The Samson Option

[LuisP]

He did 2 things :

1 - This month – this week ! – Russia announced that 91 of its domestic banks have created an alternative to the SWIFT organization, a move which Russian experts have warned (http://sputniknews.com/business/2015021 ... 40631.html) that “Western businesses would face severe losses if they expelled Russia from the international SWIFT system” since Russia “has become one of the most active users of SWIFT globally, sending hundreds of thousands of messages per day”.

This “Western” designation, in reality, means Europe, since the largest portion of those “hundreds of thousands of messages” are sent over to European banks, not American.

You strike first and foremost at what’s near you.

2 – The long warned cutoff of Russian Gas to Europe seems to be have become a reality (https://euobserver.com/news/127216) – “Russian gas transit to Europe via Ukraine will be stopped. This was announced by the head of “Gazprom” Alexei Miller” January 14. Now, he added, “if Europe wants to buy Russian gas, it will have to build their own part of the pipeline to Turkey”. Ominously, he warned –“Otherwise, these volumes of gas could end up in other markets”.

Meaning, you will freeze for the next 5 years. If, that is, we start building that pipeline today !

That much was said by the all powerfull Alexei Miller Gas Czar last Sunday ( !) to the face of the European Union’s Energy Commissioner, Mr. Maros Sefcovic.

EU energy commissioner Sefcovic

What did Europe's representative say, in answer ?

- “I am very surprised by this statement …. We don’t work like this … the trading system and trading habits - how we do it today - are different”.

(No Comments, from me ... guess them !)

What all of this means, and what all of this will in fact mean …. we have yet to see unfolding.

But The Game is in full swing.


No doubt about that.
And we, in Europe, are just Pawns being played around on its Board.

So, now You All may be thinking this is just another “European Mess” and not yours.


Okay, think so.
But I’m not seeing it that way.

[LuisP]

Last January 26, the American ratings agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded Russia’s credit rating to “junk status” for first time in decade (http://www.theguardian.com/business/201 ... dit-rating) saying that inflation in Russia “could rise above 15% this year and the banks will suffer an increase in bad debts on their balance sheets.”

Yesterday, February 21, Moody’s, another American ratings agency, followed suit and also downgraded that country’s debt status (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/f ... unk-moodys) saying Russia “is expected to experience a deep recession in 2015 and a continued contraction in 2016” and that “It seems more likely that Russia will face additional sanctions than that current sanctions are lifted in the coming months”.

Meanwhile
Last February 6, French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrived in Moscow for talks on the Ukrainian crisis with President Vladimir Putin behind closed doors (http://rt.com/news/229999-merkel-putin-hollande-moscow/), which was regarded as “an attempt to present a viewpoint on solving the Ukrainian crisis that differs from the US one” while also providing a means “to get ahead of the Americans, who are trying to impose their solution to the problem on Westerners : a transfer of weapons to Ukraine.”

On February 20, General Sir Adrian Bradshaw, Nato’s deputy commander of forces in Europe, said that “Russian expansionist ambitions could quickly become “an obvious existential threat to our whole being” (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/f ... to-general), adding that “the alliance needed to develop both fast-reacting conventional forces and capacities to counter Russian efforts at coercion and propaganda”.

On February 21, while visiting London, John Kerry, America’s Secretary of State, said that (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/f ... ip-hammond ) “Russia has engaged in an absolutely brazen and cynical process over these last days”, and that “We’re not going to sit there and be part of this kind of extraordinarily craven behavior”.



It is not only in Physics that a vortex can be created.
In Politics, it too can be done.

And we’re, I fear, being slowly sucked into one.

[LuisP]

“SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) is an independent international institute dedicated to research into conflict, armaments, arms control and disarmament. SIPRI was established on the basis of a decision by the Swedish Parliament and receives a substantial part of its funding in the form of an annual grant from the Swedish Government. Established in 1966, SIPRI provides data, analysis and recommendations, based on open sources, to policymakers, researchers, media and the interested public. Based in Stockholm, SIPRI also has a presence in Beijing, and is regularly ranked among the most respected think tanks worldwide.”

Ok, so that’s their “spin speech”. And they can be found here http://www.sipri.org/about

They published data about the world’s 100 largest arms-producing and military services companies (outside China) and ranked their arms sales—which totalled a staggering $402 billion in 2013 (http://www.sipri.org/research/armaments ... s-industry)

Staggering, for a world – supposedly and largely – at peace. And remember …. that’s a number relating only to the 100 top sellers, China’s companies, among others, excluded (no data available).

To give some perspective, my country’s total annual product is somewhere along $200 billion … and we rank 42 among 187 countries listed in 2013 by the International Monetary Fund (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... y_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita) using the “GDP per capita” method .

To give another perspective, when the “Iraqi War” started in 2003, those 100 Top sellers earned that year $203 billion. When it ended in 2011, they had earned that year $ 419 billion, the highest ever on record (http://www.sipri.org/research/armaments ... -2002-2013).

So yes, to register in 2013 a sales value inferior by a mere $ 17 billion below the max ever reached … is a Gargantuan amount of money being made on weaponry by the ridiculous number of just 100 simple companies.


Why am I pulling this up, in this thread ?

If interested, read my next.

[LuisP]

I pulled all of that up

- Not because data shows America to be the biggest arms seller, with $640 Billion made in 2013. A figure that only raised my eyebrow since it represented roughly half of the armament sales the whole world sold that year (it topped 1,3 Trillion Dollars).
- Not because Death is a business, which is a known fact since Rome and so only naïve people will gasp at its factual course.
- Not because I want to spit rage at this madness – which, for the record, is madness - or speak about “double standards” from a Nation who advocates Peace and then spreads Arms around the globe like confetti – which, for the record, it does.

