http://my.auburnjournal.com/detail/177164.html
Libya: It's Not About Oil, It's About Currency and Loans
By pollywog
By John Perkins, Auburn Journal, 4/26/11
WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- World Bank President Robert Zoellick Thursday said he hopes the institution will have a role rebuilding Libya as it emerges from current unrest.
Zoellick at a panel discussion noted the bank's early role in the reconstruction of France, Japan and other nations after World War II.
"Reconstruction now means (Ivory Coast), it means southern Sudan, it means Liberia, it means Sri Lanka, I hope it will mean Libya," Zoellick said.
On Ivory Coast, Zoellick said he hoped that within "a couple weeks" the bank would move forward with "some hundred millions of dollars of emergency support."( By Jeffrey Sparshott, Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES –full article here - http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/stock-market-news-story.aspx?storyid=201104141329dowjonesdjonline000551&title=world-banks-zoellickhopes-bank-will-have-role-in-libya )
We listen to U.S. spokespeople try to explain why we’re suddenly now entangled in another Middle East war. Many of us find ourselves questioning the official justifications. We are aware that the true causes of our engagement are rarely discussed in the media or by our government.
While many of the rationalizations describe resources, especially oil, as the reasons why we should be in that country, there are also an increasing number of dissenting voices. For the most part, these revolve around Libya’s financial relationship with the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), and multinational corporations.
According to the IMF, Libya’s Central Bank is 100% state owned. The IMF estimates that the bank has nearly 144 tons of gold in its vaults. It is significant that in the months running up to the UN resolution that allowed the US and its allies to send troops into Libya, Muammar al-Qaddafi was openly advocating the creation of a new currency that would rival the dollar and the euro. In fact, he called upon African and Muslim nations to join an alliance that would make this new currency, the gold dinar, their primary form of money and foreign exchange. They would sell oil and other resources to the US and the rest of the world only for gold dinars.
The US, the other G-8 countries, the World Bank, IMF, BIS, and multinational corporations do not look kindly on leaders who threaten their dominance over world currency markets or who appear to be moving away from the international banking system that favors the corporatocracy. Saddam Hussein had advocated policies similar to those expressed by Qaddafi shortly before the US sent troops into Iraq.
In my talks, I often find it necessary to remind audiences of a point that seems obvious to me but is misunderstood by so many: that the World Bank is not really a world bank at all; it is, rather a U. S. bank. Ditto, its closest sibling, the IMF. In fact, if one looks at the World Bank and IMF executive boards and the votes each member of the board has, one sees that the United States controls about 16 percent of the votes in the World Bank - (Compared with Japan at about 7%, the second largest member, China at 4.5%, Germany with 4.00%, and the United Kingdom and France with about 3.8% each), nearly 17% of the IMF votes (Compared with Japan and Germany at about 6% and UK and France at nearly 5%), and the US holds veto power over all major decisions. Furthermore, the United States President appoints the World Bank President.
So, we might ask ourselves: What happens when a “rogue” country threatens to bring the banking system that benefits the corporatocracy to its knees? What happens to an “empire” when it can no longer effectively be overtly imperialistic?
One definition of “Empire” (per my book The Secret History of the American Empire) states that an empire is a nation that dominates other nations by imposing its own currency on the lands under its control. The empire maintains a large standing military that is ready to protect the currency and the entire economic system that depends on it through extreme violence, if necessary. The ancient Romans did this. So did the Spanish and the British during their days of empire-building. Now, the US or, more to the point, the corporatocracy, is doing it and is determined to punish any individual who tries to stop them. Qaddafi is but the latest example.
Understanding the war against Quaddafi as a war in defense of empire is another step in the direction of helping us ask ourselves whether we want to continue along this path of empire-building. Or do we instead want to honor the democratic principles we are taught to believe are the foundations of our country?
History teaches that empires do not endure; they collapse or are overthrown. Wars ensue and another empire fills the vacuum. The past sends a compelling message. We must change. We cannot afford to watch history repeat itself.
Let us not allow this empire to collapse and be replaced by another. Instead, let us all vow to create a new consciousness. Let the grass-roots movements in the Middle East – fostered by the young who must live with the future and are fueled through social networks – inspire us to demand that our country, our financial institutions and the corporations that depend on us to buy their goods and services commit themselves to fashioning a world that is sustainable, just, peaceful, and prosperous for all.
We stand at the threshold. It is time for you and me to step across that threshold, to move out of the dark void of brutal exploitation and greed into the light of compassion and cooperation.
John Perkins
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Iraq, Iran and the Next Move
from STRATFOR
Iraq, Iran and the Next Move
April 26, 2011 | 0854 GMT
PRINTPRINT Text Resize:
ShareThis
Iraq, Iran and the Next Move
By George Friedman
The United States told the Iraqi government last week that if it wants U.S. troops to remain in Iraq beyond the deadline of Dec. 31, 2011, as stipulated by the current Status of Forces Agreement between Washington and Baghdad, it would have to inform the United States quickly. Unless a new agreement is reached soon, the United States will be unable to remain. The implication in the U.S. position is that a complex planning process must be initiated to leave troops there and delays will not allow that process to take place.
What is actually going on is that the United States is urging the Iraqi government to change its mind on U.S. withdrawal, and it would like Iraq to change its mind right now in order to influence some of the events taking place in the Persian Gulf. The Shiite uprising in Bahrain and the Saudi intervention, along with events in Yemen, have created an extremely unstable situation in the region, and the United States is afraid that completing the withdrawal would increase the instability.
The Iranian Rise
The American concern, of course, has to do with Iran. The United States has been unable to block Iranian influence in Iraq’s post-Baathist government. Indeed, the degree to which the Iraqi government is a coherent entity is questionable, and its military and security forces have limited logistical and planning ability and are not capable of territorial defense. The issue is not the intent of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who himself is enigmatic. The problem is that the coalition that governs Iraq is fragmented and still not yet finalized, dominated by Iranian proxies such Muqtada al-Sadr — and it only intermittently controls the operations of the ministries under it, or the military and security forces.
As such, Iraq is vulnerable to the influence of any substantial power, and the most important substantial power following the withdrawal of the United States will be Iran. There has been much discussion of the historic tension between Iraqi Shia and Iranian Shia, all of which is true. But Iran has been systematically building its influence in Iraq among all factions using money, blackmail and ideology delivered by a sophisticated intelligence service. More important, as the United States withdraws, Iraqis, regardless of their feelings toward Iran (those Iraqis who haven’t always felt this way), are clearly sensing that resisting Iran is dangerous and accommodation with Iran is the only solution. They see Iran as the rising power in the region, and that perception is neither unreasonable nor something to which the United States or Saudi Arabia has an easy counter.
The Iraqi government’s response to the American offer has been predictable. While some quietly want the United States to remain, the general response has ranged from dismissal to threats if the United States did not leave. Given that the United States has reportedly offered to leave as many as 20,000 troops in a country that 170,000 American troops could not impose order on, the Iraqi perception is that this is merely a symbolic presence and that endorsing it would get Iraq into trouble with Iran, which has far more than 20,000 troops and ever-present intelligence services. It is not clear that the Iraqis were ever prepared to allow U.S. troops to remain, but 20,000 is enough to enrage Iran and not enough to deal with the consequences.
The American assumption in deciding to leave Iraq — and this goes back to George W. Bush as well as Barack Obama — was that over the course of four years, the United States would be able to leave because it would have created a coherent government and military. The United States underestimated the degree to which fragmentation in Iraq would prevent that outcome and the degree to which Iranian influence would undermine the effort. The United States made a pledge to the American public and a treaty with the Iraqi government to withdraw forces, but the conditions that were expected to develop simply did not.
Not coincidentally, the withdrawal of American forces has coincided with tremendous instability in the region, particularly on the Arabian Peninsula. All around the periphery of Saudi Arabia an arc of instability has emerged. It is not that the Iranians engineered it, but they have certainly taken advantage of it. As a result, Saudi Arabia is in a position where it has had to commit forces in Bahrain, is standing by in Yemen, and is even concerned about internal instability given the rise of both reform-minded and Shiite elements at a time of unprecedented transition given the geriatric state of the country’s top four leaders. Iran has certainly done whatever it could to exacerbate this instability, which fits neatly into the Iraqi situation.
As the United States leaves Iraq, Iran expects to increase its influence there. Iran normally acts cautiously even while engaged in extreme rhetoric. Therefore, it is unlikely to send conventional forces into Iraq. Indeed, it might not be necessary to do so in order to gain a dominant political position. Nor is it inconceivable that the Iranians could decide to act more aggressively. With the United States gone, the risks decline.
Saudi Arabia’s Problem
The country that could possibly counter Iran in Iraq is Saudi Arabia, which has been known to funnel money to Sunni groups there. Its military is no match for Iran’s in a battle for Iraq, and its influence there has been less than Iran’s among most groups. More important, as the Saudis face the crisis on their periphery they are diverted and preoccupied by events to the east and south. The unrest in the region, therefore, increases the sense of isolation of some Iraqis and increases their vulnerability to Iran. Thus, given that Iraq is Iran’s primary national security concern, the events in the Persian Gulf work to Iran’s advantage.
The United States previously had an Iraq question. That question is being answered, and not to the American advantage. Instead, what is emerging is a Saudi Arabian question. Saudi Arabia currently is clearly able to handle unrest within its borders. It has also been able to suppress the Shia in Bahrain — for now, at least. However, its ability to manage its southern periphery with Yemen is being tested, given that the regime in Sanaa was already weakened by multiple insurgencies and is now being forced from office after more than 30 years in power. If the combined pressure of internal unrest, turmoil throughout the region and Iranian manipulation continues, the stress on the Saudis could become substantial.
The basic problem the Saudis face is that they don’t know the limits of their ability (which is not much beyond their financial muscle) to manage the situation. If they miscalculate and overextend, they could find themselves in an untenable position. Therefore, the Saudis must be conservative. They cannot afford miscalculation. From the Saudi point of view, the critical element is a clear sign of long-term American commitment to the regime. American support for the Saudis in Bahrain has been limited, and the United States has not been aggressively trying to manage the situation in Yemen, given its limited ability to shape an outcome there. Coupled with the American position on Iraq, which is that it will remain only if asked — and then only with limited forces — the Saudis are clearly not getting the signals they want from the United States. In fact, what further worsens the Saudi position is that they cannot overtly align with the United States for their security needs. Nevertheless, they also have no other option. Exploiting this Saudi dilemma is a key part of the Iranian strategy.
The smaller countries of the Arabian Peninsula, grouped with Saudi Arabia in the Gulf Cooperation Council, have played the role of mediator in Yemen, but ultimately they lack the force needed by a credible mediator — a potential military option to concentrate the minds of the negotiating parties. For that, they need the United States.
It is in this context that the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, will be visiting Washington on April 26. The UAE is one of the few countries on the Arabian Peninsula that has not experienced significant unrest. As such, it has emerged as one of the politically powerful entities in the region. We obviously cannot know what the UAE is going to ask the United States for, but we would be surprised if it wasn’t for a definitive sign that the United States was prepared to challenge the Iranian rise in the region.
The Saudis will be watching the American response very carefully. Their national strategy has been to uncomfortably rely on the United States. If the United States is seen as unreliable, the Saudis have only two options. One is to hold their position and hope for the best. The other is to reach out and see if some accommodation can be made with Iran. The tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia — religious, cultural, economic and political — are profound. But in the end, the Iranians want to be the dominant power in the Persian Gulf, defining economic, political and military patterns.
On April 18, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s adviser for military affairs, Maj. Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi, warned Saudi Arabia that it, too, could be invaded on the same pretext that the kingdom sent forces into Bahrain to suppress a largely Shiite rising there. Then, on April 23, the commander of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jaafari, remarked that Iran’s military might was stronger than that of Saudi Arabia and reminded the United States that its forces in the region were within range of Tehran’s weapons. Again, the Iranians are not about to make any aggressive moves, and such statements are intended to shape perception and force the Saudis to capitulate on the negotiating table.
The Saudis want regime survival above all else. Deciding between facing Iran alone or reaching an unpleasant accommodation, the Saudis have little choice. We would guess that one of the reasons the UAE is reaching out to Obama is to try to convince him of the dire consequences of inaction and to move the United States into a more active role.
A Strategy of Neglect
The Obama administration appears to have adopted an increasingly obvious foreign policy. Rather than simply attempt to control events around the world, the administration appears to have selected a policy of careful neglect. This is not, in itself, a bad strategy. Neglect means that allies and regional powers directly affected by the problem will take responsibility for the problem. Most problems resolve themselves without the need of American intervention. If they don’t, the United States can consider its posture later. Given that the world has become accustomed to the United States as first responder, other countries have simply waited for the American response. We have seen this in Libya, where the United States has tried to play a marginal role. Conceptually, this is not unsound.
The problem is that this will work only when regional powers have the weight to deal with the problem and where the outcome is not crucial to American interests. Again, Libya is an almost perfect example of this. However, the Persian Gulf is an area of enormous interest to the United States because of oil. Absent the United States, the regional forces will not be able to contain Iran. Therefore, applying this strategy to the Persian Gulf creates a situation of extreme risk for the United States.
Re-engagement in Iraq on a level that would deter Iran is not a likely option, not only because of the Iraqi position but also because the United States lacks the force needed to create a substantial deterrence that would not be attacked and worn down by guerrillas. Intruding in the Arabian Peninsula itself is dangerous for a number reasons, ranging from the military challenge to the hostility an American presence could generate. A pure naval and air solution lacks the ability to threaten Iran’s center of gravity, its large ground force.
Therefore, the United States is in a difficult position. It cannot simply decline engagement nor does it have the ability to engage at this moment — and it is this moment that matters. Nor does it have allies outside the region with the resources and appetite for involvement. That leaves the United States with the Saudi option — negotiate with Iran, a subject I’ve written on before. This is not an easy course, nor a recommended one, but when all other options are gone, you go with what you have.
The pressure from Iran is becoming palpable. All of the Arab countries feel it, and whatever their feelings about the Persians, the realities of power are what they are. The UAE has been sent to ask the United States for a solution. It is not clear the United States has one. When we ask why the price of oil is surging, the idea of geopolitical risk does come to mind. It is not a foolish speculation.
Read more: Iraq, Iran and the Next Move | STRATFOR
Iraq, Iran and the Next Move
April 26, 2011 | 0854 GMT
PRINTPRINT Text Resize:
ShareThis
Iraq, Iran and the Next Move
By George Friedman
The United States told the Iraqi government last week that if it wants U.S. troops to remain in Iraq beyond the deadline of Dec. 31, 2011, as stipulated by the current Status of Forces Agreement between Washington and Baghdad, it would have to inform the United States quickly. Unless a new agreement is reached soon, the United States will be unable to remain. The implication in the U.S. position is that a complex planning process must be initiated to leave troops there and delays will not allow that process to take place.
What is actually going on is that the United States is urging the Iraqi government to change its mind on U.S. withdrawal, and it would like Iraq to change its mind right now in order to influence some of the events taking place in the Persian Gulf. The Shiite uprising in Bahrain and the Saudi intervention, along with events in Yemen, have created an extremely unstable situation in the region, and the United States is afraid that completing the withdrawal would increase the instability.
The Iranian Rise
The American concern, of course, has to do with Iran. The United States has been unable to block Iranian influence in Iraq’s post-Baathist government. Indeed, the degree to which the Iraqi government is a coherent entity is questionable, and its military and security forces have limited logistical and planning ability and are not capable of territorial defense. The issue is not the intent of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who himself is enigmatic. The problem is that the coalition that governs Iraq is fragmented and still not yet finalized, dominated by Iranian proxies such Muqtada al-Sadr — and it only intermittently controls the operations of the ministries under it, or the military and security forces.
As such, Iraq is vulnerable to the influence of any substantial power, and the most important substantial power following the withdrawal of the United States will be Iran. There has been much discussion of the historic tension between Iraqi Shia and Iranian Shia, all of which is true. But Iran has been systematically building its influence in Iraq among all factions using money, blackmail and ideology delivered by a sophisticated intelligence service. More important, as the United States withdraws, Iraqis, regardless of their feelings toward Iran (those Iraqis who haven’t always felt this way), are clearly sensing that resisting Iran is dangerous and accommodation with Iran is the only solution. They see Iran as the rising power in the region, and that perception is neither unreasonable nor something to which the United States or Saudi Arabia has an easy counter.
The Iraqi government’s response to the American offer has been predictable. While some quietly want the United States to remain, the general response has ranged from dismissal to threats if the United States did not leave. Given that the United States has reportedly offered to leave as many as 20,000 troops in a country that 170,000 American troops could not impose order on, the Iraqi perception is that this is merely a symbolic presence and that endorsing it would get Iraq into trouble with Iran, which has far more than 20,000 troops and ever-present intelligence services. It is not clear that the Iraqis were ever prepared to allow U.S. troops to remain, but 20,000 is enough to enrage Iran and not enough to deal with the consequences.
The American assumption in deciding to leave Iraq — and this goes back to George W. Bush as well as Barack Obama — was that over the course of four years, the United States would be able to leave because it would have created a coherent government and military. The United States underestimated the degree to which fragmentation in Iraq would prevent that outcome and the degree to which Iranian influence would undermine the effort. The United States made a pledge to the American public and a treaty with the Iraqi government to withdraw forces, but the conditions that were expected to develop simply did not.
Not coincidentally, the withdrawal of American forces has coincided with tremendous instability in the region, particularly on the Arabian Peninsula. All around the periphery of Saudi Arabia an arc of instability has emerged. It is not that the Iranians engineered it, but they have certainly taken advantage of it. As a result, Saudi Arabia is in a position where it has had to commit forces in Bahrain, is standing by in Yemen, and is even concerned about internal instability given the rise of both reform-minded and Shiite elements at a time of unprecedented transition given the geriatric state of the country’s top four leaders. Iran has certainly done whatever it could to exacerbate this instability, which fits neatly into the Iraqi situation.
As the United States leaves Iraq, Iran expects to increase its influence there. Iran normally acts cautiously even while engaged in extreme rhetoric. Therefore, it is unlikely to send conventional forces into Iraq. Indeed, it might not be necessary to do so in order to gain a dominant political position. Nor is it inconceivable that the Iranians could decide to act more aggressively. With the United States gone, the risks decline.
Saudi Arabia’s Problem
The country that could possibly counter Iran in Iraq is Saudi Arabia, which has been known to funnel money to Sunni groups there. Its military is no match for Iran’s in a battle for Iraq, and its influence there has been less than Iran’s among most groups. More important, as the Saudis face the crisis on their periphery they are diverted and preoccupied by events to the east and south. The unrest in the region, therefore, increases the sense of isolation of some Iraqis and increases their vulnerability to Iran. Thus, given that Iraq is Iran’s primary national security concern, the events in the Persian Gulf work to Iran’s advantage.
The United States previously had an Iraq question. That question is being answered, and not to the American advantage. Instead, what is emerging is a Saudi Arabian question. Saudi Arabia currently is clearly able to handle unrest within its borders. It has also been able to suppress the Shia in Bahrain — for now, at least. However, its ability to manage its southern periphery with Yemen is being tested, given that the regime in Sanaa was already weakened by multiple insurgencies and is now being forced from office after more than 30 years in power. If the combined pressure of internal unrest, turmoil throughout the region and Iranian manipulation continues, the stress on the Saudis could become substantial.
