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Published on the Doomstead Diner on March 2, 2014
Discuss this article at the Geopolitics Table inside the Diner
The Frosbite Falls Daily Rant is the latest Feature of the Collapse Cafe on the Doomstead Diner. It can be found daily on the Homepage of the Diner on the right menu bar.
The transcript for this rant can be found at the bottom of this article.
Day 2 has arrived here in the Valve War between Ukraine and Russia, centered mainly in Crimea at the moment, but bound to move Eastward as time goes by here. I covered a few of the main issues in the daily rant yesterday, for today we will look a little more closely at the logistics involved here.
As you can see from the Infographic at the top of the page, this isn’t a small military exercise by any means. More than 10,000 troops are being repositioned, which is quite a tidy sum considering the Ruskies were downsizing their Military.
(H/T Newzy Joe on the Diner for this table)
While the Ruskie military is still pretty large, you have to remember that all “active personnel” are not “Boots on the Ground” aka Grunts who do the dirty work and get regularly sent to the Great Beyond in one of these actions. So Vlad is committing quite a large percentage of what is left of his military assets to try and take control of Ukraine.
While the mostly Russian speaking eastern Ukrainians are mostly lined up with Vlad, even they don’t necessarily want to become a vassal state of Russia again. They only got out from under the old USSR hegemony 20 years ago! The Western half of the population definitely isn’t too happy about this state of affairs, so you basically have now a War in all but official declaration, and even that gets closer all the time.
NATO and Obama-sama still haven’t done anything but bluster, and it is unlikely they will do much on the military end at this time. The NATO countries don’t have that many troops they can call up at the drop of a hat (or bomb), and most available FSoA military assets are currently deployed far and wide at a bazillion global Military bases as well as being mired down in places like Afghanistan.
However, just because they don’t have military assets to throw at this problem doesn’t make them helpless, they do have financial ones. Accelerating Capital Flight out of both Ukraine and Russia can do a lot more damage to Vlad the Impaler’s political control than a Firefight in Sevastopol. So this is probably where we have to look for the Action to be next week from the NATO/western Illuminati end.
Logistically speaking, all the “Big Power” Militaries of the Ruskies, the Chinese and the FSoA are over-extended past what they can actually support anymore to try and control far flung regions of the earth. The Chinese are buying up African Land and Oz Mines, but they need their own Million Man Army right at home to keep control. The Ruskies have the same problem, their last failed adventure outside of their own region in Afghanistan was a magnificent failure, and subsequent adventures inside their sphere have not faired much better. All their border states like Georgia are contantly in virtul revolt; just keeping the lid on there stretches them pretty thin. For the FSoA part, we send Carrier Groups willy-nilly around the world as a “show of force” in each latest Hotspot, but we only got like 11 or so of these Carrier Groups I believe. Drop a couple in the Mediterranean, a couple in the Indian Ocean, a couple in the South China Sea, a couple in the North Atlantic, a couple off the coast of Brasil and one in the Gulf of Mejico and POOF, you are frehs OUT of Carrier Groups! Not to mention all a Carrier Group does at best is to allow you to control the local Sea Lanes and drop Death From Above on the nearby locals, they don’t allow you to put enough Boots on the ground in ANY of these places to do much more than take over a few Goobermint Buildings in the central city, for that you gotta mobilize a lot of troops ships, land tanks and APC yadda yadda.
In all likelihood at this point, it appears that the “Powerful” Goombermints and Militaries of Russia, china and the FSoA will soon be engaged much more in keeping their own Local Populations in control, so trying to control anywhere else is pretty much a non-starter. Ukraine is close enough physically to Russia with enough traditional ties they can make this physical attempt one more time, but they will face a constant state of revolt inside Ukraine, just like Georgia and the rest of the peripheral states now really starting to hurt.
The problems in Ukraine will move themselves quickly enough to Poland, Hungary, Belarus etc, and the Western European states will see Blowback as Gazprom energy gets shut off at critical Valves through Central Europe. This further roils the markets and their economies, already very shaky to begin with, so they too will begin to topple.
Building up this whole interconnected Global system has been ongoing for 500 years here. It will come apart a whole lot quicker than that. The World Trade Center is the best analogy I can come up with here. The project had it’s inception right near the end of WWII in 1943, took until the 60s to get funding, and didn’t open up until 1973.
