International Guy: Previous to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we went overthe rising tensions between the US and Russia over Ukraine.
What is your take on what has taken place since then?
Doug Casey: I believe it makes sense very first to recount the genesis of this war.
It began when an American-backed coup overthrew the Ukrainian federal government in 2014. A US-backed criminal replaced a Russian-backed thug– nothing unusual, except that Ukraine shares a long border with Russia. The Russians saw that much as the Americans would if the Russians had actually put a puppet government in Ottawa.
Next, the two Russian majority provinces in Ukraine, Donetsk and Luhansk (Donbas) withdrawed from Ukraine. Secession is usually the very best method of solving a political problem between groups with drastically varying religions, ethnicities, cultures, or what-have-you. It’s much better than remaining “unified,” with one group controling the other. The Russians at the same time reclaimed Crimea, which Nikita Kruschev had actually arbitrarily moved to the Ukrainian SSR from the Russian SSR in 1954.
Of course, these two brand-new breakaway republics were not recognized by the West. They’re similar to Transnistria, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Nagorno-Karabakh. Or, for that matter, Northern Cyprus or Taiwan. There are plenty of other regions worldwide (everybody seems to have forgotten Kurdistan, for example) anxious to do the very same thing.
Look at Kosovo, a breakaway province of Serbia. The Donbas versus Ukraine situation is exactly analogous to that of Kosovo versus Serbia (roughly 1990 and following years). The United States and some NATO countries supported that secession with an active battle project, eliminating something like 15,000 individuals.
The secession of Kosovo, supported by the United States, is viewed as “great,” however that of Donbas, supported by Russia, is supposed to be “bad.” So there’s no confusion; I support both secessions.
The United States has minted a new foreign enemy, as soon as again showing how ideal Randolph Bourne was when he said, “War is the health of the State.” The hoi polloi are hooting and panting like chimpanzees, pouring vodka with Russian-sounding names like Smirnoffand Stoli down the drain– even though they don’t originate from Russia– and declining to put Russian dressing on their salads. The same fools were re-christening French fries as Freedom French fries when France decreased to Iraq as the enemy du jour.
Putin has now been formally designated a madman like Gaddafi, Saddam, and Assad prior to him. And when someone is designated as the new Hitler, Washington can do anything. Putin committed a criminal act by invading Ukraine, and he’s no buddy of individual liberty either. However was it any different than what the United States did when it bombed Serbia in 1999? Or invaded Panama in 1989? Or Grenada in 1983? Or Afghanistan. Or Iraq. Obviously, Putin’s an unsafe sociopath– reveal me a major world leader who’s not. However that does not imply he’s much more insane than any of our current presidents.
Morality aside, Putin made a strategic error to invade Ukraine, regardless of just how much the Russians were provoked. But it should be deemed simply another border war in a region that’s had nothing but border wars for the last thousand years. It’s absolutely none of our service.
If the borders realign due to this Russian attack, it’s actually absolutely nothing brand-new. And as a matter of truth, Putin has stated that the war will pertain to an instant end if the Ukrainians cede Crimea to Russia, acknowledge the 2 breakaway provinces, and stay neutral. These are, certainly in the context of history, totally affordable demands.
Again, the US provoked all this with the coup they fomented in 2014 and their attempts to get Ukraine into NATO. However that’s all history at this point. The world’s political and financial structure is being reset.
International Guy: The United States federal government and its European allies are waging financial warfare versus Russia.
They have imposed sanctions, seized possessions of the Russian government and private citizens, and kicked Russian banks out of SWIFT. They have actually likewise made relocate to target Russia’s gold reserves.
How seriously is this impacting Russia, and will they capitulate?
Doug Casey: In some ways, it’s actually helping Russia since their significant exports are commodities. Oil has doubled, as has wheat. Nickel has actually about quadrupled, as has European gas. Palladium is at an all-time high. Russia exports just products, and the West’s action and embargoes have doubled their costs. Russia will make more cash than ever in the past.
There are great deals of channels for exporting their commodities, albeit with costs. The sanctions will be bothersome for the Russians in many methods, naturally– say goodbye to Apple I-phones or Intel chips. They’ll simply buy Chinese Lenovos and Huaweis. The Russians can get everything they want and needs from China and other non-Western nations. They won’t actually be rejected that much; it’ll just be bothersome. The global black markets work incredibly well.
