Seeking Peace,
What may be the mechanisms through which global real-economy declines sharply in 2026, should we accept the projections which opened my last 2 blog posts?
The underlying cause is the increasing real costs to provide oil, gas, coal and mineral ores, and to refine them to the inputs needed for industry, but that is not what things usually look like. November 2019 peak oil + condensates looked like the 2019 Repo-crisis, then $US trillions in bailouts during COVID lockdowns, for instance.
When this year was still wet-behind-the-ears, on January 3, I posted BOE Still Needs World War Three, which hearkened back to work of Alex Krainer's, which I had previously cited. The situation does not seem different. "Peace" in Ukraine will formalize losses of the Bank of England, other investment pools like BlackRock, and European finance, in general.
I assert that banking is a resource-extraction mechanism forglobal economy, and that military force breaks knees to keep nations and other entities paying into the Western financial control and extraction machinery.
Russia, China, Venezeula, Iran, Cuba, Brazil, and even Turkey do not need World War-3.
The US can get by better without actual war, which would grind up its threatening military machine. The US is going through a periodic economic crisis, as Russia did in the 1990s, and China did during the Cultural Revolution. The US has a lot of natural resources per capita, and in absolute terms, second only to Russia.
The US does need to rebuild and restructure, and is already arranging for Europe and the UK to face the initial crisis. There is elite power-struggle now within western elite factions. The faction that tried to assassinate Donald Trump in July 2024 was forced to make relative peace with the faction he fronts for, which is currently nationalist, militarist, Zionist, extractive-industrialist and technocratic-elites, and which includes Jerome Powell at the Fed, Scott Bessent at Treasury and other monetary-warriors.
The "craziness" of current news may be due to the fact that underlying real-economy dynamics and elite-faction power struggles must not be revealed. These must be couched as culture-war, left against right, and racial conflicts. This casting is useful to keep citizens of any country divided against each other, so as to be controlled by elites. It is not credible, so people who seek reason, rather than group loyalty, notice that control-narratives are increasingly irrational and divisive. The CIA is particularly adept at running these "color-revolution" plays. Color-revolution divisiveness is what we are seeing in the US, UK, Europe, and 5-eyes countries.
My simplified estimation of Donald Trump is that he sees that better deals can be made than the current arrangement, and that he would prefer to shake-off a lot of the current parasitic financial elites and make common cause with Russia to produce Arctic, and even Antarctic oil, while defending these holdings militarily, and controlling other countries through managing their access to oil. He needs to close the door to WW-3 in Ukraine before Europe can drag the US into it.
Trump has been saber-rattling at Venezeula, in order to control their large holdings of expensive-to-extract tarry oil, but does not want to risk loiss of military assets and prestige against hypersonic anti-ship missiles and the Russian air-defense missiles which Venezuela sports, reportedly including new S-400 models recently delivered by Russian military transports, along with operators and a commanding general.
Every day without a recognizable kinetic World War-3 is a relatively hopeful day, as we might see it. Do prepare for worse, please.
Martin Armstrong points out that global financial infrastructure is $US denominated, and still works: Hating the Dollar – Nearly a 60 Year Tradition
The US dollar had (and still has) immense “network effects.” It is the currency of international trade, finance, and central bank reserves. This creates a powerful lock-in effect that is incredibly difficult to dislodge...
Gilbert Doctorow, How is multipolarity advancing against the hegemony of the Collective West?
So it ("balderdash") is with the idea that BRICS is overturning Western dominance now that the share of global GDP held by BRICS countries in 44% while that of G7 countries is 28% (approximate numbers). I have heard this nonsense about GDP as the measure of Hard Power going back to a little debate I had with the doyen of the Realist School of international relations, John Mearsheimer, in my house in Brussels together with Steve Cohen and his wife Katrina vanden Heuvel in March 2015.
John said then that Russia was a declining power and just a spoiler: look at its miserable GDP. Then in 2016 during the Russian elections the same point was made by the Liberal party Yabloko who insisted that standing up to the US as the Putin government proposed was impossible. The money being spent on arms was a waste, they said, because Russia just represented 3% of global GDP. Rubbish. Russia is doing just fine in Hard Power notwithstanding its still being a tiny part of global GDP. John Mearsheimer has, in the meantime, changed his tune ever since Russian command of the field of battle in Ukraine became undeniable about six months ago. He now calls Russia a ‘Great Power.’ Hard Power is determined not only by GDP: other key factors include national will, fighting spirit and readiness for self-sacrifice, as well as the talent and dedication of the boys and girls in the labs and in the military industrial complex. I say that multipolarity is not being advanced by BRICS, which was smashed by Trump’s secondary tariffs... ..Finally, it has occurred to me that the death of Western hegemony has been grossly exaggerated time and again. It should have occurred following WWI, when the enormous prosperity of Europe had been dissipated on the battlefields that also wiped out an entire generation of potential national leaders. Then it received what should have been the coup de grâce in WWII, which bankrupted Britain... ..Did this end the global dominance of the Collective West? Not at all! What occurred was a shift in power and decision-making within the Collective West from the former imperial powers to the United States, while the Collective West in its entirety continued to exploit the Rest of the World economically and otherwise.....This is not to say that a decisive reordering of power at the global board of governance is not occurring before our eyes. But, I insist, it is happening on the field of battle in Ukraine.
