Puppet Masters

Paul Craig Roberts - Russia's black swan card(s) and the end of NATO

Paul Craig Roberts
King World News
Sat, 20 Dec 2014 16:54 UTC

Today Dr. Paul Craig Roberts warned King World News that the Russians are going to unleash what he called the "ultimate black swan" against the West. Dr. Roberts also discussed how a terrifying series of events would then bring the Western financial system to it knees as the banking system completely collapses.

Dr. Roberts: "I was listening to the news today and there were all these self-righteous people just happy as all get out that they had finally stomped Russia into the ground and 'Russia is now finished,' and Russia was broken and 'would soon be an American vassal state where it belongs.' And I was listening to this rot and got to thinking, 'How can people be so utterly stupid?' But they are, and they are just as stupid in Washington.

And in the meantime, as part of this process, Eric, we may see Russia unleash the predicted black swans that bring down the Western house of cards...

"Suppose the Russian government says, 'Well, since the attack on the ruble is political and you guys are attacking the ruble and causing us so much trouble, we are just not going to pay off the next tranche of our debt that comes due early in 2015.'

Well, the European banking system would collapse because those banks are terribly under-capitalized. Some of them have loans to Russia that almost absorb the entire capital base. So the Russians don't even have to default. They can just say, 'We're not going to pay this year. We will do it later. We'll do it when the ruble stabilizes.' (Laughter).

You can understand the impact of such a decision by the Russians on the West. And given all the linkages and the interconnections - when Lehman Brothers went down it had just about as much adverse affect on Europe as it did the United States.
[...]
What would come from that? Who knows? There are all kinds of derivatives and credit default swaps everywhere. We know these derivatives now are some multiple of the world's Gross Domestic Product. And nobody really knows who all the counterparties are. If the European banks start going down, who knows what the impact on this pile of derivatives would be? But the whole Western system is a house of cards. It's not based on anything other than market manipulation. So it doesn't take much of a push to knock it down.
[...]
The biggest black swan of all, Eric, if the Russians get thoroughly angry, all they have to do is call up the European governments and say, 'We no longer sell natural gas or any other form of energy to members of NATO.' The consequence would be the utter and total collapse of NATO. Not even a puppet state like Germany is going to let the people freeze to death, let the factories be closed down, and let the unemployment rate hit 40 percent. It's just not going to happen - it would be the end of NATO.

So whenever the Russians want to destroy NATO, that's all they have to do. Just call up the puppet Merkel, call up the puppet Hollande, the puppet Cameron, and say, 'You guys really enjoy being in NATO, well let me tell you what, we no longer sell energy to NATO members.' That's the end of NATO and that's the end of the cover for American power.

That would set off so many black swans. Every banking system would probably collapse because if the German banks are faced with German industry closing down, what the hell is going to happen to the banks? So all the cards are in Putin's hands. None of them are in Washington's hands. Putin is going to ignore it and reorient Russia to the East. Then you are going to see Russia, India, and China, take over the leadership of the world. That will start in 2015."

Listen to the entire interview:

Comment: Paul Craig Roberts gives a shrewd assessment of the political and economic maneuvering between Russia and Washington. When the facts are laid out it's clear Washington is operating from a fantasy world. Unfortunately, the rest of us in the real world will have to live with the consequences.

Reader Comments

Highland Fleet Lute · 2014-12-20T18:32:49Z

This is just Paul Craig Roberts talking to his peers out of the side of his mouth. I don't think it's Putin's style to do that, and I don't think the BRICS option is going to be a matter of everyone on that side of the equation swanning off to happy valley in the sunshine either. The whole situation is much more like one of those multiple mexican stand-off jobs Quentin Tarantino ripped off from Alex Cox's "Repo Man". Once the blow-back starts - it doesn't stop.

Mandatory Intellectomy · 2014-12-20T20:36:29Z

I don't think Putin will do it either, but the point is that he can, and he will do as little and as much as is necessary to keep Russia going without causing too much chaos in the rest of the world.
The way he shifted from Bulgaria to Turkey with the pipeline is an example.
And the Washington clowns really don't have much to play with, nor the required intelligence to come up with something.

