- The Eurasian Century Is Now Unstoppable
Submitted by William Engdahl via Strategic-Culture.org,
The transfer of the geopolitical center of gravity to Eurasia is something the West will have to get used to.
I recently returned from a fascinating two week speaking tour in China. The occasion was the international premier of my newest book, One Belt, One Road–China and the New Eurasian Century.
In the course of my visit I was invited by China’s Northwest University in Xi’an to give a lecture and seminar on the present global political and economic situation in the context of China’s New Economic Silk Road as the One Belt, One Road project is often called.
What I’ve seen in my many visits to China, and have studied about the entirety of this enormously impressive international infrastructure project convinces me that a Eurasian Century at this point is unstoppable.
The idiotic wars of the Washington war-hawks and their military industry–in Syria, in Ukraine, Libya, Iraq and now the South China Sea provocations against China–are not going to stop what is now clearly the most impressive and economically altering project in more than a century.
The term “American Century” was triumphantly proclaimed in a famous editorial in Life magazine in 1941 in the early phase of World War II, before the United States had even entered the war, to describe the system publisher Henry Luce saw dominating the postwar world after the fall of the rival British Empire.
The American Century has lasted a mere seven decades if we date from the end of the war. Its record has been one of dismal failure on balance. The industrial base of the United States, the predominant leading industrial nation and leading scientific innovator, today is a hollowed, rotted shell with once-booming cities like Detroit or Philadelphia or Los Angeles now burned-out ghettos of unemployed and homeless.
The Federal Debt of the United States, owing to the endless wars its Presidents engage in, as well as the fruitless bailouts of Wall Street banks and Government Sponsored Enterprises like Fannie Mae, is well over 103% of GDP at an astonishing $19.5 trillion, or more than $163,000 per taxpaying American and Washington is adding to the debt this year at near $600 billion. Countries like China and Russia are moving away from subsidizing that debt at a record pace.
America’s economic basic infrastructure–bridges, sewer and water treatment plants, electric grid, railways, highways–have been neglected for more than four decades for a variety of reasons.
The American Society of Civil Engineers recently estimated that gross domestic product will be reduced by $4 trillion between 2016 and 2025 because of lost business sales, rising costs and reduced incomes if the country continues to underinvest in its infrastructure. That is on top of the fact that they estimate the country at present urgently requires new infrastructure investment of $3.3 trillion by the coming decade just to renew.
Yet US states and cities are not able to finance such an investment in the future in the present debt situation, nor is the debt-choked Federal Government, so long as a cartel of corrupt brain-dead Wall Street banks and financial funds hold America to ransom.
This is the sunset for the American Century, a poorly disguised imperial experiment in hubris and arrogance by a gaggle of boring old patriarchs like David Rockefeller and his friends on Wall Street and in the military industry. It is the starkest contrast to what is going on to the east, across all Eurasia today.
Flowing the Thought to Transform
The Eurasian Century is the name I give to the economic emergence of the countries contiguous from China across Central Asia, Russia, Belarus, Iran and potentially Turkey. They are being integrally linked through the largest public infrastructure projects in modern history, in fact the most ambitious ever, largely concentrated on the 2013 initiative by Chinese President Xi Jinping called the One Belt, One Road initiative or OBOR.
The project and its implications for Europe and the rest of the world economy have been so far greeted in the west with a stone silence that defies explanation.
It’s been now three years that have transpired since then-new Chinese President Xi Jinping made one of his first foreign visits to Kazakhstan where he discussed the idea of building a vast, modern network of high-speed train lines crossing the vast Eurasian land space from the Pacific coast of China and Russia through Central Asia into Iran, into the states of the Eurasian Economic Union, principally Russia and potentially on to the select states of the European Union.
That initial proposal was unveiled in detail last year by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s economic planning organization, and the ministries of Foreign Affairs and Commerce.
It’s a useful point to look now more closely at what has transpired to date. It reveals most impressive developments, more because the development process is creative and organic. The great project is no simple blueprint made by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and then simply imposed, top down, across the so-far 60 countries of Eurasia and South East Asia.
An international conference was recently held in Xi’an, origin of the ancient version of One Belt, One Road, namely the Silk Road. The purpose of the international gathering was to review what has so far taken place.
It’s fascinating, notably, in the care that’s being taken by China to do it in a different way, as indications so far are, different from the way American Robber Barons like Cornelius Vanderbilt, E.H. Harriman, Jay Gould or Russell Sage built rail monopolies and deluded and defrauded investors with railroad monopolies more than a century ago.
The seminar, titled the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI): Shared Memory and Common Development, on September 26th, brought together over 400 participants from more than 30 countries including government officials, universities, corporations, think tanks and media.
A key role is being played by Renmin University of China’s Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies to identify progress and problems of the OBOR project. Their report in Xi’an presented principles underlying the OBOR international project: It adheres to the principles of the UN Charter; it is completely open for new participant nations to cooperate; it will follow market rules and seek mutual benefit of participating countries.
