Sanctions against Russia turning Germany into ‘kamikaze’ – MP
RT | September 2, 2023
Western sanctions have failed to destabilize Russia and are now backfiring on the countries that imposed them, including Germany, Sevim Dagdelen, a German MP from the Left Party (Die Linke) wrote in an op-ed for the Berliner Zeitung published on Friday.
According to the lawmaker, Russia’s economy has successfully weathered the restrictions and is steadily adjusting to the new economic realities.
“In order to ruin Russia, it was hoped that the punitive measures that violate international law will have a long-lasting effect. But the reality is different. Even the Russian auto industry is recovering. Chinese companies are stepping in for the German manufacturers who leave Russia,” Dagdelen wrote.
“Contrary to what was hoped, Russia has not been ruined. The consequences of the sanctions are evident, but on our side. While Germany’s economy collapsed by 0.3% in the last quarter and stagnation is also threatening the Eurozone, Russia is now forecast to grow by 2.5% this year. As is often the case, a merciless idealism characteristic of the German ruling party obscures the view of reality.”
According to the lawmaker, the sanctions are strengthening Russia while the German government “is ruining domestic economy with open eyes.”
“The federal government acts here like a kamikaze pilot, replacing politics with dubious morality and is happy about a friendly nod from Washington,” she stated, noting that double-digit inflation in Germany is the product of sanctions, as well as the “ever increasing military support for Ukraine.” Dagdelen also noted that the sanctions war has prompted the largest redistribution of capital in the country, with large corporations boosting profits while ordinary German consumers suffer from a drop in real wages and a cost-of-living crisis.
The lawmaker criticized the government that “wants nothing to do with diplomacy” and urged Berlin to distance itself from Washington and NATO. She suggested closer ties with BRICS, a G7 rival economic bloc of countries that includes Russia and that will represent nearly 40% of global GDP after it officially admits new members at the beginning of next year. According to Dagdelen, Germany should “react accordingly to the new multipolarity.”
“Germany and Europe need a sovereign foreign policy that is no longer subordinate to the US and NATO. Supporting the BRICS peace initiative would be a first step towards freeing ourselves from the socially and politically fatal paternalism of the US. It would represent a step towards democratic sovereignty. No war is our war, not even this one.”
The Government’s Plan to Install Heat Pumps in Homes They Won’t Work In is Branded “Desperate” and “Unethical”
BY WILL JONES | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | AUGUST 31, 2023
A Government plan to relax rules to allow heat pumps to be installed in uninsulated homes they will fail to heat properly has been branded “desperate” and “unethical”.
Faced with a widespread boycott of the pricey technology, ministers are hoping that they can kickstart uptake by removing the requirement that properties be adequately insulated before gas boilers are removed.
Campaign group Net Zero Watch criticised the decision. Director Andrew Montford said:
The insulation requirement was put in place to ensure heat pumps were only installed where they were likely to work. Removing a key consumer protection is hardly going to help the Government’s cause.
Mr. Montford points to a recent study of heat pump economics, which shows that, even in a well-insulated property, most heat pump installations do not give lower bills, let alone justifying the substantial capital costs. This is because electricity is four times the price of gas.
Mr. Montford said:
The contradictions in Government policy are becoming clear. Renewables are incompatible with heat pumps because they make electricity so much more expensive than gas. In their desperation to persuade consumers to switch anyway, ministers are proposing steps that would be foolish, are arguably unethical, and would certainly be counterproductive. This is a brand of fanaticism as dangerous as Mr. Khan’s Ulez obsession.
Yet another green technology being rejected by consumers because it is overpriced and doesn’t do the job.
Vivek Ramaswamy’s Plan For Ending The NATO-Russian Proxy War In Ukraine Is Pragmatic
BY ANDREW KORYBKO | AUGUST 31, 2023
The NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine has been trending towards a stalemate since the beginning of the year after Moscow’s growing edge in the “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” ensured that it won’t be defeated. NATO is unlikely to be defeated either, however, since it’ll probably intervene directly – whether as a whole or via a Polish–led mission that draws in the bloc via Article 5 – to freeze the Line of Contact in the event that Russia achieves a breakthrough and threatens to sweep through Ukraine.
The counteroffensive’s spectacular failure and the subsequently vicious blame game between the US and Ukraine strongly suggest that talks with Russia will resume by year’s end for freezing the conflict. Ahead of that happening, these wartime allies are frenziedly trying to convince their respective people that the other is responsible for this debacle simultaneously with formulating an attractive post-conflict vision of the future. The first is served by their vicious blame game while the second will now be discussed.
Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who’s now polling third after winning last week’s debate and had earlier attracted enormous media attention for his outspokenness on sensitive issues, just published his “Viable Realism & Revival Doctrine” in an article for The American Conservative. Of relevance to this piece is his plan for ending the NATO-Russian proxy war. Liberal–globalist policymakers and their media allies responded with fury, and it’s not difficult to see why.
