The Western world is heading for the next big social and economic crisis. America’s hegemony is waning and its establishment is fighting among themselves. To uphold American supremacy, President Trump and his administration are trying to reshape the nation into a neo-feudal society with a new relationship between the President (sovereign), the financial elite (fief holders, the privileged vassals) and the people (subjects performing socage). If the country is doing well, the population lives in relative stability and the leader is loved. The US is facing a demographic decline and a rapid replacement with migrants from Central America and Africa. This internal development will have profound effects on social stability and economic prosperity. The US can only be a superpower if the country is stable and the nation supports the establishment.

Jerome Powell, the head of the FED, is derailing Trump’s stimulus programme by increasing the interest rate and reducing the federal reserve balance sheet. The actions of the FED result in a drop in stock prices and the increase in the cost of debt servicing for the highly indebted US corporations. The US is now the world’s largest oil consumer and producer thanks to its shale oil industry. However even with the oil price around $70 the industry has lost more than it earned. A high interest rate and a low oil price make the industry vulnerable.

The president has said clearly that he does not like what the FED is doing. The FED has to revise its decisions, otherwise Jerome Powell will be dismissed as envisioned by Section 10 of the Federal Act. The FED will have to reconsider its policies so as to enable the stock market to make another push up next year. However, investors should be careful. The emperor has no clothes, and while the S&P is still at an all-time high, it may happen that soon distinguished brands like General Electric, once America’s most valuable company, will be on the brink of bankruptcy.

President Trump will not be able to reverse the social decline, the gradual impoverishment of the middle class and the exodus of factories. The tensions within the US establishment are spreading to Europe. On both sides of the Atlantic, there is huge discontent between the native peoples and immigrants, so ethnic clashes are more and more likely. Trust in national governments is eroding and the Western societies will slowly fall apart. While the US remains the world’s sole superpower, it has nonetheless lost the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Still, the Washington cabal is clinging to power by imposing more and more sanctions on companies and countries. The Western world and its financial system are breaking down and for that reason gold will again be a safe haven for investors.

Energy is pivotal. The conflict with Russia is about energy. As long as Russia is Europe’s main energy supplier, Moscow will wield power over the Old Continent. Operation Trident, NATO’s large military exercises held in Norway, is about energy resources. In Gefira 28 we discuss the future of the United States and give the reader an extensive analysis of the US shale oil industry, explaining why the FED will be compelled to change its policies.

Although Beijing is Moscow’s largest trading partner, while Russia only ranks in the second ten among China’s importers, the Kremlin is strategically the most important contractor because it supplies the most desirable product – oil – and Chinese demand for this raw material is growing. It appears that an increase in Russian oil exports to China will be at the expense of European consumers.

Chinese oil production has been falling since 2015, and yet enormous infrastructure investments and huge strategic petroleum reserves (SPR) boost the demand for it. No wonder then that in 2017, Beijing became the largest importer of crude oil, overtaking the United States. Currently, China’s consumption of product is approaching 13 million barrels per day. In the March Gefira we predicted that the PRC will have become the largest consumer of this raw material by 2025, accounting for 18-20% of the global consumption.And Russia has an important role to play because already in 2016 it became China’s most important oil supplier, replacing Saudi Arabia.

China has been buying more and more Russian oil in the last decade, even though the Kremlin does not increase its export volume, which is around 5 million barrels per day. In 2009, countries such as Poland and the Netherlands imported more Russian crude oil than Beijing, but in 2015 they were overtaken by China, which in 2017 had an over 20% share in the Russian exports of this raw material. Continue reading →

Freedom of expression is a thorn in the side of EU technocrats. The new intellectual property law adopted by the European Parliament in September threatens our fundamental rights.

