US To Suspend Syria Diplomacy With Russia, Prepares "Military Options"

US To Suspend Syria Diplomacy With Russia, Prepares "Military Options" | Zero Hedge

In the most dramatic diplomatic escalation involving the Syrian conflict in the past years, yesterday John Kerry issued an ultimatum to Russia, in which he warned his colleague Lavrov to stop bombing Aleppo or else the US would suspend all cooperation and diplomacy with Russia.

24 hours later, this appears to be precisely what is about to take place, leading to an even greater geopolitical shock in Syria.According to Retuers, the United States is expected to tell Russia on Thursday it is suspending their diplomatic engagement on Syria following the Russian-backed Syrian government's intense attacks on Aleppo, U.S. officials said on condition of anonymity.

"We are on the verge of suspending the discussion because it is irrational in the context of the kind of bombing taking place to be sitting there trying to take things seriously," Kerry told an audience in Washington.

"It is one of those moments where we are going to have to pursue other alternatives," he added.

Why now and what happens next? According to US officials, the Obama administration is now considering tougher responses to the Russian-backed Syrian government assault on Aleppo, including military options. According to Reuters, the new discussions were being held at "staff level," and have yet to produce any recommendations to President Barack Obama, who has resisted ordering military action against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the country's multi-sided civil war.

"The president has asked all of the agencies to put forward options, some familiar, some new, that we are very actively reviewing," Blinken said. "When we are able to work through these in the days ahead we'll have an opportunity to come back and talk about them in detail."

However, now that diplomacy with Russia is set to end, this will give the greenlight for Obama to send in US troops in Syria, with Putin certain to respond appropriately, in what will be the biggest military escalation in the Syrian proxy war in its five and a half year history.

The Central Bank Power Shift From West To East, Game Of Thrones Style

The Central Bank Power Shift From West To East, Game Of Thrones Style | Zero Hedge

Authored by Nomi Prins via NomiPrins.com,

“When you play the Game of Thrones, you win or you die.” – Cersei Lannister

I was late to Season 6 of Game of Thrones (while buried in writing my next book Artisans of Money.)  If you have never watchedGame of Thrones, a) do so immediately and b) here’s the nutshell. The show, based on the book series, depicts a land in which several kingdoms are duking it out for the Iron Throne, the symbol of absolute power.  Think the board game “Risk” except with dragons, magic, an army of the dead, and lots of blood.

While I was watching, I couldn’t help noticing that its backdrop is a dead ringer for central banks’ strategy.  The Fed clings to status quo. Other central banks are vying to knock it down, or at least loosen its grip on them. But the Fed behaves as if it hasno idea there are other powerful central banks that want to grab and harness its power. It carries on refusing to acknowledge that there may come a time, sooner rather than later, where its power is attacked.

The ramifications of such an attack will impact the standing of the U.S. in the world.  The Fed can carry on being oblivious, but Game of Thrones illustrates the struggles playing out right now.

In the Game of Thrones world, emerging queen, Daenerys Targaryen is biding her time and building her army. She is creating alliances in Meereen, an ancient country in the East (her awesome fire-breathing dragons in tow).  She’s playing the long game, strategically planning when to elevate the fight against the ruling queen in the West, Cersei Lannister.

The most important part of Daenerys’ story is not that she is determined to rule the seven kingdoms and take possession of the Iron Throne. It’s that she knows she can’t do it alone. So she aligns reinforcements, smaller power bases.

These smaller partners may or may not have allegiance to her based on the legitimacy of her claim to power — but they have all been wronged by the Lannister’s. This family, currently led by Cersei Lannister, is extremely wealthy and powerful, but hasn’t managed to lead the western kingdom, Westeros, to wealth and power. In fact, the people in Westeros are becoming increasingly frustrated and scared of their rulers.  (You see the similarities?)

Not only has Cersei managed to create enemies out of the smaller families that surround her, she recently massacred a large portion of the city she rules to protect her own interests. She is losing her power domestically and globally, but continues to think and act as if she will rule forever. We’ll see what happens next season.

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BRAVO RUSSIA!

BRAVO RUSSIA! – The Burning Platform

Several days ago I read Engdahl’s article on Brazil that was originally posted on New Eastern Outlook. PCR’s article (posted by Admin)about Washington Tries to Break BRICS – Rape of Brazil Begins, reminded me of  another recent article by Engdahl reporting Vlad’s new economic plan he wants to get up and running. I can’t help but wonder if PCR even read this other article given what he wrote about the Brazil article.