Ramaswamy describes the conflict as a “no-win war” that’s needlessly depleted Western stockpiles to China’s benefit. With a view towards more effectively containing the People’s Republic in the Asia-Pacific, he therefore suggests extricating the US from its proxy war with Russia as soon as possible. To that end, he proposes recognizing the new ground realities in Eastern Europe, ending NATO expansion, refusing to admit Ukraine to the bloc, lifting sanctions, and having Europe shoulder the burden for its own security.
The explicit goal is to “get Putin to dump Xi”, and that’s why he says that the quid pro quo is “Russia exiting its military alliance with China.” Ramaswamy is convinced that his plan will “elevate Russia as a strategic check on China’s designs in East Asia” if it’s implemented into practice, but the problem is that no such “military alliance” exists between those two. Moreover, it’s unrealistic to imagine that the US will “get Putin to dump Xi” since they’re good friends and their countries are strategic partners.
Having clarified that, this plan does have its merits. From the Russian side, it ensures that country’s objective national security interests and gives it the chance to rely on the EU for preemptively averting potentially disproportionate economic dependence on China upon the lifting of sanctions. On the home front, Ramaswamy’s plan appeals to the pragmatic policymaking faction whose influence is on the rise as proven by the success over the summer of their policy towards India that was detailed here.
The timing couldn’t have been better. The US is looking for a “face-saving” way to resume peace talks as previously explained, and the rising influence of pragmatic policymakers could lead to them overruling the liberal-globalists’ objections to this, though their rivals could still try to sabotage this. The enormous media attention that Ramaswamy has already generated, not to mention what he’s now receiving as a result of his proposal, could reshape the national discourse on the proxy war’s endgame.
Americans are becoming fatigued with this conflict but no one had yet articulated an attractive post-conflict vision of the future until now. Irrespective of Ramaswamy’s political future, his plan serves to spark a wider conversation at all levels about the pragmatism of compromising with Russia in order to free the US up for more effectively containing China in the Asia-Pacific. This can in turn facilitate the resumption of talks with Russia, especially if it emboldens pragmatic US policymakers.
The vicious blame game between the US and Ukraine over the counteroffensive’s failure leads to the inevitable one over who’s responsible for losing this proxy war, with all of this preceding America’s formulation of an attractive post-conflict vision of the future for its people and policymakers alike. The first dynamic is continually intensifying and making more headlines by the day, while the second is also presently unfolding but mostly in silence, and it’s this dynamic that Ramaswamy’s plan contributes to.
Accepting the impossibility of Russia abandoning its mutually beneficial cooperation with China and acknowledging that lifting the sanctions likely won’t happen either, the rest of his proposals could form the parameters of a potential Russian-American deal for ending their proxy war in Ukraine. That former Soviet Republic wouldn’t join NATO, nor would that bloc expand any further, and the West would de facto recognize the new ground realities in Eastern Europe while the EU bears the burden for its security.
Russia would obviously have to agree to some regional compromises too in that scenario, such as Ukraine’s privileged post-conflict relationship with NATO and the hard security guarantees that the Anglo-American Axis will likely provide, but these could be acceptable if its other interests are met. If there’s any movement in this direction, then it shouldn’t be maliciously spun as Russia conspiring to facilitating the US’ containment of China, but seen for what it truly is: Russia putting its interests first.
Bloomberg Finances and Coopts State Attorneys General
State AGs aid Bloomberg quest for ‘green’ energy that threatens planet, wildlife and people
By Paul Driessen | CFact | August 22, 2023
When you’ve built a financial information and media empire and become the world’s seventh richest person, you get to say dumb things, like suggesting that farming is easy: “You dig a hole, put a seed in, put dirt on top, add water – and up comes the corn.”
Being ultra-wealthy also shields Michael Bloomberg from any fallout from the climate and energy policies he pursues so zealously. He will doubtless be able to afford electricity at any price for his multiple mansions, from any source, backed up by thousands of battery modules to cover the repeated blackouts his policies will unleash. The other 99.9% won’t be so fortunate.
Mr. Bloomberg bankrolls campaigns against coal and natural gas; supports efforts to populate the Biden Administration with rogue regulators equally intent on “transforming” America’s energy system, society, and living standards; and champions ESG principles for financial firms, companies, and investors. His company even has Sustainability and ESG & Climate divisions. Mr. Bloomberg serves as UN Special Envoy on Climate Ambition and Solutions, enabling him to advance his agendas internationally.
ESG (Environmental Social Governance) helps unelected asset managers use their control over trillions of investment dollars to pressure companies, lenders, and consumers to embrace far-left activist versions of public welfare and justice, even if it causes clients’ portfolio values to decline. ESG is a subversive way to bypass legislatures, voters and democratic processes, to impose unpopular political and ideological agendas, often in violation of fiduciary obligations.
ESG opposes fossil fuels, insisting they are causing climate cataclysms. Any company in that business, or offering to finance a drilling project, gets blackballed. But companies building or financing “clean, green” energy score in the ESG stratosphere – even though most such projects destroy vast swaths of wildlife habitats, involve slave and child labor, and leave widespread toxic pollution in their wake. ESG human rights, ecological, and climate justice principles are duplicitous and hypocritical.
