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Source
by Jorge Vilche
German Economy Minister Robert Habeck is now getting very cold feet because the strategy of madly firehosing the excellent oil & gas sourcing that Europe had with Russia until recently to his personal dismay is now fully defeating both the EU´s purpose and Germany´s needs. Ref #1 https://www.rt.com/business/557729-gas-shortage-industry-halt-germany/
So the plan seems to be to steal yet more per Ref #2 https://www.rt.com/business/557731-germany-seeking-nationalize-nord-stream2/
Still, Robert Habeck is realizing that — no matter how thirsty — nobody can ever drink water from a firehose, not even Germans, let alone Europeans. And don´t you dare to try it. If you did, chances are you´d end up with dark-purple lips and ice-cold water pressing deeply inside your sinus cavities, probably knocked-down, blood-shot eyes popping and hurting beyond belief, and possible random injuries elsewhere. Police forces worldwide know all about this so they invented the water-cannon to rapidly disperse confronting defiant crowds. Of course, you could not ever drink from a firehose water jet, but the impact could have you hospitalized. A bit late, Habeck now foresees all of this, and beyond. And it clearly does not end well, not for Germany, nor for Europe either, and winter is coming. Unless Herr Habeck were a member not of the German Green Party but rather of the European War Party, a truly losing proposition.
Firehoses many times are also difficult to hold steady even by brutish strong hands and arms of young, well-trained, heavy-booted firemen. Obviously enough, thirst can only be satisfied by drinking one sip at a time no matter how thirsty you might be, most preferably from a cup or glass. And, of course, tremendous thirst cannot be quenched with tremendous amounts of water dispensed from a high pressure firehose jet. Unfortunately, the “firehose” analogies #1 + #2 presented herein are exactly what Robert Habeck is doing per the EU-approved ban on Russian oil by December 2022. Meanwhile, as explained below, China and India instead take full advantage of the nicely discounted price by “sipping” down Russian crude oil gradually and – per the analogy — from an imaginary glass, not a firehose water jet.
Apparently, both of these “firehose strategies” #1 and #2 do not show up on the radar screen of neither European engineers, nor supposed chemical ´experts´, or trade associations, scientific societies, think tanks and/or labor unions. Quite on the contrary, they and many others have remained solemnly silent just watching how a few unelected and improvised groupie politicians that know jack about technical requirements gain political traction and MSM coverage for their foolish ´firehose approach´ as if it were doable and convenient for the best interests of Europeans. But by banning Russia they´ll never quench the EU´s enormous thirst for crude oil, processed and refined products thereof, and natural gas. Rather they will bring the European energy sourcing matrix down on its knees, something which has finally dawned in the mind of Herr Habeck and that by now is most probably already shared by the average European.
firehose #1 per oil
This most self-destructive nonsensical idea consists in simultaneously running throughout the key upstream refinery and petrochemical sector many dozens (if not hundreds) of still undefined and truly challenging parallel reconversion projects of different sorts – all tightly-packed within the same timeframe — requiring currently non-existing resources of different types ( HR + IT hard/soft/firmware + not-yet-designed equipment plus installation and commissioning thereof, etc. etc. etc., etc., etc. ) throughout the European continent and all of them with an identical 6-month deadline for execution and delivery. This most expensive idea starts by banning imported, perfect-from-every-sense-except-politics Russian oil at half the price and without any pay-back cost as nothing other than already existing resources are required. Only a bunch of fools would thus negatively affect the livelihoods of 800 million of their own people that will necessarily suffer the irreversible consequences of this mis-management of their self-made crisis. By December 2022 in 6 short months all that Europeans will have is freezing cold and a horrible, un-rewindable blowback in their hands.
The current course of action officially approved by the EU necessarily calls for the 2022 execution of hundreds of projects related to the Russian oil ban which would supposedly allow for non-Russian oil imports refinement and processing in Europe. Imagine this “firehose” approach trying to adapt all refineries, processing plants, ports, docks, pipelines, logistics infrastructure, etc., etc. to a new mix of yet unknown oils to replace the Russian Urals blend which would therefore require yet unknown modifications and corresponding fine tuning. This impossible re-vamping and retrofitting of absolutely everything will consume humongous amounts of euros, human resources, expertise, trials & errors, risk and lots of hard work and lots and lots of time. The Schwedt refinery alone will require 11 major projects at the very least per Ref.#21 below. All in all, we are talking hundreds of billions of euros that Europe does not have — and should not print — with 40-50 years payback long after (supposedly) fossil fuels have been phased out of the EU and no bank willing to finance the madness. So far nothing has been announced, no feasibility studies, no bid forms issued or trans-European call for bids, no joint-ventures, no engineering firms, plans or specs, no guidelines, no oil vendors, bidding documents, no schedules, no consultants or commissions, no bid opening and contract award dates: plain nothing.
China & India
Readers frequently ask how is it that China and India are readily importing and successfully processing Russian oils while European refineries would supposedly have tremendous trouble processing other “good” oils (ha!). Some readers go far beyond and assure other fellow posters without batting an eyelash that necessarily, of course, if China and India can successfully process and refine Russian oils well obviously enough Europe can readily and easily do the same with yet unknown oil blends from yet unknown vendors blah blah yadda yadda. Well, the short answer is a flat “NO”, the slightly longer answer is “you better know what you are saying and doing” and the longest answer I dare to publish is that “history will not be kind to anyone directly or indirectly involved in what you are saying or proposing”. The more elaborate answer includes that China and India since years ago have already carefully designed, tested, vetted, certified, and commissioned the required modifications for processing Russian Urals blend. But neither China nor India has been stupid and ignorant enough to adopt the European nonsensical and ruinous ´nuclear option´ of the firehose flood-everything-out strategy. First they went slow on solid footing, and then only later speeded-up with their experience on firm ground and with the advantage of the constant Russian Urals that Europe doesn´t have any more
3 differences 3
There are 3 main differences between China & India and the European firehose approach (more on that later). The No. 1 difference is that China & India had plenty of time to slowly study and carefully modify only a limited handful of refineries. So both had many years for the specific modification of only very few refineries later to be easily carbon-copied per the always constant Russian Urals blend feedstock. So China & India fine tuned their processes always responding to a single homogenous constant excellent Russian Urals blend, while Europe does not yet even have the faintest idea of what in glorious cold-freezing hell it has to fine-tune to… or even if it will ever find any blend to fine-tune for … so that its refineries render humongous amounts only of diesel fuel, not anything else, which matters a lot. Difference No. 3 is that Europe will not find a single oil mix to substitute for Russia´s Urals blend feedstock and will end up having to import several variable yet unknown mixes sourced from yet unknown vendors, if any. Very messy.
What both China and India did years ago is to import small amounts of Russia´s Urals blend and comfortably tuned up a small handfull of refineries to process it at a “small scale” like drinking from a glass of water one sip at a time. Now that Russia is offering its Urals blend at a great discount very close to 30%, both China and India are ramping up their purchases while also further enlarging their refining capacity so as to process ever growing amounts of excellent, now super-cheap, abundant, homogenous Russian Urals blend. Anyone, such as Europe, attempting instead a “firehose” strategy with unknown blends will fail miserably as explained to death and in depth in the 21 references linked below. In view of the above, China & India and others too will most probably build brand new refineries ad hoc from scratch only to process Russian Urals blend feedstocks just like Europe was doing a short while ago before going bananas. And once that pipelines from Russia to Asia are concluded in 3 years time the Western world will play second fiddle.
Ref #3 http://www.rt.com/business/557463-russia-china-top-oil-supplier/
Ref #4 http://www.rt.com/business/557403-india-increase-russian-oil/
Ref #5 http://www.rt.com/business/557091-india-russia-import-oil/
bad joke
One way to begin to understand the problem is agreeing and accepting that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyden made a historical bad joke, by saying “ The EU will make sure to phase out Russian oil in an orderly fashion to allow us and our partners to secure alternative supply routes minimizing the impact on global markets”. Nope, you can´t do that in 6 months Ursula, if ever. So if you accept that´d be absolutely impossible then you are on the right track to understand the rest. Otherwise you´d be just playing games running around in circles. Hint: it´d be like trying to change the engine oil while cruising at 150 km/hr on a German autobahn. Of course, you can stop the car and change the oil, but in this case it would mean shutting down Europe for months. You cannot do that, can you ?