The basic problem the Saudis face is that they don’t know the limits of their ability (which is not much beyond their financial muscle) to manage the situation. If they miscalculate and overextend, they could find themselves in an untenable position. Therefore, the Saudis must be conservative. They cannot afford miscalculation. From the Saudi point of view, the critical element is a clear sign of long-term American commitment to the regime. American support for the Saudis in Bahrain has been limited, and the United States has not been aggressively trying to manage the situation in Yemen, given its limited ability to shape an outcome there. Coupled with the American position on Iraq, which is that it will remain only if asked — and then only with limited forces — the Saudis are clearly not getting the signals they want from the United States. In fact, what further worsens the Saudi position is that they cannot overtly align with the United States for their security needs. Nevertheless, they also have no other option. Exploiting this Saudi dilemma is a key part of the Iranian strategy.
The smaller countries of the Arabian Peninsula, grouped with Saudi Arabia in the Gulf Cooperation Council, have played the role of mediator in Yemen, but ultimately they lack the force needed by a credible mediator — a potential military option to concentrate the minds of the negotiating parties. For that, they need the United States.
It is in this context that the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, will be visiting Washington on April 26. The UAE is one of the few countries on the Arabian Peninsula that has not experienced significant unrest. As such, it has emerged as one of the politically powerful entities in the region. We obviously cannot know what the UAE is going to ask the United States for, but we would be surprised if it wasn’t for a definitive sign that the United States was prepared to challenge the Iranian rise in the region.
The Saudis will be watching the American response very carefully. Their national strategy has been to uncomfortably rely on the United States. If the United States is seen as unreliable, the Saudis have only two options. One is to hold their position and hope for the best. The other is to reach out and see if some accommodation can be made with Iran. The tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia — religious, cultural, economic and political — are profound. But in the end, the Iranians want to be the dominant power in the Persian Gulf, defining economic, political and military patterns.
On April 18, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s adviser for military affairs, Maj. Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi, warned Saudi Arabia that it, too, could be invaded on the same pretext that the kingdom sent forces into Bahrain to suppress a largely Shiite rising there. Then, on April 23, the commander of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jaafari, remarked that Iran’s military might was stronger than that of Saudi Arabia and reminded the United States that its forces in the region were within range of Tehran’s weapons. Again, the Iranians are not about to make any aggressive moves, and such statements are intended to shape perception and force the Saudis to capitulate on the negotiating table.
The Saudis want regime survival above all else. Deciding between facing Iran alone or reaching an unpleasant accommodation, the Saudis have little choice. We would guess that one of the reasons the UAE is reaching out to Obama is to try to convince him of the dire consequences of inaction and to move the United States into a more active role.
A Strategy of Neglect
The Obama administration appears to have adopted an increasingly obvious foreign policy. Rather than simply attempt to control events around the world, the administration appears to have selected a policy of careful neglect. This is not, in itself, a bad strategy. Neglect means that allies and regional powers directly affected by the problem will take responsibility for the problem. Most problems resolve themselves without the need of American intervention. If they don’t, the United States can consider its posture later. Given that the world has become accustomed to the United States as first responder, other countries have simply waited for the American response. We have seen this in Libya, where the United States has tried to play a marginal role. Conceptually, this is not unsound.
The problem is that this will work only when regional powers have the weight to deal with the problem and where the outcome is not crucial to American interests. Again, Libya is an almost perfect example of this. However, the Persian Gulf is an area of enormous interest to the United States because of oil. Absent the United States, the regional forces will not be able to contain Iran. Therefore, applying this strategy to the Persian Gulf creates a situation of extreme risk for the United States.
Re-engagement in Iraq on a level that would deter Iran is not a likely option, not only because of the Iraqi position but also because the United States lacks the force needed to create a substantial deterrence that would not be attacked and worn down by guerrillas. Intruding in the Arabian Peninsula itself is dangerous for a number reasons, ranging from the military challenge to the hostility an American presence could generate. A pure naval and air solution lacks the ability to threaten Iran’s center of gravity, its large ground force.
Therefore, the United States is in a difficult position. It cannot simply decline engagement nor does it have the ability to engage at this moment — and it is this moment that matters. Nor does it have allies outside the region with the resources and appetite for involvement. That leaves the United States with the Saudi option — negotiate with Iran, a subject I’ve written on before. This is not an easy course, nor a recommended one, but when all other options are gone, you go with what you have.
The pressure from Iran is becoming palpable. All of the Arab countries feel it, and whatever their feelings about the Persians, the realities of power are what they are. The UAE has been sent to ask the United States for a solution. It is not clear the United States has one. When we ask why the price of oil is surging, the idea of geopolitical risk does come to mind. It is not a foolish speculation.
Read more: Iraq, Iran and the Next Move | STRATFOR
Raw Intelligence Report: A View from Syria
from STRATFOR
Raw Intelligence Report: A View from Syria
April 25, 2011 | 1904 GMT
PRINTPRINT Text Resize:
ShareThis
Raw Intelligence Report: A View from Syria
-/AFP/Getty Images
Syrian protesters march in the northeastern town of Qamishli on April 1
Related Link
* Protests Spread in Syria
Editor’s Note: What follows is raw insight from a STRATFOR source in Syria. The following does not reflect STRATFOR’s view, but provides a perspective on the situation in Syria.
People are scared. An understatement, no doubt, but my friends — both foreign and Syrian — are worried about the developments. Almost all of my foreign friends are leaving and many have moved departing flights up in light of the recent events. Most Syrians don’t have this option and are weighing their options should sustained protests move to inner Damascus. Everyone is thinking along their sect even if they aren’t open about it. Much of the violence is attributed by Syrians to these mysterious “armed gangs.” Many are still placing hope in “Habibna” (literally “Our Love,” a nickname for the president) to bring about enough reforms to placate the demonstrators. A point that I was forced to make over and over is that a lot of the people protesting are doing so because someone they knew was killed and not because they were anti-government, although they are now. Privately, my Syrian friends admitted that Bashar [al Assad, the Syrian president] needs to make some major, major concessions quickly or risk continued protests and bloodshed of which would be attributed to him and not merely “the regime.”
By now we are all familiar with the cycle of protests reaching their high point on Fridays, after prayers. This Friday, however, was different for Syrians. Having seen the infamous emergency law lifted, albeit with serious caveats, Syrians were hoping for a relaxing of the security responses to the demonstrations. What they got was half as many demonstrators killed in one day as in all the days of demonstrations preceding it combined. It was almost as if things had been safer when the emergency law had been in effect. (On a side note, my friend guessed that maybe two out of every 100 Syrians could actually tell you what the emergency law was.) What was most striking about the demonstrations was that there were two in Damascus itself (Midan on Friday, April 22, and Berze on Saturday, April 23). While not in the city center these are by no means the far suburbs and countryside of Daraa or Douma. There were also protests in Muadamiyeh, which is right outside town next to the main bus station. I’ve heard that tanks along this road were seen April 24 pointing their guns not in the direction of the road but toward the city. The regime and everyone is terrified about protests in the city itself.
You could see the depression in the air on Saturday. Everyone knew that those killed from the day before would be having large funerals today and that those gatherings would likely be attacked as well. My Christian friends were especially worried due to rumors that churches were going to be bombed on Easter. As my friend put it, “I know they’re just rumors but I’m afraid they [the security apparatus] might actually do it.”
What is becoming increasingly apparent is that Bashar is not the reformer he claimed to be. His words are not being met by real, concrete action. Even though he might have wanted to reform and may have been hampered by others in the regime (cousin Rami Makhlouf, brother Maher), these efforts are steadily losing traction. The regime seems to be playing by “Hama rules” in its response to the demonstrations and it’s unlikely that this is happening without Bashar’s full consent at this point. The most positive assessment of him I heard was that he still wanted true reforms (although nothing game-changing) but that he was growing impatient with the demonstrators. One person conjectured that Bashar’s mistake was promising reforms when he first came to power. “If he hadn’t promised ‘reforms’ and not delivered on them people wouldn’t be so mad. He shouldn’t have said anything and given everyone false hope or actually followed through on them.”
Support for the protests is mixed. Many of those out in the streets are there because someone close to them was killed. Think tribal mentality: I wasn’t mad at you before but you killed my cousin/brother/friend and now I am mad. People are gathering to defend their honor. There is almost no organization inside Syria among the protesters. I asked several people and they agreed that the Muslim Brotherhood was almost non-present in the country. All that is coordinated is information being leaked out about the responses by the security forces against the protesters. As I told my friend, the problem is that unlike in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, all the demonstrators are dispersed across the country and do not have enough time to talk to each other to decide what they wanted. There is also a fairly widely held belief that much of the killings are taking place as a result of these armed gangs firing on security forces and innocents being caught in the crossfire. Some are quick to blame “foreign conspirators” although several of my friends admitted that whatever meddling by Abdul Halim Khaddam (the former Syrian vice president) and Rifaat al Assad (the president’s uncle living in exile in the United Kingdom) was minimal. Both of these guys have very, very little support on the ground and while the Muslim Brotherhood might have some latent support among Sunnis, they would not be welcome by any of the minorities in Syria.
At this point the regime is going to have to go Hama-style if it wants to completely shut down the protests, otherwise it will have to make some major concessions like multiparty elections and presidential term limits, which the regime won’t accept. From what I’ve heard is going on today it looks like the regime is opting to play it Hama-style.
Read more: Raw Intelligence Report: A View from Syria | STRATFOR
Raw Intelligence Report: A View from Syria
April 25, 2011 | 1904 GMT
PRINTPRINT Text Resize:
ShareThis
Raw Intelligence Report: A View from Syria
-/AFP/Getty Images
Syrian protesters march in the northeastern town of Qamishli on April 1
Related Link
* Protests Spread in Syria
Editor’s Note: What follows is raw insight from a STRATFOR source in Syria. The following does not reflect STRATFOR’s view, but provides a perspective on the situation in Syria.
People are scared. An understatement, no doubt, but my friends — both foreign and Syrian — are worried about the developments. Almost all of my foreign friends are leaving and many have moved departing flights up in light of the recent events. Most Syrians don’t have this option and are weighing their options should sustained protests move to inner Damascus. Everyone is thinking along their sect even if they aren’t open about it. Much of the violence is attributed by Syrians to these mysterious “armed gangs.” Many are still placing hope in “Habibna” (literally “Our Love,” a nickname for the president) to bring about enough reforms to placate the demonstrators. A point that I was forced to make over and over is that a lot of the people protesting are doing so because someone they knew was killed and not because they were anti-government, although they are now. Privately, my Syrian friends admitted that Bashar [al Assad, the Syrian president] needs to make some major, major concessions quickly or risk continued protests and bloodshed of which would be attributed to him and not merely “the regime.”
By now we are all familiar with the cycle of protests reaching their high point on Fridays, after prayers. This Friday, however, was different for Syrians. Having seen the infamous emergency law lifted, albeit with serious caveats, Syrians were hoping for a relaxing of the security responses to the demonstrations. What they got was half as many demonstrators killed in one day as in all the days of demonstrations preceding it combined. It was almost as if things had been safer when the emergency law had been in effect. (On a side note, my friend guessed that maybe two out of every 100 Syrians could actually tell you what the emergency law was.) What was most striking about the demonstrations was that there were two in Damascus itself (Midan on Friday, April 22, and Berze on Saturday, April 23). While not in the city center these are by no means the far suburbs and countryside of Daraa or Douma. There were also protests in Muadamiyeh, which is right outside town next to the main bus station. I’ve heard that tanks along this road were seen April 24 pointing their guns not in the direction of the road but toward the city. The regime and everyone is terrified about protests in the city itself.
You could see the depression in the air on Saturday. Everyone knew that those killed from the day before would be having large funerals today and that those gatherings would likely be attacked as well. My Christian friends were especially worried due to rumors that churches were going to be bombed on Easter. As my friend put it, “I know they’re just rumors but I’m afraid they [the security apparatus] might actually do it.”
What is becoming increasingly apparent is that Bashar is not the reformer he claimed to be. His words are not being met by real, concrete action. Even though he might have wanted to reform and may have been hampered by others in the regime (cousin Rami Makhlouf, brother Maher), these efforts are steadily losing traction. The regime seems to be playing by “Hama rules” in its response to the demonstrations and it’s unlikely that this is happening without Bashar’s full consent at this point. The most positive assessment of him I heard was that he still wanted true reforms (although nothing game-changing) but that he was growing impatient with the demonstrators. One person conjectured that Bashar’s mistake was promising reforms when he first came to power. “If he hadn’t promised ‘reforms’ and not delivered on them people wouldn’t be so mad. He shouldn’t have said anything and given everyone false hope or actually followed through on them.”
Support for the protests is mixed. Many of those out in the streets are there because someone close to them was killed. Think tribal mentality: I wasn’t mad at you before but you killed my cousin/brother/friend and now I am mad. People are gathering to defend their honor. There is almost no organization inside Syria among the protesters. I asked several people and they agreed that the Muslim Brotherhood was almost non-present in the country. All that is coordinated is information being leaked out about the responses by the security forces against the protesters. As I told my friend, the problem is that unlike in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, all the demonstrators are dispersed across the country and do not have enough time to talk to each other to decide what they wanted. There is also a fairly widely held belief that much of the killings are taking place as a result of these armed gangs firing on security forces and innocents being caught in the crossfire. Some are quick to blame “foreign conspirators” although several of my friends admitted that whatever meddling by Abdul Halim Khaddam (the former Syrian vice president) and Rifaat al Assad (the president’s uncle living in exile in the United Kingdom) was minimal. Both of these guys have very, very little support on the ground and while the Muslim Brotherhood might have some latent support among Sunnis, they would not be welcome by any of the minorities in Syria.
At this point the regime is going to have to go Hama-style if it wants to completely shut down the protests, otherwise it will have to make some major concessions like multiparty elections and presidential term limits, which the regime won’t accept. From what I’ve heard is going on today it looks like the regime is opting to play it Hama-style.
Read more: Raw Intelligence Report: A View from Syria | STRATFOR
Monday, April 25, 2011
China and the End of the Deng Dynasty
from STRATFOR
China and the End of the Deng Dynasty
April 19, 2011 | 0855 GMT
PRINTPRINT Text Resize:
ShareThis
Bahrain and the Battle Between Iran and Saudi Arabia
By Matthew Gertken and Jennifer Richmond
Beijing has become noticeably more anxious than usual in recent months, launching one of the more high-profile security campaigns to suppress political dissent since the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989. Journalists, bloggers, artists, Christians and others have been arrested or have disappeared in a crackdown prompted by fears that foreign forces and domestic dissidents have hatched any number of “Jasmine” gatherings inspired by recent events in the Middle East. More remarkable than the small, foreign-coordinated protests, however, has been the state’s aggressive and erratic reaction to them.
Meanwhile, the Chinese economy has maintained a furious pace of credit-fueled growth despite authorities’ repeated claims of working to slow growth down to prevent excessive inflation and systemic financial risks. The government’s cautious approach to fighting inflation has emboldened local governments and state companies, which benefit from rapid growth. Yet the risk to socio-political stability posed by inflation, expected to peak in springtime, has provoked a gradually tougher stance. The government thus faces twin perils of economic overheating on one side and overcorrection on the other, either of which could trigger an outburst of social unrest — and both of which have led to increasingly erratic policymaking.
These security and economic challenges are taking place at a time when the transition from the so-called fourth generation of leaders to the fifth generation in 2012 is under way. The transition has heightened disagreements over economic policy and insecurities over social stability, further complicating attempts to coordinate effective policy. Yet something deeper is driving the Communist Party of China’s (CPC’s) anxiety and heavy-handed security measures: the need to transform the country’s entire economic model, which carries hazards that the Party fears will jeopardize its very legitimacy.
Deng’s Model
Former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping is well known for launching China’s emergence from Mao’s Cultural Revolution and inaugurating the rise of a modern, internationally oriented economic giant. Deng’s model rested on three pillars.
The first was economic pragmatism, allowing for capitalist-style incentives domestically and channels for international trade. Deng paved the way for a growth boom that would provide employment and put an end to the preceding decade of civil strife. The CPC’s legitimacy thus famously became linked to the country’s economic success rather than to ideological zeal and class warfare.
The second pillar was a foreign policy of cooperation. The lack of emphasis on political ideology opened space for international maneuver, with economic cooperation the basis for new relationships. This gave enormous impetus to the Sino-American detente Nixon and Mao initiated. In Deng’s words, China would maintain a low profile and avoid taking the lead. China would remain unobtrusive to befriend and do business with almost any country — as long as it recognized Beijing as the one and only China.
The third pillar was the primacy of the CPC’s system. Reform of the political system along the lines of Western countries could be envisioned, but in practice would be deferred. That the reform process in no way would be allowed to undermine Party supremacy was sealed after the mass protests at Tiananmen, which the military crushed after a dangerous intra-Party struggle. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the People’s Armed Police would serve as Deng’s “Great Wall of steel” protecting the Party from insurrection.
For three decades, Deng’s model remained mostly intact. Though important modifications and shifts occurred, the general framework stands because Chinese-style capitalism and partnership with the United States have served the country well. Deng also secured his policy by establishing a succession plan: He was instrumental in setting up his immediate successor, Jiang Zemin, and Jiang’s successor, current President Hu Jintao.
Hu’s policies have not differed widely in practice from Deng’s. China’s response to the global economic crisis in 2008 revealed that Hu sought recourse to the same export- and investment-driven growth as his predecessors. Hu’s plans of boosting household consumption have failed, the economy is more off-balance than ever, and the interior remains badly in need of development. But along the general lines of Deng’s policy, the country has continued to grow and stay out of major conflict with the United States and others, and the Party has maintained indisputable control.
Emergent Challenges
Unprecedented challenges to Deng’s model have emerged in recent years. These are not challenges involving individuals; rather, they come from changes in the Chinese and international systems.
First, more clearly than ever, China’s economic model is in need of restructuring. Economic crisis and its aftermath in the developed world have caused a shortfall in foreign demand, and rising costs of labor and raw materials are eroding China’s comparative advantage even as its export sector and industries have built up extraordinary overcapacity.
Theoretically, the answer has been to boost household consumption and rebalance growth — the Hu administration’s policy — but this plan carries extreme hazards if aggressively pursued. If consumption cannot be generated quickly enough to pick up the slack — and it cannot within the decade period that China’s leaders envision — then growth will slow sharply and unemployment will rise. These would be serious threats to the CPC, the legitimacy of which rests on providing growth. Hence, the attempt at economic transition has hardly begun.
Not coincidentally, movements have arisen that seek to restore the Party’s legitimacy to a basis not of economics but of political power. Hu’s faction, rooted in the Chinese Communist Youth League (CCYL), has a doctrine of wealth redistribution and Party orientation. It is set to expand its control when the sixth generation of leaders arrives. This trend also exists on the other side of the factional divide. Bo Xilai, the popular Party chief in Chongqing, is a “princeling.” Princelings are the children of Communist revolutionaries, who often receive prized positions in state leadership, large state-owned enterprises and the military. This group is expected to gain the advantage in the core leadership after the 2012 transition. Bo made himself popular by striking down organized-crime leaders who had grown rich and powerful from new money and by bribing officials. Bo’s campaign of nostalgia for the Mao era, including singing revolutionary songs and launching a “Red microblog” on the Internet, has proved hugely popular. It also has added an unusual degree of public support to his bid for a spot on the Politburo Standing Committee in 2012. Both sides appeal to the inherent value of the Party, rather than its role as economic steward, for justification.
