The west is nostalgically caught up with outdated ‘containment’ policies, this time against Global South integration. Unfortunately for them, the rest of the world is moving on, together.
By Pepe Escobar, posted with the author’s permission and cross-posted with The Cradle
Once upon a time, there existed an Iron Curtain which divided the continent of Europe. Coined by former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the term was in reference to the then-Soviet Union’s efforts to create a physical and ideological boundary with the west. The latter, for its part, pursued a policy of containment against the spread and influence of communism.
Fast forward to the contemporary era of techno-feudalism, and there now exists what should be called a Tin Curtain, fabricated by the fearful, clueless, collective west, via G7 and NATO: this time, to essentially contain the integration of the Global South.
BRICS against G7
The most recent and significant example of this integration has been the coming out of BRICS+ at last week’s online summit hosted by Beijing. This went far beyond establishing the lineaments of a ‘new G8,’ let alone an alternative to the G7.
Just look at the interlocutors of the five historical BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa): we find a microcosm of the Global South, encompassing Southeast Asia, Central Asia, West Asia, Africa and South America – truly putting the “Global” in the Global South.
Revealingly, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s clear messages during the Beijing summit, in sharp contrast to G7 propaganda, were actually addressed to the whole Global South:
– Russia will fulfill its obligations to supply energy and fertilizers.
– Russia expects a good grain harvest – and to supply up to 50 million tons to world markets.
– Russia will ensure passage of grain ships into international waters even as Kiev mined Ukrainian ports.
– The negative situation on Ukrainian grain is artificially inflated.
– The sharp increase in inflation around the world is the result of the irresponsibility of G7 countries, not Operation Z in Ukraine.
– The imbalance of world relations has been brewing for a long time and has become an inevitable result of the erosion of international law.
An alternative system
Putin also directly addressed one of the key themes that the BRICS have been discussing in depth since the 2000s — the design and implementation of an international reserve currency.
“The Russian Financial Messaging System is open for connection with banks of the BRICS countries.”
“The Russian MIR payment system is expanding its presence. We are exploring the possibility of creating an international reserve currency based on the basket of BRICS currencies,” the Russian leader said.
This is inevitable after the hysterical western sanctions post-Operation Z; the total de-dollarization imposed upon Moscow; and increasing trade between BRICS nations. For instance, by 2030, a quarter of the planet’s oil demand will come from China and India, with Russia as the major supplier.
The “RIC” in BRICS simply cannot risk being locked out of a G7-dominated financial system. Even tightrope-walking India is starting to catch the drift.
Who speaks for the ‘international community?’
At its current stage, BRICS represent 40 percent of world population, 25 percent of the global economy, 18 percent of world trade, and contribute over 50 percent for world economic growth. All indicators are on the way up.
Sergey Storchak, CEO of Russian bank VEG, framed it quite diplomatically: “If the voices of emerging markets are not being heard in the coming years, we need to think very seriously about setting up a parallel regional system, or maybe a global system.”
A “parallel regional system” is already being actively discussed between the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) and China, coordinated by Minister of Integration and Macroeconomics Sergey Glazyev, who has recently authored a stunning manifesto amplifying his ideas about world economic sovereignty.
Developing the ‘developing world’
What happens in the trans-Eurasian financial front will proceed in parallel with a so far little known Chinese development strategy: the Global Development Initiative (GDI), announced by President Xi Jinping at the UN General Assembly last year.
GDI can be seen as a support mechanism of the overarching strategy – which remains the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), consisting of economic corridors interlinking Eurasia all the way to its western peninsula, Europe.
At the High-level Dialogue on Global Development, part of the BRICS summit, the Global South learned a little more about the GDI, an organization set up in 2015.
In a nutshell, the GDI aims to turbo-charge international development cooperation by supplementing financing to a plethora of bodies, for instance the South-South Cooperation Fund, the International Development Association (IDA), the Asian Development Fund (ADF), and the Global Environment Facility (GEF).
Priorities include “poverty reduction, food security, COVID-19 response and vaccines,” industrialization, and digital infrastructure. Subsequently, a Friends of the GDI group was established in early 2022 and has already attracted over 50 nations.
