Leading Czech politicians are calling for all property within the Czech Republic of all Russians to be indefinitely ‘frozen’ in violation of international law. The onus would be on the victims to “prove” that they are against the Putin regime. There are about 40,000 Russians living in the Czech Republic, plus others who have property or businesses there.
The EU is increasing being viewed as an evil, lawless, government. However, the Eastern European EU members are now even worse than the Western ones. They seem to go further violating international law trying to prove to the West that they are good little obedient vassals. Fischer is violating every principle of what the EU was supposed to stand for – human rights. The Czech Republic has clearly begun a new cycle which began with the COVID Crash.
The outrageous sanctions imposed by Biden on Russia has undermined the entire world economy. Sanctions have never worked and this time they were designed to try to hurt the Russian people so profoundly that they would overthrow Putin. The Ukrainians are even naming Alexander Bortnikov, the Russian Director of the Federal Security Service and a member of Putin’s inner circle, as a successor to the president. Bortnikov has come out and said that Stalin’s Great Purge was necessary whereas Putin rejected Lenin. Be careful what you wish for, as they say.
Stickers are showing up plastered all over gasoline pumps throughout the USA despite Biden trying to blame Putin for his the disruption to the world economy. The US had no national security issue at risk with either Crimea nor DonBass. The Neocons just hate Putin and have used Ukraine as a proxy war toy to get at Putin. Even in Poland the government is pushing for war. Europe desperately needs war for 8.6 years of NEGATIVE interest rates has wiped out pension funds. NY banks will no longer lend against European sovereign debt. They cannot fund the governments any longer and the central bank cannot buy their debt endlessly. The only solution that they see is to default under the pretense of the Great Reset so they NEED war as the diversion with a new Bretton Woods.
But Biden’s sanctions have gone far beyond just energy. Nickel is a vital for it is the largest component in stainless steel production. Alloy steel is also called special steel. Nickel can increase the strength of the alloy and maintain its good plasticity and toughness. Then nickel is also used in the field of batteries, mainly nickel-hydrogen batteries, chromium-nickel batteries, and nickel-manganese batteries. Lastly, very fine nickel powder is often used as a catalyst in the chemical industry. Hence, nickel is vital and it goes beyond just the coins in your pocket which at these prices will be worth more in metal content soon enough.
Yet these sanctions that Biden swore would target only Russia, have disrupted the entire world and not just energy. Tsingshan Holding Group is a major producer of Nickel and it sold hedging position forward to secure its production. But prices doubled thanks to Biden and Tsingshan tried to buy back its hedging positions and that has set off a collapse of the Nickel market in London. Nickel was already breaking out thanks to COVID restrictions. Then the Biden Russian sanctions were insane and you can see the drastic price rally as Tsingshan tried to buy back its hedge.
Nickel prices began to soar after Biden’s sanction on Russia. The rally became a crisis for the LME as producers such as Tsingshan’s brokers desperately tried to buy those nickel contracts back causing a near 70% rise in a single session to stem losses and avoid escalating margin calls. The trading became erradic as brokers kept trying to cover short hedged positions. Hedge funds and other participants were frantically buying nickel, which only propelled the market even higher. Nickel prices had more than doubled reaching more than $100,000 a metric ton.
The LME was sent into crisis. Several smaller brokers were saying they would default at the 9 a.m. margin call if prices stayed at those levels. The LME was forced to suspend the market shortly after 8 a.m. local time or suffer a catastropiuc collapse of the exchange. The brokers could not meet the expected margin calls. Thus, the LME adopted the drastic step of canceling trades that took place before the suspension. They is said to have wiped out $3.9 billion in transactions. Of course, the hedge funds were furious for they were looking a huge unrealized profits. Because of the sudden price shock, the LME had no choice but to suspend trading in hopes that the brokers would collect the funds from their clients. However, the decision to wipe out trades that took place in a free market in good faith is really unprecedented and has shaken the confidence in free markets.
It may be true that the suspension and the canceled trades to settle the catastrophic damage to the free markets created by the Biden sanctions has prevented a near-term collapse of the LME. However, failing to do so may have brought down the entire exchange ending the market where producers can hedge forward.
