Wednesday, December 24, 2014

A Holiday Post: Part One, December As A Month Glorifying The Corporate State’s Violence

“What is the chief end of man?--to get rich. In what way?--dishonestly if we can; honestly if we must. Who is God, the one only and true? Money is God. Gold and Greenbacks and Stock--father, son, and the ghost of same--three persons in one; these are the true and only God, mighty and supreme.” – Mark Twain, The Revised Catechism.  Or, maybe it should have been the only real Catechism in capitalist nations.

I was planning to put up a holiday post delving further into the esoteric factors shaping the world today.   Included in that would be an amalgam of remarks from may of my posts over the years.  That includes my October 2013 good-vs-evil-in-late-Scorpio turn-date post, my post on the Roman Emperor as the anti-Christ and the state as the antithesis of Godliness, my 2011 holiday post titled  The Journey Of Becoming I Am and a smattering from quite a few others on the disconnected ego.   I’ll include the link to The Journey Of Becoming I Am as an introduction to the next post.  But, that will have to wait for a week or two as I haven’t had enough time to finish it.  I suppose rather than a holiday post, I may pen it as a new year’s post. 

We are living through a time of great violence and moral bankruptcy around the world.  These dynamics are intertwined.  One cannot exist without the other.  Much of that violence is driven by self-imposed ignorance.   It seems that the world is in a trance but is now slowly but surely awakening from it.   And no one is more entranced or ignorant than the people who are responsible for keeping this system functioning.  Be that politicians, corporate executives, the military-industrial complex, mainstream religious institutions,  the educational and university system and the glue that holds it all together, standing armies, law enforcement and the national security state.  Our world is one that has become wildly dumbed-down by these institutions of the ego.   Humanity is clearly devolving under the duress of the state.  But the reality is everything is an illusory bubble that papers over the thin veneer of our perceptions and associated beliefs.  That veneer is now starting to expose itself as nothing more than lies created by the disconnected ego.

I have written ad nauseam about the state on here over the last nine years.  But I certainly have ratcheted up those writings in the last few years.   There is a reason for doing so.  While just about no one is even considering it, again because of their own fear-driven state of mind that keeps them from considering such truths, the more reality exposes itself, the more one must question whether we are living through the end times of the state.   This could come in waves or all at once.  But, in many regards, witnessing the Soviet Union collapse into thirteen smaller states and other movements around the world may simply have been an early phase of the ultimate failure of the state.  We definitely are living through the end times of massive state power grabs and state liberalism.  Which plays directly into my long-time remarks that both the Republican and Democratic Parties in the U.S. are going to collapse.  Both are predatory, hierarchical systems of control that only exist through the violence afforded by state liberalism.  The megalomania of the finger-wagging political hypocrites is phenomenal.  Every time I see a politician open their mouth, regardless of what country or what party affiliation, it almost certainly involves some kind of hypocrisy and violence on a nearly unimaginable scale.  Now, to be human is to be a hypocrite.  But, the politician takes it to an art form by using the violence of the state to enforce that hypocrisy.      

Let me share one example of violence that has become so entrenched into the propaganda entrancing the human psyche. Large swaths of the population glorify it thus creating their own self-inflicted misery by embracing the violence of their oppressors.    Especially people who self-identify as conservatives or Republicans.  That is, corporate capitalism, the institution we waged our Revolutionary War to rid ourselves of.  This dynamic is particularly relevant in the month of December --

Most in the “civilized” world (hahaha) goes to work every day in a hierarchical organization and/or an organization defined by an intent of profit or power or both.  In other words, control structures that are creations of the ego or the self.   The CEO as a king, the board of directors as his court or advisors, the sales executive as the general, the salespersons as the warriors, the engineers and laborers as the weapons makers or those responsible for producing the weapons battle will be waged with, (debt, food, autos, pharma drugs, interest, missiles, guns, whatever) the HR department as the recruiters or slave traders needed to fill the battle ranks or fill the body bags (layoffs) for the king when battles (sales) are lost, advertisers create the propaganda necessary to defeat the enemy and win the war.   Not only does the state benefit from the business of war, but it also benefits from the war of business.  Corporate capitalism is a form of control (violence) waged against humanity.  Yet, it requires docile acceptance of its propaganda to actually exist.  How again is subjugating yourself to corporate hierarchy and those who seek power over your divinity a manifestation of self-rule or democracy?  Come again?

Although we are most often ignorant to it, when we go to work every day the constructs of hierarchy, profit and power guarantee that we are perpetrators of violence.  And, at the same time, violence is perpetrated against us.  That violence is most often emotional or spiritual or outside of our view.  And that violence we perpetrate could be against our work peers, against those we “manage” at work, against those who manage us, against other companies we battle with, against the poor, against the planet,  against exploited “consumers”, against democracy or countless other examples.  And, what is even more sinister is that we often perpetrate that violence against ourselves.  Ignorantly, of course.  The more violent we are with ourselves, the more we become habituated to accepting the cruelty and evil violence perpetrated against others.   The more we become Godless.  There are compelling reasons to consider that the world has never seen such organized, universal violence against the human psyche and all life. 

December is a month uniquely glorifying that corporate violence through the propagandized mantra of consumerism.  In the endless power grabs by the state, we clearly see vacuousness and meaninglessness has been taken to an art form by the corporate state.  People from around the world with differing traditions, generally tend to have a holiday around the winter solstice.  Those traditions have been obliterated by turning December into a month where “citizens” of the state, aka the exploited and preyed upon, are supposed to shop till they drop.   I hear repeatedly how December has turned into a depressing and stressful time of year for countless people.  Corporate capitalism plays no small role in that dynamic.   Corporate capitalism and the state are the reason for this dynamic through a multitude of exploitative forms of violence.   A time of fellowship and connection to all life has been turned into a time of year where most are expected to go into debt to buy more useless, effing junk to maintain corporate power.  Why?  Because our masters have told us this is our lot in life.

In the last year I accidently found myself stumbling upon the Knight Frank Luxury Investment Index.   Today it is timely to provide a link to the index given December’s rise as the month of violent overconsumption created by corporate capitalism’s violent overproduction.  We work much longer hours than people who lived thousands of years ago and that is no coincidence.  You work to overproduce that which the predatory ruling class wishes to overconsume.   Corporate capitalism has never, ever, remotely provided for the needs of humanity throughout its entire history.   It provides for the pedantic, inane, vacuous wants of class and hierarchy.  It should be no surprise this index originates in the shithole of class and hierarchical violence, Britain, and Europe at large, that has infected America.   While class and hierarchy amuse themselves to death with their massive overconsumption, we see a sign of the times in the value of their luxury purchases skyrocketing.  This is a sign of a dying monetary (and by extension banking) and economic system.   The lack of demand for capital as capitalism deflates around the globe, has created a massive, useless wall of money that is lining the pockets of those who are privileged by state violence.  And they are funneling massive sums of money into the attachment of vanity and “stuff” they worship.   And as the useless eaters that our masters are, they amuse themselves to death with all of that money they stole from democracy and humanity.   I have already highlighted the massive bubble in London real estate on here.  To go with it, this index highlights the massive bubble in alternative “investments” that are skyrocketing due to the collapse in money and economics.  The ruling aristocracy’s behavior is eerily familiar.  Let them eat cake.   

Happy Holidays.  Embrace your own slavery and victimization.  Be sure to shop till you drop. 

posted by TimingLogic at 11:14 AM

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Russia’s Crisis: Virtuous Currencies, Virtuous Economies And Virtuous Nations Don’t Collapse

Ruble

I’m continuing the interruption of my regular posts because of the Russian ruble crisis.  We may be witnessing the most important event in the global economy in the last three or four decades.   Far more important than 2008.  We don’t yet see the importance of this but we will at some point.   It is exposing a systemic violence and fraud that has been building for decades.  That is, the power grabs of the state which include the monster they have created called globalization.   At some point, with enough currencies  around the world experiencing major crises, we could see a massive tipping point for this trade settlement system or worse, a global rout  of corporations (capitalism), nations, the energy complex, financial systems, gold, currencies and the like.   Of course, that has been a long-time theme on here.  Right now the status quo appears  very ignorant to the consequences of what is happening.  Enlightenment is a painful and invasive process.