Russia has won the war. The challenge now is to win the peace. And a large task will be to ensure changes in the policies or in personnel at the top in 23 out of 27 European Member States. Their leaders have locked arms and stood together behind a program of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia by proxy war in Ukraine and to this day they refuse to acknowledge defeat.
Note that I now add Belgium to Hungary, Slovakia and Czechia as a country led by someone independently thinking and accepting realities, as against the conformist and plainly stupid others.
Europe must come around to revising the security architecture on the Continent to bring Russia in from the cold. This is an essential step for the move towards a multipolar world to proceed on track. https://gilbertdoctorow.substack.com/p/how-is-multipolarity-advancing-against
Richard Murphy, The UK Is Cursed: How Finance Destroyed Our Economy
The choice that was made by Margaret Thatcher in the early 1980s, when she realised that she was going to have the most phenomenal inflow of funds from the seas, largely off Scotland, was not accidental. She chose to pursue a deliberate political project, and we still live with the consequences of that.
Thatcher inherited a windfall. North Sea oil and gas delivered it. Few governments have ever had luck on that scale, and she blew it.
She could have modernised manufacturing.
She could have rebuilt infrastructure.
She could have created a sovereign wealth fund, as Norway did.
And she could have renewed the industrial fabric of this country, making it suitable and fit for future generations, but she didn’t.
She funded mass unemployment.
She funded the destruction of British industry, quite deliberately.
She funded tax cuts for the wealthy.
She sustained industrial closure.
And she expanded the impact of the City of London upon our economy.
She quite literally burned our future to fund her neoliberal dream.
Sterling was pushed upward in value by the demand for oil, and the pound, in fact, rose in value and was maintained above value until 2008 as a consequence. Oil did this at first, and then, when oil began to fall in terms of its significance within the UK economy, Gordon Brown ensured that we suffered a ‘Finance Curse’ instead, and kept sterling overvalued as a result for far longer than it should have been.
An overvalued pound makes our exports uncompetitive.
It means that the UK cost base rises when compared to our competitors.
And it means that imports can price out homemade products.
The consequence of the overvalued pound created by oil, and then the hot money in the City of London, has been that many industrial sectors in the UK have collapsed: shipbuilding, steel, engineering, textiles, and electronics. In all cases, these have been largely eliminated from the UK economy. It’s as if we’ve forgotten how to make anything but things that are financially engineered. https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/11/the-uk-is-cursed-how-finance-destroyed-our-economy.html
Gilbert Doctorow, Kazakhstan Ukraine Tension: Ukraine Drone Attack on CPC Terminal Has Created Spark - NewsX World, 30 November
I consider my most important discussion point in this interview the observation that the attack on Russia’s Novorossiisk oil terminal which has shut down 80% of Kazakhstan’s oil exports was by one or more Ukrainian naval drones. It is reasonable to believe that the British have enabled this attack which punishes not Russia but the American companies that own the wells and partly own the pipeline transporting the oil to the now damaged port terminal on the Black Sea. Let us remember that it is precisely the British who were behind the naval drone attack on the Kerch bridge connecting Crimea to mainland Russia more than a year ago and also behind drone attacks on Russian naval vessels based in Sevastopol. It would be useful if this question of British dirty work were put to Prime Minister Starmer for clarifications. https://gilbertdoctorow.substack.com/p/kazakhstan-ukraine-tension-ukraine
Ukraine Releases Footage Of Kamikaze Drone Boats Striking Russian Shadow-Fleet Tankers
Zelensky's Sacked Top Aide 'Escapes' To Front-Line To 'Hide' From Corruption InvestigatorsAndriy Yermak, the man who until just over 24 hours ago was Zelensky's right hand man and the president's top most powerful aid as chief of staff, and Ukraine's appointed chief negotiator with the US on the peace process, is going to the front lines, apparently to "fight".
