Iran Launches New Military Exercise, This Time Along Afghanistan Border
While the aftermath of the first 10 day Iranian wargame in the Straits of Hormuz is still lingering, especially in the price of oil, and the world is bracing itself for parallel exercises between a joint US-Israel operation and a concurrent Iranian effort in the weeks ahead, Iran is not waiting and has already started a brand new military exercise, this time inland and far closer to a key US strategic asset - Afghanistan (and its poppies). From Reuters: "Iran launched a military manoeuvre near its border with Afghanistan on Saturday, the semi-official Fars news agency reported, days after naval exercises in the Gulf increased tensions with the West and pushed up oil prices. Mohammad Pakpour, commander of the Revolutionary Guards' ground forces, said the "Martyrs of Unity" exercises near Khvat, 60 km (40 miles) from Afghanistan, were "aimed at boosting security along the Iranian borders," Fars reported." Naturally, this "reason" is bogus. That said, at this point we are at a loss as to which country it is that is desiring a military escalation more, because both sides appear hell bent on moving past the foreplay stage. Regardless, the whole situation is starting to smell more and more like the summer of 2008 when crude would move up in $5 increments on flaring tensions between Israel and Iran, coupled with Goldman predictions of near-quadruple digit Brent, only to have the entire energy complex implode in the aftermath of Lehman. The recent decoupling of oil from all other risk indicators (oil higher is not a good thing for the economy) is vaguely reminiscent...
In other news, the US Stennis, better known as the CVN-74, recently saved several Iranian fishermen from pirates:
Forces with the USS John C. Stennis aircraft carrier strike group, the target of Tehran's threat, rescued 13 Iranian fishermen from Somali pirates days after passing through the Strait.
Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi played down the political significance of the rescue.
"On some occasions, Iran has helped and secured the released of many other countries' sailors that had been caught by pirates," he told state-run Press TV.
"This is a humanitarian gesture and it is not related to the countries' relations with each other."
Of course, the liberation of one country's oil will most certainly be presented as a humanitarian gesture as well. But everything in due course.
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"The enemy aggressor is always pursuing a course of larceny, murder, rapine and barbarism. We are always moving forward with high mission, a destiny imposed by the Deity to regenerate our victims, while incidentally capturing their markets; to civilise savage and senile and paranoid peoples, while blundering accidentally into their oil wells." Flynn, 1944.
Exactly. The key aspect of this event is that the exercise takes place within the borders of Iran.
To characterize this as an offensive or an increase in tensions is to forget that the US is outside her borders with its "asset" Afghanistan and has been racheting up aggressive talk, now to include Federal Reserve-based, world-reserve currency sanctions against a sovereign nation.
Is it now politically incorrect (like criticizing Israel on the floor of the United States Congress) to have a military exercise within your own borders if Israel, circling your borders, considers you aggressive?
what is possibly to be gained by all of this?
Message from Iran to NATO : fuck with us and we'll make Afghanistan even more hellish.
Trav777 China may be advising Iran to create "noise" to keep US troops on alert, and distracted from the real potential enemy, China, as well as the economic benefit of higher oil prices for Iran.
Of course the greedy Iranian bastards might just and a few more dollars on top of the price of crude.
How about the Iranians are moving to secure the borders against inflow of drugs from Afghanistan? While at the same time keeping tensions at a high level to support higher crude prices - a move that probably does not affect the long term supply contracts that China has wisely negotiated in advance.
How about Ron Paul is right.
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/01/ron-paul-vindicated-...
Hey lazy ass democrats get registered to vote Ron Paul. Keep hearing them tell us if RP is nominee they'll vote him against Obama. Guess what you have to help make him the nominee. Vote in the primary.
NH voters, RP is only Republican who can defeat Obama.
current elites and institutions are too powerful to be brought down by outside forces. Only way is to let them self-destruct through their own arrogance.
Agree high oil pices are a goal of the Iranian government and tensions raise prices.
High oil prices are also the goal of the bankers who are telling Obama to sic the military on Iran. Make money on the way up, then much more money on the way down. All you need is advanced notice. What do they care if a few billion people suffer for it?
bankers don't care about flipping oil assets. They do care about controlling oil assets to be traded in US dollar to enable acqusition of all other assets.
