Putin v Russian Neocons

Guest Post by Martin Armstrong

I have warned that Putin is a reasonable man. The hatred the Neocons keep painting him with is not just unfair, it is a strategic ploy to DEMONIZE your opponent to justify your own position. They used that same tactic against Trump.

I have tried to explain that Putin is the ONLY rational world leader today. I have warned that if you remove Putin, you will be shocked at what stands behind him. Putin has been called “weak” behind the scenes in Russia because he has been too soft on Ukraine.

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Vladimir Putin as Robert E. Lee

Guest Post by Paul Craig Roberts

As readers know, I often make reference to Putin’s forbearance, that is, to his tolerance, patience, and self-control. I admire Putin’s forbearance which persists despite Putin never receiving any recognition or credit for it.  My concern is that Putin’s forbearance does not serve him or Russia well.  The reason is that the Western world no longer recognizes or values the moral code that once defined Western civilization. Today in the Western world there are only two values–money and power.

It has been a long time since any American or European military leader said anything resembling what Robert E. Lee told the soldiers who comprised the Army of Northern Virginia:

“We make war only upon armed men, and we cannot take vengeance for the wrongs our people have suffered without lowering ourselves in the eyes of all those whose abhorrence has been excited by the atrocities of our enemies, and offending against God to whom vengeance belongs.”

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Coal in Focus – Brits in Trouble: Inflation Rampant – BoE has no Clue – Letter from Great Britain – [05-21-22]

MY BOOK, “The Financial Jigsaw”, is published at my academic network.  Scroll for full view:   https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358117070_THE_FINANCIAL_JIGSAW_-_PART_1_-_4th_Edition_2020    Email for a free PDF at: [email protected]

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK:  So the EU, already in the middle of the worst energy crisis since 1973 and likely worse, is now pushing to eliminate imports of Russian coal. Capital Exploits has some questions:

  • Who are they going to find to replace that coal?
  • Is the EU not aware that there is no spare capacity in the big coal exporting nations?
  • Did nobody tell the Europeans that coal is base load?
  • Are they not aware they can’t get any more gas to offset the deficiency in coal?

If you thought that there is an issue with respect to security of oil supplies, security over supplies of coal is a different dimension. Indonesia, Australia, and Russia accounted for some 75% of world coal trade in 2019. But wait. There is more — a blockade of Russian oil? This is becoming scarier by the day!”  https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/05/no_author/can-europe-survive-without-russian-coal-and-oil-heres-what-it-means-for-skyrocketing-prices/

BREAKING NEWS: It was only last week that the Bank of England forecast inflation reaching 10% by the end of this year. I think we can trash that one in the light of this week’s revelation. “UK inflation soared to 9% in April – its highest level for more than 40 years – as the rising cost of gas and electricity pushed household energy bills to record levels.  The escalating cost of food and transport also contributed to the rising cost of living, deepening the crisis affecting millions of low and middle-income families.

Continue reading “Coal in Focus – Brits in Trouble: Inflation Rampant – BoE has no Clue – Letter from Great Britain – [05-21-22]”

Doug Casey on Whether the “Everything Bubble” Has Finally Found Its Pin

Via International Man

“Everything Bubble”

International Man: Recently, large tech stocks lost over $1 trillion in value in just a few days. Many of these companies have been trading at insane earnings multiples for a long time.

Has the bubble finally popped?

Doug Casey: It actually started popping about a year ago—but now people are starting to notice that lots of these stocks are down not just down 50%, but 75%, and 90%.

Several classes of stocks are getting hurt particularly badly. One is the zombie companies that took advantage of low-interest rates and overleveraged. They borrowed a lot of money in order to pay dividends and buy back shares. The borrowing had little to do with growing the actual business. Now they can’t pay back the debt they’ve taken on since interest rates have gone up.

As the economy gets much weaker over the next few years, we’re going to see lots of corporate bankruptcies, with massive layoffs of workers. That’s one thing happening due to ultra low-interest rates and the money printing. It’s 100% due to the government and the Fed.