SeekinTruth · 2014-12-21T01:28:12Z

Russia and China don't want the collapse of the dollar and the US to be too fast. They will do what is necessary to protect their economies and world trade by replacing the current fraudulent financial system by phasing in a new one.

gdpetti · 2014-12-21T03:32:05Z

True, as they both want to unload their US Tbills before the market crashes... and the main signal is said to be the watch on High Yield Bonds, as they went bust in '08 first... the canary in the coal mine. As for the USempire, our psycho puppets have been trained to 'go for broke' especially given that the game has been rigged to crash anyway and once the 'rug is pulled', it's every man for himself... bank holiday for the financials, global market collapse (look at the Baltic Dry index that's been going way down since 'kill the turkey day'.... everything is ripe for the picking just now, it will be fun to watch any attempt at a Santa Claus Rally to pump up the company bonus checks... and earnings are already starting to come in and don't look good... which spells more black swans to fly next month. So, we need all the distractions we can force through around the world. Neither Russia or North Korea is cooperating though, so maybe we should try China next? Abe seems willing and his people as asleep as our own... which is always a good sign to start trouble.

Ruth · 2014-12-23T01:36:38Z

The fact that Putin COULD do these things should be enough for Europe to 'wake up' to it's precarious position. It looks like the EU is going to be the first victim of Washington's 'magical' world.

Highland Fleet Lute · 2014-12-20T18:52:53Z

The most worrying thing is: no one's got any new ideas. Russia - corporate ex-communist capitalism. China - communist corporate capitalism. EUUSUK - corporate capitalism. Ultimately, what's the damn difference?

atari2u · 2014-12-20T19:06:41Z

The difference is in whose oligarchs are raping whose country.
They have got their own down pat, now they are looking for others to rape.

smackman · 2014-12-21T00:36:38Z

PCR is one of the 'white hats'

If you go to his website, you can see a painting behind his profile picture that shows a dude from revolutionary times hiding his hand under his coat ala Napoleon. He is one of the 'Hidden Hands' crew; part of the controlled opposition. His role is to downplay the US at every turn, highlighting how bad the west is, and build up the BRICS in comparison. He's a globalist, probably working with the BIS to help bring the world into a 'One World Order' under the guise of BRICS 'philanthropy.'

Not to say what he says isn't true; it inevitably is 100% so and it is worthwhile reading him. Just be wary that sometimes the greatest lies are the truths that one knows, but doesn't tell...

Aithin Tusa Fein · 2014-12-21T14:14:32Z

Rubbish

This guy is delusional. If Russia delayed paying its debt then the ruble would lose trust as a currency and it would drop even further. If Russia refused to supply energy to NATO member states then that would just open up those markets to other competitors and it wouldn't be much of a problem for the US and Canada to supply those states with energy and to initially subsidize the difference in price in the form of a long term loan with the EU.

The problem with Russia is that energy sales are its primary market and that market is being flooded with a large supply of energy which is reducing the price. Because most large users of energy buy in advance, at a fixed price, it is going to take a year or two for the energy market to stabilize and Russia is just going to wait it out. The fall in energy prices can only drop until it becomes unprofitable for production. It will hit the bottom and prices will rise again, but that will take a year or two. Russia isn't going to do much about it except diversify their markets in the interim.

The US dollar isn't going to collapse anytime soon simply because it is being used for about 29 percent of the global consumer market within the US alone. That means regardless of other countries using the dollar as a reserve currency, or for a petrodollar, it is still the most used currency in the world because of the US consumer market share, regardless of its use outside of the US.

Even if all the foreign holders of US Treasury securities were to cash in for about 6 Trillion, that would only raise US interest rates up a few points, because the production of currency is artificially kept low by foreign investment. It wouldn't destabilize anything except their own currencies that were previously backed by the dollar. The largess of the US debt isn't an issue as long as the US maintains about 30% share of the global consumer market within its borders. If that market share plunges, then the dollar is toast.

