Kucinich: “NATO Talks a Sham – War in Afghanistan is Not Ending”!
- Daniel 7:23 (New King James Version)
23 “Thus he said: ‘The fourth beast shall be
A fourth kingdom on earth,
Which shall be different from all other kingdoms,
And shall devour the whole earth,
Trample it and break it in pieces.
- - Daniel 11:36-39 (New King James Version)
36 “Then the king shall do according to his own will: he shall exalt and magnify himself above every god, shall speak blasphemies against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the wrath has been accomplished; for what has been determined shall be done. 37 He shall regard neither the God[a] of his fathers nor the desire of women, nor regard any god; for he shall exalt himself above them all. 38 But in their place he shall honor a god of fortresses; and a god which his fathers did not know he shall honor with gold and silver, with precious stones and pleasant things. 39 Thus he shall act against the strongest fortresses with a foreign god, which he shall acknowledge, and advance its glory; and he shall cause them to rule over many, and divide the land for gain.
- - Kucinich: “NATO Talks a Sham: War in Afghanistan is Not Ending”!
By Dennis Kucinich (about the author), http://www.opednews.com/
Washington D.C. (May 21, 2012) — Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today released the following statement as world leaders meet in Chicago for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit.
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“The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is not a benevolent organization. NATO is not about the North Atlantic and it’s not about our collective defense.
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“NATO is a cost-sharing organization that finances aggressive military action. By hiding behind the claim that the organization provides for “common defense,’ NATO allows us to wage wars of choice under the guise of international peacekeeping. The most recent example was the unconstitutional war in Libya where NATO, operating under a United Nations mandate to protect civilians, instead backed one side in a civil war and pursued a policy of regime change.
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“Today, NATO leaders are meeting in Chicago to discuss the future of Afghanistan. The talks are being billed as discussions of plans to end the war. The war in Afghanistan is not ending. These talks are simply about financing the next phase of the war.
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“The Strategic Partnership Agreement between the U.S. and Afghanistan commits us to the country for at least another decade, despite public support for the war being at an all time low. The United States will pay for half of the estimated $4.1 billion per year cost of supporting 352,000 Afghan army and police officers. Afghanistan’s contribution will be $500,000. The rest will be financed by our “NATO partners.’ It is not surprising that support for the war among NATO members is waning, with France threatening to pull out its troops by the end of this year.
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“Our participation in NATO comes at a great financial cost to the U.S. We contribute the majority of funds for NATO’s common budget, including 25% of the military budget. Between fiscal years 2010 and 2012 alone, we contributed more than $1.3 billion to NATO’s military budget. We also incur significant costs through the deployment of our forces in support of NATO missions. According to The Atlantic, the war in Libya cost the United States $1.1 billion.
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“NATO was originally founded to provide a strategic counterbalance to the Soviet Union. Its founding purpose no longer exists, but NATO continues to circumvent the authority of the United Nations and to provoke other nations. NATO is an anachronism. Instead of trying to bolster the organization, we should begin serious discussions to dismantle it.”
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India Faces Mass Default And Restructuring as Devaluation Looms!
- India faces mass default and restructuring as devaluation looms!
By Jonathan Rogers, http://www.reuters.com/
SINGAPORE, May 22 (IFR) – India’s mounting economic and political woes are prompting market players to raise the specter of a Greek-style crisis in Asia’s third largest economy.
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This is not simply idle speculation. Last Friday, the rupee crashed to an all-time low against the dollar of 54.9 and it was stuck most of Tuesday at the psychologically significant Rs55/USD level, where the currency is seen as having no obvious technical support. And the implications of a rupee collapse would be immense.
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“It could go to stratospheric levels against the dollar and it looks to me as if the Indian government is aiming at a de facto devaluation in an effort to prop up flagging economic growth. And you then have to worry about all the unpleasant boxes such an action would inevitably tick, such as straining further the country’s already strained balance of payments as well as bringing on an almighty wave of inflationary pressure,” said a credit analyst at a ratings agency in Singapore.
