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Europe: The cracks are beginning to show Is the EU experiment coming to an end? Europe considers its options

Frank Lee

The NATO build-up

2014: The expansion of NATO in the late 20th and early 21st centuries had posed a serious strategic threat to Russia’s security. In 1999 the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland joined NATO. In 2004 they were followed by the Baltics, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Slovenia; Albania and Croatia joined in 2009.

This influx was in addition to most of the western European states which had been members of NATO since the ‘Iron Curtain’ came down soon after hostilities had ceased in Europe in 1945. In all, 28 countries are now members of the alliance. Non-NATO members including, Sweden, Finland, were brought into line with EU/NATO policy after their accession to the Lisbon Treaty. Thus economically, politically and militarily the West had arrived at Russia’s western borders.

Viewed retrospectively, however, this was the high point of NATO hegemony. The juggernaut seemed to be at the height of its power, but the turning points had already come with the brief Russo-Georgia war in 2008 and then Ukraine 2014/15 when Russia said nyet.

COLOUR REVOLUTIONS

Colour revolutions financed by US Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in the shape of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), US-AID, and Human Rights Watch (HRW) were complementary to the EU/NATO expansion eastwards and had targeted both Georgia and Ukraine. Additionally, Soros’s Open Society and its many tentacles also took part in these operations.

The NED could not be called an NGO since it was funded directly by the US government which made it a “GO”. This was openly admitted later by Victoria Nuland – Under Secretary of State for Eurasian and East European Affairs, and Wife of leading neo-con warmonger Robert Kagan – during a talk which she gave at the Washington press club. (See the you tube). Ms Nuland also took the opportunity to inform the audience that the going rate for colour revolutions was US$5 billion.

TARGETING GEORGIA AND UKRAINE

The first political drive into Ukraine began with the Orange Revolution of 2004 with Yuliya Tymoshenko and Victor Yuschenko taking power. But this didn’t last long as both were congenitally corrupt and soon fell out with each other over the share of the spoils.

Victor Yanukovich whose base was in the Eastern oblasts of Donetsk and Lugansk and head of the Party of the Regions, was elected President of Ukraine in 2010. Yanukovich, never particularly popular in the west and central Ukraine, was ousted in the coup of 2014 supported by NATO/EU, the above-mentioned NGOs, and a motley collection of oligarchs, centre-right politicians and outright neo-fascists from Lviv, and Ternopol the far west of the country (Galicia).

Now the political drive was augmented by a military drive involving armed conflict in a war in the East of the country which is still ongoing. The new ‘President’ Poroshenko (ex-Finance Minister in Yanukovich’s 2010 government) launched what he called an ‘anti-terrorist’ operation which was to last a few hours at most.

Five years later the conflict is still simmering in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions in the Russian-speaking east of the country. Ultra-nationalist irregular militias from the western provinces and the Ukie regular army were meant to push right up to the Ukraine/Russian frontier and possibly deploy ABM systems.

Well, that was the plan. But we should all know by now about military plans. As the Prussian soldier and military strategist Helmuth von Moltke the Elder succinctly put it: “No battle plan ever survives first contact with the enemy.” Obviously the Ukies were not au fait with Herr Moltke and his works.

Additionally, the Russian naval base in Sevastopol/Crimea was being eyed by the US Sixth Fleet for future operations in the Black Sea. The Russians had been in occupation of this base for centuries and had some 16 thousand Russian servicemen permanently stationed there, with the additional proviso in the lease that another 10 thousand could be mobilised if necessary.

Russia paid Ukraine some $500 million annual rent for the use of the base and held the lease until 2042.

NATO’S PROXIES HIT A BRICK WALL

As it turned out the EU/NATO plan was stopped in its tracks mainly due to the fact that both in the Don Bass as well as in the Crimea the population was ethnically Russian.

The Crimean population did not recognise the putschists in Kiev as their government since the illegal regime had come to power by violent means and had also banned sizeable opposition political parties – e.g., the Party of the Regions and Ukrainian Communist party, the predominantly Eastern Ukrainian political entities.

Crimean people therefore transferred their loyalties to Russia eventually seceding from Ukraine to become part of the Russian Federation. In the Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts the Ukrainian military met with stiff resistance and were halted by the heavy defeats firstly at Ilovaisk in 2014, and then Debaltsevo 2015.

Hastily formed local para-military forces, aided by Russian artillery, arms and high-tech Electronic Warfare played a crucial role in these operations. Since that time, and apart from the occasional shelling from the Ukrainian side, the war has settled into a frozen conflict.

(A note in passing: the continued Ukrainian shelling of Don Bass civilians which is of course contrary to UN law, receives no attention whatsoever in the western media (why am I not surprised?) neither do the obscene rallies of up to 20,000 ultra-nationalists which take place in Kiev every January celebrating the birthday of the war criminal Stepan Bandera and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army UPA. Banners, Torchlight processions, pictures of Bandera, pure Leni Riefenstahl Nazi rally pastiche.)

BROKEN DREAMS

2019: After all the promises, EU flags, and hoopla in Independence Square (Kiev) the Ukrainian economy is now a shambles and Ukraine is the poorest country in Europe apart from Moldova.

