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.

(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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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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