As New York City mayor, Mr. Bloomberg infamously advocated exorbitant taxes on large sugary drinks, claiming they lead to obesity and thus to diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and premature death. He simply wanted to help poor people live longer, he asserted, by making Big Gulps less affordable.
It’s thus puzzling that he now wants to banish reliable, affordable gas heat and coal- and gas-generated electricity for heating and air conditioning – in favor of pricey, weather-dependent wind and solar power backed up by outrageously expensive batteries. Those policies shorten lives.
Even if manmade or natural climate change causes average global temperatures to climb 2-3 degrees, modern technologies will keep us safely comfortable. But if laws, policies, and ESG pressures make heating and AC inaccessible or unaffordable, indoor temperatures can soar 15-25 degrees in summertime and drop as precipitously in wintertime. People die – and cold is far deadlier than heat.
When people, especially the elderly, cannot heat their homes properly, they can perish from hypothermia or illnesses they would likely survive if they weren’t so cold. The Economist calculated that expensive energy may have killed 68,000 more Europeans than Covid did last winter.
LIHEAP (Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program) will help the poorest families – until the subsidy money runs out – but not middle/working classes, and not small businesses.
Even worse, three billion people worldwide still do not have access to reliable, affordable electricity. Message to climate zealots like Mr. Bloomberg: Access to intermittent, unpredictable wind/solar electricity doesn’t count, especially if it’s only enough to charge a cell phone or power a lightbulb or one-cubic-foot refrigerator. Lack of access to sustained, affordable energy kills.
The billionaire’s legal power grab is even more insidious and dangerous to democracy.
In 2017 he began covertly funding New York University Law School’s State Energy and Environmental Impact Center, which provides grants to progressive (Democrat) state attorneys general, enabling them to hire “special assistant” AGs or “fellows.”
The Center’s mission is to provide “direct legal assistance” to interested AGs “on specific administrative, judicial or legislative matters involving clean energy, climate change and environmental interests of regional and national significance,” when AGs say they lack sufficient public funds to hire such help.
NYU now says, “the fellows’ sole duty of loyalty is to the attorney general in whose office they serve.” However, these partisan Bloomberg grants pay salaries and “generous benefits packages” to “special assistants” whose functions are dictated by the Center; address specified “regional and national” issues normally beyond the purview of state AGs; are routinely coordinated with energy and climate activists and donors to those causes; and often launch “public nuisance” or RICO litigation against oil companies, to the detriment of targeted industries and the consumers and ratepayers who depend on their products, within the AGs’ home states and in distant states and communities.
It is the Bloomberg agenda that is being served, by grants that effectively conscript and coopt the public authority and power of the attorney general’s offices.
As a 2022 report by the American Tort Reform Foundation notes, “These SAAGs are private attorneys placed in public positions to exercise government authority. Yet, they are not independent or impartial because their mandate is to carry out an overtly political agenda funded by wealthy private donors.”
This “unique” arrangement, the Foundation continues, “allows well-heeled individuals and organizations to commandeer state and local police powers to target opponents with whom they disagree, raising the specter of corruption and fundamental unfairness in what should be public enforcement of the law.”
Those same considerations also appear to raise fundamental ethical, legal, and constitutional issues. They certainly raise questions about laws governing gifts, campaign contributions, and bribes – and where Bloomberg-funded lawyers are involved in prosecutions, serious due-process concerns.
And yet the NYU Center has already placed at least 11 special assistants in eight state attorney general offices, which have filed at least 20 lawsuits against a few selected oil companies, charging them with “climate denial” or causing planetary warming, rising seas, more frequent and intense hurricanes and tornadoes, and other “offenses.”
This litigation ignores the actions of hundreds of other oil and gas companies across the globe; steadily rising emissions from China, India, and other rapidly developing nations; the role of natural forces and emissions from wind turbine, solar panel and battery mining, processing, and manufacturing; the lack of evidence to support claims of a climate “crisis” or more frequent and violent storms; and the fact that these issues should be litigated in federal courts or relegated to a democratic political process.
The US Supreme Court recently had an opportunity to quash this rampant litigation but chose not to review the state and local cases and send them to federal courts. The seemingly endless lawsuits and acrimony are creating a legal, constitutional, scientific and public policy nightmare for businesses, consumers, courts, states, and the nation.
Rest assured, billionaires like Bloomberg, Gates, Kerry, Zuckerberg, and Soros – who demand that we commoners give up our cars, gas stoves and furnaces, steaks, air travel, and suburban homes – don’t intend to give up anything.
Let’s hope the pro-America governors, AGs, legislators, judges, and business groups battling ESG and other woke campaigns tackle this NYU Impact Center hornets nest as well.
EU Budget Battle Shows Euroscepticism and Ukraine Fatigue Rising
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 29.08.2023
Divisions are brewing among EU member states as the bloc’s leadership seeks a total of €86 billion ($93.2 billion) in additional funding, including financial support for Ukraine and salary increases for EU bureaucrats.