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He added that a spike in the rupee would strain the cashflow of corporates and banks as they struggled to service dollar-denominated debt and that the odds of a widespread Indian debt restructuring would be low.
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In his opinion the market will determine the rupee’s level, with a formal devaluation seen as unlikely given the consequent need for interest rates to be pushed significantly higher to contain capital flight and counter toxic inflation levels.
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This scenario was seen in the UK in 1992 when the country exited the ERM and the government pushed short term interest rates up to 15% from 10%, spending billions of pounds of reserves to defend the currency in the process.
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Should something similar occur to India, it would almost certainly lose its coveted investment-grade rating, with a one-notch demotion required for that to occur. S&P has India on negative watch for its Baa3 foreign currency rating while Moody’s and Fitch retain a stable outlook on the country.
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read more!
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Japan’s Fiscal Death is a Warning To The West !
- Japan’s fiscal death is a warning to the West!
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
Fitch Ratings has downgraded Japan two notches to A+, citing a surge in public debt since the Lehman crisis and the lack of any plan to restore fiscal probity.
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Key indicators are deteriorating on almost every front, raising concerns that the world’s third largest economy is running aground after two “Lost Decades”.
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Japan’s debt has jumped by 61 percentage points of GDP since 2008, compared to eight points for the AAA bloc. Public debt is expected to reach 239pc of GDP this year, uncharted levels for a major economy in peace-time. `Net debt’ –subtracting Japan’s vast holdings of foreign bonds – is nearer 137pc but this is rising at an even steeper trajectory.
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“Japan’s addiction to public sector spending is way beyond the boundaries or remedial `austerity’,” said Dylan Grice from Societe Generale. “Political pressure on the Bank of Japan to crank the printing presses into top gear will become irresistible. We see no alternative.”
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Japan has been even more nonchalant than the US in efforts to rein in spending. The budget deficit will remain above 7pc of GDP late into the decade. Fitch said the pace of fiscal consolidation is “leisurely” and prone to “political risk”. Plans to raise VAT from 5pc to 10pc face a battle in the Diet.
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Japan still enjoys “exceptional financing flexibility” but is vulnerable to shocks. Even a small rise in borrowing costs would play havoc.
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read more!
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UBS Cranks Up The European M.A.D. (Mutually Assured Destruction)!
- This coming global economic, financial and monetary collapse will start in the PIIGS, spread to the rest of Europe, UK, Japan … and finally America. It is a deliberate detonation of the current world system/order by the Illuminists. It will provide them with an excuse/cover for the criminal financial derivatives mess they have created. My guestimate is that during Aug-Oct 2012 the fuse will be lit!
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UBS Cranks Up The European M.A.D.!
by Tyler Durden, http://www.zerohedge.com/
Building on yesterday’s discussion of the lack of an integrated banking system and credible lender of last resort in Europe, UBS appears to have gone thermonuclear this morning. Their lengthy article ‘What If Greece Goes?’ outlines the contagion risk from an ‘orderly’ exit as markets, international trading companies, and bank depositors will all anticipate the consequences likely resulting in economic disorder. Their remains a great deal of complacency about the ability of firewalls to prevent this - but as they note – should bank runs begin, even a pan-European deposit guarantee scheme will not stop rational depositors extending bank runs instead of gambling on the probability of policy-maker actions. Laying out Greece’s options (renegotiate austerity or default), UBS summarizes the situation more profoundly: “Integrate Or Die” as without a Euro confederation (in their eyes), continental Europe will cry ‘havoc’ once again.
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UBS – What If Greece Goes
The flaw in the Euro
The Euro at once embodies too little and too much government. The single currency lacks many of the institutions generally assumed to be necessary in a functioning monetary union. At the same time, those institutions that do exist are structured in a particularly rigid manner, and do not exhibit the ability to adapt that would allow the changing circumstances of the Euro crisis to be managed.