Even OPEC knows that too high oil prices are not optimal profit sweetspots: (1) spurs alternative energy investments (2) slows flow of money in economy to a halt (3) makes themselves attractive targets of foreign takeover by Russia, China, NATO, US, etc.
Stupid and ignorant mule,
your comments only prove that you are indeed the offspring of failed generations (your imbecility is unique). In fact, the blame must be placed on the states involved in eugenics during the first decades of the twentieth century for not strictly enforcing the sterilization laws on your ancestors; consequently, you are the best evidence that defective genes have been transmitted from one generation to the next – and the chances that your descendants’ DNA carrying a more complex sequence of these defective genes are 100% guaranteed.
Besides that, never forget the following, stupid brute:
“It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind…Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”
Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927)
As soon as the war is on, you Strauss' Vulgar Many can certainly say good-bye to all of your ridiculous investments.
Eugenics Altruist ???
In bold face type too. But not all caps. What a missed opportunity to really us what he really thinks. Look for this guy on the nearest street corner soon with a big sign and loudspeaker (But he'ld better choose that street corner carefully - I can think of quite a few neighborhoods where he would last, oh, say, ten seconds.)
Ah, it's Saturday, he just missed his meds this morning.
Who are you callin' a mule Wanker? I got no time for you or your racist friends batty bwoy.
I don't read shit in all bold or all Caps. I just assume the poster has a small dick.
The aggressiveness is initiated by the U.S. because Israel believes its dominance in the Middle East is threatened by a strong Iran. For months the war talk has been increasing from the US War Party (led by the neocon-Zionist influence in Congress), a cooperative media, and by pressure on subservient politicians in Britain and France.
Iran is simply signaling that it refuses to give up its sovereignty by implying it will fight if its nuclear industry is attacked, increasing the danger of world war that the US and Israel have created.
The result is a lose-lose for all the parties: Iran, of course, with the potential for hundreds of thousands of its people killed; Israel because of its enhanced role as world pariah, and saddest of all, the people of the United States to be identified by future generations as the world’s most militant aggressors – pounding away at countries for no reasons other than greed, Empire and Zionism.
The US already has turned one corner – sanctions.
This is more like one of those high school fights with a lot of pushing and no fighting. Come at me bro!
Here is a “little” CORPORATE perspective from a rather revealing yet morbid creepy movie… Syriana (<= check it out ya’ll ;-)
At any rate, grow stronger, bitchez… adapt.
Syriana, @1:22:06, (total length 2:07:35)
Pg. 94 of 130 (Pg. labeled 139) in script (some discrepancies)
http://pdl.warnerbros.com/wbmovies/syriana/site/med/Syriana-Screenplay.pdf
Danny D.:
Some trust-fund prosecutor got off message at Yale…
…thinks he’s gonna run this up the flagpole?
Make a name for himself?
Maybe get elected some two-bit congressman from nowhere…
…with the result that China or Russia…
…can suddenly start having, at our expense…
… all the advantages we enjoy here?
No, I tell you. No, sir.
Corruption charges. Corruption?
Corruption is government intrusion…
…into market efficiencies in the form of regulation.
That’s Milton Friedman. He got a goddam Nobel Prize.
We have laws against it precisely so we can get away with it.
Corruption is our protection.
Corruption keeps us safe and warm!
Corruption is why you and I are prancing around in here…
…instead of fighting over scraps of meat out in the street.
Corruption is why we win.
bullies never actually want to fight. they use intimidation to get what they want.
bullies are afraid of a small chance that the small guy can actually win, because nobody has to beat a bully twice.
Russia-China-Iran nukes the shit out of Israel, US will lose all credibility amongst allies to be able to defend anything. When socialist Brazil and Europe aligns more with socialist China, then US is a bully down on the ground surrounded by past victims.
Thanks to globalism and greed of few elites, China now has the fuck you money and they are going to use it to tell USA one day. Iran war might be that day.
