Secret Options

Out Of The Loop,

​  ​"It's Global Govt Re-Engineering" -Catherine Austin Fitts Warns Fed Actions Are "100% Power Politics... It's A War"​  ​  (Money is government. Money makes decisions. The money the world will use is contested.)What you are looking at is a fundamental reengineering of the governance system on planet Earth.
​  ​Most of the benefits in the dollar system come from the benefits of having the reserve currency and being able to swap money you print out of thin air for real labor and real commodities worldwide.
​  ​That’s an enormous benefit, and they are going to protect that benefit.  If they don’t protect that benefit, they run the risk of everybody moving out of the channel.  This is what the Chinese and Russians are trying to do.
​  ​They are trying to move out of the dollar channel and trying to create economic resiliency and trade outside the channel.  What the Fed is trying to do and the dollar syndicate is trying to do is protect that channel...
It’s global government reengineering.  It’s 100% power politics, and it’s a war.” https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/its-global-govt-re-engineering-austin-fitts-warns-fed-actions-are-100-power-politics

​  ​Michael Every of Rabobank: Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire​  (Contains a long discourse with many discrete points about not being able to predict what is about to happen in a global setting of so very many specific contests for power. I excerpt a few.)​  ​How many models of the Chinese economy match what The Economist just implied using satellite images taken at night – that it, and others, are much smaller than purported to be?
​  ​The 20th CCP congress cementing Xi’s third term began with him stating we are a “critical time” in history, and to be "prepared for the great tests of not only high winds and rapid waves, but also stormy waves and hazardous seas." ...​    (Quoting or paraphrasing Mao.)
​  ​There was a call to promote the “spirit of frugality across the entire society,” which doesn’t sound like what the lines I still see are predicting about Chinese demand growth.​..​
​  ​Even the Wall Street Journal, which cheer-led US investment into China, now warns: ‘Xi Jinping’s Endgame: A China Prepared for Conflict With the US’.
​  ​Conversely, the new US National Security Strategy focuses on Russia and China from a whole-of-government perspective, including trade, industrial policy, regulation, and markets; and NSA Sullivan says the post-Cold War era is over. Very much so, it seems, as new US restrictions on China’s access to tech are so draconian they are seen as an “industry-wide decapitation” that may even echo the 1941 US oil boycott vs. Japan in some observers’ eyes.
​  ​T​he US is also busy threatening to stop selling weapons to the Saudis in response to OPEC+ production cuts; coming out in support of Iranian anti-regime protestors; calling Pakistan “one of the most dangerous nations in the world” for having “nuclear weapons without any cohesion”; watching North Korean missile launches and threatened nuclear tests; and facing rising tensions with Turkey. https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/out-frying-pan-fire

​  Dead Hand (Russian MAD system to assure nuclear counterstrike  upon the west) vs. Dead Brain (Western corrupt, divided, old and impaired "leadership") Thanks to Eleni for this long and detailed look at the tensions in global power structures and the functional incapacity of the west to act rationally on a strategic scale, because decisions are all for small, specific advantages for particular groups of oligarchs, none of which can take a small short-term loss for a long term gain in security/stability. It was worth the 50 minutes it took for me to read it. Here is a closing statement.  [Note: Putin is not "Hitler" in this analogy.]​  ​Just as Hitler, at the end of 1942, in his Wolf’s Lair headquarters near Rastenburg (now Kętrzyn), loudly lamented and openly regretted the attack on the USSR, even though at that time he was still far from total defeat, so today the real masters of NATO realize that they have made a fatal mistake by involving themselves directly into a military conflict with Russia, thinking that it could go unnoticed and unpunished.
​  ​However, unlike Hitler, NATO was given a final warning and an opportunity to withdraw, save its honor and survive as an organization. If the leaders of NATO and the collective West, above all representatives of the USA, do not sit down at the negotiating table with Russia and accept the right of the Russian people in the former parts of Ukraine to self-determination, renounce the Nazi regime in Kiev and give up from the further expansion of NATO, we can expect the imminent start of a total nuclear war that will most certainly lead to the complete annihilation of the Western Hemisphere. All responsibility for the tragedy on the territory of the former and current Ukraine lies with the people who have the real power to manage NATO. The fate of all humanity is now in the hands of the elites in Washington and London and we all must stand up together, raise our voices and let them know that we want to live! https://strategic-culture.org/news/2022/10/14/dead-hand-vs-dead-brain/

