Despite telling us just yesterday that it would not take sides in the tensions in South Sudan...
- *U.S. NOT TAKING SIDES IN S SUDAN: PSAKI
the US government is on the verge of deciding to... take sides. As Reuters reports [10], the United States is weighing targeted sanctions against South Sudan due to its leaders' failure to take steps to end a crisis that has brought the world's youngest nation to the brink of civil war. Africa, as we have discussed at length [11], remains the only region on earth with incremental debt capacity (and therefore growth in a Keynesian world) and so it is no surprise the US wants to get involved in yet another conflict.
Via Reuters, [10]
"It's a tool that has been discussed," a source told Reuters on condition of anonymity about the possibility of U.S. sanctions against those blocking peace efforts or fueling violence in South Sudan. Another source confirmed the remarks, though both declined to provide details on the precise measures under consideration.
No decisions have been made yet, the sources added. Targeted sanctions focus on specific individuals, entities or sectors of country.
The U.S. government was unlikely to consider steps intended to economically harm impoverished South Sudan but would likely focus on any measures on those individuals or groups it sees as blocking efforts at brokering peace or committing atrocities.
As we discussed previously [11], there is an African scramble so it is unsurprisng the US would choose to take sides and get involved:
While those in the power and money echelons of the "developed" world scramble day after day to hold the pieces of the collapsing tower of cards in place (and manipulating public perception that all is well), knowing full well what the final outcome eventually will be, those who still have the capacity to look, and invest, in the future, are looking neither toward the US, nor Asia, and certainly not Europe, for one simple reason: there is no more incremental debt capacity at any level: sovereign, household, financial or corporate. Because without the ability to create debt out of thin air, be it on a secured or unsecured basis, the ability to "create" growth, at least in the current Keynesian paradigm, goes away with it. Yet there is one place where there is untapped credit creation potential, if not on an unsecured (i.e., future cash flow discounting), then certainly on a secured (hard asset collateral) basis. The place is Africa, and according to some estimates the continent, Africa can create between $5 and $10 trillion in secured debt, using its extensive untapped resources as first-lien collateral.
Africa is precisely where the smart money (and those who quietly run the abovementioned "power echelons"), namely China and Goldman Sachs, have refocused all their attention in the past year precisely because they both realize that Africa is the last and only bastion of untapped credit growth and capacity. But you won't read about it in the mainstream papers: the last thing those who are currently splitting up Africa into its constituent parts want is for the general public to become aware what is in play. You will, however, read about it on these pages (see here [12] and here [13] and here [14]). Also, if you are a Goldman client, you will certainly know all about it, as the firm ventures out with reverse inquiry indications of interest to its wealthy clients giving them the right of first equity refusal, and slowly but surely providing "financial services" to the last great hope for the developing world, which ironically is what most still consider the poorest continent...
Africa in geographical perspective...
[15]