I have written on here for the better part of a decade that the dollar was putting in a major low.  Over that time I have mocked supermodels (demanding payments in euros right before the euro crashed) , financial “experts” and many in between who have in some way or another been screaming about a dollar crash.    Being a dollar bull for the last decade has been a very lonely position.   I wrote numerous times over the years that the dollar would eventually rise violently.  The dollar is now at ten year highs.  And, the chart of the Russian ruble against the U.S. dollar above is a telling picture.   If you flip the chart upside down, the dollar is rising violently.   The Chinese yuan is going to experience the same fate without some massive event to stop it.  I don’t know what that could be since the yuan’s fate was sealed long ago but I remain open to that which I might have missed.   But the yuan is even more of a worthless currency than the ruble.   Don’t kid yourself with the “experts” who have also been babbling that the yuan is the new reserve currency.   Or that the yuan backed by gold can take down the dollar.   They have no idea what they are talking about.  I’ll eventually get to that and show you how ludicrous that belief system is.  China’s economy is the biggest mess the world has ever seen.  The communists are doing everything they can to stop that mess from being exposed and metastasizing.   There is literally nothing the communist central planners can do but make the ultimate crisis larger.   Ain’t no one with half a brain that wants to own yuan today let alone as more and more of reality exposes itself.  Even the Chinese aristocracy is running out of yuan at a feverish pace to leave behind the massive fraud they have created.    What do you think is going to happen when China’s economy experiences its “oil” event as Russia is?   The foreign exchange market is going to demand not just six yuan for every dollar as is the case today but twenty or thirty or fifty or more yuan when the shit hits the fan.   There could even be the possibility that no one wants to own yuan no matter what the exchange rate.  That is, unless China turns over its gold to foreign exchange markets as a payment for the massive risk of owning any yuan.

How many of those brilliant, credentialed experts told us over the years the dollar was going to collapse?  The best education money could buy.  Financial wizards and economic gurus.  Even some former U.S. Treasury officials made that claim.  Yawn.  And here is this hick blogging in his underwear once again proving the ignorance of those who control the microphone.  That includes the “educated” faux intellectuals in the world.   We don’t live in a merit-driven society.  We live in a society where ignorance rules.  Which, by the way, is the reason it is collapsing.   Because ignorance has subverted truth for a long, long time.   Both merit and truth are suppressed by the ignorance that controls the world economy and state institutions.   Merit and truth are a threat to bureaucracy and the self-appointed authority that seeks to control it.  And seeks to control humanity in the process.  When the level of that ignorance and associated incompetence of state actors reveals itself, it will be unlike anything humanity has ever witnessed. 

Monday the ruble was down a staggering 13%.    In one day.  So, after hours Russia raised interest rates to 17% in an attempt to stop the slide.  Paying 17% in a year isn’t going to offset a 13% currency decline in a single day.    It would take about a 15,000% interest rate hike to stop that decline.    Alternatively, Russia could buy rubles and sell foreign currencies to prop up their currency, but that would lead to an even greater collapse as they burned through their foreign currency reserves.   At that point Russia will have to intentionally collapse its currency through devaluation or default.   Just like 1998.   I wrote these exact words years ago as it pertains to Russia, China and the BRICs.  This isn’t another Black Swan.  All of this was easily predictable.   I know because it was predicted on here by a grunt.  

The 2008 collapse, the oil collapse and the ruble collapse were all predicted on this blog.  All long before they happened.  These are not Black Swans.   They are easily predictable.  The problem is we have ignorance that rules our society and we have become entranced by their babbling bullshit as credentialed experts with long titles, endless certifications and long-winded educational accomplishments.  All worthless because they all serve control systems that subvert truth.   The Russian central bank just said they never could have imagined what is happening today.   As Ace Ventura eloquently noted, “Alrighty then!”.   I rest my case.  We would be in better hands with Ace at the helm.

Let me just highlight a handful of long-time themes on here that are revealing themselves with this Russian crisis.  Most of these themes have been in play for a long, long time on here. 

  1. BRICs nations are going to experience massive busts
  2. The biggest crises on the back end of this mess will be outside of the US
  3. The dollar will rise violently
  4. Oil will collapse.  Possibly to $10
  5. China and Russia will eventually become net sellers of gold as their currencies implode (being reported today)
  6. Gold will collapse
  7. We are going to experience a global trade settlement crisis (This isn’t it.  Although it is the start of it.)
  8. Central banking may be in its final throws before its final collapse
  9. Corporate capitalism may be in its final throws
  10. Globalization is toast
  11. States around the world could collapse and the concept of the state could be under substantial threat of extinction

Very few people actually understand what is going on.  I can appreciate why the average person doesn’t understand.   It has nothing to do with intelligence.  They are too busy trying to stay alive or they have been kept ignorant by our masters.   Ignorant is not a sign of intelligence.  We are all ignorant to some degree.   Which is the only way state actors can maintain their authoritarian control.  I’ll tell you in excruciating detail at some point just about everything I have written and how I was able to anticipate all of this.   It’s not rocket science but I clearly didn’t listen to the blathering idiots on Wall Street or in Washington.  But for now it’s simply important to realize this global system of rot is unwinding.    That rot is in Russia, China, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Europe, Canada, the U.S., Japan and on and on and on. 

The question remains is what is Russia going to do now?   Are they going to eventually witness 50-100% inflation?  An economy in complete collapse?   Are they going to sit back and watch their government once again collapse?   And Putin collapse with it?   Or are they going to force a crisis by employing their gold reserves or some other substantial response?   Putin the strong man has so far had a very weak response.   Russia’s central bank just announced their plan of attack to stop this crisis and it is nothing short of a failure.  I know what Russia must do to stabilize their financial system and their economy but will they actually do it?  And, if so, what methods will they employ.  The outcome is in doubt only because the steps necessary to stabilize their currency and their financial system will mean state actors must admit to their fraud, give up control and deal with the consequences.   What do you think the chances of that happening are?  Yeah, that’s right.

So, in lieu of that, what we can expect are measures involving state violence.  The only question remains if that violence will be directed outward, inward on its citizens or both. 

posted by TimingLogic at 1:53 PM

Monday, December 15, 2014

Judge Anthony Napolitano: The CIA And America’s War Criminals?

This video and story are worthy of another unexpected post.  Do we now know why Homeland Security (the NSA) and the CIA are at this very moment attempting to purge evidence of the state’s criminal behavior as linked to a handful of posts ago?   Was the imminent release of this CIA torture report known in Washington circles and that is their reason for taking such action?  Sure it was known.   The dots are easily connected with little effort as to why this attempted purge is now underway. 

People are going to start to realize if we have trials in this nation on the topic of crimes against humanity or treason, they will have to be extra-judicial tribunals.  That because our judicial system is complicit in state behavior and trying war crimes, high crimes and misdemeanors  or crimes against humanity within our court system would be a laughable mockery of kangaroo court injustice.   Is the state going to convict itself of its own behavior?   Our mockery of a legal system, when it applies to class and state actor privilege, has endorsed this criminal behavior in many rulings.   We could have judges and the legal system itself on trial.   The only method through which justice could ever be served would be extra-judicial tribunals.

