2758-ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? | View Thread

Pointless, costly, ineffective

What is clearly visible so far are the great mutual economic costs - including to the West itself, but no sign of the west accomplishing its goals of weakening Putin or changing Moscow's course whatsoever

Some Day, We'll Look Back at This, and Laugh. And there's no time like the present.

It was nice of Al Gore to invent the Internet, because it offers unparalleled comedic opportunities to recapture moments in time when puffed-up and self-important toads made confident predictions which later made them look like the arrogant blowhards they are.

And if you write "I am an arrogant blowhard" on your résumé, you will have just doubled your chances of being hired as whatever they are calling a journalist these days, at The Guardian.

Exemplary of The Guardian's forecasting where Russia is concerned - and The Guardian never met a Russian it didn't hate, unless they were an oligarch expat, a political dissident or a member of Pussy Riot - is this gem by The Guardian's "Economics Editor", Larry Elliott; "Russia Has Just Lost the Economic War With the West".

For those who don't remember when the west's economic war against Russia started, it actually kicked off with a skirmish, in which the USA stopped service in Russia to holders of Visa and Mastercard at certain sanctioned banks in Russia, back in the spring of 2014.

© narodnayakarta
The winning 'Mir' banking card design, featuring Mir attached to a wing and a stylized image of a globe.

Customers found that their cards did not work and their accounts were frozen. Russian media promptly pointed out that American credit-card companies "had a record of bowing to political decisions from Washington"; the government imposed a security deposit fee equal to two days worth of transactions in Russia, which would cost the companies $1.9 Billion (Visa) and $1 Billion (Mastercard), and Morgan-Stanley issued a report which suggested the two credit-card giants would be better off terminating their operations in Russia, where they together had 90% of market share.

For his part, the Russian president announced that Russia would develop its own national payment system and greatly reduce its dependence on western credit-card companies.

It's hard for me to see that as a western victory. Visa and Mastercard squealed like pigs, Russia introduced a prototype domestic card (Mir) which Mastercard signed on to co-brand, and Mastercard and Visa both humbly signed on to Russia's national payment system, which moves processing to Russia.

This results in a huge loss of financial control for the western-based cards, and a bigger one is coming when Russia introduces itsnational replacement for SWIFT, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication.

Western regulatory authorities have long been accustomed to using SWIFT to read other countries' financial mail, and a few years back, the USA pressured the supposedly non-partisan system to shut out Iran.

It's unlikely America would have tried that with Russia - especially since European courts ruled that it was illegal - but a couple of big-mouthed American senators started hollering for it to be done, and that was enough.

You would think Larry Elliott would have learned something from that, but it is apparent that he did not. He had all summer and autumn to form an assessment of how things were lining up, and he guessed wrong:

"The west knows all about the vulnerability of Russia's economy, its creaking factories and its over-reliance on the energy sector.

When the introduction of sanctions over Russia's support for the separatists in Ukraine failed to bring Vladimir Putin to heel, the US and Saudi Arabia decided to hurt Russia by driving down oil prices.

Both countries will face some collateral damage as a result - and this could be considerable in the case of the US shale sector - but both were prepared to take the risk on the grounds that Russia would suffer much more pain. This has proved to be true."

Is that so? Well, at least one insight in that passage was accurate - the damage caused to the U.S. shale industry was considerable. Have a look at this comical piece in The Economist, which is almost as big a failure at presenting the world as it actually is as The Guardian; the anonymous author hedges his analysis so hard that his regular reversals make the reader dizzy.

Goodrich Petroleum's debts are six times the size of its market-value equity - but it says it has ample liquidity and may sell some stuff.

At the start of 2015, it looked like the slaughter among the frackers would be horrific - but only 5 companies actually went bankrupt. The Saudis (treacherous dogs all) have failed to put Houston out of business - but big services companies such as Halliburton have fallen into losses and small ones are on life support.

Here's another, in which The Economist does not make the link: the United States has increased its oil production to 13% of global output - but it supplies only about half its own consumption. It puts a happy face on this by describing its increase in production as far larger than its increase in consumption. That is indeed a bit of good news, but the USA still consumes more daily oil output than something like the next four nations combined (figures are from 2011), and about 20% of the world's output.

The global economy is faltering as the World Bank lowers its projections for growth. Saudi Arabia, originally a partner in the effort to crush Russia's economy, has continued to flood a glutted oil market that is now oversupplied by 800,000 barrels per day, and shows no sign of letting up. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia and Russia inked 6 new trade agreements in June, one of which will see Rosatom operate up to 16 nuclear reactors in Saudi Arabia.

The USA put its head together with its Saudi partners, and worked out a scheme whereby OPEC would administer a short, sharp shock to the energy markets which would tip Putin out of bed - colour revolution successful at last, America gets to pick a new government, we've got momentum, baby! But that's not the way it worked out at all.

Who benefits from a weaker ruble? The resource exporters who are a main source of revenue for the Russian government. Putin remains as popular with Russians as he has been since his introduction to upper-echelon politics.

Meanwhile, in Europe, Russian sanctions coincided with perfect growing conditions and consequent overproduction to kick the British dairy industry in the slats. The Russian dairy market, by contrast, is surging, with some varieties of artisan goat cheese selling for $14.00 a pound at the supplier level. German cars and car parts exports to Russia fell more than 27%between January and August 2014.