By any standards, there are definitely not enough adequate oil blends around to come close to satisfying European refinery requirements comparable to homogenous continuous over-abundant constant Russian high-quality Urals which the EU now has decided to ban. And also please accept once and for all that a specific oil blend is not just “any oil blend” to be plugged & played anywhere anytime. Oil blends are not fungible. A very specific refinery or processing plant tune-up needs to be specifically matched with an always constant high-quality homogenous oil blend in large enough quantities and for a given desired output such as diesel fuel, or whatever. No “open architecture” is possible here, that´s just for IT nerds, not for refineries. And definetly there are no vendors all lined up happily willing and able to sell you their oil blend in unlimited quantities already fully adapted to whatever plant you may have ´as-is´ for whichever desired production output you may need delivered just-in-time on-demand and only when you need it. No. that´s not the case or anywhere close. Europe now may have Angola oil (maybe) for what it might be worth, but it needs 30 additional Angolas nowhere to be found under current circumstances. Suez is a tremendous choke-point.
Ref #7 https://www.freightwaves.com/news/how-new-eu-sanctions-on-russia-will-shake-up-global-energy-trade
Ref #8 https://www.saferack.com/glossary/tanker/
nutshell
In a nutshell, EU politicians have officially approved a forcefull mandate whereby all of Europe will have to execute in 6 short months what India and China would not dare doing in less than 10 (ten) years. That is 20 times more time. When the rubber meets the road, Europeans will realize that their political class are just a bunch of ignorant fools.
Furthermore, China & India had the enormous advantage of having to fine-tune and modify their plants for a single well-known, constant, homogenous, reliable, fully vetted Russian Urals blend… while Europe does (a) not have anywhere near that possibility and (b) does not even know what blends it will be able to find in large enough quantities and (c) it is now realizing that it will not ever be a single oil mix. So, eventually and if lucky enough (for how long ?) Europe will have to fine-tune its refineries and processing plants quite differently (not carbon copied as China & India) depending on what Europe happens to source and procure with the minimum corresponding performance and delivery guarantees. And in view of possible discontinuous supply of the right quality feedstocks, European refineries may very well find themselves back in square one and having to re-do everything all over. Refining and chemical processing are a key upstream sector, highly capital-intensive, thick skin required yet delicate & tricky, and also a very ugly business.
non-fungible oils
Refineries are very closely matched and mated with subtle calibration to a very specific and foreseeable feedstock. Changing such feedstock requires lots of time, effort, money, dedicated facilities, experimentation, mistakes, trial & error, specific expertise, and risk. Substituting the constant quality and humongous quantity of Russian oils in only 6 months has never been conceived yet alone attempted. Now Europe needs a substitute feedstock it can´t yet know which could it possibly be, if any. This will require cross-border negotiations and coordination,funding, major cross-industry interferences, new costs and surprises from yet unknown trade and other business partners, new procedures, etc. And 95% completion is not enough, only 100% is satisfactory. Everybody and his sister would now in Europe be modifying the same things at the same time with the same resources and the same deadline. Exactly who will refine & process crude oil in the meantime ? No fuels in Europe until European refineries refine something no ?
Ref #9 https://www.ifo.de/en/node/69417
Adapting any EU refinery to new types of oils requires detailed laboratory knowledge of the new blend with constant composition and formal guarantees for its continuous delivery for decades, convoluted & lengthy contracts and procurement processes, extremely detailed engineering plans, manufacturing of parts, shipping, installation, testing, commissioning, optimization, permitting etc. etc. etc. The EU today has highly sensitive plants finely tuned and used to Russian high quality oil during decades. One single ‘bad fuel’ refinery batch would produce never ending down/time cascading impact, damages, repairs, claims, accidents with possible injuries, non-compliance and altered delivery schedules, liabilities everywhere. It´s the joint “oil feedstock – refinery – desired output” sequence to be resolved.
All EU refineries will need modification and tune-up of new feedstock lines and infrastructure, atmospheric distillation facilities, vacuum distillation systems, cat-crack units, visbreaking facilities, alkylation units, catalytic reformers, isomerisation units, ethyl tertiary butyl ether (ETBE) facilities, etc. Plus probably new storage facilities + handling equipment to substitute the Druzhba pipeline now shut-down by December 2022. Plus all sorts of sensors, software & firmware modifications or possible purchases of new stuff which will require personnel and third party vendors all over.
firehose #2 per gas
As if all of the above were not enough, Herr Habeck is now getting Europe ready for a firehose #2 project. Namely the DE-conversion from natural gas and the RE-conversion into dirty coal proposed by a member of the Green Party !!!!
You can´t make this stuff up, trust me that imagination cannot compete with European reality. So, the back-to-coal ´solution´ proposed is (a) very dirty against Europe´s Green Plan plus other climate pledges and regulations (b) ultra expensive (c) a major upheaval throughout Europe which would not make it for this coming winter soon knocking on the European doors, and probably not even for next winter 2024 at least throughout all of Europe… or even in 2025.
This completely separate – yet overlapping – set of major madhouse back-to-coal projects also imply enormous risk and major modifications and tight schedules all around, bids, bidders, contract oversight, etc. etc.etc for which nobody is prepared for nor regulators, nor vendors, nor consultants or engineering firms, nor end users, nor households or the industry at large. So this DE-conversion from natural gas and subsequent RE-conversion into coal simultaneous with the “firehose strategy #1” for Russian oil substitution means enormous additional time and ultra-high costs, technical limitations, interrupted services and production, upheaval everywhere, labor union conflicts, discomfort, civil works, electromechanical contracts, specialized labor, expertise, etc. etc. – nobody would be able to walk down the street for groceries or catching the subway — while all of this is done simultaneously throughout Europe ? This is not fiction…
Ref #10 https://www.rt.com/business/557599-europe-russian-gas-cut/
Ref #12 https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220620-dutch-join-germany-austria-in-reverting-to-coal
Ref #13 https://www.rt.com/business/557503-austria-coal-green-energy/
Ref #14 https://www.rt.com/business/557571-czech-republic-gas-energy/
In sum, Herr Habeck and EU politicians have unnecessarily set Europe up for hundreds of overlapping, cross-borders, gargantuan projects impossible to fulfill simultaneously, with absurd sequencing and scheduling coordination, plus peremptory timing limitations and deadlines, with countless synchronized engineering specialties and very risky, highly demanding logistics, plus overwhelming legal, political, and environmental aspects. For decades European refineries have streamlined supplies and specifically matched their processing capabilities for the Russian Urals blend in order to produce a very specific set of final products amongst which diesel fuel is paramount. So now European refineries and processing plants cannot just suddenly switch to whatever oil blends are found elsewhere without the complete set of features that the Urals blend has..Accordingly, this glorious mis-management has the whole EU economy at risk
Europe could also suffer the pain of potentially non-performing rushed and poorly designed modifications made to ports and logistics infrastructures, or while retrofitting and revamping its refineries and chemical processing plants. Furthermore, Europe will spend a fortune it cannot afford while running the certain, serious risk of a failed troublefull reconversion ending up with many half-finished facilities that will not be anywhere ready on time, or ever. And as 95% compliance is not enough to produce a single drop of a processed product (diesel or whatever) this means that under current circumstances and 2022 established deadlines until Europe has 100% adequately modified and successfully retrofitted everything up and running for feedstocks it does not yet have or know about… Europe really has nothing. Additionally, the human resource challenge related to all of the above is insurmountable and probably un-compliable.
Hungary has publically exposed the problem: “the EU has ‘no solution’ to fix damage from Russian oil ban”. Mass migrations very soon are in the cards, including large cities of Western Europe. Herr Habeck already knows this. Skeptics are rapidly hiding because these energy supply problems have become obvious throughout Europe already.
And you just can´t have 35% of the plants processing and/or running with “good” Russian oil still fed by the Druzbha pipeline till December while the remaining 65% run on “bad” unknown non-Russian seaborne oil. You can´t do that.
Ref # 15 https://www.rt.com/news/555297-hungary-eu-no-solution/
By the way, Russia today sells LESS oil & gas but earns MORE revenue than last year. Please see Ref # 25 below.
Analysis is limited to firehose #1 to be applied for the (supposed) EU project regarding substitution of Russian oils.
GENERAL
pre-feasibility studies + feasibility studies + start date + authority + deadline + affected domain + relative project size +
reservoirs + oil quality + oil quantity + human resources
PROCUREMENT
bidding process + contracts + investments + financing + sourcing + vendor certification + tankers certification + oil certification + lab tests + homologation + compliance + price + guarantees
LOGISTICS
docks + handling equipment + loading + ports + pipelines + seaborne delivery
END USERS
refinability + refineries
==============================================================================
GENERAL
pre-feasibility studies
European “firehose” = hundreds of studies urgently needed yesterday, NONE possibly yet done, not yet announced.
