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Why We’re Sliding Towards World War
Paul Craig Roberts – former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under President Reagan, former editor of the Wall Street Journal, listed by Who’s Who in America as one of the 1,000 most influential political thinkers in the world, PhD economist – wrote an article about the build up of hostilities between the U.S. and Russia titled, simply: “War Is Coming”.
Similarly, Ronald Reagan’s head of the Office of Management and Budget – David Stockman – is posting pieces warning of the dispute between the U.S. and Russia leading to World War 3.
Trend forecaster Gerald Celente – who has been making some accurate financial and geopolitical predictions for decades – says WW3 will start soon.
Investment fund manager and adviser Martin Armstrong has charted the “cycles of war” back to 600 BC … and says that we’ll have major wars between now and 2020. He has written pieces recently entitled, “Why We will Go to War with Russia“, and another one saying, “Prepare for World War III“.
Investment adviser Larry Edelson – who has long studied the “cycles of war” – recently wrote:
This year … we will also be hit by another ramping up of the related war cycles.
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All part and parcel of the rising war cycles that I’ve been warning you about, conditions that will not abate until at least the year 2020.
Former Goldman Sachs technical analyst Charles Nenner – who has made some big accurate calls, and counts major hedge funds, banks, brokerage houses, and high net worth individuals as clients – says there will be “a major war”, which will drive the Dow to 5,000.
Veteran investor adviser James Dines forecast a war as epochal as World Wars I and II, starting in the Middle East.
What’s causing the slide towards war? We discuss several causes below.
Debt, Economic Collapse and Distraction
Martin Armstrong – who studies cycles, and managed multi-billion dollar sovereign investment funds – argues that war plans against Syria are really about debt and spending:
The Syrian mess seems to have people lining up on Capital Hill when sources there say the phone calls coming in are overwhelmingly against any action. The politicians are ignoring the people entirely. This suggests there is indeed a secret agenda to achieve a goal outside the discussion box. That is most like the debt problem and a war is necessary to relief the pressure to curtail spending.
Armstrong says the same thing caused Turkey to shoot down a Russian fighter jet over Syria:
This mess lies squarely in the hands of the Obama Administration and then to have the audacity to pretend Turkey had a right to defend its airspace when not being attacked is just too much. These people NEED war to distract everyone from the Sovereign Debt Crisis that is causing the collapse of governments for a system of borrowing year after year with ABSOLUTELY no intention of ever paying any debt off.
The same logic applies to Europe and other countries …
Armstrong writes:
Our greatest problem is the bureaucracy wants a war. This will distract everyone from the NSA and justify what they have been doing. They need a distraction for the economic decline that is coming.
Billionaire hedge fund manager Kyle Bass notes:
Trillions of dollars of debts will be restructured and millions of financially prudent savers will lose large percentages of their real purchasing power at exactly the wrong time in their lives. Again, the world will not end, but the social fabric of the profligate nations will be stretched and in some cases torn. Sadly, looking back through economic history, all too often war is the manifestation of simple economic entropy played to its logical conclusion. We believe that war is an inevitable consequence of the current global economic situation.
Billionaire investor Jim Rogers notes:
A continuation of bailouts in Europe could ultimately spark another world war, says international investor Jim Rogers.
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“Add debt, the situation gets worse, and eventually it just collapses. Then everybody is looking for scapegoats. Politicians blame foreigners, and we’re in World War II or World War whatever.”
Economist and investment manager Marc Faber says that the American government will start new wars in response to the economic crisis:
A Handful of People Make a Killing Off War
War is very good for a handful of defense contractors and banksters who make huge sums from backing unnecessary war.
America is now officially an oligarchy. And a high-level Bush administration official – Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson – says that the oligarchy controls American war-making decisions.
So the people who stand to make a killing from wars push the government into fighting them.
Voodoo Economics
Many influential economists and talking heads hold the discredited belief that war is good for the economy.
Therefore, many are overtly or more subtly pushing for war under the mistaken view that it will help the economy.
Challengers Give Declining Empires “Itchy Fingers”
Historians say that declining empires tend to attack their rising rivals … so the risk of world war is rising because the U.S. feels threatened by the rising empire of China.
The U.S. government considers economic rivalry to be a basis for war. Therefore, the U.S. is systematically using the military to contain China’s growing economic influence.
Competition for Resources Is Heating Up
In addition, it is well-established that competition for scarce resources often leads to war. For example, Oxford University’s Quarterly Journal of Economics notes:
In his classic, A Study of War, Wright (1942) devotes a chapter to the relationship between war and resources. Another classic reference, Statistics of Deadly Quarrels by Richardson (1960),extensively discusses economic causes of war, including the control of “sources of essential commodities.”A large literature pioneered by Homer-Dixon (1991, 1999) argues that scarcity of various environmental resources is a major cause of conflict and resource wars (see Toset, Gleditsch, and Hegre 2000, for empirical evidence).
