LIR Gold Target in 2019: $30,000.Revised due to QE programs.
The
bankster in his mansion,
The
Greeks at his gate,
Draghi
made them High or lowly,
He disordered
their estate.
With
apologies to All things bright and beautiful.
This morning there is near panic in Uncle Scam’s War Party. An
interesting weekend lies ahead. The US puppet government in Kiev just can’t
seem to get its troops and fliers to fight. Ukraine’s Russian revolutionaries,
have long since left their “Trenton” victory, and seem on track for the Russian
Patriots to achieve their “Yorktown” result. Yesterday, US secretary of State
Kerry, German Chancellor Merkel, and French President “love rat” Hollande, all
rushed to collapsing Kiev to demand more from the demoralised installed puppet
government. This wasn’t how Vicky Nuland and the War Party envisaged how “Yats”
would lead the Ukraine into NATO, collapse Russia and Belarus, and allow Uncle
Scam and the west to slice and dice up Russian natural resources, and isolate
and surround China. Where was “Mad dog McCain?”
Today Frau Merkel and love rat Hollande head on from Kiev to
Moscow, to beg Putin not to commit regular Russian troops to finish off the
botched coup in Kiev. From where I watch from faraway London he doesn’t need
to, unless to humanitarianly bring this US made unnecessary tragedy to an early
end. Letting this war go red hot come Spring, threatens to bleed the EU, IMF,
and Uncle Scam dry. The slightest miscalculation on either side, threatens
tactical nukes, followed real fast with
something much worse. Not a good time to be owning property or living in Fort
Mead or Cheltenham.
Merkel Heads to Moscow for Deal to Pull Ukraine Back From Brink
(Bloomberg) -- Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande will press Vladimir Putin
for a cease-fire in Ukraine on Friday as U.S. and Russian officials expressed
skepticism that a quick resolution to stem the spiraling violence is possible.
After meeting Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Thursday, the German
and French leaders head to Moscow on Friday to present an alternative to a
peace proposal drawn up by Putin that laid separatist claim to swathes of
eastern Ukrainian territory. The U.S is also working to “change Russia’s
behavior,” said Secretary of State John Kerry, who also met Poroshenko in Kiev,
though President Barack Obama’s administration said a deal may be tough to
achieve.
“We have seen the Ukrainian government live up to a lot of those agreements
and at least try to implement them,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest
said on Thursday. “But those efforts have been entirely undermined by
Russian-backed separatists with the full support of Russia completely ignoring
those commitments.”
Even as Russia, the U.S. and European Union states call for a truce after a
new offensive by separatist forces, the standoff between Putin and his
country’s former Cold War foes is intensifying as the warring parties pour more
troops and firepower into the conflict. The war is also pummeling Ukraine’s
economy. The hryvnia plunged 31 percent Thursday after the central bank loosened
its management of the currency.
As the rebel advance triggers calls for an immediate truce to evacuate
civilians from the conflict zone, Poroshenko has appealed for arms to fight
what his government labels a war of “Russian aggression.” Merkel has rejected
the idea of providing lethal assistance and Obama has remained skeptical.
---Poroshenko hosted the European leaders for dinner in Kiev, and said the
meeting gave “hope for a cease-fire,” according to the presidential website.
The contents of the Hollande-Merkel plan are being kept secret. A French
official said that while new sanctions aren’t currently on the agenda, they
can’t be ruled out. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he’s
not authorized to talk to the press.
The proposal follows a plan put
forward by Putin, that, according to a Western diplomat who spoke on the
condition of anonymity, advocates creating a territory similar to the
frozen-conflict areas of Abkhazia or Transnistria -- breakaway provinces of
Georgia and Moldova that enjoy Russian patronage.
----At the same time, Putin and other officials are losing faith that their
preferred outcome -- greater autonomy for the Donbass region within a federal
Ukraine -- will come to pass, according to three people familiar with the
matter who asked not to be identified because they aren’t allowed to speak
publicly about the discussions. It’s increasingly likely the rebel-held regions
will break away, according to three people familiar with the matter, they said.