The idea of establishing a World Trade Center in New York City was first proposed in 1943. The New York State Legislature passed a bill authorizing New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey to begin developing plans for the project[11] but the plans were put on hold in 1949.[12] During the late 1940s and 1950s, economic growth in New York City was concentrated in Midtown Manhattan. To help stimulate urban renewal in Lower Manhattan, David Rockefeller suggested that the Port Authority build a World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan.[13]
Initial plans, made public in 1961, identified a site along the East River for the World Trade Center.[14] As a bi-state agency, the Port Authority required approval for new projects from the governors of both New York and New Jersey. New Jersey Governor Robert B. Meyner objected to New York getting a $335 million project.[15] Toward the end of 1961, negotiations with outgoing New Jersey Governor Meyner reached a stalemate.[16]
At the time, ridership on New Jersey’s Hudson and Manhattan Railroad (H&M) had declined substantially from a high of 113 million riders in 1927 to 26 million in 1958 after new automobile tunnels and bridges had opened across the Hudson River.[17] In a December 1961 meeting between Port Authority director Austin J. Tobin and newly elected New Jersey Governor Richard J. Hughes, the Port Authority offered to take over the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad to have it become the Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH). The Port Authority also decided to move the World Trade Center project to the Hudson Terminal building site on the west side of Lower Manhattan, a more convenient location for New Jersey commuters arriving via PATH.[16] With the new location and Port Authority acquisition of the H&M Railroad, New Jersey agreed to support the World Trade Center project.[18]
A good 20-30 years to get those buildings up. They came down in seconds. So it will go with this as well, when it Blows, it will Blow Big and it will Blow Fast. In the words of Leonard Cohen,
Everybody knows it’s coming apart
Take one last look at this Sacred Heart
Before it blows
And everybody knows
Greetings Doomfans, and welcome to another edition of the Frosbite Falls Daily Rant. Tonight we are revisiting a topic from a few nights ago, the ongoing spinout in Ukraine. A few nights ago it was a Civil War in progress, tonight it is a WORLD WAR in the making. Reason? Vlad the Impaler, the Noble ex-head of the KGB over in Ruskieville decided since he could not or would not Pony Up $35-50B in FOREX scratch the Ukrainians need to keep their version of the Industrial Society running, the better option was simply to roll over them with APCs, Helicopters and Troop ships! On the NATO side of this battle, John Kerry offered up chump change of $1B in loans from the sharks at the IMF, which barely could keep an Oligarch in Maseratis and Airbus Double Decker Private Jets for a week or two, much less pay off on Pensions to the Ukrainian Population. Why does EITHER side here give a Flying Fuck who is wandering the halls of the Ukrainian Parliament and running the show there? Why not just leave them alone and let them work out their OWN fucking problems? Two main reasons. First off, Ukraine has a shit load of pipelines running across the territory which ship Gazprom Energy from Mother Russia over to Western Europe, which is a MAJOR source of FOREX revenue for the Ruskie Oligarchs, including of course Vlad the Impaler. Second reason is Ukraine is (like everybody else) in HUGE debt to the TBTF banks, and if they don’t get some new Hard Currency FOREX Scratch to roll over their old loans, they will default. This will play nasty HAVOC with the Russian banks, which have the biggest exposure, but of course all the TBTF banks in the West are exposed to this mess also in the Daisy Chain Circle Jerk of derivatives, interbank loans and Worthless Collateral they used to rehypothecate still other loans made elsewhere. If anybody here on either side has to write down Ukrainian debt, the TBTF banks will have to pay a LOT of Overtime to their Accountants so they can cover it up and not be blatantly Insolvent, just Shadow Insolvent. For their own part, the Ukrainians hold one Ace in the Hole, they actually have their fingers on the valves that transit NG over from Mother Russia to Eurotrash. If SOMEBODY doesn’t pony up some more money for them to keep going here, the average J6P Ukrainian has NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE, so why not blow a few Pipelines and pass the Suffering on to the folks to the West and East of