China + India = those required were done years ago, many more are currently in progress
feasibility studies
European “firehose” = hundreds of studies urgently needed yesterday, NONE done, nor announced, nor scheduled
China + India = many approved, up and running, yet more are currently in progress
start date
European “firehose” = June 2022
China + India = many years ago, exact date unknown, preparations since ever, plenty of time for everything.
authority
European “firehose” = the EU system has overlapping bureaucratic jurisdictions whereby decisions are made by 27 unanimous votes while limiting or even opposing decisions are later taken by individual member countries.
China + India = everything under the command of a single country authority in charge.
deadline
European “firehose” = 6 months (!!!!!) imminently foolish
China + India = open, gradual, through years, plenty of time left, meanwhile lots of work in progress
affected domain
European “firehose” = 100s of projects, ports, docks, refineries, processing plants, pipelines, logistics, infrastructure
China + India = already done years ago for today´s needs, meaning 0 (zero) affected domain
relative project size
European “firehose” = enormously large, diverse, incommensurate, complex, cross-border, zero management skills.
China + India = carbon-copy expansion of vetted modifications with work in progress for far larger shipments
reservoirs
European “firehose” = unknown, experimental mix from occasional “beach-front bazaar” variable vendors.
China + India = Russian Urals blend, enormous, reliable geologically & physico-chemically stable reservoirs
oil quality
European “firehose” = fully unknown, wishy-washy-iffy, does not even exist, experimental, does not allow any planning of anything yet. A lower-rate or not constant & homogenous oil quality means poor performance and operational risks with possible serious breakdown troubles beyond repair plus possible injuries plus down-time will necessarily require plant process modifications and other engineering & logistics nightmares already described in many references below.
China + India = Russian Urals blend, decades-proven, fully vetted, constant, well-known 100% reliable, high quality homogenous blend, low sulfur, light- intermediate API gravity. Easy to process and/or refine. All-around compliance, special mixture of heavy sour oil from the Ural and Volga region mixed with light API oil of Western Siberia per 9.8 Nelson Complexity index with medium 31.7 API gravity sour with about 1.35% sulfur content.
Matching the Russian Urals oil grade is theoretically ´possible´ by blending high-quality oils from different sources if available from reliable vendors in large enough quantities. BUT maintaining the blend specs and volumetric flow requirements to meet refinery capacity/specs is very difficult. Beware: the Urals blend allows for a very constant Nelson Complexity Index of 9.8 to guarantee refined excellence for a range of products including petrol (gasoline) diesel, aviation turbine fuel, LPG, extra light heating oil, heavy fuel oil, bitumen, benzene, toluene, xylene, and sulfur.
oil quantity
European “firehose” = fully unknown, weakest point no matter what its variable “quality” may get to be. It´d also have to be an “incremental” volume beyond current production because of (a) potential growth in European demand and (b) because no vendor will ever leave traditional customers abandoned high & dry just because the EU has now gone bonkers. Furthermore, these contracts could might all turn out being short-term ephemeral un-sustainable ´purchases of convenience´ without continuity to be dropped the instant the EU´s “ban Russia´s oil” stops dead in its tracks for plenty of good reasons. Not enough quantity means degraded European livelihoods and failing economy, with shut down plants and refineries affecting transportation, heating, hospitals & schools, military, government, business, etc.
In order to substitute Russian oils, other oil-exporting vendor countries will have to either (a) suddenly increase their production (?) and how would they do that exactly (??) … or (b) disregard their traditional clients … and suddenly cut them off high and dry to go out to sell to Europe. In that case, where would their traditional clients find an exporter to buy the right quality oil from? The world oil market is one and the same and Russia inputs at least 15% of such.
China + India = Russian Urals blend, on-demand continuous non-stop unlimited delivery, allows planning everything.
HR Human Resources
European “firehose” = probably the weakest link of all with tons of people missing with yet-to-be-defined job descriptions, yet to be interviewed, hired, trained, teams put together, deployed, etc. etc. Current operational and maintenance + staff & field personnel would probably demand being switched to other jobs… or will drag their feet… or would simply resign thus necessarily compounding the problem to unchartered depths. New, young, inexperienced hands do not help under these circumstances. New managers and all sorts of office & field personnel from logistics to IT contractors, welders, etc. will not even be hired by December 2022
China + India = 100% contracted and working normally with operational personnel, field hands, staff & management
PROCUREMENT
bidding process
European “firehose” = not started yet, no bid forms issued nor trans-European call for bids, no joint-ventures, no engineering firms, plans or specs, or guidelines, no bidding documents, no tentative schedules, no consultants, no commissions or committees, no bid opening and contract award dates. No nothing.
China + India = normal operational checks, buyer-seller relationship well established, future procurement wide open.
contracts
European “firehose” = supposedly by June 2022 impossible to comply with. Real date unknown, possibly by 2023
China + India = already awarded and entered into, currently under execution, with buyer / seller satisfaction
investments
European “firehose” = needs to invest hundreds of billions of euros that Europe does not have and should not print
China + India = already done years ago, now up and running, could expand by carbon copying.
financing
European “firehose” = unfathomable mystery, 40-50 years payback long after fossil fuels are phased out of the EU.
Many dozens of billions of euros need to be financed for these projects. Banks agree ? Refineries and pipelines have a 40-50 year service life. Nobody in their right mind is going to finance with multi-decade payback when per EU regulations the investment will be dead in 10 years.
China + India = not required yet, comes out of national budget already approved. Only needed for new projects.
sourcing
European “firehose” = fully unknown, does not even exist, experimental, does not allow any planning of anything yet.
China + India = excellent Russian Urals blend, decades-proven, fully vetted, constant, well-known 100% reliable.
vendor certification
European “firehose” = vendor(s) do not exist, probably a variable group of partial variable mix vendors with a “beach-front bazaar” structure, uncoordinated and even enemies of each other.
China + India = already done, decades-proven, fully vetted, constant, well-known 100% reliable, no risk,
tanker certification
European “firehose” = do not yet exist, if ever found available as needed both in type and size.
China + India = done, up and running.
oil certification
European “firehose” = does not yet exist
China + India = done, up and running
lab tests
European “firehose” = no vendors, no oil feedstocks, no lab tests of anything
China + India = done years ago per current requirements,regular checks into the future
homologation
European “firehose” = cannot yet exist
China + India = done
compliance
European “firehose” = unknown, all compliance pending, approval takes years with plenty of EU bureaucratic requirements starting with ISO 9001 (manufacturing) + ISO 14000 (environmental) + ISO 15000 (laboratory analysis quality) approval of which starts only after full design and complete specifications are satisfactorily concluded and internally approved for submission to EU regulators. EU´s Green Plan spirit and wording must be complied with, same as other EU Common Policies, climate pledges, and regulations in force. Environmental impact assessments have to be completed with specific procedures, submitted, and approved. Labor union issues also pending
China + India = already 100% compliant, up and running.
price
European “firehose” = unknown, definitely FAR more expensive, with pay-back amortization of the many huge investments / modifications / reforms made plus terrific freight, logistics, and final delivery costs disrupting the European and the world economy with inflation beyond imagination.
China + India = At least 30-35% cheaper than market price and without any pay-back amortization of the many huge investments / modifications / reforms required by the European “firehose”.
guarantees
European “firehose” = no project just wishful thinking, no sourcing, no vendor, does not yet apply
China + India = traditional Urals with 50-year guarantee of homogenous blend ( +/- ) 15% volume
LOGISTICS
docks
European “firehose” = NO vendor(s) yet, many needed with large deliveries, no docks yet, some will be problematic
China + India = small deliveries. No dock improvements required yet. Pre-feasibility studies underway for enlargement
handling equipment
European “firehose” = NO vendor(s) yet, many needed with large deliveries, no handling equipment anywhere yet.
China + India = small deliveries. No handling equipment modifications yet. Pre-feasibility studies underway.
loading & unloading
European “firehose” = NO vendor(s) yet, many needed with large deliveries, no loading experience anywhere yet.
China + India = small deliveries. No modifications required yet. Pre-feasibility studies underway for larger volumes.
ports
European “firehose” = NO vendor(s) yet, many needed with large deliveries, no ports yet, some will be problematic
China + India = small deliveries. No port modifications required yet. Pre-feasibility studies underway.
pipelines
European “firehose” = No new ones foreseen only seaborne delivery . Still, the all-important Schwedt refinery in Germany does need revamping of the Rostock to Schwedt 60-year-old Soviet-era 200 km. pipeline. Full upgrade and retro-fitting required. Not started yet nor plans announced. Partially buried heavy structure built with obsolete materials and technology commissioned in 1963 many times patched-up and most probably unable to be “pig”- inspected properly or meaningfully, let alone be upgraded as needed. Lots of skeletons hanging inside many closets after several decades, now to be opened. Other inter-European transfer pipelines may also need repair and upgrade.