Those are noble words. What’s more interesting is the flow process underway to realize such words and to build the mammoth game-changing infrastructure.
Notably, China’s Xi Jinping decided to encourage input from sources other than the state central planning agency or the Communist Party for the complex OBOR. He encouraged creation of private and independent think-tanks to become a source of new creative ideas and approaches.
Today there is a Chinese Think Tank Cooperation Alliance group coordinating efforts around OBOR headed by the dean of the Renmin University. In turn they partner with think tanks along the OBOR route including think tanks in Iran, Turkey, India, Nepal, Kazakhstan and other countries.
There will be two main routes of the OBOR. On land there are several routes or corridors in work. The Initiative will focus on jointly building what is being called a new Eurasian Land Bridge from China via Kazakhstan on to Rotterdam. Other OBOR land rail corridors include developing China-Mongolia-Russia, China-Central Asia-West Asia, China-Pakistan, Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar, and China-Indochina Peninsula economic corridors.vThis is huge.
It will build on international transport routes, relying on core cities along the OBOR route and using key economic industrial parks as “cooperation platforms.”
At sea, the Initiative will focus on jointly building smooth, secure and efficient transport routes connecting major sea ports along the “Belt and Road” including modern upgraded super port construction that will link present China ports at Haikou and Fujian with Kuala Lumpur’s port in Malaysia at the Malacca Strait passage, Calcutta in India, Nairobi in Kenya and via the Suez Canal to Athens and beyond. Crucial is that land and sea parts of OBOR are seen as one whole circulatory system or flow of trade.
The OBOR Initiative will link key Eurasian ports with interior rail and pipeline infrastructure in a way not before seen
To date China has signed memoranda of understanding with 56 countries and regional organizations regarding OBOR. Since his initial proposal in 2013, President Xi Jinping has personally visited 37 countries to discuss implementation of OBOR. China Railway Group and China Communications Construction Company have signed contracts for key routes and ports in 26 countries.
Power plants, electricity transmission facilities and oil and gas pipelines, covering 19 countries along the “Belt and Road” in some 40 energy projects have begun. China Unicom, China Telecom and China Mobile are speeding up cross-border transmission projects in countries along the “Belt and Road” to expand international telecommunication infrastructure.
Already, taking the full sea and land routes of OBOR, some $3 trillion of China trade since June 2013 has flowed over the route, more than a quarter of China’s total trade volume.
To date China has also invested more than $51 billion in the countries along the present OBOR route. The new land rail routes will greatly reduce transportation costs across Eurasia, enable formerly isolated regions to connect efficiently to sea and land markets and ignite tremendous new economic growth across Eurasia.
The effects of the OBOR are already beginning to appear. Earlier this year an Iranian container ship arrived at Qinzhou Port in China with 978 containers from several countries along the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road opening the first shipping route linking the Middle East and the Beibu Gulf or Gulf of Tonkin in Vietnamese.
In February 2016 a container train with Chinese goods took only 14 days to complete the 5,900 mile (9,500km) journey from China’s eastern Zhejiang province through Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
That was 30 days shorter than the sea voyage from Shanghai to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, according to the head of the Iranian railway company. China and Iran, now formally part of the OBOR, have targeted bilateral trade, none in US dollars by the way, to exceed $600 billion in the coming decade.
China is presently in negotiations with 28 countries China is in talks with 28 countries including Russia, on high-speed rail projects, China’s train maker, China CNR reports.
It includes a major joint China-Russia $15 billion high-speed Kazan to Moscow line. The 770 kilometers of track between Moscow and Russia’s Tatarstan capital, Kazan, will cut time for the journey from 12 hours now to just 3.5 hours. China has agreed to invest $6 billion in the project which would become a part of a $100 billion high-speed railway between Moscow and Beijing.
Notably, for the new high-speed track being laid, China is developing a new generation of trains capable of reaching speeds of 400 kilometers per hour. And the new trains will solve the costly rail gauge switching problem between China rails and Russian.
Trains in Russia run on a 1520mm track, compared to the narrower 1435mm track used in Europe and China. Jia Limin, the head of China’s high-speed rail innovation program told China Daily that, “The train… will have wheels that can be adjusted to fit various gauges on other countries’ tracks, compared with trains now that need to have their wheels changed before entering foreign systems.”
Given its strategy of building thousands of kilometers of high-speed railways and developing its domestic Chinese rail sock manufacture as well as other rail technology, China today is the world’s leading producer of rail technology.
Financing the moving
Impressive is that China has secured capital commitment for the OBOR from various sources including the China Development Bank, Export-Import Bank of China, the China-initiated Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the BRICS New Development Bank and other sources including its Silk Road Fund to finance the huge undertaking.
The Silk Road Fund has posted $40 billion to fund the OBOR projects. So far close to a quarter trillion US dollars of ready money and another half trillion in supranational institutional working capital is reasonably within reach.