After his home and offices were raided by Ukraine's anti-corruption investigators Friday related to the ongoing massive energy sector kickback scandal, Yermak announced by text message to The New York Post, "I’m going to the front and am prepared for any reprisals." ...
..Yermak, with his security detail, was brought to the location of commander nicknamed Madjar - one of the most media-prominent Ukrainian fighters, known for harsh Telegram rhetoric and the “Drone Wall” project. Unit commanders refuse to assign Yermak to their ranks.
He is physically present but has no tasks, no role, and no assigned position. Yermak is hiding from NABU anti-corruption investigations in a zone where detectives cannot serve him a notice of suspicion or court summons. https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/zelenskys-sacked-top-aide-goes-front-line-lawmaker-says-hes-hiding-corruption
Andrew Korybko, Ukraine’s Anti-Corruption Scandal Is Turning Into A Rolling Coup
Zelensky might be next after Yermak was just taken down unless he complies with Trump’s demands for peace, in which case it’s not unforeseeable that he too could be formally implicated in this scandal as the catalyst for a US-backed regime change carried out in collusion with his domestic allies. https://korybko.substack.com/p/ukraines-anti-corruption-investigation
"Long term prosperity", Marco? For who?
U.S. and Ukrainian officials hold 'very productive' meeting in Florida
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the talks were "not just about the terms that ends fighting; it's about also the terms that set up Ukraine for long-term prosperity."
Top U.S. officials and a Ukrainian delegation met in Florida on Sunday for the latest round of discussions on a plan to end the war between Russia and Ukraine — talks both sides described positively but about which they provided no details and took no questions. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/us-ukrainian-officials-hold-productive-meeting-florida-rcna246598
December 1-2, 2021, Putin and Lavrov presented the west with a comprehensive security plan. When Putin will meet Witkoff: Kremlin clarifies timing
The German town of Külsheim is dealing with the soaring costs of terror-proofing German Christmas markets with a very festive solution: anti-tank barriers. https://www.zerohedge.com/political/german-christmas-market-installs-anti-tank-barriers-public-cheers-creative-solution
How Tucker Carlson put Arab Christians on America's map
Prominent conservative journalists and politicians have broken ranks to call out Israeli crimes against Arab Christians. The effects continue to ripple through Donald Trump’s support base.
More Palestinian remains returned by Israel mutilated, tortured – Not a Ceasefire Day 48 https://israelpalestinenews.org/more-palestinian-remains-returned-by-israel-mutilated-tortured-not-a-ceasefire-day-48/
Video shows Israeli forces shooting Palestinians dead moments after surrender
Far-right minister defends killing of two men who appeared to have given themselves up, saying ‘terrorists must die’ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/28/video-shows-israeli-forces-shooting-palestinians-dead-moments-after-surrender
‘Everything is soaked': Winter rains in Gaza bring new misery for Palestinians https://apnews.com/article/gaza-palestinians-weather-rain-929c8cecd6dbe2b112770e361105b097
Only 1 out of 8 planned aid movements facilitated into Gaza on Tuesday, UN says - 'Every delivery into Gaza makes a significant difference,' says spokesperson https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/only-1-out-of-8-planned-aid-movements-facilitated-into-gaza-on-tuesday-un-says/3754972
Israel launches major assault in West Bank city as helicopters shoot at homes
Troops forcibly expel Palestinians from their homes in Tubas, turning the properties into temporary military barracks https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israeli-apache-helicopters-shoot-civilian-homes-tubas
Israel cuts water lines, bulldozes roads and seizes homes as West Bank operation escalates https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/israeli-forces-cut-water-lines-bulldoze-roads-and-seize-homes-west-bank
A map redrawn piece by piece: Palestinians describe a country annexed in plain sightAnnexation in the occupied West Bank has become so routine that it now unfolds largely unnoticed and rarely reported https://www.trtworld.com/article/37e1b713269a
Israel launches fresh strikes in southern Lebanon https://en.mehrnews.com/news/239262/Israel-launches-fresh-strikes-in-southern-Lebanon
EXPOSED: 121 Former IDF SOLDIERS Now Working as ICE Agents in CHICAGO… America Is Officially OCCUPIED https://x.com/ProjectConstitu/status/1993423751766065388
Meryl Nass MD, What’s shattering America? It’s NOT “the left,” as rightists think, nor is it Trump, as “leftists” think. It’s something else, which both sides have learned not to think of/ Mark Crispin Miller - Bottom line, think 3 letter agencies
Specifically, it’s not “as if the script were lifted straight from a CIA playbook for overseas regime change operations.” That “script” makes clear—or should—that all that “leftist” agitation is, in fact, yet one more subversive operation by the CIA, whose specialty it is, and always has been, to destabilize the countries in its sights. Thus, whereas that paranoid survey of “unhinged progressive billionaires” and “far-left militant groups” and “foreign-aligned NGOs” (and why not “radical Islam,” too?) suggests that such a jumble of bad actors could (somehow) act as one, the fact is that no such sprawling group is capable of such “dark” discipline—which the CIA has long since wielded, to the profit of its corporate clients, and the misery of the peoples of Iran, Guatemala, Brazil, Greece, Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador, Libya, Ukraine and scores of other sovereign nations.