The second challenge to Deng’s legacy has arisen from the military’s growing self-confidence and confrontational attitude toward foreign rivals, a stance popular with an increasingly nationalist domestic audience. The foreign policy of inoffensiveness for the sake of commerce thus has been challenged from within. Vastly more dependent on foreign natural resources, and yet insecure over prices and vulnerability of supply lines, China has turned to the PLA to take a greater role in protecting its global interests, especially in the maritime realm. As a result, the PLA has become more forceful in driving its policies.
In recent years, China has pushed harder on territorial claims and more staunchly defended partners like North Korea, Iran, Pakistan and Myanmar. This trend, especially observable throughout 2010, has alarmed China’s neighbors and the United States. The PLA is not the only institution that seems increasingly bold. Chinese government officials and state companies have also caused worry among foreigners. But the military acting this way sends a particularly strong signal abroad.
And third, Deng’s avoidance of political reform may be becoming harder to maintain. The stark disparities in wealth and public services between social classes and regions have fueled dissatisfaction. Arbitrary power, selective enforcement of the law, official and corporate corruption, and other ills have gnawed at public content, giving rise to more and more frequent incidents and outbursts. The social fabric has been torn, and leaders fear that it could ignite with widespread unrest. Simultaneously, rising education, incomes and new forms of social organization like non-governmental organizations and the Internet have given rise to greater demands and new means of coordination among dissidents or opposition movements.
In this atmosphere, Premier Wen Jiabao has become outspoken, calling for the Party to pursue political reforms in keeping with economic reforms. Wen’s comments contain just enough ambiguity to suggest that he is promoting substantial change and diverging from the Party, though in fact he may intend them only to pacify people by preserving hope for changes in the unspecified future. Regardless, it is becoming harder for the Party to maintain economic development without addressing political grievances. Political changes seem necessary not only for the sake of pursuing oft-declared plans to unleash household consumption and domestic innovation and services, but also to ease social discontent. The Party realizes that reform is inevitable, but questions how to do it while retaining control. The possibility that the Party could split on the question of political reform, as happened in the 1980s, thus has re-emerged.
These new challenges to the Deng approach reveal a rising uncertainty in China about whether his solutions are adequate to secure the country’s future. Essentially, the rise of Maoist nostalgia, the princelings’ glorification of their Communist bloodline and the CCYL’s promotion of ideology and wealth redistribution imply a growing fear that the economic transition may fail, and that the Party therefore may need a more deeply layered security presence to control society at all levels and a more ideological basis for the legitimacy of its rule. Meanwhile, a more assertive military implies growing fears that a foreign policy of meekness and amiability is insufficient to protect China’s access to foreign trade from those who feel threatened by China’s rising power, such as Japan, India or the United States. Finally, a more strident premier in favor of political reform suggests fear that growing demands for political change will lead to upheaval unless they are addressed and alleviated.
Containing the Risks
These emerging trends have not become predominant yet. At this moment, Beijing is struggling to contain these challenges to the status quo within the same cycle of tightening and loosening control that has characterized the past three decades. Though the cycle is still recognizable, the fluctuations are widening — and the policy reactions are becoming more sudden and extreme.
The country is continuing to pursue the same path of economic development, even sacrificing more ambitious rebalancing to re-emphasize, in the 2011-15 Five-Year Plan, what are basically the traditional methods of growth. These include massive credit expansion fueling large-scale infrastructure expansion and technology upgrades for the export-oriented manufacturing sector, all provided for by transferring wealth from depositors to state-owned corporations and local governments. Modifications to the status quo have been slight, and radical transformation of the overall growth model has not yet borne fruit.
In 2011, China’s leaders also have signaled a swing away from last year’s foreign policy assertiveness. Hu and Obama met in Washington in January and declared a thaw in relations. Recently, Hu announced a “new security concept” for the region. He said that cooperation and peaceful negotiation remain official Chinese policy, and that China respects the “presence and interests” of outsiders in the region, a new and significant comment in light of the U.S. re-engagement with the region. The United States has approved China’s backpedaling, saying the Chinese navy has been less assertive this year than the last, and Washington has since toned down its own threats. China’s retreat is not permanent, and none of its neighbors have forgotten its more threatening side. But China has signaled an attempt to diminish tensions, as it has done in the past, to avoid provoking real trouble abroad (while focusing on troubles at home) for the time being.
Finally, the security crackdown under way since February — part of a longer trend of security tightening since at least 2008, but with remarkable new elements — shows that the state remains committed to Deng’s general deferral of political reform, choosing strict social control instead.
The Deng model thus has not yet been dismantled. But the new currents of military assertiveness, ideological zeal and demand for political reform have revealed not only differences in vision among the elite, but a rising concern among them for their positions ahead of the leadership transition. Sackings and promotions already are accelerating. Unorthodox trends suggest that leaders and institutions are hedging political bets to protect themselves, their interests and their cliques in case the economic transition goes wrong or foreigners take advantage of China’s vulnerabilities, or ideological division and social revolt threaten the Party. And this betrays deep uncertainties.
The Gravity of 2012
As the jockeying for power ahead of the 2012 transition has already begun in earnest, signs of vacillating and conflicting policy directives suggest that the regime is in a constant state of policy adjustment to try to avoid an extreme shift in one direction or another. Tensions are rising between leaders as they try to secure their positions without upsetting the balance and jeopardizing a smooth transfer of power. The government’s arrests of dissidents underline its fear of these growing tensions, as well as its sharp reactions to threats that could disrupt the transition or cause broader instability. Everything is in flux, and the cracks in the system are widening.
One major question is how long the Party will be able to maintain the current high level of vigilance without triggering a backlash. The government effectively has silenced critics deemed possible of fomenting a larger movement. The masses have yet to rally in significant numbers in a coordinated way that could threaten the state. But the regime has responded disproportionately to the organizational capabilities that the small Jasmine protests demonstrated, and has extended this magnified response to a number of otherwise-familiar spontaneous protests and incidents of unrest.
As security becomes more oppressive in the lead up to the transition — with any easing of control unlikely before then or even in the following year as the new government seeks to consolidate power — the heavy hand of the state runs the risk of provoking exactly the type of incident it hopes to prevent. Excessive brutality, or a high-profile mistake or incident that acts as a catalyst, could spark spontaneous domestic protests with the potential to spread.
Contrasting Deng’s situation with Hu’s is illuminating. When Deng sought to step down, his primary challenges were how to loosen economic control, how to create a foreign policy conducive to trade, and how to forestall democratic challenges to the regime. He also had to leverage his prestige in the military and Party to establish a reliable succession plan from Jiang to Hu that would set the country on a prosperous path.
As Hu seeks to step down, his challenges are to prevent economic overheating, counter any humiliating turn in foreign affairs such as greater U.S. pressure, and forestall unrest from economic left-behinds, migrants or other aggrieved groups. Hu cannot allow the Party (or his legacy) to be damaged by mass protests or economic collapse on his watch. Yet, like Jiang, he has to control the process without having Deng’s prestige among the military ranks and without a succession plan clad in Deng’s armor.
More challenging still, he has to do so without a solid succession plan. Hu is the last Chinese leader Deng directly appointed. It is not clear whether China’s next generation of leaders will augment Deng’s theory, or discard it. But it is clear that China is taking on a challenge much greater than a change in president or administration. It is an existential crisis, and the regime has few choices: continue delaying change even if it means a bigger catastrophe in the future; undertake wrenching economic and political reforms that might risk regime survival; or retrench and sacrifice the economy to maintain CPC rule and domestic security. China has already waded deep into a total economic transformation unlike anything since 1978, and at the greatest risk to the Party’s legitimacy since 1989. The emerging trends suggest a likely break from Deng’s position toward heavier state intervention in the economy, more contentious relationships with neighbors, and a Party that rules primarily through ideology and social control.
Read more: China and the End of the Deng Dynasty | STRATFOR
China and the End of the Deng Dynasty
April 19, 2011 | 0855 GMT
PRINTPRINT Text Resize:
ShareThis
Bahrain and the Battle Between Iran and Saudi Arabia
By Matthew Gertken and Jennifer Richmond
Beijing has become noticeably more anxious than usual in recent months, launching one of the more high-profile security campaigns to suppress political dissent since the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989. Journalists, bloggers, artists, Christians and others have been arrested or have disappeared in a crackdown prompted by fears that foreign forces and domestic dissidents have hatched any number of “Jasmine” gatherings inspired by recent events in the Middle East. More remarkable than the small, foreign-coordinated protests, however, has been the state’s aggressive and erratic reaction to them.
Meanwhile, the Chinese economy has maintained a furious pace of credit-fueled growth despite authorities’ repeated claims of working to slow growth down to prevent excessive inflation and systemic financial risks. The government’s cautious approach to fighting inflation has emboldened local governments and state companies, which benefit from rapid growth. Yet the risk to socio-political stability posed by inflation, expected to peak in springtime, has provoked a gradually tougher stance. The government thus faces twin perils of economic overheating on one side and overcorrection on the other, either of which could trigger an outburst of social unrest — and both of which have led to increasingly erratic policymaking.
These security and economic challenges are taking place at a time when the transition from the so-called fourth generation of leaders to the fifth generation in 2012 is under way. The transition has heightened disagreements over economic policy and insecurities over social stability, further complicating attempts to coordinate effective policy. Yet something deeper is driving the Communist Party of China’s (CPC’s) anxiety and heavy-handed security measures: the need to transform the country’s entire economic model, which carries hazards that the Party fears will jeopardize its very legitimacy.
Deng’s Model
Former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping is well known for launching China’s emergence from Mao’s Cultural Revolution and inaugurating the rise of a modern, internationally oriented economic giant. Deng’s model rested on three pillars.
The first was economic pragmatism, allowing for capitalist-style incentives domestically and channels for international trade. Deng paved the way for a growth boom that would provide employment and put an end to the preceding decade of civil strife. The CPC’s legitimacy thus famously became linked to the country’s economic success rather than to ideological zeal and class warfare.
The second pillar was a foreign policy of cooperation. The lack of emphasis on political ideology opened space for international maneuver, with economic cooperation the basis for new relationships. This gave enormous impetus to the Sino-American detente Nixon and Mao initiated. In Deng’s words, China would maintain a low profile and avoid taking the lead. China would remain unobtrusive to befriend and do business with almost any country — as long as it recognized Beijing as the one and only China.
The third pillar was the primacy of the CPC’s system. Reform of the political system along the lines of Western countries could be envisioned, but in practice would be deferred. That the reform process in no way would be allowed to undermine Party supremacy was sealed after the mass protests at Tiananmen, which the military crushed after a dangerous intra-Party struggle. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the People’s Armed Police would serve as Deng’s “Great Wall of steel” protecting the Party from insurrection.
For three decades, Deng’s model remained mostly intact. Though important modifications and shifts occurred, the general framework stands because Chinese-style capitalism and partnership with the United States have served the country well. Deng also secured his policy by establishing a succession plan: He was instrumental in setting up his immediate successor, Jiang Zemin, and Jiang’s successor, current President Hu Jintao.
Hu’s policies have not differed widely in practice from Deng’s. China’s response to the global economic crisis in 2008 revealed that Hu sought recourse to the same export- and investment-driven growth as his predecessors. Hu’s plans of boosting household consumption have failed, the economy is more off-balance than ever, and the interior remains badly in need of development. But along the general lines of Deng’s policy, the country has continued to grow and stay out of major conflict with the United States and others, and the Party has maintained indisputable control.
Emergent Challenges
Unprecedented challenges to Deng’s model have emerged in recent years. These are not challenges involving individuals; rather, they come from changes in the Chinese and international systems.
First, more clearly than ever, China’s economic model is in need of restructuring. Economic crisis and its aftermath in the developed world have caused a shortfall in foreign demand, and rising costs of labor and raw materials are eroding China’s comparative advantage even as its export sector and industries have built up extraordinary overcapacity.
Theoretically, the answer has been to boost household consumption and rebalance growth — the Hu administration’s policy — but this plan carries extreme hazards if aggressively pursued. If consumption cannot be generated quickly enough to pick up the slack — and it cannot within the decade period that China’s leaders envision — then growth will slow sharply and unemployment will rise. These would be serious threats to the CPC, the legitimacy of which rests on providing growth. Hence, the attempt at economic transition has hardly begun.
Not coincidentally, movements have arisen that seek to restore the Party’s legitimacy to a basis not of economics but of political power. Hu’s faction, rooted in the Chinese Communist Youth League (CCYL), has a doctrine of wealth redistribution and Party orientation. It is set to expand its control when the sixth generation of leaders arrives. This trend also exists on the other side of the factional divide. Bo Xilai, the popular Party chief in Chongqing, is a “princeling.” Princelings are the children of Communist revolutionaries, who often receive prized positions in state leadership, large state-owned enterprises and the military. This group is expected to gain the advantage in the core leadership after the 2012 transition. Bo made himself popular by striking down organized-crime leaders who had grown rich and powerful from new money and by bribing officials. Bo’s campaign of nostalgia for the Mao era, including singing revolutionary songs and launching a “Red microblog” on the Internet, has proved hugely popular. It also has added an unusual degree of public support to his bid for a spot on the Politburo Standing Committee in 2012. Both sides appeal to the inherent value of the Party, rather than its role as economic steward, for justification.
The second challenge to Deng’s legacy has arisen from the military’s growing self-confidence and confrontational attitude toward foreign rivals, a stance popular with an increasingly nationalist domestic audience. The foreign policy of inoffensiveness for the sake of commerce thus has been challenged from within. Vastly more dependent on foreign natural resources, and yet insecure over prices and vulnerability of supply lines, China has turned to the PLA to take a greater role in protecting its global interests, especially in the maritime realm. As a result, the PLA has become more forceful in driving its policies.
In recent years, China has pushed harder on territorial claims and more staunchly defended partners like North Korea, Iran, Pakistan and Myanmar. This trend, especially observable throughout 2010, has alarmed China’s neighbors and the United States. The PLA is not the only institution that seems increasingly bold. Chinese government officials and state companies have also caused worry among foreigners. But the military acting this way sends a particularly strong signal abroad.
And third, Deng’s avoidance of political reform may be becoming harder to maintain. The stark disparities in wealth and public services between social classes and regions have fueled dissatisfaction. Arbitrary power, selective enforcement of the law, official and corporate corruption, and other ills have gnawed at public content, giving rise to more and more frequent incidents and outbursts. The social fabric has been torn, and leaders fear that it could ignite with widespread unrest. Simultaneously, rising education, incomes and new forms of social organization like non-governmental organizations and the Internet have given rise to greater demands and new means of coordination among dissidents or opposition movements.
In this atmosphere, Premier Wen Jiabao has become outspoken, calling for the Party to pursue political reforms in keeping with economic reforms. Wen’s comments contain just enough ambiguity to suggest that he is promoting substantial change and diverging from the Party, though in fact he may intend them only to pacify people by preserving hope for changes in the unspecified future. Regardless, it is becoming harder for the Party to maintain economic development without addressing political grievances. Political changes seem necessary not only for the sake of pursuing oft-declared plans to unleash household consumption and domestic innovation and services, but also to ease social discontent. The Party realizes that reform is inevitable, but questions how to do it while retaining control. The possibility that the Party could split on the question of political reform, as happened in the 1980s, thus has re-emerged.
These new challenges to the Deng approach reveal a rising uncertainty in China about whether his solutions are adequate to secure the country’s future. Essentially, the rise of Maoist nostalgia, the princelings’ glorification of their Communist bloodline and the CCYL’s promotion of ideology and wealth redistribution imply a growing fear that the economic transition may fail, and that the Party therefore may need a more deeply layered security presence to control society at all levels and a more ideological basis for the legitimacy of its rule. Meanwhile, a more assertive military implies growing fears that a foreign policy of meekness and amiability is insufficient to protect China’s access to foreign trade from those who feel threatened by China’s rising power, such as Japan, India or the United States. Finally, a more strident premier in favor of political reform suggests fear that growing demands for political change will lead to upheaval unless they are addressed and alleviated.
Containing the Risks
These emerging trends have not become predominant yet. At this moment, Beijing is struggling to contain these challenges to the status quo within the same cycle of tightening and loosening control that has characterized the past three decades. Though the cycle is still recognizable, the fluctuations are widening — and the policy reactions are becoming more sudden and extreme.
The country is continuing to pursue the same path of economic development, even sacrificing more ambitious rebalancing to re-emphasize, in the 2011-15 Five-Year Plan, what are basically the traditional methods of growth. These include massive credit expansion fueling large-scale infrastructure expansion and technology upgrades for the export-oriented manufacturing sector, all provided for by transferring wealth from depositors to state-owned corporations and local governments. Modifications to the status quo have been slight, and radical transformation of the overall growth model has not yet borne fruit.
In 2011, China’s leaders also have signaled a swing away from last year’s foreign policy assertiveness. Hu and Obama met in Washington in January and declared a thaw in relations. Recently, Hu announced a “new security concept” for the region. He said that cooperation and peaceful negotiation remain official Chinese policy, and that China respects the “presence and interests” of outsiders in the region, a new and significant comment in light of the U.S. re-engagement with the region. The United States has approved China’s backpedaling, saying the Chinese navy has been less assertive this year than the last, and Washington has since toned down its own threats. China’s retreat is not permanent, and none of its neighbors have forgotten its more threatening side. But China has signaled an attempt to diminish tensions, as it has done in the past, to avoid provoking real trouble abroad (while focusing on troubles at home) for the time being.
Finally, the security crackdown under way since February — part of a longer trend of security tightening since at least 2008, but with remarkable new elements — shows that the state remains committed to Deng’s general deferral of political reform, choosing strict social control instead.
The Deng model thus has not yet been dismantled. But the new currents of military assertiveness, ideological zeal and demand for political reform have revealed not only differences in vision among the elite, but a rising concern among them for their positions ahead of the leadership transition. Sackings and promotions already are accelerating. Unorthodox trends suggest that leaders and institutions are hedging political bets to protect themselves, their interests and their cliques in case the economic transition goes wrong or foreigners take advantage of China’s vulnerabilities, or ideological division and social revolt threaten the Party. And this betrays deep uncertainties.
The Gravity of 2012
As the jockeying for power ahead of the 2012 transition has already begun in earnest, signs of vacillating and conflicting policy directives suggest that the regime is in a constant state of policy adjustment to try to avoid an extreme shift in one direction or another. Tensions are rising between leaders as they try to secure their positions without upsetting the balance and jeopardizing a smooth transfer of power. The government’s arrests of dissidents underline its fear of these growing tensions, as well as its sharp reactions to threats that could disrupt the transition or cause broader instability. Everything is in flux, and the cracks in the system are widening.
One major question is how long the Party will be able to maintain the current high level of vigilance without triggering a backlash. The government effectively has silenced critics deemed possible of fomenting a larger movement. The masses have yet to rally in significant numbers in a coordinated way that could threaten the state. But the regime has responded disproportionately to the organizational capabilities that the small Jasmine protests demonstrated, and has extended this magnified response to a number of otherwise-familiar spontaneous protests and incidents of unrest.
As security becomes more oppressive in the lead up to the transition — with any easing of control unlikely before then or even in the following year as the new government seeks to consolidate power — the heavy hand of the state runs the risk of provoking exactly the type of incident it hopes to prevent. Excessive brutality, or a high-profile mistake or incident that acts as a catalyst, could spark spontaneous domestic protests with the potential to spread.
Contrasting Deng’s situation with Hu’s is illuminating. When Deng sought to step down, his primary challenges were how to loosen economic control, how to create a foreign policy conducive to trade, and how to forestall democratic challenges to the regime. He also had to leverage his prestige in the military and Party to establish a reliable succession plan from Jiang to Hu that would set the country on a prosperous path.
