Category Oligarchs

Mar 24 2022

It’s Not Just Energy – It’s Also Metals


Armstrong Economics Blog/Base Metals Re-Posted Mar 24, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

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.

Mar 24 2022

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Dead


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on March 23, 2022 

Secretary Albright was a champion for the New World Order and worked as U.S. ambassador to the UN from 1993-1997 (President Bill Clinton).  She was then nominated and confirmed as the first female U.S. Secretary of State from 1997-2001.  She’s dead. Cancer.

(Albright – Details Here)

Mar 20 2022

Ukraine & 911


Armstrong Economics Blog/Politics Re-Posted Aug 7, 2019 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: I have the deepest and highest respect for your work and your sources.If it was not the CIA orchestrating the Ukraine events who could all the Billions Obama and Nuland spent there have been going to and being used for??Nuland stating USA behind regime change on camera. Chevron Oil sign indicative?

UD

ANSWER: The Ukraine Revolution and 911 have a common thread. In both cases, they were instigated by non-CIA type parties. Yanukovich himself inspired the revolution when he passed a bill in parliament with a quick show of hands by his communist loyal MPs contrary to the usual system of electronic voting.

Yanukovich outlawed unauthorized tents in public areas as well as erecting stages or amplifiers in public places. Those who violate the law now face a hefty fine or detention. In addition, he outlawed more than five vehicles in “Automaidan” motorcades which prompted people to display signs I am the 5th car – do not follow.

He then outlawed free speech making it a criminal act to slander any government official, including himself. The penalty was one year of hard labor in prison.

This is what caused the uprising. The Western powers could not have pulled that off. Then Yanukovich brought in Russians for his police from the East and that resulted in the Western Ukrainian police supporting the people.

The US THREATENED the people who were NOT satisfied over the politicians who then stepped up to seize power for they were still part of the same system who claimed to see the light. Without those punitive actions by Yanukovich, the people would not have risen up in such mass. The CIA was not capable of getting Yanukovich to act so irrationally.

In the case of 911, the first World Trade Center bombers drew the twin towers with planes flying into them on the wall of their cell in Manhattan’s MCC.

In both cases, the government did not instigate the events, but they stepped in a used them for political advantage. I really do not care what they may think they did, I was actually advising the people in Ukraine, not the government politicians.

Mar 18 2022

Ukraine Adopts WEF Proposals


Armstrong Economics Blog/War Re-Posted Mar 17, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

Zelensky has just signed into law the first steps of Schwab’s Great Reset. He announced he is introducing a Social Credit Application combining Universal Basic Income (UBI), a Digital Identity & a Vaccine Passport all within their Diia app. He also says that because so much money is coming into Ukraine as he has become an international celebrity, he has legalized cryptocurrencies in Ukraine. He will allow foreign and Ukrainian cryptocurrencies exchanges to operate legally, according to the country’s Ministry of Digital Transformation.

Mar 18 2022

While Americans Suffer Their Economy, Detached Pelosi Orders Catered Luncheon and Dancers for Her Entertainment


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on March 17, 2022

It is important for us to accept the reality of our current situation.  As millions of American citizens are suffering the economic damage from rising inflation, gas prices, and the working class are trying to figure out just how to make ends meet, it becomes critical to know how our political leadership is responding.

This video is an unfortunate representation of the state of our union.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi holds court, hosting a catered luncheon and calling for dancers to perform for her and the congressional delegation.  Please WATCH (10 mins):

https://youtube.com/watch?v=YyfaWs2mZbs%3Ffeature%3Doembed

The juxtaposition of images from outside Congress to the activity inside Congress speaks for itself.

You might want to bookmark the video above – in the event anyone asks you to explain your political position.

Mar 18 2022

New York Times Admits Hunter Biden Laptop Evidence Was Accurate, The Intelligence Community Was Lying


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on March 17, 2022 | Sundance

Apparently, the motive everyone inferred about Joe Biden to making those bizarre statements about compromising sexual material and blackmail was accurate. Less than 12 hours after his weird comments, yesterday the New York Times released a devastating article finally admitting that every previously denied allegation surrounding the Hunter Biden laptop was accurate.

For almost two years, the United States government, using resources from the Dept of Justice and FBI, have been trying desperately to bury the truth of Joe and Hunter Biden’s corrupt and illegal activities that relate to the country of Ukraine and the business company Burisma.  However, the reality of the information is so overwhelming even the DOJ cannot completely hide the problems.

The legal issues are massive, yet one of the key takeaways from the admission and revelations is even bigger than the scandal within the story.  All of those intelligence agencies, that said the Hunter Biden laptop was “Russian disinformation”, were purposefully and intentionally lying.  All of the current and former administration officials were also lying, and the entire institutional media complex was part of the lying construct.

All of their denials, false statements, malicious attacks against the people telling the truth, and all of the Big Tech censorship that was purposefully and intentionally deployed to keep the lies retained, was done in an effort to manufacture a protective shield for Joe Biden.  They didn’t get it wrong, they were not mistaken, they didn’t misreport or misstate the facts – they willfully and purposefully lied.