“I don’t see a compromise,” Joerg
Forbrig, senior program director for central and eastern Europe at the German
Marshall Fund of the U.S. said by phone. “Ukraine will accept nothing less than
the demilitarization and full administrative control over the east, and won’t
accept the federalization that the Russians are demanding.”
----Ties between Merkel and Putin, who have spoken about 70 times since the
conflict erupted, hit a low in Brisbane, Australia, last year when the German
leader pointed out places on a map that she saw as targets of Russian meddling,
according to a meeting participant who asked not to be named because the talks
were private. Putin insisted he’s encircled by U.S.-led powers and isn’t
seeking expansion.
Merkel, who will visit Moscow for
the first time since the violence flared in 2013, opposes supplying Ukraine
with weapons “because Russia would react with military steps and we would find
ourselves in a spiral of violence,” German Ambassador to the U.S. Peter Wittig
said on Thursday.
Vladimir Putin has dangerous
ambitions beyond Ukraine and aims to test Western resolve in the Baltic states,
the former head of Nato has warned.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former
secretary-general of the Atlantic alliance, said the Kremlin’s true goal is to
shatter Nato solidarity and reassert Russian dominance over Eastern Europe.
“This is not about Ukraine. Putin
wants to restore Russia to its former position as a great power,” he told The
Telegraph.
“There is a high probability that
he will intervene in the Baltics to test Nato’s Article 5,” he said, referring
to the solidarity clause that underpins collective security.
“Putin knows that if he crosses
the red line and attacks a Nato ally, he will be defeated. Let us be quite
clear about that. But he is a specialist in hybrid warfare,” he said.
The fear is that the Kremlin will
generate a murky conflict in Estonia or Latvia where there are large Russian
minorities, using arms-length action or “little green men” without insignia to
disguise any intervention. This may tempt weaker Nato members to play down the
incident, either to protect commercial ties with Russia or because of
pro-Kremlin sympathies as in Hungary or Greece.
Estonia's relations with Russia
worsened significantly last September when a squad of Russian security
operatives allegedly crossed into Estonian territory and seized Eston Kohver, a
veteran officer in the Estonian Security Service.
Mr Kohver was paraded on Russian
television as a spy and is currently being held in a high security prison in
Moscow. Analysts believe the abduction - which took place two days after a
visit to Tallinn by Barack Obama - was designed to demonstrate Russia's muscle
in the Baltics.
Nato has already beefed up its
forces in the region with squadrons of fighter jets, chiefly as show of force
and as a strategic tripwire to reassure allies. Its Baltic Air Policing Mission
intercepted 150 incursions into NATO airspace by Russian aircraft last year.
Article 5 states that a military
attack on any one Nato country is an attack on all of them, triggering
collective mobilization. It has been invoked just once in the 66-year history
of the alliance, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York.
Nobody knows what would happen if
one of the Baltic states invoked Article 5 protection but was turned down by the
Nato Council. Failure to respond would devastate Nato’s credibility and
undermine the principle of deterrence, though allies could still act as a
coalition of the willing outside the treaty structure.
----"Nato countries have cut defence spending by 20pc in real terms
over the last five years – and some by 40pc - while Russia has increased by
80pc. The aggression in Ukraine is a wake-up call," he said.
“We learned in the Libyan crisis
that Europe is totally reliant on the Americans for air-refueling, drones, and
communications intelligence. We don’t have air transport. It is really bad.”
Belgium is the most extreme case,
famed for its well-armed pension fund while fighting capability fades away. It
spends 96pc of defence budget on salaries, retirement, and its Burgundian
canteens. The share spent on military kit has been slashed to 4pc. “Military
confidence is nearing the point of collapse," said Alexander Mattelear
from the Vrije Universtiteit in Brussels.
Putin has 'some form of
autism' Pentagon experts conclude, after watching videos of him
UK charity says 'laughable' study is 'driven by the wilder reaches of
military intelligence'
Thursday 05 February 2915
Vladimir Putin has “an autistic disorder which affects all of his
decisions", a report has claimed.
