Puppet MastersS


Oil Well

Saudi energy minister claims oil market on 'right track' as OPEC's largest producer slashes exports


RT
Sun, 13 Jan 2019 15:53 UTC
Oil tanker anchored off the Fos-Lavera oil hub near Marseille, France
© Reuters / Jean-Paul PelissierOil tanker anchored off the Fos-Lavera oil hub near Marseille, France.
Saudi Arabia's top energy official expects the oil market to stabilize shortly, and says it's already "on the right track" after a rout in the last quarter of 2018. The statement follows Riyadh's recent commitment to OPEC cuts.

"If we look beyond the noise of weekly data and speculators' herd-like behavior, I remain convinced that we're on the right track, and that the oil market will quickly return to balance," Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said at an oil conference in Abu Dhabi on Sunday, according to Reuters.

The world's top crude supplier says it will continue to work with members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and others to balance the oil market and do more to achieve this goal, if necessary.

"[Saudi Arabia] will work with all interested producers who want to bring stability to the market... OPEC plus and anybody else who would like to do it with us," the minister told a CNBC reporter.

Comment: Meanwhile: Why Russia isn't worried about lower oil prices

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Stock Down

'Storm clouds brewing': World Bank sees global economic growth slowing in 2019


RT
Sun, 13 Jan 2019 15:47 UTC
storm clouds over city
© Reuters / Aly Song
The growth of the global economy is expected to decelerate to 2.9 percent this year compared with three percent in 2018, the World Bank said in a report, citing elevated trade tensions and international trade moderation.

A slump in the global economy will continue in the coming year, with 2020 growth estimated at 2.8 percent, according to the report.

"At the beginning of 2018 the global economy was firing on all cylinders, but it lost speed during the year and the ride could get even bumpier in the year ahead," World Bank Chief Executive Officer Kristalina Georgieva said.

"As economic and financial headwinds intensify for emerging and developing countries, the world's progress in reducing extreme poverty could be jeopardized. To keep the momentum, countries need to invest in people, foster inclusive growth, and build resilient societies," she explained.
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Stock Down

Govt shutdown bites US economy: In 2 more weeks total cost will exceed that of building the wall

Yun Li
CNBC
Fri, 11 Jan 2019 21:56 UTC
Schumer Pelosi
Don't expect these two losers to fix anything, they will only make things worse...
If the government shutdown lasts another two weeks, the total cost to the U.S. economy would exceed the price of building the proposed border wall.

According to an estimate by S&P Global Ratings, it will only take another two weeks to cost the economy more than $6 billion, exceeding the $5.7 billion that President Donald Trump demanded to fund his proposed border wall. The U.S. economy will have lost $3.6 billion by Friday, according to S&P.

"We estimated that this shutdown could shave approximately $1.2 billion off real GDP in the quarter for each week that part of the government is closed. That may seem like pennies for the world's biggest economy, but it means a lot to those workers trying to cover their household costs without their paychecks," Beth Ann Bovino, S&P's chief U.S. economist, said in a note on Friday.

The firm came up with these figures by looking at costs related to the shutdown including lost productivity by furloughed workers and a decrease in sales for contractors to the government.

Comment: More on the government shutdown and its effects:

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Star of David

Hamas releases details of foiled Israeli intelligence operation In Gaza


SouthFront
Sat, 12 Jan 2019 15:09 UTC
israel equipment hamas
Israeli equipment captured by Hamas
On January 12, the Palestinian Hamas Movement revealed new details about the failed Israeli Intelligence operation inside the Gaza Strip last November, which led to a military escalation in the region.

A spokesman of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades [the military wing of Hamas], Abu Obaida, said during a press briefing that 15 members of the Israeli military's "Sayeret Matkal" elite special operations unit participated in the operation, which was aimed at planting advanced signal intelligence systems inside Gaza in order to spy on Hamas communications.

According to Abu Ubaida, the Israeli unit trained for the operation from January to October of 2018. Furthermore, the two specially-modified vehicles, which were used in the operation, were smuggled into Gaza through a humanitarian crossing.

Comment:

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Bad Guys

'Project Fear': Globalist warnings should not be dismissed out of hand

Steven Guinness
stevenguinness2.wordpress.com
Thu, 10 Jan 2019 00:00 UTC
mind the gap sign
In film and literature, the majority of stories feature a customary villain, either in a singular or collective sense. Someone or something that we can pour scorn on as the hero flounders in the face of increasingly insurmountable odds.

Whilst the hero invariably wins out in the world of fantasy, in reality the spoils often fall on the side of the miscreants. A discomforting fact is that throughout history a large proportion of these spoils have been claimed through the use of deception and outright conspiracy.

Authors such as Antony Sutton - who penned several books exposing the engineered conflict behind the Bolshevik Revolution and the rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazism - have presented irrefutable evidence detailing how world events can and are manipulated for the benefit of financial elites using what is known as the Hegelian Dialectic. This is where you create a thesis, pitch it against an antithesis, and use the ensuing conflict to engineer a synthesis that brings about significant but desired changes within society.
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Bizarro Earth

The 'war on terror' has morphed into a globalist neo-liberal war on populism

C.J. Hopkins
The Unz Review
Thu, 10 Jan 2019 00:00 UTC
brainswahed
Remember when the War on Terror ended and the War on Populism began? That's OK, no one else does.