To the extent that any institutional credibility remained, all of that is now gone – as the house of cards collapses.  However, there is a more consequential aspect that needs to be emphasized.  When you accept that our government, all intelligence agencies and officials, and all of the collaboration with media and big tech was built on a foundation of manipulative lying, WHAT DOES THAT SAY ABOUT THE CURRENT NARRATIVE AROUND UKRAINE?

How can any intellectually honest person believe anything, yes ‘anything’, proffered by any media outlet about the situation in Ukraine, knowing how complicit this same media apparatus was in lying about Joe Biden, Hunter Biden and the same country of Ukraine?

The bloom is off the ruse.

(New York Times) – […]  Last year, prosecutors interviewed Mr. Archer and subpoenaed him for documents and grand jury testimony, the people said. Mr. Archer, who was sentenced last month in an unrelated securities fraud case in which a decision to set aside his conviction was reversed, had served with Mr. Biden on Burisma’s board, starting in 2014.

People familiar with the investigation said prosecutors had examined emails between Mr. Biden, Mr. Archer and others about Burisma and other foreign business activity. Those emails were obtained by The New York Times from a cache of files that appears to have come from a laptop abandoned by Mr. Biden in a Delaware repair shop. The email and others in the cache were authenticated by people familiar with them and with the investigation.

In some of the emails, Mr. Biden displayed a familiarity with FARA, and a desire to avoid triggering it.

In one email to Mr. Archer in April 2014, Mr. Biden outlined his vision for working with Burisma. In the email, Hunter Biden indicated that the forthcoming announcement of a trip to Ukraine by Vice President Biden — who is referred to in the email as “my guy,” but not by name — should “be characterized as part of our advice and thinking — but what he will say and do is out of our hands.”

The announcement “could be a really good thing or it could end up creating too great an expectation. We need to temper expectations regarding that visit,” Hunter Biden wrote.

Vice President Biden traveled to Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, about a week after the email.

In the same April 2014 email, Hunter Biden indicated that Burisma’s officials “need to know in no uncertain terms that we will not and cannot intervene directly with domestic policymakers, and that we need to abide by FARA and any other U.S. laws in the strictest sense across the board.”

He suggested enlisting the law firm where he worked at the time, Boies Schiller Flexner, to help Burisma through “direct discussions at state, energy and NSC,” referring to two cabinet departments and the National Security Council at the White House. (read more)

Joe Biden was selected in 2020 specifically because this compromising evidence existed against him.

In addition, to the benefit of his cognitive decline, those who run and manipulate the Fourth Branch of Government (the deep state per se’) knew that Joe Biden was compromised, and they would always have a way to control him in everything.

The modern control mechanisms for the Fourth Branch were constructed by Barack Obama and his fellow travelers when they took control of the White House in 2009. {Go Deep} This same group of political ideologues were the people who determined the outcome of the 2020 democrat primary.

Barack Obama and Eric Holder did not create a weaponized DOJ and FBI; the institutions were already weaponized by the Patriot Act. Instead, what Obama and Holder did was to take the preexisting system and retool it so the weapons of government only targeted one side of the political continuum. This point is where many people understandably get confused. (GO DEEP)

All of the policies, from the current installed administration, are specifically detrimental to our nation because the people who are pulling the strings to deliver the policy are using Biden as a disposable tool.  The people pulling the strings are the same people who installed Joe Biden.  The same people who installed Joe Biden are the people who constructed the modern Fourth Branch of Government.   This is Barack Obama’s long-lasting legacy.

The same people who manipulated the 2020 outcome are the same people who weaponized the COVID-19 crisis; they are the same people currently weaponizing the Ukraine crisis and demanding the United States get further involved in a war against Russia.

All of these individual crisis actions are within the boundaries they control.  Vaccine passports, digital identities, the elimination of the dollar as a reserve currency, the expansion of multinational corporations to control government, all of it is a created crisis opportunity to achieve the long-term goal of fundamental change.

It is all connected.

We have no national security interest at all in Ukraine.

Mar 17 2022

Americans Want Energy Independence


Armstrong Economics Blog/Energy Re-Posted Mar 17, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

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.

Mar 17 2022

The Scheme behind the Great Reset


Armstrong Economics Blog/Great Reset Re-Posted Mar 17, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

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.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=N_gD9-Oa0fg%3Ffeature%3Doembed%26wmode%3Dopaque

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.

Mar 17 2022

In the Modern Adaption of The Wizard of Oz…


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on March 16, 2022 | Sundance

… When this scene is remade in the 2022 version, the media munchkins will grab clubs, beat Toto to death, pull the curtain back closed and throw a parade for the Wicked Witch.

Dorothy then dies from a vaccine induced blood clot, the tin man is recycled by China, the cowardly lion becomes Senate majority leader, and the strawman is selected as the new U.S. President.

Mar 15 2022

We’ve just suffered through a global pandemic…


Posted originally by Tulsi Gabbard  Published March 15, 2022 on Rumble