The Russian food ban is "a nightmare" for French farmers. Even mighty Apple saw its smartphone sales cut in half in 2014 - although, despite the crisis, Russian smartphone sales overall were up 39%. American car brands joined the plunge as car sales in Russia tanked; however, the ruble began to regain strength in the first quarter and was the best-performing of more than 170 currencies tracked by Bloomberg - bear in mind that this is in the face of deliberate efforts to force it down.

The tumble in car sales slowed in July as government incentives began to have an effect - but the gains were all felt by Lada and Asian brands, and the only American car to even get on the scoreboard was the Chevrolet Cruze. Expect western brands across the board to continue to suffer, as market replacement continues apace.

Let us not gild the lily: the economic war against Russia hurt, and for a day or two there was reason for western optimism that their attempt to backstab Putin out of office would bear fruit. But it didn't, and Elliott's brainless rah-rah cheerleading for Washington was torpedoed by Russian resolve and resilience.

The west now has the global opponent it thought it wanted, but market replacement and a rejection of western institutions within Russia signifies a decisive turning away from the west that will not easily be reversed, if ever. Vladimir Putin could run over a pensioner with his car on election day and still cruise to victory without breaking a sweat. None of the west's goals of economic warfare against Russia have been realized. Not one.

It's still too soon to say whether Russia will weather the storm Washington deliberately set in motion. But there is every reason to be optimistic if you are Russian, and no reason at all to be optimistic if you are one of Barack Obama's foreign-policy drones. And John Kerry might as well just run off a cliff, because he has been an even worse Secretary of State than Hillary Clinton was - a benchmark I did not ever think to see surpassed, never mind so quickly.

As a recent Russia Insider article warned, there's no surer way to lose the next war than to live in delusion about your own strength.

President Putin's late-July decree to destroy all sanctioned EU foodstuffs caught at the Russian border has incited a flurry of backlash, even among some typically Russian-friendly foreign journalists. Russia Insider's Danielle Ryan, for example, documentsnot only instances of domestic criticism over the initiative, but also personally laments that it's "wrong" and "not right". It's completely understandable why the publicized destruction of food is appalling to many people worldwide, but the fact is that they're largely missing the deeper reasons why this is happening, and that's partly due to the Russian authorities not properly communicating them.

It's not simply about saving the administrative resources and time that have to be directed to resending the products back to their original destination, nor in depriving a sanctions violator of the opportunity to profitably resell their said contraband back in the EU or elsewhere. There's also more at play than just supporting Russian domestic producers and ending the country's foreign food reliance. What's really happening is that Russia is publicly defending itself from a clever form of psychological-economic warfare being waged against it by the EU, and it's doing so at this specific time in order to limit the ability of this offensive to interfere with the upcoming general elections in September.

Full Transparency

The first thing that needs to be addressed is the reason why the Russian government is engaging in such a highly publicized destruction of the banned EU foodstuffs. The point here is to hold Russian customs officials to full accountability by retaining a retrievable record of their activity and transparently demonstrating to the people that the law is being complied with. This brings about another point, which is that it's impossible to have carried out such an action "quietly" since the whole point of the matter is to enforce a law that was publicly signed by the Russian President. As such, there's obviously an accessible record of Putin having agreed to the decree, and correspondingly, investigative journalists (both Russian and foreign) that would naturally conduct follow-up reporting on it and monitor its implementation. Under such conditions, it would be scandalous for the government to 'hide' the very same activity that it had just recently committed to in public. Even more so, it would have been a conspiracy of epic proportions if the original decree had been 'secret' and pictures and/or footage of the Russian government burning and burying food were leaked to the international media. All things considered, this is why Moscow decided to publicly and proudly demonstrate to the world that the President's law is actively being followed.

Prevent Dependence On Illegal 'Humanitarian Aid'

The most common criticism surrounding Russia's controversial measure is that the government should donate the smuggled food to those in need, perhaps even to the refugees in Donbass, instead of just destroying it. This well-intentioned and altruistic perspective forgets that that there are concrete health concerns behind the government giving its citizens or other recipients food products of unverified quality, but that's not all. The main issue is that doing so would only be a short-term solution to whatever problem it was meant to address (be it poverty in Russia or helping war refugees in Donbass), albeit one with major external strings attached that are unacceptable for any self-respecting and patriotic authorities to fully agree to. To begin with, if Russia gave the food to anyone else, it would merely be acting as a conduit for de-facto 'humanitarian aid' from the EU to its population, and as with all examples of this type of international assistance, the donor's image would be enhanced at the government's expense and could easily be exploited by Brussels for soft power gains. It would also undermine Russia's message that its domestic issues (even poverty) don't need foreign interference to solve.

