Chris Hedges: The Return of Fascism

As in the 1930s, bankrupt liberalism, grotesque social inequality, and declining living standards are empowering fascist movements in Europe and the U.S.

Economic collapse was indispensable to the Nazis’ rise to power. In the 1928 elections in Germany, the Nazi party received less than 3 percent of the vote. Then came the global financial crash of 1929. By early 1932, 40 percent of the German insured workforce, six million people, were unemployed. That same year, the Nazis became the largest political party in the German parliament.

https://scheerpost.com/2022/09/26/chris-hedges-the-return-of-fascism/

September 26, 2022

The Bankruptcy of the Liberal Ass — by Mr. Fish

By Chris Hedges / Original to ScheerPost

Energy and food bills are soaring. Under the onslaught of inflation and prolonged wage stagnation, wages are in free fall. Billions of dollars are diverted by Western nations at a time of economic crisis and staggering income inequality to fund a proxy war in Ukraine. The liberal class, terrified by the rise of neo-fascism and demagogues such as Donald Trump, have thrown in their lot with discredited and reviled establishment politicians who slavishly do the bidding of the war industry, oligarchs and corporations.

The bankruptcy of the liberal class means that those who decry the folly of permanent war and NATO expansion, mercenary trade deals, exploitation of workers by globalization, austerity and neoliberalism come increasingly from the far-right. This right-wing rage, dressed up in the United States as Christian fascism, has already made huge gains in Hungary, Poland, Sweden, Italy, Bulgaria and France and may take power in the Czech Republic, where inflation and rising energy costs have seen the number of Czechs falling below the poverty line double.

By next spring, following a punishing winter of rolling blackouts and months when families struggle to pay for food and heat, what is left of our anemic western democracy could be largely extinguished.

Extremism is the political cost of pronounced social inequality and political stagnation. Demagogues, who promise moral and economic renewal, vengeance against phantom enemies, and a return to lost glory, rise out of the morass. Hatred and violence, already at the boiling point, are legitimized. A reviled ruling class, and the supposed civility and democratic norms it espouses, are ridiculed.

It is not, as the philosopher Gabriel Rockhill points out, as if fascism ever went away. “The U.S. did not defeat fascism in WWII,” he writes, “it discretely internationalized it.” After World War II the U.S., U.K. and other Western governments collaborated with hundreds of former Nazis and Japanese war criminals, who they integrated into western intelligence services, as well as fascist regimes such as those in Spain and Portugal. They supported right-wing anti-communist forces in Greece during its civil war in 1946 to 1949, and then backed a right-wing military coup in 1967. NATO also had a secret policy of operating fascist terrorist groups. Operation Gladio, as the BBC detailed in a now-forgotten investigative series, created “secret armies,” networks of illegal stay-behind soldiers, who would remain behind enemy lines if the Soviet Union made a military move into Europe. In actuality, the “secret armies” carried-out assassinations, bombings, massacres and false flag terror attacks against leftists, trade unionists and others throughout Europe.

See my interview with Stephen Kinzer about the post-war activities of the CIA, including its recruitment of Nazi and Japanese war criminals and its creation of black sites where former Nazis were hired to interrogate, torture and murder suspected leftists, labor leaders and communists, detailed in his book Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control, here.

Fascism, which has always been with us, is again ascendant. The far-right politician Giorgia Meloni is expected to become Italy’s first female prime minister after elections on Sunday. In a coalition with two other far-right parties, Meloni is forecast to win more than 60 percent of the seats in Parliament, though the left-leaning 5-Star Movement may put a dent in those expectations.

Meloni got her start in politics as a 15-year-old activist for the youth wing of the Italian Social Movement, founded after the World War II by supporters of Benito Mussolini. She calls EU bureaucrats agents of “nihilistic global elites driven by international finance.” She peddles the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory that non-white immigrants are being permitted to enter Western nations as part of a plot to undermine or “replace” the political power and culture of white people. She has called on the Italian navy to turn back boats with immigrants, which the far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini did in 2018. Her Fratelli d’Italia, Brothers of Italy, party is a close ally of Hungary’s President, Viktor Orban. A European Parliament resolution recently declared that Hungary can no longer be defined as a democracy.

Meloni and Orban are not alone. Sweden Democrats, which took over 20 percent of the vote in Sweden’s general election last week to become the country’s second-largest political party, was formed in 1988 from a neo-Nazi group called B.S.S., or Keep Sweden Swedish. It has deep fascist roots. Of the party’s 30 founders, 18 had Nazi affiliations, including several who served in the Waffen SS, according to Tony Gustaffson a historian and former Sweden Democrat member. France’s Marine Le Pen took over 41 percent of the vote in April against Emmanuel Macron. In Spain, the hard-right Vox party is the third largest party in Spain’s Parliament. The far-right German AfD or Alternative for Germany party took over 12 percent in federal elections in 2017, making it the third largest party, though it lost a couple percentage points in the 2021 elections. The U.S. has its own version of fascism embodied in a Republican party that coalesces in cult-like fashion around Donald Trump, embraces the magical thinking, misogyny, homophobia and white supremacy of the Christian Right and actively subverts the election process.

Economic collapse was indispensable to the Nazis’ rise to power. In the 1928 elections in Germany, the Nazi party received less than 3 percent of the vote. Then came the global financial crash of 1929. By early 1932, 40 percent of the German insured workforce, six million people, were unemployed. That same year, the Nazis became the largest political party in the German parliament. The Weimar government, tone deaf and hostage to the big industrialists, prioritized paying bank loans and austerity rather than feeding and employing a desperate population. It foolishly imposed severe restrictions on who was eligible for unemployment insurance. Millions of Germans went hungry. Desperation and rage rippled through the population. Mass rallies, led by a collection of buffoonish Nazis in brown uniforms who would have felt at home at Mar-a-Lago, denounced Jews, Communists, intellectuals, artists and the ruling class, as internal enemies. Hate was their main currency. It sold well. 

The evisceration of democratic procedures and institutions, however, preceded the Nazis’ ascension to power in 1933. The Reichstag, the German Parliament, was as dysfunctional as the U.S. Congress.  The Socialist leader Friedrich Ebert, president from 1919 until 1925, and later Heinrich Brüning, chancellor from 1930 to 1932, relied on Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution to largely rule by decree to bypass the fractious Parliament. Article 48, which granted the president the right in an emergency to issue decrees, was “a trapdoor through which Germany could fall into dictatorship,”  historian Benjamin Carter Hett writes.

Article 48 was the Weimar equivalent of the executive orders liberally used by Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden, to bypass our own legislative impasses. As in 1930s Germany, our courts  — especially the Supreme Court — have been seized by extremists. The press has bifurcated into antagonistic tribes where lies and truth are indistinguishable, and opposing sides are demonized. There is little dialogue or compromise, the twin pillars of a democratic system.

The two ruling parties slavishly serve the dictates of the war industry, global corporations and the oligarchy, to which it has given huge tax cuts. It has established the most pervasive and intrusive system of government surveillance in human history. It runs the largest prison system in the world. It has militarized the police. 

Democrats are as culpable as Republicans. The Obama administration interpreted the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force as giving the executive branch the right to erase due process and act as judge, jury and executioner in assassinating U.S. citizens, starting with radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. Two weeks later, a U.S. drone strike killed Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, Anwar’s 16-year-old son, who was never linked to terrorism, along with 9 other teenagers at a cafe in Yemen. It was the Obama administration that signed into law Section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act, overturning the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the use of the military as a domestic police force. It was the Obama administration that bailed out Wall Street and abandoned Wall Street’s victims. It was the Obama administration that repeatedly used the Espionage Act to criminalize those, such as Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, who exposed government lies, crimes and fraud. And it was the Obama administration that massively expanded the use of militarized drones.

The Nazis responded to the February 1933 burning of the Reichstag, which they likely staged, by employing Article 48 to push through the Decree for the Protection of the People and the State. The fascists instantly snuffed out the pretense of Weimar democracy. They legalized  imprisonment without trial for anyone considered a national security threat. They abolished independent labor unions, freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom of the press, along with the privacy of postal and telephone communications.

The step from dysfunctional democracy to full blown fascism was, and will again be, a small one. The hatred for the ruling class, embodied by the establishment Republican and Democratic parties, which have merged into one ruling party, is nearly universal. The public, battling inflation that is at a 40-year high and cost the average U.S. household an additional $717 a month in July alone, will increasingly see any political figure or political party willing to attack the traditional ruling elites as an ally. The more crude, irrational or vulgar the attack, the more the disenfranchised rejoice. These sentiments are true here and in Europe, where energy costs are expected to rise by as much as 80 percent this winter and an inflation rate of 10 percent is eating away at incomes.