I doubt there is any way to put the genie back in the bottle now that this report has been released.   The brutality of CIA behavior is really no different than Imperial Japan or Nazi Germany.   Many of the same tactics were used.  Just the latest genie that has gotten out of the bottle.  We are never going back to this socioeconomic system and the political system that props it up is teetering on stilts of massive immorality and Godlessness.  

I find it representative of the many useful idiots that we call mainstream journalists that the Fox News reporter interviewing Napolitano blurts out repeatedly that no laws were broken.   But I will give them kudos for airing Napolitano’s truthfulness in the face of the reporter’s willful ignorance.   That the politicians in the White House had their lackey lawyers conjure up secret  interpretations of laws to rationalize criminal behavior, and Congress willfully played stupid and turned a blind eye to criminal behavior of our government means what?   It means Diane Feinstein, the chair of the committee releasing this report is almost certainly culpable and almost certainly has an ulterior motive that in some way involves covering her own ass.   Feinstein was one of the war mongers leading the charge up until recently.  Playing stupid now doesn’t work. 

This is really just the tip of the iceberg.  The United States socioeconomic and political systems are, in their own right, as rotten as any in history.   The fish rots from the head first.  It is the ruling political, military, university and capitalist aristocracy, with the “moral” support of immoral mainstream hierarchical religious “leaders” who all conspired to create the misery, fraud, corruption, exploitation, predation and victimization we see today.   Don’t kid yourself about the virtues of modern-day, state-friendly religion.  A substantial number of churches and religions in the U.S. have adopted and supported the capitalist state’s immorality.  

Ultimately, capitalism is a system of state violence that relies on enslaving society to competition to enrich the ruling capitalist and state-enforced classes.   That competition guarantees through a maturity cycle of economics that there are fewer and fewer winners.  And those winners are almost never  the most meritorious in any way.  They are almost always the most ruthless and brutal cretins who are most willing to smash the face of their fellow man in the name of winning socioeconomic status.  Ambition, so embraced and glorified by this system, is a massive cruelty that involves getting ahead of others by conforming to and pleasing state class and hierarchy.   This socioeconomic control system ensures that the most ruthless and evil people in any capitalist society ultimately wind up as its “leaders”.  And, because ultimately these people care only about winning (smashing the face of their fellow man to rise to the top of hierarchy and class) and are consumed by the disconnected ego, and really only have a primary skill of cunning, brutality and ruthlessness,  they must ensure they continuously rig the rules so that they continue win.  This because their lackluster, pathological, control-driven abilities would otherwise cement their failure.   And, because of that, we end up with worthless and even criminal laws that protect the class-based, capitalist rule of man.  Sort of a guaranteed survival of the most pathological and ultimately a society that is based purely on worshiping the evils of money, greed, selfishness, vanity, emotional and intellectual vacuousness and the like.   That is why this and every state has nothing left of democracy and the world is ruled by a very extreme global pathology of evil.   

None of these crimes and many more could be committed without the consent of the political, military (standing army), university, corporate and religious authority figures in this nation.   They are the tyrants who enforce this control system.   In fact, it is arguable that the corporate crimes of capitalism are even greater than the political and state crimes perpetuated by the CIA, NSA and politicians.   Not just of the U.S. either.  This is a global state phenomena.    The argument our state oppressors use to rationalize their evildoing - that they are protecting us from bad people abroad - is a timeless manipulation that has been well understood by seekers of truth for thousands of years.  

“When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.” – Plato

The bad people we need protection from are right here at home.  They are the ones who have created 25% unemployment and 70% underemployment (wage slavery), enslaved large swaths of the population to dehumanizing subsistence state handouts, subjugated the masses to Wall Street debt slavery, created a tyrannical military-industrial complex that endlessly wages war while denying our citizens their own freedoms by sucking up more and more money and economic control, created unconstitutionally spying on Americans, poisoned our food, poisoned our water, enforced running torture and illegal detention camps, enslaved us to private money creation and private banking, created a medical industrial complex enslaving people to legalized drug addiction and often worse, poisoned our minds with endless propaganda and on and on and on.   What makes the U.S. stand out from the world is its unparalleled and unprecedented global power granted by corporate capitalist empire and the degree of pathologically arrogant megalomania that is needed to enforce such abusive state power. 

Title link here.

posted by TimingLogic at 9:27 AM

Friday, December 12, 2014

Timely Rantings On CIA Torture, China, Russia, The Dollar, Gold And Oil

I was planning only one more post this month, but given the incredibly profound dynamics unfolding around long-time themes on here, I thought I would highlight some of them in an interim post.   Below is a set of related, unrelated and inter-related incoherent ramblings on a multitude of timely topics.

Headlines used as a basis for my ramblings below.

China turns away from the dollar

China clings to its socialist past.  China is still an inept buffoon state controlled by communist bureaucrats.

China’s crisis IS going to get a whole lot worse.  This is a look at reality rather than American capitalist-created propaganda about the virtues of capitalist China.  It is a cesspool of fraud, rot, corruption and the abject misery of state communism.  If you still believe China is anything other than a fraudulent Ponzi scheme, you owe it to yourself to read this.

Russia unveils ruble-based trade settlement system.  Russia is at an inflection point.  It will either yield to the pressure of empire or find an alternative, yet painful means to escape its clutches.

Russian exporter currency plan may signal capital controls.  Capital controls certainly are a rising trend that is clearly a predictable result of global capitalism.

American firms raise money from rich Chinese capitalists.  I want to know how this much money can escape a country without a convertible currency and with strict limits on how much money individuals can convert to other currencies while leaving the country.   Actually, it’s quite a common example of the massive fraud the ruling class in China is and has perpetuated on their own nation.  Remember a few years ago when the premiere of China’s communist party was found to have a billion dollar offshore account?   This is simply another form of aristocratic state violence meant to loot the people of China.  There will be hell to pay for this.  A long time theme on here is China is likely headed for revolution or war, be it economic or military or both, with the west.  At this point in time, I would be more inclined to say the masses are headed for revolution against their communist capitalist oppressors. 

OPEC sees demand drop to a 12 year low.  By the time this is all said and done, we could easily see demand fall to decades-long lows.  There is so much useless waste and slack in this global economic system that is going to disappear through the force of nature. 

CIA director defends rectal rehydration

Former CIA chief launches blitz against Senate report

Below are some links from Glenn Greenwald and other authors at The Intercept on the CIA and NSA.

Live coverage of CIA torture report from Glenn Greenwald

What bad, dirty, shameful behavior is judge hiding about U.S. secrecy

Lot of these Gomers didn’t know shit: Former CIA official on torture

For CIA truth was an existential threat

What we are witnessing around the world are massive power grabs by the state.    This is consistent with a theme on here that the control systems of corporate capitalism and the state require a greater and greater application of control to contradict their inherent instabilities.  The state may believe these power or control grabs are legitimate or in response to threats perpetuated against them, but one thing is very clear.  These are not power grabs on behalf of restoring power to humanity.  They are power grabs meant to enrich or perpetuate the state.    The responses to U.S. dollar hegemony are purely power grabs by other state actors.   This contention between states is consistent with a long-time theme on here that we were entering a war cycle.  And how accurate that theme has been as greater and greater violence has continued to unfold over the last handful of years.  Whether we see all-out global war is another issue.   I don’t see any evidence that an all-out war is a guaranteed outcome.   If state actors have their way, that remains a distinct possibility.  If humanity wins their battle with the state, it will not happen.  All of this violence is part of the contradictory pathology of state actors to perpetuate their own control at any cost.  It is contradictory because those power grabs are at the expense of humanity that the state is supposedly there to protect.   In other words, we are being exposed to the reality that the state is really nothing more than a protection racket – the state itself is the source of violence that it offers to protect humanity from.   In order to appreciate what is really happening today, it is very important for people to understand this.