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In the War of the Pacific (1879–1884), Chile fought against a defensive alliance of Bolivia and Peru for the control of guano [i.e. bird poop] mineral deposits. The war was precipitated by the rise in the value of the deposits due to their extensive use in agriculture.
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Westing (1986) argues that many of the wars in the twentieth century had an important resource dimension. As examples he cites the Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962), the Six Day War (1967), and the Chaco War (1932–1935). More recently, Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 was a result of the dispute over the Rumaila oil field. In Resource Wars (2001), Klare argues that following the end of the Cold War, control of valuable natural resources has become increasingly important, and these resources will become a primary motivation for wars in the future.
Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan (and many world leaders) admitted that the Iraq war was really about oil, and former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill says that Bush planned the Iraq war before 9/11. And see this and this. Libya, Syria, Iran and Russia are all oil-producing countries as well …
Indeed, we’ve extensively documented that the wars in the Middle East and North Africa are largely about oil and gas. The wars in Syria and Iraq are about pipelines. The war in Gaza may be no exception. And see this. And Ukraine may largely be about gas as well.
And James Quinn and Charles Hugh Smith say we’re running out of all sorts of resources … which will lead to war.
Central Banking and Currency Wars
We’re in the middle of a global currency war – i.e. a situation where nations all compete to devalue their currencies the most in order to boost exports. Brazilian president Rousseff said in 2010:
The last time there was a series of competitive devaluations … it ended in world war two.
Jim Rickards agrees:
Currency wars lead to trade wars, which often lead to hot wars. In 2009, Rickards participated in the Pentagon’s first-ever “financial” war games. While expressing confidence in America’s ability to defeat any other nation-state in battle, Rickards says the U.S. could get dragged into “asymmetric warfare,” if currency wars lead to rising inflation and global economic uncertainty.
As does billionaire investor Jim Rogers:
Trade wars always lead to wars.
Given that China, Russia, India, Brazil and South Africa have joined together to create a $100 billion bank based in China, and that more and more trades are being settled in Yuan or Rubles – instead of dollars – the currency war is quickly heating up.
Indeed, many of America’s closest allies are joining China’s effort … which is challenging America and the Dollar’s hegemony.
Multi-billionaire investor Hugo Salinas Price says:
What happened to [Libya’s] Mr. Gaddafi, many speculate the real reason he was ousted was that he was planning an all-African currency for conducting trade. The same thing happened to him that happened to Saddam because the US doesn’t want any solid competing currency out there vs the dollar. You know Gaddafi was talking about a gold dinar.
Senior CNBC editor John Carney noted:
Is this the first time a revolutionary group has created a central bank while it is still in the midst of fighting the entrenched political power? It certainly seems to indicate how extraordinarily powerful central bankers have become in our era.
Robert Wenzel of Economic Policy Journal thinks the central banking initiative reveals that foreign powers may have a strong influence over the rebels.
This suggests we have a bit more than a ragtag bunch of rebels running around and that there are some pretty sophisticated influences. “I have never before heard of a central bank being created in just a matter of weeks out of a popular uprising,” Wenzel writes.
Indeed, some say that recent wars have really been about bringing all countries into the fold of Western central banking.
Runaway Inequality
Paul Tudor Jones – founder of the Tudor Investment Corporation and the Tudor Group, which trade in the fixed-income, equity, currency and commodity markets – said recently:
This gap between the 1 percent and the rest of America, and between the US and the rest of the world, cannot and will not persist.
Historically, these kinds of gaps get closed in one of three ways: by revolution, higher taxes or wars.
And see this.
War Is Destroying Our National Security, Our Democracy and Our Economy
We spent trillions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Yet we’re now less safe after 13 years of war.
Never-ending wars are also destroying our democratic republic. The Founding Fathers warned against standing armies, saying that they destroy freedom. (Update). Perversely, our government treats anti-war sentiment as terrorism.
The Founding Fathers – and the father of free market capitalism – also warned against financing wars with debt. But according to Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, the U.S. debt for the Iraq war could be as high as $5 trillion dollars (or $6 trillion dollars according to a study by Brown University.)
Indeed, top economists say that war is destroying our economy.
But war is great for the bankers and the defense contractors. And – as discussed above – governments are desperate for war.
So it’s up to us – the people – to stop wider war.
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I should add that the EURO was born on 09/01/2001 it existed in digital form prior to this date ..........
Birth pangs of the euro'Will the euro be able to survive the vicissitudes of a currency change and also challenge the hegemony of the U.S. dollar?