them? They shut down the pipelines, the Eurotrash runs short on energy to keep the Lights on, and the ruskies run short of Forex to keep the Rouble floating as a Happy Currency. Everybody suffers with them! Herein lies the big PROBLEM with Vlad the Impaler’s physical takeover of the apparatus of Goobermint in Ukraine, the Western interests don’t necessarily have to retaliate with rolling their own APCs and Helicopter Gunships into Ukraine on a UN Sponsored “Peacekeeping” Mission, they can simply mount a concerted Financial Attack on the Rouble. Putin’s Goobermint already has plenty of issues maintaining control over the pretty vast Ruskie territory (even though shrunk from the Lacyon days Back in the USSR), if the Rouble gets driven down in FOREX trade and they can’t sell NG to Western Europe, their own economy will flush down the toilet in a big hurry. For the Ruskies to take control of this problem on the Physical Level, they have to control the ENTIRE transit of Energy from the Ruskie Gas Fields across to the Eurotrash Konsumers of that energy, and they cannot do that simply by holding Crimea, which they also can’t do with a few 1000 Shock Troops. All that enables them to do is hold a few Goobermint Buildings and install some Puppet Leaders there. They have to roll across the WHOLE of Ukraine, and they have to not only prop up Puppet Leaders in Goobermint, they have to keep the local VERY unhappy population from dropping a few IEDs at critical nodes in the NG pipeline transport system. That will take a LOT more boots on the ground to do, and it is highly questionable that Vlad the Impaler could bring such a force to bear. Very similar to NATO trying to control the energy transit down in MENA with so many of the locals hostile to them. It remains to be seen how this will play out medium to long term, and in what manner. However, both sides are between a Rock & a Hard Place. Under no circumstances can I see will the Energy flow through Ukraine continue Unimpeded. This will negatively affect all of Europe and Russia too. Neither side can back down here, so escalation seems likely. Duck and cover Doomers, we are now at DefCon Orange. And that’s all the Doom, this time until next time here on the Frostbite Falls Daily Rant. |
It all comes down to the fucking banks, doesn’t it?
Red Shield funded both sides during the Napoleonic wars…
The King of France was so indebted to the Templars (early banking) he couldn’t pay back his loans for all the fucking wars he fought…. so he just wiped out the Templars. No bank? No debt.
I’m thinking if we burned down a few central banks, things would get a whole lot easier… ain’t saying it would fix The Ukraine Problem, but it’s a start…
Billy,
It definitely wouldn’t hurt.
Off topic but those of us with Commie rifles might want to secure a couple of cases of Wolf 7.62X39 while they’re still available. Obongo and Holder can shut down imports wif da stroke of a pen.
“Logistically speaking, all the “Big Power” Militaries of the Ruskies, the Chinese and the FSoA are over-extended past what they can actually support anymore to try and control far flung regions of the earth. “ ———————- RE
I disagree. Strongly.
China can build entire cities in under a year. They can muster up an additional million man army in a heartbeat. China … overextended militarily? Ridicules!
Does Russia have 700+ military bases covering the globe? You say Russia’s Afghan adventure was “a magnificent failure,” Pffft. So what. The USA failure is/was even more magnificent. Russia covers something like 11 time zones … a huge land with ENORMOUS natural resources. They’ll be just fine. You misunderestimate them. So did the Germans.
Let’s assume for a moment that DEBT eventually destroys nations.
The motherland is doing great… Russia holds barely any government debt – only 2.5% of GDP. The USSA … oops … looks like we’re the ones a bit overextended.
[img[/img]
Very nice visuals of various country debts.
Here; http://demonocracy.info/infographics/usa/world_debt/world_debt.html
To give you an idea, here is Russia’s. This will be a large pic … cuz Russia is a big country.
[img[/img]
T4C
China takes over the failures of Zimbabwe.
Russia takes over Ukraine.
Mexico takes over us…
I think we need to get our own house in order before we go telling anyone else what to do…
Billy,
did you know that the surviving templars escaped with their treasure in Scotland and were at the root of the creation of the freemasons of London (and kept a bunch of the traditions)?
did you know that the duke of Orleans that sparked the 1789 revolution was funded by the freemasons and was one of them?
I think it says a lot about who control the world.