BRI and GDI should be advancing in tandem, even as Xi himself made it clear during the BRICS summit that “some countries are politicizing and marginalizing the developmental agenda by building up walls and slapping crippling sanctions on others.”
Then again, sustainable development is not exactly the G7’s cup of tea, much less NATO’s.
Seven against the world
The avowed top aim of the G7 summit in Schloss Elmau at the Bavarian Alps is to “project unity” – as in the stalwarts of the collective west (Japan included) united in sustainable and indefinite “support” for the irretrievably failed Ukrainian state.
That’s part of the “struggle against Putin’s imperialism,” but then there’s also “the fight against hunger and poverty, health crisis and climate change,” as German chancellor Scholz told the Bundestag.
In Bavaria, Scholz pushed for a Marshall Plan for Ukraine – a ludicrous concept considering Kiev and its environs might as well be reduced to a puny rump state by the end of 2022. The notion that the G7 may work to “prevent a catastrophic famine,” according to Scholz, reaches a paroxysm of ludicrousness, as the looming famine is a direct consequence of the G7-imposed sanctions hysteria.
The fact that Berlin invited India, Indonesia, South Africa and Senegal as add-ons to the G7, served as additional comic relief.
The Tin Curtain is up
It would be futile to expect from the astonishing collection of mediocrities “united” in Bavaria, under de facto leader of the European Commission (EC), Fuehrer Ursula von der Leyen, any substantial analysis about the breakdown of global supply chains and the reasons that forced Moscow to reduce gas flows to Europe. Instead, they blamed Putin and Xi.
Welcome to the Tin Curtain – a 21st century reinvention of the Intermarium from the Baltic to the Black Sea, masterminded by the Empire of Lies, complete with western Ukraine absorbed by Poland, the Three Baltic Midgets: Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia, Czechia and even NATO-aspiring Sweden and Finland, all of whom will be protected from “the Russian threat.”
An EU out of control
The role of the EU, lording over Germany, France and Italy inside the G7 is particularly instructive, especially now that Britain is back to the status of an inconsequential island-state.
As many as 60 European ‘directives’ are issued every year. They must be imperatively transposed into internal law of each EU member-state. In most cases, there’s no debate whatsoever.
Then there are more than 10,000 European ‘rulings,’ where ‘experts’ at the European Commission (EC) in Brussels issue ‘recommendations’ to every government, straight out of the neoliberal canon, regarding their expenses, their income and ‘reforms’ (on health care, education, pensions) that must be obeyed.
Thus elections in every single EU member-nation are absolutely meaningless. Heads of national governments – Macron, Scholz, Draghi – are mere executants. No democratic debate is allowed: ‘democracy,’ as with ‘EU values,’ are nothing than smokescreens.
The real government is exercised by a bunch of apparatchiks chosen by compromise between executive powers, acting in a supremely opaque manner.
The EC is totally outside of any sort of control. That’s how a stunning mediocrity like Ursula von der Leyen – previously the worst Minister of Defense of modern Germany – was catapulted upwards to become the current EC Fuhrer, dictating their foreign, energy and even economic policy.
What do they stand for?
From the perspective of the west, the Tin Curtain, for all its ominous Cold War 2.0 overtones, is merely a starter before the main course: hardcore confrontation across Asia-Pacific – renamed “Indo-Pacific” – a carbon copy of the Ukraine racket designed to contain China’s BRI and GDI.
As a countercoup, it’s enlightening to observe how the Chinese foreign ministry now highlights in detail the contrast between BRICS – and BRICS+ – and the imperial AUKUS/Quad/IPEF combo.
BRICS stand for de facto multilateralism; focus on global development; cooperation for economic recovery; and improving global governance.
The US-concocted racket on the other hand, stands for Cold War mentality; exploiting developing countries; ganging up to contain China; and an America-first policy that enshrines the monopolistic “rules-based international order.”
It would be misguided to expect those G7 luminaries gathered in Bavaria to understand the absurdity of imposing a price cap on Russian oil and gas exports, for instance. Were that to really happen, Moscow will have no problems fully cutting energy supply to the G7. And if other nations are excluded, the price of the oil and gas they import would drastically increase.