...war? good for business? invest your son or daughter?
war is usually a lose lose proposition....unless the outcome is a sure thing.
what you want to do is stay in the sidelines until the winner is almost determined, then side with the winner at the last minute to get some piece of the prize.
<what is possibly to be gained by all of this?>
1. It boosts the price of oil thus impacting all nations dependent on it
2. It makes military cuts unlikely when they are being considered as is the case now.
3. It supports the price of oil.
4. It arouses all the armchair hawks to kill another five thousand of our young in the name of freedom (See oil.)
5. It raises the price of Whole Foods pistachio nuts.
6. It angers my father-in law (See #5)
7. It raises the USA contribution to the IMF
8. It pushes us firmly into a real Recession in the next two year.
9. It helps put people back to work building arms and losing real ones when they step on them.
10 It takes the attention away from bankers who are actively working on their next five social-networking IPOs.
11. It creates the need for larger embassies where people can go to declare political asylum.
12. It diverts attention away from anything that's toxic in this economy.
I'm gonna stop at twelve.
Is it okay to be wedged between the ten commandments and Wilson's fourteen points?
So I should go long pistachio nuts? Glad I bought 5 lbs for Christmas.
+1
& three hi-rez images:
http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/Reuters/2012-01-02T153037Z_01_TEH03_RT...
http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/Reuters/2011-12-30T191149Z_202532918_G...
http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/Reuters/2011-12-30T191230Z_2035002402_...
Put a missile launcher on a speed-boat and what do you get?
You get a tanker killer.
They are small and short-range missiles with similarly small warheads within pic #2.
i.e. almost useless against USN and USMC units.
But a couple of those boats can fuck-up a narrow channel full of tankers rather nicely.
The pretty blue missile in pic #1 is a frigate killer ... two of them would do so much damage to a DDG size ship that it would have to be scrapped.
Pic #3 looks like the northern end of the Gulf of Aquaba, probably on the Saudi side, near to Elat, southern-most Israel ... hence the weapon.
depends if youre trading oil or not.
..looking for about $10/barrel x 10k barrels.
Perhaps the Iranians desire to cause further contraction of the US economy by creating tensions that drive the price of oil up and cause the average American to curtail their activities due to higher fuel costs?
The Persians are not Arabs and a war with them would not be Iraq part 2 or 3. who knows what their Chino Rus allies have been selling them under the table? Make a few war noises and the US military start getting trigger jiggy, always on the lookout for a new munitions recipiant,
The name Iran was the result of Hitler and co's marketing input in the mid 1930's Iran meaning Aryan (google it) formerly known as Persia.
The Persians are playing the US military like a fiddle. Sabre rattle, peace gesture, rinse , repeat. oil go's up, US economy contracts, over 20 or 30 years the effect is enormous.
Just my opinion, the Persians have been playing this game for a long, long time.
That's a good point that is lost on many who spout the "Iran will dominate the Middle East" meme. The Iranians (Persians) are not generally liked by the rank-and-file in the Arab world. It's similar to the idea of China and Japan becoming close allies - i.e. not gonna happen.
well said
Maybe there's something to that but you're certainly forgetting and discounting the fact that the sanctions being put in place are already throttling Iran's currency, financial connections, trade and economic blood-flow.
This is a classic strategic stangulation.
It is also an act of outright war.
The Iranians are NOT just playing around with oil price here.
This means actual war will occur.
higher heroin prices, expect a crime wave when the price doubles. plus the big international pushers wont be happy that a major source of income is threatened., big oil big drugs its all the same people. the taliban outlawed poppy growing and look what happened to them!
taliban owns poppy growing, so they want it made illegal so only they can profit behind the scenes.
amrkns have Big Pharma with the upgrades, why worry. . .
http://www.huliq.com/10282/super-painkiller-zohydro-feared-be-2012-new-a...
never seen anything like oxy in the criminal justice system in 20 years. Of course the manufacturers intentionally hid the dangers and of course they paid $ and avoided jail. In the meantime, kids get hooked and don't
"On May 10, federal prosecutors announced fines and a plea agreement against OxyContin producer Purdue Pharma for illegally “misbranding” its powerful narcotic painkiller as less addictive than it actually was and deliberately misleading regulators, doctors and patients about the drug’s risks. The company was fined $600 million in criminal and civil penalties in conjunction with the felony charge."