The reconfiguration of society under neoliberalism to exclusively benefit the billionaire class, the slashing and privatization of public services, including schools, hospitals and utilities, along with deindustrialization, the profligate pouring of state funds and resources into the war industry, at the expense of the nation’s infrastructure and social services, and the building of the world’s largest prison system and militarization of police, have predictable results.

At the heart of the problem is a loss of faith in traditional forms of government and democratic solutions. Fascism in the 1930s succeeded, as Peter Drucker observed, not because people believed its conspiracy theories and lies but in spite of the fact that they saw through them. Fascism thrived in the face of “a hostile press, a hostile radio, a hostile cinema, a hostile church, and a hostile government which untiringly pointed out the Nazi lies, the Nazi inconsistency, the unattainability of their promises, and the dangers and folly of their course.” He added, “nobody would have been a Nazi if rational belief in the Nazi promises had been a prerequisite.”

As in the past, these new fascist parties cater to emotional yearnings. They give vent to feelings of abandonment, worthlessness, despair and alienation. They promise unattainable miracles. They too peddle bizarre conspiracy theories including QAnon. But most of all, they promise vengeance against a ruling class that betrayed the nation. 

Hett defines the Nazis as “a nationalist protest movement against globalization.” The rise of the new fascism has its roots in a similar exploitation by global corporations and oligarchs. More than anything else, people want to regain control over their lives, if only to punish those blamed and scapegoated for their misery. 

We have seen this movie before.

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NOTE TO SCHEERPOST READERS FROM CHRIS HEDGES: There is now no way left for me to continue to write a weekly column for ScheerPost and produce my weekly television show without your help. The walls are closing in, with startling rapidity, on independent journalism, with the elites, including the Democratic Party elites, clamoring for more and more censorship. Bob Scheer, who runs ScheerPost on a shoestring budget, and I will not waver in our commitment to independent and honest journalism, and we will never put ScheerPost behind a paywall, charge a subscription for it, sell your data or accept advertising. Please, if you can, sign up at chrishedges.substack.com so I can continue to post my now weekly Monday column on ScheerPost and produce my weekly television show, The Chris Hedges Report.

Chris Hedges

Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor, and NPR. He is the host of show The Chris Hedges Report.

AUTHOR SITE

EU farmers warn of food shortages – Reuters

Spiraling energy and fertilizer costs are threatening vegetable and fruit production

https://www.rt.com/business/563314-eu-farmers-food-shortages-warning/

© Getty Images / deimagine

Vegetable producers across northern and western Europe are considering halting operations, thus further threatening food supplies, as a result of the energy crisis hitting the continent, Reuters reported this week.

According to the report, skyrocketing power and gas prices are the biggest cost facing vegetable farmers employing greenhouse cultivation. Two French farmers renewing their electricity contracts for 2023 told the media outlet they were being quoted prices more than ten times higher than in 2021.

“In the coming weeks I will plan the season but I don’t know what to do,” said Benjamin Simonot-De Vos, who grows cucumbers, tomatoes and strawberries south of Paris. “If it stays like this there’s no point starting another year. It’s not sustainable.”

Johannes Gross, deputy sales manager at the German cooperative Reichenau-Gemüse, told Reuters: “We face an overall increased production cost of around 30%. Some colleagues are thinking about leaving their greenhouses empty to keep the costs as low as possible. Nobody knows what will happen next year.”

The soaring costs of fertilizer, packaging and transport have also been adding to the pain. Even in countries with abundant sun, such as Spain, fruit and vegetable farmers are grappling with a 25% jump in fertilizer costs.

READ MORE: France to reap worst corn harvest in decades – Bloomberg

As farmers across the EU warn of shortages, supermarkets may switch to sourcing more goods from warmer countries such as Morocco, Turkey, Tunisia, and Egypt, the report says.

World War III has already begun, but the truth is being withheld from the public until the very last moment

The upshot of all this? Anyone living in Western Europe should prepare for an economic collapse, famine, and nuclear war.

Natural News

by: Mike Adams

Friday, September 23, 2022
Tags: chaos, Collapse, fallout, insanity, NATO, nuclear war, nuclear weapons, risk, Russia, Ukraine, world war

This article may contain statements that reflect the opinion of the author

World War III has already begun. You simply aren’t being told this because your government and dishonest media outlets are dedicated to keeping you in the dark. After all, they want to use the remaining time to stockpile food, ammunition, medical supplies, and precious metals for themselves, and this can only be accomplished by withholding the truth about the situation for as long as possible.

The Prime Minister of Serbia may be an exception to this, as he is now publicly warning that the world is about to experience a “great world conflict” that will likely begin in the next two months.

“Aleksandar Vucic made the alarming comments during the first day of the UN General Assembly session in New York,” reports Paul Joseph Watson at Summit.news. The full quote from Vucic is:

I assume that we’re leaving the phase of the special military operation and approaching a major armed conflict, and now the question becomes where is the line, and whether after a certain time – maybe a month or two, even – we will enter a great world conflict not seen since the Second World War.

NATO is already at war with Russia, and Putin is gearing up for a continental battle

What’s happening is that psychopathic western nations — the real aggressors in this war — have unleashed not just “suicide sanctions” against Russia, but are also running Ukraine’s military operations against Russia. This means NATO is already in the war, even if NATO won’t admit it yet. Worse yet, NATO leaders are openly demanding the complete destruction of Russia and the occupation/exploitation of Russia’s natural resources, which is of course the entire model of global exploitation and pillaging typically carried out by the west. (Disrupt, pillage, control. That’s the CIA model that has been unleashed against other nations for decades…)

Conditions are already long past the point of negotiation or de-escalation between Russia and the west. The psychopathic leaders of the west (Victoria Nuland comes to mind) are Russo-phobic Russia haters who are determined to carry out genocide against the Russian people, even if it means destroying their own economies and agricultural supply chains in the process. These psychopaths, Putin has come to realize, can’t be reasoned with or trusted to abide by any agreements whatsoever. Russia realizes it must fight or die. That’s where we are right now.

Unfortunately, the insanity of western nations has escalated this conflict to a condition where whoever launches nukes first has the advantage. This is a very dangerous dynamic, obviously, and it stems from the fact that the west has repeatedly signaled it will not allow the existence of Russia in its “New World Order” vision of planet Earth. With friends like Victoria Nuland calling the shots, who needs enemies?

Russia has a 30+ year advantage over the west in terms of nuclear weapons and anti-air defenses

An important realization in all this is that NATO’s nuclear arsenal is ancient — mostly running on designs originally engineered in the 1970s — while Russia’s nuclear capabilities are at least two generations ahead, modernized with hyperglide reentry vehicles, evasive maneuver capabilities for ICBMs, hypersonic cruise missiles which are nuclear-capable, and highly advanced anti-air defense systems that can even intercept and take down incoming ICBMs. In addition, Russia possesses secret “doomsday” weapons — far beyond their thermobaric bombs — that the world hasn’t even seen yet. On the current trajectory, those weapons are going to be introduced to the west without any warning whatsoever, resulting in the complete annihilation of Western European governments, currencies, and industry.

I have no doubt whatsoever that Russia has already designated the targets of its first strike, and that those targets include London, Paris, Berlin, Warsaw, US naval fleets, and virtually all military bases across Western Europe. We are now just one launch away from a civilization-ending event.

The USA and NATO have deluded themselves into thinking they can win a nuclear exchange with Russia, but this is just as delusional as thinking “men can get pregnant” or that money printing doesn’t cause inflation (notably, the brain-dead Biden regime insists that both of these absurdities are absolutely true). Over the past two decades — and more recently led by the insanity of wokeism — the west has become fully invested in delusional thinking and fairy tale narratives that have no connection with reality. While the west has been waging a propaganda narrative war, Russia has been engineering the world’s most advanced nuclear weapons. Once the nuclear exchange begins, there’s no question whatsoever about its outcome. Russia will lose a few million people — far less than what they lost in World War II — but they will annihilate Germany, Poland, France, and the United Kingdom. Western Europe will be plunged into a generation of despair and darkness, while the U.S. suffers a cascading financial collapse due to exposure to European banks, currencies, and debt markets.

Western journalists and kleptocrats are incapable of seeing this reality, and they are similarly incapable of acting to stop it. They are caught in their own delusional world of self-inflicted brainwashing and propaganda, believing (somehow) that they can bully Russia into capitulating to the west’s insane demands. But Russia is no Third World nation. Russia can’t be economically dismantled with western sanctions, and Russia has its own domestic supply chain for literally everything it needs to feed its people, build more weapons and earn a fortune in exports of energy and commodities to willing trade partners like India, China, Turkey, and Iran.