BRICS paving the way forward
So no wonder the future is ominous. In a stunning interview to Belarus state TV, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov summarized how “the west fears honest competition.”
Hence, the apex of cancel culture, and “suppression of everything that contradicts in some way the neoliberal vision and arrangement of the world.” Lavrov also summarized the roadmap ahead, for the benefit of the whole Global South:
“We don’t need a new G8. We already have structures…primarily in Eurasia. The EAEU is actively promoting integration processes with the PRC, aligning China’s Belt and Road Initiative with the Eurasian integration plans. Members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations are taking a close look at these plans. A number of them are signing free trade zone agreements with the EAEU. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization is also part of these processes… There is one more structure beyond the geographic borders of Eurasia.”
“It is BRICS. This association is relying less and less on the Western style of doing business, and on Western rules for international currency, financial and trade institutions. They prefer more equitable methods that do not make any processes depend on the dominant role of the dollar or some other currency. The G20 fully represents BRICS and five more countries that share the positions of BRICS, while the G7 and its supporters are on the other side of the barricades.”
“This is a serious balance. The G20 may deteriorate if the West uses it for fanning up confrontation. The structures I mentioned (SCO, BRICS, ASEAN, EAEU and CIS) rely on consensus, mutual respect and a balance of interests, rather than a demand to accept unipolar world realities.”
Tin Curtain? More like Torn Curtain.
Thanks Pepe. Russia has made a number of really interesting declarations about the state of the world economy lately. The divergent paths of the G7 vs. BRICS+ is out in the open for all to see.
From the St Petersburg International Economic Forum Plenary session we learn some very interesting things:
“There are other critically important matters here. The worsening of the global economic situation is not a recent development. I will now go over things that I believe are extremely important. What is happening now does not stem from what happened during recent months, of course not. Moreover, it is not the result of the special military operation carried out by Russia in Donbass. Saying so is an unconcealed, deliberate distortion of the facts.”
“I have already cited this figure: over the past two years, the money supply in the United States has grown by more than 38 percent. Previously, a similar rise took decades, but now it grew by 38 percent or 5.9 trillion dollars in two years. By comparison, only a few countries have a bigger gross domestic product.”
“The EU’s money supply has also increased dramatically over this period. It grew by about 20 percent, or 2.5 trillion euros.”
“So, they printed more money, and then what? Where did all that money go? It was obviously used to pay for goods and services outside Western countries – this is where the newly-printed money flowed. They literally began to clean out, to wipe out global markets. Naturally, no one thought about the interests of other states, including the poorest ones. They were left with scraps, as they say, and even that at exorbitant prices.”
“While at the end of 2019, imports of goods to the United States amounted to about 250 billion dollars a month, by now, it has grown to 350 billion. It is noteworthy that the growth was 40 percent – exactly in proportion to the unsecured money supply printed in recent years. They printed and distributed money, and used it to wipe out goods from third countries’ markets.”
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/68669
From the BRICS business forum:
“Together with BRICS partners, we are developing reliable alternative mechanisms for international settlements. The Russian Financial Messaging System is open for connection with the banks of the BRICS countries. The Russian MIR payment system is expanding its presence. We are exploring the possibility of creating an international reserve currency based on the basket of BRICS currencies.”
“I would like to stress that Russia’s strategy has not changed: while strengthening our economic, technological and scientific potential, we are ready to work openly with all bona fide partners based on the principles of mutual respect for each other’s interests, the primacy of international law, and equality for all nations and peoples.”
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/68689
Which of these paths do you think is sustainable? Which moves the world forward together and which soaks others with tremendous losses?
The G7 offers theft to much of the world and massive inflation and rising prices in the so called developed world.
Is there any wonder that the vast majority of the world’s population search for an alternative to the system the G7 represents?
The central reason the US/EU Financial Centers are receiving more money, it is because that is The Fed’s principal job.
But, the major problem is, that FED $$, to the tune of several billions of $$s goes into the accounts of multi-billionaires who own very large corporations, hedge funds, stocks, etc. etc.
