Month: October 2023

By Ven Ram, Bloomberg markets live reporter and strategist

What happens when ever-widening deficits, resilient demand in the economy and expectations that interest rates will continue to stay aloft collide with one another?

Higher Treasury yields on longer-dated maturities, that’s what.

While this week is punctuated by several central bank meetings, the US Treasury Department will also lay out its plans for new bond sales.

That road map matters more against a backdrop where the fiscal deficit doubled in the year through September to just above $2 trillion. The economy has taken it all in its stride, with growth in the third quarter coming in at almost 5%, well more than twice the pace seen in the second.

Meanwhile, inflation expectations for the next 12 months have now accelerated past 4%.

That’s a pretty heady mix, so it isn’t surprising that readers in the latest MLIV Pulse survey reckon that the US neutral rate – a sort of nirvana where the economy is at full employment without stoking inflation – has doubled to at least 100 basis points from pre-pandemic levels. Which is why 10-year Treasury yields haven’t really pulled back from 5% despite all the tensions in the Middle East. So much so that the median of MLIV readers is for the 10-year yield to settle around 5% by the end of this year.

While that seems entirely plausible, there may be upside risk lurking to yields even beyond, should the Federal Reserve be compelled to tighten policy further to get inflation back to target. While we were in a period of disinflation through the first half of the year, that hasn’t quite been the case in the second. Problem is, the Fed doesn’t quite have any other tool apart from interest rates to get that down.

Given how restrictive its policy rate is, the central bank may well decide to wait and watch for a while more, but those stellar growth numbers from the third quarter may just make policymakers less wary of doing more eventually.

As China’s Belt and Road Initiative enters its second decade, the country has been celebrating with much pomp and many global leaders in attendance.

But, as Statista’s Katharina Buchholz details below, China’s high-level infrastructure and international development program has not been free of controversy. 

The Kiel Institute for the World Economy has identified a major rise in emergency loans to countries having difficulty repaying debt taken on as part of Belt and Road projects.

Additionally, China’s loan conditions and transparency practices are being criticized by the researchers.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Between 2015 and 2021, China extended substantial emergency lines of liquidity swaps to Belt and Road countries like Mongolia, Egypt, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Turkey, many of them being rolled over and often increased for several years in a row. Oman, Angola and Venezuela as well as some of the countries mentioned above also received medium-term loans of at least $1 billion each as balance-of-payment support in that time frame.

Mongolia’s high debt to China became a problem when the mineral-rich country fell on hard times after the 2000s commodities boom fizzled out. In 2021, its external debt to China still stood at 24 percent of gross national income, one of the highest ratios in the world. Both big Belt and Road borrowers, Pakistan and Egypt had to accept large-scale bailouts from China while their economies have been flailing. The share of China’s borrowers in distress has increased so steeply in recent years that 60 percent of the country’s overseas lending portfolio supported these countries in 2022, up from just 5 percent in 2010.

In 2015, bailouts from China shot up to almost $30 billion, from just around $11 billion the year before, as China upped its emergency loans to distressed Argentina by more than $8 billion. The country only joined Belt and Road in 2022 but did borrow from Beijing before that. The same year, China also provided $10 billion as a balance-of-payment support to Venezuela.

While going into debt to finance large-scale infrastructure projects is not unusual for countries around the world, China’s development loans have less favorable conditions than those of other available sources, for example the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank or Paris Club countries. This includes higher interest rates and shorter repayment windows, which can become a problem especially for poorer countries. The same is true for Chinese bailout loans, which the IFW Kiel found to typically carry an interest of 5 percent as opposed to the 2 percent rate the IMF charges.

Authored by Eric Spitz via RealClear Wire,

Due to their long history of funding and abetting Islamic fundamentalist militias, Qatar became the Mecca for Arab terrorism in the 21^st century. The estimate of Qatari funding for Hamas topped $1.8 billion in 2021, and they’ve lent their political support to branches of Al Qaeda, to the Taliban, as well as to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the architect of the 9/11 attacks.  

Eric Spitz is a serial entrepreneur who entered the cannabis industry in 2016. He previously owned Freedom Communications, including the Orange Country Register. He now serves on the board of Rootz.ai, a technology company that provides insights about consumer retail shopping behavior. 

When looking at wealth per person on a country-by-country basis, is it more important to look at median wealth or average wealth?