Internet means freedom. Still. We can (still) freely retrieve content with our search engines. We can (still) freely and without further ado access the sources in a text. This will soon change. Article 13 of the controversial law says that website operators and Internet providers will be held accountable for the content of their customers and readers. The new law thus obliges them to use the so-called upload filters. The filter obligation leaves it to the software to decide what users are allowed to upload and what not. In plain language it says the provider will control and censor our activities on the net: every uploaded photo, video, every text will be checked. The question arises: what criteria will apply to this censorship and how and by whom will this filter software be programmed? The EU Commission will certainly soon be proposing detailed guidelines to combat fake news, the spread of terrorism on the Internet, and to combat those who infringe copyrights. All right, but it will also be a tool to suppress the critics of the EU, independent bloggers who want to throw light on the incompetence and insolence of the Brussels technocrats, dissidents (not left-wing liberals). And I bet: the directives will be introduced very quickly and eagerly in all EU countries.

Source: shutterstock.com

According to 2017 official data, more than 3.7 million people from outside the Community settled in the European Union, of which 565 thousand were granted asylum and 3.1 million received a residence permit. It turns out that Poland, which is considered the opponent of migration, has accepted 18% of this pool, becoming the second – after Germany – most favorable towards non-EU foreigners.

Although in 2017, among 28 countries, Poland was the ninth from the end in terms of the number of accepted refugees (560 positive decisions),it issued the largest number of residence permits. Last year Warsaw allowed for arrival of over 683 thousand people from outside the EU,of which Ukrainians, the largest group, number 585 thousand, to be followed by 42.8 thousand Belorussians and 7.8 thousand Moldovans. In 87% of the cases, a residence permit was issued on the basis of an employment contract.

Among the EU countries, Poland ranks third in terms of the number of immigrants, which is 18, per 1000 citizens. Only Malta (26.8) and Cyprus (23.7) are ahead of Poland, but these are countries with a small population, lying directly on the migration routes from the Middle East and Africa. By comparison, European leading migration advocates, i.e. Germany, France, and recently also Spain, have accepted 6, 17 and 16 foreigners from outside the EU per 1000 citizens respectively. Continue reading →

Independence Day March – Update 2018-11-09

Courts of law both in Wrocław and Warsaw lifted the ban on the Independence Day March. The mayor of Warsaw said she would appeal against this decision whereas the mayor of Wroclaw made an offensive statement to the tune that “no decent city dweller shall dare take part in it”.

At the same time many members of the law enforcement have gone on strike. Coincidence? Will the army be called in if anything happens? The powers that be (foreign and their domestic lackeys) have vested interest in disrupting the March. No difficulty paying a few thugs and telling them to mingle with the crowd and then, at the appointed place, with cameras rolling, unfurl “fascist”, “racist” and “nazi” flags for the whole world to see.

You remember President Obama’s speech a few years ago? He said something like this: if lethal gas is used against civilians, the United States will step in. On the following day gas was used.

It is going to be an interesting Sunday in Poland.

The celebration of Poland’s Independence Day, which falls on 11 November, has been prohibited by Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and almost all the post-war communist rulers of the country. Since 1989 Poland is supposedly an independent state and the Polish nation can enjoy freedom and feel itself at last at home. Spontaneously people began celebrating Independence Day and have continued to do so for a good many years. Every year from the point of view of the powers that be this festivity has been a problem: allegedly fascists and Nazis, anti-Semites and racists made up the long, fifty, seventy or a hundred thousand people strong column of men and women and children marching along the capital’s streets, with unfurled national flags. The message is sent to the whole world that “fascism is raising its ugly head” in Poland and that something must be done about it or else.

This year it is the hundredth anniversary of Poland regaining independence after 123 years of captivity during which it was politically erased from the maps of Europe. This national holiday was officially instituted barely before the Second World War. Its importance for the collective national consciousness cannot be overrated. And lo and behold, it is again a thorn in the flesh of the powers that be.

At first Poland’s President Andrzej Duda, who styles himself as a patriot, said he would take part; then, which was only waiting to happen, he revoked; then Warsaw’s mayor said she would forbid the march the moment she learnt about improprieties; then she took the ultimate decision to prohibit the march;eventually President Andrzej Duda said he would form and lead a rival march, with a changed name: no Independence March anymore but a White-and-Red March, named after the colours of the national flag.

Continue reading →