China + India = pre-feasibility & feasibility studies concluded, major pipelines being designed or under construction.
seaborne delivery
European “firehose” = no tankers yet contracted, possible shipping lanes issues, piracy, weather, lack of tankers, vessel size limitations, warfare, labor conflicts both on board and/or on the docks /berths, draft issues, not enough water depth for Suezmax oil tanker channels and ports. Suez is also a tremendous choke-point limitation not allowing for much needed VLCCs or Very Large Crude Carriers – tankers with 2-million-barrel capacity, only allows Aframax.
China + India = already under way, sea lanes well-known, no operational problems.
END USERS
refineability
European “firehose” = fully unknown, risky, requires carefull constant testing of all-around refinery modifications adapting internal processes to new blends required to remain constant for at least 40 preferably 50 years. No data possible yet and lots of work to be done. Refinement process unknown re final distillates quantities and qualities.
China & India = efficient, reliable with excellent guaranteed performance for decades per Nelson Complexity Index of 9.8 allowing to refine with excellence a range of products including petrol (gasoline) diesel, aviation turbine fuel, LPG, extra light heating oil, heavy fuel oil, bitumen, benzene, toluene, xylene and sulfur, mostly sold to Europe and the US.
refineries
European “firehose” = modifications have not yet been bidded, nor announcements made.
China & India = modification finished years ago, up and running
Ref #17 http://thesaker.is/no-fuels-for-europe/
Ref #18 http://thesaker.is/pitchforks-soon-in-europe/
Ref #19 http://thesaker.is/europes-mad-ban-on-russian-oil/
Ref #20 http://thesaker.is/why-russias-oil-ban-is-impossible/
Ref #21 http://thesaker.is/germans-schwedt-hard-for-russian-oil/
Ref #22 http://thesaker.is/dear-ursula-you-are-dead-wrong/
Ref #23 http://thesaker.is/europe-now-cheats-or-suffers/
Ref #24 http://thesaker.is/for-europe-from-russia-with-love/
Filed under: China, EU, Germany, Global Elite, India, Russia | Tagged: Anti-Russian sanctions, Antirussia sanctions backfires, German Green Party, Russian gas and oil | Comments Off on Herr Habeck firehoses oil & gas
As a graduate from two top US universities, the School of International Service – SIS – from the American University and the Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies – SAIS – from Johns Hopkins University, I can confirm that every word spoken by Gonzalo Lira are true and spot on. Listen to the man, every word he says is 100% true!
Filed under: American Elite, China, EU, Germany, Global Elite, Globalization, India, Russia, UK | Tagged: Anti-Russian sanctions, de-globalization., Globalist Deep State, Gonzalo Lira | Comments Off on Gonzalo Lira – “Why The Western Elites Are Foolish and Amoral”
“The Super-Rich” against the Earth’s Citizens
Global Research, March 26, 2021
All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).
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Corporations, multinational investment banks, and the super-rich that hide behind them have launched the final stage this year of a ruthless war of a tiny few against the great majority of humanity.
Although they pay off their puppets in the media to float happy tales of some happy resolution to the dire situation of the moment, they already know that the die is cast, that they are committed to a strategy of distracting, seeding division, undermining rational thinking and using a combination of blatant intimidation with open bribery to slowly, systematically, overpower and reduce to slavery 99.98% of the Earth’s population.
They know already, according to the calculations of their supercomputers, what will happen if they are not successful in this plan. They also know that catastrophic climate change and biodiversity loss will make it impossible for them to monopolize the wealth and the resources for long.
There is literally no limit to how far they will go.
The tools they use to pursue this war against the citizens of the Earth are technology, propaganda and disinformation campaigns, threats against individuals who display leadership skills and massive bribes for the leaders who are allowed to be covered in the media to represent the conservative and the progressive causes.
They also employ as part of this strategy an intimate knowledge of certain key weaknesses in the brain, and the potential for exploiting the human inclination to determine truth based on a vague sense of the mood of the herd, rather than logic. That is to say they are investing billions in hidden money to systematically create social pressure that makes citizens conform with pointless mandates for masks or vaccines that are launched from diverse platforms as a means of inducing the population to police itself.
Without such a strategy, the super-rich could not possibly seize control of the entire Earth.
There has been extensive research by corporations, and by the CIA and Department of Defense (government organizations exploited to hide the true entities demanding such research) into how humans can be manipulated without their knowledge, and compelled through imperceptible persuasion to permit, or even aid, their own disenfranchisement without us even being aware of this silent and invisible takeover.
Such operations have been undertaken before, but never on this global scale. New developments in super-computing and the global integration of, and deregulation of, finance, has made such a master plan possible for the first time.
Recent developments are best viewed as the final acceleration of a process by which corporations bribed and lobbied all authority figures in government and academics to go along with a process of privatization, commercialization, and automation that now means that a tiny handful of people can control every aspect of human experience in an absolute sense while the vast majority of citizens cannot even conceive of what is taking place. We have not reached that state yet, but Elon Musk, Bill Gates and others believe, based on the calculations of supercomputers, that it is now possible.
The super-rich has also invested wisely in the establishment of a panoply of sham activists, or toothless, “feel good, do nothing” NGOs.
These “movements” are allowed to appear in the corporate-controlled media, and they pretend to respond to corporate power, but they purposely discourage citizens from organizing themselves (they ask only for donations, or attendance at protests, but they pointedly do not empower people to form their own groups or achieve financial and ideological independence).
Such NGOs are silent about the mass manipulation of the media and of politics by global finance—even though that is the primary cause of the political problems we face.
If we follow the current trajectory, there will not be a single part of our lives that is completely controlled by a multinational corporation in the next few years.
We do not have that long to act.
Image on the right is from Natural News
The push for mandatory COVID-19 “vaccines” in the face of the overwhelming scientific evidence against them is not a matter of mistaken science or bad policy. It is rather a process of preparing government officials, doctors, reporters, and other media figures to follow orders from above that have no rational basis.
After this “softening-up process,” which is carefully calibrated on the basis of secret CIA torture programs designed to test the weaknesses of the human psyche, a rougher and more brutal form of the rule can be implemented.
The mask mandate was the first step in the implementation of this form of massive psychological warfare. It is, to use the technical term, a slow “rape of the mind.”
The enormous restructuring of governance and the economy described by the World Economic Forum as the “Great Reset” is not a secret and anyone who takes the time to read that book, and related documents, can figure out about 70% of what is their agenda is.
The citizen will be convinced that he or she operates within a functional country and that there is some process by which the politicians at the top take actions on their behalf. But the super-rich cares nothing for nation-states and their populations and they use politicians to deflect attention away from themselves. Every time a politician takes a fall, it is to distract you from the predations of the rich. Every attack on minorities is a trick to get you hooked on race and diversity and distracted from the concentration of wealth.
We are increasingly subject to the whims of unaccountable global powers, and the intentionally render us passive, open to persuasion, and therefore incapable of resistance, by the media that is controlled by those powers.
The super-rich relies on two approaches to psychological manipulation that go back to the 1930s and before but have been perfected by recent research.
The first technique is the use of traumatic events that are reported on in a sensationalist and unscientific manner in the media so as to induce a deep sense of shock, disorientation and confusion in the population as a whole. The mental trauma of such events, whether the 9.11 incident, or the hyped-up COVID-19 crisis, or the “armed insurrection” at the Capitol, is used to induce passivity and receptivity to profound institutional shifts that would otherwise be impossible.
Naomi Klein describes this approach as the “shock doctrine” and although she hesitates to delve too deeply into the degree to which it has become national policy, she accurately traces the approach back to the torture programs designed to test the limits of the human psyche.
Such trauma affects the reactive and emotional part of the human brain known as the amygdala, bringing on a “fight or flight” response in the psyche that overrides the rational, integrative, response to external events that would be carried out by the prefrontal cortex in normal conditions.
Because we as individuals, and as populations, are unaware of how the amygdala has taken over decision making from the prefrontal cortex because of these engineered shocks, we are unable to organize, or even conceive of, a response to the real threat. Instead, we focus on the cooked-up threats offered to us by the commercial media like Islamic terrorism in the case of 9.11 or the spread of a dangerous virus in the case of the COVID-19 operation.