Many experts believe that median wealth provides the most accurate picture of wealth since it identifies the middle point of a dataset, with half of the data points above this number, and half falling below it. In this way, it is less impacted by extreme values, and gives a good representation of the “middle of the pack”.

With that said, average wealth gives you a true average, even though it may get distorted by outliers, like the fortunes held by billionaires.

Either way, using data from the 2023 UBS Global Wealth Report, Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld created the following graphic comparing both average and median wealth across select countries,

Top Countries by Average Wealth per Person

In 2022, global average wealth per adult stood at $84,718.

By these measures, Switzerland ranks at the top at $685,226 per person. Over 15% of the population are millionaires, the third-highest rate in the world. However, when looking at median wealth per person, it stands at $167,353, a difference of over $517,000.

Like Switzerland, five of the top 10 countries by average wealth are in Western Europe, including Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, and Belgium.

The table below shows average wealth per adult in 2022 across 39 countries analyzed by UBS:

Rank	Country	Mean Wealth per Adult
1	🇨🇭 Switzerland	$685,226
2	🇺🇸 U.S.	$551,347
3	🇦🇺 Australia	$496,819
4	🇩🇰 Denmark	$409,954
5	🇳🇿 New Zealand	$388,761
6	🇳🇴 Norway	$385,338
7	🇸🇬 Singapore	$382,957
8	🇨🇦 Canada	$369,577
9	🇳🇱 Netherlands	$358,235
10	🇧🇪 Belgium	$352,814
11	🇫🇷 France	$312,235
12	🇬🇧 UK	$302,783
13	🇸🇪 Sweden	$296,800
14	🇹🇼 Taiwan	$273,788
15	🇩🇪 Germany	$256,179
16	🇮🇪 Ireland	$247,080
17	🇦🇹 Austria	$245,225
18	🇮🇱 Israel	$235,445
19	🇰🇷 South Korea	$230,760
20	🇪🇸 Spain	$224,209
21	🇮🇹 Italy	$221,370
22	🇯🇵 Japan	$216,078
23	🇫🇮 Finland	$179,986
24	🇵🇹 Portugal	$158,840
25	🇬🇷 Greece	$105,724
26	🇨🇿 Czechia	$90,393
27	🇨🇳 China	$75,731
28	🇭🇺 Hungary	$59,348
29	🇲🇽 Mexico	$55,274
30	🇨🇱 Chile	$54,082
31	🇵🇱 Poland	$52,741
32	🇷🇴 Romania	$44,320
33	🇷🇺 Russia	$39,514
34	🇹🇭 Thailand	$25,956
35	🇿🇦 South Africa	$23,956
36	🇹🇷 Türkiye	$17,578
37	🇮🇩 Indonesia	$17,457
38	🇮🇳 India	$16,500
39	🇨🇴 Colombia	$15,464
	World	$84,718

The U.S. falls second, with a mean wealth per adult of $551,347.

Overall, it is home to 38% of global millionaires, outpacing the second-highest country, China, by more than three times. With a significant wealth gap, income inequality in the U.S. is among the highest across developed nations.

Ranking seventh is Singapore, with the highest average wealth per adult across Asia. Income inequality in Singapore falls at a similar level to America based on its Gini ratio.

Top Countries by Median Wealth per Person

Here’s how wealth shifts when looking from a median wealth per adult basis:

Rank	Country	Median Wealth per Adult
1	🇧🇪 Belgium	$249,937
2	🇦🇺 Australia	$247,453
3	🇳🇿 New Zealand	$193,065
4	🇩🇰 Denmark	$186,041
5	🇨🇭 Switzerland	$167,353
6	🇬🇧 UK	$151,825
7	🇳🇴 Norway	$143,887
8	🇨🇦 Canada	$137,633
9	🇫🇷 France	$133,137
10	🇳🇱 Netherlands	$112,450
11	🇹🇼 Taiwan	$108,247
12	🇺🇸 U.S.	$107,739
13	🇪🇸 Spain	$107,507
14	🇮🇹 Italy	$107,315
15	🇯🇵 Japan	$103,681
16	🇸🇬 Singapore	$99,488
17	🇰🇷 South Korea	$92,719
18	🇮🇪 Ireland	$90,741
19	🇫🇮 Finland	$84,093
20	🇮🇱 Israel	$77,604
21	🇸🇪 Sweden	$77,515
22	🇵🇹 Portugal	$70,409
23	🇦🇹 Austria	$68,492
24	🇩🇪 Germany	$66,735
25	🇬🇷 Greece	$53,501
26	🇨🇳 China	$27,273
27	🇭🇺 Hungary	$26,416
28	🇨🇿 Czechia	$23,502
29	🇷🇴 Romania	$21,545
30	🇵🇱 Poland	$20,263
31	🇨🇱 Chile	$19,544
32	🇲🇽 Mexico	$18,920
33	🇹🇭 Thailand	$9,602
34	🇷🇺 Russia	$8,595
35	🇹🇷 Türkiye	$5,488
36	🇿🇦 South Africa	$5,141
37	🇮🇩 Indonesia	$4,819
38	🇨🇴 Colombia	$4,450
39	🇮🇳 India	$3,755
	World	$8,654