The Office of Net Assessment – a Pentagon think tank in the US – published
findings in 2008 and 2011, and said the Russian President has “an autistic
disorder which affects all of his decisions.”
Brenda Connors, an expert in movement pattern analysis at the US Naval War
College in Newport, wrote: “The Russian President carries a neurological
abnormality.”
The think tank concluded that Putin’s “neurological development was
significantly interrupted in infancy,” after studying him in videos, and that
his authoritarian obsession with “extreme control” is a way of overcompensating
for his condition.
The report cites Dr. Stephen Porges as concluding that “Putin carries a form
of autism”. However, Mr Porges has since said he has never seen the finished
report and warned Connor’s team should “back off saying he has Asperger's”.
Jane Harris, Director of External Affairs and Social Change at the UK's
National Autistic Society (NAS) told the Independent:
“This kind of speculative diagnosis is fraught with risks and is unhelpful.
Autism is a complex condition and a diagnosis should only ever be made following
a thorough, holistic face-to-face process involving both the individual and the
diagnostician.
“According to accounts in the media, the study authors themselves backed off
from confirming their diagnosis because ‘they were not able to perform a brain
scan on the Russian president’.
(Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel expressed concern on Thursday
about a possible north-south divide in NATO and urged the alliance to tackle
multiple security issues at once rather than focusing on only one.
Hagel, making his final appearance at NATO as
U.S. defense chief, said the alliance faced several challenges, including
violent extremism on its southern rim, Russian aggression in Ukraine and training security forces in
Afghanistan.
"I am very concerned by the suggestion
that this alliance can choose to focus on only one of these areas as our top
priority," Hagel told a news conference. "And I worry about the
potential for division between our northern and southern allies."
Hagel's remarks came as NATO allies,
especially along the northern tier of Europe, are concerned about responding to
Russian aggression in Ukraine and Moscow's threatening moves along its
northwestern frontier.
In southern Europe, countries like Spain and
Italy worry about threats from Africa and the Middle East and believe NATO
needs to focus more energy there to deal with extremism and trafficking in
drugs, weapons and people.
"It's a growing sort of divide that
we’re seeing happen between north and south," said one U.S. official, who
spoke on condition of anonymity.
The official said Hagel had raised the issue
at a lunch with other NATO defense ministers, some of whom voiced similar
concerns. The U.S. defense chief later mentioned the issue at his news
conference.
"The alliance’s ability to meet all
these challenges at once, to the east, to the south and out-of-area, is NATO’s
charge for the future," Hagel said.
"This is a time for unity, shared
purpose and wise, long-term investments across the spectrum of military
capability," he added. "We must address all the challenges to this
alliance, all together and all at once."
Hagel spoke as NATO defense ministers met to
sign off on a network of command centers in eastern Europe to rapidly reinforce
the region in the event of any threat from Russia,
as well as two new regional headquarters and a bigger rapid reaction force.
They were expected to agree to more than
double the size of NATO's existing rapid reaction force - to 30,000 soldiers
from 13,000 - and to flesh out details of a 5,000-strong "spearhead"
force with a faster reaction time of only a few days.
Britain 'threatens to stop
sharing intelligence' with Germany
British intelligence officials have threatened to stop sharing information
if Germany presses ahead with a parliamentary inquiry into British and American
spying, a German news magazine claims
By Justin Huggler, Berlin 2:32PM
GMT 05 Feb 2015
British intelligence officials
are so alarmed at a parliamentary inquiry into their activities in
Germany that they have threatened to stop sharing information if it goes ahead.
According to a report in Focus
magazine, British spy chiefs are worried that German politicians could reveal
classified information about their joint projects, including details about
code-breaking and technology. They fear a Europe-wide surveillance project that
began last year, and includes British and German intelligence, could be
comprised.
