The Cold War – as unpleasant as it was – was at least characterized by a set of diplomatic rules that had been elaborated over time and the states concerned either abode by or went to great lengths to abide by them. It is no longer the case, with the United States walking out on the disarmament agreements signed with the former Soviet Union. The world has become less predictable. Such is the diagnosis given by the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin during an hour-and-a-half interview that was recently held with him by two Financial Times journalists. The Russian leader competently – as usual – addressed the issues raised by his interlocutors.

The Russian president has one more time sent a message to Western diplomats and the common people. What the message is?

There is a split between the elites and the people. The split caused by rampant liberalism, a diktat that suppresses the traditionally minded citizens, a diktat that serves the rich and harms the poor. Chancellor Merkel has made a huge blunder letting in hundreds of thousands of Third World immigrants, whereas President Trump correctly read the wish of common Americans and won the vote. The suspicion that he won the presidential campaign because of Russian interference is ridiculous. We may dispute whether President Trump’s idea of separating the United States from Mexico by means of a wall is good or bad, yet the voters see that their leader at least is attempting to do something about the problem, whereas his European counterparts are adding fuel to the fire. Why, the elites live in guarded, separate, gated city quarters and the people do not. The same holds good for globalism. The outsourcing of manufacturing lined the pockets of the West’s very rich while impoverishing the middle class. Liberalism is at its end. It has destroyed tradition and ousted religion and offered an ever increasing number of genders in return. Still, people on the whole, whether they realize it or not, live by biblical values. One cannot operate as if it were not so.
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There are three things with which one can control a community, a nation, a state, or the whole planet: (i) ideology, (ii) information and (iii) money. They are interwoven and inextricable. Ideology forms a cast of mind that enables to make money or prevents from making it. Consider the medieval prohibition that was binding on Christians only but not on Jews to renounce interest or – as it was called – usury. Some could accumulate profit, others could not, depending on the ideology they clung to. Information is also a prerequisite for making money: the one who knows more and earlier what is going to happen on the market wins the day. Both ideology – especially its spread and enforcement by law – and access to or exclusiveness of information require money. Lots of money. No wonder then that money was always in high demand and man has since time immemorial looked for ways of multiplying it at no or low cost.

When gold meant money, rulers employed alchemists to turn ordinary metals into this precious one. When money took the form of paper, then bank(st)ers devised fractional reserve banking: i.e. they came with the idea of multiplying money without having to resort to costly and complicated methods of turning one metal into another. All they had to do was to convince the users of money that the slips of paper or ledger records stood for genuine value. At present the time came for digital money i.e. electronic impulses and electronic ledgers.

Whichever is the manner in which money is created, the one who has the power to create it, calls the tune. “I do not care who rules a country, so long as I create that country’s money,” are the words attributed to one of the Rothschilds. A banker keeps the ledger in which it is stated how much his clients have or owe to other clients or banks, and the same banker creates the money and appropriates some of it as his own remuneration. He is the real landlord! He occupies a position that many others would like to take over. One financier may cause another financier’s collapse, taking him out of the financial market or taking over his assets. If that is too costly or not possible, one may come up with an idea of creating a competing kind of money. Modern technology, as said above, enables money creation without using paper or ink or watermarks or whatever, without having vaults in which to store the financial tokens, without having to run a chain of small bank buildings or automatic teller machines to make money physically available to anyone. Modern technology makes it possible to create money and distribute it without those financial trappings. Modern technology enabled the creation of crypto money or cryptocurrency.

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The order of the current problems laid down below is random. Hard to say which factor will be the next catalyst. Maybe all or several at the same time? Decide for yourself.

1. Unresolved political conflicts. Ask yourself: which conflicts have been finally resolved since the 2007 crisis? In the Middle East? In the Balkans? In the former Soviet Union? (in Ukraine, the proxy war of the EU against Russia?) In Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya? In Sudan? There is no end to this list. The UNO, NATO, the international coalitions for the “defence of human rights” or interventions of the major powers for the defence of their own interests in a region (e.g. Russia and the USA in Syria) only bring more unrest and destabilization in the individual regions and cost the Western world pots of money. Aggressive foreign policy by the great powers and threats to geopolitics will continue to put a massive strain on the world’s economy and pose a risk to investors.

2. The most powerful countries in the world have been arming themselves for years. World military spending increased by 2.6 percent last year to around $1.82 trillion – a new high since 1988. The mainstream media, unlike in the sixties of the last century, are reluctant to talk about the new Cold War because they are fully engaged in creating the delusion of a united, peaceful humanity.