The ‘Government’ (exited by Poroshenko and succeeded by the ex-comedian Zelenski who received a very large majority vote, due to the fact that the mass of the population want peace) is only kept in power by the oligarchs, principally Kolomoisky, and the armed ultra-nationalist militias, as well as handouts from the IMF.

There was a very famous line from the East European Marxist, Karl Radek:

‘Fascism is the iron hoop around the broken barrel of capitalism.’

Much the same can be said about Ukraine.

WESTERN EUROPEAN TRAVAILS – GEOPOLITICAL AND ECONOMIC

Coincidental with these events the economic situation in Europe has entered into a turbulent period. I hesitate to use the word ‘crisis’ but consider the core of the system, Germany, which if not actually in recession then is very near.

Growth Year on Year (YoY) from July 2018, July 2019 is 0.4% – what you would expect in the middle of a depression. UK’s growth figures are slightly better coming in at 1.2% YoY. Poor old Italy recorded a GDP growth of -0.1% YoY, (that’s a minus sign by the way).

Rubbing in the salt Italy has a Debt-to-GDP ratio of 132% and finally France YoY growth rate of 1.4% and a debt-to-GDP of 97%. That’s the big four in the EU/Eurozone.

So, the biggest economies in EU/Eurozone have a growth rate ranging from -0.1% to 1.4%. Oh, and I almost forgot negative interest rates are now becoming the norm in euroland and 85% of German Bunds are non-performing and/or interest rate negative.

Not very encouraging, and now the ECB is getting geared up for another round of QE, which means that the euro is going to be devalued. Of course, the Americans aren’t going to be best pleased with this turn of events.

With the exception of the Atlanticist knuckleheads – the UK, Poland and the Baltics – there is now a discernible rift taking place between the US and its Vassal states in Europe. For starters Germany in its present economic travails is not going to welcome any increased costs for its export industries.

Most importantly this includes raw material costs which underpins Germany’s manufacturing/export sector. Natural Gas and oil are piped to Germany from Russia and the construction of Nordstream 2 is crucial to the German economy but is infuriating the Americans who want to force, repeat force, Germany to buy more expensive, less reliable, Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) and are threatening to sanction any company and/or state to get their own way.

GERMANY’S ENTSCHEIDUNGSZEIT (DECISION TIME)

This is a clearly a re-run of history and a moment of truth for the Germans. Do they do what the Americans tell them, which would be akin to committing economic suicide, or will they pursue their national interests as they really ought to be doing . This was precisely the setting in 1985 though this time with Japan the object of US financial and economic destabilisation.

The Plaza Accord, as it was called, was a joint-agreement, signed on 22 September 1985, at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, between France, West Germany, Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom, to depreciate the U.S. dollar in relation to the Japanese yen and German Mark.

The signing of the Plaza Accord was significant in that it reflected Japan’s emergence as a player in managing the international monetary system. However, the bad news was the resulting recessionary impact which pushed up the value of the Yen against the dollar in Japan’s export-dependent economy.

Worse still this created an incentive for the expansionary monetary policies that led to the Japanese asset price bubble of the late 1980s. The Plaza Accord contributed to the Japanese asset price bubble, which progressed into a protracted period of deflation and low growth in Japan known as the first Lost Decade. Has Germany, and by implication Europe learned the lesson one wonders?

Bearing this in mind it should also be noted that Germany is a big investor in Russia.

Russia remains one of the top investment destinations for German businesses, despite tensions between Washington and countries facing steep sanctions, including the European Union.

Within the first quarter of 2019, foreign direct investment by German businesses in Russia has seen a 33 percent increase compared to the same period a year earlier, totalling €1.76 billion ($1.98 billion), according to a statement released by the Russian-German Chamber of Commerce.

“Despite weak market conditions, German companies continue to believe in the Russian market,” said Matthias Schepp, the chamber’s chairman, on Thursday, highlighting the upward trend of German business in Russia.

Although the Russian economy was at a standstill from 2014-2017 mainly due to sanctions that had been imposed over the Ukrainian crisis in 2014, Germany has remained a stable business partner. Europe’s largest economy has 10 times more companies registered in Russia than the other European Union states, accounting for nearly 4,500 companies.

[Caspian News, 8/7/19]

German big business, therefore, likely does not want to see its exports blocked in order to appease US geopolitical ambitions. And there is little sympathy among most of the German public for the ongoing US/NATO occupation. The decline of the SPD and CDU and rise of the AfD are indicative of this trend.

In a recent study it was found that the traditional relationship between Germany and the US was beginning to fray.

Americans and Germans have vastly different opinions of their bilateral relationship, but they tend to agree on issues such as cooperation with other European allies and support for NATO, according to the results of parallel surveys conducted in the United States by Pew Research Centre and in Germany by Körber-Stiftung in the fall of 2018.

In the U.S., seven-in-ten say that relations with Germany are good, a sentiment that has not changed much in the past year. Germans, on the other hand, are much more negative: 73% say that relations with the U.S. are bad, a 17-percentage-point increase since 2017.