The problem of addiction is real but the increasing problem of getting doctors to write adequate amounts of pain meds for patients is real too.
Everytime someone starts using terms like 'hillbilly heroin" another layer of confusion and fear is added.
The feds have further confused the issue. Oxycodone is Schedule 2 and hydrocodone is Sched 3. They are very similar in potency. Why? There is no current hydrocodone formulation that does not have a bunch of acetominophen (Tylenol) in it. This means that to give a patient adequate amounts of pain meds one needs to prescribe oxycodone the higher scheduled drug. Why? Doctors often feel they will be targeted for 'review' if they write narcotics even if appropriate. The louder this discussion gets the greater is the risk that patients will be forced live in pain even though safe and effective (and cheap!!) solutions are readily available.
For the sake of those at risk of addiction as well as those in pain I hope the discussion on this 'hot' topic can be kept rational and the drama can be kept to a minimum.
what is possibly to be gained by all of this?
Poppies - opium - morphine - HEROIN
How you gonna have a war on drugs if there ain't no drugs?
The cultivation of opium reached its peak in 1999,
when 225,000 acres - 350 square miles - of poppies were sown...
The following year the Taliban banned poppy cultivation,
declaring it to be "un-Islamic" -
a move which cut production by 94 per cent...
http://www.orwelltoday.com/afghanheroin.shtml
Afghanistan retook its place as the world's leading producer of heroin last year, after US-led forces overthrew the Taleban which had banned cultivation of opium poppies.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2814861.stm
Afghanistan: Heroin producer to the worldhttp://www.cbc.ca/news/background/drugs/heroin-afghanistan.html
THE OPIUM KINGS
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/heroin/
.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/04/us-usa-military-obama-idUSTRE8031Z020120104
Cue: The Drone Wars
http://rt.com/usa/news/us-drone-hawk-billions/
http://www.infowars.com/drones-officially-take-flight-for-domestic-law-e...
Obama was going to cut deficit spending in half by the end of his first term. Instead, he's doubled it. The list of lies that Hopey the Clown has told is too long to list, so I'll just say that I hesitate to believe anything that motherfucker, or any of the status quo puppet motherfuckers, says.
Scuse my language.
Yeah, but he totally eliminated earmarks.
/sarc
Iran might be able to fuck around with our navy and rattle their sword and make some noise and get away with it, but God help them if they fuck with the CIA's opium supply.
Extraordinary rendition flights have ceased, so the CIA can no longer move heroin that way.
However fortunately for them they have a drone program of their own, outside the Pentagon, maybe they use it to protect truck convoys carrying US dollars into Afghanistan and heroin out. Or more likely they land the drones at Afghan airstrips, put the heroin on board and fly it out.
Note that extraordinary renditions ceased around 2003 and the CIA drone flight started around 2004.
The closure of the CIA drone base in Pakistan may threaten the CIA (or Exchange Stabilisation Fund) cash flows, disrupting other covert ops such as gold and silver price suppression.
The FED will get to establish a bank in Iran more favorable to FED policies in the aftermath of a US invasion. Iran gets to keep stoning adulterers if they can effectively resist an invasion.
Four pudgy fingers can find the vote down button. Nobody is running their mouth about just why they did that though. Are these two sentences true or not true? hmm?
I would celebrate a shortage of Heroin in the US. More junkies will be jonesing for a fix because of higher prices. We'll have to get more of our smack from SE Asia.
"what is possibly to be gained by all of this?"
How about freedom from tyranny? Or perhaps you would like this form of rule...
http://movieclips.com/oK5M-1984-movie-obrien-tortures-winston/
http://movieclips.com/Qo3qw-1984-movie-crowds-shout-at-goldstein/
Trav - the answer is quite obvious from Iran's perspective.
Each US drone is a high-res multispectral mapping system.
The recon they are doing is to refine low-level ingress and egress options, for missiles and aircraft, to refine US attack-planning.