Brussels’ request for additional funding to fill the gaps of the EU budget and provide assistance to Ukraine has sowed discord among EU leaders who are seeing their domestic budgets dwindling and skepticism over the Kiev regime’s ability to win, according to the Western mainstream press.
EU member states have called for reductions and a longer approval timetable, while Ukraine’s botched counteroffensive makes war skeptics in both the Old Continent and the US even more doubtful about additional military support.
The EU’s €86 billion package consists of €66 billion ($71.6 billion) for the union’s budget and €20 billion ($21.6 billion) in military assistance for Kiev (stretched over four years). The package also contains €17 billion in grants for Kiev, while around €19 billion are meant to cover interest costs on joint EU borrowing; about €2 billion have been requested for the EU administration’s salary increases; €15 billion would be spent on issues related to rising migration and funding for external countries; and €10 billion would cover the EU’s other endeavors.
Per Germany and the Netherlands, it’s a tricky time for Brussels to increase its internal spending when its member states are tightening their belts due to rising interest rates, economic slowdown and still swirling inflation.
“Essentially, what is happening is that the EU is asking for a top-up from member states for its own increased expenses, including increasing its own officials’ salaries, as part of a total long-term budget plan that also includes aid to Ukraine,” Dr. Roslyn Fuller, director of the non-profit think tank Solonian Democracy Institute and the author of the book “Beasts and Gods: How Democracy Changed Its Meaning and Lost Its Purpose,” told Sputnik.
“While the increase to salaries ‘only’ accounts for €2 billion [$2.2 billion] of this package (compared to a reported €19 billion to cover higher interest on loans), there is definitely a perception of European ‘fat cat’ officials in society at large, so increasing their salaries, while many others have seen their purchasing power drop dramatically due to inflation, will certainly not be popular, and this has become a bit of a sticking point.”
The Eurozone has yet to overcome inflation hurdles, with some nations, like Italy, suffering from the European Central Bank’s (ECB) aggressive rate hikes or facing nothing short of deindustrialization, like Germany, over the EU’s energy embargo slapped on Russia in the aftermath of the latter’s special military operation in Ukraine.
“Although Germany is the major economic hub of the EU, and has been particularly hard-hit by energy shortages, it is also a major weapons manufacturer, and thus spending on military aid is not bad news for the German economy. If you look at a company like Rheinmetall AG, for example, its stocks haven’t been higher in the last quarter century than they have been since 2022,” said Fuller.
While Rheinmetall AG apparently feels good, many other German companies are suffering from energy uncertainty. Some big German enterprises, including BASF and Lanxess, closed facilities and relocated their businesses, opening the door to deindustrialization.
As per the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Germany is the only G7 economy which is projected to contract in 2023. What’s more, the nation has already slid into a technical recession and is lagging behind its Western rivals in terms of economic growth. Thus, unsurprisingly, Berlin has no appetite at replenishing the EU coffers at the expense of its dwindling national wealth.
Hence, Berlin’s opposition to Brussels’ latest hefty package.
Meanwhile, inflation in the Eurozone dropped to 5.3% in July, down from 5.5% in the previous month, but is still higher than the European Central Bank’s 2% threshold.
“Although any conflict is obviously a drain on resources, we have so far experienced a much softer economic downturn than anyone was expecting in early 2022. This is likely because Western states were flooded with money and had ultra-low interest rates during the early part of the pandemic. Savings rates were also very high during the pandemic. This created a huge financial cushion that allowed people to absorb the increased costs of energy and inflation far better than was expected,” Fuller remarked.
Still, even though the relatively warm winter of the 2022/2023 helped Europe to weather its own energy sanctions on Russia, it’s unclear what the future has in store for the Old continent during the 2023/2024 winter season.
Tom Luongo, a geopolitical and financial analyst, suggested in his July interview with Sputnik that Europe’s financial cushion could collapse very quickly. According to him, an impending crisis may soon flood “the Potemkin villages” of the EU economy.
Per Luongo, there’s a greater chance that the next global recession, if it does take place, would emanate from Europe due to a commodity wave, prompting a new wave of inflation, and the banking collapse. The first harbinger of the impending trouble was Switzerland’s Credit Suisse bank collapse in March 2023.
While the future of the European economic bloc is still murky, one thing is clear: the EU is not expecting the Kiev regime’s victory any time soon and needs to prolong its agony as long as possible.
“Since the EU is locking in funding for four years, they clearly aren’t planning on victory any time soon, and people eventually grow weary with protracted wars,” Fuller stressed.
First rail cargo sets off from Russia to Saudi Arabia via Iran
The Cradle | August 27, 2023
The chief executive of the Islamic Republic of Iran Railways (RAI) announced on 27 August the transit of Russian cargo to Saudi Arabia via the Iran transport corridor for the first time.
A transit train hauling 36 containers entered Iran for the first time from Russia through Iran’s Incheh Borun rail border near Turkmenistan, Miad Salehi stated.
The deputy roads minister added that this cargo transit train was dispatched to the port city of Bandar Abbas on the Strait of Hormuz and will be transferred from there to the Saudi Arabian port city of Jeddah by sea.
