Baltic Dry Index. 1119 +56
LIR Gold Target in 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
"Never,
never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who
embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will
encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the
signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of
unforeseeable and uncontrollable events."
Winston
S. Churchill.
Is someone lining up bulk shipping ahead of war?
So far the big winner in Obama and the American War Party’s
botched coup in Kiev has been Putin’s Russia. It wasn’t meant to be this way.
By now the Ukraine was supposed to be a tame western puppet state, stuffed to
the gills with Victoria “fuck the Europeans” Nuland’s hand-picked American
placemen. By now the puppet regime was supposed to be well on its way to EU and
NATO membership, setting off collapse in Russia and Belarus, undermining the Shanghai
Cooperation Organisation and effectively isolating China. A slam dunk for the
American War Party. But Mr Putin was ready for their reckless misadventure.
Instead the coup got taken over by Kiev neo-Nazis and
anti-semite parties, whose militia forced the legitimate, if corrupt, elected
President to flee. Putin got back the Crimea and as a bonus, seized most of the
Ukraine’s rusting navy. The militias had to be quickly converted into oligarch
sponsored auxiliary army units, unleashed on the separatist east Ukraine. They
wanted no part in the US imposed government of Kiev. A very uncivil war now
rages in the east of the Ukraine, with America now crying crocodile tears that
Russia in interfering in the east like Reagan’s CIA once did Afghanistan. Who
in dumbed down Foggy Bottom knew that Russia might do a thing like that!
In an effort to salvage something from this growing
fiasco and war, that still might lead to World War Three, Uncle Scam and John
Bull imposed sanctions on Russia, and demanded that everyone else do the same. With
almost nothing to lose if Russia retaliated, team Anglo-America thought it had another
slam dunk. Suicidally, a continental Europe on the cusp of another recession
went along. “Out of the blue” Russia retaliated, sending continental Europe’s
dairy and produce exporters heading towards bankruptcy, German auto and
industrial exporters into a massive slowdown. The EU itself probably into a new
recession followed by a depression. If team Anglo-America succeeds in getting
France’s Russian warship deal sunk, sending thousands of French workers to the
scrapheap of mass unemployment for life, expect a very anti-EU, anti-American Marine
le Pen as the next French President.
This morning we take another look at what the botched
coup has brought so far. I think that continental Europe needs to prepare for a
new Great Depression and war. The end of the EU as we know it. Once again western main stream media is
conditioning the public via War Party spin. Sooner or later they seem likely to
get their wish.
"Get
a good night's sleep and don't bug anybody without asking me."
President
Obama, with apologies to Richard Nixon.
‘Golden Sanction’ to Halt Putin in Ukraine Stays Elusive
Aug 29, 2014 1:40 AM GMT
As Russian-backed separatists advance in southeastern Ukraine, the U.S. and
European Union are still searching for a sanction that can force Vladimir Putin to stop and
think again. More than 1,000 of the Russian president’s troops are operating inside Ukraine, manning sophisticated weaponry and advising local separatists, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization said yesterday. The escalation, denied by Russia, prompted a warning of “consequences” from U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel said EU leaders would discuss new sanctions this weekend.
----“There have been many attempts over many
years to find the silver bullet, or golden sanction, and I’m pretty convinced
it doesn’t exist,” said Gary Hufbauer, a sanctions specialist at the Peterson
Institute for International Economics in Washington. “What does exist are very,
very heavy sanctions. That’s not what the U.S. and western Europe are doing.”
So
far, the sanctions effort has failed, former U.S. Treasury and State Department
officials say. New measures would have to strike more deeply and broadly,
hitting Russia harder and bringing unavoidable economic pain to Europe, and to
a lesser extent the U.S., they said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to
discuss internal policy deliberations.
----“The
sanctions that we have already applied have been effective,” Obama told a press
conference in Washington yesterday. He said he plans to discuss “additional
steps” with allies in Europe when he travels there next week. “I think there
are ways for us to deepen or expand the scope of some of that work.”
----Cutting off natural-gas imports
from Russia would double the energy cost for western European residences and
factories that run on the fuel, the Peterson Institute’s Hufbauer estimated.
That would be a heavy burden on a stagnant economy with unemployment that
remains higher than 10 percent.