​  NATO is carrying out  aerial nuclear-attack-upon-Russia War-Games today over Europe. They will continue until the end of October. What could go wrong?​  ​ According to a NATO press release, "Exercise “Steadfast Noon” involves 14 countries and up to 60 aircraft of various types, including fourth and fifth-generation fighter jets, as well as surveillance and tanker aircraft. As in previous years, US B-52 long-range bombers will take part." It added, "as long as nuclear weapons exist, NATO will remain a nuclear alliance." ...
​  ​NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg stated it would send the "wrong signal" to cancel the war games. "It would send a very wrong signal if we suddenly now canceled a routine, long-time planned exercise because of the war in Ukraine. That would be absolutely the wrong signal to send," he said on Tuesday.
​  ​Stoltenberg argued that going through with nuclear war games is the best way to prevent nuclear war. "NATO’s firm, predictable behavior, our military strength, is the best way to prevent escalation." https://news.antiwar.com/2022/10/14/nato-set-to-kick-off-nuclear-war-games-on-monday/

​  ​Macron: France Won’t Respond to a Nuclear Strike on Ukraine With Nuclear Weapons
President Emmanuel Macron is under fire for suggesting the war in Ukraine falls short of the threshold to use nuclear weapons https://news.antiwar.com/2022/10/14/macron-france-wont-respond-to-a-nuclear-strike-on-ukraine-with-nuclear-weapons/​ 

Click "English" unless you can read Greek. The MiG-29 is a maneuverable and competent air superiority fighter , an F-16 competitor, that can carry 6 missiles (air-to-air or air-to-ground)​ under the wings. Russia is taking a lot of them out of mothballs to control Ukrainian skies, and possibly attack some combat targets. Full preparations for "textbook" war appear to be underway in Russia and Belarus, probably to get underway after the mud freezes next month. Surovikin Stamped Leveling of Ukraine: Soviet MiG-29s Returned to Active Service - Belarus' D Team Ready for Invasion https://warnews247.gr/pagose-to-kievo-apo-tis-eikones-comao-isopedosis-tis-oukranias-me-sfragida-sourovikin-epanefere-ta-mig-29-stin-energo-ypiresia-etoimi-gia-eisvoli-i-omada-d-tis-lefkorosias/

​  ​Musk and Kim Dotcom talk nuclear war​ (on Twitter)​  ​“The hell with it … even though Starlink is still losing money and other companies are getting billions of taxpayer [dollars], we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free,” Musk tweeted on Saturday.
​  ​The billionaire has donated around 25,000 Starlink satellite internet terminals to Ukraine after Russia launched its military operation in the neighboring country in February.
​  ​Kim Dotcom, whose real name is Kim Schmitz, replied: “In other words you will continue your support for the US proxy war in Ukraine despite your better knowledge that this is a US proxy war and the risk of a nuclear war because of the US proxy war?”​  ​“Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, so … guess I’m just damned,” Musk wrote in response.
Schmitz then praised Musk for offering ideas for a peace settlement between Moscow and Kiev. “I believe in you. We are facing nuclear war because of reckless US foreign policy in Ukraine. You know that. This is a big one. We have to put our personal interests aside for the sake of humanity,” he argued.
​  ​Musk replied: “I’m trying my hardest to de-escalate this situation and obviously failing.” https://www.rt.com/news/564762-musk-dotcom-nuclear-war/

​  The reports in the west are that Russia is about to escalate, but the west might escalate this month and not wait for the Ukrainian mud to freeze.​   China Orders Evacuation Of All Citizens Still In Ukraine, Sparking Escalation Fears https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/china-orders-evacuation-its-citizens-still-ukraine-sparking-fears-more-escalation