Finally, Putin will not back down, and Putin is far more intelligent than any of the cognitively-challenged lunatics running the USA, UK, or NATO countries. In a chess match between Putin and Biden, you’d probably see Joe Biden augmented with remote-controlled vibrating diapers to send him chess move signals through his rectum, and he still wouldn’t understand the meaning of chess notations anyway. The leaders of western nations are so utterly incompetent that they don’t even qualify as “clowns,” since good clowns are actually intelligent, capable communicators who can make people laugh. Biden, Blinken, and Nuland just make us all want to puke.

The West has already grossly miscalculated with “suicide sanctions” but still won’t admit to their catastrophic errors

As proof of the incompetence of western nations, consider the fact that their “suicide sanctions” against Russia — originally implemented to try to force Russia into a currency collapse — has had the opposite effect. The sanctions are destroying the Euro, not the Ruble, and now all of Western Europe faces a winter of darkness, famine, and freezing to death. That’s on top of the “permanent deindustrialization” of European industry that is already well under way, with about 70% of metals smelting and ammonia production already offline. Fertilizer production has ground to a halt, the Nord Stream 1 pipeline has been halted, and to add insult to injury, Belgium is proudly announcing the shutting down of a nuclear power plant, right as Belgium faces an energy scarcity catastrophe.

Germany, meanwhile, is putting another $8 billion into bailing out Uniper, a major natural gas provider, and that’s on top of $15 billion already spent trying to prevent Uniper’s collapse. Germany’s industrial base is being wiped out at astonishing speed, and nobody in the German government is telling the German people they won’t have jobs as industry collapses.

Putin must be astonished at the speed at which Western Europe — and Germany in particular — is destroying itself. Recall that Germany destroyed Western Europe twice already: World War I and World War II. Now, Germany (still largely run by Nazis) is leading the way to the total destruction of Europe yet again. At one level, Putin need not launch any nukes at all… he merely needs to wait for winter to kick in and for the laws of thermodynamics and economics to do the rest.

The greens must be proud: Entire forests are being clear cut for firewood

Yesterday I spoke with war correspondent Michael Yon who had just traveled through Germany (my interview with him will post tomorrow on Brighteon.com). He told me the forests were being clear-cut everywhere across Germany (at least that he could see) in a desperate effort by the people to stockpile firewood for the coming winter. This is the new “green” agenda on parade: Clear-cutting forests that will take decades to grow back. Will the greenies celebrate all the dead forests because at least Germany didn’t burn fossil fuels? Does anybody realize that a 19th-century economy can’t support a 21st-century population? Famine is a mathematical certainty.

To stop this crisis, all Germany has to do is apologize to Russia, drop the economic sanctions and beg Gazprom to turn the gas back on, but no, they won’t dare do that, even if hundreds of thousands of German citizens starve to death and die of exposure. In exactly the same way Adolf Hitler threw starving, freezing German soldiers into Russia’s defensive lines at Stalingrad in 1943, today’s German leaders are sacrificing the lives of their own citizens in a desperate bid to try to economically harm Russia … and it isn’t even accomplishing that! In the Battle of Stalingrad, the Soviet Union surrounded and defeated Germany’s Sixth Army, which surrendered more than 220,000 soldiers to the Russians. Today, Germany is willing to sacrifice millions of its own citizens if necessary, proving that Nazi-style suicide maneuvers remain alive and well in Berlin, even generations after the catastrophic outcome of World War II.

You can beat the Nazis out of Russia, but you can’t beat the Nazi tendencies out of the German political leaders.

Russia, meanwhile, is sitting on massive quantities of low-cost energy, minerals, steel manufacturing, fertilizer production, successful food crops, electronics manufacturing, and everything else needed to keep civilization on its feet. Yet to this very day, there isn’t one Western European politician who will admit the truth of where things stand. Too bad propaganda can’t heat homes, or the western media would be the ultimate renewable energy source for the entire planet.

The upshot of all this? Anyone living in Western Europe should prepare for an economic collapse, famine, and nuclear war.

Those living in North America should prepare for economic collapse and worldwide nuclear fallout that will disrupt crops for years to come.

Those who don’t store food will end up eating radioactive food if they can find any at all.

Prepare accordingly.

Brighteon.com/6fe87c7c-05e5-44b4-a867-e63a6ff088e4

Europe’s Economy And Living Standards Are Plummeting

The crisis in Europe is a result of political mistakes. On one hand, sanctions against Russia, are favorable only to the U.S. And on the other, the imposition of the post-hydrocarbon economy on Europeans has shown its insolvency.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/europes-economy-and-living-standards-are-plummeting

BY TYLER DURDEN

TUESDAY, SEP 20, 2022

Via Oriental Review,

The ill-considered sanctions against Russia have exposed the most acute problems of Europe which is rapidly losing its economic power. A tremendous amount of businesses are on the verge of bankruptcy. A flood of migrants from Africa, the Middle East, and Ukraine requires more and more budget spending. Funds are also being used to support the Kiev regime. As a result, Europe’s economies are deteriorating and living standards are plummeting.

Enterprises are on the verge of closing

In Britain, 60% of enterprises are on the verge of closing due to higher electricity prices. This is reported by the analytical group Make UK, representing the interests of British industry. 13% of British factories have reduced working hours and 7% are temporarily closing down. Electricity bills have risen by more than 100% compared to last year.

In Germany, according to the Leibniz Institute for Economic Research, the number of firms and individuals who went bankrupt in August alone rose 26% compared to the same period last year. The figure was significantly higher than German analysts had forecast. According to experts, during the autumn the number of bankruptcies will only increase. This is connected with the increase of the cost of production processes, in particular with the rise in prices of energy.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz acknowledged that many Germans have faced rising prices for fuel and food. Most countries in Europe were in a similar situation. But the authorities are sacrificing the quality of people’s lives in order to continue to exert pressure on Russia.

The crisis is just ahead

At the same time, many experts believe the stopping of the Nord Stream will cause Europe’s worst energy crisis in decades.

Manuela Schwesig, state premier of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and Markus Söder, state premier of Bavaria, visit a site that will feed an existing pipeline network with liquefied natural gas in Lubmin, Germany, on August 30, 2022

This circumstance has already caused a sharp rise in the prices of energy resources on the European market. As a result, energy bills of European households have increased. According to Goldman Sachs’ analysts, its cumulative cost will peak in early 2023, increasing by 2 trillion euros. It has also led to record depreciation of the European currency over the past 20 years.

The increased cost of gas, heat, and electricity has an adverse effect on the living standard of the people. But an even more dangerous problem is the falling liquidity of European products produced at the new cost of energy. European products are becoming uncompetitive on the world market: their price is much higher because of the cost of electricity and gas.

Attempts by EU leaders to introduce a price cap on energy from Russia have completely failed.

“Europe reaps what it sows”

European countries are themselves to blame for the problems they face this coming winter because of reduced gas supplies from Russia, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said. According to him, “Europe reaps what it sows”, while Turkey “has no problems with gas supplies”.

The crisis in Europe is a result of political mistakes. On one hand, sanctions against Russia, are favorable only to the U.S. And on the other, the imposition of the post-hydrocarbon economy on Europeans has shown its insolvency.

As a result, energy prices in Asia and Latin America today are much lower. And so are the wages of production workers. In other words, European products are totally uncompetitive. And we see a decrease in the liquidity of those products on the market. As a consequence, the European economy begins to plunge into recession. In particular, Christian Sewing, Director General of Deutsche Bank, said on September 7 that Germany is no longer able to avoid recession. Already at the moment, it is buying significantly fewer raw materials from major suppliers such as Brazil, Argentina, and the U.S.

The Economist Intelligence Unit, a British think tank, predicts that GDP growth in 2023 will be: 5.3% in China, 5.1% in India, 1.2% in the United States, 0.3% in France, 0.3% in Brazil. And it will be negative in a number of countries: minus 0.6% in the UK, minus 1% in Germany, and minus 1.3% in Italy.

Poverty is coming

The next logical consequence will be mass production closures and rising unemployment. European technology companies are already reducing the number of high-paying engineering positions. In September, German wind turbine manufacturer Siemens Gamesa announced its intention to reduce the number of employees to 1,500 people.

In turn, rising unemployment will cause a drop in living standards and an additional burden on government budgets, as the fight against poverty requires additional social spending.

European economies survive through stimulus. But this exacerbates inflation. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said, “You can’t help everyone, so we in the West will be a bit poorer because of the high inflation, the high energy costs”.

Migrants are ruinous to the budget

Meanwhile, the energy crisis and production problems have been exacerbated by migration policies that require additional budgetary injections into the social sphere.

The migrant influx into European countries over the past two decades has been less than 1 million people a year. But already last year, 1.3 million people entered the countries, and this year, there were already 1.8 million people. We must take into account the fact that some immigrants enter Europe illegally and are not registered. They are primarily residents of Somalia, Nigeria, Gambia, Iran, Pakistan, Mali, Afghanistan, Eritrea, and Syria.