More
Is It War? Ukraine Conflict Definition Softens in West
Aug 28, 2014 10:03 PM GMT
For governments in the Baltic states of Latvia and Lithuania,
Russia has invaded Ukraine and the two countries are now at war. Head further
west, and they’re less sure what to call it. While all agree that a line has been crossed, U.S and NATO officials prefer to speak of an “incursion,” the word used by President Barack Obama at a White House press conference yesterday. French and German leaders have warned President Vladimir Putin of further sanctions without defining what Russian forces have done.
“In the past 48 hours, we have tipped into a formal invasion,” Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group, said in a Bloomberg television interview. “Russia and Ukraine as sovereign countries are now at war and it’s going to be very difficult for the United States and Europe to deny that reality.”
Calling it war or an invasion would force the U.S. and European Union to consider steps they’ve been unwilling to take, short of military action, Bremmer said. While sanctions have been imposed on some areas of the Russian economy, Europe continues to rely on Russia for natural-gas imports and Russian trade with the EU was worth about $390 billion last year.
More
Putin Has Changed the Game in Ukraine
The capture of Russian paratroopers in eastern Ukraine, and the quiet burials of other Russian solders, provided enough evidence that the nature of the conflict had changed. Now, though, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has officially announced that "Russian troops were actually brought into Ukraine."
A second front has been opened against the Ukrainian army in the rebellious Donetsk region. The Ukrainians were forced to give up the town of Novoazovsk on the Sea of Azov, not far from the strategic port of Mariupol, used by Kiev as the supply base for its anti-rebel operation. Ukrainian military commanders say Russian troops entered the town. Although such claims have been made before, there's more reason than ever to believe them today.
It's highly unlikely that the pro-Russian rebels, whom the better-equipped Ukrainian troops had confined to the cities of Donetsk and Lugansk, could have suddenly showed up at the Ukrainians' rear and attacked the seaside towns. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which had never before accused Russia of sending in troops, now says there are at least 1,000 Russian service members fighting in Ukraine.
Judging from anecdotal information about troops' funerals and from reports from the Russian Soldiers' Mothers' Committee, the Russian troops are elite airborne units. They will be the most formidable opposition the Ukrainian military has faced since the conflict began five months ago -- a far cry from the untrained local separatists, assorted war re-enactment enthusiasts and nationalist fanatics they've dealt with so far.
By rotating a few thousand elite troops in and out of Ukraine, the Kremlin can keep up the fighting indefinitely. Now that Russia's direct involvement is getting impossible to deny, a broader invasion becomes a possibility. Ukraine's understaffed, undertrained forces would be no match for the Russian army, in which Russian President Vladimir Putin has been making a major investment. In 2013, Russia was the third biggest defense spender globally, after the U.S. and China.
----If Putin ever cared about Western reactions, he no longer does. His continuing denials of Russian involvement are a mocking ritual, a sign of unwillingness to negotiate rather than a nod to international pressure.
"All these sanctions were like poultices for a dead man," a distraught Yatsenyuk said today. "They did not help." He called for the West to freeze Russia's assets and financial transactions to force it to withdraw. The West, however, is unlikely to go that far. The sanctions have already contributed to economic contraction in Germany, and Europe cannot afford much more pain. Military aid is not an option: There is no country in the world where voters would back a war with Russia.
More
Finland Puts Fighter Planes on Alert as Russia Violates Airspace
Aug 29,
2014 6:12 AM GMT
Finland’s government
said its fighter jets were ready to intercept foreign aircraft after Russian
planes repeatedly violated the northernmost euro member’s airspace. A Russian Antonov AN 72 transport plane crossed the Finnish border yesterday at about 12:08 p.m. local time near Porvoo on the Gulf of Finland, the government in Helsinki said. Russian state aircraft are also suspected of two other airspace violations on Finland’s south coast since Aug. 23.
“It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that they don’t respect borders,” Charly Salonius-Pasternak, senior researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, said by phone. “At a minimum, the Russian air force is acting carelessly and that they do so is more and more serious, taking into account the general international and European security situation.”
More
Russian Recession Risk Seen at Record High Amid Sanctions
Aug 28,
2014 2:00 PM GMT
The chance of Russia’s economy tipping into a recession is rising as the
escalating crisis in Ukraine raises the
risk of the government in Moscow retaliating with further import bans,
according to a survey of analysts. The probability of a recession in the next 12 months rose to 65 percent from 50 percent, the highest since the first such Bloomberg survey in June 2012, according to the median estimate of 26 economists in the poll. Russia will enact additional restrictions in retribution for sanctions imposed by the U.S. and the European Union, according to 15 of 25 economists. Of those, 12 expect Russia to target cars and consumer goods.
