Two topics we've deemed critically important to a thorough understanding of both global finance and the shifting geopolitical landscape are the death of the petrodollar and the idea of yuan hegemony.

Last November, in "How The Petrodollar Quietly Died And No One Noticed," we said the following about the slow motion demise of the system that has served to perpetuate decades of dollar dominance:

Two years ago, in hushed tones at first, then ever louder, the financial world began discussing that which shall never be discussed in polite company - the end of the system that according to many has framed and facilitated the US Dollar's reserve currency status: the Petrodollar, or the world in which oil export countries would recycle the dollars they received in exchange for their oil exports, by purchasing more USD-denominated assets, boosting the financial strength of the reserve currency, leading to even higher asset prices and even more USD-denominated purchases, and so forth, in a virtuous (especially if one held US-denominated assets and printed US currency) loop.

The main thrust for this shift away from the USD, if primarily in the non-mainstream media, was that with Russia and China, as well as the rest of the BRIC nations, increasingly seeking to distance themselves from the US-led, "developed world" status quo spearheaded by the IMF, global trade would increasingly take place through bilateral arrangements which bypass the (Petro)dollar entirely.

And sure enough, this has certainly been taking place, as first Russia and China, together with Iran, and ever more developing nations, have transacted among each other, bypassing the USD entirely, instead engaging in bilateral trade arrangements.

China on Wednesday launched a cargo train service connecting its far western Xinjiang region with Moscow, Chinese media reported.

The railway authorities in Xinjiang said the additional cargo train service linking the region's capital Urumqi with Moscow would contribute to the economic development of the autonomous region, which is seen as a "core area" of the Silk Road economic belt, Xinhua news agency reported.

Since March 2014, Xinjiang has opened cargo train service to Kazakhstan, Georgia, Iran, Turkey and also Chelyabinsk in Russia.

By the second half of the year, more than three cargo trains will run between Xinjiang and the destinations in Russia and also central and western Asia per week.

The trains will be able to transport $8.1 billion of cargo a year, local officials said.

The first freight train service linking a Chinese province to neighboring Russia was launched when a cargo train from the northeast Heilongjiang Province set off on its maiden journey to central Russia on March 1, 2015.

This week, a report from the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), indicated that "peacekeepers" working in Haiti were guilty of raping Haitian women at an alarming rate. The report also indicated that a large number of the victims were underage.

According to the report, there were 231 people in Haiti who claimed they were sexually violated by UN peacekeepers, and were forced to perform sexual acts in exchange for food and supplies that were intended as relief packages.

"For rural women, hunger, lack of shelter, baby care items, medication and household items were frequently cited as the 'triggering need,'" the report said, adding that UN workers coaxed women and girls into sexual activities with "church shoes, cell phones, laptops and perfume, as well as money."

"In cases of non-payment, some women withheld the badges of peacekeepers and threatened to reveal their infidelity via social media," the report said

This is not the first time that UN workers have been accused of these types of crimes. After the UN has entered areas like Cambodia, Mozambique, Bosnia, Sudan and Kosovo, there was an explosion of sex trafficking and numerous reports of abuse. Just this year, the UN was caught attempting to cover-up the fact that their workers had raped starving and homeless boys in the Central African Republic.

There are almost too many cases to list in which high-profile public figures or organizations were accused in pedophilia or human trafficking cases. However, they almost always dodge any prosecution or public scrutiny due to their control of the legal system and media.

There have been many cases in recent history where establishment figures have been caught up in child prostitution rings but quickly had the story swept under the rug.

One such case was on June 29 1989, when the Washington Times' Paul M. Rodriguez and George Archibald reported on a Washington D.C. prostitution ring that had intimate connections with the White House and President George H.W. Bush. It was suspected that this was connected with the Franklin prostitution ring that was being exposed at the same time, in a different part of the country.

The third Ukraine 'Maidan' came quickly, and was quenched just as fast. Unlike the protests that began in late 2013 and turned into the months-long 'EuroMaidan' that ended with the coup against the legitimate government of Yanukovych, this time, there were no entrenched cadres of hardened protestors in camps, no pitched battles with police, no occupation of government buildings. Why not?

Almost immediately on the heels of the Gay Rights parade that fizzled out on Friday with a spectacular whimper after being attacked by neo-Nazi Right Sector thugs (the same ones Kiev has been dutifully utilizing in their 'anti-anti-terrorist operation' in the east), similar brain dead fascist drones did the same thing to the massive anti-government march in Kiev this weekend.

The thousands of protesters that marched to and camped out on Maidan Square were airing their grievances against the so-called government of greedy, inept, bloodthirsty leaders. That is, protestors were attempting to engage with the full spirit of that new-found Ukrainian-American democracy that was gifted to them last year by way of the US-sponsored coup. You know, protesting against things like poverty, criminally low pensions, and a useless, costly, ineffective war in the east. Some protesters were calling for Poroshenko's impeachment, saying the government can't handle the country's current problems.

