Foreign Policy

Attacks on police stations in Iran suggest foreign influence, like the CIA, is behind the radicals.

I don't think the BRICS will become a new empire. No one country is dominant.

Federal Reserve

Modi declares war on cash so gold skyrockets. Consequences.

Foreign Policy

Now that the Brazilian Olympics are over, WHO removes Zika as emergency. All the propaganda surrounding it went away right away. What a joke.

Brexiting Britain will likely replace the EU bureaucracy with its own.

Health Care

Map shows Zika has been in US for decades. It's only news because the US wants to ruin the Brazil Olympics.

Health Care

Experts admit exaggerating Zika. This is a ploy to harm the BRICS.

Foreign Policy

Clinton signed arms deals for foreign governments who donated to Clinton Foundation.

Ousting of president of Brazil was a carefully disguised coup, and the US may be behind it.

War

More evidence MH17 was downed by a Ukrainian fighter.

WWIII, the war for the dollar, has already begun.

Federal Reserve

The petrodollar system. While a fiat currency, the Fed can print at will, the dollar is informally tied to a commodity: oil. That's what keeps inflation from skyrocketing.

"From 1972 to 1974, the U.S. government made a series of agreements with Saudi Arabia. These agreements created the petrodollar system.
The U.S. government chose Saudi Arabia because of its vast petroleum reserves, its dominant position in OPEC, and the (correct) perception that the Saudi royal family was corruptible.
In essence, the petrodollar system was an agreement that the U.S. would guarantee the survival of the House of Saud. In exchange, Saudi Arabia would:

1. Use its dominant position in OPEC to ensure that all oil transactions would happen in U.S. dollars.

2. Invest a large amount of its dollars from oil revenue in U.S. Treasury securities and use the interest payments from those securities to pay U.S. companies to modernize the infrastructure of Saudi Arabia.

3. Guarantee the price of oil within limits acceptable to the U.S. and prevent another oil embargo by other OPEC members.

Oil is the world’s most traded and most strategic commodity. Needing to use dollars for oil transactions is a very compelling reason for foreign countries to keep large U.S. dollar reserves." 

Thus the alliance with the Saudis.

Economy

Discussion of the failing Brazilian economy includes explanation of crisis hitting all countries.

"The 1990s saw a series of reforms that put the country back on the track. In 2003, when the newly elected president, Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva from the Workers Party took over the government, the economy was already on a growth path. Then came the commodity boom with a seemingly insatiable appetite for Brazilian natural and agricultural products. Yet, instead of using the good times that filled the coffers of the Brazilian treasury to carry out highly necessary reforms, the Labor government pursued a populist policy of generous social spending, particularly for the poor parts of the population.
Now, these achievements of reducing poverty and inequality have come under threat because of the lack of financial funds. This means that Brazil must face not only an economic and a political crisis, but also a social crisis. The confluence of such a triple crisis increases the risks that any one of them gets worse because each individual crisis affects negatively the other crises. The consequential chain from the economic to the political and from there to the social crisis then goes into reverse and the social crisis worsens the outlook to get out of the political and the economic crisis."

Riots to follow.

"The BRICS never managed to operate as a coherent group. Now, that not only Brazil is in crisis, but also Russia, and that China is in troubled waters, the outlook for the BRICS as a group of playing a major role in global affairs has diminished even more."

So global recession benefits the dollar.

Federal Reserve

The IMF protects the biggest banks of the G5 and carries out US foreign policy.

Russia is moving towards a gold-backed ruble.

Central banks hoarding gold, but mostly the BRICS, not in the west.

Federal Reserve

To hammer what's left of the European economy into the ground, the European central bank will cut interest rates to all-time lows.

Swiss and Chinese central banks agree to currency swap. That means trade without the dollar.

Federal Reserve

BRICS advance their competitor to the dollar.

"The bank’s two key entities – a New Development Bank (NDB) and a Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) – are designed to form a developing world alternative to the two institutional bulwarks of the “dollar zone”, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF)."

It'll either be the renminbi or, hopefully, gold.

Foreign Policy

South Africa denies visa to Dalai Lama.

CIA security team on the night of the Benghazi attack was ordered to stand down.

"But the team was held back. According to the security operators, they were delayed from responding to the attack by the top CIA officer in Benghazi, whom they refer to only as “Bob.”
“It had probably been 15 minutes I think, and … I just said, ‘Hey, you know, we gotta-- we need to get over there, we're losing the initiative,’” said Tiegen. “And Bob just looks straight at me and said, ‘Stand down, you need to wait.’”
“We're starting to get calls from the State Department guys saying, ‘Hey, we're taking fire, we need you guys here, we need help,’” said Paronto.
After a delay of nearly 30 minutes, the security team headed to the besieged consulate without orders. They asked their CIA superiors to call for armed air support, which never came.
Now, looking back, the security team said they believed that if they had not been delayed for nearly half an hour, or if the air support had come, things might have turned out differently.
“Ambassador Stevens and Sean [Smith], yeah, they would still be alive, my gut is yes,” Paronto said. Tiegen concurred.
“I strongly believe if we'd left immediately, they'd still be alive today,” he added."

This is powerful support for my belief that Hillary Clinton had Stevens assassinated.

"In a statement to Fox News, a senior intelligence official insisted that,  “There were no orders to anybody to stand down in providing support.”
Baier put that assertion directly to the operators.
“You use the words ‘stand down,’” Baier noted. “A number of people now, including the House Intelligence Committee  insist no one was hindered from responding to the situation at the compound…so what do you say to that?”
“No, it happened,” said Tiegen.
“It happened on the ground-- all I can talk about is what happened on that ground that night,” added Paronto. “To us. To myself, twice, and to-- to Tig, once. It happened that night. We were told to wait, stand-- and stand down.  We were delayed three times.”"