The second strategy is to induce a hypnotic state in the brain of the individual, and the population as a whole, through the constant repetition of certain themes and images through advertisements, commercials, images, and themes articulated in movies, TV shows, reporting, and even the packaging of products.
The stimulation alternates between the intentionally boring and distracting images and direct appeals to the pleasure centers of the brain such as the desire for food, for sexual arousal, or for pleasant experiences.
The advertisements promoting the enjoyment of food and encouraging low-level sexual arousal are not only, or even primarily, aimed at selling products. They are intended to induce a state of passivity in the population.
The CIA explains the process,
“Hypnosis is basically a technique which permits acquisition of direct access to the sensory motor cortex and pleasure centers, and lower cerebral (emotional) portions of the right side of the brain following successful disengagement of the stimulus screening function of the left hemisphere of the brain. The right hemisphere which functions as the noncritical, holistic, nonverbal and pattern-oriented component of the brain, appears to accept what the left hemisphere passes to it without question. Consequently, if the left hemisphere can be distracted either through boredom or through reduction to a soporific, semi-sleep state, external stimuli to include hypnotic suggestions are allowed to pass unchallenged into the right hemisphere where they are accepted and acted on directly.”
(FOIA document “Analysis and Assessment of Gateway Process” June 9, 1983 (US Army Intelligence and Security Command)
CIA-RDP96-00788R001700210016-5
The scale of this experiment in mass hypnosis to render the citizens of all the world passive, and unable to resist persuasion from authority figures is unprecedented. This process is being undertaken slowly, over months and years, following complex algorithms that are kept secret.
It is critical in this process that individuals be isolated from each other, unable to communicate except through mediums controlled by multinational corporations, and that they be offered only ineffective and superficial organizations to join organizations in which they will be incapable of participating in the decision-making process, or of effecting change. Quarantine, lockdowns, social distancing, and the promotion of a narcissistic consumption culture are critical to that process.
The result is that the citizens of the United States, and around the world, are being reduced to consumers of products supplied by multinational corporations who cannot even conceive of how the world has been radically transformed in this great reset.
They are being rendered passive and unresponsive so that the super-rich can quickly seize complete control of the systems by which countries are governed, by which money and finance are determined, the media by which information is distributed, the universities and research institutes by which authoritative perspectives backed by science are presented, the farms and distribution systems by which food is provided, the aquafers and irritation systems by which water is provided, and every other aspect of human experience.
When we awake from this slumber, if we ever do, we will discover that every aspect of our lives is controlled by unaccountable powers which we cannot understand, which we have no way to challenge and which will increase slowly and systematically the means by which we are made slaves, and, if necessary, destroyed.
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Emanuel Pastreich served as the president of the Asia Institute, a think tank with offices in Washington DC, Seoul, Tokyo and Hanoi. Pastreich also serves as director general of the Institute for Future Urban Environments. Pastreich declared his candidacy for president of the United States as an independent in February, 2020
Filed under: Corona virus, Global Elite, USA | Tagged: Bill Gates, CIA, Elite Vaccination policies, Manipulation of information | Comments Off on The “Corona Crisis” and the War of “The Super-Rich” against the Earth’s Citizens
Friday, 26 March 2021 2:02 PM [ Last Update: Friday, 26 March 2021 2:02 PM ]
By Ramin Mazaheri and cross-posted with PressTV
Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV.
Too bad the elections for European Parliament aren’t this year – we could have enjoyed all three tones of the chord of “liberal (aristocratic) democracy”.
The United States, the European Union and Israel – the triumvirate which dominates half the world and thinks it has the moral and intellectual right to rule the other half – obviously have incredibly flawed, domestically-denigrated and politically feckless elections. As time goes on the world can only be increasingly attracted to innovative alternative political models because this trio is so endemically dysfunctional.
In Israel voters just chose between the war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu or those who claim to be the colonizers who are the “sane” alternative. This election sham will likely need to be repeated for the fifth time in two years, but only a few thick Westerners ever claimed Israel is a democracy, anyway.
Thirty years after the United States penned the structures of the European Union – in a rush of Cold War euphoria and arrogance – there may not be elections which are as meaningless and uninteresting to the actual voting public as those for EU Parliament.
The United States’ recent election was as bad as anyone could have expected, and Americans themselves expected the worst more often than anyone. So I don’t know why France-raised US Secretary of State Antony Blinken thought the last months and years of American carnage and discontent would go unnoticed abroad?
When Blinken assumed a Parisian pose of oblivious nonchalance at the first China-US summit and tried to shame China for not being Western enough, China was ready: his counterpart, Yang Jiechi, delivered an impromptu, blistering, 17-minute critique of America which was redolent of Mao’s era.
In short, Yang’s rebuttal contained well-known and totally accurate critiques of America’s capitalist-imperialist and liberal democratic structures. From “massacring the people of other countries” to the obvious “slaughtering” of African-Americans and beyond, Yang listed a poisonous cornucopia of the inevitable social evils which arise from such outdated social structures.
China’s standing up to the new administration in Washington – and at the very first opportunity – will mark a sea change in geopolitical affairs. China knew it was going to be targeted – as a welcoming gift Biden placed sanctions on two dozen Chinese officials just prior to the landing of their diplomats – and they eagerly responded with, “Let’s fight – ideologically – because it’s clear you don’t have a solid leg to stand on anymore.”
Out with the ‘Axis of Evil’ and in with the ‘Allies of Sovereignty’
Yang’s speech clearly ends the era of the “Axis of Evil”, declared by George W. Bush in his 2002 state of the union address, which put Iran, Iraq and North Korea at the top of the list for allegedly being sponsors of terrorism. However, the actual policy of America was: whoever was not “with us” was an evil entity for being “against us”, and thus Bush II essentially declared at the point of a spear that it was now a unipolar world.
In a new column titled “Welcome to shocked & awed 21st century geopolitics” indispensable global journalist Pepe Escobar agreed that China’s hour-long diplomatic give-and-take meant that “21st century geopolitics will never be the same again”. He also noted that the unified, unbowed response to Yang’s speech by Iran, China and Russia amounted to an open “triple slap on the (US) hegemon” with a dueling glove.
So what is it which unifies this Asian triumvirate?
It’s a group whose essential demand is something which resonates universally, and which was the only logical and inevitable retort to those (the US, EU & Israel) who insist on a unipolar world: it’s an “alliance of sovereignty”, i.e. the right to resist a unipolar world where domestic affairs cannot be decided locally. The fundamental basis of this stance is anti-imperialism.
Sovereignty is what France denies to Africa, what the Monroe Doctrine still denies to Latin America, what Israel denies to the Middle East and what – it’s often poorly understood – Brussels denies to the southern and eastern members of its own bloc. Sovereignty is an essential demand in a world full of nations but it’s an illegitimate demand and even seditious blasphemy to assert, as Yang did, that, “Neither the United States itself nor the Western world represent international public opinion.”
Let the US and Israel continue to wave the bloody flag of World War II and perhaps dub Iran, Russia and China the “Axis of Evil II” all they want: As the Yellow Vests, Brexit and Trump illustrate, many of their own subjects are already painfully aware that national sovereignty is a human right which has become unbearably stifled in favor of 1%-er capitalist globalization.
The roles of the ‘Allies of Sovereignty’ get more and more openly declared
Obviously, once China gets involved militarily then it’s all over – there will be a global victory for sovereignty.
Russia got involved militarily in Syria — the US lacked the diplomatic credibility for a repeat of the Iraq & Afghanistan invasions, and they lacked the military supremacy, and they also blinked because they have lost faith in their own cause — and they were able to assure the sovereignty of Syria.
Iran is the most involved militarily: they take the most risks and remain the most at risk of assaults – this is perhaps the price to be paid for earning the partnership of those two much larger regions, both of which are big enough to be continents. Revolutionary Iran has won many regional countries if not outright sovereignty then at least temporary reprieves, measures of peace and, that most essential ingredient, hope. Iran deranges the West the most: there is no logical reason for Iran to be included with these two much larger powers except for the fact that Iran obviously punches way above its weight solely via decades of advanced political modernity, social merit and intelligent redistribution of its natural economic resources.
China and Russia are in a conundrum which was made clear in both Yang’s remarks and by Russia’s official response, which said that Moscow’s relationship with the EU, “has been destroyed by unilateral decisions made from Brussels”: China and Russia are trying to uphold a rights-based system of international law with a triumvirate who has no respect for it.