Moving along, another primary reason behind Moscow's refusal to give the confiscated food away is that it establishes a dependency relationship between the recipients and the EU donor that could be broken at any time. Should the EU and its related companies decide to stop breaking the law and trying to smuggle their products into Russia, the civil beneficiaries would suddenly be left without the resources that they had previously come to expect, possibly even leading to unrest and discontent with the government intermediaries that had previously facilitated the 'donations'. Russia in that case would be forced to 'pick up the slack' for a commitment that it didn't agree to nor budget for (amid a time of decreased revenue, it must be pointed out), and worse, the period of EU 'humanitarian aid' would have set unrealistic standards for the recipients. They would have come to expect that Moscow would continue giving them the same type of camembert cheese and other high-quality luxury foodstuffs that the EU was providing via the seized products, which in any instance is unfeasible for any government to indefinitely pay for and provide to its impoverished citizens. The EU is calculating that the comparatively lower quality of Russian-provided assistance to its poor could then achieve the same destabilizing consequences that Moscow had initially sought to avoid by continuing the unsolicited 'aid' in the first place.

Ensure A Smooth Election Process

The final issue that Moscow seeks to remedy by destroying the EU contraband is to ensure smooth regional elections on 13 September. Had there not been any visible decree such as the one that prompted the controversy, then citizens may have questioned their government's commitment to its own counter-sanction policy, as banned EU food has still been slipping through the borders regardless. This will likely still remain the case to some extent (it's impossible to stop everything from getting through, after all), but by publicly demonstrating its resolve in dealing with the issue, it's thought that this will decrease any potential voter apathy in the upcoming polls or possible dissatisfaction with the ruling United Russia party.

On the other hand, there are certainly consequences to this patriotic measure, as the Western media onslaught attests. The US and its EU allies have once more been caught unaware by the fortitude of the Russian government, hence why they're reacting in such a hysterical manner (much as they did to Crimea's seemingly unexpected reunification). The objective here is to intensify the information war against Russia by promoting the false idea that Moscow is depriving an unspecified amount of starving citizens from being fed by seized EU foodstuffs. The preconditioned foreign audience is expected to use their imagination in envisioning thousands of disgruntled people queuing up for food that they won't ever receive (a hybrid mix of the late-Soviet-era bread lines and the recent untrue stories about a 'food scarcity' ever since the counter-sanctions). There's also a domestic component at work here too, since external actors hope that Russian voters will be so upset by the decree and its coverage in the international (Western) media that they'll vote against United Russia next month.