This stinks of corruption and assassination.

"In a statement to Fox News, a senior intelligence official did allow that the security team was delayed from responding while the CIA’s top officer in Benghazi tried to rally local support."

That's ridiculous. They're scrambling.

Foreign Policy

Germany spies on allies too. They all do.

Chinese troops continue to enter territory disputed by India. This might be why some say India doesn't belong in the BRICS.

Foreign Policy

The petroyuan is rising to compete with the petrodollar.

"To forge such links, Washington effectively extorted its Gulf Arab allies, quietly conditioning U.S. guarantees of their security to their willingness to financially help the United States. Reneging on pledges to its European and Japanese partners, the Ford administration clandestinely pushed Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab producers to recycle substantial parts of their petrodollar surpluses into the U.S. economy through private (largely U.S.) intermediaries, rather than through the IMF. The Ford administration also elicited Gulf Arab support for Washington’s strained finances, reaching secret deals with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for their central banks to buy large volumes of U.S. Treasury securities outside normal auction processes. These commitments helped Washington prevent the IMF from supplanting the United States as the main provider of international liquidity; they also gave a crucial early boost to Washington’s ambitions to finance U.S. deficits by recycling foreign dollar surpluses via private capital markets and purchases of U.S. government securities."

That explains 1970s high inflation and interest rates.

"The Saudis, especially, have vigorously defended exclusive pricing of oil in dollars. While Saudi Arabia and other major energy producers now accept payment for their oil exports in other major currencies, the larger share of the world’s hydrocarbon sales continue to be settled in dollars, perpetuating the greenback’s status as the world’s top transactional currency. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab producers have supplemented their support for the oil-dollar nexus with ample purchases of advanced U.S. weapons; most have also pegged their currencies to the dollar – a commitment which senior Saudi officials describe as “strategic.” While the dollar’s share of global reserves has dropped, Gulf Arab petrodollar recycling helps keep it the world’s leading reserve currency. "

That explains why the US is such committed allies to those states.

"China is pursuing a protracted process of capital account liberalisation essential to full renminbi internationalisation, and is allowing more exchange rate flexibility for the yuan. The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) now has swap arrangements with over thirty other central banks – meaning that renminbi already effectively functions as a reserve currency."

That explains why the US is hostile to China.

"For several years, China has paid for some of its oil imports from Iran with renminbi; in 2012, the PBOC and the UAE Central Bank set up a $5.5 billion currency swap, setting the stage for settling Chinese oil imports from Abu Dhabi in renminbi – an important expansion of petroyuan use in the Persian Gulf. The $400 billion Sino-Russian gas deal that was concluded this year apparently provides for settling Chinese purchases of Russian gas inrenminbi; if fully realised, this would mean an appreciable role for renminbi in transnational gas transactions."

That explains why the US is hostile toward Russia.

US and EU aggression against Russia, and everywhere else, is hastening the dollar's decline.

Conflict in Ukraine and sanctions on Russia blamed for Italy's "surprising" economic slump.

Germany and China agree to clear payments with yuan.

China agrees with France and Luxembourg to clear payments with yuan.

UK and China agree to clear payments with yuan.

China to export yuan to BRICS.

The China-Russia axis of oil. 

Renminbi are denominated in yuan like federal reserve notes are denominated in dollars.

Obama slanders the Russian people for political gain. More.

Why is it surprising Obama invited dictators to summit?

Foreign Policy

US sanctions are pressuring companies to abandon the international dollar payment system.

"Christian Noyer, Governor of the Bank of France and a member of the European Central Bank’s Governing Council, said that Washington’s sanctions are driving companies and countries out of the dollar payments system. The huge sum extorted from the French bank, BNP Paribas, for doing business with countries disapproved by Washington makes clear the increased legal risks that arise from using the dollar when Washington makes the rules.
Washington’s attack on the French bank was the occasion for many to remember the numerous past sanctions and to contemplate future sanctions, such as those that loom for Germany’s Commerzbank. A movement to diversify the currencies used in international trade is inevitable. Noyer pointed out that trade between Europe and China does not need to use the dollar and can be fully paid in Euros or Renminbi."

Counterproductive.

"The phenomenon of US rules expanding to all US dollar-denominated transactions around the world is accelerating the movement away from the dollar payment system. Some countries have already arranged bilateral agreements with trading partners to make their trade payments in their own currencies. The BRICS are establishing new payment methods independently of the dollar and are setting up their own International Monetary Fund to finance trade imbalances."

The BRICS are everywhere.

Foreign Policy

Jim Rodgers is skeptical that India should be included in the BRICS.

Foreign Policy

In one of the most blatant examples of the decivilizing effects of government, Germans are reverting to typewriters to protect themselves from NSA.

Uncle Sam's rulers' God complex.

Resounding majorities of people around the world reject NSA's ubiquitous spying, but Americans, Indians, Philippinos, Nigerians and South Africans are the exception.

White House claims Obama has increased world tranquility. You can't make this stuff up.

As I expected, the BRICS development bank is a non-dollar IMF.

Foreign Policy

WTO rules against US tariffs in favor of China and India.

Russia and Brazil discuss creation of a BRICS development bank. It sounds similar to the IMF.

Foreign Policy

I thought the BRICS were always an anti-dollar alliance.

"“I think the work on ruble-yuan swap line will finalized in the nearest future and the way for ruble-yuan settlement will be open. Moreover, we are not the only ones with such initiatives. We know about the statements made by Mr. Noyer, chairman of the Bank of France. As a retaliation for what Americans have done to BNP Paribas, he opined that the trade with China must be done in yuan or euro.”"

Things are going from bad to worse.