But
Because “Military spending continues to fall in the West but rises everywhere else” said SIPRI in April 2014 (http://www.sipri.org/media/pressrelease ... April_2014).

“Rises everywhere else”. That got my attention.


And that’s when I came to know that the “everywhere” was, namely, Russia.

Which - in a single year - saw some of its "arms companies" ranking the Top 100 and increasing its Arms business output not by 5 or 10 percent … but by an astounding 20 %.

Question – to me – from this “Samson Option” point of view, is
- Why, what for and who is on the “demand” side of this now plentiful “offer”.

I’m keeping tuned in. And hoping I’m wrong as to the “what for”, because as far as the “why” and “to whom” go, it doesn’t take much to figure out.

But there’s another very interesting piece of info that can be found inside SIPRI’s available data sheets.
That’s what I will talking about next, but in another thread. Name of “Lockheed Martin’s compact fusion reactor”.


At times, we all have (I did, for one) tried to write straight by following twisted lines.
Maybe that's the explanation.

[Mikado14]

Fusion Reactor? ......compact?

I'll be watching.

Mikado

[Nancy_Hutchison]

Fusion Reactor? ......compact?

I'll be watching.

Mikado

being developed in Corvalis, Oregon

[LuisP]

And then,
The Wahhabi Sunni, aka, The Saudis, have now decided to move into War.

They are presently attacking Yemen … which used to be Sunni dominated, but has meanwhile (these last couple of months) seen the local Shiite, organized under a movement called Houthi, give a death blow to Yemen’s Sunni dominated government and parliament, toppling both.

This Yemen civil war between Sunni / Shia (Houthi ) has been going on for decades.
But NOW, it is no longer a fratricide war. It went “local”, meaning, affecting its neighbors … and not only . For Egypt and Qatar have decided to step into the fray and join the Sunni Saudis in their “punitive action”. For they too are Sunni countries.

Current territorial situation in Yemen as of March 22nd 2015. Houthi forces are shown in green

Again – this is happening right NOW.

Needless to say, the Saudis “best friends” are also in it. They are the Americans. Not (yet) actively engaged but just on a “supporting” role, supplying Intel and all the other paraphernalia necessary to wage a “high tech” war, such as satellite and communications surveillance of “the Enemy”.
And who is behind this sudden Houthi prowess ? Iran, of course, arming and helping their Yemeni Shia brothers.

Thing is,
Some 4.000 miles away …. the Americans, also right NOW, are “actively engaged” in bombing the ISIL hordes in Tikrit, Iraq. And ISIL is Sunni to their savage core. Furthermore, they’re not alone in those “active” actions.

No, I’m not talking about the sudden (this week) Canadian camaraderie on bombing raids.

I’m talking about Iran.
Who decided to actively step in into the Sunni created Iraq mess, so as to destroy the threatening ISIL menace. With not just planes, but also “boots on the ground”.


Meaning, on one hand America and Iran wage war as allies, and on another as foes.


May I remind and call up again what I wrote here ( viewtopic.php?f=51&t=1231#p35783) and asked for you to keep in mind, and remember.

No, the “world” is not crazy.
This is Big Money talking.
Or, rather, barking and biting.

And The Game goes on.
I’m keeping tuned to it.

Hoping it'll keep on staying "local".

[LuisP]

Pravda.png (61.71 KiB) Viewed 3391 times

Everyone knows that Pravda (“Truth”) is the official printed voice of Russia. It was so under the Soviets, and remained so under the subsequent muscled, “totalitarian democracy” that since 1989 took its place.

Therefore, “Pravda” is mainly a propaganda voice pipe. And with corresponding credibility.


Having said that,

I read it. And I do it because I like to follow Sun Tzu’s advice : “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles”.

Yesterday, March 27, Pravda published a scary article titled “Are we on the brink of World War III ?”

It is scary for it makes sense. Who writes it knows, very well, what he is talking about. And when to say it.


Some excerpts (colors are mine):
- “If a global war breaks out it will quickly bankrupt the world and send the global economy into a depression. People seem to think that America can wage another war right on top of two wars with impunity. But those two wars already had a large hand in ratcheting up the national debt to $18.1 trillion and counting.
- What the FED and the Japanese and Euro central banks have proven so far is that they can print money, but not stimulate their economies. After 6 years of running the printing presses nonstop the global economy is deflating into a recession.
- Is it not abundantly obvious that world war would only temporarily boost production and, in turn, inflation? But that would not result in net wealth-creation but in destruction and loss of life on a massive scale.
- But the game would be over because the world's currencies would end-up shredded; confidence in global trade squandered; there would be no reserve currency to replace the dollar and whoever survived would have to endure a total reset.
- This is no chess match, no game of chicken, this is life and death on a global scale.

So,
- Enjoy your cheap oil and shut up! Keep in mind that Russia, in fact, is the world's largest oil producer and if war breaks out the price of oil skyrockets.”



You can read the full article here : http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/column ... r_three-0/

[LuisP]

Hybrid.jpg (6.3 KiB) Viewed 3391 times

What then, I asked mysef, is “the message” being sent behind this article ?

I didn't need to rattle my brain. For the answer is explicitly written in it :
- "If we do the unthinkable - and allow another world war to erupt - there won't be any winners, everybody on the planet will lose."

And that is - I am now not just afraid, but sure – solid proof that Russia has opted for Samson’s defense style.



Again, I’m no doom spreader. I’m just keeping in tune with some very, very troubling and escalating signs.

God help us all, and may I be wrong.

[wags]

There are a lot of disturbing parallels with the 1930's and the financial cycle (1929 = 2008). Even the security summit on Ukraine was held in Munich!