Of course Putin’s plan has ‘triggered’ the Russian “old guard” Liberal economists amygdalae so the BMW’s (Bitches, Moaners, Whiners) are beside themselves.

The West knows about this plan of course and have pissed on it…of course, because the plan wasn’t written by Them. They can’t bring Vlad to heel. Another misguided reason for Them to demonize the shit out of him. 

It’s okay baby. You just keep doin’ what you’re doin’.

****************

Putin: Nyet to Neo-liberals, Da to National Development

by F. William Engdahl

August 2, 2016

After more than two years of worsening economic growth and an economy struggling with 10.5% central bank interest rates that make new credit to spur growth virtually impossible, Russian President Vladimir Putin has finally broken an internal factional standoff. On July 25 he mandated that an economic group called the Stolypin Club to prepare their proposals to spur growth revival to be presented to the government by the Fourth Quarter of this year. In doing so, Putin has rejected two influential liberal or neo-liberal economic factions that had brought Russia into a politically and economically dangerous recession with their liberal Western free market ideology. This is a major development, one I had been expecting since I had the possibility to exchange views this June in St. Petersburg at the annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

With very little fanfare, Russian press a few days ago carried a note that could have a most profound positive significance for the future of the Russian domestic economy. The online Russian blog, Katheon, carried the following short notice:

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The Financial System Is On The Cusp Of Collapse

The Financial System Is On The Cusp Of Collapse – The Burning Platform

Via Investment Research Dynamics

DB stock is now in a full panic sell-off as I write this.  It just hit another new all-time NYSE low on by the heaviest volume ever in the stock since its 2001 NYSE listing.  It’s currently down almost 10%.  No doubt the Central Banks will try to bounce it.

Deutsche Bank may well be the scapegoat this time around just like Lehman was the scapegoat in 2008. Central Banks in collusion can prevent just one bank from collapsing. It was the co-collapsing of AIG and Goldman Sachs that prompted then-Secretary of Treasury, ex-Goldman CEO Henry Paulson, to put in motion the bailout of the U.S. and European banking system.

Yesterday it was reported that the rate the Fed charges the banks to borrow collateral surged to its highest rate in 7 years – LINK. The rush to borrow collateral was no doubt prompted by OTC derivatives-related counter-party collateral calls. A collateral call is like a margin call in a stock account. This occurs when a derivatives trade goes south for an entity that is on the long side of the derivatives bet – a bet that Deutsche Bank won’t default, for instance – and the counterparty to that trade demands more collateral to be posted in order to insure that the bet can be paid off if the “long side” loses.

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US Outcry Over Syria... Tears Followed By NATO Bombs

US Outcry Over Syria... Tears Followed By NATO Bombs | Zero Hedge

Submitted by Finian Cunningham via Strategic-Culture.org,

The crescendo of US-led condemnations against Syria and Russia over alleged humanitarian crimes in Syria grows louder by the day. The eerie sense is that this «outcry» is being orchestrated as a prelude to a NATO-style intervention in Syria.

Such a NATO maneuver would follow the template for former Yugoslavia and Libya, leading to greater civilian deaths, territorial disintegration, a surge in regional terrorism and more international lawlessness by Western states.

The concerted, emotive appeals over the past week – bordering on hysteria – indicate a propaganda campaign coordinated between Washington and its Western allies, the mass media and the US-led NATO military alliance.

It was US ambassador the United Nations Samantha Power who led the chorus of accusations against Russia and its Syrian ally, using the Security Council emergency meeting last weekend to condemn «barbarism» of renewed violence around the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. Britain and France piled in with more unsubstantiated condemnations of war crimes, as did shameless UN officials, Ban Ki-Moon, the secretary general, and Staffan de Mistura, the UN’s special envoy to Syria.

Few people would countenance war, but surely Syria has the sovereign right to defend its nation from a foreign-fueled war on its territory. In all the lachrymose lecturing from the likes of Samantha Power, the pertinent question of who started this war in the first place gets lost in rhetorical fog.

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WHY I’LL ALWAYS BE RACIST

WHY I’LL ALWAYS BE RACIST – The Burning Platform

Via www.therightstuff.biz [Click on the link “Jeff Cuck” to see the original.]

It makes me ready for change. No matter the cost.