Concluding Thoughts

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 8/21/2015 11:35:46 PM
	IS destroys ancient Catholic monastery in Syria 8 hours ago IS jihadists preparing to destroy the ancient Syriac Catholic monastry of Mar Elian in the central Syrian town of Al-Qaryatain (AFP Photo/-) View Gallery Beirut (AFP) - Islamic State militants have destroyed an ancient monastery in the central Syrian province of Homs, according to a monitor and pictures published by the jihadist group. Related Stories Islamic State destroys Syrian monastery, moves Christian captives: monitor Reuters IS kidnaps civilians in Syria, mass executions in Iraq AFP Islamic State abducts dozens of Christians from Syrian town: monitor Reuters IS beheads elderly ex-antiquities chief in Syria's Palmyra AFP 25 dead in IS assault on key rebel-held Syria town: monitor AFP "The Islamic State group yesterday used bulldozers to destroy the Mar Elian monastery in Al-Qaryatain, in Homs province," said Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman. He said the militants demolished the Syriac Catholic monastery "on the pretext that it was used for worshipping others than God." Photographs posted online by IS showed militants bulldozing parts of the monastery, although they did not appear to have completely destroyed the building with explosives as they have done with shrines and other religious buildings elsewhere. IS seized Al-Qaryatain on August 5, kidnapping at least 230 people, including dozens of Christians. The town lies at the crossroads between IS territory in the eastern countryside of Homs and points further west in the Qalamun area bordering Lebanon. View gallery This picture released late Thursday, Aug. 20, 2015, by an Islamic State militant-affiliated website, … The Observatory said that IS had released 48 of those it took captive when it overran the town, and had transferred another 110 to its stronghold of Raqa province. The fate of the other 70 hostages was unclear. The Mar Elian monastery dates back to the fifth century and is named for a Christian from Homs province who was martyred for refusing to renounce his faith. It is attached to a famous church of the same name, but it was unclear if that too had been damaged by IS. In May, Syrian priest Jacques Mourad was abducted from the monastery by masked men as he prepared to receive residents of nearby Palmyra fleeing an IS advance. Intolerant of any religious practice other than its own interpretation of Islam, IS has regularly destroyed religious buildings and icons in territory under their control. They have also targeted statues, which they consider idolatrous, and grave markers, including those of Muslims.
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
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Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 8/22/2015 12:45:44 AM
	Note: use of discernment is advised in reading the below article. Black Magic: Satanists Rule the World, Not Politicians, Bankers or Military Heads Black magicians rule the world, not politicians, bankers or military heads. Black magic harnessed through Satanic ritual is the dark force behind it the NWO conspiracy. Black magic is the force that rules the world, so it is the Satanic black magicians which constitute the true controllers of the world – at least in the human Earthly realm. The Satanic black magicians pull the strings, not politicians, corporate bosses, military heads, intelligence chiefs or even international bankers – although they also hold many of those roles. The NWO (New World Order) elite fulfill a hidden role and an outer, more respectable public role. While many Satanic black magicians are also businessmen and bankers, their true ruling power comes from Satanism and the twisted use of humanity’s creative power (black magic), which they then use in their secular roles in society. Symbols Rule the World Remember the saying of the Chinese sage Lao-Tzu, who said that “symbols rule the world, not rules or laws”? Symbols communicate at a deeper level than words, because they are decoded by the right, intuitive brain, whereas words are decoded by the left, logical brain. Symbols are able to penetrate more deeply into our subconscious, which is why the elite are so obsessed with their occult corporate and governmental logos of red crosses, rising suns, all-seeing eyes, pyramids, 666, the rings of Saturn and inverted pentagrams (check out the work of Freeman who has done a great job exposing this). Words attempt to rule the world, but they can never be as powerful as symbols. Corporate logos are full of occult symbology. Likewise, black magic rules the world. Governments and corporations attempt to rule the world, but they can never be as powerful as black magic. Before looking at the evidence of elite use of black magic, it is worthwhile remembering a defining aspect of Satanism: the inversion of everything. Black is white, bad is good, wrong is right. This is why the inverted pentagram is such a popular Satanic symbol. George Orwell touched on this in 1984 when he wrote of the ruling class’ propaganda: “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.” Even mind control, developed by the Nazis first in Germany and later at the CIA, uses Satanic principles to confuse its victims, by telling them that pain is pleasure and pleasure is pain, and eventually breaking down victims so they can no longer distinguish between the two. Elite figures talking at Bohemian Grove, before the black magic rituals. Note Nixon on the right, and Reagan on the left – at a time when he was not yet president. Bohemian Grove, Skull ‘n’ Bones and Other Secret Societies There are some secret societies which are mostly political and economic in nature, such as groups like the Trilateral Commission or the CFR (Council on Foreign Relations), who go around convincing the world about the great benefits of globalization(the elite buzzword forcentralization of power), global governance and free trade agreements like the TPP. There are others, however, whose purpose is shrouded in more mystery, but seem to involve black magic and Satanic ritual, such as the worshipping of dark gods/entities, the acting out of sexual orgies/fetishes and sacrifice, whether mock or real. The Bohemian Club, located in San Francisco, is one such group. Every summer in the USA, many key figures of the US elite gather in the tall redwoods of northern California at Bohemian Grove. People such as Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George Bush and other US presidents have attended. Alex Jones successfully infiltrated the Grove once, and was able to videotape one of the rituals that took place there, known as Cremation of Care, which involved hooded figures performing a mock sacrifice black magic ritual beneath a 40 foot owl. On the other coast of America, at Yale University in Connecticut, lies an old secret society founded in 1832 by William Huntington Russell and Alphonso Taft, known as the Skull ‘n’ Bones society, and its members as “bonesmen”. The late professor Anthony Sutton did some great research on Skull ‘n’ Bones. Members have admitted having to undergo strange initiation rituals such as making sexual confessions in a tomb, while outsiders have heard chilling howls and screams emanating from the windowless Skull ‘n’ Bones crypt (see embedded video above). If you think these secret societies are just perverted people messing around, ask yourself: why would the elite, many of whom are obsessed with power, be involved with them? Why would they engage in such black magic rituals unless they were getting something in return – like more power? These guys control the printing presses of the world, and some have more money than they could possibly spend. It’s power they want, not money. Money is just a means to an end. Is it just a coincidence that in the 2004 US presidential election, where George Bush Jr. and John Kerry were running against each other, that both were bonesmen, with a membership total of around 300 in a country of 300+ million people? Did MSM news anchor Tim Russert get bumped off for asking too many questions to Bush and Kerry about the secret society? A scene from the movie Eyes Wide Shut of Stanley Kubrick, depicting a Satanic-sexual black magic ritual at an elite mansion. Kubrick, Eyes Wide Shut and Secret Elite Rituals of Sex and Sacrifice The ordinary person will never be initiated into a Satanic secret society, nor get close enough to witness what really goes on in there. It is therefore interesting when someone who does get close to that world decides to spill the beans and show the world what’s going on. Such a person was Stanley Kubrick, the late great film-maker who many suspect (with strong evidence) was part of the US Government’s fake Apollo moon landing in 1969. Kubrick may have cut a deal with the devil in making a fake moon landingfor the elite, because when he handed over the tape for his last film Eyes Wide Shut, he was found dead 4 days later of a heart attack, despite the fact those close to him said he was in fine health and had no history of heart trouble. Kubrick depicts a black magic scene whether naked women circle a leader, then drop their clothes to become naked, and are later involved in a massive orgy, where all the participants where masks to hide their true identities. Kubrick hints in the film that this Satanic-sexual black magic ritual also involves sacrifice and murder, by implying that one of the women/prostitutes was killed during or at the end of the ritual. At the Heart of Black Magic: Demonic Possession Black magic at its core is really about demonic possession. Since the world is made of energy, not matter, and since energy moves in waves which have frequencies, the Satanic rituals are designed to entrain the energetic bio-frequencies of the participants with that of other dark entities, so that there is a vibrational match. Once there is a frequency resonance or lock, an exchange can then take place: energy, intent or information can go from one being, place or dimension can be transferred into another. This works both ways: the person gets possessed and receives information from certain dark entities, while the dark entities also take something from the person. This theme of possession crops up again and again when exposing the worldwide conspiracy, and has been going on a long time, e.g. Hitler was reported to be demonically possessed by his aide Hermann Rauschning. Artist David Dees’ impression of what goes on at Satanic black magic rituals like the Bohemian Grove. Sad to say, it’s probably very accurate. Note elite figures (from left) Blair, Bush, Obama, Greenspan, Gates, Brown, Clinton, Rockefeller & Turner. The Horrific Phenomenon of Missing Children It is also black magic that is behind the unspeakable and unconscionable phenomenon of missing children. These children are being deliberately kidnapped and taken down into elite controlled underground facilities where they are mind controlled, turned into slaves and where some of them are even sacrificed at Satanic rituals. If that is too difficult to believe, listen to the testimonies of various mind control victims, researchers, Illuminati defectors or ET contactees, such as Cathy O’Brien, “Mary Anne“, “Svali“, Alex Collier and many others. Conclusion: Focus on the Deepest Aspects of the Conspiracy Although it’s important to focus on and expose all aspects of dysfunction in our society – including political corruption, mainstream media consolidation and deception, smart meters, GMOs, toxic vaccines, geoengineering, the militarization of police, fake terrorism, false flag ops, UN Agenda 21, transhumanism and the human microchipping agenda – in order to transform and heal them, it’s crucial to realize that, at a fundamental level, they are all connected. All these issues and more are manifestations of a more primordial evil or unconsciousness in our midst – Satanic black magic. The secretive rituals conducted at Bohemian Grove and elite mansions tell us more about who rules the world than political think tanks or banking cartels, although of course there is an overlap. If humanity is to rise up and overcome the conspiracy, we must focus our attention on the root of evil (not the branches), and use “white magic” in greater force – the harnessing and funneling of our creative powers to make a world of peace, freedom and love. We must continue to expose the deepest aspects of the conspiracy. At the same time, we have to ensure we are not letting the elite siphon off our precious thoughts, emotions and powers to create their nightmarish world, but rather, using those energies within us to create the world we want with positive intention, focus and conscious manifestation. ***** Want the latest commentary and analysis on Conspiracy, Natural Health, Sovereignty, Consciousness and more? Sign up for free blog updates! Makia Freeman is the editor of The Freedom Articles and senior researcher at ToolsForFreedom.com. Sources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DD-JttocUzk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yc7xXYktmgY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8blKWWWTJio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpKdSvwYsrE http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_skullbones12.htm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7bg8egG-zw http://theocculttruth.com/index.php?p=1_50 http://henrymakow.com/illuminati_defector_mary_anne.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZtkojaaMm8 *https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXD6_Vwe2j8
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
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Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 8/22/2015 1:14:41 AM