Belgium ranks the highest, climbing past Australia for the first time. High home ownership levels and elevated home prices have led household wealth to rise above other European countries.

Median wealth in the U.S. stood at $107,739, falling in 12th place.

Overall, median wealth has grown the fastest in China, increasing eightfold since 2000 to reach $27,273. The country’s rapid economic growth has lifted many into the middle class, yet wealth inequality has also increased.

Biggest Gaps in Average and Median Wealth

Which countries have the starkest difference between average and median wealth per adult?

Across the dataset, the U.S. saw the steepest gap. Median wealth per adult was $107,739—80.5% lower than average wealth levels. This means that wealth ownership skews disproportionately to the country’s richest.

Following the U.S. were South Africa, Russia, and India for illustrating the widest disparities between average and median wealth.

On the other end of the spectrum was Belgium, where median wealth per adult was the closest to average wealth levels. In this way, median wealth per person was $249,937 while average wealth was $352,814, reflecting less disparity.

Other countries with narrower gaps between median and average wealth per person included Greece, the UK, and Australia.

Authored by Olivier Bault via Remix News,

The public is not supposed to notice that a putsch is about to take place, that the European Union as a community of sovereign states is being abolished and a superstate is being created without any consent of the people, says Polish MEP Jacek Saryusz-Wolski

The European Parliament’s Constitutional Affairs Committee adopted a resolution on Oct. 25 with a report carrying far-reaching treaty changes drafted by the so-called Verhofstadt Group, a team led by the Belgian Eurofederalist Guy Verhofstadt.

The plenary vote is planned for Nov. 22 and will formally trigger the procedure to amend the existing treaties.

Polish MEP Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, who was a member of this Verhofstadt Group until July, explains in this exclusive interview with Remix News why this latest attempt to transform the European Union into an undemocratic superstate, which he describes as a silent putsch with communist roots, has a real chance to succeed if it is not stopped fast.

* * *

There have been elections in Poland, and we know that a new government will probably be formed by the Civic Coalition together with the Third Way and the New Left. Does this mean that Poland will now support the far-reaching changes to the EU treaties proposed by the left and center-right in the European Parliament?

I prefer to speak in the conditional because as of today, the formation of a government by the opposition is likely, but not a foregone conclusion. However, if this does happen, it is indeed true that Poland can no longer be expected to block these changes in the way the EU functions.

The Polish opposition, at the stage of parliamentary work, supported these changes, both through the votes of the representatives of their political groups in the team of co-rapporteurs of the report, which we colloquially call the Verhofstadt Group and which I left in July in protest, and with their votes in the Constitutional Affairs Committee, and also in the plenary voting.

As for the plenary votes, in the Report on Parliamentarianism, European Citizenship, and Democracy, where there was an amendment to eliminate the Member States’ veto right, the opposition voted to eliminate this right of veto.

During the vote in the European Parliament’s Committee on Constitutional Affairs on Oct. 25, the representatives of these Polish parties expressed their support in principle for this plan to create a superstate and reduce the role of the member states to that of German-style “Länder.”

So, it is almost certain that if these three parties form a government headed by Donald Tusk in Poland, they will support these changes.

Assuming this is what is going to happen, can these changes be blocked by smaller countries such as Hungary and Slovakia, whose new prime minister, Robert Fico, has expressed his fierce opposition to the elimination of the veto right?

We have to consider the experience with the Constitutional Treaty. There were many resisters and eventually, under pressure and blackmail, even the most resistant, Britain, agreed. This treaty was only blocked by two referendums, in the Netherlands and France. It is only then that this treaty was abandoned. However, it was eventually adopted in a truncated form and rebadged as the Lisbon Treaty. So, the history of the Constitutional Treaty proves that even the most resistant give way and yield under pressure over time.