(I keep harping on the point to follow in this paragraph for a reason.  That reason will become self-evident soon enough.  If you doubt any of this today, the day will come when you will look upon the world and wonder why you doubted the intent of your oppressor without anyone needing to remind you of anything.)  A major point of this protection racket dynamic is that other states that seek to end U.S. dollar empire do not do so out of virtue.  They do so because they want some of that good ole-fashioned American home cooking.  They want what the U.S. has.  That is, power, and more of it.   The ego’s primary intent is control and the state is an institution of the ego.    China, as an example, is following the same historical mercantilist practices of Europe and the U.S. in that grab for more power.  Remember, the barbarians that overthrew the Roman Empire didn’t do so out of virtue or out of its tyranny.  When they sacked Rome, they first looted it of its wealth.  Then they became the ruling class of plunderers and looters in Rome itself.   They became Romans.  China and Russia have dreams about returning their states to prior powerful glory.  Leaders in both countries have  clearly remarked of this objective and both state’s leaders are guilty of stoking fear-driven nationalism over and over again.  It has nothing to do with empowering their people or democracy.  It has everything to do with control.  The Chinese and Russian bureaucrat is no different than the American bureaucrat or the German bureaucrat.  All bureaucrats seek a primary intent of control for their own personal benefit and they use the state and its many institutions, including communism, socialism and capitalism, as tools to accomplish this.   Evil seeks power.  The organizational constructs of the state are the perfect institutions of the ego to wield that power.  The level of cruelty, corruption and poverty around the world, including in China and Russia, is just as great as the U.S. 

December continues the exposure of bizarro state behavior.  Russian central bankers continue to raise rates to stop capital flight and a currency collapse.  So far it isn’t working.  What comes next?  Will Russia simply allow the dollar-ruble relationship to collapse as I wrote could happen some time ago?   They are in a unique situation where that may be a possibility.  Or, if raising rates doesn’t stop the slide of private capital out of their economy, there really are only two options I am aware of.  One, employ gold on behalf of the ruble to bring confidence to the global, predatory private capital machine, or two, create their own internal capital.   I consider the latter to be low odds for the very reason the state exists in the first place.   As noted in prior posts, Russia has certainly seen how Iran has faired after being in a similar situation.  Iran saw massive inflation as their currency collapsed.  Iranian dollar reserves in short supply were then directed by a domestic currency board to ensure basic necessities were purchased first.  Iran has stabilized to some degree (before the collapse in oil) and seemingly is operating under a plan of becoming more economically self-reliant in order to ameliorate U.S. and European financial terrorism against the country. (I am not endorsing theocratic Iran as a legitimate state in this remark.)  Russia has an Iranian roadmap to follow if they so choose.   China has a substantially more difficult road in getting out from under the dollar being so reliant on private western capital. 

If these states fail in their efforts, and the U.S. dollar empire holds against external threats, these states will soon become net sellers of gold as noted on here many times.   We appear to finally be entering a very, very volatile period in the global trade settlement system.  I have written for the better part of the past decade that this was coming and it seems we are now finally here.   Now, as a part of that, gold is likely at or nearing a major inflection point too.  That next move could either be another collapse or a major move higher.  I suspect that move will be driven by the state.  But, there is a high likelihood of a gold squeeze coming.  Will that squeeze be for gold buyers or gold sellers?     Ultimately, none of this changes my original outcomes that gold will eventually collapse just as oil will.   China and Russia are broke and that means their demand for gold will eventually diminish, if not go to zero or even negative (net sellers).   In other words, their ability to create paper wealth needed to buy gold is getting closer and closer to an inflection point. 

The possibility does exist that a tipping point in the global trade settlement system can occur with a small fraction of global trade being settled beyond dollars.   But I remain dubious of this given how the world economy works.  There is no doubt that the dollar fealty or homage trade to the world’s neoliberal lord, the United States, by its vassal capitalist states is living on borrowed time.  Mostly because corrupt vassal states around the world are trying to gain greater control before their ineptitude and fraud leads to their own collapse.  Regardless of how it happens, it is almost certainly going to happen that we will see a trade settlement crisis.   And it will likely happen very rapidly once it metastasizes.    Unlike popular opinion with people who are driven by their emotions that includes a desire to see the dollar collapse confusing their ability to analysis the facts, the dollar does not need to collapse to have a global currency crisis.  And, that is born out that the mainstream thought that has expected a dollar collapse, is now looking at the highest dollar value in ten years.   That too was foretold of on here.  Remember, a long-time theme on here is that the U.S. empire will disappear by 2022.   The only question is how.   That doesn’t necessarily mean the dollar will lose its reserve status, per se although that is a distinct possibility.   Regardless of whether the world no longer has a concept of a reserve currency or whether it is through some other dynamic, we will have to wait and see.  But, as I noted on here in past posts, if the global economy is crashing, and that includes currencies crashing against the dollar, and thus, demand for international trade, be it in dollars, gold, yuan, rubles or bubble gum wrappers, falters, then effectively U.S. empire will experience some degree of substantial systemic failure.    This is a major difference with economic empire not shared by past examples of outright human subjugation by violent force of arms that we saw in the British and Roman Empires.   This empire requires the acceptance of dollars.  If the world no longer accepts dollars because it is collapsing, the macro outcome it creates in many ways is really no different than the dollar itself collapsing. 

All manipulation aside, and the entire world is manipulated by the state and its creations, oil is crashing because demand is crashing.   That demand is both financial and economic.  Demand for OPEC oil is at 12 year lows.  Those are their numbers.  That is because the global economy is crashing in spite of tens and tens and tens of failed central banker money printing in every capitalist nation on earth.   Don’t kid yourself that this is part of some master conspiracy led by the Saudis.  The Saudis are not going to cut their production if other OPEC nations don’t cut.  It may be a game of chicken right now but OPEC is damned if they do and damned if they don’t.  Cutting production will cut off the flow of much-needed dollars on a hope and a prayer that prices will rise.  Not cutting off production will produce a similar paradox.   I wrote half a dozen years ago this exact dynamic would come to pass and we are here.   OPEC lives and dies based on the failing global capitalist overproduction Ponzi scheme that is now in systemic failure.   History CLEARLY tells us that OPEC nations have always cheated on production quotas in order to maximize their own self-interested profit.  Even when prices are imploding.  Or, maybe I should say, especially when prices are imploding.  OPEC’s oligarchy is a paper tiger.  They have ZERO power over the price of oil.  It is an illusion that oil fiefdoms and their self-interested state actors believe.  That illusion is now shattering.  We will eventually see oil retest the 2008 collapse lows.  That may not be for a while or it may happen as early as next year.  I don’t know.  But the pricing action essentially guarantees a retest.  

Below is a three year chart of the Shanghai Composite Index.  In the last month alone we have seen this index roar higher by 30%.   In the last six months it is up over 50%.  An amazing parabolic rise.  Similar to the asset bubbles in the U.S., I consider this a portent of collapse.  Without convertibility, except through corruption afforded to the ruling class, endless yuan money printing has created a wall of useless money.  The capital bubble in China is collapsing and now the consumption bubble in China is collapsing.  Where is all of that useless money to go?  Just like in the U.S., where the same dynamic exists, it is headed into renter capitalist financial speculation.   Of course, this could all be helped along by the communists manipulating their stock market.

SSEC

Finally, we have the announcement of the CIA torture report from Congress.  I really want to know what the political angle is for releasing this report.  There certainly is one after a decade of secrecy on the topic.  I could imagine it is the political trouncing the Democrats just took.  A calculated risk attempting to turn citizens against Republicans?  But it was these same Democrats that turned a blind eye to the criminal actions of the CIA.  And, let’s be clear.  It is clearly criminal and deserving of a tribunal in The Hague.  Or, a similar type of tribunal in the U.S.   Anyone who states that they support this type of violence against any human being, especially without due process, regardless of their suspected crimes, is operating from a place where God does not exist.   It’s just that simple.  These are not the actions of a free mind, and a free people.  These are the actions of evil.  The cruelty of the comments section in the first two links at The Hill above are telling.   Godlessness is not just the domain of class and hierarchy but those who have outsourced their own divinity to class and hierarchy by worshiping the state.