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THERE ARE NO COINCIDENCES

Russia Halts Finland’s Gas Supply Two Days After Applying To NATO

Via ZeroHedge

Precisely a week after Russia cut electricity supplies to Finland over non-payment (in rubles), Moscow has made its first explicitly retaliatory move over its Nordic neighbor’s application to NATO with an announcement to cut off natural gas.

Finland’s state-owned gas wholesaler Gasum has announced natural gas imports from Russia will stop Saturday, saying in a statement, “On the afternoon of Friday May 20, Gazprom Export informed Gasum that natural gas supplies to Finland under Gasum’s supply contract will be cut on Saturday May 21, 2022 at 07.00.”

Company CEO Mika Wiljanen stressed to the public it is adequately prepared “and provided that there will be no disruptions in the gas transmission network, we will be able to supply all our customers with gas in the coming months.”

“Gasum will supply natural gas to its customers from other sources through the Balticconnector pipeline. Gasum’s gas filling stations in the gas network area will continue in normal operation,” he said.

And Bloomberg confirms based on the statement, “In the meantime, supplies continue to flow into Finland via the Balticconnector pipeline from Estonia, but its capacity may not be enough to meet demand. That’s after a number of companies have already switched to other fuels or secured alternative supplies.” The report adds: “For the coming winter, the government on Friday agreed on renting a floating LNG terminal together with Estonia.”

While Gasum itself didn’t go into the reasons for the gas supply halt, it comes just two days after both Finland and Sweden submitted applications for NATO membership, which President Vladimir Putin subsequently called a problem. Kremlin statements earlier assured a coming “military and technical” response.

Like with last week’s Russian electricity cut-off, Helsinki has refused to acquiesce to Putin’s demand that Russia be paid in rubles amid ratcheting US and EU sanctions as punishment for the invasion of Ukraine. Poland and Bulgaria were previously the first to have their taps cut off.

As we previewed earlier, natural gas represents only 5% of Finland’s total energy consumption among diverse sources, though of that supply the country relies on 60%-70% coming from Russia, but is typically used by Finnish factories and less so for residential heating. Finland’s mains sources include oil, biomass and nuclear power.

Starting a week ago, Finnish national media first warned that Moscow was threatening to cut the country off from its gas supply. Citing unnamed sources at the time, Finland’s Iltalehti reported the warning was communicated from Kremlin officials to top Finnish politicians. This had been accompanied by a public foreign ministry statement saying, “Russia will be forced to take retaliatory steps, both of a military-technical and other nature, in order to stop the threats to its national security that arise in this regard.”

COVID UPDATE: What is the truth?

Submitted by Cristobal

Guest Post by Russell Blaylock

The COVID-19 pandemic is one of the most manipulated infectious disease events in history, characterized by official lies in an unending stream lead by government bureaucracies, medical associations, medical boards, the media, and international agencies.[,,] We have witnessed a long list of unprecedented intrusions into medical practice, including attacks on medical experts, destruction of medical careers among doctors refusing to participate in killing their patients and a massive regimentation of health care, led by non-qualified individuals with enormous wealth, power and influence.

For the first time in American history a president, governors, mayors, hospital administrators and federal bureaucrats are determining medical treatments based not on accurate scientifically based or even experience based information, but rather to force the acceptance of special forms of care and “prevention”—including remdesivir, use of respirators and ultimately a series of essentially untested messenger RNA vaccines. For the first time in history medical treatment, protocols are not being formulated based on the experience of the physicians treating the largest number of patients successfully, but rather individuals and bureaucracies that have never treated a single patient—including Anthony Fauci, Bill Gates, EcoHealth Alliance, the CDC, WHO, state public health officers and hospital administrators.[,]

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WHY ARE HEDGE FUNDS GAMBLING WITH PENSION FUNDS?

One of the most disturbing facts to come out of the Melvin Capital collapse this week is that Gabe Plotkin was gambling with pension funds to naked short US retail companies (Gamestop and AMC theaters) into bankruptcy. When a company goes bankrupt hedge funds don’t have to pay taxes on their profits nor is there any proof they were counterfeiting shares. Just ask Bill Ackman how he drove JCPenney’s into bankruptcy with the same tactics.