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Why an orderly exit becomes disorderly
We believe that Greece remains in the Euro, as the costs of departure are excessive to both Greece and the Euro area. If Greece even considers making an exit of the Euro, markets, international trading companies and bank depositors will all anticipate the consequences. This anticipation of exit would likely result in economic disorder. The anticipation, and not the act of leaving, will in all probability lead to a cessation of international trade in the conventional sense, the inability of the government to raise any finance in the markets, and bank runs.
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The contagion risk
In the event of a Greek exit, contagion risks clearly exist. There seems to be a great deal of official complacency about the ability of firewalls to prevent this. The risk lies in the contagion of bank runs. Bank runs, if they occur, will likely arise because of existential risks about the Euro, rather than solvency or liquidity risks about banking systems. If this does occur, then pan Euro deposit guarantee schemes (however worthy and desirable) are unlikely to provide a remedy. The possibility of other economies joining Greece in a disorderly departure from the Euro must be assumed to be very high – and it is this risk that suggests rational policy-makers would not wish to gamble on the probabilities.
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read more!
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Jim Willie: JP Morgan’s Interest Rate Swaps Loss Armageddon To Reach US$1 Trillion by Next Year?!
- It appears the financial derivatives collapse has been triggered. Interest Rates Swap (IRSwaps financial derivatives are at the heart of the coming collapse. It is used to manipulate US treasury interest rates ie. keep/push them low. This lit IRSwaps fuse will definitely detonate the global financial system. I encourage all of you to read Jim Willie’s entire article (click on the link in brown). It is somewhat difficult to understand though. Let me give you his conclusions:
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USTBond Tower of Babel Teeters!
by Jim Willie CB, GoldenJackass.com
CONCLUSION
A great urgent need has come for a rally to 1.5% in the TNX (10-year USTreasury yield) in order to save the IRSwaps from implosion. The Tower of Babel is teetering. A bond rally would thus render the tower wider at the base. The final losses will be in the hundreds of $billions in the next several months, eventually possibly to top the $1 trillion mark by next year. My source from Europe wrote, “An event driven chain reaction has been triggered deep inside the system, with Interest Rate Swaps at the center. This has already gone viral. They will have to trigger some mega-crises, most likely in Europe & Greece, as a diversionary tactic. They need to have something to blame things on. Once Greece implodes, so will the big French banks and likely some Italian banks. It is all so obvious and predictable.”
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Look also for losses to London banks, enough to topple one or more. Hats off to Rob Kirby for correctly concluding the Interest Rate Swaps were at the center of the mega mushrooming JPM losses. It is coming to light slowly. …. The USTBond Tower of Babel is very narrow and tall, like a tower that grows higher and higher each year, subject to the heavy winds. The recent bond market volatility has acted like slamming a hedge hammer into the Babel Tower base when strong winds from Europe hit the sides. The vagaries and complexity and wreckage of the sovereign bond market have begun to topple the tower. The tower will fall, and fall in a heavily populated urban area. It is going to be the most dangerous and exciting event in modern financial history, that climaxes with the death of the USDollar and announcement of the USGovt debt default. The main tough questions are timing of events. But as usual, the sequence will be from an event schedule. It has begun, and cannot stop.
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When the USTBond tower topples, it will lead to the great release upward in the Gold price. A grand Gold bull market is near. As the safety and security of the USTreasury Bond market is unmasked (an asset bubble), enduring a devastating wreck, the global funds will flock into Gold. The timing will be simultaneous with the rejection of the USDollar in trade settlement, and the end of the famed Petro-Dollar. The Gold cartel cannot stop the price rise, because they will have no physical gold. They are being raided of their gold bullion by the East, to the tune of 5000 (five thousand) metric tons since the end of February. That figure was confirmed by my source, who also claims that the major banks are short well over 20,000 metric tons after illegally grabbing the Allocated gold accounts held in their custody. Law suits are occurring in Switzerland to this effect.
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Societal and economics observer and commentator with an endtimes, future history perspective. Follow me at Twitter: socioecohistory
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