Before all of the insanity in this world was exposed, I noted quite a few times that tribunals could be coming to the U.S.   At the time, that seemed absurd but it clearly is not.  Our government is completely out of control.   Patton’s famous quote calling Hitler a paper-hanging son of a bitch applies to the paper shredding son of a bitches in Washington.  The CIA and NSA are trying to rid themselves of electronic and paper records of their crimes as I type this.   Just as the paper shredding of the Nazi war machine and its endless atrocities when they knew they were eventually going to get caught.  As noted in a recent post, both the CIA and Homeland Security are attempting to destroy or “shred” records associated with their wrongdoing with the assistance of Congress and the White House.     

posted by TimingLogic at 12:18 PM

Saturday, December 06, 2014

The Real News Video Series: Can Capitalism And Democracy Coexist? (Hint. The Answer Is No.)

I want to make a few quick comments about my last post before diving into this one.  Russia’s economy is imploding.  Their financial system is in massive crisis, the ruble is in crisis against the dollar and the fall in the value of oil is going to have a massively profound effect on their economy.  Bloomberg remarked on Friday that capital controls may be just around the corner.  Using gold as a form of trade settlement is a form of currency control.  There are many reasons why I put up that last post.  I noted on here in past posts that the U.S. empire is far more powerful than anyone who is reasonably uninformed could ever imagine.   That is nearly everyone in the world today because humanity is kept ignorant to how American empire actually operates.  Russia is at a crisis point.  It is backed into a corner and will likely be forced into doing something drastic.  The only question I have is if Putin’s government is in control.  If it is, then we may see an abrupt currency market action of some sort.  If he is simply a puppet for Russia’s oligarchs, he will likely be sacked because his government is costing them dearly.   I don’t know which situation actually exists and neither does anyone else outside of those circles.  This is clearly the most important dynamic unfolding in the world today.  It’s no irony that the mainstream media is not talking about it.  What happens next could play a pivotal role in the global economy.  Now onto this post. 

It has been some months since I have been over to The Real News, one of, if not my favorite news outlets.   I very highly recommend it.  That includes supporting it financially if one is capable of doing so.  A couple of weeks ago I stopped by and saw an excellent interview re capitalism and democracy with Professor Sheldon Wolin conducted by Chris Hedges.   The interview is an eight part session lasting about three hours.   If you want to watch the interview, the multi-part links are below.  If you would like the cliff notes with a few of my usual snarky interjections, you may wish to read on. 

Let me start by stating that this is the type of true intellectual discourse that has been literally obliterated by dumbed-down state and corporate actors.  I’m not just talking about the United States either.  If you are still on that bender, you really need to wake up from your drunken stupor.  Given politicians have gained an all-consuming control over humanity, any mainstream discourse has seen true intellectualism replaced with varying degrees of primitive political debate and ignorance.  (As Plato noted, and Meno’s Paradox confirms, debate is a form of ignorance.  It appeals to base, primitive constructs like emotions, bias and other sources of ego-driven ignorance.  Debate is a method of control used by our political and corporate class-based masters to divide humanity.)

Mind you, the level of education has nothing to do with the degree of ignorance in this world.  Some of the most ignorant people in our society and across the world are its most successful as measured by control mechanisms like state education, profit, money, corporate and business success or whatnot.   All metrics that the corporate state equates to intelligence.  (How would our world be different if social values defined the ability to be kind and to love one another as primary measures of intelligence?)   Wolin essentially confirms what is apparent to anyone with their eyes open re the education remarks.  That is, the university system has become the anti-intellectual depot for brainwashing corporate-wage-slaves to do corporate capitalism’s cruel and inhumane bidding.  

The modern corporate state has mortally wounded the original intent of university, which was where liberal arts were taught and studied in a manner to arm citizens with the tools necessary to be active, aware, creative, free-thinking, participatory citizens of liberal democracy.  It is no coincidence that liberal arts are mocked by the class of ignorance that serves class-based corporate capitalism.  Liberal arts are a threat to the wide-spread ignorance that is required to rule the corporate state.   That’s because our masters are buffoons and clowns.  An inverted system of control today has destroyed  meritorious democracy and meritorious society.  That system can only survive by teaching people what to think aka propaganda, rather than how to think aka the liberal arts.  That is behind the dumbing-down of modern corporate capitalist society.   Corporations, politicians, the military-industrial complex and standing armies want people who can follow orders without questioning the ignorance, cruelty and exploitation of the diktats they are given.  It’s no coincidence that military leaders are so prized in corporate Amerika while the liberals arts are mocked as useless degrees. 

This is a lengthy, multi-part interview that may take some time to get through but it is very worthwhile.  Wolin has over 90 years of wisdom and experiences to share with listeners.   He characterizes corporate capitalism and the corporate state as an inverted system of totalitarianism that subjugates and enslaves humanity to a comparatively small economic aristocracy propped up by the state.  This, comparative to a traditional totalitarian system that mobilizes the masses.  Say, Nazi Germany that turned the masses into useful idiots.   I can see his point but there certainly are elements of traditional totalitarianism in our nation.  First is the glorification of war and anti-democratic institutions like standing armies where the masses are mobilized to defend the interests of the totalitarian corporate aristocracy.  Another example is the mobilization of the masses of college graduates and their contrived corporate “careers” are one of those traditional totalitarian elements that is a very well-accepted form of propaganda that gives the corporate state its ability to perpetuate evil.  Something noted by Soviet dissident Andre Amalrik as well.   That is, the professional class exists to perpetuate state violence and so will never be a source of revolution of ideas or democratic changes.  (By the way, as noted in prior posts, I suspect the concept of a career, which is really nothing more than a contrivance for most professions, many be winding down.  Forever.) 

Wolin remarks that “Corporate capitalism is an elitist system that is as elitist as any aristocratic system ever invented.”.   Once again, apparent and obvious to anyone who uses their brain for anything other than a resting place for the latest hat fashions.   Not that they aren’t productive elements we can learn from capitalism to create a democratic economic system.   Or possibly even remove the anti-democratic elements of capitalism in order to “fix” parts of this system worth keeping.  He also notes that the aristocracy and class that controls capitalism was well known to the early founders of this nation who supported it.  He specifically mentions Alexander Hamilton, the primary political force responsible for bringing the tyranny of European corporate capitalism to our shores after we had fought the Revolutionary War to rid ourselves of the king’s class-based private banks and corporations.  And he remarks how Jefferson, Paine and others knew of the damage corporations and private banks would do.   (Jeffersonian democracy, a vision shared by Paine, Madison and others, is going to make a major comeback not just in North America but around the world as the Hamiltonian aristocracy fails.)     Wolin goes so far as to say that capitalism has destroyed democracy.  Another obvious reality to those driven by discovery and truth.  There certainly is some contradiction in that remark.  Capitalism is an invention of the state.  It is not some alien life form.  The state killed democracy through its embrace of corporate capitalism for the benefit of state actors.   That destruction started within a generation of our nation’s founding.  And, he remarks that Republicans started subversive efforts in the 1930s to immediately overturn any democratic gains when capitalism experienced a massive crisis that brought us the Great Depression.  And that the Democratic Party joined the effort of subverting democracy by incorporating systems within their party to ensure democracy would never happen just a few decades later.  Again, political parties are never going to save democracy.  They killed it.