Russia seeks to develop the International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC) to connect India, Iran, Russia, Azerbaijan, and other countries via railways and sea.
Russia says the INSTC will rival the Suez Canal as a major global trade route.
In May, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi signed a deal to finance and build an additional Iranian railway line between the cities of Rasht and Astara.
“The unique North-South transport artery, of which the Rasht-Astara railway will become a part, will help to significantly diversify global traffic flows,” Putin said.
He also said the 162-kilometer railway along the Caspian Sea coast would help to connect Russian ports on the Baltic Sea with Iranian ports in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf.
“Without a doubt, this agreement is an important and strategic step in the direction of cooperation between Tehran and Moscow,” Raisi said.
Iran hopes the successful development of Russian-financed railway links comprising the NSTC will increase transit revenues and reinforce Iran’s “Look to the east” policy of strengthening ties with neighboring countries and eastern powers in response to western economic sanctions.
Raisi’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Political Affairs, Mohammad Jamshidi, claimed that the INTSC earnings would rival Iran’s oil revenue. In this vein, the semi-official ISNA on May 17 estimated annual revenue of $20 billion from the corridor.
State broadcaster-run Jam-e Jam newspaper described Iran as the “golden path of trade” in an article highlighting the potential benefits of the railway.
Iran and Russia have developed closer economic, diplomatic, and military ties in recent years, as both countries have been subject to US economic sanctions and have resisted US foreign policy in West Asia, including Syria, and the former Soviet states, including Ukraine.
A Second Geo-Strategic Shoe (Other Than Ukraine) Is Dropping
By Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation | August 28, 2023
Whilst it has become clear to increasing numbers of people in the West that something has gone terribly wrong with the élites’ Ukraine project, and that the exaggerated predictions and expectations of Russian forces being ‘knocked for six’ by an armoured ‘fist’ have proved spectacularly wrong, those same élites are going wrong again – on another strategically decisive issue: They again largely ignore ‘reality’ – for the sake of control of the ‘narrative’. In this case, the West prefers to sneer at the implications of the new accessions to BRICS (let alone the other 40 states ready to join): ‘Nothing to see there’.
The BRICS is just a jumble of states lacking any cohesion, or common thread, western MSM proclaims. It can never challenge the U.S. global power, nor the sheer financial weight of the dollar sphere. However, China’s Global Times explains in mild tones, a different backdrop:
“The reason why the BRICS mechanism has such great appeal … reflects a general disappointment of many developing countries with the global governance system dominated and interfered by the U.S. and the West. As China has repeatedly emphasized, the traditional global governing system has become dysfunctional, deficient and missing in action, and the international community urgently expects the BRICS mechanism to strengthen unity and cooperation”.
Others in the Global South say it more starkly: The BRICS mechanism is seen as a means to slough off the last vestiges of western colonialism and to acquire autonomy. Yes, of course, BRICS 11 initially will be more cacophony than smooth opera, but nonetheless, it represents a profound shift of global consciousness.
BRICS 11 establishes a pole of influence and global heft that has the potential to eclipse in scope that of the G7.
The ‘mess’ in Ukraine is commonly attributed to mere ‘miscalculation’ by the western élites: They did not expect Russian society to be so robust, nor so steadfast under pressure.
Yet this was no minor ‘slip up’ by the West, since the recognition of NATO’s doctrinal contradictions, its second-rate weaponry and its inability to think rigorously – beyond tomorrow’s sound-bite – has (inadvertently) shone the spotlight on the deeper dysfunction within the West – one that runs far deeper than just the situation around the Ukraine project. Many in the West see major institutions of society locked within suffocating orthodoxy; in an intense level of political and cultural polarisation; and with political reform effectively locked-down.
The proxy war on Russia nevertheless was launched through Ukraine, precisely to reaffirm western global vigour. It is doing the opposite.
The financial war (as opposed to the ground war in Ukraine) was the counter-play to generating regime change in Moscow: Financial war was intended to underline the futility of opposing the sheer ‘muscle’ that dollar hegemony – acting in concert – represented. It was the jealous hegemon demanding obeisance.
But this back-fired spectacularly. And this has directly contributed not just to the expansion of BRICS, but to the energy resources of the Middle East and the raw materials of Africa sliding out of western control. Rather than the western scatter-gun threats of sanctions and financial ostracisation creating fear and reaffirming obsequiousness, the threats contrarily, have mobilised anti-colonial sentiments across the globe; fed the understanding that the western financial construct amounted to tutelage, and that any acquisition of sovereignty required the act of de-dollarisation.
And here, again, egregious mistakes were committed: Errors of geo-strategic magnitude were embarked upon almost casually, and without due diligence.
The primordial mistake was that of Team Biden (and the EU) illegally seizing Russia’s overseas reserve assets; expelling Russia from the financial clearing system, SWIFT; and imposing a trade blockade so complete that (it was hoped in the White House) its effects would tear down President Putin. The rest of world understood – they easily could be next. They needed a sphere that was resistant to western financial predations.