Tsingshan still owes its brokers, which included JPMorgan, Standard Chartered and BNP as well as a unit of state-owned China Construction Bank Corp. The demand for cash to settle margin calls for a hedger who has sold future production presents a serious crisis. There are serious questions being raised if the price seen in this spike truly reflects the shortage in the supply or just an aberition created by a short-term panic.
Ironically, it was the great expanse of China’s economy which drove Nickel to $54200 a metric ton back in 2007. Nevertheless, where our computer has been bullish on Nickel and it elected even the third Quarterly Bullish Reversal at the end of the 3rd quarter 2021. There was no way the market was heading lower. Clearly, those in charge of hedging were calling the shots from an opinion perspective – not quantitative. For early 2021, Tsingshan began to accumulate a short position. It made statements on its website reflecting its view that the Nickel market was flush and prices should decline. Tsingshan’s short hedge position was equivalent to having sold about 190,000 metric tons on the LME. That would be worth $9.1 billion based on closing prices.
The forecasting view of Tsingshan regarding Nickel is just unfounded. Our model showed that we would start to see a rise in 2022 in price volatility but this is continuing into 2024. The price high may not arrive until 2023 and we may be looking at a new record. This is just another domino in the future of the world economy that just fell over. These Biden Sanctions are not going to be reversed and the pride of politicians is now threatening the entire world economy.
You have not made any comment about the LME Nickel market. In my opinion, this is onether chip of the domino falling which comes to confirm that the collapse of the West is in motion. The loss at Tsingshan is said to be about $8 billion. I have been called in to similar crisis where major corporations have lost billions due to improper hedging. This amount is staggering and clearly reflects that the firm has totally incompetent people in charge of hedging who may be listening to bankers and fundamentals rather than the markets.
Posted Originally on the conservative tree house on March 23, 2022
It’s a smart move by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Facing financial sanctions and economic pressures from the U.S, NATO, EU and western allies, Putin stated today that all oil and gas payments must be made in Russian rubles.
The EU has few options as they are reliant upon Russia for energy products oil and gas. If Putin organizes payment in rubles, his currency will automatically increase. This sets the stage for other less hostile countries like the BRICS alliance to assist Putin ideologically and financially by transacting in rubles through the Russian central bank.
(Oil and Gas) – […] Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Russia would start charging the countries it considers “hostile” in rubles for its natural gas.
“I have taken a decision to switch to ruble payments for our natural gas supplies to the so-called hostile states, stop using the compromised currencies in such transactions,” Putin said, per a transcript published on the Kremlin website as carried by Bloomberg.
The Russian President—whose list of “hostile” states includes the United States, all EU member states, Switzerland, Canada, Norway, South Korea, Japan, and many others – has ordered the Bank of Russia, the central bank, to develop a system for payments in rubles within a week.
“At the same time, I want to emphasize that Russia will definitely continue to supply natural gas in line with the volumes and prices, pricing mechanisms set forth in the existing contracts,” Putin said at a government meeting today.
It makes no sense for Russia to export goods to the EU or the United States in U.S. dollars or euros, Putin added. (more)
It will be interesting to see how quickly they can get this up and running.
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on March 22, 2022
The 40-year deindustrialization of America, and the subsequent destruction of jobs and the U.S. middle class, did not happen accidentally. It happened as an intentional outcome of selfish multinational business interests chasing profit, combined with the willingness of congress to accept bribes -via lobbying payments- in order to facilitative corporate greed.
The only disruption in the collective economic manipulation was the forced intermission by the American middle class when Donald J. Trump was elected.
President Trump’s tariffs, countervailing duties and protectionist policies against transnational dumping of steel and aluminum into the U.S. marketplace, was a major impediment to the corporate agenda, and it quickly resulted in the biggest economic resurgence in U.S. history.
As a result, people started demanding Congress take a new approach toward Chinese transnational shipping schemes as Beijing attempted to manipulate markets and avoid the Trump-era policies. A few in Congress assembled legislation that would prevent companies from evading tariffs by rerouting their products through another country (i.e. transnational shipping). That legislation has triggered the multinational business groups who are now lobbying congress to remove it.
The business groups opposed to the anti-dumping legislation are the same familiar voices who decry tariffs. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Retail Federation and the usual list of lobbying interests are all lining up once again to demand the U.S. remains a ‘service driven economy’, so they can continue their business models and exploit the U.S. market while profiting from cheap imported goods.