It happened in the Summer of 2016, also known as "the Summer of Fear." The War on Terror was going splendidly. There had been a series of "terrorist attacks," in Orlando, Nice, Würzberg, Munich, Reutlingen, Ansbach, and Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, each of them perpetrated by suddenly "self-radicalized" "lone wolf terrorists" (or "non-terrorist terrorists") who had absolutely no connection to any type of organized terrorist groups prior to suddenly "self- radicalizing" themselves by consuming "terrorist content" on the Internet. It seemed we were entering a new and even more terrifying phase of the Global War on Terror, a phase in which anyone could be a "terrorist" and "terrorism" could mean almost anything.

Comment: Populism - when it isn't skirting the edges of the extreme right-wing factions - seems to be one of the Wests' healthiest responses to what has clearly become an insane state of economic, political and cultural subjugation and oppression over the lives of many millions.

See also:

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Chess

Xi Jinping will give Donald Trump a victory on trade

Graham Allison
National Interest
Fri, 11 Jan 2019 23:17 UTC
yuan
© Reuters
With the conclusion of the first round of negotiations yesterday in Beijing, the way ahead for the United States and China to avoid a full-scale tariff war has become clear. With fifty days remaining before the March 1 end of the truce Trump and Xi announced to prevent U.S. tariffs increasing from 10 to 25 percent on $200 billion of Chinese imports, negotiations are likely to continue until the deadline. But before March 1, Trump will declare "victory" in this phase of the trade war-extending the truce for another six months in which a second phase of negotiations will address even more contentious issues.

My assessment is based on my analysis of the economic and political challenges that Trump and Xi are currently confronting. It is also informed by conversations with key members of Chinese president Xi Jinping's team during a recent visit to Beijing.

In watching Beijing, it's more instructive to think of it as a corporation than a government. Each December the CEO and his team set objectives for the year to come. Like the leadership of Apple or Amazon, they assess the "headwinds," including signs of slowdown in the Chinese economy, projections of flagging global economic growth, and uncertainties about the trade war. On that basis they make decisions about how they are going to deliver the growth they have promised shareholders-in China's case: 6.5 percent.
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Snakes in Suits

Macron blasted for saying many French want things "without proper effort"


RT
Sat, 12 Jan 2019 17:07 UTC
Macron efigy
© Reuters / Eric GaillardA puppet depicting French President Emmanuel Macron is tossed into the air by members of the "yellow vest" movement during a demonstration in Nice.
President Emmanuel Macron criticized the citizens of France for not making enough effort, as the Yellow Vest protests against his economic policies entered their ninth week. The statement was met with fury.

"Many of our citizens think that it's possible to obtain something without proper effort," he said on Friday. "Sometimes people forget that alongside rights there are also duties," Macron declared. He also repeated this idea in reference to "French youth."

The president's comments did not go over well with some politicians from both the left and right, who reacted with sarcasm and indignation.

"At first I thought it was fake as the president should not pour fuel to the fire but it is so in fact," Olivier Faure, one of the parliamentary leaders of the Socialist Party, tweeted.

Comment: Comments like these will likely only quicken Macron's departure. But, interestingly, he's describing his own rise to power: Also check out SOTT radio's:

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Bad Guys

France and Germany to merge economic and defense polices

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Sat, 12 Jan 2019 07:35 UTC
merkel macron
Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron
Germany and France are set to forge a pact aligning their defense, diplomatic and economic policies in an unprecedented "twinning" pact "regarded as a prototype for the future of the European Union," according to The Times' Oliver Moody.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron will sign the "Aachen treaty" later this month which will govern a coordinated diplomatic front as well as joint actions on peacekeeping missions.

What's more - areas on both sides of the Franco-German border will be encouraged to establish "Eurodistricts" in which both countries would merge water, electricity and public transport networks.

Comment: Merkel is on her way out and Macron shouldn't be too far behind. Is the backlash that's causing them such 'frustration' part of the reason they're so eager to implement their plans, while they still have a chance? How successful they'll be, however, will be up to the people of Europe.

See also: Also check out SOTT radio's: NewsReal: Yellow Vest Protests, Brexit Farce - Revolutionary Climate in Western Europe?

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Arrow Down

US could lose its crown as the world's most powerful economy as soon as next year, and it's unlikely to ever get it back

Will Martin
Business Insider
Thu, 10 Jan 2019 22:31 UTC
sad american
© Ian Walton/Getty Images
The United States of America could lose its position as the world's biggest economy as soon as next year - and once that happens, it is unlikely to regain the top spot as developing Asian economies power ahead.

According to research released this week by Standard Chartered Bank, China is likely to become the world's biggest economy at some point in 2020, when measured by a combination of purchasing-power-parity exchange rates and nominal gross domestic product.

Using PPP alone, China is already considered the world's largest economy, but on a nominal basis the US remains in the lead.

Not only is China likely to overtake the US in 2020, but by 2030 it will be joined by India, Standard Chartered said in its report, with annual GDP growth set to accelerate from about 6% now to almost 8% in the coming decade.
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