The Western doomsday reports of China’s economy going down the tubes are simply either self-serving propaganda of hedge funds or speculators or fed by lack of understanding of the profound transformation in the entire structure of not only China’s but all Eurasia’s economy through the One Belt One Road initiative. China is undergoing a major transformation from a cheap-labor screwdriver assembly nation to a high-value-added high-tech manufacturer.
Geopolitical transformation
The One Belt, One Road initiative of Xi Jinping and the Eurasian partners, especially Russia, also has strategic dimensions of major import. The construction of new infrastructure corridors spanning across the Eurasian landmass in the form of highways, railways, industrial parks, and oil and gas pipelines, OBOR is connecting for the first time in the modern era landlocked regions of hinterland China and Russia and Central Asia republics with the sea ports.
Linking key Eurasian industrial hubs to ports with efficient transportation will revolutionize connectivity of hinterland industrial products and raw materials of every kind. The Russian and Eurasian lands, including China, contain perhaps the richest untapped concentration of every raw material known.
The One Belt, One Road also includes oil and gas pipeline transportation corridors. In January 2015 the Myanmar-China Pipeline project, 2400 km long, was completed, linking Myanmar’s deep-water port of Kyaukphyu on Maday Island in the Bay of Bengal with Kunming in Yunnan province in southeast China near Myanmar’s border.
It’s a joint project of the China Development Bank and Myanmar Foreign Investment Bank. The new pipeline allows China to import up to 400,000 barrels a day of Middle East oil over a route 1100 km shorter than the previous Malacca Strait sea route, reducing time to reach the large industrial hub city of Kunming by 30%, major economic gains, and avoiding the strategic chokepoint of the Malacca Strait where the US Navy’s Sixth Fleet dominates.
Previously, 80% of Chinese oil and gas imports crossed the Malacca straits and were subject to US controls. Were the present escalating tensions between Washington and China over the South China Sea or other issues to escalate, China would be brought to her knees much like Japan prior to declaring war in 1941, when the USA embargoed her oil. A second pipeline brings natural gas from Qatar and Myanmar gas fields to China.
The OBOR includes oil and gas pipelines that reduce time and distance to imports of Middle East oil and gas
China will pay $53 billion to Myanmar in pipeline royalties over 30 years. They will also invest $25 million in schooling and other social development projects along the pipeline and 10% of the gas will stay in Burma.
Mackinder Outflanked?
The totality of the strategy behind Xi Jinping’s Eurasian One belt, One Road rail, sea and pipeline initiative, which is moving quietly and impressively forward, is transforming the world geopolitical map. In 1904 a British geographer, Sir Halford Mackinder, a fervid champion of the British Empire, unveiled a brilliant concept in a speech to the London Royal Geographical Society titled the Geographical Pivot of History.
That essay has shaped both British and American global strategy of hegemony and domination to the present. It was complemented by US Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan’s 1890 work, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, which advocated “sea power,” stating that nations with domination of the seas, as the British Empire or later the USA, would dominate the world.
The One Belt, One Road, by linking all the contiguous land areas of Eurasia to the related network of strategic new or enlarged deep-water ports of OBOR’s Maritime Silk Road, has rendered US geopolitical strategy a devastating blow at a time the hegemony of America is failing as never in its short history.
The Eurasian Century today is inevitable and unstoppable. Built on different principles of cooperation rather than domination, it just might offer a model for the bankrupt United States and the soon-bankrupt European Union, to build up true prosperity not based on looting and debt slavery.
* * *
William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, “New Eastern Outlook”
- The Search for the Perfect Trading Mouse (Video)
By EconMatters
We discuss some of the important requirements for a solid trading mouse in this video. I had some trial and error along the way in finding the best possible trading solution for my mouse requirements.
Think brain surgery when looking for a trading mouse. Miss clicks are not your friend in trading.© EconMatters All Rights Reserved | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | Email Digest | Kindle
- HiLLaRY MuFFDiVeRS…
- Illegal Clinton victory can mean USA Balkanization or Revolution
How quickly we are sliding down the rabbit hole! As we explain in Splitting Pennies – Understanding Forex – Forex is the means to which one can understand how the world works. This book isn’t about FOREX so much as it’s about the workings of the ‘real world’ – and no better time than now to understand these nuances! Scots refer to this time as “The Quickening:”
Many have noted that time seems to be accelerating. The hours, days, seasons, and
years appear to fly by faster than ever before. An hour no longer feels like 60 minutes
(unless you’re waiting in line!). One week seems to run into the next. It’s as if we’re
watching the blur of a speeding train pass by.It seems that it’s not possible to even digest and assimilate the information as quickly as it’s passing now. Wikileaks released more HRC emails, of all people Bill OReilly exposes a massive conspiracy against Trump, A Libertarian tracking to get 10% of the vote, an election official was caught on camera saying ‘the fix is in’ for HRC, Russia is in fallout mode; whats next? I’ll tell you what’s next… First, a quick lesson..