Moreover, more than 10 million people left Ukraine since the end of February. Of these, at least 6 million people remain in European countries, while 3.7 million have already received refugee status. The average cost per such migrant is 7,000 euros per year. Even without Ukrainians, Germany alone spends 25 to 55 billion euros annually on refugee aid.

The European economy could afford these enormous expenditures before the energy crisis. But now the situation is such that expenditures are only increasing while revenues are falling.

Following the catastrophic electricity and heating bills, Europe’s population is facing mass unemployment, followed by a decline in social support from the state. These processes inevitably lead to an overall decline in living standards.

Putin: The West wanted to dismantle Russia for decades, and now it is using Ukraine to achieve this goal

Let us listen to both sides of the story, yes?

Putin: The West wanted to dismantle Russia for decades, and now it is using Ukraine to achieve this goal.pic.twitter.com/OrtCGWQ95l

— Hassan Mafi ‏ (@thatdayin1992) September 18, 2022

SANCTIONS BACKFIRING: European manufacturers closing up shop due to skyrocketing energy costs

The closure of the Nord Stream 1 (NS1) pipeline, the world’s largest natural gas pipeline, is a historic event that, instead of hurting Russia, is threatening to de-industrialize the entirety of Europe

https://www.naturalnews.com/2022-09-15-sanctions-european-manufacturers-closing-skyrocketing-energy-costs.html

by: Ethan Huff

Thursday, September 15, 2022

There is a pretty good chance that Europe is done for as it pertains to manufacturing.

The soaring cost of energy has made it prohibitively expensive for primary-metals producers and other heavy industries to continue doing business across the continent, which is boycotting Russian energy over Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Anti-Russia sanctions have all but crippled the European economy, forcing major companies like Slovalco, an aluminum producer in Slovakia, to close up shop.

For the first time, cheap Russian energy is no longer flowing into Europe like it has for many decades, including throughout the Cold War and during other periods of high tension between Moscow and the West.

The closure of the Nord Stream 1 (NS1) pipeline, the world’s largest natural gas pipeline, is a historic event that, instead of hurting Russia, is threatening to de-industrialize the entirety of Europe. (Related: Germany’s leaders are finally waking up to the fact that no more energy from Russia means no more economy for Europe.)

“Unlike the U.S., Europe leaned on manufacturing and heavy industry to keep its economy chugging in recent decades,” reported The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). “A bigger chunk of its economy comes from the likes of steelmakers, chemicals producers and car makers.”

“Europe’s energy crisis has left few businesses untouched, from steel and aluminum to cars, glass, ceramics, sugar and toilet-paper makers. Some industries, such as the energy-intensive metals sector, are shutting factories that analysts and executives say might never reopen, imperiling thousands of jobs.”

Is this the end of metal production in Europe?

Up until now, the assumption has been that this is all temporary. Western media outlets say Putin can only last so much longer and that eventually, everything will get back to “normal.”

Meanwhile, the “green” energy transition has proven to be even more disastrous for countries trying to wait out the pain. Some have had to restart their “dirty” energy industries in order to keep the lights on.

By the looks of things, Europe as we currently know it will not survive on the current trajectory. It would need to abandon the sanctions, fire back up the coal and gas plants, and once again become energy independent.

Even then it might not save Europe’s heavy industries which, once shut down, are very difficult to start back up again.

“… the continent might never again have access to the cheap Russian gas that helped it compete with the resource-rich U.S. and offset high labor costs, rigid employment rules, and stringent environmental regulations,” write the WSJ’s Joe Wallace, David Uberti, Georgi Kantchev, and William Boston.

Before energy prices started to go crazy last year, Slovalco was paying about $45 per megawatt-hour (MWh) of electricity. In late August, that same MWh or electricity hit about $1,000 across Europe, a more than 2,200 percent increase.

Keeping an energy-intensive business alive in such a volatile climate is an economic impossibility, and Slovalco knows it.

“The volatility of the price of electricity these days – it’s crazy,” says Milan Veselý, who has worked his entire life at Slovalco. “This is probably the end of metal production in Europe. This is the way we are actually killing industry.”

The company did not even attempt to renew its power contract for 2023, which at recent peak prices would have cost $2.5 billion. With only an aluminum recycling component left to its business, Slovalco recently had to let go of 67 percent of its workforce.

“We need immediate emergency aid now, otherwise we are threatened with de-industrialization in Germany,” added Franziska Erdle, general manager of WV Metalle, another major metal producer in Europe.

As the West falls apart due to rampant corruption and idiocy, we will keep you up to date with the latest at Collapse.news.

Sources for this article include:

WSJ.com

NaturalNews.com

This Winter, Europe Plunges Into “The New Dark Ages”

Europe is going to descend into “the new Dark Ages” this winter, and the entire world will experience extreme pain as a result.

We have never seen anything like this before, and the longer the war in Ukraine stretches on the worse the energy crisis in Europe will become.

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/this-winter-europe-plunges-into-the-new-dark-ages/

Michael Snyder

Sept 07, 2022

Could you imagine being sent to prison for three years if you dared to set your thermostat above 66 degrees Fahrenheit?  As you will see below, this is a proposed regulation that is actually being considered in a major European country right now.  If you have not been paying much attention to what is happening in Europe, you need to wake up.  Natural gas in Europe is seven times more expensive than it was early last year, and that is because of the war in Ukraine.  Over the past few decades, the Europeans foolishly allowed themselves to become extremely dependent on gas from Russia.   In fact, more than 55 percent of the natural gas that Germany uses normally comes from Russia.  But now the war has changed everything, and Europe is facing an extremely harsh winter of severe shortages, mandatory rationing, and absolutely insane heating bills.

Things are going to get very cold and very dark all over Europe in the months ahead, and those Europeans that choose to rebel against the new restrictions that are being implemented could literally find themselves in prison…

Switzerland is considering jailing anyone who heats their rooms above 19C for up to three years if the country is forced to ration gas due to the Ukraine war.

The country could also give fines to those who violate the proposed new regulations.

Speaking to Blick, Markus Sporndli, who is a spokesman for the Federal Department of Finance, explained that the rate for fines on a daily basis could start at 30 Swiss Francs (£26).

19 degrees Celsius is just 66 degrees Fahrenheit.

If you live in Europe, prepare to dress very warmly this winter.

Some may be anticipating that they will just use portable radiant heaters to keep things toasty, but apparently using such heaters “would not be allowed” under the new regulations that Switzerland is considering…

Blick also reported that radiant heaters would not be allowed and saunas and swimming pools would have to stay cold.

This is serious.

We have never seen anything like this before, and the longer the war in Ukraine stretches on the worse the energy crisis in Europe will become.

An end to the era of cheap energy also means that a severe economic slowdown is in the cards, and this is already starting to show up in the numbers…

Europe is showing signs of heading into a recession as multiple economic surveys show the region’s services and manufacturing sectors slowing down while a large number of the continent’s citizens are struggling to cope with rising prices.

The S&P Global Eurozone Composite Output Index fell to an 18-month low in August at 48.9, according to a Sept. 5 news release (pdf).

The eurozone private sector “moved further into contractionary territory” in August. Both services and manufacturing output fell for the month.

Of course, what we have witnessed so far is just the beginning.

Things are likely to get really bad this winter.

In fact, German Economic Minister Robert Habeck has publicly admitted that some parts of the German economy will “simply stop producing for the time being”.

Wow.

And the truth is that this is already starting to happen…

In yet another truly astonishing announcement that demonstrates the desperation of this hour, German steelmaker ArcelorMittal, one of the largest steel production facilities in Europe, has shuttered operations due to high energy prices. (See their announcement here, in German.)

“With gas and electricity prices increasing tenfold within just a few months, we are no longer competitive in a market that is 25% supplied by imports,” said CEO Reiner Blaschek.

This comes after announced closures of aluminum smelters, copper smelters and ammonia production plants over the last few weeks. Ammonia — necessary for fertilizer — is now 70% offline in the EU.

Many more factories will be forced to shut down in the coming months.

Deeply alarmed by what is taking place, 40 CEOs from Europe’s metals industry have jointly issued an open letter in which they warn that their companies are facing an “existential threat to our future”…

Ahead of Friday’s emergency summit, the business leaders of Europe’s non-ferrous metals industry are writing together to raise the alarm about Europe’s worsening energy crisis and its existential threat to our future. Our sector has already been forced to make unprecedented curtailments in the last 12 months. We are deeply concerned that the winter ahead could deliver a decisive blow to many of our operations, and we call on EU and Member State leaders to take emergency action to preserve their strategic electricity-intensive industries and prevent permanent job losses.