US war-planners are requesting these flights. That's what such recon "intelligence gathering" amounts to.
These flights are developing classes of targets, and very precise geo-location triangulation data for weapon guidance, in a rapid-fire high-intensity precision air attack to knock out as many targets as possible, as soon as possible, in the priority order they wish to destroy them, to obtain the disorienting, crippling demoralising and dysfunction effects they want.
The Iranians have the US drone, and will know this for sure by now.
So it makes perfect sense for Iran to do this, given the RQ-170 flew from Afghanistan.
Guarding against that activity and an attack requires a large-scale national response --and this is it--or a part of it.
The Pentagon knows exactly what this is for, and why the Iranians are doing it now.
Is it now politically incorrect (like criticizing Israel on the floor of the United States Congress) to have a military exercise within your own borders if Israel, circling your borders, considers you aggressive?
In other news... There were military "exercises" in Ft. Benning, Georgia... & it was reported yesterday that someone shuffled some papers within the walls of the Penatgon...
OMFG!!! War is imminent!!!
Is that Errol Flynn? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXHVDRgAFMk&feature=player_detailpage
Look's like Zero Hedge was started far earlier than first thought...'44 to be exact.
Flynn was an interesting character whatever one thinks about him. He was accused of being a Nazi spy in WWII and was associated with Fidel Castro. With that kind of resume he would fit well into the ZH community.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Errol_Flynn
This is just a stunt coordinated between both Iran and manipulators( (Goldman,GE, Exxon,JP, name your corrupt business) to increase the price of oil in an economic deflation using external, non-supply excuses. Basically, usage of oil has declined by like 10 million barrels or more a year since 2008 and Saudis want at least 85 a barrel.
The oil price would naturally be at around 65 or less with China and the rest of the world plummeting economically into a depressionary death spiral. Since The idiots at OPEC cannot agree on the orientation of toilet paper, nevermind decreasing supply to increase price. soooooooo, with the help of fraudster money, the Mullahs get backdoor money from undisclosed sources( plus they front run the futures markets and insider trade) and send army troops around to scare up the derisk trade and get oil up to 120. Same with North Korea. Does anyone really think the Iranians are suicidal to start a war with Israel. Get real- they are just trying to make fast cash in the vacuum of a declining oil price.
All the movers in the Builderbergs, family farm and richie rich boy clubs are just creating volatility in the the secular depression to make casino bets. Don't bet against the house though.
Very interesting..
So do you think the boyz will let the market correction happen, or do they just want to keep pumping stealth funny money to push the fantasy further?
The boys and bots are playing volatility now. They create events which cause an obvious market reaction which, of course, they knew was going to occur. Big swings with a general manipulated up trend back to previous 2006 highs. Then all the retail idiots pour money back into the ponzi and the whole Pyramid cyle starts again. Except this time, the deleveraging is so strong it easily outwits idiots in the Fed,admin and treasury.
But it's ok for tbtf banks and insider corporate cronies, which can now interfere in world affairs to get a cheap price or sell something high. Washington DC, just follow the money.
If only you were right ... you might want to consider that the Pakis, Chinese, Russians, Syrians, Iraqis and Iranians want the US and NATO out.
Happy 'investing' ... sorry, speculating.
LetThemEatRand,
If you want to know where your head is you may want to look up your ass.
On another note: http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/2011_CMPR_Final.pdf
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?d=ww2010.i.china110828
"If the Americans are determined to interfere [then] we will be determined to respond. We ... will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all of the cities east of Xian [a city in central China]. Of course the Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds ... of cities will be destroyed by the Chinese."
-General Zhu Chenghu
On American intervention in Taiwan....
Eyes should be on China.
THAT QUOTE WAS FROM 2005
Yep! So....Here chew on this insanity....
From the article.
"(There have been recent news stories that General Electric Corp. is planning to partner with Chinese firms and provide them with a great deal of American aerospace technology that will also have military use. This deal by GE is going to be a disaster.)"
Absolutely damn right! Perhaps GE and the Obama administration know something we don't holmes!
grunt,
I just looked up my ass and I saw you in the there. An asshole.