Here, the pressure is very great, and the tools the European Commission has at its disposal are much more powerful than in the days of trying to push through the Constitutional Treaty. Back then, the Commission could not block funds, as it does today. It could not put a member state up against a wall on contrived charges concerning the so-called rule of law, for example.

The arsenal of means of extortion and blackmail is much larger today and it is actively used. France’s Marine Le Pen said Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni did not want to vote for the immigration and relocation package, believing that a naval blockade was needed, not this type of ineffective measure. However, she was threatened that a tranche of the Italian recovery funds would be blocked and she bowed to the pressure since she risked, as we know, an attack by financial markets on Italy.

Italians are indeed familiar with this from 2011. But you said you left the so-called Verhofstadt Group, i.e., the team working on the report on proposals of the European Parliament for the amendment of the treaties, in an act of protest. An act of protest against what?

Against this final formula and the lack of respect for the consensus principle. We worked on the report from July 2022 to July 2023. It was hundreds of hours of negotiations. There were six representatives of six political groups, including myself on behalf of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group. The Identity & Democracy group was not allowed in.

Why?

This is the so-called “cordon sanitaire” policy enforced by the other groups, from the center-right EPP to the far left. As for the six rapporteurs, the Conference of Presidents decided that there were to be six co-rapporteurs, i.e., the principle of consensus was to apply. This means that everyone was expected to agree on the final version.

As one of those six co-rapporteurs, I have protested various solutions, unfortunately unsuccessfully. I have proposed other solutions, such as a CJEU Subsidiarity Chamber composed of the Presidents of the National Constitutional Courts, or a red card procedure in which half of the national parliaments could stop legislation in the European Commission, etc.

This was all rejected, and the “consensus of six co-rapporteurs” principle was turned into a “consensus minus one.” In other words, the five other political groups agreed on matters between themselves, and the ECR was eventually also placed outside the cordon sanitaire.

Therefore, I slammed the door on behalf of my group.

In its draft resolution that deals precisely with these proposals for treaty changes, the European Parliament cites the so-called Conference on the Future of Europe as the source of these ideas. Doesn’t that mean that there is a democratic procedure behind these proposed changes? It was a citizen consultation after all, wasn’t it?

Absolutely not.

…

It is worth noting that in the European Parliament’s resolution, its authors refer to the Ventotene Manifesto of Altiero Spinelli, an Italian Trotskyist communist. His manifesto is cited first, with Schuman’s declaration coming in second. This clearly shows that this idea of amending the EU treaty is rooted in the communist Marxist vision for Europe, where nation-states are being abolished and where democracy is basically non-existent.

Just read what Spinelli wrote on the subject. Schuman proclaimed that his idea was not to bring countries together to create a superstate, and the idea of the Union as a superstate has its origin in the concepts Spinelli exposed in the Ventotene Manifesto.

It says that “it derives its vision and certainty of what must be done from the knowledge that it represents the deepest needs of modern society and not from any previous recognition by popular will, as yet inexistent. In this way, it issues the basic guidelines of the new order, the first social discipline directed to the unformed masses. By this dictatorship of the revolutionary party a new State will be formed, and around this State new, genuine democracy will grow.”

This is pure Bolshevism!

This future democracy, as in communism, is to be led by the dictatorship of revolutionary parties.

The Ventotene Manifesto further says that it will be a stable federal state with a European army, etc.

Let’s be clear: This project to reform the EU treaties is communist and it rejects Schuman’s Christian-democratic concept. The Spinelli Group, which co-authored the proposals, is an informal group in the European Parliament with dozens of MEPs. They claim to be federalists, but their project is actually anti-federalist.

…

Yes. And once it is adopted, there will be no more need to force the will of some member states when it can be bypassed. This is a curiosity, because nowhere in any international organization is there such a thing, that a statutory, constitutional act of an organization is adopted other than unanimously.

…

This is a kind of group of political ideologues, some of whom I would even call fanatics, who want to build a superstate on the ruins of nation-states, where a political oligarchy will rule unaccountably and escape the democratic control of citizens.

…

In short, it is the Union that will decide what are the powers and scope of sovereignty of the states, and not the opposite. Thus, sovereignty within the European Union would no longer reside in the member states but in the Union itself, and the former would be subordinated.