PCR said, "But the whole Western system is a house of cards. It's not based on anything other than market manipulation. So it doesn't take much of a push to knock it down." If that were really true then it would have already fallen many times since 2008 alone. But it isn't simply "a house of cards." The "Western system" is driven by an engine of consumer consumption that accounts for 56% of the global consumer market with just the US and EU alone.

Simply put, there are more people buying and selling things in the US than in any other country, and they are using the dollar as a medium of exchange for all those transactions, which is about a third of the global consumer market in one country alone. This is why all these "predictions" of the downfall of the dollar do not pan out, because they do not factor in the reliability of the US consumer market. As long as the US maintains its share of the global consumer market and as long as US citizens exchange in the dollar, it will remain stable.

SeekinTruth · 2014-12-22T01:36:14Z

Clearly, it's you who is delusional. The criminal manipulation of the markets will come to it's logical conclusion soon enough. And all that astronomical money printing in the last years? It will come flooding to the US, as major economies have been dumping the dollar slowly, but increasingly, like a tsunami and destroy the US economy in two opposite destructive forces: hyperinflation for every necessity to survive and the alarming deflation (that's persisted despite all that money printing) for everything else.

Boy, you take the delusion to new heights when you put your hope on the US consumer. The consumer is dead: no money, not enough credit, too much debt. And the US economy is still based on more than 70% consumer spending. Do you know what the real number of unemployed are in the US? You really don't know what you're talking about, as it seems you've been desperately attempting to avoid looking at the most obvious things around you.

Check out the commodities prices across the board. All collapsing as the extraordinary deflation pressures are not letting up in the US or the rest of the "West". Japan is perhaps the only economy and financial status worse than the US. Europe is catching up fast. They're all closely connected. Whichever one starts unraveling first will take the others down too. All the criminal fraud on the markets will make the 2008 collapse look like a picnic. Wait a while and come back and tell us how things turned out. Can you tell us how many zeros are in the total derivatives figure or how many multiples of the total global GDP the derivatives scam the banksters have been running is? I think you aught to start learning some basics before spouting nonsense.

Do you know why the Fed and all the other major Central Bankers are in such a panic? You should probably look into that....

Aithin Tusa Fein · 2014-12-22T17:40:46Z

And again, this is why your predictions will not pan out. This is why none of them will because of the failure to look at reality as it is, instead of what some wish it would be. I read your post and found nothing of value in it that would compel me to alter my position.

SeekinTruth · 2014-12-23T02:12:27Z

No surprise as you project your own wishful thinking.... No surprise also that you don't want to look into anything that you find "of no value" as that would have you take your head out of places it should never have been.

Aithin Tusa Fein · 2014-12-23T03:51:40Z

SeekinTruth, you stated, "No surprise as you project your own wishful thinking.... No surprise also that you don't want to look into anything that you find "of no value" as that would have you take your head out of places it should never have been."

Firstly, where have I projected wishful thinking at all? I merely presented my theory and its rationale and did not indicate a wishfulness or hopefulness for anything one way or the other. Just stated it as I see it. You can agree, disagree or disregard entirely.

Secondly, as for your post, it contains, in my opinion, "nothing of value in it that would compel me to alter my position." That's just the way it is. That is not an arbitrary judgement of your post, that was an honest evaluation.

Thirdly, you stated, "that would have you take your head out of places it should never have been." I have no idea what you are referring to and that makes absolutely no sense to me.

SeekinTruth · 2014-12-24T01:52:13Z

Well, refusing to look at all the compelling evidence, without the usual media spin and propaganda, would not do anyone good. You can do some research and see what the insiders are saying and thinking, but that's entirely your choice. When people have your attitude, they are not aware that their wishful thinking and tightly held false beliefs are coloring their opinions/judgments. But you are free to continue to believe whatever you want, of course.