The current social control paradigm doesn’t control people 100%. It’s not as if there’s a button they can press in Washington, and Joe Plumber will lift his right arm and salute. It’s an inefficient, outdated, but effective – propoganda system that functions on multiple levels. Television with its HZ waves, chemicals in the food, drugs like Prozac, Zoloft, Viagra, Valium, and now in the west Marijuana, all designed to make you very happy fat idiots. Well, not everyone is on prescription meds, and not everyone has a TV, so that’s one proof that this ‘system’ isn’t 100% effective! Also, even for those ‘inside’ the system, it doesn’t control them 100%. It controls the ‘group mind’ or ‘groupthink’ – that means, in subtle ways, the establishment can be against TRUMP but in such a way that at first he’s elected, but PENCE is the real play. This game scenario, pacifies the real ‘awake’ people, with a TRUMP victory, but having a real establishmentarian in the White House shortly after. Just sayin’ – it’s one of the possible considered scenarios – and you can bet the farm that the DOD’s supercomputers are running at full capacity gaming this situation, because a failure to coalecse the people when they are angry and armed can mean one thing: REVOLUTION. Replace that word properly with ANARCHY or CHAOS because this isn’t really a REVOLUTION, as the Bolshevik revolution which was planned and stood for intellectual concepts. This would be more of a REVOLT, against a broken establishmentarian system that hasn’t evolved with the times, and has done a poor, poor, poor job of management.
Note to Elite – if you want to engratiate yourselves, be sure to keep the people fat and happy completely, so they don’t notice what you’re doing. Happy people means people sheeple.
The Establishment is so against Trump that it’s scary. It’s proof that he really is an independent ‘candidate’ and that he hasn’t been ‘bribed’ by the powers to be. But in any case, even for fervent TRUMP supporters, an establishment HRC victory by election fraud as described by the election official ‘busing around voters from voting booth to booth’ might even be BETTER than a TRUMP victory. Because, TRUMP winning the election is the POSSIBILITY, not the GUARANTEE, of change. Once TRUMP is in the White House, they will do everything and anything to make his job impossible. It’s not known how TRUMP would act in such situation – not even he knows. He thinks he knows – but he will encounter things that he didn’t expect once he’s there.
Regardless of the outcome, it seems that if there is any funny business at election time, which it seems there most certainly will be, it will ‘wake up’ a huge amount of voters to the fact that America has long ago been bought and sold just like almost every other country on the planet. This may start them down a path where they may ask questions about the status quo, and it may change them. They may want to learn things, such as how the financial system works – where does all the ‘money go’ – why is our money less and less valuable each year? So, as hearbreaking as it may be to see a real swine steal the election via voter fraud, it certainly wouldn’t be a first in America (see results of 2000 elections), and it might actually be a good thing, in the long run, as those who are naive who believe ‘it can’t happen in America’ will be doused with a huge barrel of hot oil in the rest of the world they call ‘reality.’
BALKANIZATION
Here’s a topic that we should elaborate on so that people are prepared, those who are not aware of America’s history, or the structure of law, and how the states have an elective relationship with the Federal Government. The United States of America is a superstate, it’s not a country, like Switzerland is a country, it’s a CORPORATION, a Federal multi-national conglomorate comprised of 50 primary dealer-states, and a few ‘almost’ shareholders that can vote but don’t pay taxes or have Senators, like Puerto Rico. Due to the massive POWER enjoyed by the USA, this structure is thought of as strong, but do not confuse these traits. In fact, USAs history was very haphazard, it wasn’t planned well, at least on a Federal level. Many aspects of how the USA operates happen as a ‘problem-reaction-solution’ and all of a sudden we have FEMA, an agency which many think is an Apocalyptic dark horse ready to administer end of times, when in the reality it’s a welfare agency to help people after storms who don’t have insurance or cars to drive out of emergency areas or even money for a bus ticket. The Federal government has become just something unique that will be studied for a long time.
What is ‘balkanization’ – simply, a term meaning the unwinding of USA as an entity, in its current form – such that we could see many countries or ‘states’ – US states are called ‘states’ but actually a ‘state’ is a COUNTRY. France, is a STATE. Although, France is part of the European Union. The EU was significantly more properly organized as a Federation, as they had an example of USA and UK, and technology, and other tools at their disposal. The EU is perfect example of why a superstate doesn’t work, or if you want a failed example, how about Yugoslavia? A great idea, and while Tito was alive – worked great! But, then the jackals emerged and the situation ‘balkanized’ – which is what’s happening now in America.