The United Nations – the fulcrum of this system – is totally irrelevant to Americans. Given the “you’re either with us or against us” worldview they openly declared – with all the subsequent violations of international law via illegal sanctions, via Guantanamo Bay, via pulling out of treaties like the JCPOA, etc. – Moscow and Beijing should have realized that “only unilateral decisions” has been the Western worldview for many years. The West will never say what China and Russia apparently want to hear: “You’re either with the United Nations or against us.”
Contrarily, Iran has far fewer expectations that the UN is an impartial body. Going back to the chemical weapons atrocities by Iraq more than three decades ago, Iran sees it is quite necessary to take risks because the “international community” – dominated by Western interests and democracy-gutting vetoes – so often don’t come to save the innocent until after the bullets have flown.
What is the “international community”? To many – like the US – it is nothing. To others – like China, Russia and France – it is worth saving and using, and largely because they can get enough of what they want. To many others – like Iran and countless other nations – it is not useful without major reforms first. But these analyses are all moot:
The concept of national “sovereignty” can and must exist before, during and after any discussion of how, what, who, where or when this “international community” is formally arranged – refusal to recognize this necessarily implies some sort of one-state/unipolar world.
“Sovereignty” needs allies today, but the situation of “sovereignty” is not as dire as it was in 2002, (although a Yellow Vest will certainly disagree). In case the new Biden administration was wondering they now know: Beijing is not about to side with the Western triumvirate (or, more accurately, their 1% class) over their own sovereignty.
If pushed like Russia was in Syria, Beijing may even fight to protect the sovereignty of certain other nations, such as Iran.
Geopolitics moves much slower than the average person may think, but for a plethora of enormous reasons which go far beyond a debate in Alaska – four years of the curtain-lifting outsider Donald Trump, the “no strings attached for bankers” fiscal policy disasters of QE and ZIRP, an unregulated private high finance sector, the disputed election of Joe Biden, the atrocious Great Lockdown decisions of the West, etc. – the unilateral world ordered by the West has wilted. What we now have is two camps which contain half the world.
What’s key to grasp is that what is truly “up for grabs” is the other half: Latin America and Africa. For centuries they have had no sovereignty – and the plunder of their wealth is what led to the West’s current success – and restoring it is the inevitable goal of the “Allies of Sovereignty”.
Were the Western triumvirate (and we can include a fourth note to that chord: many of the key members of the 54-nation English Commonwealth) not so bloody capitalist-imperialist they would be working to maintain the current status quo between China and the West which has been, ultimately, mutually-beneficial for both groups for several decades.
However, Beijing said the new administration of Joe Biden came to the first Sino-US summit to emit “a strong smell of gunpowder and drama” – China was clearly unimpressed, and they clearly know who their real allies are.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV.
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Filed under: American Hegemony, China, EU, Global Elite, Russia, USA | Tagged: Axis of Evil, “sovereign democracy”, Israeli Elections, Monroe Doctrine, Netanyahu, The Zio-temporary entity, US Election 2020 | Comments Off on US, Israel, EU election farces or ‘Allies of sovereignty’ – Iran, China, Russia?
March 11, 2021
By Pepe Escobar – posted with permission and first posted at Asia Times
I have a new book out, Raging Twenties: Great Power Politics Meets Techno-Feudalism. For those who don’t use Amazon, here is a mini-guide on how to order and buy the book.
The journey of a book finding its readers is always an idiosyncratic, mysterious and fascinating process. To set the scene, permit me a short presentation drawn from the book’s introduction.
The Raging Twenties started with a murder: a missile strike on General Soleimani at Baghdad airport on January 3. Almost simultaneously, that geopolitical lethality was amplified when a virus trained its microscopic missiles on all of humankind.
Ever since, it’s been as if time had stood still – or imploded. We cannot even begin to imagine the consequences of the anthropological rupture caused by SARS-CoV-2.
Throughout the process, language has been metastasizing, yielding a whole new basket of concepts. Circuit breaker. Biosecurity. Negative feedback loops. State of exception. Necropolitics. New brutalism. Hybrid neofascism. New viral paradigm.
This new terminology collates to the lineaments of a new regime, actually a hybrid mode of production: turbo-capitalism re-engineered as rentier capitalism 2.0, where Silicon Valley behemoths take the place of estates, and also of the state. That is the “techno-feudal” option, as defined by economist Cedric Durand.
Squeezed and intoxicated by information performing the role of a dominatrix, we have been presented with a new map of Dystopia – packaged as a “new normal” featuring cognitive dissonance, a bio-security paradigm, the inevitability of virtual work, social distancing as a political program, info-surveillance and triumphant trans-humanism.
A sanitary shock was superimposed over the ongoing economic shock – where financialization always takes precedence over the real economy.
But then the glimpse of a rosy future was offered towards more “inclusive “capitalism, in the form of a Great Reset, designed by a tiny plutocratic oligarchy duly self-appointed as Saviors.
All of these themes evolve along the 25 small chapters of this book, interacting with the larger geopolitical chessboard.
SARS-CoV-2 accelerated what was already a swing of the power center of the world toward Asia.
Since World War II, a great deal of the planet has lived as cogs of a tributary system, with the hegemon constantly transferring wealth and influence to itself – via what analyst Ray McGovern describes as the SS (security state) enforcing the will of the MICIMATT (Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank) complex.
This world-system is irretrievably fading out – especially due to the interpolations of the Russia-China strategic partnership. And that’s the other overarching theme of this book.
As a proposal to escape our excess hyper-reality show, this book does not offer recipes, but trails: configurations where there’s no master plan, but multiple entryways and multiple possibilities.
These trails are networked to the narrative of a possible, emerging new configuration, in the anchoring essay titled Eurasia, The Hegemon and the Three Sovereigns.
In a running dialogue, you will have Michel Foucault talking to Lao Tzu, Marcus Aurelius talking to Vladimir Putin, philosophy talking to geoeconomics – all the while attempting to defuse the toxic interaction of the New Great Depression and variations of Cold War 2.0.
With the exception of the anchoring essay, this is a series of columns, arranged chronologically, originally published here by Asia Times and also by Consortium News/Washington D.C., and Strategic Culture/Moscow, widely republished and translated across the Global South.
They come from a global nomad. Since the mid 1990s I have lived and worked between (mostly) East and West. With the exception of the first two months of 2020, I spent the bulk of the Raging Twenties in Asia, in Buddhist land.
So you will feel that the scent of these words is inescapably Buddhist, but in many aspects even more Daoist and Confucianist. In Asia we learn that the Dao transcends everything as it provides serenity. There’s much we can learn from Daoist humanism, no metaphysics necessary.
The year 2021 may be even fiercer than 2020. Yet nothing condemns us to be lost in a wilderness of mirrors while, as Pound writes:
a tawdry cheapness / shall reign throughout our days.
The hidden “secret” of this book may be actually a yearning – that we’re able to muster our inner strength and choose a Daoist trail to ride the whale.
Pepe Escobar’s new book is Raging Twenties: Great Power Politics Meets Techno-Feudalism.
Follow him on Telegram.
Filed under: American crimes, Global Elite, IRAQ, Putin | Tagged: cold war 2, COVID-19 pandemic, Pepe Escobar, Sino-Russian relations, Suleimani's Assassination, The Great Reset | Comments Off on Our lives between the covers of the Raging Twenties
January 27, 2021
This is the live stream video. The transcript is now being posted as it becomes available.
Update: Transcript complete.
President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr Schwab, dear Klaus,
Colleagues,
I have been to Davos many times, attending the events organised by Mr Schwab, even back in the 1990s. Klaus [Schwab] just recalled that we met in 1992. Indeed, during my time in St Petersburg, I visited this important forum many times. I would like to thank you for this opportunity today to convey my point of view to the expert community that gathers at this world-renowned platform thanks to the efforts of Mr Schwab.
First of all, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to greet all the World Economic Forum participants.
It is gratifying that this year, despite the pandemic, despite all the restrictions, the forum is still continuing its work. Although it is limited to online participation, the forum is taking place anyway, providing an opportunity for participants to exchange their assessments and forecasts during an open and free discussion, partially compensating for the increasing lack of in-person meetings between leaders of states, representatives of international business and the public in recent months. All this is very important now, when we have so many difficult questions to answer.
The current forum is the first one in the beginning of the third decade of the 21st century and, naturally, the majority of its topics are devoted to the profound changes that are taking place in the world.