You're right. Nowadays the US has announced an increased military presence throughout the Asia Pacific aimed at countering Chinese military power. That's made things so much better.
You have no idea what the hell your talking about PDT.
Many have no idea what the PRC are capable of.
Does anybody realises how big iran is?
It would take 4 million soldiers to take and hold it hostage untill all the oil is drained.
At 1 million a head that's 4 trillion dollars to take over iran.
That's a whole lot of printing... Even for ben.
Somehow I doubt that Halliburton, BP, Exxon, Shell, Xe or whatever Blackwater is going by these days, Goldman, JP Morgan, Boeing, Raytheon, GE, etc are too concerned about the printing. Thus, ObamaRomney isn't concerned either. Just like Iraq. Another gigantic opportunity to funnel money from the willing taxpayer to the private corporations, while the large majority of the sheep cheer for the Red White and Blue on the sidelines.
Yes, but this time we're broke. This isn't the millenium anymore.
This is why nato must join and even another 3rd party to split the costs.
China or russia. Otherwise we can't pay for it.
Very true, but all the more reason TPTB will do it. Nothing like printing up a few trillion of cash out of thin air, giving it to the corporations, and then telling Joe Six Pack it's now a debt he owes and that he needs to give up his social security, Medicare, public schools, etc to pay it back.
Right. We were broke before Iraq and Afghanistan. Now we're just brok-er. And After an Iran scenario we'd only be broker-er. That's OK in the minds of the kleptocrats in oil-military-industrial complex and DC.
Speak for yourself. This video just in from the Captain of the Stennis addressing his men!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=q7vtWB4owdE
Did somebody say my name?
BNB
Is that Kermit's capitalist cousin teaching the kids about how to flip properties on robot chicken?
That was a hilarious skit...
You left out one important step. TPTB create the cash out of thin air, give it to the banksters who then lend it to the MIC, taking their vig in the process. Can't leave out the TBTF PDs, they have to have their cut first.
"...and then telling Joe Six Pack it's now a debt he owes and that he needs to give up his social security, Medicare, public schools, etc to pay it back."
Jeesh, it always gets put on my back!
Xe = Blackagua, I believe.
Backward looking, my friend. This conflict, if it were to escalate, would create a mushroom cloud where the bond market used to be.
If that happens, won't TBTF just get another bailout? Dimon and Blankfein would love to pick the bones of a few more MF Globals while they consolidate more power.
Yes, under a hopium induced best case scenario you'd be correct. You give too much credit to the 'control' of those warlocks who for the most part are profit driven, suicidal maniacs.
A simple solution to this whole mess would be to make every American eligible for a large loan, regardless of credit ratings, say $250,000.
The real estate market would tighten overnight, debts would be payed off,
the banker handlers would fatten up on loan interest, the malls would be packed as would the car lots, pole dancers would make great tips and mega corps would increase profits relatively, a temporary inflation event would soon pass as the imbecile crowd shove their Benny bucks into strippers panties and blow.
What am i missing, How would it not work? They do not even need to print too many extra dollars, it is only digits on a screen, call it the Obama card.Fools would end up in life long debt and the canny would invest and prosper? Darwin, Keynes and Bernank would all be proven correct and geniuses, a new social order/adjustment would emerge.
Of course this is a bull shit propositon, the motivation of evil men is not to empower the deserving but to glorify the degenerate, and do God's work (sarc) by impoverishing their neighbors.
I do not believe any of this is half as complicated as economysts and lawyers would like us to believe, human nature is what it is, (whatever that means), the alternative is certain mathematical doom / tragedy,
The well fed tend not to complain and the ponzi would get another decade of respect,
This is most likely an idiotic idea and i have not the wit to see the flaw, Why would such a scheme not be productive, a booster shot for global
shoppers.
Do you mean that our current situation is a near carbon copy of the crony capitalist system which Ayn Rand portrayed in Atlas Shrugged?
Just a few more missing pieces... :>(
Atlas Shrugged: Directive 10 289...