Germany is taking the threat,
said to have been made by senior British officials, seriously. Gerhard
Schindler, the head of Germany's federal intelligence agency, the
Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) reportedly brief the parliamentary inquiry on the
"unusually tense relations with British partner agencies" on
Wednesday evening.
German intelligence depends on
shared information from the UK, particularly when monitoring jihadists
returning from Syria and Iraq.
“Without the information from
British signals intelligence we would be blind," an unnamed senior
intelligence official told the magazine.
Known in Germany as the "NSA
committee", the parliamentary enquiry was set up last year after documents
leaked by Edward Snowden, the American whistleblower, suggested that Britain
and the US had been spying on their ally Germany.
Germans were enraged to discover
that the US National Security Agency (NSA) had listened into Angela Merkel's
telephone calls.
Last summer, Mrs Merkel's
government asked the BND to spy on how Britain and the US gathers intelligence
on German soil, the first time it has done so since the Second World War. The
request was made after a double
agent was uncoveredin the BND selling secrets to the US Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA).
The CIA's station chief in Berlin
was asked to leave Germany after the news broke.
Britain's relationship with
Germany was
also hit after it emerged that the UK was using its embassy as a
listening post to monitor communications in the buildings of government
departments nearby.
Behind the scenes, information
sharing has continued and government communications headquarters (GCHQ)
recently set up a joint project to monitor hundreds of volunteers who travelled
from Britain and Germany to wage jihad in Syria and Iraq, according to Bild
newspaper.
It is not the first time that the
parliamentary inquiry has hit the headlines. Last October, Mrs Merkel's office
threatened its members with criminal charges after secret documents were
leaked.
Elsewhere in the new developing EUSSR civil war, Germany seems to
be pushing Greece to exit the wealth destroying euro this weekend. Nien, nien,
nien, was the friendly brotherhood of Europe message from Berlin to Athens
serfs. Though in a move deemed helpful in Berlin, Herr Schauble directed 500 German
tax storm troopers to be sent south to Greece, to reform the Greek tax system
and launch a Gestapo like attack on Greek tax evaders, aka the Greeks. Just
wait until the German tax horde enters into Italy, Spain and France. The UK may
not have to leave the dying EU in 2017, soon there may not be an EU to leave at
all.
Greece pleads with Berlin
for time and money to re-write debt deal
Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis evokes fears of Nazism in Greece in a bid
to end his country's "ritual humiliation" at the hands of its
creditors
Following an uneasy two-hour showdown with his German counterpart in Berlin,
Yanis Varoufakis admitted he had failed to “agree to disagree” with Wolfgang
Schauble over his government’s demands to re-write its €240bn bailout agreement.
The meeting was the last leg of Syriza’s tour of Europe’s capitals, where
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his number two hoped to drum up support for
an alleviation of the bailout terms imposed by the Troika.
Yanis Varoufakis sought to appeal to the hearts of ordinary Germans, even
evoking the spectre of Nazism in his country in a bid to end the “gross
indiginity” Greece has suffered since the financial crisis.
“The German nation is the one nation that can understand us best" said
Mr Varoufakis, comparing Greece’s “ritual humiliation” with the debt
deflationary policies that helped bring Hitler to power in the 1930s.
“When I return home tonight I shall find myself in a parliament in which the
third-largest party is not a neo-Nazi party, it is a Nazi party. We need the
people of Germany on our side."
Mr Varoufakis repeated his demand for Greece to be awarded an emergency
bridging loan to help keep the country afloat as it seeks to negotiate with the
Troika. Athens current bailout deal is due to expire on February 28.
In a tense exchange, Mr Schaeuble said Europe’s creditors had gone to the
limit of what was “possible and reasonable” on Greece’s debt arrangements.
“Yes we must respect Greek voters, but we must also respect the voters of
other European countries,” said Mr Schauble.
In an ominous prelude to the showdown between Europe's largest creditor and
its most indebted government, it was revealed that Mr Schaeuble refused a
request from George Osborne to give Mr Varoufakis the German minister's
personal mobile phone number. Mr Varoufakis was in London for talks with the
Chancellor earlier this week.