  This essay examines the 80% of the world which is not "the west", including Saudi Arabia (breaking the petrobuck), Russia, China, India, Iran, Turkey, Brazil and most of the African continent tending to their own interests going forward. This is mainly just walking away from the $US global military-financial hegemony, because it's time. The Threat of the petrobuck empire is no longer so credible after Afghanistan, and as the west loses in Ukraine, unless it uses nukes.If NATO uses nukes and blames it on Russia, that's another way to lose, the worst way.  Patrick Lawrence: The Non-West Coalesces..A final note in the matter of the BRICS and the Saudis’ interest in joining them. It is a matter of record that, as currently constituted, the group is developing a basket of currencies intended to serve as an alternative to the dollar in international trade. This sounds like another very big deal in the making. Since the Saudis agreed in 1945 to price oil in dollars, the petroleum market has been absolutely key to the U.S. currency’s supremacy as a reserve currency—which, in turn, has been key to Washington’s projection of American hegemony.
​  ​Now what? Friends in the markets used to tell me that de-dollarization, while a long-term inevitability, would not occur in my lifetime. I don’t hear much of this anymore. https://scheerpost.com/2022/10/16/patrick-lawrence-the-non-west-coalesces/

​  Central Banks, banks in general, are politically captured in times of critical societal change. They cannot become hated within a society, and they must also inflate the money further to deal with massive debt, which can't be paid at face value. There will also be losses imposed upon "investors", but the dilution of the money to pay the oversized bills is the recurring strategy. It needs to be about 6% real-inflation rate.​ They can lie about this for years, as you see every day.​  ​What if central banks don’t want to play along and try to regain control over the creation of money?
​  ​They could, but in order to do that, they would really have to go to war with their own government. This will be very hard, because the politicians in government will say they are elected to pursue these policies. They are elected to keep energy prices down, elected to fight climate change, elected to invest in defence and to reduce inequality. Arthur Burns, who was the Fed chairman during the Seventies, explained in a speech in 1979 why he lost control of inflation. There was an elected government, he said, elected to fight a war in Vietnam, elected to reduce inequality through Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society programs. Burns said it wasn’t his job to stop the war or the Great Society programs. These were political choices.​  (And ​Nixon's​ ​inevitable ​gold default.) https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/central-banks-are-impotent-russell-napier-warns-shift-power-cannot-be-underestimated