In the meantime, Starbucks, McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, KFC, Facebook, and ratings– hundreds– of other Western corporations are shooting themselves in the foot by closing down their outlets in Russia. The net outcome will probably be an improvement in the basic health of the Russian population.
Sure, the sanctions will hurt Russia; trade war hurts everybody. However sanctions will be about as successful as the embargo against Cuba that began 60 years earlier. It’s quite as if since you don’t like the person who lives next door, you burn down your house due to the fact that you think it’ll reduce the marketplace worth of his house.
I comprehend that saying these things will annoy jingoists and even a specific sector of our readership. Some will most likely implicate me of shilling for the Russians because any non-interventionist who does not want to get associated with a border dispute in between two shithole nations on the other side of the world is clearly anti-American. However while I’m making non-PC observations, it might deserve discussing that the majority of the multi-billionaire Russian oligarchs are Jews. Does anyone think that this might appear anti-Semitic on the part of the West to seize these people’ yachts and aircrafts?
It’s simply among the many paradoxes of this entire episode. Perhaps that might just become apparent if foreign nations start confiscating the belongings of the United States megarich who benefited from being buddies with Biden, Trump, Obama, Bush, or the like.
International Male: In action to this, Russia has actually carried out alternatives to the US-dominated financial system.
What does this mean for the power of the United States dollar and United States supremacy on the planet?
Doug Casey: Once again, the US federal government is shooting America in the foot. It might come as a shock to hear this, but the greatest risk America deals with isn’t Moscow; it’s Washington.
For years, the major US export hasn’t been IBMs, Boeings, or wheat. It’s been dollars. We now run a trade deficit of about a trillion dollars a year, delivering fiat dollars to good foreigners in trade for Mercedes, Sonys, and cocaine. There is probably something like $20 trillion US dollars outside the United States. Dollars will quickly become hot potatoes, now that they’re manifestly losing value at 20% each year.
However it’s even worse than that. Electronic dollars need to be traded through New york city. People have actually seen what’s taken place to locations like Iraq, Syria, Libya, and now Russia when they’re designated as enemy countries. Eventually, dollars will be dumped, wholesale. By stupidly using the dollar as a weapon, the US Federal government is considerably speeding up America’s damage.
For instance, simply recently, the Nigerian government cut a deal with the Chinese federal government to accept Yuan for oil. The US dollar has been eliminated of the loop. Why should anyone utilize the fiat currency of a federal government that’s not only an adversary however bankrupt? I don’t doubt that the Chinese, in cooperation with the Russians, will put together an anti-SWIFT system. Quickly billions of individuals will bring a Chinese charge card in addition to their Visa and Amex.
Will it achieve success? Success is only relative in the age of The Greater Anxiety, where trade will reduce all over. The nations of the West have about a billion people. The West is still wealthy and efficient, although it’s in extreme decline on all fronts. The remainder of the world, nevertheless, has about 7 billion individuals. India, Iran, Russia, and scores of other nations may prefer to use a Chinese response to the SWIFT system and the dollar.
International Male: The Canadian government infamously froze the bank accounts of Canadians connected with the trucker protests.
Likewise, Western governments are now targeting anything to do with Russia.
It appears that utilizing cash and the banking system has actually become the weapon of option for Western federal governments versus their perceived foreign and domestic enemies.
In this environment where political danger– the risk originating from federal governments– is blowing up in the West, what could take place next?
Doug Casey: One incredibly harmful megatrend is the rise of reserve bank digital currencies, CBDCs. They’ll be an overall catastrophe from the viewpoint of private freedom and personal privacy, but a boom for federal governments.
The United States government will definitely try to turn the US dollar into a totally digital currency, getting rid of fiat money and offering everyone an account with the Fed. It will be offered as a benefit, something that’s practical and “patriotic.”
The only practical defense for the typical man is to build up gold and silver in his individual belongings; the rate of those two metals is going way up. That’s since the only monetary possession that’s not simultaneously someone else’s liability is gold. Sadly, the typical American neither comprehends gold nor has any. Will that alter in the future? Enjoy these extremely entertaining videos by Mark Dice, and you inform me (here and here).
What is really frightening is that Western federal governments have discovered they can lock down their societies with impunity. And cut off people from their monetary accounts. And get away with it. The West is closing the “freedom space” with China and Russia. There’s less and less distinction every day between Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia– the three megastates Orwell predicted in 1984.
International Male: The propaganda emanating from all sides is aggressive and prevalent. How does one inform what is really taking place?