Wolin remarks that it is his perspective that we literally have no authentic democratic institutions left in our nation.  And that he sees little hope for a restoration of democracy.  And that episodic democracy, under which our nation currently operates, will never succeed.  That the rigors of daily life surviving in this tyranny of corporate control are so overwhelming that people are too exhausted to participate.  While the aristocracy can hire full-time actors to defeat democracy.  (Ever wonder why you are dumbed-down to a culture that glorifies work?  And why, even with the advent of massive new productivity and technology tools, you work magnitudes more than people living thousands of years ago?  It’s certainly not that it is required for survival.  And it can’t be because you love working for nonliving wages and no benefits.)  

The ruling ideology of corporate capitalism and its diametrically-opposed value system to democracy is discussed.  And how that corporate value system is based on exploitation, profit and the cult of the self.  And how corporate capitalist values are counter to a system of democratic rule and thus seek to dominate democracy. 

At some point Wolin essentially states that we, as a nation, have become drunk with the propagandized idea of superpower.  That somehow projecting our military power around the world has deluded society into the U.S. being some form of global force for good when it is clearly just the opposite.  It’s more than Orwellian in their discussion of how education is a tool of propaganda rather than discovery.  He states that the public is unaware of itself and that state actors have no idea of the consequences of their own actions aka they are wildly ignorant to use my words.  And how we ignorantly are pitted against each other and fragmented with political and corporate divisiveness and how that is a form of covert manipulation by the capitalist aristocracy meant to destroy the concept of the democratic public.  That the concept of a public has been obliterated and now we see the profit-driven objective of grouping people around interests to control them.  I would characterize this as primitive, fear-driven tribalism.  Divide and conquer.

And he remarks that unfettered corporate capitalism is a revolutionary force.   It certainly is.  It is a major driver, if not the major driver, for the global revolution we are seeing today.  People are revolting against the state and its creations of corporate control.   While the mainstream political and social though keeps it taboo to talk about how anti-democratic corporate capitalism is, when the average person has a chance to form his own opinion, he or she clearly recognizes reality.  The thumbs up and thumbs down ratings on this video series clearly shows the truth that resides in the suppressed lexicon of the average person exploited by this system.  This could easily be the end of corporate capitalism as written on here ad nauseam.  

I don’t want to give away the entire interview.  Just enough to give interested parties a reason to watch.  It’s actually quite interesting to see the many parallels with writings on here.    The point is that truth is easily accessible to everyone if one can give up the ego’s many unconscious and subconscious intents of control and the associated belief systems that keep us enslaved to our own victimization.   Waking up from that self-imposed ignorance is a long, arduous and never-ending  process for most of us. 

Now, I want to end my remarks with a few of my own comments about the interview.  I respect both Sheldon and Chris but there is a consistent theme in this their dialogue.  Sheldon is looking for political solutions and sees little to no prospects for change.   This because the entire political system and all of our democratic institutions have been obliterated.   It should be noted that Sheldon is a trained political professor.  So, while he sees the mess quite presciently and clearly, like all of us, he has lived his life in the bubble of state power.   It seems that he looks for state-based solutions derived through politics.  Meh.  There is a comment below one of the videos that defines the problem is democracy.  This is a massive mythology that is perpetuated by the state and by the aristocracy that wants us to believe we somehow need both.  Ask the Athenians.  Democracy worked out for them for a few thousand years. 

The problem is more along the lines that the modern corporate state has the technological tools and associated projection of modern power and associated physical, emotional and spiritual violence to subvert democracy for the benefit of a very small number of state actors, including politicians themselves.  And to do so with more cunning than ever before possible by using human advances to their advantage.   History has found an answer to this.  It isn’t one I advocate but that doesn’t mean it might not repeat itself.  The Athenians, the French and more than a few others in between, revolted and lopped off the heads off of the predatory ruling aristocracy and then proceeded to create democratic systems.   The Athenians too were told by their aristocratic neighbors that direct democracy would fail because democracy places power into the hands of commoners whom they were told were too stupid to rule themselves.  This myth is continuously perpetuated by class and hierarchy aka the aristocracy.  Because otherwise, what benefit do the useless eaters of aristocracy provide humanity that allows them to rule over us?  NOTHING.   The world doesn't need politics or politicians or an aristocracy of class and hierarchy.  And we don’t need a ruling elite to tell the rest of us how to lead our lives. 

Politics is an institution of state control.  Once you appreciate this, you can move beyond the old paradigm of control and seek true solutions.  What the world needs is democracy and self-determined democratic economics.  But democracy works most effectively when implemented locally like in the city state of Athens.  It is a community construct.  On a large scale, like the modern state, it becomes the tyranny of the majority.  The answer is to replace the power of the state with community-driven, direct democracy.  That doesn't mean giving the power of a president or congressional body to a local mayor or city council either.  That would be absurd.  To the contrary, it means direct, participatory democracy replaces the power of political institutions.   You take responsibility for your own fate and that of your community.  Doing so would remove the veil of ignorance that state liberalism has created in every aspect of our existence.  It would stop the devolution of humanity that has been occurring over the last century of greater and greater state power grabs.  I’ll write much more on this dynamic of the lifting of the veil of ignorance in future posts.   But needless to say, I see a bleak future for the concept of the centralized state.  Which is one reason why I have remarked many times over the last decade on here that this cycle could be coined the end of big.

Sheldon is correct in citing Jefferson and Paine that democracy must be forever vigilant.  In other words, it is not episodic.  But it can only be so at a local level.   Of course, both Jefferson and Paine supported a very different America than we see today and they lost out to the aristocratic founders.   If democracy is not local, any type of political structure on a large level, such as the United States, Russia, China, Germany, Britain, India or any other modern state, only becomes a tool for violence.  Because violence is the manifestation of control.  And politics is an institution of the ego.  And the ego’s primary intent is control.   How does the ego achieve control?  Through fear.  Politicians, and other creations of the state, not only unconsciously create policies of fear (ignorance), but they themselves are slaves to their own unconscious and subconscious fear (ignorance).   The "winners" in any large political structure simply subjugate and enslave the losers to their controlling political ideology.   Winning and losing is a primitive ego-driven construct forcing people into competition for survival.   Democrats win an election in the U.S. and the first thing they seek to do is subjugate Republicans, independents, the apolitcal, etc to their ideology and vice versa.   There is no truth in politics.  Only political solutions aka fear-based control.  Big, centralized, all-powerful government is a failure and will always be a failure.   Wolin cites this as the biggest issue of our time which is very consistent with themes on here.  There is absolutely zero precedence for its effectiveness and there cannot be because it is a contradiction of ego and control without an effective solution.  

This is why capitalism is so exceptional as a subconscious control mechanism.  From the moment we are born into this world, we become acclimated and institutionalized to its fear-driven mechanisms.  We simply accept their propaganda as normal.  We accept our own victimization and exploitation.  Effectively, we become blinded by our own institutionalization and the resultant fear-driven ignorance.  And, mind you, no one born under the power of the state and its inventions, is beyond ignorance.  We are all wildly ignorant.  Oftentimes we even place our life in jeopardy to defend our own faith in that ego-created ignorance.

The Age of Enlightenment had it right.  A central government with almost no power other than to loosely protect the masses when threatened.  People are governed best when they govern themselves.  Enlightenment principles recognized that I am best able to make decisions about my own life and that of my community.  Umm… the Athenians also created this type of substructure in their democracy.   The United States used to have this substructure to varying degrees.  Control by a political bureaucrat in some far off land who is attempting to create political one-size-fits-all solutions, is an anathema of our own self-created victimization.

We have created this very moment by our own willful support of this system in every aspect of our being.   There is absolutely no way humanity ever could have ended up with any other outcome.  This is our fate.  This is our moment.  This is our time to rise to account and provide testament to the worthiness and dignity of all life.   This system is finished.  The system itself and its endless contradictions has guaranteed its own demise.   The only question is what comes next.  That is up to humanity to decide because politicians and corporations don’t have any answers.  The entirety of the power they have grabbed from humanity was never based on merit or ability.  Simply their pathological need for greater and greater control to ensure their own place at the table of capitalist and state exploitation, profit and gluttony. 

