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Bad Guys

China's locked-in hybrid war with the US has just intensified

Pepe Escobar
Asia Times
Tue, 17 Mar 2020 00:00 UTC
Chinese President Xi Jinping
© AFPChinese President Xi Jinping has made his position clear.
Fallout from Covid-19 outbreak puts Beijing and Washington on a collision course

Among the myriad, earth-shattering geopolitical effects of coronavirus, one is already graphically evident. China has re-positioned itself. For the first time since the start of Deng Xiaoping's reforms in 1978, Beijing openly regards the US as a threat, as stated a month ago by Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the Munich Security Conference during the peak of the fight against coronavirus.

Beijing is carefully, incrementally shaping the narrative that, from the beginning of the coronovirus attack, the leadership knew it was under a hybrid war attack. Xi's terminology is a major clue. He said, on the record, that this was war. And, as a counter-attack, a "people's war" had to be launched.

Moreover, he described the virus as a demon or devil. Xi is a Confucianist. Unlike some other ancient Chinese thinkers, Confucius was loath to discuss supernatural forces and judgment in the afterlife. However, in a Chinese cultural context, devil means "white devils" or "foreign devils": guailo in Mandarin, gweilo in Cantonese. This was Xi delivering a powerful statement in code.

When Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, voiced in an incandescent tweet the possibility that "it might be US Army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan" - the first blast to this effect to come from a top official - Beijing was sending up a trial balloon signalling that the gloves were finally off. Zhao Lijian made a direct connection with the Military Games in Wuhan in October 2019, which included a delegation of 300 US military.

Comment: See: Pompeo to China: Quit spreading 'outlandish rumors' and blaming the US for Covid-19 virus pandemic

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Safe

Ron Paul: Central banking is socialism

Ron Paul
The Ron Paul Institute
Mon, 09 Mar 2020 00:00 UTC
Federal Reserve
Last week, the Federal Reserve responded to Wall Street's coronavirus panic with an "emergency" interest rate cut. This emergency cut failed to revive the stock market, leading to predictions that the Fed will again cut rates later this month.

More rate cuts would drive interest rates to near, or even below, zero. Lowering interest rates punishes people for saving, thus encouraging consumers and businesses to spend every penny they make. This may give the economy a short-term boost. But, it inhibits long-term economic growth by depleting the savings necessary for investments in businesses and jobs. The result of this policy will be more pressure on the Fed to indefinitely maintain low interest rates and on the Congress and president to create another explosion of government "stimulus" spending.

Boston Federal Reserve President Eric Rosengren has suggested that Congress allow the Federal Reserve to add assets of private companies to the Fed's already large balance sheet. Allowing the central bank to buy assets of, and thus assume a partial ownership interest in, private companies would give the Federal Reserve even greater influence over the economy. It could also allow the Fed to advance a political agenda by, for example, favoring investment in "green energy" companies over other companies or refusing to purchase assets of retailers who sell firearms or tobacco products.

Comment: You might also call the Central Bankers the following: monopoly capitalists, fascists, oligarchs, elitists, and probably some other few choice descriptors.

See also:

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Stock Down

France may nationalize major companies amid market meltdown, global airlines need billions in bailouts


RT
Tue, 17 Mar 2020 18:09 UTC
paris
© AFP / Ludovic Marin
The French government said on Tuesday it is ready to use all measures necessary to support big companies suffering during the current global market turmoil caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

"I won't hesitate to use all means available to protect big French companies," Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on a call with journalists, adding: "That can be done by recapitalisation, that can be done by taking a stake, I can even use the term nationalisation if necessary."


Comment: By 'recapitalisation' the minister probably means some form of government (taxpayer funded) bail out.


According to the Financial Times citing Le Maire, Paris has also promised a package of measures worth €45 billion (US$49.8bn) to help companies and employees withstand the pandemic-linked storm. The package will include payments to temporarily redundant workers and postponed tax and social security bills.

Comment: It didn't take much for the world's biggest companies and economies to slip into freefall, and, once again, the taxpayer will be coming to the rescue and bearing the worst of it mostly, whether through renationalisation or bailouts, and mostly because the political and financial system is utterly corrupt - and not, as they would have us believe, because of the coronavirus:

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MIB

Suspicious: Crowdstrike's PR firm now trying to distance them from 'Russian link' to Wikileaks they promoted

Joe Hoft
The Gateway Pundit
Fri, 06 Mar 2020 16:47 UTC
george kurtz crowdstrike dnc
© Sam Hodgson for The New York TimesGeorge Kurtz, the chief executive and co-founder of CrowdStrike, at the company’s offices in Irvine, Calif., in 2014.
For more than three years of the mainstream media (MSM) promoted the biggest fraud in US history - that the Russians hacked the DNC's emails and gave the emails they hacked to WikiLeaks who then leaked the emails before the 2016 election. Now, suddenly the firm at the center of this fraud, Crowdstrike, is taking a step back from their previous actions related to the entire sham.