Nearly three-quarters of Germans are also convinced that a foreign policy path independent from the U.S. is preferable to the two countries remaining as close as they have been in the past. But about two-thirds in the U.S. want to stay close to Germany and America’s European allies.

Similarly, while 41% of Germans say they want more cooperation with the U.S., fully seven-in-ten Americans want more cooperation with Germany. And Germans are about twice as likely as Americans to want more cooperation with Russia. All this is happening against a backdrop of previously released research showing a sharply negative turn in America’s image among Germans.

[Pew Research Centre, Nov. 2018]

Interestingly enough the most pro-NATO, pro-American outfit has been Daniel Cohn-Bendit’s Green Party – Die Grunnen. It seems that the 1968 version of Danny the Red, has transmuted into the 21st century Danny the Rat.

EMMANUEL MACRON QUA CHARLES DE GAULLE

Now joining the chorus of a possible EU independence from US is none other than Emmanuel Macron. In what seemed completely out of character perhaps, were Macron’s perorations which were eerily reminiscent of Charles De Gaulle both in their timing and sentiments. There was a clear message that the old Atlanticist geopolitical and economic global order has had its day. Lèse-majesté Indeed.

[See The Saker for a full account – The Unz Review, 12 September 2019]

PANIC OF THE GLOBALISTS

Earlier a similar break from current orthodoxy came surprisingly from the Chairman of the Bank of England, ex-Goldman Sachs former employee, Mark Carney, which took place at Jackson Hole Symposium 2019 23 August 2019. Herewith a brief resume from the Financial Times:

Mark Carney, the Bank of England governor, has said that the world’s reliance on the US dollar “won’t hold” and needs to be replaced by a new international monetary and financial system based on many more global currencies. In a speech at the annual Jackson Hole gathering of central bankers in the US, he called for the IMF to take charge of a new system of currencies, ensuring emerging economies from destructive capital outflows in dollars and removing their need to hoard US currency. In the longer term the IMF could “change the game” by building a multipolar system, he said.” Financial Times, 23/8/19 (paywall)

So, there we have it. Neo-liberalism and Globalization (which is neoliberalism writ large) no longer works. The holy trinity of free movement of labour, capital and commodities is no longer fit for purpose. Similarly, with the dollar, which isa key part of the present defunct global monetary and financial system. A new global currency needs to be constructed, which is precisely what Keynes argued in 1944. In fact, this is not news when restricted to opponents of globalization and neoliberalism, but it is news when being articulated by leading establishment figures such as Carney.

With all due respect to Antonio Gramsci I think the new is being born. The accelerating pace of events is leaving the know-nothing talking heads and their ilk in its wake. The view from the United States? Conspicuous by its absence.

They simply seem unable to fathom what is going on in the world. Thus, a geopolitical and economic fissure of San Andreas dimensions seems to have become a fait accompli between the US and the Eurasian bloc; this process, albeit in its earlier stages, now also seems to be developing between Europe and the US.

The post war paradigm seems to be coming under relentless pressures, both internal and external. The fact that Carney, as spokesman, feels it appropriate to point out this fact as the representative of such an Atlanticist basket-case as the UK makes these views even more significant.

The move from a unipolar to a multipolar world just got another big (and perhaps definitive) push.

Next up: 2020?

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vexarb
vexarb
Sep 25, 2019 5:56 AM

Cut’n’Paste from Saker Vineyard:

“Germany’s largest bank is about to belly up and inundate the Western banking system with the collapse of its derivatives load. It is indeed telling just how little news coverage this quiet subsidence is getting. The capitalist media just can’t face the fact and has to stay in denial. It is of telling interest to me that the corrupt capitalist who led this German mega bank into suicide territory resigned, entered politics, and is now the UK minister of Finance under Boris Piffle Johnson”

falcemartello
falcemartello
Sep 23, 2019 12:00 PM

Dedollarization a slow and inevitable end. How we get there is another matter.
Macron and co were quite happy to go along the Atlanticist pathway from Giorgia to Syria and beyond but I digress .
Post Scriptum: Fingers crossed we do not start WW4 cuause WW3 since 9/11 has been one big kluster fuck let alone the millions of lives that perished.
Docius in Fundem: The end is nigh and THEY KNOW IT.
In Shah Allah If God willing Se Dio vuole

Seamus Padraig
Seamus Padraig
Sep 23, 2019 5:52 PM
Reply to  falcemartello

Deus vult!

bevin
bevin
Sep 22, 2019 7:56 PM

An excellent article.
Here, thanks to links at MoA, from the New Left Review is another:
PROGRESSIVE REGRESSION Metamorphoses of European Social Policy (pdf) – Wolfgang Streek – new left review.
This footnote sums up the current nature of the EU and its Four Freedoms:
29 “A recent case involved a private nursing home for the elderly suing the German
Bundesland of Lower Saxony over its financial assistance to non-profit nursing
homes. Interestingly, the issue is not whether such assistance is allowed under the
treaties—it no longer is—but only whether it had been granted sufficiently long ago
that it would be protected under a grandfather clause.”