Indeed, it is difficult to overlook the fundamental changes in the global economy, politics, social life and technology. The coronavirus pandemic, which Klaus just mentioned, which became a serious challenge for humankind, only spurred and accelerated the structural changes, the conditions for which had been created long ago. The pandemic has exacerbated the problems and imbalances that built up in the world before. There is every reason to believe that differences are likely to grow stronger. These trends may appear practically in all areas.
Needless to say, there are no direct parallels in history. However, some experts – and I respect their opinion – compare the current situation to the 1930s. One can agree or disagree, but certain analogies are still suggested by many parameters, including the comprehensive, systemic nature of the challenges and potential threats.
We are seeing a crisis of the previous models and instruments of economic development. Social stratification is growing stronger both globally and in individual countries. We have spoken about this before as well. But this, in turn, is causing today a sharp polarisation of public views, provoking the growth of populism, right- and left-wing radicalism and other extremes, and the exacerbation of domestic political processes including in the leading countries.
All this is inevitably affecting the nature of international relations and is not making them more stable or predictable. International institutions are becoming weaker, regional conflicts are emerging one after another, and the system of global security is deteriorating.
Klaus has mentioned the conversation I had yesterday with the US President on extending the New START. This is, without a doubt, a step in the right direction. Nevertheless, the differences are leading to a downward spiral. As you are aware, the inability and unwillingness to find substantive solutions to problems like this in the 20th century led to the WWII catastrophe.
Of course, such a heated global conflict is impossible in principle, I hope. This is what I am pinning my hopes on, because this would be the end of humanity. However, as I have said, the situation could take an unexpected and uncontrollable turn – unless we do something to prevent this. There is a chance that we will face a formidable break-down in global development, which will be fraught with a war of all against all and attempts to deal with contradictions through the appointment of internal and external enemies and the destruction of not only traditional values such as the family, which we hold dear in Russia, but fundamental freedoms such as the right of choice and privacy.
I would like to point out the negative demographic consequences of the ongoing social crisis and the crisis of values, which could result in humanity losing entire civilisational and cultural continents.
We have a shared responsibility to prevent this scenario, which looks like a grim dystopia, and to ensure instead that our development takes a different trajectory – positive, harmonious and creative.
In this context, I would like to speak in more detail about the main challenges which, I believe, the international community is facing.
The first one is socioeconomic.
Indeed, judging by the statistics, even despite the deep crises in 2008 and 2020, the last 40 years can be referred to as successful or even super successful for the global economy. Starting from 1980, global per capita GDP has doubled in terms of real purchasing power parity. This is definitely a positive indicator.
Globalisation and domestic growth have led to strong growth in developing countries and lifted over a billion people out of poverty. So, if we take an income level of $5.50 per person per day (in terms of PPP) then, according to the World Bank, in China, for example, the number of people with lower incomes went from 1.1 billion in 1990 down to less than 300 million in recent years. This is definitely China’s success. In Russia, this number went from 64 million people in 1999 to about 5 million now. We believe this is also progress in our country, and in the most important area, by the way.
Still, the main question, the answer to which can, in many respects, provide a clue to today’s problems, is what was the nature of this global growth and who benefitted from it most.
Of course, as I mentioned earlier, developing countries benefitted a lot from the growing demand for their traditional and even new products. However, this integration into the global economy has resulted in more than just new jobs or greater export earnings. It also had its social costs, including a significant gap in individual incomes.
What about the developed economies where average incomes are much higher? It may sound ironic, but stratification in the developed countries is even deeper. According to the World Bank, 3.6 million people subsisted on incomes of under $5.50 per day in the United States in 2000, but in 2016 this number grew to 5.6 million people.
Meanwhile, globalisation led to a significant increase in the revenue of large multinational, primarily US and European, companies.
By the way, in terms of individual income, the developed economies in Europe show the same trend as the United States.
But then again, in terms of corporate profits, who got hold of the revenue? The answer is clear: one percent of the population.
And what has happened in the lives of other people? In the past 30 years, in a number of developed countries, the real incomes of over half of the citizens have been stagnating, not growing. Meanwhile, the cost of education and healthcare services has gone up. Do you know by how much? Three times.
In other words, millions of people even in wealthy countries have stopped hoping for an increase of their incomes. In the meantime, they are faced with the problem of how to keep themselves and their parents healthy and how to provide their children with a decent education.
There is no call for a huge mass of people and their number keeps growing. Thus, according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), in 2019, 21 percent or 267 million young people in the world did not study or work anywhere. Even among those who had jobs (these are interesting figures) 30 percent had an income below $3.2 per day in terms of purchasing power parity.
These imbalances in global socioeconomic development are a direct result of the policy pursued in the 1980s, which was often vulgar or dogmatic. This policy rested on the so-called Washington Consensus with its unwritten rules, when the priority was given to the economic growth based on a private debt in conditions of deregulation and low taxes on the wealthy and the corporations.
As I have already mentioned, the coronavirus pandemic has only exacerbated these problems. In the last year, the global economy sustained its biggest decline since WWII. By July, the labour market had lost almost 500 million jobs. Yes, half of them were restored by the end of the year but still almost 250 million jobs were lost. This is a big and very alarming figure. In the first nine months of the past year alone, the losses of earnings amounted to $3.5 trillion. This figure is going up and, hence, social tension is on the rise.
At the same time, post-crisis recovery is not simple at all. If some 20 or 30 years ago, we would have solved the problem through stimulating macroeconomic policies (incidentally, this is still being done), today such mechanisms have reached their limits and are no longer effective. This resource has outlived its usefulness. This is not an unsubstantiated personal conclusion.
According to the IMF, the aggregate sovereign and private debt level has approached 200 percent of global GDP, and has even exceeded 300 percent of national GDP in some countries. At the same time, interest rates in developed market economies are kept at almost zero and are at a historic low in emerging market economies.
Taken together, this makes economic stimulation with traditional methods, through an increase in private loans virtually impossible. The so-called quantitative easing is only increasing the bubble of the value of financial assets and deepening the social divide. The widening gap between the real and virtual economies (incidentally, representatives of the real economy sector from many countries have told me about this on numerous occasions, and I believe that the business representatives attending this meeting will agree with me) presents a very real threat and is fraught with serious and unpredictable shocks.
Hopes that it will be possible to reboot the old growth model are connected with rapid technological development. Indeed, during the past 20 years we have created a foundation for the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution based on the wide use of AI and automation and robotics. The coronavirus pandemic has greatly accelerated such projects and their implementation.
However, this process is leading to new structural changes, I am thinking in particular of the labour market. This means that very many people could lose their jobs unless the state takes effective measures to prevent this. Most of these people are from the so-called middle class, which is the basis of any modern society.
In this context, I would like to mention the second fundamental challenge of the forthcoming decade – the socio-political one. The rise of economic problems and inequality is splitting society, triggering social, racial and ethnic intolerance. Indicatively, these tensions are bursting out even in the countries with seemingly civil and democratic institutions that are designed to alleviate and stop such phenomena and excesses.
The systemic socioeconomic problems are evoking such social discontent that they require special attention and real solutions. The dangerous illusion that they may be ignored or pushed into the corner is fraught with serious consequences.
In this case, society will still be divided politically and socially. This is bound to happen because people are dissatisfied not by some abstract issues but by real problems that concern everyone regardless of the political views that people have or think they have. Meanwhile, real problems evoke discontent.
I would like to emphasise one more important point. Modern technological giants, especially digital companies, have started playing an increasing role in the life of society. Much is being said about this now, especially regarding the events that took place during the election campaign in the US. They are not just some economic giants. In some areas, they are de facto competing with states. Their audiences consist of billions of users that pass a considerable part of their lives in these eco systems.
In the opinion of these companies, their monopoly is optimal for organising technological and business processes. Maybe so but society is wondering whether such monopolism meets public interests. Where is the border between successful global business, in-demand services and big data consolidation and the attempts to manage society at one’s own discretion and in a tough manner, replace legal democratic institutions and essentially usurp or restrict the natural right of people to decide for themselves how to live, what to choose and what position to express freely? We have just seen all of these phenomena in the US and everyone understands what I am talking about now. I am confident that the overwhelming majority of people share this position, including the participants in the current event.
And finally, the third challenge, or rather, a clear threat that we may well run into in the coming decade is the further exacerbation of many international problems. After all, unresolved and mounting internal socioeconomic problems may push people to look for someone to blame for all their troubles and to redirect their irritation and discontent. We can already see this. We feel that the degree of foreign policy propaganda rhetoric is growing.
We can expect the nature of practical actions to also become more aggressive, including pressure on the countries that do not agree with a role of obedient controlled satellites, use of trade barriers, illegitimate sanctions and restrictions in the financial, technological and cyber spheres.