Our karmic fate has created this moment for our own enlightenment.  Where we are forced to confront the cesspool of belief systems we have created out of fear and either watch the world collapse under those belief systems or instead mindfully shatter those belief systems and, in their place, seek our higher power’s intent of discovery and truth.  Whether that enlightenment comes of our own free will or whether we are forced into the light through personal,  social and widespread human crisis, the end result will be the same.  Our own karmic fate is forcing us to stand to account for our past self-created belief systems aka ignorance chosen in lieu of experiential light and truth. 

Can Capitalism and Democracy Coexist?  Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

Part Six

Part Seven

Part Eight

posted by TimingLogic at 6:38 PM

Tuesday, December 02, 2014

Pathology Update: Gold, Oil And The State

Following the 2008 collapse I mocked the G20 meetings as clueless and useless.  And I wrote that this faux show of unity would eventually devolve into these same predators turning against each other.   When the predators of the state have no one left to prey upon, they will begin preying upon each other.   This is a maxim that can be extended to creatures of the state like capitalism.  That dynamic has driven the biggest M&A boom in history; probably more than $20+ trillion dollars over the 15 year boom period.   Most of the G20 members are involved in some act of violence against another member.   And many of the members are jointly targeting their violence against other  G20 nations.  Russia and China are teaming up.  The U.S. and Europe are teaming up.  Saudi Arabia has tried to team up with Russia and the like.  These efforts have resulted in violence against other G20 members, and indirectly against the citizens of member nations.   That violence may be wrapped in nationalism or even  covert violence but it is often outright belligerence and aggression.  Regardless,  it is there for everyone to see.   Included in that will likely be an oil price war to maintain revenue for increasing slack in the global economy. 

This just published article by Evans-Pritchard is writing of a possible outcome that I wrote would come to pass many years ago when Peak Oil was a rampant, overly accepted social movement.  That is, a coming bust in oil will cause political crisis and possible economic collapse in the Middle East.   Whodathunkit?   As the world reveals itself, more and more of these outcomes will become evident to those who think with their eyes.  Or, worse, those who believe what their masters tell them to believe.  This article also notes that those who believe the U.S. energy boom is a myth, or that it will collapse under the duress of debt or lower prices, may be in for a surprise.  Much of the U.S. oil production may be profitable down to the $28 dollar a barrel range.  With effective subsidies, that profitability could continue at a much lower price level.  And, we can likely expect similar dynamics for natural gas in the U.S..  Certainly, regardless of what the real investment break-even and hurdle rates are, it will hit capital equipment expenditures in the U.S. energy sector and will harm the investor class.  But then a long-time theme on here is the investor class is going kaput anyway. 

Mind you, regardless of what is happening in the energy sector, the collapse in oil is tied directly to the collapse in the global economy.  Similarly, I noted a few months ago that copper was close to breaking down and in recent days it has fallen hard below long term support.  Copper, oil and steel production are highly correlated.  China is the largest steel producer in the world by a factor of about 7x the next largest producer.   A massive problem in itself.  China’s  steel production today is literally in a state of collapse with output readings that are some of the lowest economic readings I have ever seen.  And these are state-provided numbers.  The collapse is so systemic that last year the Chinese government pulled the “official” steel statistics and said it was going to rewrite the way they were calculated. 

We certainly know that oil, copper, gold and every other commodity in this world has been manipulated by Wall Street, London, Russian and other bankers and financial traders around the world. (Like Bill Clinton’s pardon buddy, Marc Rich and his criminal commodity trading firm.)  Oil’s price bubble was created by man and not demand.   That includes both the manipulation of futures prices and the manipulation of underlying physical demand.  Now, the oil bubble has imploded.  Again.  Just as I wrote it would when it was $140 a barrel.  And just as I wrote would happen again.  We may see some attempt at stabilization at this price level, but a long-time theme on here is that oil may retest its 1998 lows of $10 a barrel.  And the reasons behind that have been discussed many times.  But, in a nutshell, an implosion of the global economy and associated oil demand. 

Now, what exactly does this have to do with the price of gold?  Well, I’m glad you asked.  As a refresher for new readers, gold’s historical use as money has been driven by those who own or control it, thus denying those who own little or none of it.  Then enslaving them economically to grub for small amounts of it.  And, those who own or control most of it has always been the state and the economic aristocracy created by the state.   That is, the same great tyranny that is subjugating humanity to unprecedented misery in today’s world.  Gold is the antithesis of democratic money.  And, just like in today’s world, those who historically have owned all of the gold make the rules.  Furthermore, those who own or control gold are almost always “bad men” as Dalberg-Acton presciently remarked. 

A return to a gold trade settlement system would set off a global economic war as noted on here in prior posts.   The U.S. owned all of the world’s gold in 1929 and that was the problem.  The reason why we owned all of the gold is the same reason why the U.S. had such a massive Great Depression that was far worse than the rest of the world.   Now what is the first thing the state is going to do if gold would be re-introduced as a trade settlement system?  Unleash economic violence against humanity in a bid to acquire more gold from other states.  Gold money advocates are either talking up what they own, ie their own self-interest, with little knowledge and even less concern about democratic economics,  democratic money or humanity, or in some way are brainwashed useful idiots for the economic aristocracy that owns all of the gold.   That is, state-created class and hierarchy that worships gold. 

(Not surprisingly, what I would characterize as fanatics and fringe elements have been pushing a meme on the Swiss gold vote that 80% of voters defeated.  That’s because 80% of people around the world don’t own gold and there are actually serious issues that they worry about beyond the predatory class’s worship of gold.  Gold never has had any ability to create wealth.  It is not a measure of wealth either.  The only way gold is any type of faux indicator of wealth is derived through violence.   Period.  Gold won’t feed the poor.  Gold won’t cure cancer.  Gold isn’t a cure for poverty.  Gold can’t invent automation to free people from economic slavery.  And on and on.  Gold does not create one iota of wealth.  If you think it does, you can take all of the world’s gold to a deserted island and see how that works out for you.  You can use its mythical powers to build your castle, cure your ailments, feed you and invent methods of easing your condition.  Gold only derives its value through violence.  That is, the violence of those who control it.  And they have done so by forcing those who have none of it to slave away for small scraps of it.  Gold as always been the money of class, title and privilege used to subjugate humanity to its violence and control.  The game of gold means nothing to the suffering mass of humanity who neither owns gold nor whose problems would neither be solved by gold.  It is a statist game of control.)

I wrote on here many years ago that we were not going back to a gold money system.   But I also wrote that it wouldn’t surprise me if the status quo tried to take us back onto the gold standard or a gold trade settlement system.  We see elements of this not only in Switzerland, an original home of criminal bankers hiding stolen loot from the world’s masses, but elsewhere.   China and Russia (the state) have become large purchasers of gold this cycle.   Mind you, central banks and the state are driven by an intent to control.  So, we certainly know their ability to act and react to events on behalf of humanity doesn’t actually exist.   They react through the perpetuation of violence.  Their intent is to control events, and as a result, to control humanity to perpetuate their own pathological reason for being. 

But what really caused my ears to perk up was that we now have a mainstream economist that is part of a massively incompetent bureaucracy like Citi,  And he is finding the confidence to write about gold being a 6,000 year old  bubble.  This after gold has fallen nearly $1,000 an ounce and gold miners have followed suit. (Gold juniors are down a staggering 85%).  That an economist who is a slave to the existing system is now getting mainstream press may be telling that gold has reached a level of loathing that may portend an important turning point.  The establishment and those who protect the establishment, like economists in Wall Street banks, are usually wrong at major economic, financial and social turning points.  