NONE of The FED $$ that pours out is put in the pockets of millions and millions of average citizens in the US, nor citizens in Western Europe.
It has to keep feeding the entire Financial apparatus so who ends up with those billions? The very people who will invest into the US/EU financial world: The wealthiest among us.
” Priorities include “poverty reduction, food security, COVID-19 response and vaccines, … ”
???
We read that NATO intends to boost its “containment force” to 300,000.
There is a general awareness in Europe that the Russian Military is vastly superior to NATO; and the European population has nothing but contempt and hatred for the EU, which means that there will be no volunteers for an EU army.
The inevitable conclusion will be forced conscription.
Europe’s male immigrant excess population will arrive at the front just in time for the Russian Winter. Inhabitants of Africa and the Middle East are not known for their skiing skills.
In addition, there is the problem of funding. Where is the money going to come from to train, pay, and equip an army of 300,000. ? Where are the natural resources and manufacturing capacity to provide weapons and equipment? Where are the hydrocarbons to provide mobility going to come from.?
Empty words do not win wars.
Excelente, Pepe. Os analistas independentes são as spetsnaz informacionais do séc. XXI.
———————
Google-translate:
Independent analysts are the informational Spetsnaz of the century.
The West is the champion in creating organizations, it creates many organizations but always with the idea of robbing those who are left out and it is difficult for them to accept that there are solidarity organizations for cooperation between nations.
They recruit accomplices to plunder others, granting them some advantages in their dirty game, but the world is saying enough is enough.
The fact is that accustomed to stealing for centuries they are incapable of honest work.
The world that was born in 1492 just died in February 2022. Very good news indeed.Particularly for the Global South.
Yeah, exactly what I’ve been thinking in these last months.
The narrative is at variance with the data.
The site below provides data on European natural gas storage, and it shows that German reservoirs contain the same volumes as per the average for the time of year.
Why the gaslighting from politicians? Why the lies?
https://gas.kyos.com/gas/de
I’ll bet there are insurance company interests behind the decision to lie to the public
You cannot jack up prices 30-100% without there being a ‘shortage’ – it’s called price fixing cartels which is an imprisonable offence.
That data needs to be spread virally all over the internet and then the politicians need confrontration. Their best outcome is a complete loss of career and future work prospects. The worst is being hung from a lamp post.
This fraud and war racketeering needs confronting and when it is, the whole of the Western fraud will collapse this decade.
The 2022-lines starts under the Minimum line, which isn’t a good sign. Then it shoots up during May and June which is probably because everybody is screaming about saving gas and Germany is scrambling to import everything from anywhere they can. Question is whether this 2022-line will keep climbing along or over the Mean-line now that those compressors are stuck in Canada and with a high probability of the gas flow not returning to normal.
Expectations for the GDP by the Bavarian Commerce Chamber for the second half of the year in case the gas gets cut: € 190 billion in losses and more than 2 million people out of work.
Meanwhile Germany is going to spend an exceptional € 100 billion on its military over the next years and is going to increase its yearly budget with € 60-70 billion. To help protect Europe. Maybe that is a good thing to hold a referendum on among people in the EU and Russia!
Reminds me so very much of Roman Empire history, and the Daniel 2 prophecy of the end of days. It would be nice to have everyone come together and not oppress their neighbors. However, that’s just a dream until the return of Christ. There will be war for leaders are drunk to increase power, maybe just maybe we’ll have peace for a few days even years after we have a new world order.
You have hit the nail.
Most of the political analyzes are basically deterministic, Kantian, only obeying exclusively human factors.
You forget the supernatural factors and I remind you that the first 3 seals of the apocalypse have been opened.
Very good point I will go back and read that, just maybe we’re closer than I was thinking to eternal peace.
I think in the end too, is who can afford to insure during war time, and just when does someone declare insurance company’s insolvent to balance their books, the first nuke perhaps, could be an indicator of a default by someone on something.
Most insurance policies don’t cover acts of war and may not cover acts of nature.
I cannot understand really how the US & EU can be said to be insolvent when they have the largest % of production capacity in the globe.
All of this to me seems a false premise.