And now it’s clearly active here on our own soil, and not just on “the left,” but on the right, as well; or, to put it more precisely, it has—especially since COVID—been actively dividing We the People, into “red” and “blue,” black and white, Jews and gentiles, maskers and anti-maskers, then “vaxxers” and “anti-vaxxers,” and other seething dyads now impelling us toward civil war. https://merylnass.substack.com/p/whats-shattering-america-its-not
DC National Guard Shooter Worked for CIA-Backed Kandahar Strike Force in Afghanistan
Escape Key, Own nothing. Clear everything. A Field Guide to Planetary Management
The EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism does double duty: it forces importers to calculate and report embedded carbon across supply chains — creating the metrics — then makes trade conditional on that accounting. Before CBAM, most goods didn’t have a standardised carbon cost attached. After CBAM, they do, because you can’t trade without it. Lenin’s ‘accounting and control’ in real time: build the accounting, then use it for control. CBAM builds the carbon accounting. ISO 20022 carries it. CBDC wallets can act on it.
Clearing presents as neutral infrastructure. It isn’t. When a middleman makes itself indispensable between all parties, it doesn’t mediate conflict — it supersedes it. The original Marxist framing was owner versus worker, direct exploitation. The clearing architecture doesn’t resolve that conflict. It interposes itself between everyone and extracts compliance from all sides. Factory owner and worker alike need the rails to transact. Both become subjects of whoever controls the clearing. The clearer doesn’t take sides in the old war. It ends the war by becoming the new sovereign. https://escapekey.substack.com/p/own-nothing-clear-everything
It’s Not Only About Venezuela: Trump Intends a Wider Domino Effect
It’s increasingly obvious that the US military threats against Venezuela have a wider agenda. Their game plan is regime change, but not only in Venezuela. This is the objective – on a longer timescale in some cases – across several of the countries in the Caribbean Basin, aiming to cleanse the region of governments deemed undesirable to Washington.
As international relations professor at the University of Chicago, John Mearsheimer reminds us, the US “does not tolerate left-leaning governments… and as soon as they see a government that is considered to be left-of-center they move to replace that government.”...
..Former Bush and Trump official Marshall Billingslea says the ultimate target of a US regime change assault is the entire Latin American left, “from Cuba to Brazil to Mexico to Nicaragua.” Military intervention leading to the end of the Maduro government would halt what he alleges (without evidence) is the flow of money from Caracas that has led to the “socialist plague that has spread across Latin America.”
US-imposed regime-change in Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua – where the “socialist plague” has taken deep root – is a bipartisan project. For other progressive and left-leaning Latin American states – Mexico, Honduras, Colombia, and even Chile – the Pax Americana prescription stops short of outright deep regime change; infiltration, intimidation and co-optation are employed to keep them subordinate.
For Democrats and Republicans alike, the US imperial projection on the region is a given. Trump and his comrade-in-arms Rubio are leading the charge. But the so-called US opposition party is offering weak constraints. https://original.antiwar.com/John_Perry/2025/11/27/its-not-only-about-venezuela-trump-intends-a-wider-domino-effect/
Fighters and bombers fly up to a country on attack-approaches to get the air-defense radar to light-up and show where it is, so they can take it out.
I think he explains why it WON'T start there: WWIII Will Start in Venezuela – Steve Quayle ..There is now confirmed involvement by China, Russia and Iran in Venezuela, and that is causing security concerns for America in the Western Hemisphere. Top generals are making rounds with our military in the region. Quayle warns, “Risk is something we deal with every day, but let’s talk about a heightened level of risk and World War III. . . .. This does not get any more critical. Venezuela has received the hypersonic missiles that are available. Iran has them, they are in Venezuela. Russia has them, they are in Venezuela. The Chinese are in Venezuela. . ..”