Frenchie
I have heard about that… theories abound, and you can ask people some seriously uncomfortable questions, but without hard proof from unimpeachable sources, theories mean nothing… but I will grant that there is a link between the Knights Templar and the Scottish freemasons… that funky church built in Scotland is just dripping with Templar imagery…
And Templars in America? Well, it was an open secret that North America was here… the Vikings had been coming here for generations… wouldn’t have been too hard to hitch a ride or even get them to draw a crude map…
Tales of hidden Templar treasure all over the world… Oak Island is supposed to be one such place… and then there’s that one town in France where the local priest “suddenly” became fabulously wealthy.. running his mouth and saying things like “If the people of this town knew what they walked over every day…”… apparently he discovered a series of tunnels or catacombs, filled with Templar loot…
I mean, why not? The Templars WERE fabulously wealthy.. and when the King of France did that massive raid, they found jack shit… all that loot had to go somewhere, right?
Maybe I’ll take a trip to France next year…
Repost from the Parallel Thread on the Diner.
http://www.doomsteaddiner.net/forum/index.php/topic,2507.msg45327.html#msg45327
RE
Quote from: Surly1 on Today at 06:15:52 PM
The 2012 IMF/Ukraine Negotiations
2014 MARCH 2
by Ian Welsh
These are the reforms the IMF wanted for a 4 billion dollar loan:
the IMF demanded that Ukraine double prices for gas and electricity to industry and homes, that they lift a ban on private sale of Ukraine’s rich agriculture lands, make a major overhaul of their economic holdings, devalue the currency, slash state funds for school children and the elderly to “balance the budget.”
This is what the IMF does to your country. Note that 4 billion doesn’t even come close to covering Ukraine’s debts. Moscow offered 15 billion and a one-third reduction in natural gas prices.
Highlight mine.
This is the operative problem as far as Ukraine Pols are concerned.
The only reason the IMF offers even this much is just to keep the banking system from imploding, not to help the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians never even see this money, it passes straight through to the Secured Bondholders to pay up on outstanding debt.
What Ukrainian Pols WANT regardless of which side they are on is a big enough package where they can skim off money and deposit it to Cayman Island bank accounts. They have to have control over the disbursement of the money too, and the IMF doesn’t want to give them that.
$4B is Chump Change, even for Ukraine issues. They need more like $35-50B, and not as more Loans they can’t service, but as a GIFT! LOL.
Putin won’t GIVE them money either, he doesn’t have it to give. $15B from him is more like Energy Credits, he’ll feed Gazprom fuel to them as a Credit, not hard currency. So while this keeps the lights on in Ukraine and keeps the hovels warm the rest of the winter, it doesn’t pay anybody’s Pension or give them enough Scratch to buy food with either. On the Ruskie Books, this further indebts Ukraine to Russia, making them Debt Slaves.
Basically ALL countries these days are run by a corrupt Political Class used to being able to skim a healthy portion of Debt money off into their own bank accounts, but the credit has dried up to a Trickle now, so there is nothing left to skim. The IMF is just trying to keep the system from imploding.
Far as CHS theories on a Global Shadow Goobermint, that definitely exists here. It’s the folks who are really in charge of Credit Creation in the City of London and on Wall Street. Theirs is still the only (semi)functional Global system,so they call the shots on who gets issued more credit and who gets triaged off of it.
If the Chinese and Ruskies and Brazilians and Indians could jump start their own Credit Creation system, they sure would but they can’t do that. None of these countries has the Banking Infrastructure to do it. Their banks, such as they exist are just corrupt subsidiaries of the Anglo-American system. They didn;t get in early enough on the Ponzi, which took centuries to set up. They don’t have credibility, and there isn’t even the Veneer of a Legal System to protect “Investors”.