More
We end for the week with how British voters were
tricked into staying in what went on to become the EUSSR. Think we are getting
the truth now about the Ukraine.
"Gold would have value if for no other reason than that it enables a citizen to fashion his financial escape from the state."
William F. Rickenbacker
How Harold Wilson was warned Europe threatened British democracy
Harold Wilson was urged to warn the British people that European membership would be a "gross infringement of sovereignty", Cabinet minutes from 1975 show
Britain's membership of the
European Community presented a “gross infringement of sovereignty” and a
“serious attack on Parliamentary democracy,” Cabinet ministers warned ahead of
the only referendum on Brussels given to the public, newly uncovered papers
reveal.
Harold Wilson, then the Labour
Prime Minister, was told choosing to stay in Europe would represent a
“dismemberment of the authority of the House of Commons”, minutes of a Cabinet
meeting show.
In a meeting three months before
the 1975 referendum, Mr Wilson was urged by his ministers to inform the British
people that membership would seriously compromise Britain’s ability to govern
itself.
In the event, the Government’s
official pamphlet explaining the referendum gave no such warning – and instead
assured voters that the “essence of sovereignty” would be protected by staying
in.
Business for Britain, the
campaigning group which uncovered the minutes, said the episode was a warning
that the public could be misled again as David Cameron embarks on a renegotiation
of Britain’s EU membership, ahead of an in-out vote in 2017
More
"War,
which used to be cruel and magnificent has now become cruel and squalid."
Winston
S. Churchill.
At the Comex silver depositories Thursday final figures were: Registered 60.58
Moz, Eligible 118.71 Moz, Total 179.29 Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
We have reached the end of the British summer, and
my countrymen and women get to vote next month on whether to remain in the
Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, or whether to exit and go
independent. Exiting, daringly or irresponsibly, takes them out of the European
Union also, as there’s no automatic entry provision to the EU. While I think
that Scotland can prosper whichever way it votes, I also think that Scotland will
prosper more inside both Unions, rather than outside wishfully looking in. As a
very small offshore part of Europe, Scotland’s voice in the EU, if they were
eventually readmitted, would carry about the same weight as Estonia, but
without the need for help in keeping the Russian bear away.
As for rUK (rumpUK,) I think it would prosper too,
saving on the need to subsidise Scotland, and largely pay for its civil
service, railways, pensions and defence. With Scotland gone and out of the EU,
rUK’s EU contribution would diminish too, another plus. Hopefully, the sick BBC
New Labour Licence Fee tax would be reduced as the Scots get to pick up the
cost of BBC Scotland in all of its forms, including the almost unwatched BBC
Alba TV in Gaelic. Most of the few
viewers have to turn on the English sub titles if they watch anyway. Watching
the great exodus back north of all those BBC Scottish loony lefties from
London, is another added bonus well worth urging them to vote YES.
For your weekend amusement and idle pastime, the
history of Clan Irvine and their ilk, to which I suppose I must be one of the
more obscure, undistinguished, and poorer members. Not being a Laird of any
description, I have not so far been summoned to fight the English or anyone
else. Nearing 65, I think I would follow the lead of my brave, ferociously
voiced Border Collie Rosie, when danger looms, and follow her in flight. It is
after all, how Clan Irvine survived the Scottish rout to the Germans at
Culloden in 1746.