50% of the EU’s aluminium and zinc capacity has already been forced offline due to the power crisis, as well as significant curtailments in silicon and ferroalloys production and further impacts felt across copper and nickel sectors. In the last month, several companies have had to announce indefinite closures and many more are on the brink ahead of a life-or-death winter for many operations. Producers face electricity and gas costs over ten times higher than last year, far exceeding the sales price for their products. We know from experience that once a plant is closed it very often becomes a permanent situation, as re-opening implies significant uncertainty and cost.

This is what an economic collapse looks like.

Things are already so bad that scientists are even considering shutting down the Large Hadron Collider…

Europe’s energy crisis is being felt by everyone – including the scientists working deep underground in Switzerland at the Large Hadron Collider.

The European Organization for Nuclear Research, better known as CERN, is even considering taking its particle accelerators offline.

This is due to the accelerators’ high energy demands, and the organisation’s desire to keep the region’s electricity grid stable.

So at least one good thing could potentially come out of this crisis.

But overall, the months ahead are going to be an immensely uncomfortable time for Europe.

As conditions become tougher and tougher, ordinary Europeans are going to become angrier and angrier.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is openly admitting that there will be “civil unrest”, but he insists that Europeans must make sacrifices in order to support the war in Ukraine…

Vladimir Putin’s ‘energy blackmail’ over Europe could lead to ‘civil unrest’ this winter, the NATO Secretary General has warned.

Jens Stoltenberg acknowledged that winter ‘will be hard’ as ‘families and businesses feel the crunch of soaring energy prices and costs of living’ in the coming months.

Writing in the Financial Times, the boss of the Western security alliance said that it is worth paying the price to support Ukraine.

Eventually, there will be tremendous civil unrest in major cities in the United States as well.

We are still only in the very early stages of this new global energy crisis, and it is going to turn all of our lives upside down.

Meanwhile, we are also plunging into a horrific global food crisis.  As I detailed a few days ago, even the head of the UN is admitting that there will be “multiple famines” in 2023.

Life as we know it is about to change.

Right now, all eyes are on Europe because things are starting to get really crazy over there.

Europe is going to descend into “the new Dark Ages” this winter, and the entire world will experience extreme pain as a result.

Ph.D. economist says the energy and financial situation in Europe is “much worse than many understand,” and warns of “mayhem” in weeks or months

“We are essentially on the brink of another banking crisis, a collapse of our industrial base and households, and thus on the brink of the collapse of our economies.”

https://survival.news/2022-09-09-economist-energy-finance-situation-europe-much-worse.html

By Ethan Huff

09/09/2022 

Forecaster, associate professor, CEO and economist Tuomas Malinen, PhD, says that economic conditions in Europe are much worse than most people – including Europeans themselves, who are being kept in the dark by their politicians as to what is transpiring – think.

In addition to the energy crisis – several of Europe’s largest steel mills just closed down because energy prices are too high – Europe faces another major banking crisis.

It turns out that the energy sector, like many other sectors, is heavily leveraged. And as the markets teeter on the brink of collapse, energy companies risk going kaput, which is why bailouts are now being proposed as a solution – just like they were back in 2008, by the way.

“I am telling you, people, that the situation in #Europe is much worse than many understand,” Malinen tweeted in a four-part thread.

“We are essentially on the brink of another banking crisis, a collapse of our industrial base and households, and thus on the brink of the collapse of our economies.”

Malinen says Europeans are “at the mercy of the authorities”

Because unelected bureaucrats control much of Europe via the European Union (EU) and its European Commission, citizens across the continent have very little say or even knowledge as to the decisions being made in the shadows.

“We are also totally at the mercy of the authorities, and we have very little knowledge of what they have planned,” Malinen says.

“Will they be able to stop the onset of the banking crisis, yet again? I don’t know, but I am doubtful.”

Malinen shared a link to a page from GNS Economics about the so-called “Great Reset,” what it entails, and how it is the endgame of the current situation transpiring in Europe.

The three main pillars of the Great Reset that were presented by World Economic Forum (WEF) head Klaus Schwab back on June 3, 2020, sound a whole lot like what Europe is currently facing:

• Governments should “steer” the markets towards “fairer outcomes” using taxation, regulatory and fiscal policies, wealth taxes, and the removal of subsidies for fossil fuels – as well as create new rules governing intellectual property, trade, and competition

• Governments should ensure that investments advance “shared goals” such as “equitability” and “sustainability,” two globalist buzzwords that imply a new global system of communism, i.e., a one-world order

• Governments should “harness” innovations that match the agenda of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, addressing both health and social challenges

In order to bring about his Great Reset, Schwab and his minions first have to tear down the old system, which is exactly what is taking place right now with Europe at the forefront of that engineered collapse.

The rest of the West will follow in its footsteps, but right now all eyes are on Europe and its impending collapse.

“In any case, the speed of deterioration is massive now, and it’s only a matter of time when markets catch up,” Malinen warned. “I am betting that we still have a few weeks (months at max.) before ‘mayhem’ truly begins.”

“Take precautionary measures. Stock:
1) Cash.
2) Food.
3) Water.
4) Wood (if you have a stove).
5) Other necessities.”

Malinen stressed in his tweet series that people need to make sure they have lots of cash on hand an “no meaningful interest in banks,” along with the other necessities.

“Are you enjoying this yet?” someone else on Twitter responded to Malinen’s message. “They all clearly said what they are going to do! ‘Build Back Better’ – so it has to be destroyed first.”

The collapse of Western civilization is well underway. To keep up with the latest, visit Collapse.news.

Sources for this article include:

Twitter.com

NaturalNews.com

GNSeconomics.com

Major Russian Economic Forum wraps up with billions in deals

Dear US and EU, more sanctions, please. They seem to be working for Russia. Lou

More than 290 agreements were inked at the Far Eastern event this year, TASS reports

https://www.rt.com/business/562460-eastern-economic-forum-deals/

Sept 8, 2022

© Getty Images / Xiào Yáng Mù Jin / EyeEm

Agreements totaling $54 billion (3.27 trillion rubles) have been signed at the seventh annual Eastern Economic Forum (EEF), in Vladivostok, this week, TASS reported on Thursday, citing the press service of Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Trutnev. 

“The economy of the macro-region (Far East) received about 2.7 trillion rubles ($44.2 billion) of investments. More than 100,000 jobs have been created, and now more than 290 agreements have been signed at the forum for a total of 3.27 trillion rubles ($54 billion), which is also a record,” the press service said.

Given the challenges posed by Western anti-Russia sanctions, the importance of the Far East region is growing rapidly, the report added.

This year, within the framework of the forum, three new production facilities were launched in the Far East: a cargo-passenger car-rail ferry in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, the Komandor fish processing plant in Kamchatka, and the Zabaikalsk-Manchuria grain railway terminal in Zabaikalsky Region.

The EEF, which took place from September 5-8 in the Russian Far Eastern capital, attracted business representatives and government officials from more than 60 countries.

‘Your energy price ceiling will become price floor:’ Top Russian lawmaker warns Europe

Russia has denounced European attempts to cap Russian energy prices, saying such measures are doomed to fail and prices will rise far beyond the attempted artificial ceiling.

https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2022/09/09/688916/EU-attempts%C2%A0to-cap-Russian-energy-doomed-to-fail–Russian-top-lawmaker

Friday, 09 September 2022

A view shows gas wells at the Bovanenkovo gas field owned by Gazprom on the Arctic Yamal peninsula, Russia May 21, 2019. (By Reuters)

Russia has denounced European attempts to cap Russian energy prices, saying such measures are doomed to fail and prices will rise far beyond the attempted artificial ceiling.

Moscow’s top lawmaker and the speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin, wrote on his Telegram channel on Friday that the global market is not limited to seven countries.

“What G7 state officials call a price ‘ceiling’ will become a price floor,” he said. “The marginal price announced by the West will become the lower bar.”

Volodin said that the countries involved in the program had failed to find an alternative for Russian energy and had concluded that they would no longer be able to purchase fuel from Russia “on the cheap.”

The top lawmaker’s remarks came in the wake of a plan by Group of Seven (G7) countries to impose a price cap on Russian oil exports last week, a move that could restrict Russia’s ability to secure tankers and insurance from countries beyond the G7.

Meanwhile, the EU ministers who had gathered on Friday to discuss imposing a price cap on Russian fuel were split on the issue.

Western governments, especially the European countries, have been experiencing a worsening energy crisis after sanctioning Russia for its military operation in Ukraine.

“We are in an energy war with Russia,” Czech Industry Minister Jozef Sikela said, adding that “we have to send a clear signal that we would do whatever it takes to support our households, our economies.”

Soaring costs of gas and electricity have been the main challenge for the European leaders, prompting them to try every possible way to limit the resulting energy price shock.

An EU proposal to cap Russian gas prices has so far failed to win support from a majority of countries, with Russian President Vladimir Putin threatening to completely cut off energy supplies and warning the West it would be “frozen” like a wolf’s tail in a famous Russian fairy tale.