When you speak about the EU and U.S. having the largest production capacity in the world, did you forget that the U.S. don’t manufacture much of anything anymore, well other than war that is. Have you noticed the balance of trade figures, which goes up every month as the U.S. buys more and more and sells less and less. Take a trip from Chicago down into Indiana and you will pass the skeletons of what use to be highly productive plants, but no more as those jobs went bye bye, so the corporations could increase their profits and if the U.S. was stupid enough to cause a major war they would be out of armaments in just about three weeks, so I read. Yes we are insolvent with the trillions upon trillion we owe and more to come, in fact what we owe is just about what the entire country is worth including the livestock the rest is all mortgaged to the Asian block.
Those old plants can be brought back online and new ones built too.
No, those old plants are obsolete and so is the surrounding infrastructure around them, as far as new ones built just how long would it take 2-3-4 years or more, and just where are you going to buy all the new equipment seeing we don’t build much of anything anymore, where are you going to find the skilled people to operate the new equipment for they simply don’t exist anymore. It’s not like 1940 where every town and village had plants that the government could change over to meet the war production, those days are long gone to be replaced with what they call the rust belt which are all those plants that used to be. They closed a new chip plant in Texas for that very reason, lack of modern infrastructure and a trained work force, which should be an eye-opener of just how bad the infrastructure and the unskilled work force is not just in Texas but the entire United States.
@eye-opener of just how bad the infrastructure and the unskilled work force is not just in Texas but the entire United States.
We are ranked #1 worldwide on the video gaming charts, and that goes a long way in a kids mind, and its all about the kids these days, lets not kid ourselves.
What? Your claim re resurrecting the Rust Belt borders on delusion. Educate yourself by taking a tour through Detroit, Buffalo, Cleveland, Gary, etc. Much of these ramshackle cities belies the fact the US is even a first world country.
One must question those ‘production capacity’ stats from the past, as things are rapidly changing. The US actually ‘produces’ very little tangible export product other than weapons and food (grains) which depend on huge gov’t subsidies and are losing real competitive value (e.g. compared to Russian equivalents). The EU’s production capacity depends on enormous imports of energy and basic materials from Russia (and elsewhere). Some of their major industries are being downsized as factories shut down due to bad sanctions policy causing a lack of those imports.
When income is less than expenses then you are in trouble. Combine that with a lot of debts relative to assets, then the financial shortfall can’t be made up with more borrowing, thus insolvent. We are not insolvent right now, but our huge debt load makes us financially weak.
Western banking has created an enormous cash flow through lending at zero interest rates compounded by the rapid velocity of money. This cash flow translates into GDP which governments then tax. When velocity fell during the pandemic, governments tried to reignite it through tax rebates. But the low interest rates, supply chain disruptions, and sanctions against Russia have produced unacceptable inflation, particularly in housing markets. Raising of interest rates by central banks puts a huge spoke in the wheels that may have calamitous results. This happens when you base your economy on monetarism rather than production which the BRICS+ countries are doing.
Thanks, Pepe Escobar, for this succinct review, in its historical context, of the current geopolitical restructuring of the world. It helps greatly the laymen understand tomorrow’s world, the true new world order in the making, and above all what benefits can be derived from it, beyond crude imperialism, more particularly by the citizens of the Global South.
Once again let me repeat that your delightful sense of humour very much helps one integrate the complex overall perspective you present here.
Regards always, LR.
If there is a Global South, there should be a Global North – and there is. All of the old Russian Empire, now modern Russia and her Near Abroad – the Caucasian Islamic Nations; and along the Pacific Seaboard on the Eastern rim of this massive Northern Continent, there is China – also a member of BRICS.
So we have the beginnings of peaceful integration of the Global South, with the Global North, and the Pacific East.
And what’s left out? The place where Ancient Andean and Oriental belief has long taught Death comes from – the West!!
And it did it to itself. Perhaps we can seal off this Western Empire of Lies and War, and the rest of us get on with living peacefully together. What a wonderful thought.
I wont give up hope in the North just yet. We had the Canadian truckers as indicaction of the existence of powerful resistance. Now we have a resurgeance of the English Unions. And there is resistance around the North that suggests things could broaden and coalsce into a powerful and decisive movement.