3. Since its inception, Marxism has been an ideology that has not inscribed itself as anything positive in the history of any country. Because of Marxist ideas, more than 100 million people died in Europe in the 20th century (according to the calculations of the French historian Stéphane Courtois).The Western elites remain untouched by this and continue to pay homage to the fathers of destruction,using their language, their ideas, speaking of internationalism, equality of all peoples and races, unification of all nations, support for the poor, who are supposed to reach the same level as the rich, support for the people who disregard the genuine values of Western civilization (LGBT and the new letters constantly being added). Citizens of EU countries and others who do not believe in the harmfulness of such ideology should rather take to heart the latest communist miracle – Venezuela. Otherwise they will soon be painfully confronted with the consequences of the immigration policy, the green lie, the wrong social policy, which does not care about just redistribution of wealth and the whole wrong foreign and energy policy of the left-green scene. Even now, the middle and lower classes in France, Italy and other countries are suffering because of the left-green ideology that for years has been causing their purchasing power and standard of living to fall (see Yellow Vests).
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Some say it was Colonel Muammar Qaddafi, who wanted to dethrone the dollar, and so he paid for it with his own life. Others say it was Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein, who wanted to make settlements in a currency other than the US dollar, and he was hanged. Now it is Russia and China, which want to do the same. Just days ago an agreement was signed to this effect.

(i) Russia and China have decided to begin to make mutual settlements increasingly in their respective national currencies, and

(ii) they have decided to bypass the SWIFT system, introducing their own instead.

Moscow has also revealed lately that Russia has stopped using the US dollar and the SWIFT system for settlements in arms trade.

The exchange of goods between Russia and China is significant; Russian weaponry has a lot of clients around the globe. On the other hand both countries, and especially China, have large dollar reserves. And both states are under attack from the West, be it economic sanctions against Moscow, be it American trade war against Beijing.

To administer punishment for such a daring act was a child’s play in the case of Libya and Iraq: the two countries were swiftly dealt with. What can one do with a nuclear superpower on the other hand and Asia’s largest economic tiger on the other?
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If the American economy is doing so well, why did FED suddenly become so mild in its rhetoric during the last session? At the previous meeting in March, none of the FOMC Committee members was willing to lower interest rates, now there are 7 members who want to pump cheap money into the market. Perhaps it was the reaction to Draghi’s speech in Vilnius, in which the ECB chief announced further bond purchases and stated that he “will use all possible means” to boost the European economy before his term ends in autumn.

It looks like currency wars will continue and the central banks will continue to compete with each other in easing their policies. The markets are happy about this, and stock prices in the USA are setting new records. For European citizens, Draghis’ announcement is rather a threat to their savings. If the ECB introduces the negative interest rate, the sums on their accounts will slowly but surely melt. We have warned about this several times.Data from the retail trade and from orders in industry show that American citizens are not doing so well either. Even in April, i.e. before the new steps Trumps in the trade war, they performed very weakly. Why is that? Unemployment is at its lowest level for 50 years, inflation is low and American companies paid record dividends in the first quarter. Nevertheless, consumers are not willing to spend much. It is because, despite full employment, wages are not raised. Another factor is the huge indebtedness of Americans. An example: only the debts made with credit cards amount to 1 trillion dollars! The point is: the interest rate on loans in the USA remains low, but the interest rate on credit cards is growing and currently averages 17% annually. This means that Americans have to pay 170 billion dollars in interest every year!
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We have been anticipating the future for our readers for four years now. We have the key to understanding the mechanism behind today’s geopolitical and economic reality and it is demographics. While many do not dare to speak out, we do. To the establishment the social justice philosophy is more important than reality. Equality is a new religion which has superseded Christianity. The trouble is that the real world does not comply with the rules of social justice. If one had fully understood the demographic reality in the sixties and seventies, speculation in real-estate would be a no-brainer. Many still believe that populations keep increasing and urbanization will go on for the foreseeable future. So as is the case with the inertia of thinking, many people believe this process will continue. Since European populations began to shrink, investment in real estate can turn into a giant disaster.

Since 2015 we have been telling our readers that interest rates would never go up again. Yes, they may increase a little for a limited time, but even the FED board members knew they were joking when they made the economic community believe that the financial markets would normalize again.

Because the demographic reality in South Korea is even worse than that of Japan, the country’s industrial conglomerates are desperate for young workers from the northern neighbour. When President Trump called Kim Jong Un Rocketman, and the pundits were hysterical about a possible war, we repeatedly wrote that peace was just a matter of time. Now the animosity between the Koreas is a thing of the past and the two states are slowly working on reunification.

In 2017 the average financial journalist never heard of a mini-bot (mini-bills of Treasury) while our readers were fully informed. We once pointed to the possibility of Italy introducing the mini-bot as a parallel currency.