Central and eastern European states, which are more reliant on Russian fuel than others, fear losing all their supplies.

“If price restrictions were to be imposed exclusively on Russian gas, that would evidently lead to an immediate cut-off in Russian gas supplies. It does not take a Nobel Prize to recognize that,” Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said.

German Economy Minister Robert Habeck suggested that the EU should prepare legislation to decouple the gas price from the price consumers pay for power from other energy carriers.

Accordingly, the European Commission is set to propose a measure this week to claw back revenues from non-gas power generators (such as wind, nuclear and coal generators) and spend the cash on cutting consumer bills.

The commission is set to take the step in a bid to skim off excess profits made by non-gas producers that have lower running costs but have still been able to sell their power at soaring prices.

“The measures the Commission has recommended in taking some of those excess profits and recycling them back into the households makes sense,” Irish Environment Minister Eamon Ryan said.

The EU is bracing for a recession in the wake of skyrocketing gas prices and soaring inflation, as the coming winter is likely to be “one of the worst in history,” according to the EU’s economics commissioner, Paolo Gentiloni.

The European Union has pledged to end its dependence on Russian energy sources, a decision that seems to be backfiring ahead of the cold winter.

---

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.ir

www.presstv.co.uk

Ukrainian grain going to EU instead of Africa

Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused the West of deceiving poor nations with the grain deal

Europe really thinks it is the center of the universe.

https://www.rt.com/business/562452-ukraine-grain-to-eu-not-africa/

© Getty Images / hadynyah

At least 38% of the grain exported from Ukraine under the UN-brokered deal is shipped to the EU instead of the developing countries in Africa for which it was intended, Spain’s El Pais newspaper reported on Thursday, citing UN data and ship tracking figures.

According to the report, more than 2.3 million tons of corn, wheat, barley and other agricultural products were exported through the Black Sea corridor from Ukraine between August 1 and September 7. Of this total, about 900,000 tons were sent to the ports of EU member states. The report notes that it is impossible to trace from the available data whether the EU is the final destination of the shipments or a transit point.

On July 22, multilateral agreements were signed in Istanbul establishing the framework of exports of Ukrainian grain, food, and fertilizers via the Black Sea. The agreements also lifted restrictions on Russian grain and fertilizer exports. However, according to Russia’s permanent representative to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, the part of the food deal that concerns the export of Russian products has not been implemented, which could lead to the termination of the deal by Moscow.

Speaking at a plenary session of the Eastern Economic Forum on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Western nations of lying when they claimed Ukraine needed access to sea shipping to alleviate surging food prices and the risk of famine in poor countries, as a lion’s share of the grain is being exported to Western states. In his remark earlier on Thursday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sided with the Russian leader, saying that Ukrainian grain is “unfortunately” going mostly to rich countries.

Putin: The West is Failing, the Future is Asia

The Russian president is expected to meet with China’s Xi Jingping

Up yours, Europe, all you know is war and colonialism. The world has had enough of the likes of youz. lou

“China has taken a responsible attitude and persuaded all parties not to escalate tensions or incite war,” she said. “Those who follow the U.S.’s lead in fanning up the flame and then shifting the blame onto others are truly irresponsible.”

https://trendsinthenews.substack.com/p/putin-the-west-is-failing-the-future?fbclid=IwAR1Li1M6tzB8FX1aCc8N2RSSASz8nZ_qR91wzH8cBe5ENB9I7uuCQMjOGhM

Gerald Celente

Sept 8, 2022

Putin sends his thanks and warm regards to the US, the UK, and the EU (lou):

Fortune magazine, citing the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, noted that Moscow pulled in $157 billion in “the past six months from fossil fuel exports—with EU nations importing 54% of this amount.”

FILE: Russian President Vladimir Putin said the world is headed to a multipolar world.

Russian President Vladimir Putin took an unveiled swipe at the U.S. Wednesday and said “Western nations” are hurting everyone — including their own people in their effort to maintain global order.

“The West is failing,” Putin said. “The future is Asia.”

WHY IT MATTERS: Putin will meet with his Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Uzbekistan next week, according to Russian media.

Russia sees China as an economic lifeline. China is Russia’s top trade partner with total trade last year jumping 35.9 percent to a record $146.9 billion. Reuters said trade between the two countries jumped 50 percent after the 2014 annexation of Crimea. That trend has continued. During the first five months of the year, trade between the countries hit $65.81 billion, up 28.9 percent from 2021.

FILE: Chinese President Xi Jinping seen in a national address.

BUDDING FRIENDSHIP Despite attempts from the Biden administration, China has refused to speak out against the Russian invasion. There’s a theory that when Putin met with Xi at the Winter Olympics in Beijing, he got the Chinese leader’s blessing before the conflict. Russia would be sunk without China’s support.

Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s top diplomat, has mentioned a new “world order.”

“We, together with you [China], and with our sympathizers will move towards a multipolar, just, democratic world order,” Lavrov said in a video statement in April.

President Joe Biden mentioned an emerging ‘new world order’ earlier that month and said it must be led by the U.S.

WASHINGTON’S FAULT: Beijing has been clear that it believes the world arrived at this point due to Washington’s interference in Kyiv. (SEE: DIRTY JOKE: ZELENSKY THE COMEDIAN.)

Shortly after the conflict started, Hua Chunying, the Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman, said the invasion of Ukraine could have been avoided.

“China has taken a responsible attitude and persuaded all parties not to escalate tensions or incite war,” she said. “Those who follow the U.S.’s lead in fanning up the flame and then shifting the blame onto others are truly irresponsible.”

WHAT PUTIN SAID The Russian president said the ongoing economic global crisis was triggered by elites in the West “who would not, or even cannot, acknowledge objective facts” about changes in the world. He said they only see a “world order that benefits only them, forcing everyone to live under the rules, which they invented and which they regularly break and constantly change depending on the situation,” The Global Times reported.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/RgiL8sUEXCs?start=408s&rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

The BBC noted that Putin accused some European countries of acting like colonialists. He said he would consider limiting grain donations to Turkey because “practically all the grain taken out of Ukraine is destined not for the poorest and developing countries, but for countries of the European Union.”

PRICE CAPS ALREADY A BUST? Putin vowed to halt all deliveries of gas, oil, diesel oil or coal if the European Union goes forward with putting price caps on Russian oil.

“An attempt to limit prices by administrative means is just ravings, it’s sheer nonsense. If they try to implement that dumb decision, it will entail nothing good for those who will make it,” The Associated Press reported.

Fortune magazine, citing the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, noted that Moscow pulled in $157 billion in “the past six months from fossil fuel exports—with EU nations importing 54% of this amount.”

@geraldcelente Tell it like it is! 💰 #inflation#economy#collapse#crisis#decline#usa#stocks#bitcoin♬ original sound – GeraldCelente

Got 30 days in FB jail for posting this

You cannot post truths on social media anymore. The censorship on social media is pathetic. Everybody is scared to post because the rules are set up for petty tyrants to do as they please.

K K @Atomy @艾多美

Sep 6

Vladimir Putin: Western Elites’ “Sanctions Fever” Will Cause Common People To “Freeze”

“Now we are seeing how production and jobs in Europe are closing one after another,” Putin said according to BBC, stressing that this is happening as “Western elites, who would not, or even cannot acknowledge objective facts.” Putin added that the world needs to break away from the system created by the West, which is a “world order that benefits only them, forcing everyone to live under the rules, which they invented and which they regularly break and constantly change depending on the situation,” he said according to a state media translation provided by RT. 

https://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/vladimir-putin-western-elites-sanctions-fever-will-cause-common-people-to-freeze

“I’m referring to the West’s sanctions fever,” he said, criticizing “blatant and aggressive” attempts to “subjugate” countries that have not imposed economic restrictions on Russia. “Let them come to their senses,” Putin said.

by Mac Slavo 

Sep 7, 2022 

Russian President Vladimir Putin says that the “sanctions fever” coming from Western elitists “will cause common people to freeze.” While Putin is stating the obvious, he seems to naively believe Western elitists care about their slaves.

It’s obvious the ruling cares little for those slaves they lord over. It’s been obvious for a long time that the masters create rules for the peasant class that they themselves don’t have to follow. Nonetheless, ruler Putin blasted Western rulers and their ongoing “sanctions fever” in a wide-ranging speech before the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, in the country’s far east.

A Chinese delegation was the largest in attendance during Putin’s speech, according to a report by ZeroHedge. Top Chinese legislator Li Zhanshu was in attendance when the Russian leader stressed, “no matter how much someone would like to isolate Russia, it is impossible to do this.”

“Now we are seeing how production and jobs in Europe are closing one after another,” Putin said according to BBC, stressing that this is happening as “Western elites, who would not, or even cannot acknowledge objective facts.” Putin added that the world needs to break away from the system created by the West, which is a “world order that benefits only them, forcing everyone to live under the rules, which they invented and which they regularly break and constantly change depending on the situation,” he said according to a state media translation provided by RT. 