Yet, the second strategic error by Biden (& Co.) magnified the error of their initial ‘unprecedented’ financial blitz. This blunder marked the ‘second shoe to drop’ in Biden’s de-fenestration of the American financial imperium: He treated Mohammad bin Salman (and the Saudis generally) with contemptuousness: ordering them to increase oil production (in order to bring down the price of gasoline before the mid-term Congressional elections), and disdainfully threatening the kingdom with “consequences”, were it to fail to comply.
Perhaps Biden, so consumed with his electoral prospects, did not think it through. Even now, it is not clear that the White House understands the consequences of it having treated MbS as some aberrant underling. There is an eleventh-hour attempt to dissuade Saudi from joining BRICS, but it is too late. It’s application to join has been approved and will take effect from 1 January 2024. The West misread the mood.
The shared ethos within Gulf states is one of self-assured, assertive leaders, who are no longer willing to accept binary ‘with us or against us’ U.S. demands.
For the avoidance of mis-understanding, Biden, through the combination of these two strategic mistakes, has launched the West’s financial hegemony onto a slipway leading to incremental unwinding of much of the $32 trillion of foreign investment in fiat dollars which has accumulated in the U.S. system over the last 52 years – with an implicit acceleration towards ‘own currency trading’ amongst the majority of non-western states.
Ultimately this likely will lead to a BRICS trade settlement medium – possibly anchored to gold. Were a trading currency to be anchored in some way to a gram of gold, that currency would, of course, acquire status as a store of value, based on that of the underlying commodity (in this case gold).
The point here is that when inflation was zero-bound, U.S. Treasury bonds were seen as a store of (enduring) value. However, wide de-dollarisation undermines the synthetic (i.e. the imposed) demand for dollars that owed entirely to the Bretton Woods and the Petro-dollar frameworks (that demanded that commodities be traded only in U.S. dollars) and to the implicit understanding that U.S. Treasuries offered a certain store of value.
But what did Team Biden do? They have driven Saudi Arabia – the lynchpin to the Petro-dollar, and one of the pillars (together with other Gulf States and China) underpinning the huge holdings of U.S. Treasury debt – into the arms of BRICS. Put simply, the BRICS 11 incorporates six out of nine of the top global energy producers, as well as the principal energy consumers. OPEC+, in effect, has been swallowed to make a self-enclosed, self-sufficient circle of trading in energy (and raw materials) that does not need to touch dollars. And over time, this will amount to a major monetary shock.
The ‘consequences’ threatened towards Saudi Arabia by the White House have been rendered inconsequential. Saudi and Iran can sell their oil to other BRICS consumers (in non-dollar currencies). Members no longer need to be so concerned at western threats – one of the key provisions of BRICS is the joint refusal of all members to permit or facilitate any ‘regime change’ manoeuvres against BRICS members.
To be clear, what this all means is further price inflation in the West, reflecting the falling purchasing power of fiat currencies as dollar-demand subsides. Inevitably, a weakening dollar will lead to higher interest rates in the U.S. This – simply – will be one major consequence of de-dollarisation. Higher interest rates will impose great stress on the U.S. and European banks.
The first BRICS 11 summit is set for October 2023 in Kazan. By ‘coincidence’, full membership of the new states will coincide with Russia taking the rotating annual presidency of the BRICS on 1 January 2024. Putin already has made clear his determination to move towards resolving the complexities of a separate BRICS currency – “one way or another”.
German regional leader calls for repair of Nord Stream
RT | August 28, 2023
The leader of the German state of Saxony has argued that the Nord Stream 1 natural gas pipeline linking to Russia, which was ruptured in an underwater explosion last September, should be repaired. Minister-President Michael Kretschmer warned that unless action is taken soon, sea water will damage the conduit beyond repair.
In an interview with Germany’s WirtschaftsWoche magazine published on Monday, Kretschmer said: “It is important because this infrastructure can secure our energy supply in five or ten years.”
He insisted that it is the “most normal [thing] in the world that the pipeline is repaired, that is, the water is removed and it is sealed and thereby secured for starters.”
The Saxony leader stressed that no one knows what the situation will look like in a decade from now, and that “keeping as many options open for yourself as possible would be a sign of a smart politician.”
Back in June, Economy Minister Robert Habeck warned that Germany may have to scale back or even shut down some of its industrial capacity, should deliveries of Russian natural gas through Ukraine stop next year. He said authorities in Berlin should not disregard the economic risks from energy shortages.
Doubts remain as to whether Ukraine and Russia will renew a contract for gas transit to Europe, set to expire at the end of 2024, as the conflict continues.
Habeck explained that while Germany has mostly weaned itself off Russian energy, other EU member states, such as Austria, Slovakia, Italy, and Hungary are still very much dependent on Russian gas. Should supplies from Russia be discontinued, Berlin will be obliged to come to their rescue under the EU’s gas-sharing rules, creating problems for industrial consumers at home, the minister noted at the time.
The Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline and one leg of Nord Stream 2 were destroyed in a series of near-simultaneous blasts off the Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea in late September last year. In February this year, veteran US journalist Seymour Hersh claimed that the US was behind the sabotage.