As Hu seeks to step down, his challenges are to prevent economic overheating, counter any humiliating turn in foreign affairs such as greater U.S. pressure, and forestall unrest from economic left-behinds, migrants or other aggrieved groups. Hu cannot allow the Party (or his legacy) to be damaged by mass protests or economic collapse on his watch. Yet, like Jiang, he has to control the process without having Deng’s prestige among the military ranks and without a succession plan clad in Deng’s armor.
More challenging still, he has to do so without a solid succession plan. Hu is the last Chinese leader Deng directly appointed. It is not clear whether China’s next generation of leaders will augment Deng’s theory, or discard it. But it is clear that China is taking on a challenge much greater than a change in president or administration. It is an existential crisis, and the regime has few choices: continue delaying change even if it means a bigger catastrophe in the future; undertake wrenching economic and political reforms that might risk regime survival; or retrench and sacrifice the economy to maintain CPC rule and domestic security. China has already waded deep into a total economic transformation unlike anything since 1978, and at the greatest risk to the Party’s legitimacy since 1989. The emerging trends suggest a likely break from Deng’s position toward heavier state intervention in the economy, more contentious relationships with neighbors, and a Party that rules primarily through ideology and social control.
Read more: China and the End of the Deng Dynasty | STRATFOR
Damning New Study: Eco Bulbs Cause Cancer
Damning New Study: Eco Bulbs Cause Cancer
*
The Alex Jones Channel Alex Jones Show podcast Prison Planet TV Infowars.com Twitter Alex Jones' Facebook Infowars store
Americans will be forced to use CFLs that contain poisonous carcinogens after government ban on traditional light bulb begins to take effect in January
Damning New Study: Eco Bulbs Cause Cancer 200411top
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
A damning new study conducted by German scientists has found that so-called energy saving light bulbs contain poisonous carcinogens that could cause cancer and should be “kept as far away as possible from the human environment,” but Americans will be forced to replace their traditional light bulbs with toxic CFLs ahead of a government ban set to take effect at the start of next year.
“German scientists claimed that several carcinogenic chemicals and toxins were released when the environmentally-friendly compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) were switched on, including phenol, naphthalene and styrene,” reports the London Telegraph.
The study, conducted by Peter Braun at the Berlin’s Alab Laboratory, led the scientists involved to warn that the bulbs should only be used sparingly, in areas with good ventilation, and “definitely not in the proximity of the head,” due to the danger of the electrical smog the bulbs generate impacting human health.
That’s going to cause difficulties for Americans who will be forced to buy the bulbs following a government ban on traditional incandescent lighting that comes into effect on January 1, 2012.
A 2007 bill signed in to law by President George W. Bush mandates that, “Manufacturers will no longer be able to make the 100-watt Thomas Edison bulb after Jan. 1, 2012, followed by the 75-watt version in Jan. 2013, and the the 60- and 40-watt bulbs in Jan. 2014.”
The legislation mirrors similar laws in Europe, where incandescent bulbs began to be phased out in 2009. The EU also plans to ban halogen bulbs by 2016, forcing people to use compact fluorescent lamps, or CFLs, which produce a poor quality of light with an attendant flicker affect that causes many people to become dizzy and ill.
Ron Paul is amongst those leading a charge in Congress to repeal the draconian state phase out of Thomas Edison’s iconic invention. The Freedom Action group has also launched a national campaign to repeal the ban. Last week, the South Carolina House passed a bill overturning the ban and similar legislation is in the works in Texas, Georgia and Minnesota.
“It is my strong belief that the feds have overstepped the 10th Amendment and now are venturing into telling us what kind of lighting we can have in our homes and businesses,” Republican Rep. Bill Sandifer said in a statement after the House passed his legislation. “This bill is about taking a stand against government intrusion in our everyday lives. I am championing this bill because I believe that we must fight for limited government, personal freedoms, and the free market.”
Forcing Americans to buy CFL bulbs that are harmful to their health and the environment is completely unconstitutional. Indeed, in a similar vein to forcing Americans to buy mandatory health insurance under Obamacare, it’s a clear violation of the Commerce Clause.
The so-called “dirty energy” emitted by CFLs produces radiation that has been linked with migraine headaches, sleep abnormalities, fatigue, and other health defects.
The new German study adds to concerns raised by separate research conducted by Abraham Haim, a professor of biology at Haifa University in Israel, who found that the light emitted by CFL’s increased the chance of women getting breast cancer by disrupting the body’s production of the hormone melatonin.
CFLs are also more harmful to the environment because they are filled with toxic mercury that contaminates the environment when the bulbs reach the landfill.
“A report released in 2008 from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection revealed that when a CFL bulb is broken, it can release dangerously high levels of mercury into the air,” writes Ethan Huff.
“In Toronto, city officials require people to dispose of CFL bulbs at special hazardous waste facilities because they don’t want the city’s landfills to become contaminated with mercury. While used CFL bulbs are not legally recognized as hazardous waste, they are treated as such because they pose serious environmental threats when broken and released into the environment.”
Americans have begun stockpiling dwindling supplies of incandescent light bulbs as the 2012 ban nears.
The light bulb ban is a foretaste of what’s to come as the enforcement arm of the eco-fascist agenda unfolds. As we have documented, enviro-Nazis envisage a future world in which car use will be heavily restricted, CO2 emissions will be rationed, meat will be considered a rare delicacy, the state will decide your career, and only the mega-rich elitists enforcing all these new rules and regulations will be exempt from them.
Indeed, as Rand Paul recently highlighted, the light bulb ban mirrors the collectivist dictatorship fictionalized in Ayn Rand’s dystopic novel Anthem, where the elite decides to replace light bulbs with candles as part of its purge of individual choice.
“There’s a young man and his name is Equality,” explained U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican and tea party favorite, at a recent energy hearing in Washington where he talked about the book. “[The character] is an intelligent young man but he is banned from achieving or reaching any sort of occupation that would challenge him. He is a street sweeper.”
“Over time, he discovers an abandoned subway and rediscovers the incandescent light bulb,” Paul continued. “And he thinks, naively, that electricity and the brilliance of light would be an advantage for society and that it would bring great new things as far as being able to see at night, being able to read and the advancement of civilization.”
“He takes it before the collective of elders, and they take the light bulb, and basically it’s crushed beneath the boot heel of the collective,” Paul went on. “The collective has no place basically for individual choice.”
*
The Alex Jones Channel Alex Jones Show podcast Prison Planet TV Infowars.com Twitter Alex Jones' Facebook Infowars store
Americans will be forced to use CFLs that contain poisonous carcinogens after government ban on traditional light bulb begins to take effect in January
Damning New Study: Eco Bulbs Cause Cancer 200411top
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
A damning new study conducted by German scientists has found that so-called energy saving light bulbs contain poisonous carcinogens that could cause cancer and should be “kept as far away as possible from the human environment,” but Americans will be forced to replace their traditional light bulbs with toxic CFLs ahead of a government ban set to take effect at the start of next year.
“German scientists claimed that several carcinogenic chemicals and toxins were released when the environmentally-friendly compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) were switched on, including phenol, naphthalene and styrene,” reports the London Telegraph.
The study, conducted by Peter Braun at the Berlin’s Alab Laboratory, led the scientists involved to warn that the bulbs should only be used sparingly, in areas with good ventilation, and “definitely not in the proximity of the head,” due to the danger of the electrical smog the bulbs generate impacting human health.
That’s going to cause difficulties for Americans who will be forced to buy the bulbs following a government ban on traditional incandescent lighting that comes into effect on January 1, 2012.
A 2007 bill signed in to law by President George W. Bush mandates that, “Manufacturers will no longer be able to make the 100-watt Thomas Edison bulb after Jan. 1, 2012, followed by the 75-watt version in Jan. 2013, and the the 60- and 40-watt bulbs in Jan. 2014.”
The legislation mirrors similar laws in Europe, where incandescent bulbs began to be phased out in 2009. The EU also plans to ban halogen bulbs by 2016, forcing people to use compact fluorescent lamps, or CFLs, which produce a poor quality of light with an attendant flicker affect that causes many people to become dizzy and ill.
Ron Paul is amongst those leading a charge in Congress to repeal the draconian state phase out of Thomas Edison’s iconic invention. The Freedom Action group has also launched a national campaign to repeal the ban. Last week, the South Carolina House passed a bill overturning the ban and similar legislation is in the works in Texas, Georgia and Minnesota.
“It is my strong belief that the feds have overstepped the 10th Amendment and now are venturing into telling us what kind of lighting we can have in our homes and businesses,” Republican Rep. Bill Sandifer said in a statement after the House passed his legislation. “This bill is about taking a stand against government intrusion in our everyday lives. I am championing this bill because I believe that we must fight for limited government, personal freedoms, and the free market.”
Forcing Americans to buy CFL bulbs that are harmful to their health and the environment is completely unconstitutional. Indeed, in a similar vein to forcing Americans to buy mandatory health insurance under Obamacare, it’s a clear violation of the Commerce Clause.
The so-called “dirty energy” emitted by CFLs produces radiation that has been linked with migraine headaches, sleep abnormalities, fatigue, and other health defects.
The new German study adds to concerns raised by separate research conducted by Abraham Haim, a professor of biology at Haifa University in Israel, who found that the light emitted by CFL’s increased the chance of women getting breast cancer by disrupting the body’s production of the hormone melatonin.
CFLs are also more harmful to the environment because they are filled with toxic mercury that contaminates the environment when the bulbs reach the landfill.
“A report released in 2008 from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection revealed that when a CFL bulb is broken, it can release dangerously high levels of mercury into the air,” writes Ethan Huff.
“In Toronto, city officials require people to dispose of CFL bulbs at special hazardous waste facilities because they don’t want the city’s landfills to become contaminated with mercury. While used CFL bulbs are not legally recognized as hazardous waste, they are treated as such because they pose serious environmental threats when broken and released into the environment.”
Americans have begun stockpiling dwindling supplies of incandescent light bulbs as the 2012 ban nears.
The light bulb ban is a foretaste of what’s to come as the enforcement arm of the eco-fascist agenda unfolds. As we have documented, enviro-Nazis envisage a future world in which car use will be heavily restricted, CO2 emissions will be rationed, meat will be considered a rare delicacy, the state will decide your career, and only the mega-rich elitists enforcing all these new rules and regulations will be exempt from them.
Indeed, as Rand Paul recently highlighted, the light bulb ban mirrors the collectivist dictatorship fictionalized in Ayn Rand’s dystopic novel Anthem, where the elite decides to replace light bulbs with candles as part of its purge of individual choice.
“There’s a young man and his name is Equality,” explained U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican and tea party favorite, at a recent energy hearing in Washington where he talked about the book. “[The character] is an intelligent young man but he is banned from achieving or reaching any sort of occupation that would challenge him. He is a street sweeper.”
“Over time, he discovers an abandoned subway and rediscovers the incandescent light bulb,” Paul continued. “And he thinks, naively, that electricity and the brilliance of light would be an advantage for society and that it would bring great new things as far as being able to see at night, being able to read and the advancement of civilization.”
“He takes it before the collective of elders, and they take the light bulb, and basically it’s crushed beneath the boot heel of the collective,” Paul went on. “The collective has no place basically for individual choice.”
50 Factors Launching Gold
http://www.kitco.com/ind/willie/apr192011.html
50 Factors Launching Gold
By Jim Willie CB
Apr 19 2011 2:52PM
www.GoldenJackass.com
Use the above link to subscribe to the paid research reports, which include coverage of critically important factors at work during the ongoing panicky attempt to sustain an unsustainable system burdened by numerous imbalances aggravated by global village forces. An historically unprecedented mess has been created by compromised central bankers and inept economic advisors, whose interference has irreversibly altered and damaged the world financial system, urgently pushed after the removed anchor of money to gold. Analysis features Gold, Crude Oil, USDollar, Treasury bonds, and inter-market dynamics with the US Economy and US Federal Reserve monetary policy.
Edification is not the word that comes to mind when observing an interview with Larry Fink of Blackstone this morning on network financial news. It was inspirational if not humorous, and somewhat pathetic. Of course the interviewer treated him like royalty, when just a syndicate captain, a Made Man. As a cog within the US financial hierarchy, he was asked why Gold is approaching record price levels near $1500 per ounce. He gave his best 10-second answer, showing no depth of comprehension but an excellent grip of propaganda laced with simplistic distortion. He said, "GOLD IS RISING FROM ALL THE GLOBAL INSTABILITY, AND NOT FROM INFLATION AT ALL." Sounds good, but it lacks much reflection of the world of reality burdened by complexity and interconnectivity that the enlightened perceive. At least he did not babble about Gold being in an asset bubble. It cannot, since Gold is money. It is curious that all the analysts, bankers, fund managers, corporate chieftains who did not advise on Gold investment over the last ten years are precisely whom the financial network news appeals to for guidance in the current monster Gold bull run. They knew nothing before, and they know nothing now. The major US news networks carry the Obama water while the USCongressional members carry the USBanker robes and show respect with genuflection before the priests. But guys like Fink are their harlot squires. Poor Ben Bernanke, despite his high priest position, does not gather a fraction of respect that Alan Greenspan did even though Alan presided over the collapse. The wild card possibly later this year or 2012 will be a national movement to force mandatory wage gains, and thus avert a national economic collapse. The squeeze is on in a powerful manner to both businesses and households.
ANOTHER STRONG GOLD BREAKOUT
As long as Quantitative Easing programs are in place and actively pursued, Gold & Silver prices will soar. The programs are urged by exploding budget deficits and absent USTBond demand. That translates to a ruined USDollar currency. Gold & Silver respond to the debasement and ruin. Efforts will become ridiculously stretched to save the USDollar, but will fail. QE will go global and secretive, assuring tremendous additional gains in the Gold & Silver price. No effort to liquidate the big USbanks will occur, thus assuring the process will continue until systemic breakdown then failure. The more extraordinary the measures to save the embattled insolvent fraudulent USDollar, the more the Gold & Silver price will soar. It is that simple. Gold & Silver will soar as long as central banks continue to put monetary inflation machinery to work. They are attempting to provide artificial but coordinated USTreasury Bond demand. In the process their efforts will continue to push the cost structure up further. In my view, since the Japan natural disaster hit with financial fallout, the Global QE is very much in effect, but not recognized as a global phenomenon. It pushes up Gold in uniform fashion worldwide.
50 FACTORS POWERING THE GOLD BULL
1. USFed is stuck at 0% for over two years and printing $1.7 trillion in Quantitative Easing, otherwise called monetary hyper inflation. They are not finished destroying both money and capital.
2. USFed tripled its balance sheet, with over half of it bonds of exaggerated value, while it gobbled up toxic mortgage bonds as buyer of last resort. The mortgage bonds have turned worthless. The USFed waits for a housing revival to bail itself out, but it will not arrive.
3. Debt monetization has gone haywire, as over 70% of USTBond sales from the USFed printing press. The QE was urgently needed, since legitimate buyers vanished. Even the primary dealers have been reimbursed in open market operations within a few weeks.
4. PIMCO has shed its entire USTreasury Bond holdings, seeing no value. They joined many foreign creditors in an unannounced buyer boycott in disgusted reaction to QE which is essentially a compulsory unilateral debt writedown.
5. Growing USGovt deficits have run over $1.5 trillion annually, with absent cuts, obscene entitlements, endless war. The prevailing short-term 0% interest rates are out of synch with exploding debt supply and rising price inflation.
6. Unfunded USGovt liabilities total nearly $100 trillion for medicare, social security, pensions, and more. The obligations are never included in the official debt. It represents insult to injury within insolvency.
7. Standard & Poors warned that USGovt could lose AAA rating in lousy credit outlook, one chance in three within the next two years. Ironically, the announcement came on the day when the USGovt exceeded its debt limit. The network news missed it.
8. State & Municipal debt have collapsed, as 41 states have huge shortfalls, and four large states are broken. They might receive a federal bailout. It could be called QE3, maybe QE4.
9. Coordinated USTBond purchases from Japanese sales have relieved the USFed, as other major central banks act as global monetarist agents. The sales by Japan are vast and growing. Witness the last phase in unwind of Yen Carry Trade, where 0% borrowed Japanese money funded the USTreasury Bonds and US Stocks.
10. Quantitative Easing, a catch word for extreme monetary inflation and debt monetization, has become engrained into global central bank policy, soon hidden. It is so controversial and deadly to the global financial structures that it will go hidden, and attempt to avoid the furious anger in feedback by global leaders. This is the most important and powerful of all 50 factors in my view.
11. The FedFunds Rate is stuck near 0%, yet the actual CPI is near 10%, for a real rate of interest of minus 9%. Historically a negative real rate of interest has been the primary fuel for a Gold bull. This time the fuel has been applied for a longer period of time, and a bigger negative real rate than ever.
12. The USGovt claims to have 8000 tons of Gold in reserve, but it is all in Deep Storage, as in unmined ore bodies. The collateral for the USDollar and USTreasury debt is vacant. It is in raw form like in the Rocky Mountain range or Sierra Nevada range.
13. Fast rising food prices, fast rising gasoline prices, and fast rising metals, coffee, sugar, and cotton serve as testament to broad price inflation. So far it has shown up on the cost structure. Either the business sector will vanish from a cost squeeze or pass on higher costs as end product and service price increases.
14. The entire world seeks to protect wealth from the ravages of inflation & the American sponsored QE by buying Gold & Silver. The rest of the world can spot price inflation more effectively than the US population. The United States is subjected to the world's broadest and most pervasive propaganda in the industrialized world.
15. The European sovereign debt breakdown with high bond yields in PIIGS nations points out the broken debt foundation to the monetary system. The solutions like with Greece in May 2010 were a sham, nothing but a bandaid and cup of elixir. Spain is next to experience major shocks that destabilize all of Europe again, this time much bigger than Greece. The Portuguese Govt debt rises toward 10% on the 10-year yield, while the Greek Govt debt has risen to reach 20% on the 2-year yield.
16. Germany is pushing for Southern Europe bank climax in their Euro Central Bank rate hike. Europe will be pushed to crisis this year, orchestrated by the impatient and angry Germans. They have no more appetitive for $300 to $400 billion in annual welfare to the broken nations in Southern Europe.
17. Isolation of the USFed and Bank of England and Bank of Japan has come. The small rate hike by the European Central Bank separated them finally. The Anglos with their Japanese lackeys are the only central banks not raising rates. With isolation comes all the earmarks on the path to the Third World.
18. The shortage of gold is acute, as 51 million gold bars have been sold forward versus the 11 million held by the COMEX in inventory. Be sure that hundreds of millions of nonexistent fractionalized gold ounces are polluting the system. Word is getting out that the COMEX is empty of precious metals.
19. Such extreme Silver shortage has befallen the COMEX that the corrupted metals exchange routinely offers cash settlement in silver with a 25% bonus if a non-disclosure agreement is signed. The practice cannot be kept under wraps, as some hedge funds push for fat returns in under two months holding positions with delivery demanded.
20. China has begun grand initiatives to replace its precious metal stockpiles. They are pursuing the Yuan currency to become a global reserve currency. As they build collateral for the Yuan, they are also elevating Silver as reserves asset.
21. A global shortage of Gold & Silver has been realized in national mint production. From the United States to Canada to Australia to Germany, shortages exist. Many interruptions will continue amidst the shortages, which feed the publicity.
22. The Teddy Roosevelt stockpile of 6 billion Silver ounces was depleted in 2003. He saw the strategic importance of Silver for industrial and military applications. The USEconomy and USMilitary will turn into importers on the global market.