Incidentally, the euro currency is to become mandatory for all EU members. That is also why I am talking about the threat of the member states becoming simple “Länder”: They will be just European Union states just as there are German states.

…

So what is your forecast? Does the new treaty have enough support in the big EU countries and will it simply be imposed on the rest?

First, it will pass in the European Parliament. Roughly judging by previous votes, I predict that it should be about 330 votes “for” and 170 “against.” That is what previous votes show, such as on the complete elimination of the veto right, which is envisioned in another report voted on in the European Parliament in September.

…

That is the intention, by the way, to do it in-house, in a discreet way. The public is not supposed to notice that a putsch is about to take place, that the European Union as a community of sovereign states is being abolished and a superstate is being created without any consent of the people, and that the member states are being reduced to the role of German states.

…

The problem is that Europe has been hijacked, it has been stolen. Just as Zeus, in the form of a bull, abducted Europe, left-liberal circles have taken possession of something that was a concept with a Christian genesis, something that was founded on the principle of subsidiarity, which, by the way, is derived from the Church’s social teaching. This something is being transformed by them into a project with communist roots. The authors of the European Parliament’s draft resolution and report do not even hide this.

Read the full shocking interview here…

Controversy has erupted over the death of American hockey player Adam Johnson, who was struck in the neck and killed by another player’s ice skate in the second period of a Challenge Cup match against the Sheffield Steelers on Saturday in Sheffield, England.  Fans and players alike are divided over whether or not Canadian player Matt Petgrave deliberately used a sidekick maneuver, stabbing Johnson in the throat with his ice skate.  

South Yorkshire Police are now investigating the gruesome incident, which left Matt Johnson’s blood all over the Utilita Arena.  Below is the game footage at normal speed:

Warning – Graphic

I’ve never played hockey but I’m confused as to why this guys leg kicked up in the air like this?

Was this a dirty play?

The skate to the throat hit his artery which ended up taking his life.

RIP Adam Johnson!

pic.twitter.com/PjXM8XvAt0

— Derrick Evans (@Evans4WV) October 30, 2023

The following footage shows Matt Petgrave’s kick in slow motion:

JUST IN: Police are investigating the death of hockey player Adam Johnson after he got slashed in the neck by opposing team member Matt Petgrave’s skate.

Online social media users are split on whether the kick was intentional or an accident.

It is currently not completely clear… pic.twitter.com/7kJRFzPilr

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) October 30, 2023

Below is the now deceased Adam Johnson:

And Matt Petgrave…

The mainstream media is already resoundingly describing the incident as a “freak accident.”  In fact, many news outlets are refusing to use Matt Petgrave’s name or show his face in their coverage.  However, NHL rules (along with leagues around the world) do not allow for players to kick a hockey puck in the air, and they are strict about kicking other players.  Kicking results in an immediate match penalty of the player along with ejection from the game pending a review of their player status.  Hockey players consistently train to avoid major penalties, which is why these kinds of “accidents” are incredibly rare. 

There are only 23 reported incidents of hockey players dying on the ice worldwide since 1905.  Most of these deaths occurred before safety rules and equipment became standard.  The NHL only has one reported on ice death in its history.

Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Cradle,

The only country that could possibly distract the west from Ukraine is Israel. But the US and its allies are walking into an existential trap if they think a West Asian victory will be more easily won than a European one…

The Russia-Iran strategic partnership – with China in the wings – is laying an elaborate, Sun Tzu-tinged trap for the Hegemon in West Asia. 

Apart from Israel, there is no entity on the planet capable of switching the focus, in a flash, away from the west’s spectacular debacle in Ukraine. 

The warmongers in charge of US foreign policy, not exactly Bismarckian stalwarts, believe that if Project Ukraine is unattainable, Project Final Solution in Palestine could instead be a – ethnic cleansing – cakewalk. 

A more plausible scenario, though is that Iran-Russia – and the new “axis of evil” Russia-China-Iran – have all it takes to drag the Hegemon into a second quagmire. It’s all about using the enemy’s own, discombobulated flip-flapping to unbalance him and disorient him to oblivion.

The White House’s wishful thinking that the Forever Wars in Ukraine and Israel are inscribed in the same lofty “democracy” drive and essential to US national interests, has already backfired – even among American public opinion. 

That does not prevent cries and whispers along the Beltway revealing Israel-allied US neocons increasing the tempo to provoke Iran – via a proverbial false flag that would lead to an American attack. That Armageddon scenario neatly fits Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s biblical psychopathy. 

