Direct Participants,
Tessa (Fights Robots) Lena, The primary goals of the internet have always been surveillance and control. Today, it is merely following its original design.
Story at a glance:
Amid attacks on the First Amendment, Missouri v. Biden could be one of the most important civil rights lawsuits of our times
While today’s obnoxious surveillance and censorship are new, they are a feature of the Internet, not a bug
Internet (originally ARPANET) was born out of a Pentagon surveillance and counterinsurgency project
It was implemented by ARPA, a DoD research agency that we know as DARPA
Amid attacks on the First Amendment, Missouri v. Biden could be one of the most important civil rights lawsuits of our times
While today’s obnoxious surveillance and censorship are new, they are a feature of the Internet, not a bug
Internet (originally ARPANET) was born out of a Pentagon surveillance and counterinsurgency project
It was implemented by ARPA, a DoD research agency that we know as DARPA
Now, let’s go down the rabbit hole. To me, it’s funny and not funny to think about the interwoven Russian doll of state and corporate mob-like control — even under the best of political conditions — and certainly under the conditions we face today. You peel one layer of domination — and instead of the true freedom you were craving, you find another.
You painstakingly peel the next one, hoping for freedom this time, but then you discover yet another layer of domination, under a different logo. It’s like when the Soviet Union finally crashed when I was a kid, and — on its ruins — the children of the communist leaders became the oligarchic leaders of the land.
And so, in our good hearts, we hope that state authorities will protect us from excessive corporate greed, and we hope that free market will protect us from the state boot — but then we look closely, and we realize that we were born into a world run by a collection of mobs — state and corporate mobs of different kinds — and that we are very lucky citizens when we are not in the crossfires of mob wars and can go about our daily lives without being stomped.To me, this realistic observation was a moment of great humility and existential clarity. This is how this world is right now...
..The Internet came out of a 1960s Pentagon project called ARPANET. ARPANET was a counterinsurgency, communications, and surveillance project developed by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) and based on the idea of “Great Intergalactic Network,” a futuristic-sounding term coined by J. C. R. Licklider, nicknamed “Lick.” Lick was an American psychologist and computer scientist and one of the “founding fathers” of interactive computing.
We all know ARPA as DARPA, the creepy DoD agency behind the Operation Warp Speed. ARPA was originally formed in response to the shock of being “beaten” by the USSR in space after the USSR launched its Sputnik in 1957.Thanks Luc, but will they look at what happened at Ft. Detrick Md. in the summer of 2019? Probably not that.
Mediated By China Iran And Saudi Arabia Restore Ties - There Are Winners And Losers
Congrats to China for nudging this deal forward and making it possible.
The winners are:
Iran, which will now be even more able to break through the sanctions wall the U.S. has put up around it.
Saudi Arabia, which now will likely be able to end its disastrous and costly war on Yemen.
China, for outplaying the U.S. State Department by achieving this.
Iraq, Syria, Yemen as they will become more peaceful as the two middle powers influencing policies on their grounds end their rivalry.
The losers are:
Israel, because the chances for its attempts to get the U.S. into a war with Iran are now diminished. Its hoped for coalition with the Saudis will not come into being.
The U.S. for having been outplayed on its traditional 'home grounds' in the Middle East.
Anti-Iran hawks everywhere.
The Emirates for losing at least some of the sanction busting trade with Iran to Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia, which now will likely be able to end its disastrous and costly war on Yemen.
China, for outplaying the U.S. State Department by achieving this.
Iraq, Syria, Yemen as they will become more peaceful as the two middle powers influencing policies on their grounds end their rivalry.
The losers are:
Israel, because the chances for its attempts to get the U.S. into a war with Iran are now diminished. Its hoped for coalition with the Saudis will not come into being.
The U.S. for having been outplayed on its traditional 'home grounds' in the Middle East.
Anti-Iran hawks everywhere.
The Emirates for losing at least some of the sanction busting trade with Iran to Saudi Arabia.
More about India's pivot in global trade and finance, from Tom Luongo, looking at George Soros attacking Narendra Modi for not playing the game. Thanks Eleni.
India: The Next Front in the War on the BRICS This brings me back to India as the wildcard. Modi’s journey from a guy with one foot on two islands (East v. West) to planting his feet firmly with the East has been an interesting and vital one.
If we’ve learned nothing else over the past year of war in Ukraine it is that most of the world is unphased by threats by the US by the countries I’ve just discussed. Iran clearly doesn’t care. China understands that if Russia falls militarily, China is next. Saudi Arabia and the rest of OPEC+ understand who their future trade partners really are.
This is why India is now in the crosshairs of Davos. They are the last major power in the region left to stymie Asian integration.