I have been bearish on gold longer term and remain so.  Gold’s power is an illusionary religion of those who worship the golden calf.  If we have monetary crises around the world, gold will suffer for all of the reasons I have written about in prior posts.  If money becomes useless, so will gold.  At a minimum, I expect gold to return to its 1998 lows for the same reason I expect oil to return to those lows.  But, between “here” and “there” new dynamics in the world are unfolding and new data may be presenting itself.  That new data may involve the crisis between Russia and the west.  And that crisis is being exacerbated by the collapse in the price of oil.  Could that price collapse be engineered to hurt Russia?  Of course it could.  Because the price rise to $150 in the first place was engineered through financial fraud.   The oil markets are just as fraudulent as everything else Wall Street touches.   Do we know if the pricking of the oil bubble is driven by fraud?  No.  But, here is what we do know.  We do know that physical demand for oil is headed in the wrong direction for price bulls.  I noted many times over the last few years that we are awash in more excess or slack oil than when oil was $10 a barrel in 1998.  And the rise in oil production in the U.S. and elsewhere has only made the supply-demand imbalance even worse.   In other words, as noted ad nauseam on here over the years, oil was going to bust contrary to the social mythology of Peak Oil.

Now, let’s move beyond a baseline discussion on oil and gold to the state and new dynamics in the world today.  I have written in quite a bit of detail how Russia may be able to break away from dollar control given its unique position in the world.   A position that China does not share without tremendous pain.   China is a slave to dollar, and to a lesser extent, euro hegemony.  

Let me digress for a minute as it pertains to global events.   We really have no idea what is going on in the Ukraine and why.  The mainstream press has reported one particular view.  But, this is the same mainstream press that lies to the American people incessantly.  One must consider the Ukrainian situation beyond that which it has been framed by the state and by the media.   The Ukraine may be a battle ground between the west and Russia created by either party.   It may actually be Russia that is creating the mess in the Ukraine with a much more profound intent.  That is, to goad the west into action that would allow it to abandon the dollar, and instead demand gold for its energy reserves.   The U.S. may have intelligence or knowledge of what Russia’s true motive is.   Now this is purely speculation.  But it certainly seems rather odd that the U.S. and Europe are responding so aggressively to Russia over a very minor issue in the Ukraine.  And, why is Russia flexing its military capability to an extreme if the only dynamic involved is a small skirmish in the Ukraine?  Are they warning the U.S. and Europe in advance of a demand for gold in their trade settlement of commodities and energy?   Now, Russia itself is not going to bring down the U.S. empire.  But with a contrived crisis in the Ukraine, even regardless of who is responsible for it, Russia now has Europe in its clutches.  Europe is dependent on Russian energy exports.  And that means a trade settlement crisis could be premeditated.  Russia could easily demand gold for trade settlement from Europe for its vast energy reserves, thus bypassing both the euro and the dollar.   And, coincidentally, could that be the real reason why many European nations are attempting to repatriate their gold reserves?  That is, they are privy to western intelligence on what is really going on.   Do we really know what is going on between the west and Russia and why?  The answer is clearly no unless you consider the mainstream press’s regurgitated political talking points as fact.  

Of course another alternative may be that the world is generally as it seems (Not likely given the massive bubble we see in state power and associated secrecy.), and Russia and the Middle East may actually need to back their collapsing currencies with gold to promote some degree of confidence within the predatory financial system given their primary exports, energy are under substantial duress.  (Middle Eastern oil fiefdoms peg their currency to the dollar but that peg will eventually decouple and if oil continues downward their currencies will implode just as I have noted many times the yuan will.)  Regardless, the only dynamic through which I can see demand to catalyze for gold is some level of forced state demand.  Similar to that of the forced state demand for money that props up its valuation.  And, simply from a cyclical standpoint the entire gold complex has been obliterated.  Yet, the price of gold has held very steady at current levels for some time.  That said, gold needs a catalyst to rise from the washout.     

My intent in putting up this post is not to present a completely factual perspective.  Parts of it are highly speculative.   I don’t know all of the facts.  Neither does anyone else.  But, what I do know is the Soviet Union in some respects still exists.  It has simply reconstituted itself.  The same state apparatchiks who controlled the masses in the Soviet Union now control the masses in Russia.  The power that the state uses to control the masses has simply been transformed from communism to capitalism.   And with the acceptance of capitalism by those apparatchiks, the Russian state has new tools of marketing and advertising (propaganda and control) at its disposal to manipulate its own people and the world.  But the same predatory power structure with the same pathological elements are still in control.  All that has happened is one state created ism has been replaced with another.   The same Soviet military-industrial complex still exists.  The same corporate complex enslaving the masses to a dumbed-down culture of work for the benefit of state actors still exists.   And most importantly, same pathological state still exists.   What has really changed other than window dressing?

As noted in prior posts, Putin appears to me the closest comparative to Hitler in today’s world.  His cult of personality in Russia is all-consuming.  He has stolen from the Russian people to amass a fortune as Hitler did.  And his recent shows of military force are a reminder of Hitler’s many antics leading up to war.   Remember, the known evil of the 1930s was the British Empire.  Yet, it was another evil, Hitler, that arose to become the greatest threat to humanity.   And just like then, many liberals and capitalist alike found solace in supporting Hitler and now, Putin.   I’m not stating that Putin is going to declare war on the west.  Nor am I stating that he is the world’s greatest threat.  But, what I am stating is that the parallels to history and state megalomania are there.   Many people cheer for Putin simply because of the evils of U.S. empire.  But those people should remember that placing their faith in the rule of man, any man, and an associated personality cult is a proposition that always ends badly.   It is this misplaced faith that created Hitler, many modern day leaders including Obama and countless other useless, clueless or pathological state actors in between.    It is this cult of personality or faith in man as a savior that has been the basis for massive state power grabs and has ultimately created the all-powerful state.  Decades of this misplaced faith are the very basis for the demagogy and outright deceit of state actors that has landed the United States in its current economic, social and government crises.

If Russia would ever demand payment in gold, whether premeditated or out of its instincts of survival, it would be an act of violence.  Maybe an act of self-defense but still an act of violence.  But then this is exactly what I wrote would happen between G20 state actors.   That they would eventually turn on each other.   There is no doubt in my mind that much of the pathology of the Russian state has a deep hatred of the west and the U.S. in particular for past aggression, humiliation and loss.   State pathology ensures that any past transgressions are seldom forgotten.  Especially when they are still being committed as is certainly the case with U.S. empire today.  We don’t really know the reasons why the west and Russia are at odds.  Sure, small bits have been leaked.  Maybe with intent.  But I seriously doubt all of this has anything to do with a few pawns in the Ukraine.   The state enslaves billions of people to its violence every single day and the situation in the Ukraine really is not that profound in comparison to the level of responses from Russia or the west.

Here is what we do know.  Oil is crashing.  Gold has shown many signs of a wash out.  And the actions of the state continue to devolve into greater and greater attempts at control aka violence.  Gold may be one of the last great tools of state violence that remains.  And it may be used to destabilize the existing U.S.-dominated world financial system, or to stabilize financial systems attempting to break free from it.  Whether that is premeditated or out of survival or a little of both, all could be possible. 

If humanity doesn’t stand to account, this trend of greater and greater state violence will continue and so will the resultant suffering of the human family and the natural world.   Whenever the constructs of the global economy fail, and it is going to fail, the misery around the world could be beyond our comprehension if left to state actors.   The only uncertainty is what dynamics will drive that failure.  But, we know one thing for certain.  Without humanity interceding, it will be rooted in state violence.

Watch the gold market and the possible actions of Russia over the next year.

posted by TimingLogic at 7:34 PM