Reports in the German media over the summer have suggested that authorities in Berlin suspect the possible involvement of the Ukrainian secret service in the pipelines’ destruction.
Conflict in Ukraine Reveals EU Leaders’ Subordination to Washington: Ex-Italian PM
Al-Manar | August 27, 2023
NATO’s strategy for the conflict in Ukraine, based on military supplies and the logic of escalation, has failed, while the crisis itself has exposed the EU’s inability to show leadership and underlined its subordination to the US. Giuseppe Conte, former Prime Minister of Italy, now the leader of the Five Star Movement opposition political party, expressed this opinion on Saturday.
“The strategy pursued so far in NATO, based on constant military supplies to Ukraine and the logic of escalation, did not lead to a military defeat for Russia: there was no defeat of the Russian army in Bakhmut, there was no collapse [of] its military units, there was no retreat during the Ukrainian counteroffensive. The economic and financial sanctions imposed on Russia did not lead to its bankruptcy and did not bring down its economy,” Conte wrote on his Facebook page.
“The isolation of Russia has by no means become a reality. On the contrary, the 15th summit of the BRICS group has just ended with a concrete prospect of its further expansion in 2024, which will cover 45% of the world’s population and 38.2% of world GDP,” Conte went on.
According to Conte, “the conflict in the heart of old Europe has revealed the inability of the European Union to develop an effective common strategy and show independent political and economic leadership, highlighting, on the contrary, the subordination of [European] rulers to the United States.” As the former Italian prime minister noted, his party has always “been convinced of the fallacy of the desire to inflict a military defeat on the Russian Federation.”
Conte has repeatedly called for the start of peace talks on Ukraine. In particular, he said that he was in favor of a “breakthrough in the negotiation process” with the participation of the Vatican and “all other players in the international community.” The former prime minister noted that he “would not leave” President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky “the right to decide how, when and under what conditions to sit down at the negotiating table.”
The Five Star Movement has long opposed sending weapons to Ukraine. This position indirectly caused it to leave the previous ruling coalition, which led to the fall of the previous government of Mario Draghi in the summer of 2022.
EU imports from Russia drop at ‘unprecedented’ pace – Borrell
RT | August 27, 2023
The drop in trade between Russia and the EU over the past year is one of the major signs that Brussels’ sanctions on Moscow have been successful, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in an article titled, ‘Yes, the sanctions against Russia are working’, which was published on Saturday on his EEAS blog.
According to Borrell, EU imports from Russia dropped by 58% in 2022, which he called “an unprecedented decoupling.”
“This movement is accelerating: the decline in imports is above 75% for the first quarter of 2023, and the fall is even greater for energy goods, at minus 80%.”
He noted that EU exports of goods to Russia last year also dropped 52% below the annual average prior to 2022.
“Within a year, [the sanctions] have already limited Moscow’s options considerably, causing financial strain, cutting the country from key markets and significantly degrading Russia’s industrial and technological capacity,” Borrell said. He added that Russia’s “technological degradation” and the exit of foreign companies, a number of which left the country under sanctions pressure, “will hamper investment and productivity growth for years.”
“And the outlook for 2023 remains bleak. According to the latest OECD report, Russia’s GDP is foreseen to shrink by up to 2.5%… In short: Russia’s decision to attack Ukraine has obviously pushed the Russian economy towards isolation and decline.”
Meanwhile, both economic data and experts’ projections paint a different picture. Despite the sanctions, trade has been on the rise in both the energy and non-energy sectors due to Moscow’s successful efforts to reorient from Western markets to the East. For instance, according to data from Chinese customs, as of the end of 2022, Russia became the top European country in terms of exports to China, fourth in terms of imports, and second in trade turnover. In recent months, Russia has also become the largest exporter of oil to both China and India.
According to a recent World Bank report, Russia moved into the world’s top five largest economies in 2022 based on purchasing power parity, outpacing the EU’s largest economy, Germany. Both the World Bank and the IMF recently raised their forecasts for the Russian economy, saying GDP would continue to grow amid strong trade and industrial production, as well as higher-than-expected energy revenues. Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said this week that the country’s economy is expected to grow about 2.5% by the end of the year, fully recovering from last year’s decline.
By contrast, the Eurozone entered a recession earlier this year after energy prices spiked following the drop in gas flows from Russia, which was once its largest energy supplier. Despite its efforts, the European Central Bank has been unable to bring inflation in the region to the target level and turn the economy towards growth. According to a recent ECB forecast, Eurozone GDP growth is expected to slow to 0.9% by the end of the year from 3.5% in 2022.
Is Germany once again the “sick man of Europe”?
By Uriel Araujo | August 25, 2023
In 1999, the Economist described Germany as “the sick man of Europe” – in the following years, however, Germany’s economy prospered as an exporting powerhouse. In the 2010s, after the so-called Jobwunder (employment miracle), Germans went on pretty much unhindered by the global financial crisis of 2007-2009. At the time, there was a boom in emerging markets and manufactured goods were in high demand in China. The German economy grew by 24% in that period – in comparison, the figures for France and Great Britain were 18 and 22% respectively.