WASHINGTON DC – A coalition of business groups on Tuesday urged lawmakers to strip a bipartisan trade measure out of a China competitiveness bill before it goes to President Biden’s desk.
In a letter to congressional leaders, retail, trade and manufacturing groups announced their opposition to the Eliminating Global Market Distortions to Protect American Jobs Act, a measure to combat unfair trade practices included in the House-passed China bill.
The legislation would overhaul anti-dumping and countervailing duty laws to prevent companies from evading tariffs by rerouting their products through another country. American steelmakers have long complained that Chinese steelmakers use this tactic to dodge duties they’d otherwise be forced to pay.
The business groups on Tuesday warned that the proposal would lead to increased tariffs on an array of products from U.S. allies such as Canadian lumber, Italian pasta and Japanese aluminum. They argued that the bill would “penalize legitimate trade and contribute to the inflationary pressures on American businesses” (read more)
Ah yes, we see again, the oft surfaced defense of the ‘it will cost consumers more‘ argument. I wonder if anyone still believes their nonsense?
COMMENT #1: Well, at least I got the decline accelerating in the Ruble correct and thanks to your models knew the war and commodity cycles were turning up. Getting the fundamentals correct ahead of time is a work in progress and definitely not easy.
But while watching the Ruble crashing into weakness going into the ECM, one could not reverse position and go long the RUB. Heck, nobody could even open new positions and definitely not buy the RUB. All that was allowed was closing already existing positions. And now the RUB was even removed from the trading platform altogether.
So my original trading strategy of shorting and then going long RUB got cut short and max profits throw out the window. So much for free markets.
EM
COMMENT #2: Marty you have proven your model and computer is the key to running governments for the future living with the cycle. It is easy to see why the CIA wanted your model pinpointing Ukraine almost 10 years in advance as the key spot for war. It is also interesting how others prefer not to ever mention you for your work is not opinion like everyone else. I really hope you succeed in securing Socrates for the world long-term. We all can learn so much.
All the best from Poland
and thanks for the conference that you did here in Warsaw
VA
REPLY: The free markets are not so free. During the Civil War, even President Lincoln went after trading gold and argued those people were making money off of every battle. The EU wanted to take trading the Euro away from London because of BREXIT. The people running these governments will NEVER honor the free markets when they go against them.
Yes, it was very nice to meet everyone in Warsaw. I had not been there before. I am doing my best to make sure Socrates continues beyond my shelf life. The problem is that the world is run by the seat of its pants and it is always based upon bias, prejudice, and power-plays driven by ego. I think some people just need to have an enemy and no matter what changes, they ignore that to keep the hatred ongoing.
There are people who still call China Communist even though there is private ownership which is the opposite of communism. They will continue to hate China no matter what and that in turn only invokes a response to counter that trend. Biases like that prevent us from ever moving forward and society is at times like a scratched record playing the same track over and over again.
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on March 18, 2022 | Sundance
A report in the AP shows the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) trade alliance seems to remain strong despite western sanctions. India admitted to purchasing 3 million barrels of Russian oil at a 20% discount rate this week.
There’s no mention of how the purchase will be transacted, what currency they would use; however, the top-line story of India refusing to follow western trade sanctions reflects the BRICS alliance is delivering economic results.
[Via AP] – […] NEW DELHI — The state-run Indian Oil Corp. bought 3 million barrels of crude oil from Russia earlier this week to secure its energy needs, resisting Western pressure to avoid such purchases, an Indian government official said Friday.
The official said India has not imposed sanctions against buying oil and will be looking to purchase more from Russia despite calls not to from the U.S. and other countries.
The United States, Britain and other western countries are urging India to avoid buying Russian oil and gas. Indian media reports said Russia was offering a discount on oil purchases of 20% below global benchmark prices.
Such prices have surged in recent weeks, posing a huge burden for countries like India, which imports 85% of the oil it consumes. Its demand is projected to jump 8.2% this year to 5.15 million barrels per day as the economy recovers from the devastation caused by the pandemic. (read more)
(L-R) Chairman Xi Jinping (China), Vladimir Putin (Russia), Jair Bolsonaro (Brazil), Narendra Modi (India) and Cyril Ramaphosa (South Africa), the BRICS group.