Clan Irvine
Clan Irvine is a Lowland Scottish clan.Sometime between 1124 and 1125 Gilchrist, son of Erwini, witnessed a charter of the Lords of Galloway.[5] The first lands by the name of Irvine were in Dumfriesshire.[5] According to family tradition the origin of the clan chief's family is connected with the early Celtic monarchs of Scotland.[5] Duncan Irvine settled at Bonshaw.[5] Duncan was the brother of Crinan, who claimed descent from the High Kings of Ireland, through the Abbots of Dunkeld.[5] Crinan married a daughter of Malcolm II of Scotland and their son was Duncan I of Scotland.[5]
William de Irwin was a neighbour of the Clan Bruce.[5] The Irvines supported their powerful neighbors, the Bruces, and William de Irwin became the armour bearer and secretary to king Robert the Bruce.[5] For twenty years of faithful service William de Irwin was granted the royal forest of Drum, in Aberdeenshire, as a reward.[5] This then became the seat of the chief of Clan Irvine.[5] There was already a tower at Drum which was built before the end of the 13th century as a royal hunting lodge.[5] From this grew Drum Castle, seat of the chief.[5]
Origin of the crest badge - "Robert Bruce, who, when a fugitive from the court of Edward I., concealed himself in the house of William De Irwin (William Irvine), his secretary and sword-bearer. William De Irwin followed the changing fortunes of his royal master; was with him when he was routed at Methven ; shared his subsequent dangers ; and was one of the seven who were hidden with him in a copse of holly when his pursuers passed by. When Bruce came to his own again he made him Master of the Rolls, and ten years after the battle of Bannockburn, gave him in free barony the forest of Drum, near Aberdeen. He also permitted him to use his private badge of three holly leaves, with the motto. Sub sole sub umbra virens, which are still the arms of the Irving family." - Ref: The Kaaterskill edition of Washington Irving.[6]
15th century and clan conflicts
Clan Irvine was often at feud with the neighbouring Clan Keith. Both clans invaded each other's lands. In 1402, Clan Irvine is said to have slaughtered an invading war party of Clan Keith at the Battle of Drumoak.[7]The third Laird of Drum was Alexander Irvine, who was the first in a line of twelve Irvines who successively bore the name Alexander.[5] He was said to be a knight of legendary prowess and followed the Earl of Mar to the wars in France.[5] He later fought at the Battle of Harlaw in 1411, which was fought only twenty miles away from Drum itself.[5] At Harlaw Alexander Irvine engaged in single combat with the famous Hector Maclean of the Battles, chief of the Clan Maclean.[5] Both are said to have died from wounds that they inflicted on each other.[5] This is commemorated in a ballad about the battle as "Gude Sir Alexander Irvine the much renounit Laird of Drum".[7]
16th Century & Anglo-Scottish Wars
The next Laird of Drum was a prominent figure in the negotiations to ransom James I of Scotland from the English and when the king was released de Irwyne was knighted.[5] When the king was murdered in Perth, Sir Alexander Irvine took control of the city of Aberdeen to restore order.[5]The sixth Laird of Drum and chief of Clan Irvine was a peacemaker, and was rewarded by King James V of Scotland for his efforts to suppress rebels, thieves, reivers, sourcerers and murderers in 1527.[5][7]
During the Anglo-Scottish Wars the sixth Laird's son was killed when the clan fought against the English at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh in 1547.[5][8]
17th Century and Civil War
Drum Castle, seat of the chief of Clan Irvine, that was
attacked twice during the Civil War.
During the Civil War, the royalist Irvines supported Charles I.[5] However the Irvines lived in a mainly Covenanter district and Drum Castle was therefore an obvious target.[5] The castle was attacked when the Laird of Drum was absent by a strong force that surrounded it with artillery.[5] Lady Irvine surrendered and the castle was then looted.[5] The Laird of Drum's two sons both fought in the civil war and were both captured.[5] The younger son, Robert, died in the dungeons of Edinburgh Castle, however his brother, Alexander, was freed after James Graham, 1st Marquis of Montrose's victory at the Battle of Kilsyth in 1645.[5] Drum Castle was again attacked, ransacked, the ladies of the house were ejected and the estate was ruined.[5]
18th Century and Jacobite risings
During the Jacobite rising of 1715, the fourteenth Laird of Drum supported the Jacobite cause and fought at the Battle of Sheriffmuir in 1715 where he received a severe head wound.[5] He never recovered from the wound and after years of illness died leaving no direct heir.[7] The estate then passed to his uncle, John Irvine and then onto another kinsman, John Irvine of Crimond.[5]During the Jacobite rising of 1745 the Clan Irvine continued their support for the Jacobite Stuarts and fought at the Battle of Culloden in 1746.[5] The Laird of Drum escaped capture by hiding in a secret room at Drum Castle.[5] He then lived for a few years in exile in France until he was allowed to return to his estates.[5]
More
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan_Irvine
From the Orwellian
thoughts of Chairman Salmond:
“No one believes more firmly than Comrade
Salmond that all Scots are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make
your decisions for yourselves after independence. But sometimes you might make
the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?
Have a great weekend
everyone.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished July.
DJIA: +157 Down. NASDAQ: +318 Down. SP500: +232 Down. The Fed’s final bubble has taken on a very
scary wobble, but this is nothing compared to the return of real interest rates
at some point ahead.