23. The betrayal of China by USGovt in Gold & Silver leases is a story coming out slowly. The deal was cut in 1999, associated with Most Favored Nation granted to China. But the Wall Street firms broke the deal, betrayed the Chinese, and angered them into highly motivated action. No longer are the Chinese big steady USTBond buyers, part of the deal also.
24. Every single US financial market has been undermined and corrupted from grotesque intervention, constant props, and fraudulent activity. The degradation has occurred under the watchful eyes of compromised regulators. Fraud like the Flash Crash and NYSE front running by Goldman Sachs is protected by the FBI henchmen.
25. The USEconomy operates on a global credit card, enabling it to live beyond its means. The USGovt exploits the compulsory foreign extension of credit in USTBonds, by virtue of the USDollar acting as global reserve currency. Foreign nations are compelled to participate but that is changing.
26. The USMilitary conducts endless war adventures for syndicate profits. They use the USTreasury Bond as a credit card. The wars cost of $1 billion per day is considered so sacred, that it is off the table in USGovt budget call negotiations, debates, and agreements.
27. Narcotics funds have proliferated under the USMilitary aegis. The vertically integrated narcotics industry is the primary plank of nation building in Afghanistan. The funds keep the big US banks alive from vast money laundering.
28. No big US bank liquidations have occurred, despite their deep insolvency. Any restructure toward recovery would have the liquidations are the first step. The USEconomy is stuck in a deteriorating swamp since the Too Big To Fail mantra prevents the urgent but missing step.
29. The unprosecuted multi-$trillion bond fraud over the last decade has harmed the US image, prestige, and leadership. The main perpetrators are the Wall Street bankers and their lieutenants appointed at Fannie Mae and elsewhere. They bankers most culpable remain in charge at the USDept Treasury and other key supporting posts like the FDIC, SEC, and CFTC.
30. The ugly daughters Fannie Mae and AIG are forever entombed in the USGovt. They operate as black hole expenses whose fraud must be contained. The costs involved are in the $trillions, all hidden from view like the fraud. Fannie Mae remains the main clearinghouse for several $trillion fraud programs still in operation.
31. The US banking system cannot serve as an effective credit engine dispenser, an important function within any modern economy. It is deeply insolvent, and growing more insolvent as the property market sinks lower in valuation. The banks lack reserves, and hide their condition by means of the FASB permission to use fraudulent accounting.
32. The big US banks are beneficiary of continuous secret slush fund support from the USGovt and USFed. Their sources and replenishments have been gradually revealed. The TARP Fund event will go down in modern history as the greatest theft the world has ever seen, easily eclipsing the biggest mortgage bond fraud in history.
33. The insolvent big US banks continue to sit at the USGovt teat. The vast umbilical cord of banker welfare has not gone away. Goldman Sachs still is in control of the funding machinery.
34. The shadow banking system based upon credit derivatives keeps interest rates near 0%. The usury cost of money is artificially low near nothing. As money costs nothing, capital is actively and rapidly destroyed.
35. A vast crime syndicate has taken control of the USGovt. A vast crime syndicate has taken control of the USMilitary. A vast crime syndicate has taken control of the USCongress. A vast crime syndicate has taken control of the US press networks.
36. A chronic decline of the US housing sector keeps the USEconomy in a grand decline with constant deterioration. With one million bank owned homes in inventory, a huge unsold overhang of supply prevents any recovery of housing prices. Home equity continues to drain, and bank balance sheets continue to erode.
37. Over 11 million US homes stand in negative equity. The sum equals to 23.1% of households. They will not participate much in the USEconomy, except when given handouts. They have become downtrodden.
38. The USEconomy will not benefit from a export surge. The US industrial base has no critical mass after 30 years of dispatch to the Pacific Rim & China. The industry must contend with rising costs in offset to the falling USDollar, which is cited as providing the mythical benefit. Then can export in droves if they do so at a loss.
39. A global revolt against the USDollar is in its third years. The global players work to avoid the US$ usage in trade settlement. Several bilateral swap facilities flourish, mostly with China. If China supplies products, then the Yuan currency will be elevated to global reserve currency.
40. Global anger and resentment over three decades has spilled over. The World Bank and IMF have been routinely used by the US bankers to safeguard the USDollar and Anglo banker hegemony. Neither financial agency commands the respect of yesteryear.
41. A middle phase has begun in a powerful Global Paradigm Shift. The transfer moves power East where the wealth engines of industry lie, far from the fraudulent banking centers. The next decade will feature the Chinese as bankers, since their war chest contains over $3 trillion.
42. The crumbling global monetary system was built on toxic sovereign debt. Legal tender has been nothing more than denominated debt posing as legitimate by legal decree. That is what word FIAT means. The system is gradually breaking in an irreversible manner.
43. The global central bank franchise system has been discredited. It is a failure, which is not recognized by the bank leaders still in charge. The stepwise process of ruin continues with a new sector falling every few months. Next might be municipal bonds.
44. Witness the final phase of a systemic cycle, as the monetary system has run its course. It is saturated with debt from faulty design. The deception cited in the mainstream media focuses upon the credit cycle which will renew. It will not. It will break of its own weight and lost confidence.
45. The recognition has grown substantially that suppression of the Gold price has been the anchor holding fiat system together. The Chinese realize that Gold, when removed, leads to the collapse of the US financial system. They realize it more than the US public. But the syndicate in control of the USGovt understands the concept very well, as they designed the system.
46. The institution of a high level global barter system might soon take root. Gold will sit at its central core, providing stability. No deadbeat nations will participate. That includes the United States and several European nations. The barter system will be as effective as elegant.
47. The movements spread like wildfire in several US states to reinstitute gold as money. In a few states, led by Utah and Virginia, progress has been made for Gold to satisfy debts, public & private. Consider the movement to be in parallel to the Tenth Amendment movements.
48. Anglo bankers have lost control in global banking politics. The phased out G-7 Meeting is evidence. China has wrested control of G-20 Meeting, and has dictated much of its agenda in the last few meetings. The US has been reduced to a diminutive Bernanke and Geithner being ignored in the corner.
49. New loud stirrings by Saudi Arabia seek a new security protector. If security is no longer provided by the USMilitary, then the entire defacto Petro-Dollar standard is put at risk. Remove the crude oil sales in USDollars exclusively, and the US sinks into the Third World with a USDollar currency that cannot stand on its own wretched wrecked fundamentals.
50. The IMF solution to use SDR basket as global reserve is a final desperate ploy. By fashioning a basket of major currencies in a basket, they attempt to enforce a price fixing regime. It is a hidden FOREX currency exchange rate price fixing gambit that will invite a Gold price advance in uniform manner across the currencies bound together. This ploy is being planned in order to prevent the USDollar from dying a horrible death at the expense of the other major currencies. By that is meant at the expense of the other major economies which would otherwise have to operate at very high exchange rates.
THE BIGGEST UPCOMING NEW FACTORS
Introduction of a New Nordic Euro currency is near its introduction. The implementation with a Gold component will send Southern European banks into the abyss, marred by default. The new currency has the support from Russia and China, even the Persian Gulf. In my view, it is a USDollar killer. The first nations to institute a new monetary system for banks and commerce will be the survivors. The rest will slide into the darkness of the Third World.
Gold & Silver seem to be the only assets rising in price, an extension of a terrific 2010 decade. The exceptions are farmland and the US Stock market. However, stock valuations are propped by constant and admitted USGovt support. Their efforts are mere attempts to keep pace with the USDollar decline, as stocks merely maintain a constant purchase power.
A hidden overarching hand seeks the global Gold Standard as the bonafide solution. Darwin is at work, but Adam Smith turns a new chapter. The crumbling monetary solution demands a solution. Further investment in the current system assures a devastating decline into the abyss of insolvency and ruin.
THE HAT TRICK LETTER PROFITS IN THE CURRENT CRISIS.
From subscribers and readers:
At least 30 recently on correct forecasts regarding the bailout parade, numerous nationalization deals such as for Fannie Mae and the grand Mortgage Rescue.
"I look forward to your newsletter more than all the rest each month as you seem to have the best grasp of what is going on."
(ScottN in Washington)
"When I initially read your writings, they provoked a wide range of emotions in me from fear and anger to outright laughter. Initially some of your predictions ranged from the ridiculous to impossible. Yet time and again, over the past five years, I have watched with incredulity as they came true. Your analysis contains cogent analysis that benefits from a solid network of private contacts coupled with your scouring of the internet for information."
(PaulM in Missouri)
"Your analysis is absolutely superior to anything available out there. Like no other publication, yours places a premium on telling the truth and provides a true macro perspective with forecasts that are uncannily accurate. I eagerly await each month's issues and spend hours reading and studying them. Many times I go back and re-read the most current issue just make sure I did not miss anything the first time!"
(DevM from Virginia)
Jim Willie CB Editor of the "HAT TRICK LETTER"
Subscribe: Hat Trick Letter
April 19, 2010
***
Jim Willie CB is a statistical analyst in marketing research and retail forecasting. He holds a PhD in Statistics. His career has stretched over 25 years. He aspires to thrive in the financial editor world, unencumbered by the limitations of economic credentials. Visit his free website to find articles from topflight authors at www.GoldenJackass.com. For personal questions about subscriptions, contact him at JimWillieCB@aol.com
50 Factors Launching Gold
By Jim Willie CB
Apr 19 2011 2:52PM
www.GoldenJackass.com
Use the above link to subscribe to the paid research reports, which include coverage of critically important factors at work during the ongoing panicky attempt to sustain an unsustainable system burdened by numerous imbalances aggravated by global village forces. An historically unprecedented mess has been created by compromised central bankers and inept economic advisors, whose interference has irreversibly altered and damaged the world financial system, urgently pushed after the removed anchor of money to gold. Analysis features Gold, Crude Oil, USDollar, Treasury bonds, and inter-market dynamics with the US Economy and US Federal Reserve monetary policy.
Edification is not the word that comes to mind when observing an interview with Larry Fink of Blackstone this morning on network financial news. It was inspirational if not humorous, and somewhat pathetic. Of course the interviewer treated him like royalty, when just a syndicate captain, a Made Man. As a cog within the US financial hierarchy, he was asked why Gold is approaching record price levels near $1500 per ounce. He gave his best 10-second answer, showing no depth of comprehension but an excellent grip of propaganda laced with simplistic distortion. He said, "GOLD IS RISING FROM ALL THE GLOBAL INSTABILITY, AND NOT FROM INFLATION AT ALL." Sounds good, but it lacks much reflection of the world of reality burdened by complexity and interconnectivity that the enlightened perceive. At least he did not babble about Gold being in an asset bubble. It cannot, since Gold is money. It is curious that all the analysts, bankers, fund managers, corporate chieftains who did not advise on Gold investment over the last ten years are precisely whom the financial network news appeals to for guidance in the current monster Gold bull run. They knew nothing before, and they know nothing now. The major US news networks carry the Obama water while the USCongressional members carry the USBanker robes and show respect with genuflection before the priests. But guys like Fink are their harlot squires. Poor Ben Bernanke, despite his high priest position, does not gather a fraction of respect that Alan Greenspan did even though Alan presided over the collapse. The wild card possibly later this year or 2012 will be a national movement to force mandatory wage gains, and thus avert a national economic collapse. The squeeze is on in a powerful manner to both businesses and households.
ANOTHER STRONG GOLD BREAKOUT
As long as Quantitative Easing programs are in place and actively pursued, Gold & Silver prices will soar. The programs are urged by exploding budget deficits and absent USTBond demand. That translates to a ruined USDollar currency. Gold & Silver respond to the debasement and ruin. Efforts will become ridiculously stretched to save the USDollar, but will fail. QE will go global and secretive, assuring tremendous additional gains in the Gold & Silver price. No effort to liquidate the big USbanks will occur, thus assuring the process will continue until systemic breakdown then failure. The more extraordinary the measures to save the embattled insolvent fraudulent USDollar, the more the Gold & Silver price will soar. It is that simple. Gold & Silver will soar as long as central banks continue to put monetary inflation machinery to work. They are attempting to provide artificial but coordinated USTreasury Bond demand. In the process their efforts will continue to push the cost structure up further. In my view, since the Japan natural disaster hit with financial fallout, the Global QE is very much in effect, but not recognized as a global phenomenon. It pushes up Gold in uniform fashion worldwide.
50 FACTORS POWERING THE GOLD BULL
1. USFed is stuck at 0% for over two years and printing $1.7 trillion in Quantitative Easing, otherwise called monetary hyper inflation. They are not finished destroying both money and capital.
2. USFed tripled its balance sheet, with over half of it bonds of exaggerated value, while it gobbled up toxic mortgage bonds as buyer of last resort. The mortgage bonds have turned worthless. The USFed waits for a housing revival to bail itself out, but it will not arrive.
3. Debt monetization has gone haywire, as over 70% of USTBond sales from the USFed printing press. The QE was urgently needed, since legitimate buyers vanished. Even the primary dealers have been reimbursed in open market operations within a few weeks.
4. PIMCO has shed its entire USTreasury Bond holdings, seeing no value. They joined many foreign creditors in an unannounced buyer boycott in disgusted reaction to QE which is essentially a compulsory unilateral debt writedown.
5. Growing USGovt deficits have run over $1.5 trillion annually, with absent cuts, obscene entitlements, endless war. The prevailing short-term 0% interest rates are out of synch with exploding debt supply and rising price inflation.
6. Unfunded USGovt liabilities total nearly $100 trillion for medicare, social security, pensions, and more. The obligations are never included in the official debt. It represents insult to injury within insolvency.
7. Standard & Poors warned that USGovt could lose AAA rating in lousy credit outlook, one chance in three within the next two years. Ironically, the announcement came on the day when the USGovt exceeded its debt limit. The network news missed it.
8. State & Municipal debt have collapsed, as 41 states have huge shortfalls, and four large states are broken. They might receive a federal bailout. It could be called QE3, maybe QE4.
9. Coordinated USTBond purchases from Japanese sales have relieved the USFed, as other major central banks act as global monetarist agents. The sales by Japan are vast and growing. Witness the last phase in unwind of Yen Carry Trade, where 0% borrowed Japanese money funded the USTreasury Bonds and US Stocks.
10. Quantitative Easing, a catch word for extreme monetary inflation and debt monetization, has become engrained into global central bank policy, soon hidden. It is so controversial and deadly to the global financial structures that it will go hidden, and attempt to avoid the furious anger in feedback by global leaders. This is the most important and powerful of all 50 factors in my view.
11. The FedFunds Rate is stuck near 0%, yet the actual CPI is near 10%, for a real rate of interest of minus 9%. Historically a negative real rate of interest has been the primary fuel for a Gold bull. This time the fuel has been applied for a longer period of time, and a bigger negative real rate than ever.
12. The USGovt claims to have 8000 tons of Gold in reserve, but it is all in Deep Storage, as in unmined ore bodies. The collateral for the USDollar and USTreasury debt is vacant. It is in raw form like in the Rocky Mountain range or Sierra Nevada range.
13. Fast rising food prices, fast rising gasoline prices, and fast rising metals, coffee, sugar, and cotton serve as testament to broad price inflation. So far it has shown up on the cost structure. Either the business sector will vanish from a cost squeeze or pass on higher costs as end product and service price increases.
14. The entire world seeks to protect wealth from the ravages of inflation & the American sponsored QE by buying Gold & Silver. The rest of the world can spot price inflation more effectively than the US population. The United States is subjected to the world's broadest and most pervasive propaganda in the industrialized world.
15. The European sovereign debt breakdown with high bond yields in PIIGS nations points out the broken debt foundation to the monetary system. The solutions like with Greece in May 2010 were a sham, nothing but a bandaid and cup of elixir. Spain is next to experience major shocks that destabilize all of Europe again, this time much bigger than Greece. The Portuguese Govt debt rises toward 10% on the 10-year yield, while the Greek Govt debt has risen to reach 20% on the 2-year yield.
16. Germany is pushing for Southern Europe bank climax in their Euro Central Bank rate hike. Europe will be pushed to crisis this year, orchestrated by the impatient and angry Germans. They have no more appetitive for $300 to $400 billion in annual welfare to the broken nations in Southern Europe.
17. Isolation of the USFed and Bank of England and Bank of Japan has come. The small rate hike by the European Central Bank separated them finally. The Anglos with their Japanese lackeys are the only central banks not raising rates. With isolation comes all the earmarks on the path to the Third World.
18. The shortage of gold is acute, as 51 million gold bars have been sold forward versus the 11 million held by the COMEX in inventory. Be sure that hundreds of millions of nonexistent fractionalized gold ounces are polluting the system. Word is getting out that the COMEX is empty of precious metals.
19. Such extreme Silver shortage has befallen the COMEX that the corrupted metals exchange routinely offers cash settlement in silver with a 25% bonus if a non-disclosure agreement is signed. The practice cannot be kept under wraps, as some hedge funds push for fat returns in under two months holding positions with delivery demanded.
20. China has begun grand initiatives to replace its precious metal stockpiles. They are pursuing the Yuan currency to become a global reserve currency. As they build collateral for the Yuan, they are also elevating Silver as reserves asset.
21. A global shortage of Gold & Silver has been realized in national mint production. From the United States to Canada to Australia to Germany, shortages exist. Many interruptions will continue amidst the shortages, which feed the publicity.
22. The Teddy Roosevelt stockpile of 6 billion Silver ounces was depleted in 2003. He saw the strategic importance of Silver for industrial and military applications. The USEconomy and USMilitary will turn into importers on the global market.
23. The betrayal of China by USGovt in Gold & Silver leases is a story coming out slowly. The deal was cut in 1999, associated with Most Favored Nation granted to China. But the Wall Street firms broke the deal, betrayed the Chinese, and angered them into highly motivated action. No longer are the Chinese big steady USTBond buyers, part of the deal also.
24. Every single US financial market has been undermined and corrupted from grotesque intervention, constant props, and fraudulent activity. The degradation has occurred under the watchful eyes of compromised regulators. Fraud like the Flash Crash and NYSE front running by Goldman Sachs is protected by the FBI henchmen.
25. The USEconomy operates on a global credit card, enabling it to live beyond its means. The USGovt exploits the compulsory foreign extension of credit in USTBonds, by virtue of the USDollar acting as global reserve currency. Foreign nations are compelled to participate but that is changing.
26. The USMilitary conducts endless war adventures for syndicate profits. They use the USTreasury Bond as a credit card. The wars cost of $1 billion per day is considered so sacred, that it is off the table in USGovt budget call negotiations, debates, and agreements.
27. Narcotics funds have proliferated under the USMilitary aegis. The vertically integrated narcotics industry is the primary plank of nation building in Afghanistan. The funds keep the big US banks alive from vast money laundering.
28. No big US bank liquidations have occurred, despite their deep insolvency. Any restructure toward recovery would have the liquidations are the first step. The USEconomy is stuck in a deteriorating swamp since the Too Big To Fail mantra prevents the urgent but missing step.
29. The unprosecuted multi-$trillion bond fraud over the last decade has harmed the US image, prestige, and leadership. The main perpetrators are the Wall Street bankers and their lieutenants appointed at Fannie Mae and elsewhere. They bankers most culpable remain in charge at the USDept Treasury and other key supporting posts like the FDIC, SEC, and CFTC.
30. The ugly daughters Fannie Mae and AIG are forever entombed in the USGovt. They operate as black hole expenses whose fraud must be contained. The costs involved are in the $trillions, all hidden from view like the fraud. Fannie Mae remains the main clearinghouse for several $trillion fraud programs still in operation.