While in Britain Johnson was pushing for a law that allows the government to confiscate private assets of those who resist the government under the pretense of Russian Sanctions, the EU Superfund is robbing people pensions for (1) climate, (2) energy, and (3) defense which is to be funded by private pensions. This move is being defended as necessary to protect politicians against the rise of populism (anti-career politicians), deepening the commitment to slowing climate change, and now defending its borders as the US security umbrella recedes.
The EU will launch a bold $3 trillion Superfund to be funded by pension allocations rather than new taxes. So they will rob the future of people, especially over 40 who have been working all their lives for political objectives to save the careers of politicians. They argue that the security umbrella provided by the US during the Cold War is declining rapidly and this introduces new threats as they continue to agitate Russia and constantly push NATO eastward. The argument is that the US will be more concerned with China than Russia. That does not seem to be the case given all the rhetoric concerning Ukraine, but it is a handy excuse to rob the pensions in the face of a collapsing bond market.
The AUKUS submarine deal brought France’s attempt to sell new submarines to Australia in confrontation with the US. This has been argued that the US became very cold toward Western Europe. In the face of Ukraine, the EU knows it needs to move rapidly on all fronts to bolster its defenses.
French President Macron, backed by Italian Prime Minister Draghi who created the negative interest rates nightmare, argued to move swiftly to defend against Italy’s own rise of populism. Hence, they argue to push this “EU Superfund” will address all of these three-fold priorities that are urgent. The European civil unrest is rising in the fact of total fiscal mismanagement.
It appears that the politicians WANT war with Russia as a diversion. They desperately need an excuse in the face of a crumbling monetary system where especially the EU is in trouble unable to sell bonds to fund itself or the future. The solution is to rob the pension funds and that will eliminate the need to issue bonds to cover expenses. That move will only undermine the confidence in the EU and result in further civil unrest. The negative interest rates have robbed savers of income since 2014.
The EU is struggling with declining birth rates and an aging population that is enduring already very heavy tax burdens. They cannot throw the cost of climate change and defense on top of the current levels of taxation without a popular uprising to overthrow the present governments. They cannot possibly finance the Superfund with higher taxes even on the claimed higher incomes. They have threatened tax havens and hunted the rich worldwide. They are now using Ukraine as the excuse to confiscate private Russian assets that will NEVER be returned.
France is moving to overhaul its pension system and is looking at Europe’s enormous pensions as the source of revenue. The scheme is that all pensions for all workers above the age of 40 must allocate a progressively larger portion of their pension assets into Superfund bonds as they age. This is how they will create new levels of fiscal stimulus in the EU when negative interest rates have failed. The pensions will now be replacing Quantitative Easing as the entire system is collapsing. With rising inflation thanks to the mismanagement of COVID and now promoting a much-needed war against Russia the hope to keep just conventional, this level of spending everyone else’ savings they hope will replace the impossibility of selling negative interest rate bonds that NY banks now view as junk.
Welcome to the collapse of Keynesian Economics. As I have been warning – the European Central Banks is trapped and QE no longer works.
Americans want President Biden to “green light the restart of the building of the Keystone XL pipeline that would transport oil from Canada’s oil sands region through the Midwest to refineries in Texas.” Maru Public Opinion for Postmedia noted in a poll that 71% of Americans support the idea. Around 39% state they favor the idea very much, while another 32% reported somewhat favoring the idea. Around 16% somewhat oppose the idea, and 13% remain very opposed. “It would appear that the public, given the current circumstance, has decided that this is a bipartisan solution to what is now an unprecedented circumstance,” John Wright, Maru Public Opinion’s executive vice-president, stated.
If Joe Biden didn’t kill the project the moment he took office, it would be ready for operation in Q1 of 2023. Experts say it would now take much longer to complete the pipeline amid supply shortages. Last week, Democrats blocked a motion put forward by Republicans called the American Energy Independence from Russia Act to once again prevent America from becoming energy independent.
“This week our president — our American president — asked Venezuela and Saudi Arabia to increase oil production, asked them to boost their output so that American consumers wouldn’t see a spike in gas prices,” Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) said. “Surely, [Biden] knows we can also boost domestic production right here at home. Surely he knows that domestic production supports American jobs, and surely he knows that domestic production is cleaner, by far, than foreign production.”
That’s right — Biden turned to hostile dictators for help instead of tapping into the numerous options he has available at home. His policies are disingenuous and do not represent the wishes of the people who allegedly elected him.