Chris Rogers
Chris Rogers
Sep 25, 2019 10:06 AM
Reply to  bevin

Many thanks for reminding me to read Streek’s article in New Left Review, which has by-passed me due to travelling for a week.

Chris Rogers
Chris Rogers
Sep 25, 2019 10:27 AM
Reply to  bevin

Wolfgang Streeck’s full academic paper is available here, rather than behind a NLR paywall – an excellent paper for those who understand that you can only have a radical, transformative government outside of the confines of the EU: https://wolfgangstreeck.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/wolfgang-streeck-progressive-regression-nlr-118-july-august-20191.pdf

Frank Speaker
Frank Speaker
Sep 22, 2019 6:01 PM

A nice and concise overview of some key events, but hardly a compelling argument for the end of the EU, not least it’s all about NATO.

andyoldlabour
andyoldlabour
Sep 22, 2019 11:41 AM

Last week, I reeutrned from two delightful weeks in Germany and Austria. I can heartily recommend the areas around Koblenz – Bad Ems and Moselkern – for their stunning scenery and friendly people. Then of course we have Vienna which is a grand place.
However, I didn’t post simply to give a tourist’s account of my trip, this is about politics, particularly in Germany, and more specifically the rise of the AfD, described by MSM here in the West as far right fascists. There have been state elections taking place, and in the early ones the AfD were increasing their share of the vote to around 27% which is very impressive, and which should prove to anyone with half a brain that this party is not composed simply of Neo Nazis and the like.
In six years the AfD has now established itself as the third largest party in Germany.

https://www.npr.org/2019/09/20/761577041/far-right-makes-gains-in-2-german-state-elections-as-centrists-hang-onto-power?t=1569148617991

Seamus Padraig
Seamus Padraig
Sep 22, 2019 1:28 PM
Reply to  andyoldlabour

AfD is very mixed bag. On the one hand, they’re just filling the void left by Merkel’s bowdlerization of the Germany’s CDU/CSU, which was once a kind of ‘christian democratic’ party, but has now drifted towards globalism, neoliberal economics and political correctness–just like all the other German parties. AfD is only ‘nazi’ by today’s wacky standards. But their real problem is that they’re still kind of chaotic and shambolic. They’re still in their growing-pains stage, and they don’t always know for sure exactly what they stand for, apart from being opposed to immigration and the euro, of course. We’ll see how they develop …

andyoldlabour
andyoldlabour
Sep 23, 2019 8:59 AM
Reply to  Seamus Padraig

Seamus, everything you said regarding neo-liberalism, globalism and PC madness, is exactly what ordinary people, particularly the poor and the middle class who are starting to see wage stagnation, are absolutely sick of. Most people want a return to basics, sensible politics based on realistic economic policy, improvments to infrastructure, public services, particularly education and health.
What they don’t want to see, is virtue signalling, placing minority interests above the concerns of the majority, and they certainly do not want to see their country flooded with immigrants who have no intention of integrating and who are from a totally different culture.
If someone decides to live in the UK, then I don’t care which country they come from as long as, they pay their way, they speak our language and they try to integrate. I do not want immigrants trying to change the UK into becoming more like their country.

BigB
BigB
Sep 22, 2019 10:11 AM

Frank:

[RE: our conversation the other day – “We’re doooooommeedd: we’re all dooommeedd!” as Corporal Fraser might say.]

You know I keep banging on that dollars are short and dollar illiquidity – starting offshore, but transmitting onshore – and this is the real reason for periodic (decadal) financial crises? Well, the biggest indication yet – a huge Black Swan – has been that the Fed dropped rates 25 basis points on Wednesday. Nothing unexpected there. But for four straight days they had to intervene in the overnight repo markets to inject $75bn a day – a day! – to stave off a ‘short term illiquidity crisis’. Short term? On Monday – with no fanfair – they are set to continue the repurchase scheme (OMO – Open Market Operations = QU4) …indefinitely!

[To October 10th initially: but potentially open ended. Read: open ended QE]

Apparently: this does not reflect the real state of the real economy or monetary policy. Which is what Bernanke and Yellen said: “Problem: what problem?”

If the Fed is propping up the market at the rate of $75bn a day – that’s some fucking problem. It indicates a massive dollar illiquidity crisis due to the collapse in the Eurobond market. Add to Draghi’s open ended QE (a mere 20bn a month: the Fed have already injected circa $300bn this week); negative bonds; negative Bunds; etc …looks like we got us a meltdown.

Which is bad for all of us. The indication is that the CBs have given up (have you read Rasmus’ “Central Bankers at the End of their Ropes” – there are no alternatives …they’ve run out of options). They’ve opened the sluices and are pouring gasoline on the fire (or FIRE economy). What was it you were quoting Fraser saying!

Francis Lee
Francis Lee
Sep 23, 2019 8:57 PM
Reply to  BigB

”(have you read Rasmus’ “Central Bankers at the End of their Ropes” Yep, and ”The Looting of Greece”. Very similar to Nomi Prins, ”Collusion” very good insider view of Finance and Central Banking.