Take a look at Texas secession voting polls as example:
Note the * – and this was conducted in August, before all recent events. An angry critical mass could easily push this sentiment well above 50%, and remember these polls are of the politicians, the people probably already feel 80% about secession. Trump uses good example of Obamacare and drawing lines around the states. People in Texas, don’t care to be part of USA. The republic of Texas will be happy to be out. And New York, finally will say ‘we don’t want them, in OUR America’ – which will not include of course, the South (The Deep South) – and Mormon controlled Utah, California off in its own LALA land, and it remains to be seen how the midwest can partner with New England in this regard – possibly this can be the ‘real America’ – New England west until North Dakota line, including the upper Mississippi region, Wisconsin, Michican, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, etc.
Is it so far fetched – is it such a bad thing? Driving around in this new “Many America’s” one wouldn’t know the difference. Anyway, few Americans now even know who the president is NOW. We aren’t fighting anymore for Democracy, we’re fighting over who gets what. What energy companies will get tax breaks. Where the next Amazon factory will be built. In South Carolina? Or in Mexico? Or Canada? Or .. not?
Balkanization of USA can be a good thing, it will be good for the markets, good for business – so those who are worried about such a scenario – don’t be! It can be like living in Europe – only we’ll all speak English. Well, if you’ve ever been to the Deep South, or Boston, you can say that it’s not easy to clearly understand native Americans from all parts of USA.
Revolution – will lead to balkanization. Because states will react, to protect their interests. Big business will fall back on the local government when the Feds fail. It will be amazing how quickly interest pulls out of Washington and back into counties, cities, and states – when they see it doesn’t work.
There’s one huge PLUS in the current pay for play – lobbying system in Washington today. The ‘real owners’ of USA – Corporations, UHNWi, foreign governments, special interests, and others – they can pull the plug at any time. Without their support, Washington would be like a wet noodle. Yes, the Army has nukes – but Facism has taken over so exclusively, nearly 60% of the CIA operations are OUTSOURCED! That means a rogue general, without the support of Raytheon, Lockheed, and Boeing, would be a target not only of the Army but of foreign armies as well. Unlike previous times, war cannot be started by assasinating the Archduke.
But – going back to the original point – the powers to be have gone so far in this election to push this system to the brink of collapse – an Illegal HRC victory can break the system. People can simply lose faith. Not go to work. Not buy coca-cola. Throw their garbage on the street. Park their cars on interstate highways. Throw TVs out of windows. Stop drinking beer. Don’t pay taxes. Don’t take loans. Learn foreign languages. Create free puppet shows. Write books. Use their local libraries. Stop driving on interstate highways. Stop using social media. Deleting bad files from their computers. Digging gardens. Reforming land for use. Painting pictures. Creating art with 3d printers.
The world is such a big, interesting place – this whole debate doesn’t deserve our time. Who cares if Trump is a bad person, an egoist, whatever. He’s not in prison. He represents what America REALLY IS – like it or not. If he loses fair and square, we can wait another 8 years. But if HRC is elected due to voting fraud, machines that will ONLY vote for HRC (as we saw in the 2000 presidential election, and countless local elections) – we can expect huge social fallout, and probably, most likely, the beginning of America’s own BREXIT, where states will one way or another drop out of this “USA” system.
US taxpayers spend hundreds of billions of dollars paying taxes to keep this system going, by blind faith. USA is a modern religion. If only a small fraction of that tax money was spent on useful things, such as planting trees, building roads or paving roads, building schools and other various buildings, planting crops for consuming, heck even making beer – would be better than giving it to the federal government – economically speaking (you should always pay your taxes!).
Take a look at this overlay of a new ‘potential’ America, overlay on Federal Reserve ‘districts’ – interesting why the Fed has these ‘districts’ isn’t it, 12 of them.. how biblical of them…
- LaTeST CIA PoLL…
- Visualizing The Slow Death Of Traditional Media
Bill Gates once famously said that we systematically overestimate the change that will occur in two years, while underestimating the change that will come in the next ten. As Visual Capitalist's Jeff Desjardins notes, the ongoing conversation about the death of legacy media definitely fits that mold.
The ongoing conversation about the death of legacy media definitely fits that mold.
Over the last five to ten years, people have been talking about how the newspaper, magazine, or radio station would become all but obsolete. And while certainly things have changed in all of these industries, it’s clear that there has not been a full paradigm shift yet.
Here is the evidence that we have finally reached that inflection point…
Courtesy of: Visual CapitalistFixing the Plane
In a recent interview at the City University of New York’s journalism school, Ken Lerer described the challenges of traditional media as follows:
You have to fix the plane while you’re flying it.
Lerer, a co-founder of the Huffington Post and currently the Chairman for Buzzfeed, is alluding to the fact that legacy media has to maintain old business models based on subscription and print ad revenue, while successfully venturing into the digital world. The latter category is already hard enough, even without taking into account the balancing act of the former.
The moral of the story? Some of these “planes” are going to land safely, but most of them are going to crash and burn.
The cost structure of legacy media just doesn’t make sense in today’s digital world. Overhead is high, and revenue is harder to find due to the limited success of paywalls, rampant ad blocking, and the steady fall in display ad prices due to the emergence of programmatic bidding.