The people are experienced, there as well as the need, the challenge to general survival, which of course is the most powerful motivation. And of course is the South suceeds that coud not possibly be bad influence on the ordinary Norh
It would be far more popcorn worthy if the new currency contained physical nickel rather than gold. The west needs nickel to wean itself off of oil. It would be much easier to get all of OPEC on board if they threw a monkey wrench into the weapon being used against the product they produce.
How will they make car batteries without nickel?
Top nickel producing countries, 7 of the top ten are nonwestern nations. Indonesia, Philippines, Russia, Brazil, China, Guatemala, Cuba.
If the west can cancel culture oil, then OPEC and cancel culture electric cars. Seems fair.
The major use of Nickel is to make stainless steel.
Internal combustion engined car batteries are made from Lead containing a pinch of Antimony.
Most batteries used in electric vehicles are lithium-ion. The minerals needed for these batteries can differ based on the chemistry of the cathodes, but lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite, and manganese are considered to be the key materials needed to make these batteries.
However, Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) battery cells will be used in all Tesla’s single-motor rear-wheel-drive vehicles.
Biden suddenly left Schloss Elmau G7 before a (boring) speech (RT), the excuse being bad weather – in German Donner & Blitzen, at the time.
That would not faze any German, such as Scholz or Leyen.
Before the Gods would destroy, first they send them to G7, and Zeus unleashes bolts!
Aside – Medvedev said Belarus gets Iskanders very soon, conventional, or nuclear.
And that Lithuania’s economy will be deprived of Oxygen for the blockade.
Next Norway blockades Russians in a Svalbard mining unit, even not EU.
In referendums we voted twice against joining EU. Still we’re members all but in name. Western democracy.
“Before the Gods would destroy, first they send them to G7”
There is a method to their madness, if we keep in mind the continuities and antagonists of History.. Satanists are highly ritualistic and predictable. The current 4th Reich is psychoemotionally and physically attached to the totems of the 3rd Reich. G7 was placed in Bavaria precisely to empower demons of the past and to commit Germany to return to those roots in the ongoing war-efforts on Russia-China and the Rest which stand opposed to the West. Bavaria was birthplace of the Illuminati. And arguably the secret religious sauce of the Nazis.
Bavaria is also home to a historic site, gifted by Martin Bormann to the Führer: Kehlsteinhaus, which stands beautifully preserved and perched right next to Switzerland. This is symmetrically on the SE of München, as Schloss Elmau is on the SW flank. These three nearly form an equilateral triangle. Distance between the two Bavarian retreats are approximately 216 km (so 6x6x6).
Eagle’s Nest, Bavaria
Kehlsteinhaus
The tipping point may be if Venezuela joins BRICS.
Good point!
Maduro did visit Turkey after Biden’s failed Summit of the America’s
https://larouchepub.com/pr/2022/20220609_maduro_in_turkey.html
“The U.S. empire intends to reach these instances to give orders, believing that Latin America and the Caribbean are the backyard of the U.S. empire. Those times have passed.”
Next two countries for BRICS are Iran and Argentina.
Argentina’s President Alberto Fernández requested BRICS membership for his country during his participation in yesterday’s BRICS+ gathering of the five BRICS nations and 13 invited heads of state and government from around the world. “We aspire to be a full member of this group of nations that already represents 42% of the world’s population and 24% of the global gross product,” Fernández said. He emphasized Argentina’s role as a major food producer, as well as its capabilities in biotechnology and logistics.
Pepe’s Intermarium reference is loaded .
Medvedev said this week Moldova EU candidate status could be accelerated by Greater Romania (lurking in the bush for years).
The pregnant question then is : Since Poland lusts after Western Galicia (Ukraine Lviv), again (It has Eastern Galicia), accelerate Ukraine’s EU bid.
Problem that leaves Banderistan, Kiev, without Galicia, Novorossiya. Maybe that is the way quarantine this streptococcus (MD’s take note).
“Since Poland lusts after Western Galicia (Ukraine Lviv), again (It has Eastern Galicia), accelerate Ukraine’s EU bid.”