Considering that the rulers in the West won’t recognize “facts”, is signaling “growing detachment” from the common people they claim to represent. And yet now, European populations could “freeze” while being denied crucial Russian energy by masters who shortsightedly want to lash out in emotional response to the Ukraine situation (which they also provoked):

“The [coronavirus] epidemic has been replaced by other global challenges that threaten the entire world,” Putin told the Eastern Economic Forum in Russia’s Pacific port city of Vladivostok.

“I’m referring to the West’s sanctions fever,” he said, criticizing “blatant and aggressive” attempts to “subjugate” countries that have not imposed economic restrictions on Russia. “Let them come to their senses,” Putin said.

Russia “Weaponizes” Natural Gas Until “Sanctions Are LIfted”

The EU authorities are denying European businesses accessible raw materials, energy, and markets.” And so plummeting standards of living and the rising inflation now being experienced by Europeans – especially headed into the Winter months – will continue to be sacrificed to American interests until these leaders do finally “come to their senses”, the Russian leader explained.

Putin warned the West ‼️

‼️ 'West's sanctions fever' ‼️

‼️ Europe sacrificed in name of preserving US dictatorship ‼️ pic.twitter.com/EeSn1Aa4nS

— Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil (@ivan_8848) September 7, 2022

As geopolitical tensions rise going into winter, it’s also important to note that Russian and China’s relations are getting even stronger. It’s been confirmed by Kremlin officials that “Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping to meet next week at a summit in Uzbekistan,” according to ABC News. The two large nuclear superpowers also just wrapped up a week of joint war games, among multiple other nations represented, at Vostok 2022 in the same far eastern region of Russia.

All while the EU and U.S. continue to call Russia and China “bluffs.” Eventually, it won’t be a bluff though if this continues.

Watch: Tucker Carlson Warns “Elites Are Making Things Worse On Purpose”

In a compelling monologue, Tucker Carlson warned that “history-changing events” including energy and food shortages are occurring all at once and society is rapidly collapsing while the masses try to ignore it.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/watch-tucker-carlson-warns-elites-are-making-things-worse-purpose

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

WEDNESDAY, SEP 07, 2022

Carlson pointed out that “Europe is descending into poverty” because of spiraling energy costs and the inability of countries to provide their own power sources.

“Energy is the key to a functioning society, and the elites don’t care,” Carlson pointed out, adding the caveat “Or maybe they do care — and they’re making things worse on purpose.”

“You can reach a place in your society where the people in charge and their lapdogs in the media become so completely disconnected from the concerns of actual people, become so totally uninterested in the lives of citizens, that society becomes very volatile, and we are fast approaching that point,” the host further warned.

Carlson pointed to government warnings across Europe of severe power outages in winter and crack downs on energy use while they, along with the U.S., funnel billions from their own economies to Ukraine.

“This is not just bad policy, this makes no sense,” Carlson concluded, adding “It only makes sense if the goal is to completely destroy the west.”

Blackouts are coming to America. Energy use crack downs are already here. California’s Independent System Operator (ISO) declared an Energy Emergency level 3 Tuesday evening, warning that “rotating power outages” are “very possible.”

Continue:

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/watch-tucker-carlson-warns-elites-are-making-things-worse-purpose

It Is Going To Take “Trillions” To Fix The Massive Derivatives Crisis That Has Erupted In Europe

To put this in perspective, if you were able to create a stack of one trillion dollar bills it would be 67,866 miles high.

So a stack of 1.5 trillion dollars would be over 100,000 miles high.

We often use the phrase “a mountain of money” rather flippantly, but this really would be a colossal mountain of money.

This thing in Europe is rapidly becoming rather serious.  Vladimir Putin’s decision to end the flow of gas through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline has caused an enormous derivatives crisis to erupt in Europe, and it is going to take a giant mountain of money to fix it.  Some are already referring to this as a “Lehman Brothers moment” for the European financial system, and authorities all over the EU are really starting to freak out.  We haven’t seen anything like this since 2008, and if the Europeans are not able to contain the damage we could soon see a tsunami of financial panic sweep across the entire globe.

It is being reported that energy trading in Europe “is being strained by margin calls of at least $1.5 trillion”…

European energy trading is being strained by margin calls of at least $1.5 trillion, putting pressure on governments to provide more liquidity buffers, according to Norway’s Equinor ASA.

Aside from fanning inflation, the biggest energy crisis in decades is sucking up capital to guarantee trades amid wild price swings. That’s pushing European Union officials to intervene to prevent energy markets from stalling, while governments across the region are stepping in to backstop struggling utilities. Finland has warned of a “Lehman Brothers” moment, with power companies facing sudden cash shortages.

We aren’t talking about 1.5 million dollars.

We aren’t even talking about 1.5 billion dollars.

1.5 trillion dollars is a colossal amount of cash.

To put this in perspective, if you were able to create a stack of one trillion dollar bills it would be 67,866 miles high.

So a stack of 1.5 trillion dollars would be over 100,000 miles high.

We often use the phrase “a mountain of money” rather flippantly, but this really would be a colossal mountain of money.

The problem is not with the physical markets.  Rather, we are being told that 1.5 trillion dollars in “liquidity support” will be needed because derivatives trading has gone completely haywire…

“Liquidity support is going to be needed,” Helge Haugane, Equinor’s senior vice president for gas and power, said in an interview. The issue is focused on derivatives trading, while the physical market is functioning, he said, adding that the energy company’s estimate for $1.5 trillion to prop up so-called paper trading is “conservative.”

1.5 trillion dollars is the “conservative” estimate that we are being given right now.

That means that the final bill will likely be in the “trillions”.

Where is all of that money going to come from?

Over the years, I have done so many articles about the dangers of derivatives.

Is the inevitable global derivatives meltdown finally upon us?

At this point, one option that the European Commission is considering is the “temporary suspensions of derivatives markets”…

The European Commission is also examining measures to help with liquidity. These could include credit lines from the European Central Bank, new products as margin collateral, and temporary suspensions of derivatives markets, according to a policy background paper seen by Bloomberg News.

If they actually decided to temporarily suspend the trading of derivatives, that would actually create even more panic.

This entire crisis could be solved if the war in Ukraine ends and Russian gas starts flowing back into Europe.

But that isn’t going to happen.  Neither side is going to back down, and there will not be peace any time soon.

And so this is going to be a very bitter and very cold winter for Europeans, and the Russians are openly taunting them…

Russia’s state-controlled energy giant Gazprom has taunted Europe with a sinister video warning about a long winter with snow and ice sweeping across the continent.

The two-minute clip titled Winter will be Long shows how Europe will freeze amid the exorbitant energy prices caused by Vladimir Putin’s savage invasion of Ukraine.

The footage shows a worker turning off the supplies, sending the gas pressure needle to zero, as icy clouds ominously creep across the screen, interspersed with aerial shots of Brussels, Berlin, Paris and London.

This winter, we are likely to see shortages, mandatory rationing and insanely high energy bills all over Europe.

According to Zero Hedge, it is now being projected that energy bills in Europe will increase by a total of 2 trillion euros and will ultimately reach 20 percent of all disposable income.

Needless to say, we are now in unprecedented territory.

We have already started to see absolutely massive protests in major European cities, and Italian politician Matteo Salvini is openly admitting that this crisis has brought Europeans to “their knees”…

On Sunday Salvini urged an end to Russia energy sanctions which are only leaving Europeans “on their knees” due to higher energy bills and lack of supply. “Several months have passed and people are paying two, three, even four times more for their bills,” he said in an interview RTL radio. “And after seven months, the war continues and Russian Federation coffers are filling with money.”

He explained that not only are the sanctions not working, but they hit Italy harder. While saying he stands in solidarity with Ukraine, he’s not willing to stick with something obviously counterproductive where the blowback is felt more in Europe, Italy in particular with its soaring energy import prices, and not the intended target of the Putin government.

The longer the gas stays off, the worse things are going to get.

So what happens if the Russians never turn the gas back on?

Already, companies are shutting down facilities all over Europe because energy costs have made it unprofitable for them to continue operating.  This includes the second biggest steel producer in the entire world…

The second-largest steel producer in the world, ArcelorMittal, is the most recent business name to announce the closure of a factory in Europe as a result of rising gas and energy costs.

Due to the outrageously high surge in energy prices, ArcelorMittal is shutting down one of the two existing blast furnaces at its steelworks plant in Bremen of Germany, starting by the end of September until any further updates.

Many have warned that Europe is plunging into a “recession”, but the truth is that what the Europeans are facing is much more serious than that.

This is going to be bad.

And things are going to stay bad until there is peace with the Russians, and the truth is that peace with the Russians may not happen at all.