According to the Economist, German economic and political models were largely perceived as solid and stable, in contrast with so-called “populism of the Trump-Brexit” persuasion. Today, however, the Economist suggests Germany might once again be “the sick man of Europe”, as the country has experienced its third quarter of contraction and may turn out to be the only big economy to shrink in 2023. Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), often described as a far-right or populist party, is on the rise, and the nation’s economic model is increasingly seen as unable to deliver growth. The IMF forecasts that it will be the only G7 economy to contract in 2023, while the purchasing-managers’ manufacturing index is now at its lowest since the beginning of the pandemics in 2020. Gas prices today are about twice as high as they were before Covid. How has all of this come about?
For one thing, the US-led political West efforts towards “decoupling” or, if you will, “de-risking” ties with Beijing are hurting Berlin in some sensitive areas and this is one of the things which have been driving Germany’s recent interest in “strategic autonomy”. The American subsidy war against Europe does not help much at all.
Interest rates, which have risen a lot in Europe since the pandemic, certainly play a role: they hurt German business investment and the construction sector. The rising interest rates were a response to inflation and the latter, of course, has a lot to do with the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian conflict, as has the rise in energy prices. Then there is Nord Stream – or rather its current absence.
German authorities investigating the September 26 attack on Nord Stream pipelines stated, last month, “traces of subsea explosives were found” in a yacht hired by a Ukrainian-owned company. The Washington Post reported in June that US President Joe Biden “knew of the Ukrainian plan to attack Nord Stream” three months before the pipeline explosion. Western media, for a while, had been keen on pointing fingers at Russia – which of course makes close to zero sense: the destruction of Nord Stream pipelines has indeed made it quite impossible for German and other European states to reverse sanctions and reopen the pipeline – plus it ensures most Russian energy exports to the European continent transit Ukraine, as Emma Ashford, a senior fellow with the Reimagining U.S. Grand Strategy program at the Stimson Center, writes in her Foreign Policy piece.
Ashford reminds that, while unpopular in part of Eastern Europe, due to disputes between Moscow and the energy transit states, “the original Nord Stream project was backed not only by Germany, but also by the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.” Its first pipeline was completed in 2011 “with only minimal controversy” (in Europe). After 2014, things changed, and the American war on Nord Stream ensued. Her closing thoughts, in the aforementioned piece, are the following: “the destruction of Nord Stream once again places Ukraine and other Eastern European states in a position of greater leverage on the energy question. Destroying Nord Stream is an understandable enough choice from the point of view of a country engaged in a desperate war for survival. But it may prompt Ukraine’s partners to reassess just how closely their interests actually align with Kyiv.”
Far from being merely “conspiracy theory” speculations, the issue of who blew up Nord Stream is increasingly a pressing issue. It is not just of interest to prosecutors and police authorities or the tabloids: it rather has deep geopolitical and geoeconomic implications. It has everything to do with European sovereignty, for instance (or the lack of it). Back in October 2021, Europe was already haunted by the specter of a major energy crisis, with a 600% rise in gas prices. Now, Europe could face a mass recession worse than 2008. As I wrote in December 2021, all of that affected European and British industry production and societies as a whole. The end of Nord Stream is a game-changer, and, as I wrote a number of times, the European energy crisis in fact serves American interests quite well.
In Germany, the most vocal players calling for an investigation into the pipeline’s sabotage are AfD lawmakers, and this being so, it is no wonder that the populist camp is growing, while this kind of discussion remains largely marginalized within the so-called mainstream political sphere.
Germany might, once again, be seen as the “sick man of Europe”. The sickness, however, is not just German; it is European. And its roots are deep and they pertain to Europe’s great paradox of being dependent on Washington for security while relying on nearby Russia for energy – the latter, by the way, makes total sense, geopolitically and economically, as Nord Stream 2 itself could provide Europe with energy security and lower costs and avoided the energy crisis which now haunts the continent.
For a while, much has been talked about German economic woes (and British ones as well, for that matter). These conversations however cannot fail to take into account the issue of the energy crisis and the issue of de-industrialization in post-Nord Stream Europe. The problem is that such topics are just too unpleasant and the European political establishment does not seem to be ready for this conversation yet.
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New Book
Breast Cancer: Before You Consent
A new Unbekoming paperback
Lies are Unbekoming | September 18, 2026
Peter Gøtzsche reviewed every randomised mammography screening trial ever conducted for the Cochrane Collaboration. Cochrane’s headline is that, assuming a 15% mortality reduction, one woman in 2000 avoids dying of breast cancer over ten years. Ten are overdiagnosed and treated. Two hundred experience false alarms.
But that headline assumes the reduction. When Gøtzsche looked only at the trials with adequate randomisation — the higher-quality ones — the reduction disappeared. No effect on breast cancer mortality. No effect on all-cause mortality.
This is the Cochrane finding, published in the establishment’s own database of systematic reviews.
No woman being asked to consent to a mammogram this week knows it.
That is why the new Unbekoming paperback exists. … continue
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