Ben Trovata
Ben Trovata
Sep 22, 2019 3:35 AM

I liked this piece of work,esp.,the Ukraine story.However,in reading the quoted part about the IMF,I remembered Jack Rasmus’s warning: “The IMF does nothing the US does not approve.–Jack Rasmus” [just sayin’…]

Seamus Padraig
Seamus Padraig
Sep 21, 2019 9:49 PM

“In a speech at the annual Jackson Hole gathering of central bankers in the US, he called for the IMF to take charge of a new system of currencies, ensuring emerging economies from destructive capital outflows in dollars and removing their need to hoard US currency. In the longer term the IMF could ‘change the game’ by building a multipolar system, he said.”

I honestly don’t find that to be very good news, seeing as how I don’t trust the IMF. I trust them even less than I trust the Fed, in fact–and I don’t trust the Fed at all. The IMF is just another group of unelected Rothschild ass-muppets who put the welfare of their little bankster-mafia ahead of the welfare of the rest of us. Not much to be hopeful about there.

Tom
Tom
Sep 21, 2019 8:33 PM

Dream on. The EU departed NATO’s grasp with the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the EU countries combined now have a larger economy than the US. What I suspect we’re seeing with Brexit, the Yellow Vests in France and the Greek crisis are the last thrashings of NATO/CIA control as the American state tries to destroy European unity. It’s not going to work. There is no appetite for Europeans to be at each other’s throats, except at the margins.

Seamus Padraig
Seamus Padraig
Sep 22, 2019 1:31 PM
Reply to  Tom

With few exceptions, all the EU members are NATO members and vice-versa. Face it, Tom: the EU is just the banking arm of NATO.

Guy
Guy
Sep 21, 2019 2:56 PM

Excellent article with a compacted review of the state of affairs geopolitically and economically .
Thank you Frank Lee .Your ability in delivering the facts in condensed form are to be commended.
A link to Peter Koenig on the USD. An article with a similar view.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/world-dedollarizing/5684049

Cesca
Cesca
Sep 21, 2019 2:07 PM

Another good article Frank, i think the serious decline of the EU began when the ECB made supporting disaster capitalism their priority, by breaking with the the social contract. Installing the odious, arch-globalist Christina Lagarde as ECB boss has merely put the seal on the EU demise, won’t take long for the death rattle to begin.

Mark Carney is another Deep State worm, the dollar will collapse, it’s a matter of when, the Central Banks might even crash it to prevent Trump being re-elected. Ordinary ppl are in dire straits now, which cld soon become devastation, i believe that our money is no longer our own in Europe and the US, our Govts can seize our bank deposits without our permission.

MASTER OF UNIVE
MASTER OF UNIVE
Sep 21, 2019 3:20 PM
Reply to  Cesca

Trump is the Central Bank as he tells them what to say & do. Trump only has a two year business college diploma, and he thinks he knows more about Mathematics than the Federal Reserve Mathematics PhDS like Powell do.

Governments worldwide have already seized all of your disposable income gains for the last half century. If you examine the savings of serfs in the population you will find that they have no savings at all and are in debt to banks.

Banks earn rentier income.

MOU

BigB
BigB
Sep 21, 2019 4:27 PM
Reply to  Cesca

Cesca:

The dollar has special status as the reserve. Crash the dollar: crash the global economy. In fact, all global crises start with a dollar illiquidity problem. Decoded: that is what Carney was talking about. The CB dialect calls it a ‘savings glut’ – too many dollars in the emerging market current accounts. Only, it is not there. The missing currency is ‘offshore’ in the trans-national Eurobond markets. There is a BIS Working Paper (No291) that has details, if you are that interested.

https://www.bis.org/publ/work291.htm

The synopsis is simple though: there are too few dollars to mediate world trade. That is why Carnage proposed a ‘Synthetic Hegemonic Currency’ (SHC) to extend capitalism far beyond moral bankruptcy. That’s a blockchain SDR. Or worse: Facebook’s ‘Libra’. That would make Zuckerberg the owner of the world’s reserve currency. I wish I was joking: but I am not. Carnage actually referenced Libra in his speech. Scared: you should be!

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-7396207/Bank-England-finally-admits-Carney-held-talks-Zuckerberg-row-rages-new-currency.html

Sorry about the Daily Heil! It’s all part of free-enterprise capitalism’s ‘New Agenda’. You can check that out at FT, WEF, or the Labour Party Conference. It’s all pretty much the same these days. It’s capitalism or capitalism under Capitalist Realism. Did I mention the GND? That’s all part of the cuddly corporate rebrand.

crispy
crispy
Sep 21, 2019 5:24 PM
Reply to  BigB

BigB you’ve perfectly summed it up

capitalism isn’t over, there isn’t any such thing as a multi-polar world just more capitalism and the near completion of the ultra imperial project, capitalism is simply morphing into its next phase

soon Russia and China will have to bend the knee, my money is on Russia going tits up first, there’s no real system in Russia once Putin has gone its game over

…and don’t all jump down my throat at once, just remember how long the BRICS thing lasted, we live in a capitalist world simple as that!