For years now the FBI and Mueller investigation claimed that Russia hacked the DNC during the lead up to the 2016 election. This is central to the Russia-Collusion narrative. Roger Stone tried to obtain information in his trial that the Mueller team had evidence that Russia gave the emails they hacked from the DNC to WikiLeaks but corrupt Obama Appointed DC judge, Amy Berman Jackson, wouldn't let him bring this up in his case, even though his charges were based on the entire scam.

President Trump indicated that he knew Crowdstrike was at the center of the Russia collusion scam when he made his infamous phone call with the Ukraine's new President Zelinsky. The President reportedly said the following:
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Wall Street

Wall Street's coronavirus analysis may be a big mistake

Kurt Cobb
Oilprice.com
Mon, 16 Mar 2020 04:00 UTC
wall street
© blogspot.com
Investment professionals on Wall Street spend their days reading financial reports and looking at numbers flash on screens. These numbers record the moment-to-moment changes in the collective wisdom of markets about the value of stocks, bonds, commodities and a distressing array of derivative financial products.

From the comfort of the sealed caverns of Wall Street the actual physical and social world is just an abstraction to be quantified and analyzed. One of Wall Street's most prominent investment research and management firms released an analysis that says the coronavirus won't be all that bad for the economy.

Analysts from Morningstar Inc. — which is actually headquartered in Chicago's cavernous downtown — say that this pandemic will be a "mild pandemic." I'm not sure how pandemics can be mild, but the analysts outline cases for "moderate" and "severe pandemics."

One of the things that gives these analysts such a sanguine view, particularly in the United States, is the country's advanced health care system which is "likely much more prepared for the taxing of our hospital system, as we appear to have a massive lead over other developed nations in the number of intensive care unit beds per citizen."

And yet, a first-hand report from a physician in those hospitals suggests that there will be very little room for severe corona virus cases in any hospital ICU. Those beds are already being used by patients and not just waiting empty. In all likelihood, hospitals will be quickly overwhelmed and forced to decide who gets critical live-saving treatment and who does not. The "who does not" number could be very large if the Italian experience is anything to go by.

Comment: The Fed's 'big guns' didn't save the market
The average American will hardly feel any impact of the rate reduction and fresh quantitative easing, as those tools were not designed to help those people who are about to be displaced or lose much of their income.

"We are still waiting for the next shoe to fall, with concerns that next shoe is going to be in the credit markets, not necessarily the stock market," she said. While it is still hard to say where the credit crisis is going to come from, $10 trillion dollars in the corporate debt market may hide a "potential sleeping giant" that could cause disruption, she believes.

The measures to contain the spread of coronavirus may even lead to a technical recession, as nationwide social distancing is set to disrupt services on which the US economy is dependent.

Jim Rogers: 'We're headed for the worst financial crisis of our lifetimes'
"I told RT earlier that the next time we are going to have a financial problem it's going to be the worst..." said Rogers, adding that it appears we are headed toward "the worst financial crisis of our lifetimes" and "we will know in a few months."

Lots of industries like airlines and travel are going to suffer. Companies with big debts are especially vulnerable at this time and those participating in international trade in particular will have serious problems. "Some of them will be bankrupt."

Most markets were not ready for the global health crisis and did not know what was coming. However, the reason behind such a mayhem is "not just the virus, it is certainly much more" than that.

Rogers also has a piece of advice for investors, suggesting they invest their money "only in what they know a lot about."


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Pistol

Death to Iraqis who demand the end of illegal US occupation

Tony Cartalucci
New Eastern Outlook
Mon, 16 Mar 2020 00:00 UTC
Karbala airport
© AFP/Mohammed SawafIraqi soldiers stand guard at a Karbala airport, which was hit by US strikes, March 13, 2020
CNN in its article, "US conducts airstrikes against multiple Iranian-backed militia sites in Iraq," would report:
"The US carried out airstrikes on Thursday against multiple Iranian-backed militia sites in Iraq, according to the US Defense Department.

"The strikes come one day after the US assessed an Iranian-backed group was responsible for a rocket attack on a base where coalition forces are located, killing two American service members and one British service member."
CNN and other Western corporate media outlets have attempted to depict militias like Kata'ib Hezbollah as "Iranian-backed" in an effort to demonize them - and while they are indeed partly backed by Iran - they are also an official component of the Iraqi military.