Legacy Revenues
Why has legacy media been so slow to adopt change? Why don’t they just lay off half of their staff, ditch print operations, and start from scratch?
It’s because their major revenue sources are as slow at adopting as they are.
In 2015, there was only one age demographic with more than half of its constituents reading a daily newspaper, and that was “65 years old and up”:
That said, the people that still read newspapers are among the wealthiest people in the country. Warren Buffett, for example, reads five a day. But even he does not know how to save the print industry from its woes.
Meanwhile, Madison Avenue has been notoriously slow at evolving to meet the needs of the digital revolution. If the biggest advertisers are still demanding the status quo, it makes it very difficult to “fix the plane”.
New Models
The most noticeable signal of change, however, is the relative success of new media companies such as Vice, Buzzfeed, and Vox – and the fact that some of their largest backers are from the old guard.
All of the above companies are “unicorns” valued at $1 billion or more by private investors, which include venture capital stalwarts such as Andreessen Horowitz, Accel Partners, Khosla Ventures, RRE Ventures, or Lerer Hippeau.
More importantly, however, they’ve also posted strategic investments from legacy media companies that are trying to wisely hedge their bets. Some of these include NBC Universal, The Walt Disney Company, 21st Century Fox, and Hearst.
Digital will become the largest channel for ad revenue globally by 2019 – investors and companies that believe in the media business should position themselves accordingly.
- Nuclear War Is On The Horizon: "This Is Not Just Talk… Action Has Been Taken"
As the U.S. elections draw nearer, the amount of bellicose rhetoric from politicians and key military commanders (in truth, “politicians” as well) has been increasing. The main focus of that rhetoric has been directed toward Russia, and is also “blathered” in the direction of China, North Korea, and Iran when it suits U.S. political interests. The problem is that all of it is not just talk: action has been taken, especially regarding Russia and the Syrian theatre of operations.
Within the past several weeks, the U.S. has bombed Syrian troops, killing 62 outside of Deor ez-Zor in airstrikes and then admitting to doing so “mistakenly.” The Russians responded by firing up a UN/coalition convoy almost immediately after. Russian naval artillery then took out a command post with approximately 30 “coalition” officers, some of them being Americans. The U.S. then made itself responsible (indirectly) for an attack on the Russian Embassy in Damascus, Syria: anti-Assad Islamic militants did the job, and these have support with funding and materials of the U.S.
These “cat-and-mouse” exchanges have not been new by any means, as evidenced by the aerial “Top-Gun” provocative fly-by’s that have been occurring all year long, in Syria as well as in Eastern Europe. The U.S. has retracted the cease fire agreement and suspended all operations and discussions with Russia pertaining to Syria. What is new is the level that the rhetoric has reached…rhetoric that is no longer rhetorical but actually constitutes direct threats against Russia.
On September 29, 2016 the Washington Post reported these words from U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter:
“Across the Atlantic, we’re refreshing NATO’s nuclear playbook – to better integrate conventional and nuclear deterrence, to ensure we plan and train like we’d fight, and to deter Russia from thinking it can benefit from a nuclear use in a conflict with NATO.”
The irony of that statement is evident. While the U.S. emplaces missile batteries in Germany, Romania, and Moldova, Russia has not responded by placing missiles in either Cuba or Venezuela, two countries she holds strong ties with both militarily and economically. Carter champions deterrence while simultaneously works to increase U.S. nuclear and conventional buildups in Eastern Europe. But it doesn’t stop there with his words. This was reported by George Ourfalian of AFP in an article entitled US Using Syrian Crisis to ‘Wage a Surrogate War’ Against Russia, on October 4, 2016:
“US State Department spokesman John Kirby has made strong statements regarding Russia’s involvement in Syria, claiming that if Russia will not cooperate with the US, Moscow will keep sending troops home in body bags.”
Strong words, and quite bellicose originating with a State Department spokesman completely removed from harm’s way. Then this came out today, the date of this writing on October 5th as reported by Alex Jones’ Prison Planet:
“I want to be clear to those who wish to do us harm…. the United States military – despite all of our challenges, despite our [operational] tempo, despite everything we have been doing – we will stop you and we will beat you harder than you have ever been beaten before. Make no mistake about that.”
General Mark Milley, U.S. Army Chief of Staff
Milley was directing these words toward Russia. He went on to describe the next coming war, as such:
“[The next war will] be highly lethal, unlike anything our Army has experienced at least since World War II,” and would involve fighting in “highly populated urban areas.”
Did the General mean overseas, or in the United States? The Russians are currently (until the 7th of October) conducting nuclear evacuation drills involving over 40 million people. Everyone from Putin and his general staff to local Moscow reporters believe that a nuclear war started by the United States is just on the horizon. Just this week, Putin shelved an agreement between Russia and the U.S. to reduce the amount of Plutonium that can be converted into nuclear warheads.