BigB
BigB
Sep 21, 2019 6:07 PM
Reply to  crispy

Crispy:

I’m afraid we do. Live in a capitalist world. Alternatives to Fisher’s Capitalist Realism are ‘neuronal ensembles’ deep in the unconscious, yet to see the light of day. Actually extant socialism capitulated decades before my birth. It was never a viable alternative: it may have once been a Luxemburgian/Gramscian vanguard …but not any more.

I don’t know about Russia. I’ve always thought that it was one of the more resilient countries. But then, there are so many Black Swans that may initiate a global crisis – it would take all evening to name them. The whole point of Black Swans being that you cannot actually name them all (expect the unexpected).

The next crisis is underway. I expect something like the SHC will be used to extend the dollar for another business cycle. That cycle can only ever extend the Epic Recession – now 12 years old. Each successive cycle will make things worse. The shock therapy – disaster capitalism – will do quite well …in successive waves of primitive accumulation (buying firesale stock and whole country assets for cents on the dollar).

Eventually humanity will become economically literate enough to see what is going on. Well, maybe, if they cancel Strictly. Then a viable post-capitalist solution may emerge into consciousness. Unfortunately, we’re fucked until then.

crispy
crispy
Sep 21, 2019 6:42 PM
Reply to  BigB

we’re fucked then!

people are opting out into the fluffy never world of gender trans humanism,they’ll seek sanctuary in the rapidly evolving cybercosm

the world is on the brink of dystopia the likes of which we’ve never seen

the younger generations won’t know any difference so why should they challenge the status quo,they believe we live in liberal democracies,you’ll never hear them say ” i live in a global capitalist system”

the future looks like the sci fi movie Gattaca

Ben Trovata
Ben Trovata
Sep 22, 2019 4:11 AM
Reply to  crispy

BRICS EXIST —they are about 41% of world population

crispy
crispy
Sep 22, 2019 8:06 AM
Reply to  Ben Trovata

41% of the worlds population live within a global capitalist system, they don’t live in some sort of paral system all the economies of the BRICS are integrated into the global system

the vast majority of these people have no financial power ergo they’re not important

BigB
BigB
Sep 22, 2019 9:24 AM
Reply to  Ben Trovata

Ben:

BRICS exists: but it is a literal Goldman Sachs invention. The concept was identified by ‘Lord Jim’ O’neil (Baron Gatley) in Global Economics Paper No66.

https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/archive/archive-pdfs/build-better-brics.pdf

It grew from there. The ‘S’ was added in circa 2012. It was not just an identification of concept. O’neil went on to seed the emerging market phenomena with north of $800bn – which was mainly ‘free’ QE1 money. The emerging market scenario is entirely the product and function of surplus USD seeding. When the USD recovered sufficiently – with Powell’s rate cuts in 2017 – that USD capital turned into capital flight. The emerging markets became submerging. So far this has hit Argentina the worst. But the entire global economy is slowly collapsing. As evidenced by the Fed returning to OMO (Open Market Operations; QE4) injecting $75bn a day – that’s every day – indefinitely. Following the ECB’s lead of 20bn euros a month indefinitely. You do not inject that sort of capital into a functioning market system.

Cesca
Cesca
Sep 22, 2019 4:40 PM
Reply to  BigB

Cheers for the reply MoU, interesting reply and yes, banks do earn parasitical.rentier income. It was madness to allow banks to kidnap deposits of customers and invest them. We just have loadsa IOUs in our accts which will melt away if the system crashes.

Seriously interesting stuff BigB, i’m an Anthropologist not an Economist but it’s important to me to learn some about anything important, which affects the welfare of us all. And *Carnage*, love that and will be remembering it. =)

Michael McNulty
Michael McNulty
Sep 21, 2019 11:31 AM

At America’s insistence NATO troops are all along Russia’s border, so NATO (or more correctly America) has re-established the Iron Curtain, this time facing east. The EU is trying to push and pull at the same time, fearful to ignore America’s sanctions yet wanting to take advantage of the profit opportunities. It should get dictatorial like it does on European populations and tell America to “beat it!”

Fair dinkum
Fair dinkum
Sep 21, 2019 11:22 AM

German, Chinese, Indian and French investments undermining and contradicting the US political agenda?
Sad, ain’t it.
Problem is, it’s still exploitation on a grand scale.

RopeResearch
RopeResearch
Sep 21, 2019 11:00 AM

Cracks and the Saudi factor: A crisis of conscious is most likely created due to Saudi Money. Some officials are eager to do anything to please the wealthy ZioSaudis while other are more reserved seeing the human tragedy created by The Sausi-UAE bombing of Yemen, as well as the Saudi destructive behaviour elsewhere.

Proud Europeans would feel sick in the stomach, seeing some UN decisions essentially bought by the likes of the Saudis. It would be uncomfortable for politicians to look into the eyes of their constituents after giving support (or turning a blind eye) to the crimes committed by the Wahhabis.