In the name of the general welfare, to protect the peoples security and total stability, it is decreed for the duration of the national emergency that:
#1. All workers, wage earners, and employers of any kind whatsoever shall henceforth be attached to their jobs and shall not leave nor be dismissed nor change employment, under penalty of a term in jail. The penalty shall be determined by the Unification Board, such Board to be appointed by the Bureau of Economic Planning and National Resources. All persons reaching the age of 21 shall report to the Unification Board, which shall assign them to where, in its opinion, their services will best serve the interests of the nation.
#2. All industrial, commercial, manufacturing and business establishments of any nature whatsoever shall henceforth remain in operation, and the owners of such establishments shall not quit nor leave nor retire, nor close, sell or transfer their business, under penalty of the nationalization of their establishment and of any and all of their property.
#3. All patents and copyrights, pertaining to any devices, inventions, formulas, process and works of any nature whatsoever, shall be turned over to the nation as a patriotic emergency gift by means of Gift Certificates signed voluntarily by the owners of all such patents and copyrights. The Unification Board shall then license the use of such patents and copyrights to all applicants, equally and without discrimination, for the purpose of eliminating monopolistic practices, discarding obsolete products and making the best available to the whole nation. No trademarks, brand names or copyrighted titles shall be used. Every formerly patented product shall be known by a new name and sold by all manufactures under the same name, such name to be selected by the Unification Board. All private trademarks and brand names are hereby abolished.
#4. No new devices, inventions, products, or goods of any nature whatsoever, not now on the marker, shall be produced, invented, manufactured or sold after the date of this directive. The Office of Patents and Copyrights is hereby suspended.
#5. Every establishment, concern, corporation or person engaged in production of any nature whatsoever shall henceforth produce the same amount of goods per year as it, they or he produced during the Basic Year, no more and no less. The year to be known as the Basic or Yardstick Year is to be the year ending on the date of this directive. Over or under production shall be fines, such fines to be determined by the Unification Board.
#6. Every person of any age, sex, class, or income, shall henceforth spend the same amount of money on the purchase of goods per year as he or she spent during the Basic Year, no more and no less. Over or under purchasing shall be fined, such fines to be determined by the Unification Board.
#7. All wages, prices, salaries, dividends, profits, interest rates and forms of income of any nature whatsoever, shall be frozen at their present figures, as of the date of this directive.
#8. All cases arising from the rules not specifically provided for in this directive, shall be settled and determined by the Unification Board, whose decisions will be final.
"Xe = Blackagua, I believe."
ahhh, it is a corporate chameleon, slippery when wet:
but so very popular, nonetheless. . .
Blackwater/Xe goes by Academi now. Got to keep changing the name to shed the reputation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academi
replied before reading further down thread - ahh well, can never be too much truth gathered in one place, eh! +1
I prefer Robama.
Nice one! Could also go with Obamney.
Could you get behind "Romneylan?"
Not worth it, even if you sold Iran at premium prices and all it's contents you could never replay this ludicrious venture.
That did not stop the Germans from trying. Stalingrad took care of that idea.
It's not always if it's worth it or not.
China for example is crashing as we speak. They need a war to keep their industry going just like the US and the EU or they'll be at risk of severe ssocial unrest in the comming years when the economy finally crumbles.
Still, the Chinese have a lot of reserves to cushion the fall.
Unless that cushion is all that remains and all the rest goes up in smoke.
Remember the gold and silver propaganda in china?
There must be a reason why they are pushing the citizens to buy silver and gold. My thout is that when the bottom falls out of the yuan, they'll need a backup currency FAST.
And they don't have enough dollars to,cover it.
They cannot beat iran with a conventional war. Not just because of how big iran is, not just because of the terrain, not just because of its equipment, not just them being on friendly terms with russia and china - on top of all this, they also have hezbollah in lebanon, another force which "they" (in this case israel) already have practice in losing against conventionally.
Iran will not fall by conventional means, no matter what they try. I see only two ways how they could beat iran.... one of them (making it fall from inside) is uncertain to even result in a more friendly replacement, and the other (nuclear strike) may easily lead to global nuclear war.