 80 years ago, although the problem lies (at this stage, at least) with the debt rather than the equity markets.
After the catastrophe of 2008, many believed and argued – as others did in 1929 – that it was a one-off event, which could readily be put right by the ingenuity of experts. The truth is sadly different. The aftermath of that financial debacle, like the economic downturn after 1929, falls into a special category. Most recessions are part of the normal, healthy functioning of any market economy – a good example is the downturn of the late 1980s. But in rare cases, they are far more sinister, because their underlying cause is a structural imbalance which cannot be solved by conventional means.
Such recessions, which tend to associated with catastrophic financial events, are dangerous because they herald a long period of economic dislocation and collapse. Their consequences stretch deep into the realm of politics and social life. Indeed, the 1929 crash sparked a decade of economic failure around much of the world, helping bring the Weimar Republic to its knees and easing the way for the rise of German fascism.
So we live in a very troubling period. The situation is very bad in the United States, where ratings agencies are threatening the once unimaginable step of downgrading Treasury bonds, and Congress is consumed by partisan wrangling over raising the nation’s debt limit. But it is desperate in Europe, because the situation has been exacerbated by a piece of economic dogma.
The faith of leading European politicians and bankers in monetary union, a system of financial government whose origins can be traced back to the set of temporary political circumstances in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, and which was brought to bear without serious economic analysis, is essentially irrational. Indeed, in many ways, the euro bears comparison to the gold standard. Back in 1929, politicians and central bankers assumed that the convertibility of national currencies into gold (defined by the economist John Maynard Keynes as a “barbaric relic”) was a law of nature, like gravity. European politicians have developed the same superstitious attachment to the single currency. They are determined to persist with it, no matter what suffering it causes, or however brutal its economic and social consequences.
There is only one way of sustaining this policy, as the International Monetary Fund argued ahead of yesterday’s summit in Brussels. Admittedly, the IMF should not be regarded as an impartial arbiter. Theoretically, its responsibilities stretch around the globe, but it has become the plaything of a reactionary European elite, of whom its latest managing director, Christine Lagarde (a dreadful and backward-looking choice), is the latest manifestation. However, the IMF was entirely correct when it pointed out that the only conceivable salvation for the eurozone is to impose greater fiscal integration among member states.
This advice was finally being taken yesterday – and it is almost impossible to overestimate the importance of the decision which European leaders seemed last night to be reaching. By authorising a huge expansion in the bail-out fund that is propping up the EU’s peripheral members (largely in order to stop the contagion spreading to Italy and Spain), the eurozone has taken the decisive step to becoming a fiscal union. So long as the settlement is accepted by national parliaments, yesterday will come to be seen as the witching hour after which Europe will cease to be, except vestigially, a collection of nation states. It will have one economic government, one currency, one foreign policy. This integration will be so complete that taxpayers in the more prosperous countries will be expected to pay for the welfare systems and pension plans of failing EU states.
This is the final realisation of the dream that animated the founders of the Common Market more than half a century ago – which is one reason why so many prominent Europeans have privately welcomed the eurozone catastrophe, labelling it a “beneficial crisis”. David Cameron and George Osborne have both indicated that they, too, welcome this fundamental change in the nature and purpose of the European project. The markets have rallied strongly, hailing what is being seen as the best chance of a resolution to the gruelling and drawn-out crisis.
It is conceivable that yesterday’s negotiations may indeed save the eurozone – but it is worth pausing to consider the consequences of European fiscal union. First, it will mean the economic destruction of most of the southern European countries. Indeed, this process is already far advanced. Thanks to their membership of the eurozone, peripheral countries such as Greece and Portugal – and to an increasing extent Spain and Italy – are undergoing a process of forcible deindustrialisation. Their economic sovereignty has been obliterated; they face a future as vassal states, their role reduced to the one enjoyed by the European colonies of the 19th and early 20th centuries. They will provide cheap labour, raw materials, agricultural produce and a ready market for the manufactured goods and services provided by the far more productive and efficient northern Europeans. Their political leaders will, like the hapless George Papandreou of Greece, lose all political legitimacy, becoming local representatives of distant powers who are forced to implement economic programmes from elsewhere in return for massive financial subventions.
While these nations relapse into pre-modern economic systems, Germany is busy turning into one of the most dynamic and productive economies in the world. Despite the grumbling, for the Germans, the bail-outs are worth every penny, because they guarantee a cheap outlet for their manufactured goods. Yesterday’s witching hour of the European Union means that Germany has come very close to realising Bismarck’s dream of an economic empire stretching from central Europe to the Eastern Mediterranean.
History has seen many attempts to unify Europe, from the Habsburgs to the Bourbons and Napoleon. This attempt is likely to fail, too. Indeed, a paradox is at work here. The founders of the European Union were driven by a vision of a peaceful new world after a century of war. Yet nothing could have been more calculated to create civil disorder and national resistance than yesterday’s demented move to salvage the single currency.