Reports circulated the same weekend as the Munich Security Conference that none other than George Soros was behind the attacks on PM Modi through a report from Hindenberg Research. They targeted one of Modi’s big financial supporters, Guatam Adani.
If we’ve learned nothing else over the past year of war in Ukraine it is that most of the world is unphased by threats by the US by the countries I’ve just discussed. Iran clearly doesn’t care. China understands that if Russia falls militarily, China is next. Saudi Arabia and the rest of OPEC+ understand who their future trade partners really are.
This is why India is now in the crosshairs of Davos. They are the last major power in the region left to stymie Asian integration.
Reports circulated the same weekend as the Munich Security Conference that none other than George Soros was behind the attacks on PM Modi through a report from Hindenberg Research. They targeted one of Modi’s big financial supporters, Guatam Adani.
The War for the Dollar is Over, Part 2 , Tom Luongo
More than a decade ago I looked at the responses to President Obama cutting Iran out of the SWIFT system as the beginning of the end of the petrodollar system. The goal was to take Iran out of the global oil markets by shutting Iran out from the dominant dollar payment system.
Out of necessity Iran opened up trade with its major export partners, most notably India, in something other than dollars. India and Iran started up a ‘goods for oil’ trade, or as Bloomberg called it at the time, “Junk for Oil.”
The stick of sanctions created a new market for pricing Iranian oil and a way around the monopoly of US dollar oil trading. India, struggling with massive current account deficits because of their high energy import bill, welcomed the trade as a way to lessen the pressure on the rupee.
Iran needed goods. They worked out some barter trade and the first shallow cuts into the petrodollar system were made.
Turkey eventually joined the fray, seeing the opportunity to act as a middle man by accepting gold into its banks from Iran’s customers and settling up with Iran in dollars or whatever...
..Every time the US went to the sanctions well to coerce conformity, the more “star systems slipped through its fingers,” to quote Princess Leia. While we joke today about never ‘going full retard,’ this is just another way of saying that you should never threaten to nuke someone either.Out of necessity Iran opened up trade with its major export partners, most notably India, in something other than dollars. India and Iran started up a ‘goods for oil’ trade, or as Bloomberg called it at the time, “Junk for Oil.”
The stick of sanctions created a new market for pricing Iranian oil and a way around the monopoly of US dollar oil trading. India, struggling with massive current account deficits because of their high energy import bill, welcomed the trade as a way to lessen the pressure on the rupee.
Iran needed goods. They worked out some barter trade and the first shallow cuts into the petrodollar system were made.
Turkey eventually joined the fray, seeing the opportunity to act as a middle man by accepting gold into its banks from Iran’s customers and settling up with Iran in dollars or whatever...
Trump went sanctions nuclear on Iran in 2018. He failed.
“Biden” and Davos went nuclear on Russia in 2022, going further than even Trump. And they failed even harder...
..Powell can see the de-dollarization writing on the wall and he knows now is the time to slow down that trend and find a way to make the dollar more trustworthy..
..But ‘the help’ are no longer helpless in the face of a big bully US dollar. They have a plan and they are executing it. That plan clearly involves the return of gold as the asset to balance the trade books to rebuild global trust
Andrew Korybko has a follow-up article on India's diversification away from the $US in trade, particularly energy trades. Energy intermediation , refining and repackaging have been a growth industry for India in the last year. India's methods are readily applicable to other "developing countries".
Record Bank Run Drained A Quarter, Or $42BN, Of SVB's Deposits In Hours, Leaving It With Negative $1BN In Cash
Despite the bank being in sound financial condition prior to March 9, 2023, "investors and depositors reacted by initiating withdrawals of $42 billion in deposits from the Bank on March 9, 2023, causing a run on the Bank."
As a result of this furious drain, as of the close of business on Thursday, March 9, "the bank had a negative cash balance of approximately $958 million." https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/record-bank-run-drained-quarter-or-42-billion-svbs-deposits-hours-leaving-it-negative-1bn
Despite the bank being in sound financial condition prior to March 9, 2023, "investors and depositors reacted by initiating withdrawals of $42 billion in deposits from the Bank on March 9, 2023, causing a run on the Bank."
As a result of this furious drain, as of the close of business on Thursday, March 9, "the bank had a negative cash balance of approximately $958 million." https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/record-bank-run-drained-quarter-or-42-billion-svbs-deposits-hours-leaving-it-negative-1bn
"Worst Since Lehman": Banks Break The World Again
SVB's collapse - the second biggest US bank failure in history - dominated any reaction to this morning's mixed bag from the BLS (hotter than expected earnings growth, rising unemployment (especially for Latinos), better than expected payrolls gains).