Comment: See also:

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Stop

Pompeo to China: Quit spreading 'outlandish rumors' and blaming the US for Covid-19 virus pandemic


RT
Mon, 16 Mar 2020 18:09 UTC
Pompeo
© Andrew Harnik/APUS Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has warned China not to spread "outlandish rumors" about the Covid-19 virus and accused China of trying to shift the blame for the pandemic onto the US.

In a phone call with China's top diplomat Yang Jiechi, Pompeo relayed "strong US objections" to China's recent suggestion that the virus could have been brought into the country by the US military. Pompeo stressed to Jiechi that "this is not the time to spread disinformation and outlandish rumors," a State Department spokesperson said.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lijian Zhao said last week that it might have been the US army "who brought the epidemic to Wuhan" and called on the US to be transparent about its "Patient Zero." Speculation soon mounted that the US delegation at the Military World Games in Wuhan in October was the source.
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X

The SPLC's fake internal review into staff corruption

Tyler O'Neil
National Review
Mon, 16 Mar 2020 06:30 UTC
Tina Tchen
© Jonathan Ernst/ReutersTina Tchen, former chief of staff to first lady Michelle Obama, at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C., in 2014.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has released no results of an investigation it commissioned into its staff's corruption.

Almost exactly one year ago, the Southern Poverty Law Center fired its co-founder and promised an internal review to examine allegations of racial discrimination and sexual harassment at the civil-rights organization. Yet nearly a year later, this review has released no results.

Allegations of racial discrimination and sexual harassment at the SPLC date back decades, as I documented in my book Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Yet the firing of Dees brought former SPLC staffers out of the woodwork. Bob Moser came forward with a devastating exposé in The New Yorker, confessing to his own complicity in "the con" of exaggerating "hate" in order to bilk donors into signing big checks. "It was hard, for many of us, not to feel like we'd become pawns in what was, in many respects, a highly profitable scam."

" 'The S.P.L.C. — making hate pay,' we'd say," Moser recalled. The SPLC has an endowment of roughly half a billion dollars, and millions in bank accounts in the Cayman Islands.

The SPLC is most widely known for its list of "hate groups," a list that captures "everything wrong with liberalism," according to Current Affairs editor Nathan Robinson. He noted how the SPLC list includes "hate groups" that consist of one person with a blog, one person with a Confederate memorabilia shop, and an organization supposedly led by a cult leader who died in prison in 2017.

Comment: See also:

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Biohazard

US sanctions on Iran are making its coronavirus crisis worse. Ilhan Omar is calling for them to be suspended

Michael Arria
Mondoweiss
Tue, 17 Mar 2020 16:25 UTC
Ilhan Omar
© wikimediaIlhan Omar
COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on Iran, where at least 14,000 people have been infected and 853 have died. The virus has killed 129 people in just the last 24 hours. Many have pointed to the fact that U.S sanctions on the country have compounded its current crisis, as they hurt Iran's economy and its health care system. Last week, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) reiterated her call for the United States to suspend the sanctions. Omar retweeted a post by Iranian-American activist Hoda Katebi and wrote, "We need to suspend these sanctions before more lives are lost."


Comment: Omar is in the right. Denying medical supplies to a nation in crisis is barbaric, not much different than chucking plague rats over a siege wall. The pathocracy has dropped the mask here.

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Oil Well

Oil price crash and what it could mean re: delays and uncertainty for LNG


The Energy Mix
Sun, 15 Mar 2020 00:00 UTC
LNG terminal
© Wikimedia CommonsLNG Terminal
The oil price crash triggered by the coronavirus crisis will likely have a secondary impact on liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects that were aiming for final investment decisions this year. But analysts see that short-term loss turning into a gain around mid-decade if natural gas demand in Asia continues to grow at the pace they've been predicting.

At the moment, Bloomberg reports:
"More than a dozen proposed LNG export projects from the U.S. to Mozambique are at risk of being delayed or scrapped as crude careened to levels that make most of them unprofitable. Even before crude's drop, developers were under pressure from a slump in global gas prices, milder winter temperatures, and demand restraints from the coronavirus."
S&P Global Platts analyst Jeff Moore wrote:
"With significant downward pressure on spot LNG prices and oil prices, it could be the double-whammy that really starts to make some projects seem uneconomic. If oil prices stay low for much of this year, I would imagine it could have a material impact on supply projects looking to reach [final investment decisions, or FIDs] this year."
But over the slightly longer haul, Bloomberg adds:
"If fewer of them come to fruition, that would ease a widening supply glut later this decade and potentially lift prices amid breakneck demand growth in Asia."
Before the crash, Bloomberg New Energy Finance had identified four projects likely to reach FID this year, and another 15 that might. It's now reassessing that timeline.
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