31. The US banking system cannot serve as an effective credit engine dispenser, an important function within any modern economy. It is deeply insolvent, and growing more insolvent as the property market sinks lower in valuation. The banks lack reserves, and hide their condition by means of the FASB permission to use fraudulent accounting.
32. The big US banks are beneficiary of continuous secret slush fund support from the USGovt and USFed. Their sources and replenishments have been gradually revealed. The TARP Fund event will go down in modern history as the greatest theft the world has ever seen, easily eclipsing the biggest mortgage bond fraud in history.
33. The insolvent big US banks continue to sit at the USGovt teat. The vast umbilical cord of banker welfare has not gone away. Goldman Sachs still is in control of the funding machinery.
34. The shadow banking system based upon credit derivatives keeps interest rates near 0%. The usury cost of money is artificially low near nothing. As money costs nothing, capital is actively and rapidly destroyed.
35. A vast crime syndicate has taken control of the USGovt. A vast crime syndicate has taken control of the USMilitary. A vast crime syndicate has taken control of the USCongress. A vast crime syndicate has taken control of the US press networks.
36. A chronic decline of the US housing sector keeps the USEconomy in a grand decline with constant deterioration. With one million bank owned homes in inventory, a huge unsold overhang of supply prevents any recovery of housing prices. Home equity continues to drain, and bank balance sheets continue to erode.
37. Over 11 million US homes stand in negative equity. The sum equals to 23.1% of households. They will not participate much in the USEconomy, except when given handouts. They have become downtrodden.
38. The USEconomy will not benefit from a export surge. The US industrial base has no critical mass after 30 years of dispatch to the Pacific Rim & China. The industry must contend with rising costs in offset to the falling USDollar, which is cited as providing the mythical benefit. Then can export in droves if they do so at a loss.
39. A global revolt against the USDollar is in its third years. The global players work to avoid the US$ usage in trade settlement. Several bilateral swap facilities flourish, mostly with China. If China supplies products, then the Yuan currency will be elevated to global reserve currency.
40. Global anger and resentment over three decades has spilled over. The World Bank and IMF have been routinely used by the US bankers to safeguard the USDollar and Anglo banker hegemony. Neither financial agency commands the respect of yesteryear.
41. A middle phase has begun in a powerful Global Paradigm Shift. The transfer moves power East where the wealth engines of industry lie, far from the fraudulent banking centers. The next decade will feature the Chinese as bankers, since their war chest contains over $3 trillion.
42. The crumbling global monetary system was built on toxic sovereign debt. Legal tender has been nothing more than denominated debt posing as legitimate by legal decree. That is what word FIAT means. The system is gradually breaking in an irreversible manner.
43. The global central bank franchise system has been discredited. It is a failure, which is not recognized by the bank leaders still in charge. The stepwise process of ruin continues with a new sector falling every few months. Next might be municipal bonds.
44. Witness the final phase of a systemic cycle, as the monetary system has run its course. It is saturated with debt from faulty design. The deception cited in the mainstream media focuses upon the credit cycle which will renew. It will not. It will break of its own weight and lost confidence.
45. The recognition has grown substantially that suppression of the Gold price has been the anchor holding fiat system together. The Chinese realize that Gold, when removed, leads to the collapse of the US financial system. They realize it more than the US public. But the syndicate in control of the USGovt understands the concept very well, as they designed the system.
46. The institution of a high level global barter system might soon take root. Gold will sit at its central core, providing stability. No deadbeat nations will participate. That includes the United States and several European nations. The barter system will be as effective as elegant.
47. The movements spread like wildfire in several US states to reinstitute gold as money. In a few states, led by Utah and Virginia, progress has been made for Gold to satisfy debts, public & private. Consider the movement to be in parallel to the Tenth Amendment movements.
48. Anglo bankers have lost control in global banking politics. The phased out G-7 Meeting is evidence. China has wrested control of G-20 Meeting, and has dictated much of its agenda in the last few meetings. The US has been reduced to a diminutive Bernanke and Geithner being ignored in the corner.
49. New loud stirrings by Saudi Arabia seek a new security protector. If security is no longer provided by the USMilitary, then the entire defacto Petro-Dollar standard is put at risk. Remove the crude oil sales in USDollars exclusively, and the US sinks into the Third World with a USDollar currency that cannot stand on its own wretched wrecked fundamentals.
50. The IMF solution to use SDR basket as global reserve is a final desperate ploy. By fashioning a basket of major currencies in a basket, they attempt to enforce a price fixing regime. It is a hidden FOREX currency exchange rate price fixing gambit that will invite a Gold price advance in uniform manner across the currencies bound together. This ploy is being planned in order to prevent the USDollar from dying a horrible death at the expense of the other major currencies. By that is meant at the expense of the other major economies which would otherwise have to operate at very high exchange rates.
THE BIGGEST UPCOMING NEW FACTORS
Introduction of a New Nordic Euro currency is near its introduction. The implementation with a Gold component will send Southern European banks into the abyss, marred by default. The new currency has the support from Russia and China, even the Persian Gulf. In my view, it is a USDollar killer. The first nations to institute a new monetary system for banks and commerce will be the survivors. The rest will slide into the darkness of the Third World.
Gold & Silver seem to be the only assets rising in price, an extension of a terrific 2010 decade. The exceptions are farmland and the US Stock market. However, stock valuations are propped by constant and admitted USGovt support. Their efforts are mere attempts to keep pace with the USDollar decline, as stocks merely maintain a constant purchase power.
A hidden overarching hand seeks the global Gold Standard as the bonafide solution. Darwin is at work, but Adam Smith turns a new chapter. The crumbling monetary solution demands a solution. Further investment in the current system assures a devastating decline into the abyss of insolvency and ruin.
THE HAT TRICK LETTER PROFITS IN THE CURRENT CRISIS.
From subscribers and readers:
At least 30 recently on correct forecasts regarding the bailout parade, numerous nationalization deals such as for Fannie Mae and the grand Mortgage Rescue.
"I look forward to your newsletter more than all the rest each month as you seem to have the best grasp of what is going on."
(ScottN in Washington)
"When I initially read your writings, they provoked a wide range of emotions in me from fear and anger to outright laughter. Initially some of your predictions ranged from the ridiculous to impossible. Yet time and again, over the past five years, I have watched with incredulity as they came true. Your analysis contains cogent analysis that benefits from a solid network of private contacts coupled with your scouring of the internet for information."
(PaulM in Missouri)
"Your analysis is absolutely superior to anything available out there. Like no other publication, yours places a premium on telling the truth and provides a true macro perspective with forecasts that are uncannily accurate. I eagerly await each month's issues and spend hours reading and studying them. Many times I go back and re-read the most current issue just make sure I did not miss anything the first time!"
(DevM from Virginia)
Jim Willie CB Editor of the "HAT TRICK LETTER"
Subscribe: Hat Trick Letter
April 19, 2010
***
Jim Willie CB is a statistical analyst in marketing research and retail forecasting. He holds a PhD in Statistics. His career has stretched over 25 years. He aspires to thrive in the financial editor world, unencumbered by the limitations of economic credentials. Visit his free website to find articles from topflight authors at www.GoldenJackass.com. For personal questions about subscriptions, contact him at JimWillieCB@aol.com
REPUBLICAN TIES TO AL-JAZEERA IGNITE FIRESTORM
http://www.newswithviews.com/Kincaid/cliff513.htm
REPUBLICAN TIES TO AL-JAZEERA IGNITE FIRESTORM
By Cliff Kincaid
April 20, 2011
NewsWithViews.com
A blockbuster Politico story on Al-Jazeera claims that the Republican-oriented lobbying firm, Barbour, Griffith & Rogers (BGR), worked on behalf of Qatar, as well as Al-Jazeera. But Loren Monroe, the spokesman for the firm, is denying it, telling AIM, “We did not represent Al-Jazeera.”
The charge that a prominent lobbying firm represented Al-Jazeera is politically explosive not only because of the high-level Republican connections, but because the “Barbour” in BGR is Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, a possible 2012 Republican presidential candidate.
Qatar sponsors and funds Al-Jazeera but the government and the channel have tried to create the perception that the network is somehow independent. Generally, Qatar has been regarded by some as friendly to the U.S. while Al-Jazeera was considered an enemy of what the U.S. was trying to accomplish in Iraq and around the Middle East. The channel developed a reputation as “Jihad TV” or “Terror Television” because of its airing of videos from al-Qaeda. One of its correspondents went to prison in Spain as an agent of al-Qaeda.
Politico reporters Keach Hagey and Byron Tau said, “A person familiar with the Qatar contact confirmed to Politico that BGR and Al-Jazeera have a long-standing relationship, and that the network embarked on a PR push during the latter half of the Bush administration.”
This “long-standing relationship” between BGR and Al-Jazeera (and Qatar) became more direct and substantial when Ben Smith’s Politico blog said that the representation of Al-Jazeera was “part of their contract with Qatar in a mid-2000s PR push to rehabilitate the controversial Arab network.”
This seems to be the key and most controversial part: BGR represented Al-Jazeera “as part of their contract with Qatar…” This implies that Al-Jazeera was considered part of the regime, a fact long recognized by critics of the channel.
Although he denied Politico’s allegations, BGR’s Loren Monroe, a principal in the firm’s government affairs department, told AIM that the firm had not demanded a retraction but was considering writing a letter to the editor. Monroe’s bio says that he served in the communications and political operations departments for President George H.W. Bush’s 1992 campaign, was a top fundraising aide to the National Republican Congressional Committee’s Finance Department in 1994, and currently serves on the Finance Committee for the Republican Governors Association as well as the Republican Attorneys General Association.
Politico reporter Byron Tao disputed Monroe, telling AIM, “The distinction is in the fact that BGR has a contract with Qatar, not Al-Jazeera—but I have it from a source that BGR had a ‘longstanding relationship’ with Al-Jazeera through that contract. No one from BGR has stepped forward to deny what Politico has reported.”
Monroe’s denial to AIM—and Politico’s decision to stand by the charge, based on an anonymous source—is extremely important because there is no official listing of BGR representing Al-Jazeera. However, there is plenty of evidence that it represented Qatar. Indeed, it is acknowledged on BGR’s own website. A search of Barbour, Griffith & Rogers on the “foreign influence lobbying tracker” maintained by Pro Publica and the Sunlight Foundation turns up contacts on Capitol Hill and in the executive branch on behalf of Qatar. But there is no reference to anything on behalf of Al-Jazeera.
If the firm did represent Al-Jazeera, why wasn’t that work reported to those legal authorities responsible for monitoring lobbying activity in Washington, D.C.? And does the alleged failure to report that work represent a violation of the law?
The Politico story needs on-the-record confirmation or a retraction.
Haley Barbour’s political spokesman Jim Dyke, a Republican operative, took issue with the report in Politico on different grounds. He told Scott Conroy of RealClearPolitics: “Reporting that is wrong or incomplete can leave an incorrect impression which others then follow. Governor Barbour had left the firm and had nothing to do with this or any other client after his departure.”
But this is when the story took another interesting turn. Politico noted that Barbour continued to receive “retirement” payments from the firm that go into a blind trust. Hence, Barbour “didn’t sever his ties to the firm or its clients when he stopped lobbying, and indeed has long made the case that those relationships have made him a stronger governor,” the publication says.
What’s more, Politico reports that the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, shows up on the passenger manifests of the Mississippi State plane during reporting for a story on the topic of Hurricane Katrina. The Emir had created the Qatar Katrina Fund, pledging $100 million to rebuild the region, notes Politico’s Smith. “And a Google search turns up this image from 2008 of Barbour with the owner of Al Jazeera,” he adds, reproducing the photo.
This alleged Republican connection to Al-Jazeera, while explosive and newsworthy in its own right, should lead to more scrutiny of the Obama Administration’s increasingly friendly relationship with the terror channel. Politico began that necessary process with its story on the channel’s White House contacts and support. However, it neglected to note that the critics of Al-Jazeera have filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission over the channel’s airing by 30 public television stations. It also failed to note that Al-Jazeera has been sued for $1.2 billion for facilitating terrorist attacks on Israel that killed American citizens.
Barbour’s ties to BGR, Qatar, and Al-Jazeera will continue to generate controversy and may have finished his presidential campaign before it began. On the other hand, the Obama Administration remains in power and seems determined to acquiesce in Al-Jazeera’s drive to overturn pro-Western regimes in the Arab world. This is the real story. It is a subject that seems worthy of hearings by Rep. Peter King’s House Homeland Security Committee or Rep. Sue Myrick’s House Subcommittee on Terrorism, HUMINT, Analysis, and Counterintelligence.
Myrick recently held important hearings—ignored by most of the media—on the Muslim Brotherhood. This happens to be the same Islamist organization that is said to control Al-Jazeera.
Who on Capitol Hill has the courage to take on this powerful propaganda channel?
REPUBLICAN TIES TO AL-JAZEERA IGNITE FIRESTORM
By Cliff Kincaid
April 20, 2011
NewsWithViews.com
A blockbuster Politico story on Al-Jazeera claims that the Republican-oriented lobbying firm, Barbour, Griffith & Rogers (BGR), worked on behalf of Qatar, as well as Al-Jazeera. But Loren Monroe, the spokesman for the firm, is denying it, telling AIM, “We did not represent Al-Jazeera.”
The charge that a prominent lobbying firm represented Al-Jazeera is politically explosive not only because of the high-level Republican connections, but because the “Barbour” in BGR is Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, a possible 2012 Republican presidential candidate.
Qatar sponsors and funds Al-Jazeera but the government and the channel have tried to create the perception that the network is somehow independent. Generally, Qatar has been regarded by some as friendly to the U.S. while Al-Jazeera was considered an enemy of what the U.S. was trying to accomplish in Iraq and around the Middle East. The channel developed a reputation as “Jihad TV” or “Terror Television” because of its airing of videos from al-Qaeda. One of its correspondents went to prison in Spain as an agent of al-Qaeda.
Politico reporters Keach Hagey and Byron Tau said, “A person familiar with the Qatar contact confirmed to Politico that BGR and Al-Jazeera have a long-standing relationship, and that the network embarked on a PR push during the latter half of the Bush administration.”
This “long-standing relationship” between BGR and Al-Jazeera (and Qatar) became more direct and substantial when Ben Smith’s Politico blog said that the representation of Al-Jazeera was “part of their contract with Qatar in a mid-2000s PR push to rehabilitate the controversial Arab network.”
This seems to be the key and most controversial part: BGR represented Al-Jazeera “as part of their contract with Qatar…” This implies that Al-Jazeera was considered part of the regime, a fact long recognized by critics of the channel.
Although he denied Politico’s allegations, BGR’s Loren Monroe, a principal in the firm’s government affairs department, told AIM that the firm had not demanded a retraction but was considering writing a letter to the editor. Monroe’s bio says that he served in the communications and political operations departments for President George H.W. Bush’s 1992 campaign, was a top fundraising aide to the National Republican Congressional Committee’s Finance Department in 1994, and currently serves on the Finance Committee for the Republican Governors Association as well as the Republican Attorneys General Association.
Politico reporter Byron Tao disputed Monroe, telling AIM, “The distinction is in the fact that BGR has a contract with Qatar, not Al-Jazeera—but I have it from a source that BGR had a ‘longstanding relationship’ with Al-Jazeera through that contract. No one from BGR has stepped forward to deny what Politico has reported.”
Monroe’s denial to AIM—and Politico’s decision to stand by the charge, based on an anonymous source—is extremely important because there is no official listing of BGR representing Al-Jazeera. However, there is plenty of evidence that it represented Qatar. Indeed, it is acknowledged on BGR’s own website. A search of Barbour, Griffith & Rogers on the “foreign influence lobbying tracker” maintained by Pro Publica and the Sunlight Foundation turns up contacts on Capitol Hill and in the executive branch on behalf of Qatar. But there is no reference to anything on behalf of Al-Jazeera.
If the firm did represent Al-Jazeera, why wasn’t that work reported to those legal authorities responsible for monitoring lobbying activity in Washington, D.C.? And does the alleged failure to report that work represent a violation of the law?
The Politico story needs on-the-record confirmation or a retraction.
Haley Barbour’s political spokesman Jim Dyke, a Republican operative, took issue with the report in Politico on different grounds. He told Scott Conroy of RealClearPolitics: “Reporting that is wrong or incomplete can leave an incorrect impression which others then follow. Governor Barbour had left the firm and had nothing to do with this or any other client after his departure.”
But this is when the story took another interesting turn. Politico noted that Barbour continued to receive “retirement” payments from the firm that go into a blind trust. Hence, Barbour “didn’t sever his ties to the firm or its clients when he stopped lobbying, and indeed has long made the case that those relationships have made him a stronger governor,” the publication says.
What’s more, Politico reports that the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, shows up on the passenger manifests of the Mississippi State plane during reporting for a story on the topic of Hurricane Katrina. The Emir had created the Qatar Katrina Fund, pledging $100 million to rebuild the region, notes Politico’s Smith. “And a Google search turns up this image from 2008 of Barbour with the owner of Al Jazeera,” he adds, reproducing the photo.
This alleged Republican connection to Al-Jazeera, while explosive and newsworthy in its own right, should lead to more scrutiny of the Obama Administration’s increasingly friendly relationship with the terror channel. Politico began that necessary process with its story on the channel’s White House contacts and support. However, it neglected to note that the critics of Al-Jazeera have filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission over the channel’s airing by 30 public television stations. It also failed to note that Al-Jazeera has been sued for $1.2 billion for facilitating terrorist attacks on Israel that killed American citizens.
Barbour’s ties to BGR, Qatar, and Al-Jazeera will continue to generate controversy and may have finished his presidential campaign before it began. On the other hand, the Obama Administration remains in power and seems determined to acquiesce in Al-Jazeera’s drive to overturn pro-Western regimes in the Arab world. This is the real story. It is a subject that seems worthy of hearings by Rep. Peter King’s House Homeland Security Committee or Rep. Sue Myrick’s House Subcommittee on Terrorism, HUMINT, Analysis, and Counterintelligence.
Myrick recently held important hearings—ignored by most of the media—on the Muslim Brotherhood. This happens to be the same Islamist organization that is said to control Al-Jazeera.
Who on Capitol Hill has the courage to take on this powerful propaganda channel?
George Will: Conservative populist sees error of our financial ways
http://www.mlive.com/opinion/muskegon/index.ssf/2011/04/george_will_conservative_popul.html
George Will: Conservative populist sees error of our financial ways
Published: Sunday, April 17, 2011, 5:46 AM
The Muskegon Chronicle By The Muskegon Chronicle The Muskegon Chronicle
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The morning Tom Hoenig, president of the Federal Reserve's regional bank here, announced that he would retire Oct. 1, newspapers nationwide reported that henceforth the Fed's chairmen will hold quarterly news conferences. This is probably both regrettable and inevitable.
The Fed is called "independent" because it was created to insulate monetary policy from political pressures. But it was created by Congress, which can do what it wants with the Fed. Also, for more than three decades the Fed has had a "dual mandate" -- to protect the currency as a store of value (restraining inflation) and to promote "maximum employment." The latter inserts the Fed into inherently political calculations and decisions.
Furthermore, the Fed's current chairman, Ben Bernanke, speaks of the Fed's tasks of "economic management" and "economic engineering." (See his Sept. 24, 2010, speech at Princeton.) Such language, Hoenig says, is "the language of a central planner." If the central bank acts like this, it will face the scrutiny that comes with the political functions of consciously shaping society's allocation of wealth and opportunity. One of Hoenig's peers, Richard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, recently said:
"The liquidity tanks are full, if not brimming over. ... What is needed now is for business to be incentivized to commit that liquidity to creating American jobs. This is the task of the fiscal authorities, not the Federal Reserve."