Months ago, western leaders were openly bragging that they were going to crush the Russian economy.

It turns out that Europe is the one being crushed instead.

Summer is almost over, winter is coming, and the Europeans are completely and utterly unprepared for what is coming next.

Putin: “Not going to let them impose anything on us; let them freeze”

‘Welcome’: Russia won’t mirror Western visa restrictions – Putin pic.twitter.com/Amyih0K2Vs

— RT (@RT_com) September 7, 2022

Economist: Europeans Are “Mad With Anger And it Will Worsen”

ENERGY CRISIS

“They [Europeans] even believe that it is the bad Russians that have closed the tap of oil and gas, while it is our own leaders in Europe that have stupidly imposed these sanctions that are destroying the European economy. We, Europeans, are bringing stagflation onto our head. Before the people realize it, it will be too late. Macron, [German Chancellor Olaf] Scholz, von der Leyen and the like will never admit they were wrong and present excuses,” he asserted.

Charles Gave blasts leaders for “destroying the European economy.”

Paul Joseph Watson

Economist: Europeans Are “Mad With Anger And it Will Worsen”

6 September 2022

ODD ANDERSEN via Getty Images

Predicting that cost of living protests in the Czech Republic and Germany will spread around the continent, a prominent economist warns that European citizens are “mad with anger and it will worsen.”

On Saturday, over 70,000 people took to the streets of Prague to demand an end to weapons supplies and neutrality regarding the conflict in Ukraine.

Numerous demonstrations are also set to take place in major German cities over the next month as energy bills and inflation soar as a result of sanctions on Russia and over dependence on green energy.

“The demonstrations in Prague and Germany are only the beginning. The price of gas and consequently of electricity are driving the European citizens mad with anger and it will worsen,” French economist Charles Gave told Sputnik.

Gave went on to assert that many Europeans aren’t buying the narrative that the situation, which culminated in the shut down of gas supplies to Europe via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, is all Vladimir Putin’s fault.

“The European governments and the European Commission speak of a ‘manipulation’ by Russia, but people perceive very well that the decision to stop importing Russian gas and oil was a European decision, taken by Brussels without even thinking of the impact it will have on the European economy,” he said.

The economist blasted European leaders for their obsession with net zero and climate change hysteria, which has left the continent totally lacking in self-sufficiency.

“For the last 15 years, our European leaders have gone into a climate craze, promoting magic mirrors and windmills as the solution. It does not work. These solutions demand the same capacity in gas power plants,” Gave said.

The economist firmly blamed globalist technocrat leaders for sacrificing the interests of Europeans on the altar of prolonging a war that will cause economic devastation.

“They [Europeans] even believe that it is the bad Russians that have closed the tap of oil and gas, while it is our own leaders in Europe that have stupidly imposed these sanctions that are destroying the European economy. We, Europeans, are bringing stagflation onto our head. Before the people realize it, it will be too late. Macron, [German Chancellor Olaf] Scholz, von der Leyen and the like will never admit they were wrong and present excuses,” he asserted.

As we highlighted yesterday, police in the UK are preparing for a widespread “breakdown in public order” caused by the cost of living crisis if new Prime Minister Liz Truss doesn’t authorize a big enough government handout.

Truss is set to freeze all energy bills for at least two years at a cost of hundreds of billions of pounds, an expense that will inevitably be passed on to the taxpayer at a later date.

Main gas pipeline to EU will be closed until sanctions lifted – Kremlin

Nord Stream 1 operations will be hampered as long as Western restrictions remain in place, Dmitry Peskov says

https://www.rt.com/news/562205-kremlin-nord-stream-gas-sanctions/

Sept 5, 2011

An employee of Siemens Energy stands in front of a turbine of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline at the plant of Siemens Energy in Muelheim an der Ruhr. ©  SASCHA SCHUERMANN / AFP

The technical issues with gas deliveries to Europe via Nord Stream 1 will persist until the West lifts the sanctions it has slapped on Russia over the ongoing Ukraine conflict, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday. In his telling, these restrictions hamper maintenance of the pipeline.

On August 31, Gazprom completely shut down gas deliveries via the pipeline. Although initially Nord Stream 1 was slated to resume gas transit on Friday, Gazprom announced that it would remain closed indefinitely due to technical issues.

“Problems in [gas] deliveries arose due to sanctions that have been imposed on our country and a number of companies by Western countries, including Germany and the UK. There are no other reasons behind supply issues,” Peskov noted.

The Kremlin spokesman also claimed that it is not Gazprom’s fault that “the Europeans absolutely absurdly make a decision to refuse to service their equipment,” which they are contractually obligated to do.

Peskov stressed that all Nord Stream 1 operations hinge on “one piece of equipment that needs serious maintenance.”

On Sunday, his comments were echoed by Alexander Novak, Russian Deputy Prime Minister, who blamed the European Union for the problems that have prevented the resumption of gas supplies via the pipeline.

“The entire problem lies precisely on [the EU’s] side, because all the conditions of the repair contract have been completely violated, along with the terms of shipping of the equipment,” he said.

On Friday, Gazprom canceled the restart of Nord Stream 1 citing an oil leak in the turbine, which was detected during a joint inspection with manufacturer Siemens Energy at the Portovaya compressor station near St. Petersburg. At the same time, the malfunction could be remedied only in Canada, which has imposed sanctions against Moscow.

Despite the maintenance issues, Europe has accused Russia of weaponizing energy supplies, with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen describing Moscow as “not a reliable partner” in terms of gas supplies.

Russian MoD: US to Move Unfinished Bio-Weapon Programs From Ukraine to Elsewhere in Eastern Europe

The Pentagon is planning to move unfinished programs for the development of biological weapons from Ukraine to other countries in the former Soviet bloc and Eastern Europe, Russia’s Defense Ministry has stated during its daily press briefing.

https://sputniknews.com/20220903/russian-mod-us-to-move-unfinished-bio-weapons-programs-from-ukraine-to-eastern-european-states-1100339981.html

Sept 3, 2022

© Photo : Russian Ministry of Defence

Russia previously discovered signs of several bio laboratories in Ukraine, which were seized by Russian troops and were reportedly working on pathogens that could be used in the production of the banned biological weapons. Moscow also found documents indicating that the US, namely the Pentagon, funded this research.

The Pentagon is planning to move unfinished programs for the development of biological weapons from Ukraine to other countries in the former Soviet bloc and Eastern Europe, Russia’s Defense Ministry has stated during its daily press briefing.

The ministry said that it had evidence that tissue samples and dangerous pathogens are being moved from Ukraine abroad, noting that the process threatens the well-being of those regions. The Defense Ministry added that it plans to present evidence that the US and Ukraine are violating the international convention banning bioweapons in Geneva next week.

“Right now, we are seeing several publications in the foreign press with a nervous reaction from Washington to the release of extremely sensitive documents by the [Russian] Defense Ministry. Journalists note that the American intelligence services are taking unprecedented steps to prevent Russia from having access to potential witnesses close to the implementation of the classified military biological projects of the Pentagon in Ukraine,” the Defense Ministry said.

The Russian Defense Ministry pointed out that instead of focusing on the research of the pathogens that were of social importance for Ukraine, such as those triggering measles, rubella, tuberculosis, or AIDS, the Pentagon invested in the research of cholera, tularemia, plague, and hantaviruses. The Russian military believes that the US was interested in this research because these viruses are endemic to Russia and any outbreak caused by the use of biological weapons could be misidentified as naturally occurring.

During the press briefing, the ministry also unveiled that it became aware of Kiev’s request for the Turkish Bayraktar drone manufacturer to equip some of the UAVs with aerosol spray systems that can hold and disperse up to 20 liters of substance. The request was filed on December 15, 2021, ahead of the start of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine, the ministry noted, calling out Kiev’s attempts to prepare for the use of biological weapons against Russia.

“With a UAV flight range of up to 300 km and their equipment of containers with biological [weapons], it created a real threat of large-scale use of biological weapons in Russian territory,” Chief of the Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Troops of the Russian Armed Forces Igor Kirillov said.

Kirillov further informed that a patent for a drone capable of dispersing insects infected with dangerous pathogens had been registered in the US, meaning that such a devise has already been developed and was functioning. He pointed out that the patent’s description details that the device could be used to kill or incapacitate enemy troops without any threat for the US military.

Russia

Russian Military Points to Presence of US-Funded Biolabs in Nigeria Amid Global Monkeypox Scare

27 May, 13:46 GMT

Russia previously published the documents its military discovered in the Ukrainian biolaboratories seized during the special military operation. These documents suggested that Ukraine received funding from the US to study several types of dangerous pathogens. Moscow claimed that this research could potentially be used by Kiev to develop biological weapons to use against Russia. Washington denies funding biological weapons research banned by the international conventions.