	So Western elites, how's that Russia sanction thing going? Mark Chapman Russia Insider Wed, 19 Aug 2015 16:18 UTC Pointless, costly, ineffective What is clearly visible so far are the great mutual economic costs - including to the West itself, but no sign of the west accomplishing its goals of weakening Putin or changing Moscow's course whatsoever Some Day, We'll Look Back at This, and Laugh. And there's no time like the present. It was nice of Al Gore to invent the Internet, because it offers unparalleled comedic opportunities to recapture moments in time when puffed-up and self-important toads made confident predictions which later made them look like the arrogant blowhards they are. And if you write "I am an arrogant blowhard" on your résumé, you will have just doubled your chances of being hired as whatever they are calling a journalist these days, at The Guardian. Exemplary of The Guardian's forecasting where Russia is concerned - and The Guardian never met a Russian it didn't hate, unless they were an oligarch expat, a political dissident or a member of Pussy Riot - is this gem by The Guardian's "Economics Editor", Larry Elliott; "Russia Has Just Lost the Economic War With the West". For those who don't remember when the west's economic war against Russia started, it actually kicked off with a skirmish, in which the USA stopped service in Russia to holders of Visa and Mastercard at certain sanctioned banks in Russia, back in the spring of 2014. © narodnayakarta The winning 'Mir' banking card design, featuring Mir attached to a wing and a stylized image of a globe. Customers found that their cards did not work and their accounts were frozen. Russian media promptly pointed out that American credit-card companies "had a record of bowing to political decisions from Washington"; the government imposed a security deposit fee equal to two days worth of transactions in Russia, which would cost the companies $1.9 Billion (Visa) and $1 Billion (Mastercard), and Morgan-Stanley issued a report which suggested the two credit-card giants would be better off terminating their operations in Russia, where they together had 90% of market share. For his part, the Russian president announced that Russia would develop its own national payment system and greatly reduce its dependence on western credit-card companies. It's hard for me to see that as a western victory. Visa and Mastercard squealed like pigs, Russia introduced a prototype domestic card (Mir) which Mastercard signed on to co-brand, and Mastercard and Visa both humbly signed on to Russia's national payment system, which moves processing to Russia. This results in a huge loss of financial control for the western-based cards, and a bigger one is coming when Russia introduces itsnational replacement for SWIFT, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. Western regulatory authorities have long been accustomed to using SWIFT to read other countries' financial mail, and a few years back, the USA pressured the supposedly non-partisan system to shut out Iran. It's unlikely America would have tried that with Russia - especially since European courts ruled that it was illegal - but a couple of big-mouthed American senators started hollering for it to be done, and that was enough. You would think Larry Elliott would have learned something from that, but it is apparent that he did not. He had all summer and autumn to form an assessment of how things were lining up, and he guessed wrong: "The west knows all about the vulnerability of Russia's economy, its creaking factories and its over-reliance on the energy sector. When the introduction of sanctions over Russia's support for the separatists in Ukraine failed to bring Vladimir Putin to heel, the US and Saudi Arabia decided to hurt Russia by driving down oil prices. Both countries will face some collateral damage as a result - and this could be considerable in the case of the US shale sector - but both were prepared to take the risk on the grounds that Russia would suffer much more pain. This has proved to be true." Is that so? Well, at least one insight in that passage was accurate - the damage caused to the U.S. shale industry was considerable. Have a look at this comical piece in The Economist, which is almost as big a failure at presenting the world as it actually is as The Guardian; the anonymous author hedges his analysis so hard that his regular reversals make the reader dizzy. Goodrich Petroleum's debts are six times the size of its market-value equity - but it says it has ample liquidity and may sell some stuff. At the start of 2015, it looked like the slaughter among the frackers would be horrific - but only 5 companies actually went bankrupt. The Saudis (treacherous dogs all) have failed to put Houston out of business - but big services companies such as Halliburton have fallen into losses and small ones are on life support. Here's another, in which The Economist does not make the link: the United States has increased its oil production to 13% of global output - but it supplies only about half its own consumption. It puts a happy face on this by describing its increase in production as far larger than its increase in consumption. That is indeed a bit of good news, but the USA still consumes more daily oil output than something like the next four nations combined (figures are from 2011), and about 20% of the world's output. The global economy is faltering as the World Bank lowers its projections for growth. Saudi Arabia, originally a partner in the effort to crush Russia's economy, has continued to flood a glutted oil market that is now oversupplied by 800,000 barrels per day, and shows no sign of letting up. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia and Russia inked 6 new trade agreements in June, one of which will see Rosatom operate up to 16 nuclear reactors in Saudi Arabia. The USA put its head together with its Saudi partners, and worked out a scheme whereby OPEC would administer a short, sharp shock to the energy markets which would tip Putin out of bed - colour revolution successful at last, America gets to pick a new government, we've got momentum, baby! But that's not the way it worked out at all. Who benefits from a weaker ruble? The resource exporters who are a main source of revenue for the Russian government. Putin remains as popular with Russians as he has been since his introduction to upper-echelon politics. © Getty Images Russia's dairy production has been expanding to fill the gap after EU cheese imports stopped Meanwhile, in Europe, Russian sanctions coincided with perfect growing conditions and consequent overproduction to kick the British dairy industry in the slats. The Russian dairy market, by contrast, is surging, with some varieties of artisan goat cheese selling for $14.00 a pound at the supplier level. German cars and car parts exports to Russia fell more than 27%between January and August 2014. The Russian food ban is "a nightmare" for French farmers. Even mighty Apple saw its smartphone sales cut in half in 2014 - although, despite the crisis, Russian smartphone sales overall were up 39%. American car brands joined the plunge as car sales in Russia tanked; however, the ruble began to regain strength in the first quarter and was the best-performing of more than 170 currencies tracked by Bloomberg - bear in mind that this is in the face of deliberate efforts to force it down. The tumble in car sales slowed in July as government incentives began to have an effect - but the gains were all felt by Lada and Asian brands, and the only American car to even get on the scoreboard was the Chevrolet Cruze. Expect western brands across the board to continue to suffer, as market replacement continues apace. Let us not gild the lily: the economic war against Russia hurt, and for a day or two there was reason for western optimism that their attempt to backstab Putin out of office would bear fruit. But it didn't, and Elliott's brainless rah-rah cheerleading for Washington was torpedoed by Russian resolve and resilience. The west now has the global opponent it thought it wanted, but market replacement and a rejection of western institutions within Russia signifies a decisive turning away from the west that will not easily be reversed, if ever. Vladimir Putin could run over a pensioner with his car on election day and still cruise to victory without breaking a sweat. None of the west's goals of economic warfare against Russia have been realized. Not one. It's still too soon to say whether Russia will weather the storm Washington