​  ​Europe Has Been Preparing a Global Gold Standard Since the 1970s. Part 2.. After Nixon unilaterally suspended the last vestige of the gold standard in 1971, Europe was not amused. Led by France, which wanted to return to a gold standard, the Europeans began countering dollar dominance and slowly prepare a new arrangement. In 1973 the European Economic Community (ECC) publicly stated in the New York Times: “[Europe] will promote agreement on international monetary reform to achieve an equitable and durable system taking into account the interests of the developing countries.” Clearly, Europe didn’t envisage a dollar standard for the long haul, as it isn’t equitable nor durable.​  ​Since the 1960s Europe was holding most of the world’s monetary gold. In the 1990s several Western European central banks started selling gold to equalize their gold reserves among each other and large economies outside Europe. From 1999 until 2008 they did so officially through a “concerted programme of sales” dubbed the Central Bank Gold Agreements (CBGA).​..​..European central bankers must have realized the inevitability of a debt spiral when the world went from a gold to a paper standard in 1971. Their preferred “equitable and durable” monetary reset would be international, depriving the U.S. of its exorbitant privilege, and extinguish the debt overhang created over time. ​  ​  One way of cancelling debt while still complying to the rules of economic scarcity is for central banks to buy up all excessive debt in the economy and then revalue gold. Unrealized gains on the liability side of central banks’ balance sheets, a produc​t​ of revaluing their gold, can then be used to cancel assets (bonds) on the asset side.​....Crunching the numbers lead me to think that if gold to GDP and gold to total reserves ratios are matched, then total reserves to GDP ratios must be too. The data supports my hypothesis: the harmonization of total reserves to GDP ratios in the entire eurozone is indisputable.​.... I reckon the eurozone’s gold strategy is this:
​  ​For the eurozone to own an adequate amount of monetary gold relative to economies outside of Europe based on GDP.​  ​To have roughly the same gold to GDP ratios in medium and large economies in the eurozone. This objective also serves the first objective.
​  T​o have commensurate total reserves to GDP ratios in all countries in the eurozone to be able to fine-tune gold to GDP ratios before revaluing gold.
​  ​To have approximately equal gold to total reserves ratios in medium and large economies in the eurozone. This objective is achieved by adjusting foreign exchange reserves and serves the previous three objectives.
​  ​Stand ready for a monetary reset.​....Total reserves to GDP ratios for non-eurozone countries are more or less in line with eurozone countries.....It seems all countries in the E.U. have secretly agreed to the gold strategy I have outlined above. If my analysis is correct, and the trend of equalizing reserves continues, we can expect some countries in the E.U. to buy gold (i.e. the Czech Republic), others foreign exchange (i.e. Denmark), and still others sell foreign exchange (i.e. Croatia). Countries outside the E.U. will continue buying gold as well to come on par. Except, of course, the United States.
​  ​The reset described above will happen when all large economies are in an insurmountable crisis. Revaluing gold to cancel government debt is not something they want to do more often so it comes down to one window of opportunity.​.. ​..The gold is evenly distributed in the eurozone, but the debt that needs to be cancelled is not. For example, Italy has a public debt to GDP ratio of 150%, while in Germany it’s 70%. Part 3 of this series will be about risk sharing: what options there are to transfer debt from Italy to other countries, in order to make most use of all NCBs’ revaluation accounts. https://www.gainesvillecoins.com/blog/europe-preparing-gold-standard-part-2

​  ​"This Is What Annihilation Looks Like": Biden Export Controls 'Wreaking Havoc' On China's Chip Industry​   ​To review, the Biden administration last week laid out new rules on chip exports based on US concerns that China will use AI to improve military capabilities, support surveillance for human rights abuses and "disrupt or manufacture outcomes that undermine democratic governance and sow social unrest"​..."To put it simply, Biden has forced all Americans working in China to pick between quitting their jobs and losing American citizenship," Schneider writes, adding "One round of sanctions from Biden did more damage than all four years of performative sanctioning under Trump."​ ...​​.."​Every American executive and engineer working in China’s semiconductor manufacturing industry resigned yesterday, paralyzing Chinese manufacturing overnight.​"​https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/what-annihilation-looks-biden-export-controls-wreaking-havoc-chinas-chip-industry

  ​Asia Times: Chip war policy hurting US firms more than China   (Until last week, you mean?)​  ​The Chinese can no longer rely on US equipment suppliers and European and Japanese suppliers must follow US rules if their products incorporate US technology, so China will step up its import substitution campaign.
​  ​Sanctions on China have already caused large losses for American semiconductor and equipment companies, and more are probably on the way. Furthermore, in the next up-cycle, the China opportunity for foreign suppliers is likely to be much diminished. https://asiatimes.com/2022/10/chip-war-policy-hurting-us-firms-more-than-china/

​  Has the tide turned?  ​ EU Prosecutor Opens Probe Into COVID Vaccine Purchases https://www.zerohedge.com/political/eu-prosecutor-opens-probe-covid-vaccine-purchases

​  ​One Serious Adverse Event Per Eight-Hundred Vaccinations​  ​The researchers conducted a secondary analysis of original data from Pfizer and Moderna’s phase 3 clinical trials, focusing on “adverse events of special interest (AESIs)” as listed by the Brighton Collaboration—a “global authority” on vaccine safety.​.. ​“The stunning finding was as follows: the risk of serious adverse events from the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine exceeds the benefit of reduction of COVID-19 hospitalisation”.

One Serious Adverse Event Per Eight-Hundred Vaccinations

​​Ivermectin Advocate  (pictured Saterday with mostly-self-installed oak floor)