BISWAJIT CHOUDHURY
SEPTEMBER 1, 2001 was a historic day for Europe. Thousands of tonnes of banknotes and coins of the new European common currency, the euro, were delivered to the central banks of 12 European countries for circulation as legal tender.'
http://www.frontline.in/static/html/fl1819/18190560.htm
Why? Because the fascist banksters, true-believer neocons, and neo-nazi elite want a war.
don't forget the neoliberals whom are just the smiley face version of neocons with the same agenda. They are all looking for war to cover up their tracks of utter corruption and theft and they'll slide out of view forever in the fog of the war or just brought back as 'consultants' in the waging of war
The one WAR that desperately needs to be fought,
"The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks."
John Dalberg Lord Acton
Which includes their enablers in governments
You can rest assured, bankers have not showed up at my range to train.
As a RSO (Range Safety Officier), I've not run across a banker in the past 2 years.
Lots of 'others' show up and train and they all don't speak kindly of bankers.
But they do have the fiat to buy armed men..
Pray the upper management "Jump" moar and save lead expenditure.
Without the military, gunboat financial tricks like ZIRP and QE fucking everybody up worldwide wouldn't be possible.
And without the same financial banker tricks, the giant military wouldn't be possible. Funny how that works.
That means....WOAR!
twas tricky Dick that took us off the gold standard
and put us on the jacketed-lead standard
i believe rocks come next...
*UPDATED* “We Are Change” In Paris Censored; Facebook Censors Eric Dubin, Managing Editor, The News Doctors
http://thenewsdoctors.com/facebook-censors-eric-dubin-managing-editor-the-news-doctors/
Stay out of the square...go directly to the banker's houses
WWIII started by ZioNazis on September 11, 2001... Their New Pearl Harbor !
This New World War ain't like the last two.
All wars are bankers wars (tm)
it was more like their 'Reichstag Fire' with a little element of the pentagon added in to create the atmosphere of a 'peal harbor'. Mixing it up a little bit and shouting 9/11 and muslim terrorists constantly for the next 20 years .... so clever those greedy people ... all for a bunch of money they don't need and to have power for a little while ... so stupid
All wars are bankers wars (tm, Michael Rivero)
''Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan (and many world leaders) admitted that the Iraq war was really about oil..''
That's not accurate. The primary reason they went into Iraq because in 2000, Saddam started selling his oil in euros instead of dollars, therefore undermining the petrodollar system. Oil and pipelines are important spoils, but this military endeavour has not 'really been about war'.
That still makes it about oil.
Money is one thing.
The most condensed stored energy in the world is another.
A system to gain an advantage on the substance that "drives" the world is a helluva system
One worth fighting for
the problem is
like Rome
we're stretched too thin
dollars and soldiers
and everyone hates us now
it's only a matter of time
Happy Thanksgiving everyone
I take issue with this. "One worth fighting for ..."
We could have just paid for it like Germany does now. When at the top of the unipolar heap, we did not need to pick out and destroy smaller states. We could have acted in a moral way. We could have tried competing, but first we would have to end the Fed and its creature, the Petro$.
Russia and the US tend to end up on the same side in World Wars. Might want to consider other possibilities for who will really be at war with who.
Not really. WWIII was already fought between Soviet Russia and the United States. WWIV looks a lot like a rematch to me.
euro is frn in drag. see 2008 for proof - mega bailouts and currency swaps by frbny
that was NOT the reason saddam was ousted
he was busting the oil production limit put on him by nyc.opec
a cartel is all about suppressing production. true scarcity has no use for a cartel
Saddam was compensating families of Palestinian suicide bombers for the revenge destruction of the family's home by the IO/DF. Saddam was an Arab nationalist. They can not pull the whahbi/jihadi thing with the harder to control Arab Nationalist in the way. And Saddam was annoying the Petro$ scheme, so he like Gaddaffi served as an example of the risks you run when you threaten the Petro$.
The Petro$ needs blood sacrifice, in the sense that bloody examples have to be made to keep the rest of the ducks in a row.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hfEBupAeo4
Written and Narrated by Michael Rivero
Video by Zane Henry Productions
nice and concise
Thanks for the link.
I watched it.
Pretty good.
Missed a few topics but it all can't be comprehensive
Not so much a "slide", but more like an avalanche. Almost no avoiding it now.....
All that awaits is America's financial meltdown....
The avalanche has started. It's too late for the pebbles to vote.
Step to the side and let it roll.
"This gap between the 1 percent and the rest of America, and between the US and the rest of the world, cannot and will not persist."
If "this gap" is a gap in standard of living, the statement is nonsense. Europe and Japan closed the "gap" 40 years ago. The second world and parts of the third world have done so since then.
The standard of living for the average American has stalled for 40 years and is no longer anything special.
Since over 90% of Americans do not have a passport, the vast majority of Americans never leave the country. They still believe that people are starving in Korea.
Maltese, I was thinking about that too. Then I realized, yes an unsustainable amount of the World's wealth pours into America, but the sheeple see less and less of it. All the skim is going to the banksters and the MIC (which really is the banksters as the banksters own the MIC.)
When comparing Quality of Life, it is one of those things that GDP cannot understand anyhow.