That agreement had been forthcoming since Obama initiated it in 2012, but Putin was straightforward in his reasoning behind cancelling things on Russia’s end from PrepBlog on 10/3/16 that because of U.S. belligerence, Russia needs:
“…urgent measures to defend the security of the Russian Federation.”
Putin and the Russian people believe the U.S.’s actions are going to lead to a nuclear conflict initiated by the United States. The leadership of the U.S. is made up of politicians who began their careers as Marxist-Socialists. Traitors now have their fingers on the triggers of the nuclear warheads, aided by “yes-men” of the general staffs who will not remember their oaths to the Constitution of the United States and the American people. They will ignore that these charges take precedence above any orders given by a petty, dope-smoking, Marxist community organizer of dubious citizenship who was “emplaced” into office to destroy the country.
Instead of statesmen and diplomats, we now have self-interested, politically-motivated belligerents backing Russia and other nations into corners and pushing them toward war. How long the war of words will be continued is unknown; however, when the missiles begin to fly you can be certain of something. You can rest assured that the men who spoke those words will be in bunkers and other safe places and out of harm’s way…paid for by the American taxpayer.
- Russian Government Officials Told To Immediately Bring Back Children Studying Abroad
In Europe, when it gets serious, you have to lie… at least if you are an unelected bureaucrat like Jean-Claude Juncker. In Russia, however, when it gets serious, attention immediately turns to the children.
Which is why we read a report in Russian website Znak published Tuesday, according to which Russian state officials and government workers were told to bring back their children studying abroad immediately, even if means cutting their education short and not waiting until the end of the school year, and re-enroll them in Russian schools, with some concern. The article adds that if the parents of these same officials also live abroad “for some reason”, and have not lost their Russian citizenship, should also be returned to the motherland. Znak cited five administration officials as the source of the report.
The “recommendation” applies to all: from the administration staff, to regional administratiors, to lawmakers of all levels. Employees of public corporations are also subject to the ordinance. One of the sources said that anyone who fails to act, will find such non-compliance to be a “complicating factor in the furtherance of their public sector career.” He added that he was aware of several such cases in recent months.
It appears that the underlying reason behind the command is that the Russian government is concerned about the optics of having children of the Russian political elite being educated abroad, while their parents appear on television talking about patriotism and being “surrounded by enemies.”
While we doubt the impacted children will be happy by this development, some of the more patriotic locals, if unimpacted, are delighted. Such as Vitaly Ivanov, a political scientist who believes that the measure to return children of officials from studying abroad, is “long overdue.” According Ivanoc, the education of children of the Russian elite abroad is subject to constant ridicule and derision against the ruling regime. “People note the hypocrisy of having a centralized state and cultivating patriotism and anti-Western sentiment, while children of government workers study abroad. You can not serve two gods, one must choose.”
On the other hand, political analyst Stanislav Belkovsky quoted by Znak, believes that such decisions should be approached with more pragmatism. Such a recommendation is more likely to lead to an outflow of officials from the state, rather than allow the return of the children studying at elite foreign universities. He also warned of attempts to recreate an echo chamber such as that experienced after the failed July coup attempt on Turkey’s President Erdogan.
But what he said next was more disturbing: “On the one hand, this is all part of a package of measures to prepare the elites for some ‘big war’ even if it is rather conditional, on the other hand – this is another blow to the unity of President Putin with his own elite” Belkovsky said. He adds that the Western sanctions launcedh in March 2014, had sought to drive a wedge between Putin and elites. In response, the Kremlin began to act precisely according to the logic of these sanctions. “But while a ban for having assets in the West is one thing, and understanable, when it comes to a ban for offshore health and education services, the blowback will be far greater, as it represents a far more important element of the establishment’s life strategy.”
Ultimately the motivation behind Putin’s decision is unclear: whether it is to show Russia’s high-ranking oligarchs who is boss, to boost a sense of patriotism among the nation by sending a symbolic message that the west is no longer a welcome destination for Russia’s rich kids, or just a preemptive move of repatriating of any individuals affiliated with Russian politics for other unknown reasons; however it underscores the severity of the ongoing diplomatic crisis and just how significant the upcoming isolation between Russia and the West is likely to become in the coming months – unless of course tensions deescalate dramatically in the very near future – resulting in even greater collapse in global commerce and a further slowdown to world economic growth, which may ultimately lead to an armed conflict, whether regional or global, as the only possible outcome.
- Reuters Thinks Hillary's Key Vulnerability Is That She's Just Too Awesome
After taking a substantial lead in the latest NBC/WSJ poll, Reuters is now apparently worried that Clinton’s only remaining vulnerability, if any, might just be that she’s a bit too awesome. As Reuters notes, if Trump continues to tank in the polls then Clinton supporters might just fail to show up on election day leaving Clinton without the “political capital she would need to drive through her agenda.” Or, in a worst case scenario, Reuters figures Clinton could still lose the race if Republican voter turnout is substantial.