Vassals would be forced to meekly comply. NATO heads of state have made a beeline to visit Israel to demonstrate their unconditional support for Tel Aviv – including Greece’s Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, Britain’s Rishi Sunak, Germany’s Olaf Scholz, the senile lodger at the White House, and France’s Emmanuel Macron. 

Avenging the Arab “century of humiliation” 

So far, Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah has shown extraordinary restraint by not taking any bait. Hezbollah supports the Palestinian resistance as a whole – and until a few years back, had serious issues with Hamas, with which it clashed in Syria. Hamas, incidentally, while partially funded by Iran, is not run by Iran. As much as Tehran supports the Palestinian cause, Palestinian resistance groups make their own decisions. 

The big news is that all these issues are now dissolving. Both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) went to Lebanon to visit Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah in person this week. That spells out unity of purpose – or what the region’s Axis of Resistance calls the “Unity of Fronts.”   

Even more eye-opening was Hamas’ visit to Moscow this week, which was met with impotent Israeli fury. The Hamas delegation was headed by a member of its Politburo, Abu Marzouk. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri came especially from Tehran and met two of Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov’s key deputies, Sergei Ryabkov and Mikhail Galuzin.  

That spells out Hamas, Iran, and Russia negotiating at the same table. 

Hamas has called on the millions of Palestinians in the diaspora, as well as the whole Arab world and all lands of Islam, to unite. Slowly but surely, a pattern may be discerned: could the Arab world – and great swathes of Islam – be on the verge of significantly uniting to avenge their own “century of humiliation” – much as the Chinese did after WWII with Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping? 

Beijing, via its sophisticated diplomacy, is certainly hinting at it to key players, even before the ground-breaking, Russia-China brokered Iran-Saudi rapprochement was struck earlier this year. 

That by itself won’t thwart the perpetual US neocon obsession to bomb critical infrastructure in Iran. Worth less than zero when it comes to military science, these neocons ignore how Iranian retaliation would – accurately – target each and every US base in Iraq and Syria, with the Persian Gulf an open case. 

Peerless Russian military analyst Andrei Martyanov has shown what could happen to those expensive American iron bathtubs in the Eastern Mediterranean in case of an Israeli-threatened attack on Iran.   

Moreover, there are at least 1,000 US troops in northern Syria stealing the country’s oil – which would also become an instant target. 

Ali Fadavi, IRGC’s deputy commander-in-chief, cut to the chase: “We have technologies in the military field that no one knows about, and the Americans will know about them when we use them.”

Cue to Iranian hypersonic Fattah missiles – cousins to the Khinzal and the DF-27 – traveling at Mach 15, and able to reach any target in Israel in 400 seconds.  

And add to it sophisticated Russian electronic warfare (EW). As confirmed in Moscow six months ago, when it comes to military interconnection, the Iranians told the Russians at the same table, “whatever you need, just ask.” The same applies vice-versa, because the mutual enemy is one and the same.

It’s all about the Strait of Hormuz 

The heart of the matter in any Russian-Iran strategy is the Strait of Hormuz, through which transits at least 20 percent of the world’s oil (nearly 17 million barrels a day) plus 18 percent of liquified natural gas (LNG), which amounts to at least 3.5 billion cubic feet a day.  

Iran is able to block the Strait of Hormuz in a flash. For starters, that would be some sort of poetic justice retribution for Israel aiming to gobble up, illegally, all the multibillion-dollar natural gas discovered offshore Gaza: this is, incidentally, one of the absolutely key reasons for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. 

Yet the real deal will be to bring down the Wall Street-engineered $618 trillion derivative structure, as confirmed for years by analysts at Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, as well as independent Persian Gulf energy traders. 

So when push comes to shove – and way beyond the defense of Palestine and in a scenario of Total War – not only Russia-Iran but key players of the Arab world about to become members of BRICS 11 – such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE – do have what it takes to bring down the US financial system anytime they choose.  

As an old school Deep State higher up, now in business in Central Europe, stresses:

“The Islamic nations have the economic advantage. They can blow up the international financial system by cutting off the oil. They do not have to fire a single shot. Iran and Saudi Arabia are allying together. The 2008 crisis took 29 trillion dollars to solve but this one, should it happen, could not be solved even with 100 trillion dollars of fiat instruments.”