Doug Casey: You absolutely can’t know what’s occurring due to the fact that all the news is generally directly or indirectly regulated and propagandized. It’s been said that the very first casualty in war is the reality.
I have subscriptions to the London Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the South China Early Morning Post. The viewpoints and the bits about what’s happening are sometimes intriguing, but I don’t trust any of them. As Mark Twain said, if you don’t check out the documents, you’re uninformed, and if you do, you’re disinformed.
Many older people in the US still depend on things like CNN, MSNBC, and Fox, even though they’re collapsing in popularity and reliability. People presume that no truly huge lies might be offered on public media. That’s totally false. A perfect recent example is The Ghost of Kiev. There are lots of youtube videos discussing how he shot down 6 Russian fighters in a day. There are countless loving talk about the difficult feat from gullible newly-minted Ukraine fans. I simply hope that no one running a Nigerian prince scam gets their addresses.
The truth is that you can’t really know what’s occurring in the Ukraine. We can just parse American propaganda since Russian propaganda is cancelled in the West. I’ve heard it said that the Russians have actually taken 30,000 casualties, they’re bombing maternity health centers, and their soldiers are deserting in mass. Is it true? I question it. In a way, this is an advantage since it’s training the public not to think anything. Possibly an increasing number will begin believing seriously as opposed to just inhaling whatever they’re informed wholesale.
International Man: Products have actually skyrocketed in the middle of the conflict. How is this all going to end, and how should investors and speculators be positioned!.
?.!? Doug Casey: When I look at what the price of a product “must be,” the most central, fundamental aspect is the expense of production. Commodities always revert to the mean, which is their cost of production.
Right now, just about every product in the world is costing considerably more than its expense of production. The greater they go, the more will be produced, and the less will be taken in. Rates will revert to the mean. Therefore the higher they go, the less bullish I am on products. However on the other hand, all the production expenses are going up radically. For instance, the rates of the three significant fertilizers– phosphorus, potassium, and nitrogen– have around tripled in the last year. Farmers are making good cash on grains, but margins will drop next season when you add in the cost of fertilizers, along with the doubled rate of gas and diesel. The bottom line is that all products are now developing brand-new and higher standard rates.
Developing the bullish case for commodities is easy, even from these levels. Trillions of newly printed currency systems ensure that. In addition, there’s remarkable supply damage because building a new mine for copper, nickel, uranium, or any mineral is tough to impossible. It can take ten years to even get approvals. Permitting, blockages from Greens and NGOs, shakedowns from native groups, ESG rules, federal government royalties, taxes, and a lots other things are onerous. Great deals of supply is being damaged.
But at the same time, need is being destroyed. People who were happy to buy a pickup when gas was $2.00 will merely stop driving, except for emergencies, when it costs $200 to fill the tank.
This is producing lots of distortions worrying where people live, what they do, and where they can work. That belongs to what an economic anxiety is about. An anxiety is both needed and inevitable to return the economy to sustainable– that’s a popular word I hate to use– patterns of production and consumption.
To combat the effects of their currency inflation, federal governments will likely go back to wage and rate controls to show that they are “doing something.” Capital controls will be for everyone, not simply the Russians. Governments will make up all sort of reasons why you can’t transfer your cash abroad without prior approval and authorization. The Greater Depression is going to get much worse as currencies are ruined, and companies fail.
The next three years in the United States are guaranteed to be bad since the program in Washington DC has exactly the exact same philosophical and psychological views as the Jacobins and Bolsheviks; they’re spiritual twins. The scenario will likely persist for not just the next 3 years but for the rest of the decade or more. Why? Due to the fact that numerous generations have actually been indoctrinated to believe what the authorities are doing is morally appropriate. And people like to do what they think is right, even if it triggers a catastrophe.
Things will get back at worse when some “strong male” provides himself in the United States, assuring to kiss everything and make it better. He’ll require near-dictatorial powers to set things aright, naturally, and Boobus americanus will shout to hand them over.
Editor’s Note: The US government is overextending itself by interfering in every corner of the world. It’s all financed by huge quantities of cash printing. Nevertheless, the next financial crisis might end the entire charade soon.
The truth is, we’re on the cusp of a global economic crisis that might eclipse anything we have actually seen prior to. And many people won’t be prepared for what’s coming. That’s exactly why bestselling author Doug Casey and his team simply launched a complimentary report with all the details on how to survive an economic collapse. Click on this link to download the PDF now.