While voter turnout might be a problem for Hillary in November (more on this later) we suspect this has more to do with her criminal investigation by the FBI, pay-for-play scandals surrounding the Clinton Foundation and/or the latest email leaks from WikiLeaks, all of which are leading to massive distrust of the Democratic nominee, and not so much because of her extreme awesomeness. That said, it was a really nice try at impartial reporting…Reuters definitely scores great style points for the unique approach.
We would also point out that media cycles tend to be very short in modern politics. As an example, Hillary’s “medical episode” on 9/11 only impacted her polling numbers for about 10 days (see chart below). Now, while there could certainly be more Trump bombshells in the coming weeks, it’s probably a bit presumptuous of Reuters to think that this election is over, 30 days before election day, because of a single “hit piece” from the Clinton camp.
The poll that seems to be causing some angst for the “journalists” at Reuters is the following NBC/WSJ poll that showed Clinton with a 9-point lead over Trump. As Reuters notes, much of Hillary’s “support” simply comes from the “Never Trump” camp of voters who are much less likely to show up on election day if things look bleak for Trump in the polls.
Opinion polls show that many voters are backing Clinton primarily to stop Trump, the Republican nominee, from getting into the White House. If they believe he has no hope of winning, then what would their motivation be to turn up at the polls?
In a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll about half of all Clinton supporters said they were backing her to keep Trump from winning. By contrast, just 36.5 percent said it was because of Clinton’s policies and just 12.6 percent said it was because they like her personally.
“This election cannot be just a referendum on Donald Trump,” said Arun Chaudhury, creative director of Revolution Messaging, a left-leaning consulting firm that oversaw the online media operation of former Clinton rival, Senator Bernie Sanders.
Clinton’s central message, he said, has been that “everyone has to step up and stop Donald Trump from being president, not step up and make Hillary Clinton president.”
BREAKING: Clinton holds 9-point lead over Trump after second debate, NBC/WSJ poll says https://t.co/8ul7O8y87i pic.twitter.com/0Gw0yhCcaD
— CNBC (@CNBC) October 11, 2016
Of course, as we pointed out earlier today, there were a lot of “issues” with the above poll which calls into question it’s credibility (see “First Post-Debate Poll Gives Hillary A Significant Lead… And A Familiar Problem Emerges“). Recall that in the last NBC/WSJ poll conducted over the weekend, the representation of those polled was notably skewed, leaning significantly to the left, with 43% Democrat and Democrat leaners, 36% Republican and Republican leaners, and 12% strictly Independents.
Well, a quick look at the just released NBC poll reveals precisely the same issue:
In yet another poll the distribution of the of those questioned leans substantially to the left, as follows:
- Democrat and Democrat leaners 44%
- Republican and Republican leaners 37%
- Independents 12%
(polling details and methodology here)
But the skewed sample wasn’t the only issue as we also pointed out that the poll was conducted by Geoffrey Garin who works for a Hillary Super PAC.
But wait, it gets better.
If you take a quick look at the recent financial connection between, Geoff Garin, Hart Research Associates and Hillary Clinton’s Priorities USA Super-PAC you’ll find that $220,500, in the month of September alone, was paid by Hillary Clinton’s Priorities USA Super-PAC to Hart Research Associates (FEC filings -HERE-).
Of course, voter turnout should also be a huge concern for the Hillary team but not for the reasons that Reuters points out.
Unprecedented black voter turnout was a huge component of Obama’s victories in 2008 and 2012. Per the chart below from the New York Times, after running in the low-to-mid 50% range for decades, black voter participation surged to over 60% for Obama in 2008 and 2012, the highest ever recorded.
Meanwhile, black voter turnout in the midterm elections remained fairly constant through 2012 indicating that people were really just showing up to vote for Obama and not necessarily because of a new level of political engagement overall.
So, the question is, should Hillary expect the same level of unprecedented black voter turnout that Obama was able to garner? Apparently, her campaign is not convinced and that’s why, according to Leslie Wimes, President of the Democratic African-American Women Caucus, they’re in “full panic mode.”
According to the numbers, Hillary has every reason for concern. Per Politico, in 2008 and 2012, Obama received 95% of the 1.7mm votes cast by black voters in Florida. Unfortunately for Hillary, a recent poll from Florida Atlantic University found that she is only polling at 68% among black voters while Trump is polling at 20%. Now, if you assume that black voter turnout drops just 5% in 2016 and that Hillary’s support drops from 95% to 70% that could cost her over 500,000 votes in a state that Obama only won by roughly 75,000. When factoring in the higher support for Trump this could swing the overall Florida race by 7 points…not a good sign when Obama narrowly won the state by less than 1%.
In conclusion, for all the worried Reuters journalists, while their might be legitimate reasons to be concerned for your chosen candidate, we’re fairly certain that you can take, “she’s just too awesome,” off your list of concerns.
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