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/worst-lehman-banks-break-world-again
Charles Hugh Smith has this about the Silicon Valley Bank bankruptcy.
Now Silicon Valley Bank has collapsed, at least in part due to doomed tech start-ups withdrawing their remaining cash to fund their last-ditch survival as the entire start-up space faces an "extinction event," as future funding from SPACs, venture capital firms and banks dries up.
A Silicon Valley insider called me yesterday to report that the failure of SVB was very likely to trigger a severe stock market downturn, as this indicated a decline in both Financials and Tech, the two sectors that have led every Bull Market since the 1980s (and arguably, since the 1960s).
The consensus among financial analysts holds that the Federal Reserve will quickly reverse course and drop interest rates and restart monetary stimulus (QE). I have argued that the assumption that the Fed will once again "save the stock market" is a misreading of the situation, which is now entirely different from 2000 and 2008-09.
I explained my rationale in What If the Whole Point Is to End "The Fed Put"?
A Silicon Valley insider called me yesterday to report that the failure of SVB was very likely to trigger a severe stock market downturn, as this indicated a decline in both Financials and Tech, the two sectors that have led every Bull Market since the 1980s (and arguably, since the 1960s).
The consensus among financial analysts holds that the Federal Reserve will quickly reverse course and drop interest rates and restart monetary stimulus (QE). I have argued that the assumption that the Fed will once again "save the stock market" is a misreading of the situation, which is now entirely different from 2000 and 2008-09.
I explained my rationale in What If the Whole Point Is to End "The Fed Put"?
http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2023/03/what-if-whole-point-is-to-end-fed-put.html
In essence, the Fed must refuse to "save the stock market" to eliminate a very destructive moral hazard, i.e. stock market gamblers have been rewarded for taking hugely risky bets because they have been assured the Fed will always rescue the markets.
In essence, the Fed must refuse to "save the stock market" to eliminate a very destructive moral hazard, i.e. stock market gamblers have been rewarded for taking hugely risky bets because they have been assured the Fed will always rescue the markets.
Pepe Escobar has a piece about what a hypothetical "newcoin" for international trade would look like functionally, and what the constraints would be.
"The new currency should be able to become an “external money” storage of capital and reserves down the road, not just a settlement unit." This would be a trade currency only between participating nations, 40% backed by gold, which countries would purchase initially with their own unencumbered physical gold reserves, after allowing their own national currencies to establish a trading equilibrium with gold.
Following that, the "newcoin" would be backed 40% by gold and 60% by a basket of the national currencies of the participating countries, allowing those countries flexibility with their creation of currency, but having the leash that their currency would decline against the "newcoin". There could also be further draws upon their national gold reserves in some scenarios
This would apply gold-discipline to the trade and fiscal policies of participating countries. It would effectively be a more sophisticated and flexible gold standard, but with firm limits. The statement above implies a fixed value, that this would be a gold-like store of value, not merely a currency for transactional settlements.
Escobar did not likely make this up. He is being given very good information, without attributing it to his sources.
There is a picture of Putin and Xi. They are presumably going to discuss peace talks in Ukraine next week, when they meet in Moscow.
Will they have good news about peace? Ukraine is integral to belt-and-road trade logistics.
Will they have "newcoin" news?
Meryl Nass MD cross posts this from David Bell, What the WHO Is Actually Proposing
Briefly, there are 2 parts, a treaty "update" and new legislation for national funding of the WHO program. Both are compulsory, not voluntary, and there is no mechanism for democratic checks and balances at any level, merely compulsory compliance with technocratic decisions, expressed as mandates, which have very broad flexibility for the head technocrat. This is technocratic tyranny.
There is a percent-adoption barrier at the UN/WHO, which must be met for these to be adopted. If not specifically rejected in 6 months by a country, then it is presumed to have accepted the treaty change, and will be expected to comply financially, and when prescribed any action, such as lockdown.
Restrictions on free-speech opposition to mandates are specified as a condition which is expected at baseline in any participating countries.
Preparing Your Kitchen Garden is a 21 minute video presentation by myself, provided last week to Children's Health Defense,
as part of their Attack on Food Symposium. Food Security begins at home.
There are links to blog posts containing all of the information discussed.
https://live.childrenshealthdefense.org/chd-tv/events/the-attack-on-food-symposium/attack-on-food-john/
The flexible succession-rotation gardening plans are here:
Independent Gardener (took this picture of Jenny with growing vegetables)
Thank you. Thank you. I very much appreciate what you are doing.
ReplyDeleteYou are most welcome I hope to be useful to people.
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