The backers of the false flag tea party seem to be preparing the USA for shock therophy ala Chile,Russia and other victims of the IMF and it’s ilk and thru the Dem-Republican parties into the great democracies they have supported around the world like Chile,Guatemala,Nicaragua,Indonesia,Congo-Zarie-Congo,Apparthied South Africa and we must not forget Hati for over two hundred years. With the Reich-Lighter Repupblican state govenors wish to bring to their states the delights of Mubarks Eygpt. Unfortunately Russia is coming out of the mess the Congress intend to plunge the USA thru it.s false flag debt crisis to a pre civil war era USA maybe a resurrected CSA division of the empire. Their arrogant stupitity
And more meltdown– Turkey’s entire military structure resigns:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/turkeys-entire-armed-forces-resign-en-masse
Wow, so much news I’m posting all over myself…
http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2011/07/july-28-2011-real-black-real-swan.html
“…In open storage on the base were 98 containers of explosives that had been seized by the United States Navy in 2009 after it intercepted a Cypriot-flagged, Russian owned vessel, the MV Monchegorsk, travelling from Iran to Syria in the Red Sea. According to leaked US cables through WikiLeaks, released in 2011, the US through Hillary Clinton exerted pressure on Cyprus to confiscate the shipment.
The ship was escorted to a Cypriot port and the Cyprus Navy was given responsibility for the explosives, which it moved to the Evangelos Florakis a month later.[9] At the time of the incident in 2011, the explosives had apparently been left in the open for over two years…”
“… the Vasilikos damage may, according to estimates, take two years and €2.4 billion to repair. The €2.4 billion constitutes about 14% of Cyprus €17 billion ($23.8 billion) annual GDP.
Cyprus was already under financial scrutiny, for a number of reasons. First, Its banking system is “roughly nine times GDP”. Second, that system is relatively heavily (33% of GDP) invested in Greek sovereign debt, and has also lent out a lot of money to Greek businesses and individuals. And third, a lot of the foreign deposits flowing in are from Russia, which uses the island as a gateway to Europe.
Just yesterday, under intense pressure from the people, who want anyone even remotely responsible for the explosion out, the Cypriot government, led by the Communist party, and already unpopular before the incident because of -what else?- austerity measures, resigned.
This happened not along after Moody’s downgraded Cyprus bonds, which were already under pressure due to the Greek debt holdings, and are now vying for par with Irish and Portuguese bonds. And rising.
After Ireland, Greece (2x) and Portugal, Cyprus is therefore set to become the fourth EU member to need a bail-out. It’s small one, for sure, but it might still whip up resistance against the EU/ECB/IMF troika policies well beyond its size.”
OK, I promise to stop after this one, but the zingers keep coming today.
“TEHRAN, July 29 (Reuters) – An explosion on a pipeline transferring natural gas from Iran to Turkey halted supplies early on Friday, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.”
http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFL6E7IT04A20110729
Only 8 killed in the bombing in Oslo, and yes the timing was strange. But let’s not forget 68 people we’re brutally shot at Utøya an hour or two later by the same man. And around a 100 wounded. He would have killed more if not beeing stopped by the police. So yes, he was about killing as many persons as possibly. Your thoughts about the bombing could be plauseable, but when considering the horrible massacre that followed it I think it’s another story.
Anyway, horrible stuff.
I cant locate it now, but i ran acros an article a couple days ago saying his family was well off. I can’t confirm that now though through simple google searches so I can’t link anything but here’s a thought.
Elite families have many children and I think these children are the ones used in these mind control programs. I am wondering if they seperate their wheat from chaff and anyone who is chaff is used by the wheat of the circles. Their parents volunteer them for service and being the parents, fiendeshly make them ok with whatever they put them through. And when the time comes, a call is made and the plan is set into motion…
Breivik’s father was a former Norwegian official (spook). I defer to Webster Tarpley’s fine study:
http://tarpley.net/2011/07/24/norway-terror-attacks-a-false-flag/
An excerpt:
Are SIMAS Surveillance Detection Units the New Gladio for Norway?
US and NATO intelligence have been shown to possess extraordinary capabilities inside Norway, many of which may be operating outside of the control of the Norwegian government. In early November 2010, the Oslo television channel TV2 exposed the existence of an extensive network of paid assets and informants of US intelligence recruited from the ranks of retired police and other officials. The ostensible goal of this program was the surveillance of Norwegians who were taking part in demonstrations and other activities critical of the United States and its policies. One of the Norwegians recruited was the former chief of the anti-terror section of the Oslo police.7 Although the goal was supposedly merely surveillance, it is possible to imagine some other and far more sinister activities that could be carried out by such a network of retired cops, including the identification and subversion of rotten apples on the active-duty police force. Some of the capabilities of a network of this type would not be totally alien to the sort of events that have just occurred in Norway.
The official name for the type of espionage cell which the United States was creating in Norway is Surveillance Detection Unit (SDU). The SDUs in turn operate within the framework of the Security Incident Management Analysis System (SIMAS). SIMAS is known to be used for spying and surveillance by US Embassies not just in the Nordic bloc of Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, but worldwide. The terror events also raise the question of whether SIMAS has an operational dimension. Could this apparatus represents a modern version of the Cold War stay behind networks set up in all NATO countries and best-known under the name of the Italian branch, Gladio?
The Norwegian government needs to find out. Thus far Norwegian ministers have asserted that they never approved the SIMAS network of SDUs. “We never knew about it,” claimed Norway’s Justice Minister Knut Storberget and Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre in chorus. Hillary Clinton stated instead that the Norwegians had been informed.