Hoenig can see a liquidity-created bubble from where he sits. He sees farmland, the value of which is soaring throughout the Midwest, for several reasons. One is that food prices are increasing rapidly because the Chinese, Indians, Brazilians and others in emerging markets are eating more calories and more of them in meat produced by turning cereals into animal feed.
But another reason is that extremely low interest rates and the rapid expansion of the money supply have caused lots of money to slosh around, seeking assets that will produce higher returns. The Fed's policy seems designed to pursue a very elastic interpretation of its mandate -- to manipulate the stock market.
Since Bernanke's speech at Jackson Hole, Wyo., last August signaling another "quantitative easing" (printing another $600 billion), the Dow market is up more than 20 percent. In theory, with interest rates low and lots of liquidity, enough money will flow into equities to create a "wealth effect" stimulus: The expanding portfolios of the 20 percent of people who own 93 percent of equities will quicken their owners' animal spirits and acquisitiveness.
Does Hoenig think there will be a "QE3"? "It's not," he says, "out of the question."
He is proof that the phrase "conservative populist" is not quite an oxymoron: "One of the great tragedies of this era is that 'too big to fail' has been codified." He thinks that if something is too big to fail, it is too big to exist. He believes, as Milton Friedman said, that America has a profit (BEG ITAL)and loss(END ITAL) system -- the possibility of profit is an incentive for risk, the possibility of loss is an incentive for prudence in the pursuit of profit. Because "too big to fail" short- circuits this, Hoenig favors restoration of "something like" the Glass-Steagall law -- passed in 1933, repealed in 1999 -- that separated commercial banking from the more risky investment banking. So he favors breaking up the largest banks: He says the 20 biggest are, cumulatively, 20 percent larger than they were before the financial crisis.
Is it, he is asked, mere coincidence that the Great Depression was (a) America's longest slump and (b) the one combated by the most government activism? Hoenig answers: "There were a lot of government activities that caused people to hesitate."
Is it mere correlation, not causation, that the recession which ended in June 2009, although not the nation's most severe, has received the most ambitious government attempts at amelioration yet has been followed by the most sluggish recovery from a sharp contraction in modern times? Hoenig's answer is oblique but suggestive: Given uncertainties, including those created by government policies, investors "freeze up and pull back. When you don't know, you go still." He says, "Capitalism isn't a straight line, it's a zigzag, and when you introduce policies to eliminate the zigzag you can introduce instability."
Or stagnation. Or the faux dynamism created by a "buy now" spirit fueled by inflation expectations. They are inevitably unleashed by dramatic, protracted expansion of the money supply because confidence in fiat money eventually varies inversely with the quantity of such money.
George Will's email address is georgewill@washpost.com.
George Will: Conservative populist sees error of our financial ways
Published: Sunday, April 17, 2011, 5:46 AM
The Muskegon Chronicle By The Muskegon Chronicle The Muskegon Chronicle
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The morning Tom Hoenig, president of the Federal Reserve's regional bank here, announced that he would retire Oct. 1, newspapers nationwide reported that henceforth the Fed's chairmen will hold quarterly news conferences. This is probably both regrettable and inevitable.
The Fed is called "independent" because it was created to insulate monetary policy from political pressures. But it was created by Congress, which can do what it wants with the Fed. Also, for more than three decades the Fed has had a "dual mandate" -- to protect the currency as a store of value (restraining inflation) and to promote "maximum employment." The latter inserts the Fed into inherently political calculations and decisions.
Furthermore, the Fed's current chairman, Ben Bernanke, speaks of the Fed's tasks of "economic management" and "economic engineering." (See his Sept. 24, 2010, speech at Princeton.) Such language, Hoenig says, is "the language of a central planner." If the central bank acts like this, it will face the scrutiny that comes with the political functions of consciously shaping society's allocation of wealth and opportunity. One of Hoenig's peers, Richard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, recently said:
"The liquidity tanks are full, if not brimming over. ... What is needed now is for business to be incentivized to commit that liquidity to creating American jobs. This is the task of the fiscal authorities, not the Federal Reserve."
Hoenig can see a liquidity-created bubble from where he sits. He sees farmland, the value of which is soaring throughout the Midwest, for several reasons. One is that food prices are increasing rapidly because the Chinese, Indians, Brazilians and others in emerging markets are eating more calories and more of them in meat produced by turning cereals into animal feed.
But another reason is that extremely low interest rates and the rapid expansion of the money supply have caused lots of money to slosh around, seeking assets that will produce higher returns. The Fed's policy seems designed to pursue a very elastic interpretation of its mandate -- to manipulate the stock market.
Since Bernanke's speech at Jackson Hole, Wyo., last August signaling another "quantitative easing" (printing another $600 billion), the Dow market is up more than 20 percent. In theory, with interest rates low and lots of liquidity, enough money will flow into equities to create a "wealth effect" stimulus: The expanding portfolios of the 20 percent of people who own 93 percent of equities will quicken their owners' animal spirits and acquisitiveness.
Does Hoenig think there will be a "QE3"? "It's not," he says, "out of the question."
He is proof that the phrase "conservative populist" is not quite an oxymoron: "One of the great tragedies of this era is that 'too big to fail' has been codified." He thinks that if something is too big to fail, it is too big to exist. He believes, as Milton Friedman said, that America has a profit (BEG ITAL)and loss(END ITAL) system -- the possibility of profit is an incentive for risk, the possibility of loss is an incentive for prudence in the pursuit of profit. Because "too big to fail" short- circuits this, Hoenig favors restoration of "something like" the Glass-Steagall law -- passed in 1933, repealed in 1999 -- that separated commercial banking from the more risky investment banking. So he favors breaking up the largest banks: He says the 20 biggest are, cumulatively, 20 percent larger than they were before the financial crisis.
Is it, he is asked, mere coincidence that the Great Depression was (a) America's longest slump and (b) the one combated by the most government activism? Hoenig answers: "There were a lot of government activities that caused people to hesitate."
Is it mere correlation, not causation, that the recession which ended in June 2009, although not the nation's most severe, has received the most ambitious government attempts at amelioration yet has been followed by the most sluggish recovery from a sharp contraction in modern times? Hoenig's answer is oblique but suggestive: Given uncertainties, including those created by government policies, investors "freeze up and pull back. When you don't know, you go still." He says, "Capitalism isn't a straight line, it's a zigzag, and when you introduce policies to eliminate the zigzag you can introduce instability."
Or stagnation. Or the faux dynamism created by a "buy now" spirit fueled by inflation expectations. They are inevitably unleashed by dramatic, protracted expansion of the money supply because confidence in fiat money eventually varies inversely with the quantity of such money.
George Will's email address is georgewill@washpost.com.
Nuclear weather worsens
http://www.naturalnews.com/032147_nuclear_weather.html
Nuclear weather worsens
by Mark Sircus., AC, OMD
(NaturalNews) Every day the news gets worse. Today it was robots telling us that radiation is so hot inside the nuclear plant in Japan that workers will have a hard to impossible time to work in certain areas to recover the plant from worst case scenarios. Radiation levels are just heading up across the board and across continents. Sunday morning the news was so bad that I didn't know what to do or write.
I could try screaming but I am not the type...or crying, well that comes almost too easily. Perhaps I am crazy. After all, Ann Coulter got on TV and actually said, "The only good news is that anyone exposed to excess radiation from the nuclear power plants is now probably much less likely to get cancer." And Dr. Josef Oehmen, a research scientist at MIT, said, "I repeat, there was and will *not* be any significant release of radioactivity from the damaged Japanese reactors."
Click here to see the video.
I wrote some pretty crass words the other day to begin an essay:
Avoiding exposure and radiation-induced diseases might come down to, I am terribly sorry to say, running for our lives. Anyone who cannot accept this is the reality millions of Japanese face is probably not worth saving so let them consume all the milk and unwashed leafy vegetables they can.
I got two probably well-deserved complaints about it. I allowed myself the expression as my first lines in a terrible document about the worsening situation in Japan and I could feel my anger building about the insensitivity of our world civilization and its institutions.
My editors also allowed me the expression and still I don't know how to express it differently, not really. My heart keeps crying silently for my friends and family in America. I mean I know how everyone must feel knowing that radiation exposure will very shortly be drizzling into most places in North America and the rest of the hemispheric north 24/7. Today, if you look at the maps, mid-range levels of radiation are hitting the west coast. The forecast for April 19 looked like this:
Source
How I'm supposed to be real and not use four-letter words is a mystery to my heart this second. Tell me how am I to feel saying something like that. What kind of being would take pleasure in making such a radioactive weather forecast? How many fathers are sitting on the beach, like I was yesterday with four of my six kids, looking out from the point furthest east in all the Americas, the point closest to Africa, and see about 2,000 miles away the leading edge of the nuclear pollution hitting a back draft from northern Africa. And my wife is attached to our life here in this great sea city and does not want to move to Sanctuary in the interior.
I have to be upset for I have to make sure everyone in the house, and that's a lot of people, are taking their iodine way out in advance of any incoming iodine radiation. Down here that really will not be a problem because of its very short half-life. After three months there is very little left but all the other nuclear particles will have no problem eventually finding their way down here to the southern hemisphere. Just look at what has been from one month of exposure to the north. Look at these maps repeatedly for effect! That is unless you prefer to drink some milk with some radiation. I don't think any of my readers would want to but I am not so sure about all the people who buy the mainstream news hook, line and sinker.
There are plenty who are saying radiation is good for you and probably are planning on going to the northeast of Japan instead of the Dead Sea to bathe in the healing waters. Well perhaps not, but remember, there have been a lot of important people running around for decades saying that nuclear energy is safe and use it all the time to treat and diagnose disease.
Even radioactive iodine is pumped into people by doctors, so hurray for the nuclear disaster, bring on some more, which might be coming if you look at what is happening in terms of increasing earthquake and volcanic activity. So yes, I am sorry, but I will stick to my guns. There are people on this planet I would say go ahead, drink the milk and consume lots of big leafy vegetables -- it might save them a trip to Japan!
Meanwhile for all those who think: okay, well it's only four or five nuclear reactors out of control and only a few nuclear pools with older spent nuclear rods melting, but we should be able to handle that right? Remember the other day when Dr. Michio Kaku said all it would take is one thing like a pipe breaking or another earthquake to make this situation even more catastrophic than it already is? Look at this video about seismic activity in the world.
Click here to see a video about the earthquakes on the world.
Twisted Medical Establishment Lost on Radiation Issues
How are the good doctors of the world going to deal with medical insanity and pharmaceutical terrorism now? One of the reasons the medical establishment is incapable of responding to the nuclear threat and the spreading contamination from Japan (that is circling around the globe) is that it is an institution that loves to use radioactive iodine, a substance that causes cancer, to treat cancer. Sounds kind of crazy and it is. Many patients are getting a thyroid cancer treatment that kills thyroid tissue, causing harm to other tissues while at the same time actually increasing the potential for thyroid cancer.
According to a new study published in Cancer, researchers are fingering doctors who are treating patients with early-stage, low-risk thyroid cancer using radioactive iodine, which does not increase their chances of surviving but does instead put them at risk for a secondary cancer. "Our study shows that these low-risk patients do not need radioactive iodine," Dr. Ian Ganly, one of the study's authors from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, told Reuters Health "Therefore there is no need to expose these patients to any risk from (radioactive iodine) treatment," he said in an email.
The American Thyroid Association endorses the use of radioactive iodine even though it also causes cancer of the salivary gland -- where radioactive iodine may accumulate -- as well as leukemia. Dr. Ganly said the risk of leukemia increases because radioactive iodine circulates in the blood, thus exposing bone marrow to its tissue-killing effects.
Don't be totally surprised if they announce that radioactive iodine from the out-of-control nuclear plant is good for the public and will save money because then patients will not need to pay for their radioactive iodine medications. The radioactive iodine taken in from the air, water and food will find its way into everyone's thyroids saving oncologists the trouble. Excuse my heavy sarcasm this morning; it's difficult to stay even-keeled as I write.
There are people and doctors who have said the little bit of mercury found in the flu and other vaccines is good for kids but, lo and behold, I read this morning that Poul Thorsen, the principal coordinator of multiple studies funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) who used to deny a vaccine/autism link, was indicted on April 13th on 13 counts of fraud and 9 counts of money-laundering. The charges relate to funding for work he conducted for the CDC that claimed to disprove associations between the mercury-based vaccine preservative, thimerosal, and increased rates of autism.
Now anyone with a cow's worth of sense would have understood that a strong neurotoxin like mercury was a strong neurotoxin. Gee people, don't you see how retarded ignorance rules in the CDC, FDA, AMA, WHO and dozens of other medical organizations? Stupid does not quite cover it does it? Now we know it's criminal, it's greed, and it's the politics of power and darkness on earth at its best.
Why should we be alarmed about nuclear fallout of radioactive iodine? Doctors use it so why should we be afraid of breathing it, eating it or taking it for breakfast in our milk and coffee? And why take nutritional iodine? It will only interfere with the uptake of the radioactive type! That's what oncologists seem to want and it seems that is why these are the last people on earth we should trust during a nuclear crisis.
Dr. Edward Golembe, who directs a hyperbaric oxygen chamber at Brookdale University Hospital in Brooklyn, said he had treated serious radiation injuries to the jaw and called them "a horrible, horrible thing to see." When we deal with radiation we deal with death for it is the death principle that doctors are trying to harness with terrible results. Most people who employ radiation in their treatments for cancer suffer horribly, but some worse than others.
Just being alive today is to walk through the valley of the shadow of death in terms of radiation exposure. Background radiation on earth has increased in the nuclear age coming from all the above-ground testing of the last century, nuclear plants, nuclear waste, uranium mining, and from depleted uranium weapons that are commonly used in the American, British and Israeli armies and navies and air forces. In addition there is constant and increasing exposure to other forms of radiation from microwave towers, cell phones, wireless phones and computer systems.
Most mainstream doctors believe that nutritional iodine only protects us from radioactive iodine and not the rest of the dangerously hot radioactive particles. Though this is true in a literal sense (and still neither the government nor doctors are recommending iodine supplementation) it is NOT TRUE in a medical sense.
Radiation causes death not only through cancer but also through heart disease, diabetes and other chronic situations. In the first edition of my Iodine book I started out with these words:
The role of iodine in the body goes far beyond its function of making thyroid hormones. Iodine is related to the ability to resist disease.
In fact just over a hundred years ago iodine was allopathic medicine's most universal medicine. Today many doctors are seeking alternatives and many alternative health care practitioners are in search of more powerful and safe ways of helping their clients. Iodine should satisfy everyone because it has the potential to help just about everyone who supplements with it. We all need iodine to survive; it is essential for human physiology, so our health is dependent on its presence in sufficient quantities.
That means that iodine will help prevent radiation of all kinds from tearing our health down to the gutter. It along with magnesium, selenium, sulfur, bicarbonate, vitamin C, chlorella, spirulina, superfood formulas like Rejuvenate, clay, chelators like HMD, IMD,? glutathione and nebulizing it with bicarbonate, ALA and intestinal formulas loaded with apple pictin, NAC (N-Acetyl-L-Cysteine) and a long list of other things will help mitigate radioactive cellular damage and help eliminate radioactive particles from the body. Edible clay of course is an essential as is really pure water and lots of it.
Not everyone dies from high-level radiation exposure! That's the good news!
It's a hard moment but we are only receiving tastes of what is to come. That's the bad news.
I am preparing a chapter on sulfur for the Nuclear Toxicity Syndrome book and I have been meaning to get one out about zeolite -- because first they were arresting people in Japan for selling it and now we hear the nuclear company is using it at the plant to control radiation. I can tell you Dr. Garry Gordon has a lot to say about zeolite as do the Russians.
In the old days you would hear shouted from the mastheads, "Prepare to repel boarders," as the enemy would gather to try to board your ship. Today someone (that someone being me) is finally shouting, PREPARE TO REPEL NUCLOID PARTICLES. PREPARE DEFENSES IN DEPTH. PREPARE EARLY.
It has only been five weeks since we hit the nuclear iceberg and over the next few years, or perhaps even a shorter period, millions will go down just from this particular mishap. I am afraid that we are only just beginning our lessons in worst-case scenarios playing out in our lives.
I really should stop but I just read an interesting article and want to include it at the end.
"On April 4, the Japanese government also has requested the Japan Meteorological Society and Japanese universities not to release data from radiation measurement to avoid "public panic". Rainwater samples have all demonstrated elevated concentrations of radioactive Tellurium-02, Ruthenium-04 and Technetium-04.
"280 sensors to measure radiation release from atomic bomb testing were established under the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1996. These sensors are detecting levels equivalent to Chernobyl releases. One scientist, Gerhard Wotawa, noted, 'I've never seen data like this in my career.'
"So how do we deal with disaster? Austria, Germany, Canada and Australia have banned eight episodes of Matt Groening's U.S. anime series, The Simpsons, dealing with nuclear crisis. The Simpsons, now in its 24th season with 480 episodes, has been one of the few outlets to show the greed of nuclear operators, groveling toadies and a complacent public to a mainstream television audience -- meltdowns caused by jelly doughnuts!
"Kopp Online, Xander News and other non-English news agencies are reporting that the EU implemented a secret "emergency" order, without informing the public, that increases the amount of radiation permitted in food by up to 20 times the previous food standards.
"According to EU bylaws, radiation limits may be raised during a nuclear emergency to prevent food shortages.
"Japan itself has now restricted rice planting in soil with more than 5,000 Becquerels per kilogram of radioactive caesium, the first time maximum radiation levels have been set for soil anywhere. The Fukushima prefectural government announced on April 6 that rice paddies 20-30 kilometers from the nuclear plant have shown as much as 15,031 Becquerels.
People, we are into only five weeks of intensifying contamination with no end in sight. And the growing red spot in northern Japan demands that we think of the people there with empathy and compassion, for the axe of one-world medicine, government and industrial power is falling on these people hardest. They are a people who are still not being officially warned away no matter how high the radiation gets.
On Saturday April 16th it was reported that levels of radioactive materials in the seawater rose again. The level of radioactive iodine 131 jumped to 6,500 times the legal limit, according to samples taken Friday, up from 1,100 times the limit in samples taken the day before. Levels of cesium 134 and cesium 137 rose nearly fourfold.
For all the references, sources and more articles on radiation and chemical toxicity please visit Dr. Mark Sircus blog.
About the author:
About the author:
Mark A. Sircus, Ac., OMD, is director of the International Medical Veritas Association (IMVA) http://www.imva.info/.
Dr. Sircus was trained in acupuncture and oriental medicine at the Institute of Traditional Medicine in Sante Fe, N.M., and at the School of Traditional Medicine of New England in Boston. He served at the Central Public Hospital of Pochutla in Mexico, and was awarded the title of doctor of oriental medicine for his work. He was one of the first nationally certified acupuncturists in the United States. Dr. Sircus's IMVA is dedicated to unifying the various disciplines in medicine with the goal of creating a new dawn in healthcare.
He is particularly concerned about the effect vaccinations have on vulnerable infants and is identifying the common thread of many toxic agents that are dramatically threatening present and future generations of children. His book, The Terror of Pediatric Medicine, is a free e-book offered on his web site. Humane Pediatrics will be an e-book available early in 2011 and then quickly as possible put into print.