As Persian Gulf traders told me, one possible scenario is OPEC starting to sanction Europe, first from Kuwait and then spreading from one OPEC country to another and to all countries that are treating the Muslim world as enemies and war fodder. 

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has already warned that oil to western markets could be put off because of what Israel is perpetrating in Gaza. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has already called, on the record, for a total oil and gas embargo by Islamic countries against nations – essentially NATO vassals – that support Israel.

So Christian Zionists in the US allied with neocon asset Netanyahu threatening to attack Iran have the potential to pull down the entire world financial system.

Forever War on Syria, remixed  

Under the current volcano, the Russia-China strategic partnership has been extremely cautious. To the outside world, their mutual official position is to refuse to side with either Palestine or Israel; call for a ceasefire on humanitarian grounds; call for a two-state solution; and respect international law. All their initiatives at the UN have been duly sabotaged by the Hegemon. 

As it stands, Washington has refused the green light for the Israeli ground invasion of Gaza. The main reason is the immediate US priority: buy some time to expand the war to Syria, “accused” of being the key transit point for Iranian weapons to Hezbollah. That also doubles as re-opening the same old war front against Russia. 

There are no illusions in Moscow. The intel apparatus knows well that Israeli Mossad agents have been advising Kiev while Tel Aviv was supplying weapons to Ukraine under serious US pressure.  That infuriated the siloviki, and may have constituted a fatal Israeli mistake.

The neocons, for their part, never stop. They are advancing a parallel threat: if Hezbollah attacks Israel with something else than a few sparse rockets – and that simply won’t happen – the Hmeimim Russian Air Base in Latakia will be “eliminated” as a “warning” to Iran.

This does not even qualify as children playing in the sandbox. After the serial Israeli attacks on the civilian Damascus and Aleppo airports, Moscow did not even blink before offering its Hmeimim facilities to Syria – complete with clearance for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) cargo flights, according to some Russian intel sources. Netanyahu will not exactly harbor a death wish by bombing a fully A2/AD (anti-access/area denial) Russian Air Base.  

Moscow also clearly sees what those expensive American iron bathtubs in the Eastern Mediterranean might be up to. The response has been swift: Mig-31Ks are patrolling neutral air space over the Black Sea 24/7, equipped with hypersonic Khinzals, which would take only six minutes to visit the Mediterranean.   

Amidst all this neocon-drenched madness, with the Pentagon deploying a formidable array of weaponry plus “undisclosed” assets to the Eastern Mediterranean, whether the target is Hezbollah, Syria, Iran, Russia, or all of the above, both China and North Korea – part of the new American-concocted “axis of evil” – have indicated they will not be mere bystanders. 

The Chinese Navy is for all practical purposes shielding Iran from a distance. Yet even more forceful has been a statement by Premier Li Qiang – something unusually blunt and rare in Chinese diplomacy: 

“China will continue to firmly support Iran in safeguarding its national sovereignty, territorial integrity, and national dignity, and will strongly oppose any external forces interfering in Iran’s internal affairs.”

Never forget that China and Iran are linked by a comprehensive strategic partnership. Meanwhile, Russian Premier Mikhail Mishustin has reinforced the Russia-Iran strategic partnership in a meeting with Iran’s First Vice-President Mohammad Mokhber.

Remember those rice eaters from Korea 

Pro-Iran militias across the Axis of Resistance, are keeping a carefully tempered degree of confrontation against Israel, close to guerrilla hit-and-run. They won’t be engaged in massive attacks yet. But all bets are off if Israel invades Gaza. It’s clear the Arab world, for all its massive internal contradictions, will simply not tolerate the civilian massacre. 

Bluntly, at the current incendiary juncture, the Hegemon has found the offramp from its Project Ukraine humiliation. They erroneously believe that the same old Forever War rekindled in West Asia can be “modulated” at will. And if two wars turn into an immense political albatross, as they will, what else is new? They will simply start a new war in the “Indo-Pacific.” 

None of that fools Russia-Iran and their ice-cold monitoring of the flipping and flapping Hegemon every step of the way. It’s enlightening to remember what Malcolm X was already predicting in 1964:

“Some rice eaters ran him out of Korea. Yes, they ran him out of Korea. Rice eaters with nothing but gym shoes, and a rifle, and a bowl of rice took him and his tanks and his napalm, and all that other action he’s supposed to have and ran him across the Yalu. Why? Cause the day that he can win on the ground has passed.”