The US Senate unanimously voted for the Sunshine Protection Act to maintain daylight saving time. Finally, lawmakers realize policies implemented decades ago are no longer serving us. The tradition of changing the clocks back and forth began in 1918 in a failed attempt to conserve energy by limiting daylight hours.
This is welcome news to everyone who had to wake up in the dark cold only to go home in the same conditions without ever seeing the sun. Perhaps this law should have been passed amid the pandemic when doctors urged people to maintain healthy, active lives and stressed the importance of vitamin D.
“One has to ask themselves after a while: Why do we keep doing it?” Senator Marco Rubio said, adding, “The majority of the American people’s preference is just to stop the back-and-forth changing.” It is refreshing to hear a person in a position of power finally questioning our antiquated laws that serve no one. If the bill finds its way to Biden’s desk, the new law will go into effect in November 2023. Let’s hope more antiquated laws arrive on the Senate floor.
As the press covered Zelnensky’s professional speech carried out by his acting training, he continued to try to pull on the heartstrings of the American people to further the hatred of Putin and to wage World War III. He knows what he is asking for and he is not stupid. Zelensky said on March 16 that World War III may have already started amid the Russia–Ukraine conflict. He is desperately trying to create World War III. This will end up nuclear and he is no hero, and the press had better start doing some real investigative work before it is too late.
The National Hero of Ukraine in Zelensky’s mind is Stephan Bandera who was a Ukrainian Nazi in whose name they massacred hundreds of Jews, Poles, and Russians with the same philosophy of ethnic purity. The Ukrainian Nazis were protected by the CIA and the Neocons BECAUSE they also hated Russians. The German Nazis were put on trial but the US covered up the Ukrainian Nazis because they hated Russians and that warranted their partnership.
Bandera’s monument stands in Ukraine not as a Nazi war criminal, but as a national hero. The Jews who hunted down Nazis who fled never knew the full story about the Ukrainian Nazis who the US protected.
The money that was behind Zelensky for his career came from an oligarch linked to George Soros who did what he could to make sure Zelensky knows that his repeated call for the U.S. to enforce a no-fly zone over Ukraine will not spare his country – it will result in its total destruction. That will be an all-out war between the United States and Russia which will drag in China and North Korea as well as in the Balkans from Serbia and Belarus just for starters. Iran will love to join the party against the West and you can bet that will result in bombs falling on Israel.
Even the latest James Bond movie was about bioweapons that can target an individual or a specific ethnicity. This is why Macron refused to take a COVID test in Russia because that would give them his DNA. The Biolabs the US has been running on the border of Russia in Ukraine and China are alleged to be engaged in creating such bioweapons. The US denies that but they also refuse to allow international observers to inspect these facilities – 130 in total.
George Soros in fact acknowledged in an interview with CNN that he actively contributed to the overthrow of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014. He said:
“I created a foundation in Ukraine before it became independent from Russia. The foundation has functioned since then and has played an important role in current events,”
Soros supported Volodymyr Zelenskyy for President and his friend secretly financed Zelensky – the Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoisky. It was Kolomisky whose name surfaced in the Pandora Papers investigation, which was uncovered tracing money laundering by more than 600 journalists. The worldwide probe by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), included work by journalists from the Ukrainian as well. They connected the financial dealings of Zelensky’s television production company Studio Kvartal 95 to the Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoisky. Today, Kolomoisky is a person of interest in investigations in Ukraine, Britain, and the United States. However, now that Zelensky is being portrayed as a hero standing against Putin, now of this will see the light of day.
Now we have Soros out in force claiming that China in league with Russia will “destroy our civilization” when it fact Zelensky is the puppet pushing desperately for World War III so the Neocons can wage war against China and Russia and they think they will get to then usher in the Great Reset and restart the world monetary system all over again with the United Nations as the one-world governing body.
So while everyone cheers Zelensky, they have no idea what cost there will be is getting involved in Ukraine. Zelensky could have easily saved his country by just ending the idea of joining NATO, allowing the two provinces to vote on the separation as was in the Minsk Agreement of 2014, and end all claims to Crimea which was historically Russian territory that was simply assigned to Ukraine for governorship under the Soviet Union. Ukraine was never its own country before the Soviet Union.
This is all being well played and they are desperate for the people to plead for war and that will be the crowning glory for the Great Reset – a completely new world order.
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This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America
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