Dr. Sircus is a most prolific and courageous writer and one can read through hundreds of pages on his various web sites.
He has recently released a number of e-books including Winning the War Against Cancer, Survival Medicine for the 21st Century, Sodium Bicarbonate, Rich Man’s Poor Man’s Cancer Treatment, New Paradigms in Diabetic Care and Bringing Back the Universal Medicine: IODINE.
Dr. Sircus is a pioneer in the area of natural detoxification and chelation of toxic chemicals and heavy metals. He is also a champion of the medicinal value of minerals and seawater.
Transdermal Magnesium Therapy, his first published work, offers a stunning breakthrough in medicine, an entirely new way to supplement magnesium that naturally increases DHEA levels, brings cellular magnesium levels up quickly, relieves pain, brings down blood pressure and pushes cell physiology in a positive direction. Magnesium chloride delivered transdermally brings a quick release from a broad range of conditions. His second edition of Transdermal Magnesium Therapy will be out shortly. In addition he writes critically about the political and financial crises occurring around us.
International Medical Veritas Association: http://www.imva.info/
http://publications.imva.info/
About the author: Mark A. Sircus, Ac., OMD, is director of the International Medical Veritas Association (IMVA) http://www.imva.info/. Dr. Sircus was trained in acupuncture and oriental medicine at the Institute of Traditional Medicine in Sante Fe, N.M., and at the School of Traditional Medicine of New England in Boston. He served at the Central Public Hospital of Pochutla in Mexico, and was awarded the title of doctor of oriental medicine for his work. He was one of the first nationally certified acupuncturists in the United States. Dr. Sircus's IMVA is dedicated to unifying the various disciplines in medicine with the goal of creating a new dawn in healthcare. He is particularly concerned about the effect vaccinations have on vulnerable infants and is identifying the common thread of many toxic agents that are dramatically threatening present and future generations of children. His book, The Terror of Pediatric Medicine, is a free e-book offered on his web site. Humane Pediatrics will be an e-book available early in 2011 and then quickly as possible put into print. Dr. Sircus is a most prolific and courageous writer and one can read through hundreds of pages on his various web sites. He has recently released a number of e-books including Winning the War Against Cancer, Survival Medicine for the 21st Century, Sodium Bicarbonate, Rich Man’s Poor Man’s Cancer Treatment, New Paradigms in Diabetic Care and Bringing Back the Universal Medicine: IODINE. Dr. Sircus is a pioneer in the area of natural detoxification and chelation of toxic chemicals and heavy metals. He is also a champion of the medicinal value of minerals and seawater. Transdermal Magnesium Therapy, his first published work, offers a stunning breakthrough in medicine, an entirely new way to supplement magnesium that naturally increases DHEA levels, brings cellular magnesium levels up quickly, relieves pain, brings down blood pressure and pushes cell physiology in a positive direction. Magnesium chloride delivered transdermally brings a quick release from a broad range of conditions. His second edition of Transdermal Magnesium Therapy will be out shortly. In addition he writes critically about the political and financial crises occurring around us. International Medical Veritas Association: http://www.imva.info/ http://publications.imva.info/
All content posted on this site is commentary or opinion and is protected under Free Speech. Truth Publishing LLC takes sole responsibility for all content. Truth Publishing sells no hard products and earns no money from the recommendation of products. NaturalNews.com is presented for educational and commentary purposes only and should not be construed as professional advice from any licensed practitioner. Truth Publishing assumes no responsibility for the use or misuse of this material. For the full terms of usage of this material, visit www.NaturalNews.com/terms.shtml
Nuclear weather worsens
by Mark Sircus., AC, OMD
(NaturalNews) Every day the news gets worse. Today it was robots telling us that radiation is so hot inside the nuclear plant in Japan that workers will have a hard to impossible time to work in certain areas to recover the plant from worst case scenarios. Radiation levels are just heading up across the board and across continents. Sunday morning the news was so bad that I didn't know what to do or write.
I could try screaming but I am not the type...or crying, well that comes almost too easily. Perhaps I am crazy. After all, Ann Coulter got on TV and actually said, "The only good news is that anyone exposed to excess radiation from the nuclear power plants is now probably much less likely to get cancer." And Dr. Josef Oehmen, a research scientist at MIT, said, "I repeat, there was and will *not* be any significant release of radioactivity from the damaged Japanese reactors."
Click here to see the video.
I wrote some pretty crass words the other day to begin an essay:
Avoiding exposure and radiation-induced diseases might come down to, I am terribly sorry to say, running for our lives. Anyone who cannot accept this is the reality millions of Japanese face is probably not worth saving so let them consume all the milk and unwashed leafy vegetables they can.
I got two probably well-deserved complaints about it. I allowed myself the expression as my first lines in a terrible document about the worsening situation in Japan and I could feel my anger building about the insensitivity of our world civilization and its institutions.
My editors also allowed me the expression and still I don't know how to express it differently, not really. My heart keeps crying silently for my friends and family in America. I mean I know how everyone must feel knowing that radiation exposure will very shortly be drizzling into most places in North America and the rest of the hemispheric north 24/7. Today, if you look at the maps, mid-range levels of radiation are hitting the west coast. The forecast for April 19 looked like this:
Source
How I'm supposed to be real and not use four-letter words is a mystery to my heart this second. Tell me how am I to feel saying something like that. What kind of being would take pleasure in making such a radioactive weather forecast? How many fathers are sitting on the beach, like I was yesterday with four of my six kids, looking out from the point furthest east in all the Americas, the point closest to Africa, and see about 2,000 miles away the leading edge of the nuclear pollution hitting a back draft from northern Africa. And my wife is attached to our life here in this great sea city and does not want to move to Sanctuary in the interior.
I have to be upset for I have to make sure everyone in the house, and that's a lot of people, are taking their iodine way out in advance of any incoming iodine radiation. Down here that really will not be a problem because of its very short half-life. After three months there is very little left but all the other nuclear particles will have no problem eventually finding their way down here to the southern hemisphere. Just look at what has been from one month of exposure to the north. Look at these maps repeatedly for effect! That is unless you prefer to drink some milk with some radiation. I don't think any of my readers would want to but I am not so sure about all the people who buy the mainstream news hook, line and sinker.
There are plenty who are saying radiation is good for you and probably are planning on going to the northeast of Japan instead of the Dead Sea to bathe in the healing waters. Well perhaps not, but remember, there have been a lot of important people running around for decades saying that nuclear energy is safe and use it all the time to treat and diagnose disease.
Even radioactive iodine is pumped into people by doctors, so hurray for the nuclear disaster, bring on some more, which might be coming if you look at what is happening in terms of increasing earthquake and volcanic activity. So yes, I am sorry, but I will stick to my guns. There are people on this planet I would say go ahead, drink the milk and consume lots of big leafy vegetables -- it might save them a trip to Japan!
Meanwhile for all those who think: okay, well it's only four or five nuclear reactors out of control and only a few nuclear pools with older spent nuclear rods melting, but we should be able to handle that right? Remember the other day when Dr. Michio Kaku said all it would take is one thing like a pipe breaking or another earthquake to make this situation even more catastrophic than it already is? Look at this video about seismic activity in the world.
Click here to see a video about the earthquakes on the world.
Twisted Medical Establishment Lost on Radiation Issues
How are the good doctors of the world going to deal with medical insanity and pharmaceutical terrorism now? One of the reasons the medical establishment is incapable of responding to the nuclear threat and the spreading contamination from Japan (that is circling around the globe) is that it is an institution that loves to use radioactive iodine, a substance that causes cancer, to treat cancer. Sounds kind of crazy and it is. Many patients are getting a thyroid cancer treatment that kills thyroid tissue, causing harm to other tissues while at the same time actually increasing the potential for thyroid cancer.
According to a new study published in Cancer, researchers are fingering doctors who are treating patients with early-stage, low-risk thyroid cancer using radioactive iodine, which does not increase their chances of surviving but does instead put them at risk for a secondary cancer. "Our study shows that these low-risk patients do not need radioactive iodine," Dr. Ian Ganly, one of the study's authors from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, told Reuters Health "Therefore there is no need to expose these patients to any risk from (radioactive iodine) treatment," he said in an email.
The American Thyroid Association endorses the use of radioactive iodine even though it also causes cancer of the salivary gland -- where radioactive iodine may accumulate -- as well as leukemia. Dr. Ganly said the risk of leukemia increases because radioactive iodine circulates in the blood, thus exposing bone marrow to its tissue-killing effects.
Don't be totally surprised if they announce that radioactive iodine from the out-of-control nuclear plant is good for the public and will save money because then patients will not need to pay for their radioactive iodine medications. The radioactive iodine taken in from the air, water and food will find its way into everyone's thyroids saving oncologists the trouble. Excuse my heavy sarcasm this morning; it's difficult to stay even-keeled as I write.
There are people and doctors who have said the little bit of mercury found in the flu and other vaccines is good for kids but, lo and behold, I read this morning that Poul Thorsen, the principal coordinator of multiple studies funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) who used to deny a vaccine/autism link, was indicted on April 13th on 13 counts of fraud and 9 counts of money-laundering. The charges relate to funding for work he conducted for the CDC that claimed to disprove associations between the mercury-based vaccine preservative, thimerosal, and increased rates of autism.
Now anyone with a cow's worth of sense would have understood that a strong neurotoxin like mercury was a strong neurotoxin. Gee people, don't you see how retarded ignorance rules in the CDC, FDA, AMA, WHO and dozens of other medical organizations? Stupid does not quite cover it does it? Now we know it's criminal, it's greed, and it's the politics of power and darkness on earth at its best.
Why should we be alarmed about nuclear fallout of radioactive iodine? Doctors use it so why should we be afraid of breathing it, eating it or taking it for breakfast in our milk and coffee? And why take nutritional iodine? It will only interfere with the uptake of the radioactive type! That's what oncologists seem to want and it seems that is why these are the last people on earth we should trust during a nuclear crisis.
Dr. Edward Golembe, who directs a hyperbaric oxygen chamber at Brookdale University Hospital in Brooklyn, said he had treated serious radiation injuries to the jaw and called them "a horrible, horrible thing to see." When we deal with radiation we deal with death for it is the death principle that doctors are trying to harness with terrible results. Most people who employ radiation in their treatments for cancer suffer horribly, but some worse than others.
Just being alive today is to walk through the valley of the shadow of death in terms of radiation exposure. Background radiation on earth has increased in the nuclear age coming from all the above-ground testing of the last century, nuclear plants, nuclear waste, uranium mining, and from depleted uranium weapons that are commonly used in the American, British and Israeli armies and navies and air forces. In addition there is constant and increasing exposure to other forms of radiation from microwave towers, cell phones, wireless phones and computer systems.
Most mainstream doctors believe that nutritional iodine only protects us from radioactive iodine and not the rest of the dangerously hot radioactive particles. Though this is true in a literal sense (and still neither the government nor doctors are recommending iodine supplementation) it is NOT TRUE in a medical sense.
Radiation causes death not only through cancer but also through heart disease, diabetes and other chronic situations. In the first edition of my Iodine book I started out with these words:
The role of iodine in the body goes far beyond its function of making thyroid hormones. Iodine is related to the ability to resist disease.
In fact just over a hundred years ago iodine was allopathic medicine's most universal medicine. Today many doctors are seeking alternatives and many alternative health care practitioners are in search of more powerful and safe ways of helping their clients. Iodine should satisfy everyone because it has the potential to help just about everyone who supplements with it. We all need iodine to survive; it is essential for human physiology, so our health is dependent on its presence in sufficient quantities.
That means that iodine will help prevent radiation of all kinds from tearing our health down to the gutter. It along with magnesium, selenium, sulfur, bicarbonate, vitamin C, chlorella, spirulina, superfood formulas like Rejuvenate, clay, chelators like HMD, IMD,? glutathione and nebulizing it with bicarbonate, ALA and intestinal formulas loaded with apple pictin, NAC (N-Acetyl-L-Cysteine) and a long list of other things will help mitigate radioactive cellular damage and help eliminate radioactive particles from the body. Edible clay of course is an essential as is really pure water and lots of it.
Not everyone dies from high-level radiation exposure! That's the good news!
It's a hard moment but we are only receiving tastes of what is to come. That's the bad news.
I am preparing a chapter on sulfur for the Nuclear Toxicity Syndrome book and I have been meaning to get one out about zeolite -- because first they were arresting people in Japan for selling it and now we hear the nuclear company is using it at the plant to control radiation. I can tell you Dr. Garry Gordon has a lot to say about zeolite as do the Russians.
In the old days you would hear shouted from the mastheads, "Prepare to repel boarders," as the enemy would gather to try to board your ship. Today someone (that someone being me) is finally shouting, PREPARE TO REPEL NUCLOID PARTICLES. PREPARE DEFENSES IN DEPTH. PREPARE EARLY.
It has only been five weeks since we hit the nuclear iceberg and over the next few years, or perhaps even a shorter period, millions will go down just from this particular mishap. I am afraid that we are only just beginning our lessons in worst-case scenarios playing out in our lives.
I really should stop but I just read an interesting article and want to include it at the end.
"On April 4, the Japanese government also has requested the Japan Meteorological Society and Japanese universities not to release data from radiation measurement to avoid "public panic". Rainwater samples have all demonstrated elevated concentrations of radioactive Tellurium-02, Ruthenium-04 and Technetium-04.
"280 sensors to measure radiation release from atomic bomb testing were established under the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1996. These sensors are detecting levels equivalent to Chernobyl releases. One scientist, Gerhard Wotawa, noted, 'I've never seen data like this in my career.'
"So how do we deal with disaster? Austria, Germany, Canada and Australia have banned eight episodes of Matt Groening's U.S. anime series, The Simpsons, dealing with nuclear crisis. The Simpsons, now in its 24th season with 480 episodes, has been one of the few outlets to show the greed of nuclear operators, groveling toadies and a complacent public to a mainstream television audience -- meltdowns caused by jelly doughnuts!
"Kopp Online, Xander News and other non-English news agencies are reporting that the EU implemented a secret "emergency" order, without informing the public, that increases the amount of radiation permitted in food by up to 20 times the previous food standards.
"According to EU bylaws, radiation limits may be raised during a nuclear emergency to prevent food shortages.
"Japan itself has now restricted rice planting in soil with more than 5,000 Becquerels per kilogram of radioactive caesium, the first time maximum radiation levels have been set for soil anywhere. The Fukushima prefectural government announced on April 6 that rice paddies 20-30 kilometers from the nuclear plant have shown as much as 15,031 Becquerels.
People, we are into only five weeks of intensifying contamination with no end in sight. And the growing red spot in northern Japan demands that we think of the people there with empathy and compassion, for the axe of one-world medicine, government and industrial power is falling on these people hardest. They are a people who are still not being officially warned away no matter how high the radiation gets.
On Saturday April 16th it was reported that levels of radioactive materials in the seawater rose again. The level of radioactive iodine 131 jumped to 6,500 times the legal limit, according to samples taken Friday, up from 1,100 times the limit in samples taken the day before. Levels of cesium 134 and cesium 137 rose nearly fourfold.
For all the references, sources and more articles on radiation and chemical toxicity please visit Dr. Mark Sircus blog.
About the author:
About the author:
Mark A. Sircus, Ac., OMD, is director of the International Medical Veritas Association (IMVA) http://www.imva.info/.
Dr. Sircus was trained in acupuncture and oriental medicine at the Institute of Traditional Medicine in Sante Fe, N.M., and at the School of Traditional Medicine of New England in Boston. He served at the Central Public Hospital of Pochutla in Mexico, and was awarded the title of doctor of oriental medicine for his work. He was one of the first nationally certified acupuncturists in the United States. Dr. Sircus's IMVA is dedicated to unifying the various disciplines in medicine with the goal of creating a new dawn in healthcare.
He is particularly concerned about the effect vaccinations have on vulnerable infants and is identifying the common thread of many toxic agents that are dramatically threatening present and future generations of children. His book, The Terror of Pediatric Medicine, is a free e-book offered on his web site. Humane Pediatrics will be an e-book available early in 2011 and then quickly as possible put into print.
Dr. Sircus is a most prolific and courageous writer and one can read through hundreds of pages on his various web sites.
He has recently released a number of e-books including Winning the War Against Cancer, Survival Medicine for the 21st Century, Sodium Bicarbonate, Rich Man’s Poor Man’s Cancer Treatment, New Paradigms in Diabetic Care and Bringing Back the Universal Medicine: IODINE.
Dr. Sircus is a pioneer in the area of natural detoxification and chelation of toxic chemicals and heavy metals. He is also a champion of the medicinal value of minerals and seawater.
Transdermal Magnesium Therapy, his first published work, offers a stunning breakthrough in medicine, an entirely new way to supplement magnesium that naturally increases DHEA levels, brings cellular magnesium levels up quickly, relieves pain, brings down blood pressure and pushes cell physiology in a positive direction. Magnesium chloride delivered transdermally brings a quick release from a broad range of conditions. His second edition of Transdermal Magnesium Therapy will be out shortly. In addition he writes critically about the political and financial crises occurring around us.
International Medical Veritas Association: http://www.imva.info/
http://publications.imva.info/
About the author: Mark A. Sircus, Ac., OMD, is director of the International Medical Veritas Association (IMVA) http://www.imva.info/. Dr. Sircus was trained in acupuncture and oriental medicine at the Institute of Traditional Medicine in Sante Fe, N.M., and at the School of Traditional Medicine of New England in Boston. He served at the Central Public Hospital of Pochutla in Mexico, and was awarded the title of doctor of oriental medicine for his work. He was one of the first nationally certified acupuncturists in the United States. Dr. Sircus's IMVA is dedicated to unifying the various disciplines in medicine with the goal of creating a new dawn in healthcare. He is particularly concerned about the effect vaccinations have on vulnerable infants and is identifying the common thread of many toxic agents that are dramatically threatening present and future generations of children. His book, The Terror of Pediatric Medicine, is a free e-book offered on his web site. Humane Pediatrics will be an e-book available early in 2011 and then quickly as possible put into print. Dr. Sircus is a most prolific and courageous writer and one can read through hundreds of pages on his various web sites. He has recently released a number of e-books including Winning the War Against Cancer, Survival Medicine for the 21st Century, Sodium Bicarbonate, Rich Man’s Poor Man’s Cancer Treatment, New Paradigms in Diabetic Care and Bringing Back the Universal Medicine: IODINE. Dr. Sircus is a pioneer in the area of natural detoxification and chelation of toxic chemicals and heavy metals. He is also a champion of the medicinal value of minerals and seawater. Transdermal Magnesium Therapy, his first published work, offers a stunning breakthrough in medicine, an entirely new way to supplement magnesium that naturally increases DHEA levels, brings cellular magnesium levels up quickly, relieves pain, brings down blood pressure and pushes cell physiology in a positive direction. Magnesium chloride delivered transdermally brings a quick release from a broad range of conditions. His second edition of Transdermal Magnesium Therapy will be out shortly. In addition he writes critically about the political and financial crises occurring around us. International Medical Veritas Association: http://www.imva.info/ http://publications.imva.info/
All content posted on this site is commentary or opinion and is protected under Free Speech. Truth Publishing LLC takes sole responsibility for all content. Truth Publishing sells no hard products and earns no money from the recommendation of products. NaturalNews.com is presented for educational and commentary purposes only and should not be construed as professional advice from any licensed practitioner. Truth Publishing assumes no responsibility for the use or misuse of this material. For the full terms of usage of this material, visit www.NaturalNews.com/terms.shtml
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)