Bottom line though is that even being in charge of Credit Creation doesn’t put more resources in the ground to buy with that credit. It does prevent the credit creators though from falling off the cliff first. It’s basically the same as you being the last Unemployed Person in your Subdivision left with a Credit Card that works. You are the last person left who can still go to the Mall and charge up some Oil there. The problem for the Mall Operator is that just you showing up at the Mall to buy some Oil does not pay HIS fixed costs of operation, including all the debt he has to service. So he then tries to sell off his assets to another greater fool, but there aren’t greater fools with enough scratch to buy those assets, putting them in a Liquidity Trap/Asset Class Sinkhole. Sears and JC Penny are the commercial versions of this, they have a HUGE amount of Real Estate they “own” in Malls everywhere, but they can’t unload the space to anyone else. WTF wants to buy 1M sq ft in a Mall with close to ZERO foot traffic? WTF wants to buy an Oil Field with $115/barrel production costs when no car traffic can afford to buy at that price? Everybody who holds these White Elephants would like to get rid of them, but finding Bigger Fools gets harder all the time here.
So eventually here, the Credit Creators are the Bag Holders on a lot of Worthless Assets, Malls with no Foot Traffic, Convenience Store Gas Stations with no Car Traffic and McMansions nobody can pay the Mortgage on. AKA, all the Malinvestment made in the Age of Oil.
Putin by rolling over Ukraine demonstrates that he doesn’t understand the dynamics going on here any better than Obama-sama does. Military force can’t put more resources in the ground any more than Credit Creation can. He is just burning up Capital faster by trying to hold onto the model also.
Inexorably, we creep closer each day to a lockup on both the credit end and the political/military end. It still will take a while, as more weaker countries and currencies will be triaged off before a final Collapse of the system, but the writing is on the wall here already.
RE
“In other words, while nobody was looking, China just took over one more nation without spilling a drop of blood.”
China uses Sun Tzu’s “The Art Of War”, the US uses ancient Rome’s military policy of economic suicide & over-extension.
“China uses Sun Tzu’s “The Art Of War”, the US uses ancient Rome’s military policy of economic suicide & over-extension.”
More like China use the Art of Ecological Suicide while the FSoA uses the Art of Economic Suicide.
[img[/img]
[img[/img]
China also Leading in Knife Wielding Psychos!
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-02/horrific-knife-attack-china-leaves-33-dead-130-injured
“Horrific Knife Attack In China Leaves 33 Dead (130 Injured)
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/02/2014 22:26 -0500
Submitted by James Pach via The Diplomat,
In one of the deadliest acts of terror in China in recent memory, a group of ten knife-wielding assailants attacked passersby at the Kunming Railway Station in the southwest of the country on Saturday night, killing at least 29 and wounding another 130. Police also shot and killed four of the attackers and captured one more. The other five are on the run, according to reports. State broadcaster CCTV said two of the attackers were women, one of whom was killed by police and the other captured.”
The Chinese are…wait for it…
[img[/img]
You wanna invest in that? Feel free, be my guest.
RE
Billy,
there’s a well hiden and old freemason temple in my town. do you know its name? the scottish club…
the church in scotland is one thing, but the burials in the neighborhood of the latter are clearly templars.
there’s no more treasure to find here, this beside the fact that anger is boiling and that poverty is dramaticaly increasing. I think we’re heading for interresting times
I don’t want war.
All I want is peace. Peace…. Peace!
A little piece of Poland
A little piece of France
A little piece of Portugal
And Austria perchance
A little slice of Turkey
And all that that entails
Und then a piece of England, Scotland, lreland, and Wales
A little nip of Norway
A little spot of Greece
A little hunk of Hungary
Oh what a lovely feast
A little bite of Belgium
And now for some dessert
Armenia Albania
And Russia wouldn’t hurt
-Hitler(Mel Brooks) in To Be Or Not To Be[img[/img]
fresh from crimea:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mhn3Q5PRT4
Ukrainian can kiss their asses good bye, if they think they can slow down such a military force…
“Ukrainian can kiss their asses good bye, if they think they can slow down such a military force…”
Ukrainians can’t do Jack Shit to stop this, and neither can Obama-sama.
The Bond Market however can squash Putin like a BUG.
” I used to think if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope or a .400 baseball hitter. But now I want to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.”- James Carville
Bond Market turns on Putin, he is Road Kill.
RE
É preciso perseverança e persistência para os fazer diariamente durante alguns meses, mas pode reduzir tempo e melhorar a sua eficiência
usando pilulas para aumentar pénis ao mesmo tempo que
faz os exercícios.
Hey! we speak English here (well, some of us better than others.)
@Admin… Lonna said penis. Isn’t that a bad word?