Also, highly likely, a much bigger crisis of conscious exists, due to the strong official European support for the endless crimes committed by the Israelis, as it is surprising to look at the news and not to see some unwarranted fresh killing happening.

vexarb
vexarb
Sep 21, 2019 9:12 AM

Mailman here. From Rob BTL Saker Vineyard costing a Royal Family:

“What do we think are the maintenance costs of being ruled by a royal family?
Estimations based on official numbers, 5000 direct members of the House of Saud and their monthly wages, come to 5-10% of KSA GDP. However, there are over 100,000 indirect princelings and tribal heads who must be bought off. Add to that costs of staff, security personnel and so on. We come close to the real costs by multiplying the official numbers with a factor pi (3 and a bit). That means maintaining their royal family costs between 20 and 30% of KSA GDP.
Expensive hobby for a people that is up to its neck in Austerity and Defense.”

[To which Vexarb adds: Of course Europe has very few Royal Families; but Europe is a Plutocracy, and a lot of our Plutocrats (eg, the Rothschilds, the Camorons and the Sieffs) are as hereditary as our Royals. Add all their relatives, their friends, their hangers-on and their staffs, I wonder whether the present inefficiency and futile warmongering by Western Europe is not as expensive as the inefficiency and futile warmongering by the Anglo Zio Oil Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.]

Antonym
Antonym
Sep 21, 2019 3:34 AM

Totalitarian cultures love globalism: full control. State capitalism, rogue MNCs, IslamUmmah, Socialist International or continental/world empires are not that different behind the very different facades.

They all hate nation states with their own diverse cultures, where peoples can effectively agree to reign in local despots.

George Mc
George Mc
Sep 21, 2019 8:33 AM
Reply to  Antonym

Your entire view seems to be based on some top down notions of “cultures” and “despots”, bad stuff and nasty people emanating from the top. But global money flows and multi-national corporations are the dominant factor in deciding world events. There’s no point in waving your little local flag and singing praises to your little local culture when vast numbers are losing their livelihoods and the social security safety net is shrinking fast.

MASTER OF UNIVE
MASTER OF UNIVE
Sep 21, 2019 3:12 AM

I’ve been screaming that Neoliberalism is defunct since Bear Stearns was murdered March 10th 2008 around 11:00am. The problem with your thesis is that you just don’t get that Wall Street Bank Holding Companies don’t want to admit that they don’t have a clue, and the Securities & Exchange Commission & Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, as well as the Ratings Agencies, are all in bed together like they are Caligula.

The Western Banking System was imploded intentionally, Frank. Understand that the Bear Stearns takedown was comeuppance for the George W. Bush terror regime. Also understand that Lehman Brothers was leveraged to blow long before September 15th. Make sure you understand that Fuld leveraged 44:1 like a drunken sailor because Christopher Cox was far too drunk on the souls of the poor to bother paying attention to leverage risks and Fuld knew he could blow the whole fucking world up with his penchant for risk because Fuld only wanted to crush his competitors.

Kill or be killed was Fuld’s modus operandi, and risk was his weapon of choice to outperform his rivals.
Fuld drank the Lehman Brothers Kool-Aid that they served in the cafeteria. He was not supposed to drink it but he could not help himself.

It does not matter if the Western Banking System & all sovereign governments in the Western Banking System don’t understand what is going on because I do.

P.S. I very much admire your ability to sift through the EU & USA decoupling of markets and Neoliberal superstructures of banking to conclude that it is imploding before our very eyes.

When it blows I will take over, don’t worry!

MOU

RopeResearch
RopeResearch
Sep 21, 2019 2:55 AM

In the clearest terms, yet, the French president, although an american lackey/stooge/sychphant, is declaring the Empire is morally and intellectually BANKRUPT! Here are the main points from his speech in August 2019:

“The international order is being shaken in an unprecedented manner .. by the great upheaval that is undoubtedly taking place for the first time in our history, in almost every field and with a profoundly historic magnitude.

“We are undoubtedly experiencing the end of Western hegemony over the world.

“Things are deeply shaken by the mistakes of Westerners in certain crises, by the choices that have been made by Americans for several years which did not start with this administration,

“real “civilizational states” which now come not only to shake up our international order.

“Look at India, Russia and China. They have a much stronger political inspiration than Europeans today. They think about our planet with a true logic, a true philosophy, an imagination that we’ve lost a little bit.

http://www.unz.com/tsaker/president-macrons-amazing-admission/

Kelleana Noone
Kelleana Noone
Sep 21, 2019 12:06 PM
Reply to  RopeResearch

What do you think will be the result of the loss of Hegemony and the development of a multi polar world..? Personally, I think every nation big and small will soon need to arm itself sufficiently to deny all other nations access to regime change or attack them, much as Iran has already done. As of recently no one trust the industrial communities in the USA, including its Military Industrial Complex either for the quality of the products produced or for the integrity of intention and safety of design. All over, companies are being discovered that produce or sell products that are known to cause cancer or produce other health defects: airplanes with known undisclosed faults, GMOs, and weed killers for starters.

Please though, don’t blame governed Americans.. The USA operates without consultation to the Americans it governs.. The USA implements divide and conquer
strategy by separating those it governs into human pro/con containers (pro/con guns, pro/con abortion, pro/con Democraps or Reputurds, basically X(np) pro or X(nc) con containers, where n is the container number ), and enhances its D&C strategy with a feed forward, feedback, behavior, information thought control system capable to capture and profile every aspect of container trapped humans. Containers are engineered environments, much like a prison cell, designed for 24/7 conformed behavior containment. Containerization is used to tailor, direct and control the thinking and behaviors of those therein contained. Containerization has produced a great civil disconnect. It is probably the most advanced system of control politicians have ever experienced.