The meeting between the two camehours after the European Central Banksuspended
the waiver allowing it to accept the country’s junk-rated bonds as collateral
for loans.
The move means Greek banks sole source of funding will come through the
ECB’s emergency liquidity programme (ELA). The central bank moved to raise the
ELA limit for Greece to €60bn according to reports in Germany’s Die Welt. Greek
lenders borrowed €56bn in December, according to the Bank of Greece.
Money,
again, has often been a cause of the delusion of the multitudes. Sober nations
have all at once become desperate gamblers, and risked almost their existence
upon the turn of a piece of paper.
Charles
Mackay. Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the
Madness of Crowds
At the Comex silver depositories Thursday final figures were: Registered 67.79
Moz, Eligible 110.22 Moz, Total 178.01 Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Today, why would you buy American or British
computer equipment or British, when you know that the NSA and GCHQ have built
in all kinds of back doors and trapdoors to hack and steal your information,
let far away spooks take over your computers and disable or pervert them, or
use them to launch cyber attacks on other countries. US “business groups” have
just woken up to how the NSA self excluded them from one sixth of the planet’s
growing business.
Groups Urge U.S. Fight Against China Foreign Tech Purge
1:15 AM WET February 6, 2015
(Bloomberg) -- U.S. business
groups are seeking immediate action from the Obama administration to reverse
“troubling” Chinese security requirements they say will block foreign software,
servers and computing equipment from the country.
If fully implemented, the
policies threaten the ability of U.S. companies to participate in China’s $465
billion market for information technology products, 17 business groups wrote in
a Feb. 4 letter to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and other government
officials. The appeal by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Foreign Trade
Council and U.S. Information Technology Office followed similar correspondence
last week to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s cyberspace security panel.
“These business groups see the
writing on the wall,” Mark Natkin, managing director of Marbridge Consulting,
said by phone Friday in Beijing. “They have realized this is not a quick
campaign that’s going to blow over. It’s going to impact their business here
over the long term.”
Chinese regulators summoned bank
officials for a meeting last month to stress the need to carry out a nationwide
directive to cut China’s reliance on foreign technology, people familiar with
the matter said. That directive was a follow-up to a broad national strategy,
reported by Bloomberg News in December, to purge most foreign technology from
banks, state-owned enterprises and the military by 2020.
Rules and regulations for
screening information technology products would take effect this year, Peng Bo,
deputy director of the Cyberspace Administration of China, said Jan. 21.
Meeting Chinese
standards for “secure and controllable” technology would require foreign
technology companies to submit to intrusive testing, hand over source code and
engineer products to restrict cross-border data flow, the U.S. business groups
said in their letter. Being forced from the market could result in losses that
curb research, cost the U.S. jobs and harm innovation, they said.
----The cybersecurity debate between the U.S. and China has been strained
since Edward Snowden revealed widespread spying by the U.S. National Security
Agency and accused the intelligence service of hacking into the computers of
Tsinghua University, one of the China’s top research centers. Last February, Xi
called for faster development of the industry at the first meeting of his
Internet security panel.
The U.S. business groups said
they expected the new cybersecurity regulations to be reviewed and potentially
expanded at that panel’s upcoming annual meeting.
Another
weekend, after getting nuked by the ECB and the Germans during the week, will
the new Greek government nuke back by defaulting and Grexit? Probably not, as
they probably still think that time is on their side, though it isn’t. Next
weekend is more likely I think. Have a good weekend everyone. It may become one
of our last.
Why did I take up stealing? To live better, to own things I
couldn't afford, to acquire this good taste that you now enjoy and which I
should be very reluctant to give up.
Greece, with apologies to Cary Grant. To Catch A Thief.
Following the markets on both sides of the Atlantic since 1968. A dinosaur, who evolved with the financial system as it was perverted from capitalism to banksterism after the great Nixonian error of abandoning the dollar's link to gold instead of simply revaluing gold. Our money is too important to be left to probity challenged central banksters and crooked politicians.
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