But apparently their grievances are not so grievous, mainly because they don't jive with the 'strategic interests' of the US government, unlike the previous Maidan protests of last year that had the god fatherly blessings of the glorious United States, complete with Nuland cookies, Right Sector barbarism, and provocateur snipers. The spoils of that little Maidan went to Poroshenko. This little Maidan may as well have stayed home. All they got was the privilege of going wee, wee, wee all the way to prison. Now, if Poroshenko were to have a brain transplant and suddenly say something remotely favorable about Putin, THAT would be a different story. In that case, the beneficent flow of cookies, arms, and support would no doubt come freely, along with a US government demand that Poroshenko "had to go".

Interviewed on June 6th by German Economic News, the chief economist at Bremer Landesbank, Folker Hellmeyer, says that because of Obama's sanctions against Russia, German exports declined year-over-year by 18% in 2014, and by 34% in the first two months of 2015 (no later figures), but he asserts that "The damage is much more comprehensive than these statistics show," because those are only the "primary losses," and there are in addition "secondary effects," which get even worse over time.

For example: "European countries with strong business in Russia, including Finland and Austria, are economically hit very hard. These countries consequently place fewer orders from Germany. Moreover, considering that European corporations will circumvent the sanctions, to create production facilities at the highest efficiency level in Russia, we lose this potential capital stock, which is the basis of our prosperity. Russia wins the capital stock," at the EU's expense, even though the sanctions are targeted against Russia.

The father of one of the victims of Toulouse killer Mohammed Merah accused the French spy service of paying Merah's father thousands of euros for a clip of his final minutes detailing his links with the agency.

Albert Chennouf-Meyer, whose son Abel, a soldier, was killed by Merah in March 2012, filed a legal complaint in France for "destruction of evidence."

The military in the United States portrays itself as endowed with the highest virtues—honor, duty, self-sacrifice, courage and patriotism. Politicians, entertainers, sports stars, the media, clerics and academics slavishly bow before the military machine, ignoring its colossal pillaging of state resources, the egregious war crimes it has normalized across the globe, its abject service not to democracy or freedom but corporate profit, and the blind, mind-numbing obedience it inculcates among its members. A lone soldier or Marine who rises up inside the system to denounce the hypermasculinity that glorifies violence and war, who exposes the false morality of the military, who refuses to kill in the service of imperial power, unmasks the military for what it is. And he or she, as Chelsea Manning has learned, swiftly pays a very, very heavy price.

Spc. Robert Weilbacher as a new Army combat medic stationed in South Korea listened to stories told by combat veterans, many suffering from trauma and depression, about the routine and indiscriminate slaughter of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was horrified. He had believed the propaganda fed to him over the years. He considered himself a patriot. He had accepted the notion that the U.S. military was a force for good, intervening to liberate Iraqis and Afghans and fight terrorists. But after hearing the veterans' tales, his worldview crumbled. He began to ask questions he had not asked before. He began to think. And thinking within any military establishment is an act of subversion. He soon decided he did not want to be part of an organization that routinely snuffed out the lives of unarmed people, including children. He applied in February 2014 for a classification known as Conscientious Objector (1-0).

He instantly became a pariah within his unit. No one wanted to associate with him. He was taunted as a "traitor," "coward," "faggot" and "hippie." He was assigned to the most demeaning jobs on the base. And the military bureaucracy began making him jump through hoops that he is still trying to negotiate two years later. He became an example to his fellow soldiers of the physical and emotional harassment, as well as humiliation, that is visited on all who dare within the military to challenge the sanctity of war and discipline.

"I feel as if my own government is torturing me," he said when I reached him by phone in his barracks at Fort Campbell, Ky.

I've never seen so many sophisticated Wall Street'ers this scared in my entire career.

This comment comes from a very well-connected Wall Street/DC insider and is in reference to how illiquid the bond markets have become.

Something deep and dark has transpired behind the Orwellian "curtain" used by the elitists to hide the inner workings of the financial markets, especially with regard to big bank balance sheets and OTC derivatives. What's happening right now reminds of the movie "Jurassic Park." You can hear and feel the monster coming but you can't see it yet and you don't know it will pop up in your face or how big it is.

Since retiring from the U.S. Army in 2000, Dr. John Henry Hagmann has helped train thousands of soldiers and medical personnel in how to treat battlefield wounds. His company, Deployment Medicine International, has received more than $10.5 million in business from the federal government.


The taxpayer-funded training has long troubled animal rights activists, who contend that Hagmann's use of live, wounded pigs to simulate combat injuries is unnecessarily cruel.

But an investigation by Virginia medical authorities alleges that pigs weren't the doctor's only training subjects.

During instructional sessions in 2012 and 2013 for military personnel, Hagmann gave trainees drugs and liquor, and directed them to perform macabre medical procedures on one another, according to a report issued by the Virginia Board of Medicine, the state agency that oversees the conduct of doctors.

Hagmann, 59, is accused of inappropriately providing at least 10 students with the hypnotic drug ketamine. The report alleges Hagmann told students to insert catheters into the genitals of other trainees and that two intoxicated student were subjected to penile nerve block procedures. Hagmann also is accused of conducting "shock labs," a process in which he withdrew blood from the students, monitored them for shock, and then transfused the blood back into their systems.

The report alleges that Hagmann also "exploited, for personal gain and sexual gratification" two participants who attended a July 2013 course at his Virginia farm.

According to an article today from Bloomberg,

Now quite clearly the claim and the chart are both ridiculous but that said, this brings up a good topic. The Almighty American Consumer.