I wonder if your mean “Since Poland lusts after Eastern Galicia (Ukraine Lviv), again (It has Western Galicia), accelerate Ukraine’s EU bid”?
I believe the capital of the former Western Galicia is Krakow, which has been a part of Poland again since 1918, with the exception of 1939-1945.
We are sure Pepe will find the following very significant and what is actually happening within the US $$ System. This article comes from the Italian professor, Dr. Veghi who is working at a leading university in the UK: Here is a significant portion of what he says:
“Nothing, then, prevents us from joining at least two dots. We have a free-falling economy whose predicament is barely concealed by its debt addiction and astronomical “everything bubbles”. And there is the voyeuristic spectacle of daily massacres, intentionally deprived of any meaningful sociohistorical context and fuelled by one-sided propaganda. Joining the dots means understanding that the purpose of the Ukrainian emergency is to keep the money printer switched on while blaming Putin for worldwide economic downturn.”
“The war serves the opposite aim of what we are told: not to defend Ukraine but to prolong the conflict and nourish inflation in a bid to defuse cataclysmic risk in the debt market, which would spread like wildfire across the whole financial sector. Let us not forget that the stock market is a sort of derivative of the debt market, which therefore needs to be handled with extreme care. While the “assisted suicide” of the real economy via negative supply shocks exacerbates consumer price inflation, the latter provides temporary relief to the mega debt bubble, thus postponing the crash.” http://www.philosophicalsalon.com
What he is observing is that the US Financial Apparatus is in trouble. This includes the US/EU stock markets, bonds, etc. The US is immersed in trillions of $$s worth of DEBT. The FED is spewing out billions of $$s to their super wealthy friends in the vain hope of maintaining the US Hegemonic $$s system. The FED is also perpetrating incredible amounts of inflation throughout the US, the UK, Japan and Western Europe.
Correction: http://www.thephilosophicalsalon.com
Thank you.
Greenspan argued the fed should just inflate their way out, and they have done, or had to do, just that.
This is not a mystery, what is a mystery is when and how it will end.
Inflating will cause foreign debt/bondholders to dump their holdings resulting in interest rate rises as bond prices fall and yields rise. Result = domestic chaos, and the $US fx rate also having severe moves.
Its true “end” will be when the FED is dissolved and the system is dismantled.
The BOE became debt riddled by end of WW2 and most of original owners jumped ship and got the Govt to nationalize it.
Right, but first you have to fight the Fed to the death in order to dissolve its system, this has so far been a big long drawn out fight.
Secondly either something else should take its place, which appear to be incubating, or something will have to be made to take its place, and either way quite a bit of suffering occurs in the future from the consequences of the past.
We are seeing this in the Ukraine today and I sense western Europe and beyond soon after the Ukraine winds down.
Interesting times indeed.
@Santiago
Although the Labour government of Clement Attlee tried to nationalize the Bank of England in 1946, they were unable to do so, since its headquarters on Threadneedle Street are within the boundaries of the City of London, over which the British government has no jurisdiction.
The bank is owned by “Nominees” whoever they are.
In any case, it is the privately owned banks like Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, NatWest and the Royal Bank of Scotland who create the nation’s money supply as Pounds Sterling out of thin air as compound interest bearing debt by using data entries on their computers every time they make a loan, so that no debts = no money.
One pound sterling meant one pound of silver, made up of twenty silver shillings coins, equivalent to one troy ounce of pure gold, known as a sovereign.
When can start to compare basic production of China, EU and USA of
-steel (China 52-54%, USA 3,5%, EU?)
-aluminium (China 53%, USA >1%, EU?)
-wheat (China biggest, India 2nd, Russia 3rd biggest)
-motor vehichles (China biggest)
-construction (China 3 times bigger than whole “west”)
-electricity ( China more than twice bigger than USA)
Point taken: China is the world’s dominant economic power. But we need to distinguish between production and export. I have seen different figures for some items, particularly wheat (Russia is the largest exporter). And oil is the primary source of energy, not electricity.