Guest post by Jeff Cuck: A communicator and leader whose heart for the marginalized and passion for change makes him a perfect mouthpiece for bitter, childless catladies.

I am a native white American. I’m married to a beautiful native woman, and have two children who share our genetic material. I grew up in suburban New Jersey in a solid, nuclear family. I lived a wonderful life of opportunity, thanks in no small part to a homogeneous culture that I do not recognize for the sake of this article.

I was raised to treat everyone equally, regardless of factual data that disagrees rather sharply with such a prescription. And while my town was predominantly white, I grew up with enough isolated tokens to skew my opinion of multiculturalism.

But even with this socially correct upbringing and appropriately docile disposition, I am probably still a racist. I don’t mean racist like the people who say things with basis in facts that I am totally sure don’t exist. I mean that I am uncomfortable with the reality of savage negroes existing despite the deluge of gibbsmedat and my litany of saccharine, programmed apologies for this inequality in civil behavior.

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"People Are Mad" - Dave Collum Warns "Existential Change Is In The Air"

"People Are Mad" - Dave Collum Warns "Existential Change Is In The Air" | Zero Hedge

Chemistry professor, and infamous market observer Dave Collum, author of the encyclopedic 'Year in Reviews', senses "existential risk in the American Experiment." In an excellent interview with The Cornell Review, Collum opines on everything from 'safe spaces' to 'social unrest' warning "people are now mad, and it shows in the chaotic election. We are guaranteed to elect a president that half the populace finds repugnant...Change is in the air."

 ...It is probably only in the last 15 years that I’ve started hiking up my pants and bitching about the government.Now I am relatively outspoken because I sense existential risk in the American Experiment.

...We have an interventionist central bank—a global cartel of interconnected central banks actually—that is determined to use untested (read: flawed) models to try to repair an economy that was hurt by their policies and would fix itself if the Fed would just get out of the way. I think these guys are what Nassim Taleb calls I-Y-I (intellectual-yet-idiot). They will continue with their experiments until the system finally breaks in earnest. They will blame the unforeseeable circumstances.

The social contract on the home front is faltering badly. When the system started to fail in ’09, we stitched up a putrid wound without cleansing it. We needed reform of a highly flawed banking system corrupted by poor incentives. In the 1930s, the Pecora Commission rounded up scoundrels (including the head of the New York Stock Exchange) and threw them in prison. We should have hung a few in the town square, but instead the Obama Department of Justice punished shareholders and savers. A scandal at Wells Fargo emerging just this week, for example, led to a token fine while leaving some wondering if Wells Fargo is too corrupt to exist in its current form. It is not the government’s job to break up these institutions, nor should it save them.

We have stirred up a mess in the Middle East that seems to be washing up on our shores. (This weekend there were a half dozen attacks that appeared highly correlated to all but those in the politicized press.) Our policy in Syria is incomprehensible. The refugee crisis in Europe is our doing, and it is spreading. Fear of Trump seems odd given that the current neocons in liberal garb are stunningly militaristic. I think they are war crimes.  Meanwhile, these I-Y-I’s insist on poking Putin in the eye with a stick as part of a policy that appears to be designed to take us to the brink of far greater armed conflict.

People are now mad, and it shows in the chaotic election. We are guaranteed to elect a president that half the populace finds repugnant. It’s hard to imagine that the post-election temperament will improve. Change is in the air.

...Social unrest in America has been around for centuries. We seem to end up better off when the upheaval is over, but it can be a painful period. As recently as the 1960s college campuses were going nuts over social, racial, and geopolitical issues. The current phase is just recycling, but where are the stop-the-war activists? It seems to me that the world is being stretched at the seams and at risk of moving into a very hostile period. Meanwhile, the student activists appear to be looking inward. I am sure the current generation of activists would not agree. I highly recommend a book by Strauss and Howe entitled, “The Fourth Turning” published in 1996, which describes the large wavelength human cycles (80 years) as comprised of four 20 year cycles. The Fourth Turnings—the generational phase in which society goes through painful, cathartic change—include the Great Depression/World War II, the Civil War, the Revolutionary War, and the Salem Witch Trials. They predicted the next catharsis would arrive around 2010. We shall see, but it looks like they may have stuck that landing like a Russian gymnast.

Full interview here...

With Deutsche Bank's "issues" reverberating around global markets, Dave may be closer to that realization that he knows.