The USA implements a feed forward, feedback, behavior, information, thought control system (BITCS). This system selectively controls content access to the media. Authorized container specific content is delivered over media (like a mailbox, addressed content is delivered to a target human container);. BITCS also captures recipient response to the media delivered content, feeds the recipient response back to psycho engineers, who analyze the feedback, adjust the next propaganda saturated content to move the behavior or attitude closer to BITCS design target. On the media side, BITCS relies on a conglomeration of government and government innocent companies, who manufacture equipment, develop software, provision networks, or engineer propaganda into content. So essentially all important aspects of both sides (provider or user) of the the digital revolution make up BITCS. The only variable is the different propaganda schemes delivered to n containers.

Because BITCS depends on the quality of the information it takes in, it is supported by a anti-privacy 24/7 data collection and confirmation system. Everyone’s personal information, behaviors and biological histories are recorded, indexed and appended to the human containers appropriate to that individual. (All access to any part of medical, social governmental services and all access to multinational corporations requires first an authentication procedure (picture ID + confirming personally identifying information) <=the USA and its corporate bandits want their feedback data to be perfect; how else can they control your thoughts, direct your behaviors, and pick your pockets?

The chasm between the Americans in the street and the persons in the USA is widening faster than anyone could have imaged .. It surfaced when the Presidency was won on a single word platform <= "CHANGE". ..Many Americans have quit voting, few still trust the greedy human robots at wall street, and nearly everyone is in denial. What made America great was a strong, interactive you scratch my back I'll scratch your back cooperative interplay between law makers, voters, consumers, industries and independent journalist.

Since Nixon the USA sees the Americans it governs as if they were an evil enemy. Everyone is out to get them mentality! The USA has separated itself from Americans, that's why "Make America great again" elected a President? Except for taking tax money and facilitating BITCS, the USA has substantially enhanced its "I am going to rule and you are going to follow laws”, in opposition to the wants, needs, and expectations of most Americans. Wall Street is more important that human rights.

In addition to the don’t give a damn the USA has installed draconian no talk, just listen laws and imposed a draconian SS type agency (Homeland security). The USA is only interested in making its wealthy-elite-feudal clients richer by selling bogus stocks, regime changing, or invading some foreign place Americans never heard of.

Because I believe the BITCS is in play in each of the EU states I attribute the growing chasm between Europe, other nations and the USA as the result of intention elite-wealth-power. We humans must stick together.. we must not let those in power separate and containerize humans, unless we want to be their slaves.

MASTER OF UNIVE
MASTER OF UNIVE
Sep 21, 2019 3:11 PM
Reply to  Kelleana Noone

The Investment Bank Wall Street lobby sends over 15 lobbyists to K-Street for every single Congressional district so that members of Congress have a lineup of pay to play adherents.
Superpacks dominate elections and only billionaires take the helm. Billionaires don’t care what you want and they don’t care if you organize in groups for solidarity.

And sticking together just puts a larger target on your back.

P.S. The elite .0001% are in fact slaves to wealth but, their wealth is their undoing in that the system is built upon a growth model that is actually deflating quarter-by-quarter so that all the risk shuffled off onto the least knowledgeable in previous quarters eventually comes back to destroy the economies that the billionaires leeched too much capital from in their quest for power.

And want has nothing to do with anything anymore.

Empirically, if humans are dependent upon economies to live and the economies crash outright there will be no economy to support any humans when they all implode at the same time due to interconnectivity.

Economic capture worked for the elite on the way up, but the deflationary cycle will destroy all when we are on the downslope spiral.

MOU

RopeResearch
RopeResearch
Sep 22, 2019 3:28 AM
Reply to  Kelleana Noone

“feedback, behavior, information, thought control system (BITCS)”

This is greatly facilitated by offering unlimited space for free emails. Note how all new emails accounts must feature identification process, including a chain of emails, i.e. user provides another email as a reference.

Commenting platform Discus also looks ideal for monitoring and thought control as it is used on websites with almost all differing views. Even some Chinese news websites use it for commenting.

And Google is offering unlimited photo upload. How generous of the US surveillance industrial complex!!!

crispy
crispy
Sep 21, 2019 7:15 PM
Reply to  RopeResearch

Macrons speech is just empty blather its sole intention is to chivy the troops, and showcase his leadership potential

people shouldn’t pay to much attention to this sort of stuff, its not surrender monkey stuff I’d read it as the complete opposite

unfortunately to many think its all over for the ” empire” such as Unz and that hysterical idiot the Saker, well the “empires ” been around a loooong time and all the capital and banking power are in western hands not in hands of the so called resistance

I’d suggest a far more informed analysis of what this means can be found in Tony Norfield

book, The City or on his blog, The Economics of Imperialism

Norfield has developed something he calls the power index and frankly its far more convincing than childish rubbish pumped out by the likes of those who you link to