In a recent Telegram post, Pepe points out what the US Financial Hegemony is doing to Latin America when they refuse to toe the US line:
Ecuador is one of the most affected countries. In 2021, it sent 20% of the total volume of exported bananas to Russia (about 85 million boxes), and now there is nowhere to sell and store them. Last year, Ecuador received $706 million for exporting bananas to Russia, $142 million for shrimp, $99 million for flowers, $28 million for fish, and $17 million for coffee.
Paraguay, one of the poorest countries in Latin America, was a major exporter of cattle meat to Russia and in 2021 sent us 79,213 tons, which brought him 314 million dollars.
Brazil sold $343 million worth of soybeans to Russia last year, received $167 million for poultry meat, $133 million for coffee and $117 million for cattle meat.
As for Mexico, it sent cars, computers, beer, and tequila to Russia, and bought fertilizers. If this does not happen, agriculture will suffer losses and food will be more expensive.
With US sanctions those exports from Latin America are not taking place. The usual US stance: “We’ll more than glad to send you countries new IMF Loans, but that entails *you* cut millions of labor jobs, lower wages of the remaining jobs, and cut any social welfare for your people.
Of course, the US has been doing this for decades to Latin America; thusly, their poverty will grow even worse.
This is *why* it’s so important for all non-western nations to leave the US $$ System. If they don’t, there will be even more starvation.
Keep all eyes on these grotesque monsters in the US Financial apparatus.
Part of what Lavrov said that Pepe inserted in his article:
There is one more structure beyond the geographic borders of Eurasia.”
“It is BRICS. This association is relying less and less on the Western style of doing business, and on Western rules for international currency, financial and trade institutions. They prefer more equitable methods that do not make any processes depend on the dominant role of the dollar or some other currency.
If that is fact and not in future tense, then why is Ecuador and other Latin American nations unable to send valuable resources to Russia?
Could you explain by comparing that quote, versus what you noted on your recent Telegram post regarding some Latin American nations?
It seems “time is of the essence.” There’s little time left to get this system to operate smoothly, and not in 6 months, or even in three months time.
“The structures I mentioned (SCO, BRICS, ASEAN, EAEU and CIS) rely on consensus, mutual respect and a balance of interests, rather than a demand to accept unipolar world realities.”
Any country should be able to agree to “consensus”, “mutual respect” and “balance of interests.” If you have little of that internally, it must make it harder to have it externally well enough while other nations like China and Russia are rising and courting all the nations they can and more than ever before. The Chinese, especially, and the Russians now, have long-term economic plans. Hard to vote for politicians in the West who don’t even mention “long-term economic development,” or the existing problems that hinder it.
I disagree with this guy.
Sergey Storchak, CEO of Russian bank VEG, framed it quite diplomatically: “If the voices of emerging markets are not being heard in the coming years, we need to think very seriously about setting up a parallel regional system, or maybe a global system.”
It’s like saying “we can make neo-colonialism a a bit nicer so it lasts another 100-200 years. Otherwise something has to change.”
Well, I think most people on this forum can see the tide turned awhile back.
The battle lines for WW3 are being drawn. As peak extraction of oil is now behind us, as gas extraction is peaking now and as population size is still growing by 80 million per year, it is what one would expect, the human race fighting for what is left.
maybe Churchill just borrowed that phrase instead of coining it , https://medium.com/exploring-history/winston-churchill-didnt-originate-iron-curtain-620b87c3476e
I thought the same thing myself … regarding Churchill borrowing the expression “Iron Curtain” from Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels.
If that’s the case then Pepe’s argument is stronger; the western Tin Curtain, it turns out, is just one more thing borrowed from the Nazis: the terminology is borrowed from the Nazis, e.g., Iron Curtain; the goals are borrowed from the Nazis, e.g., the dismemberment of Russia or the ethnic cleansing of the Donbass; the political economy is borrowed from the Nazis, e.g., the prolongation of colonialism and/or western dictat of the “rules-based order” into an endless future.
vulgar removed … mod
Santiago. With no energy you have no productive capacity. Russia and the US will be the last two nations standing in this respect. All other energy importer nations will collapse before hand. Britain, where I live, has a little strategic coal reserves to fall back on and has a moat in the form of a sea round us to defend against mass migration, for a little time at least.