deliberately set in motion. But there is every reason to be optimistic if you are Russian, and no reason at all to be optimistic if you are one of Barack Obama's foreign-policy drones. And John Kerry might as well just run off a cliff, because he has been an even worse Secretary of State than Hillary Clinton was - a benchmark I did not ever think to see surpassed, never mind so quickly. As a recent Russia Insider article warned, there's no surer way to lose the next war than to live in delusion about your own strength. Comment: The hurt is on, but mostly in the West. Russia has leveraged the treachery of the US and its vassals into greater national unity. A serious miscalculation by the PTB's psychopathic cohort, but that's what comes of wishful thinking. Man of conscience: Putin wants countermeasures to Western sanctions that support domestic manufacturers without hurting consumers Poll: Most Russians see sanctions as tool to weaken nation, but feel no effect Economic impact of sanctions on Russia like peanuts say Russian ministers Russian business leaders trust Putin and won't pressure him over sanctions
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
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Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 8/22/2015 1:25:19 AM
	The real reason why Russia is destroying sanctioned EU food Andrew Korybko Oriental Review Thu, 20 Aug 2015 16:06 UTC President Putin's late-July decree to destroy all sanctioned EU foodstuffs caught at the Russian border has incited a flurry of backlash, even among some typically Russian-friendly foreign journalists. Russia Insider's Danielle Ryan, for example, documentsnot only instances of domestic criticism over the initiative, but also personally laments that it's "wrong" and "not right". It's completely understandable why the publicized destruction of food is appalling to many people worldwide, but the fact is that they're largely missing the deeper reasons why this is happening, and that's partly due to the Russian authorities not properly communicating them. It's not simply about saving the administrative resources and time that have to be directed to resending the products back to their original destination, nor in depriving a sanctions violator of the opportunity to profitably resell their said contraband back in the EU or elsewhere. There's also more at play than just supporting Russian domestic producers and ending the country's foreign food reliance. What's really happening is that Russia is publicly defending itself from a clever form of psychological-economic warfare being waged against it by the EU, and it's doing so at this specific time in order to limit the ability of this offensive to interfere with the upcoming general elections in September. Full Transparency The first thing that needs to be addressed is the reason why the Russian government is engaging in such a highly publicized destruction of the banned EU foodstuffs. The point here is to hold Russian customs officials to full accountability by retaining a retrievable record of their activity and transparently demonstrating to the people that the law is being complied with. This brings about another point, which is that it's impossible to have carried out such an action "quietly" since the whole point of the matter is to enforce a law that was publicly signed by the Russian President. As such, there's obviously an accessible record of Putin having agreed to the decree, and correspondingly, investigative journalists (both Russian and foreign) that would naturally conduct follow-up reporting on it and monitor its implementation. Under such conditions, it would be scandalous for the government to 'hide' the very same activity that it had just recently committed to in public. Even more so, it would have been a conspiracy of epic proportions if the original decree had been 'secret' and pictures and/or footage of the Russian government burning and burying food were leaked to the international media. All things considered, this is why Moscow decided to publicly and proudly demonstrate to the world that the President's law is actively being followed. Prevent Dependence On Illegal 'Humanitarian Aid' The most common criticism surrounding Russia's controversial measure is that the government should donate the smuggled food to those in need, perhaps even to the refugees in Donbass, instead of just destroying it. This well-intentioned and altruistic perspective forgets that that there are concrete health concerns behind the government giving its citizens or other recipients food products of unverified quality, but that's not all. The main issue is that doing so would only be a short-term solution to whatever problem it was meant to address (be it poverty in Russia or helping war refugees in Donbass), albeit one with major external strings attached that are unacceptable for any self-respecting and patriotic authorities to fully agree to. To begin with, if Russia gave the food to anyone else, it would merely be acting as a conduit for de-facto 'humanitarian aid' from the EU to its population, and as with all examples of this type of international assistance, the donor's image would be enhanced at the government's expense and could easily be exploited by Brussels for soft power gains. It would also undermine Russia's message that its domestic issues (even poverty) don't need foreign interference to solve. Moving along, another primary reason behind Moscow's refusal to give the confiscated food away is that it establishes a dependency relationship between the recipients and the EU donor that could be broken at any time. Should the EU and its related companies decide to stop breaking the law and trying to smuggle their products into Russia, the civil beneficiaries would suddenly be left without the resources that they had previously come to expect, possibly even leading to unrest and discontent with the government intermediaries that had previously facilitated the 'donations'. Russia in that case would be forced to 'pick up the slack' for a commitment that it didn't agree to nor budget for (amid a time of decreased revenue, it must be pointed out), and worse, the period of EU 'humanitarian aid' would have set unrealistic standards for the recipients. They would have come to expect that Moscow would continue giving them the same type of camembert cheese and other high-quality luxury foodstuffs that the EU was providing via the seized products, which in any instance is unfeasible for any government to indefinitely pay for and provide to its impoverished citizens. The EU is calculating that the comparatively lower quality of Russian-provided assistance to its poor could then achieve the same destabilizing consequences that Moscow had initially sought to avoid by continuing the unsolicited 'aid' in the first place. Ensure A Smooth Election Process The final issue that Moscow seeks to remedy by destroying the EU contraband is to ensure smooth regional elections on 13 September. Had there not been any visible decree such as the one that prompted the controversy, then citizens may have questioned their government's commitment to its own counter-sanction policy, as banned EU food has still been slipping through the borders regardless. This will likely still remain the case to some extent (it's impossible to stop everything from getting through, after all), but by publicly demonstrating its resolve in dealing with the issue, it's