Quayle says his sources say the US called off an attack. Quayle explains, “It was called off. . . . They did not want to send their multibillion-dollar bombers that were in the sight if the S-500 anti-missile system. . .. In essence, the plan was to bomb, and to use heavy bombers to go in heavy loaded . . . then they found out that those S-400 and S-500 missile systems were deployed, and they were manned by people who know how to run them. . .. I think it would be silly to initiate a World War event, and bombing Venezuela would only be the start of it. It is the same for the cartels in Mexico. My sources tell me that President Trump has been told by China and Russia that if you bomb them, we will come to their aid.” https://usawatchdog.com/wwiii-will-start-in-venezuela-steve-quayle/
Japan Denies Trump Asked PM Not To Provoke Beijing https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/japan-denies-trump-asked-pm-not-provoke-beijing
Meryl Nass MD, Has an Honest Review of the COVID Vaccine Fiasco Begun, Finally? F.D.A. Attributes 10 Children’s Deaths to Covid Vaccines
“For the first time, the U.S. F.D.A. will acknowledge that Covid-19 vaccines have killed American children.”--Dr. Vinay Prasad https://merylnass.substack.com/p/has-an-honest-review-of-the-covid
Celia Farber, FDA Chief Officer Vinay Prasad Wrote 3 Page Dam-Break Internal Memo To Staff, Day After Thanksgiving, Certifying First Definite 10 Deaths In Children From Covid Shots Via VAERS, NYT Reported It
Prasad Wrote: "The Real Number Is Higher." Pharma Gatekeepers Go Berserk With Moral Thunder, Calling It "Irresponsible," And "Misleading," As NYT Readers Fill Comments Section With Denials https://celiafarber.substack.com/p/fda-chief-officer-vinay-prasad-wrote
A Midwestern Doctor, From Sharper Night Vision to Curing Lifelong Blindness — How DMSO Heals Each Level of Vision Loss
Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) is a simple compound with a remarkable blend of therapeutic properties. Over the last year, I’ve compiled thousands of studies showing how it treats a wide range of conditions including:
Neurological disorders such as strokes, dementia, paralysis, and neuropathies (discussed here).
Circulatory disorders such as Raynaud’s, varicose veins, and hemorrhoids (discussed here).
Chronic pain (e.g., from disc herniations, bursitis, or complex regional pain syndrome) and tissue injuries, such as sprains, concussions, burns, surgical incisions, and spinal cord injuries (discussed here).
Autoimmune, protein, and contractile disorders, such as arthritis, scleroderma, amyloidosis, and interstitial cystitis (discussed here).
Head conditions, such as tinnitus, ear infections, dental problems, and sinusitis (discussed here).
Internal organ diseases such as prostate enlargement, pancreatitis, and cirrhosis (discussed here).
Respiratory disorders, including asthma, COPD, and pulmonary fibrosis (discussed here).
Many different gastrointestinal disorders, such as bowel inflammation, cirrhosis, and pancreatitis (discussed here).
Skin conditions such as hair loss, acne, ulcers, skin cancer, or psoriasis (discussed here).
Infections, such as onychomycosis, herpes, and shingles, and many antibiotic-resistant infections (discussed here).
Many aspects of cancer, including eliminating cancers, enhancing chemotherapy, reducing the toxicity of mainstream cancer treatments, and reducing cancer pain (discussed here).
Because of how effective DMSO was for a wide range of “incurable” conditions, after being discovered in the 1960s, DMSO quickly became the most demanded drug in the country — at which point the FDA did everything they could to suppress it...
..It’s hence quite noteworthy that DMSO is both able to create many of these same therapeutic effects (e.g., by increasing microcirculation to the eyes, it greatly increases the vital nutrition retinal cells receive), and like those therapies, restore vision, but do so in a much more broad and economical way (rather than only targeting one component of vision loss).
“I’ve had countless patients who were already doing all the ‘right’ things with nutrition and weren’t getting better with their pain/autoimmune problems, and then they did well after adding DMSO.” — James Miller MD
More importantly, the fact that DMSO can quickly and easily treat “incurable” conditions like vision loss provide a critical lesson into the myriad of other chronic illnesses we are facing, as the eyes are not the only part of the body affected by the ever increasing circulatory impairments (many of which result from vaccination) and nutritional depletion of the food supply seen throughout society.
The significant health challenges our society faces require doing something different. Fortunately, as things like DMSO’s saga show, the solutions we are searching for already exist.
More importantly, we have reached a unique historical crossroad, as the dire need to fix America’s disastrous healthcare has thrust us into a never-before-seen political climate where large parts of the culture, media, and government support rather than oppose the adoption of these real and affordable pathways to health. It is up to each of us to make the best of this moment and rediscover the forgotten umbrella therapies. https://www.globalresearch.ca/dmso-heals-each-level-vision-loss/5907179
Coffee Drinker (pictured with Jenny and our grandkids after Thanksgiving)
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