In 2016, when the bitcoin traded at 1000 dollars we suggested to our readers to have a close look at the crypto currency, and when the crypto crashed, we repeated that we still thought it would re-bounce to 100 000 dollars. At the time of this writing bitcoin is trading at 9 300. As for gold we were less enthusiastic, but we argued that we still saw it as a safe haven, protecting investors again currency swings. But now financial reality starts to sink in, and central banks do not see light at the end of the tunnel, we see a bright future for the yellow metal

We have to admit, though, that up to now we have been wrong about the oil price: it still stands at around 50 to 60 dollars a barrel. Here we are witnessing two different trends: the global economy is not growing anymore, while China is slowly joining the club of industrialized societies with an ever-shrinking population. That explains why the demand for oil is growing at a slower pace.

With the price below one hundred dollars, more than 50% of the US oil production is economically unsustainable, so once it begins to falter, the oil price will go up, entailing a significant economic crisis. In the September 2018 Gefira bulletin, we wrote that “Tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran will increase after the midterm elections in November. We can expect a limited tanker war, as we saw during the Iraq-Iran war, with instances of oil tankers being attacked. Such a “tanker war” started when Iraq attacked the oil terminal and oil tankers at Kharg Island in early 1984. Afraid of American intervention, the Iranians limited their retaliatory attacks to Iraqi shipping, leaving the strait open to international traffic.” We do not know who is behind the attacks. There are enough parties who want to draw the US into a war with Iran.

Many analysts believe that the emergence of China results in the decline of the US hegemony; they argue that a multi-polar world will distribute power more equally and keep the US in check. We see that the rot in the West is much deeper even though most residents will regard their countries as healthy and wealthy. As famous historian Oswald Spengler wrote, we are witnessing the end of modern Western Societies. With the decline of the West, regional powers will fight for their chair at the table, and the reemergence of the Ottoman Empire has just begun. While the Turkish lira is plunging, there is no sign President Erdoğan will yield.

We also framed the question, will Europe become an Islamic or an African continent? If immigration from sub-Saharan Africa supersedes that from North Africa, European destiny will change course. In such a case, our future will look more like that of South Africa. While geographically South Africa is not a part of Europe, the modern South African society has been built by Western nations. The country’s development has always stood out. In this Gefira we have a closer look at the Rainbow Nation. Last month CNN proudly announced that “South Africa makes history as women make up half of the cabinet for the first time”. It forgot to say that the country is socially and economically collapsing. Read more in Gefira 34

The renunciation of one’s own sovereignty costs a lot. If a country decides to join the Eurozone, it must accept that it will not be able to devalue its currency in the event of an economic crisis. The Italian Lega is now trying to fulfil its election promises, even though the state coffers are empty. The solution? A parallel currency.

The idea is nothing new. What Claudio Borghi, the economic expert of the Lega Nord, came up with was tried out by Argentine society at the turn of the century: in 2001 the government in Buenos Aires launched “cuasimonedas” to plug its debt hole. Each province issued treasury bonds to meet payment obligations. The most popular became the Patacones of Buenos Aires province, which were given mainly to those employed in the state sector and social recipients, but with which one could pay everywhere.

The introduction of Argentina’s parallel currency initially led to chaos in the country: the rich transferred their dollars abroad (a total of more than 100 billion), the poor and the middle class had no choice and immediately spent the Patacones they received in fear of them becoming worthless overnight. However, this spurred consumption and helped the economy to get back on its feet. The good 2002 and 2003 harvests and the rising commodity prices on the world markets also helped to ease the financial situation of this eighth-largest country in the world. Argentina survived the crisis because it was able to devalue its money and because it has the most fertile soil in the world.
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The situation in the Gulf of Oman is getting worse. After the attacks on two tankers, Khamenei said that he would never sit at the negotiating table with the US again.So Iran will continue its nuclear program till the Israeli strategists interpret its advancement as unacceptable and will have Iranian targets attacked. Up to this time a new tanker war is more likely than 30 years ago, of which Gefira warned already in autumn 2018. Our forecasts proved correct.

The attacks could indeed have been carried out by Iranians, and it is quite possible that they were a provocation of the Americans. Such a hypothesis is justified by the analysis of the history of the conflict between the Great Satan and Iran. In August 1953, MI6 and CIA overthrew democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq for wanting to nationalize the British Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now BP). The company earned huge sums, of which Iran received hardly anything. The CIA’s Shah Reza Pahlavi, installed in place of Mossadeq, guaranteed the US that Iran would not cross over to the Soviet Union. With the help of the Americanshe founded the secret service SAVAK, which suppressed the population, tortured and committed numerous murders.The Americans were not bothered by this for decades, but today they are outraged by the violation of human rights in Iran: indeed by the violation of their interests in the region.
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