thought that this will decrease any potential voter apathy in the upcoming polls or possible dissatisfaction with the ruling United Russia party. On the other hand, there are certainly consequences to this patriotic measure, as the Western media onslaught attests. The US and its EU allies have once more been caught unaware by the fortitude of the Russian government, hence why they're reacting in such a hysterical manner (much as they did to Crimea's seemingly unexpected reunification). The objective here is to intensify the information war against Russia by promoting the false idea that Moscow is depriving an unspecified amount of starving citizens from being fed by seized EU foodstuffs. The preconditioned foreign audience is expected to use their imagination in envisioning thousands of disgruntled people queuing up for food that they won't ever receive (a hybrid mix of the late-Soviet-era bread lines and the recent untrue stories about a 'food scarcity' ever since the counter-sanctions). There's also a domestic component at work here too, since external actors hope that Russian voters will be so upset by the decree and its coverage in the international (Western) media that they'll vote against United Russia next month. Concluding Thoughts Russia's decision to destroy seized EU foodstuffs has provoked a loud reaction from many forces, not least of which is the West, which is gleeful to use the highly publicized opportunity to denigrate the Russian authorities. It's surprising then that some of those very same outlets are giving space to voices that suggest the food be given to those in need, but this just confirms that the West does in fact have a stake in Russian citizens establishing an indirect 'humanitarian aid' dependency on the EU. Moreover, there's definitely a sizable proportion of the population that is unhappy with the decree, but it's now becoming clearer that the US and its allies aim to steer them towards expressing their dissatisfaction politically through the upcoming regional elections next month. The government isn't likely to enact a policy reversal on the matter so soon, no matter what domestic opinion indicates at this point, since that could be manipulated into being presented as a capitulation to international pressure (which wouldn't be the case at all, but would definitely be how the West would market it as). The general motif still remains the same, however, and it's that the EU has taken to using its sanctioned foodstuffs as an asymmetrical weapon against the Russian government and its people, attempting to push through tons of illegal product with the very intent that some of it will be seized and consequently end up furthering the psychological-economic war that Washington and Brussels have unleashed.
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 8/22/2015 1:48:09 AM
	Better Late Than Never: West Starting to Accept Crimea as Part of Russia © Sputnik/ Evgeny Biyatov 13:58 21.08.2015 Member of European Parliament Aymeric Chauprade said he considers the events that transpired on the peninsula in 2014 as a historical reunification of Crimea with Russia. © SPUT NIK/ TARAS LITVINENKO Crimea Has Always Been Part of Russia – Former Australian Diplomat There are positive changes in the way the West perceives the Crimea issue, like the recent visit of a group of European parliamentarians led by Thierry Mariani to the peninsula, French member of European Parliament Aymeric Chauprade told Sputnik. The politician said he believes that this tendency will continue to improve, and that he considers the events that transpired on the peninsula in 2014 as a historical reunification of Crimea with Russia. "In my opinion, that event was doubly legitimate," Chauprade said. "It was legitimate from a historical standpoint, considering how Crimea was a part of Ukraine for a relatively short period of time. It was also legitimate in terms of elections because there was a referendum regarding the issue, a referendum that I attended as one of the few international monitors who observed the event. During that referendum, which was marked by a high voter turnout, 97% of voters supported the peaceful reunification with Russia. And I believe that eventually all honest, unbiased and free parliamentarians will realize that the future of Crimea is intrinsically linked with Russia." He pointed out how he visited areas of Crimea populated by Crimean Tatars and that things there were just as calm and peaceful during the referendum as in the rest of the peninsula. © SPUTNIK/ VASILIY BATANOV Ukrainian Notaries Tacitly Recognize Crimea as Part of Russia "Crimean Tatars comprise about 8-10% of Crimea's population and their participation in the referendum wasn’t exactly active. Still, you can't say that the majority of Tatars were against the reunification with Russia," Chauprade said. "There were definitely attempts to manipulate the segments of the Crimean Tatar population that are most susceptible to the influence of Islamic ideas that are often employed by the US and Turkey. We’ve seen how the US and Turkey attempted to use them just like in the Caucasus region or in Central Asia. Or like in Xinjiang, where the US and Turkey seek to manipulate the Uyghurs in a similar fashion." "As a historian and a political scientist I have a habit of doing a comparative study when reviewing some historical issue," Chauprade explains. "I worked on the issue of Chechnya and I remember how the US played a pivotal role in arming the Chechen rebels since the early 90s. Now we see the same thing happening in other parts of the world like in the Middle East. The Islamic State of today was born thanks to the US policy of using Islamism to advance its interests, and it resulted in the destabilization of nation-states. If we want to improve international stability, we must help reinforce the nation-states. Russia upholds this perception of international law, to stabilize the nation-states against all these destabilizing games the US plays with Islamism and mafias. And when you consider the Crimean issue, not to mention other important geopolitically important regions, one must always remember the dangerous and destabilizing games that the US plays behind the scenes." Chauprade also remarked that considering who handles financial matters in Ukraine and controls certain sectors of the Ukrainian economy related to foreign investments, one has to wonder whether Ukraine is actually an independent state. "Unfortunately, Ukraine today is being governed by people who serve foreign powers, namely the US and its allies. This is the main reason of the ongoing conflict," Chauprade stated. "I firmly believe that if Ukraine was run by people who first and foremost care about the interests of their country and do not ignore the historical reality, Ukraine would’ve been able to peacefully coexist with its neighbors like Moscow and the Western European countries, instead of constantly trying to fan the flames of conflict like friends of Mr. Poroshenko do." Read more: http://sputniknews.com/analysis/20150821/1026013000/crimea-russia-ukraine-europe.html#ixzz3jVJRcEPk
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
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The real reason why Russia is destroying sanctioned EU food

Member of European Parliament Aymeric Chauprade said he considers the events that transpired on the peninsula in 2014 as a historical reunification of Crimea with Russia.