Such a game with no rules critically increases the risk of unilateral use of military force. The use of force under a far-fetched pretext is what this danger is all about. This multiplies the likelihood of new hot spots flaring up on our planet. This concerns us.
Colleagues, despite this tangle of differences and challenges, we certainly should keep a positive outlook on the future and remain committed to a constructive agenda. It would be naive to come up with universal miraculous recipes for resolving the above problems. But we certainly need to try to work out common approaches, bring our positions as close as possible and identify sources that generate global tensions.
Once again, I want to emphasise my thesis that accumulated socioeconomic problems are the fundamental reason for unstable global growth.
So, the key question today is how to build a programme of actions in order to not only quickly restore the global and national economies affected by the pandemic, but to ensure that this recovery is sustainable in the long run, relies on a high-quality structure and helps overcome the burden of social imbalances. Clearly, with the above restrictions and macroeconomic policy in mind, economic growth will largely rely on fiscal incentives with state budgets and central banks playing the key role.
Actually, we can see these kinds of trends in the developed countries and also in some developing economies as well. An increasing role of the state in the socioeconomic sphere at the national level obviously implies greater responsibility and close interstate interaction when it comes to issues on the global agenda.
Calls for inclusive growth and for creating decent standards of living for everyone are regularly made at various international forums. This is how it should be, and this is an absolutely correct view of our joint efforts.
It is clear that the world cannot continue creating an economy that will only benefit a million people, or even the golden billion. This is a destructive precept. This model is unbalanced by default. The recent developments, including migration crises, have reaffirmed this once again.
We must now proceed from stating facts to action, investing our efforts and resources into reducing social inequality in individual countries and into gradually balancing the economic development standards of different countries and regions in the world. This would put an end to migration crises.
The essence and focus of this policy aimed at ensuring sustainable and harmonious development are clear. They imply the creation of new opportunities for everyone, conditions under which everyone will be able to develop and realise their potential regardless of where they were born and are living
I would like to point out four key priorities, as I see them. This might be old news, but since Klaus has allowed me to present Russia’s position, my position, I will certainly do so.
First, everyone must have comfortable living conditions, including housing and affordable transport, energy and public utility infrastructure. Plus environmental welfare, something that must not be overlooked.
Second, everyone must be sure that they will have a job that can ensure sustainable growth of income and, hence, decent standards of living. Everyone must have access to an effective system of lifelong education, which is absolutely indispensable now and which will allow people to develop, make a career and receive a decent pension and social benefits upon retirement.
Third, people must be confident that they will receive high-quality and effective medical care whenever necessary, and that the national healthcare system will guarantee access to modern medical services.
Fourth, regardless of the family income, children must be able to receive a decent education and realise their potential. Every child has potential.
This is the only way to guarantee the cost-effective development of the modern economy, in which people are perceived as the end, rather than the means. Only those countries capable of attaining progress in at least these four areas will facilitate their own sustainable and all-inclusive development. These areas are not exhaustive, and I have just mentioned the main aspects.
A strategy, also being implemented by my country, hinges on precisely these approaches. Our priorities revolve around people, their families, and they aim to ensure demographic development, to protect the people, to improve their well-being and to protect their health. We are now working to create favourable conditions for worthy and cost-effective work and successful entrepreneurship and to ensure digital transformation as the foundation of a high-tech future for the entire country, rather than that of a narrow group of companies.
We intend to focus the efforts of the state, the business community and civil society on these tasks and to implement a budgetary policy with the relevant incentives in the years ahead.
We are open to the broadest international cooperation, while achieving our national goals, and we are confident that cooperation on matters of the global socioeconomic agenda would have a positive influence on the overall atmosphere in global affairs, and that interdependence in addressing acute current problems would also increase mutual trust which is particularly important and particularly topical today.
Obviously, the era linked with attempts to build a centralised and unipolar world order has ended. To be honest, this era did not even begin. A mere attempt was made in this direction, but this, too, is now history. The essence of this monopoly ran counter to our civilisation’s cultural and historical diversity.
The reality is such that really different development centres with their distinctive models, political systems and public institutions have taken shape in the world. Today, it is very important to create mechanisms for harmonising their interests to prevent the diversity and natural competition of the development poles from triggering anarchy and a series of protracted conflicts.
To achieve this we must, in part, consolidate and develop universal institutions that bear special responsibility for ensuring stability and security in the world and for formulating and defining the rules of conduct both in the global economy and trade.
I have mentioned more than once that many of these institutions are not going through the best of times. We have been bringing this up at various summits. Of course, these institutions were established in a different era. This is clear. Probably, they even find it difficult to parry modern challenges for objective reasons. However, I would like to emphasise that this is not an excuse to give up on them without offering anything in exchange, all the more so since these structures have unique experience of work and a huge but largely untapped potential. And it certainly needs to be carefully adapted to modern realities. It is too early to dump it in the dustbin of history. It is essential to work with it and to use it.
Naturally, in addition to this, it is important to use new, additional formats of cooperation. I am referring to such phenomenon as multiversity. Of course, it is also possible to interpret it differently, in one’s own way. It may be viewed as an attempt to push one’s own interests or feign the legitimacy of one’s own actions when all others can merely nod in approval. Or it may be a concerted effort of sovereign states to resolve specific problems for common benefit. In this case, this may refer to the efforts to settle regional conflicts, establish technological alliances and resolve many other issues, including the formation of cross-border transport and energy corridors and so on and so forth.
Friends,
Ladies and gentlemen,
This opens wide possibilities for collaboration. Multi-faceted approaches do work. We know from practice that they work. As you may be aware, within the framework of, for example, the Astana format, Russia, Iran and Turkey are doing much to stabilise the situation in Syria and are now helping establish a political dialogue in that country, of course, alongside other countries. We are doing this together. And, importantly, not without success.
For example, Russia has undertaken energetic mediation efforts to stop the armed conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, in which peoples and states that are close to us – Azerbaijan and Armenia – are involved. We strived to follow the key agreements reached by the OSCE Minsk Group, in particular between its co-chairs – Russia, the United States and France. This is also a very good example of cooperation.
As you may be aware, a trilateral Statement by Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia was signed in November. Importantly, by and large, it is being steadily implemented. The bloodshed was stopped. This is the most important thing. We managed to stop the bloodshed, achieve a complete ceasefire and start the stabilisation process.
Now the international community and, undoubtedly, the countries involved in crisis resolution are faced with the task of helping the affected areas overcome humanitarian challenges related to returning refugees, rebuilding destroyed infrastructure, protecting and restoring historical, religious and cultural landmarks.
Or, another example. I will note the role of Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United States and a number of other countries in stabilising the global energy market. This format has become a productive example of interaction between the states with different, sometimes even diametrically opposite assessments of global processes, and with their own outlooks on the world.
At the same time there are certainly problems that concern every state without exception. One example is cooperation in studying and countering the coronavirus infection. As you know, several strains of this dangerous virus have emerged. The international community must create conditions for cooperation between scientists and other specialists to understand how and why coronavirus mutations occur, as well as the difference between the various strains.
Of course, we need to coordinate the efforts of the entire world, as the UN Secretary-General suggests and as we urged recently at the G20 summit. It is essential to join and coordinate the efforts of the world in countering the spread of the virus and making the much needed vaccines more accessible. We need to help the countries that need support, including the African nations. I am referring to expanding the scale of testing and vaccinations.
We see that mass vaccination is accessible today, primarily to people in the developed countries. Meanwhile, millions of people in the world are deprived even of the hope for this protection. In practice, such inequality could create a common threat because this is well known and has been said many times that it will drag out the epidemic and uncontrolled hotbeds will continue. The epidemic has no borders.
There are no borders for infections or pandemics. Therefore, we must learn the lessons from the current situation and suggest measures aimed at improving the monitoring of the emergence of such diseases and the development of such cases in the world.
Another important area that requires coordination, in fact, the coordination of the efforts of the entire international community, is to preserve the climate and nature of our planet. I will not say anything new in this respect.
Only together can we achieve progress in resolving such critical problems as global warming, the reduction of forestlands, the loss of biodiversity, the increase in waste, the pollution of the ocean with plastic and so on, and find an optimal balance between economic development and the preservation of the environment for the current and future generations.
My friends,
We all know that competition and rivalry between countries in world history never stopped, do not stop and will never stop. Differences and a clash of interests are also natural for such a complicated body as human civilisation. However, in critical times this did not prevent it from pooling its efforts – on the contrary, it united in the most important destinies of humankind. I believe this is the period we are going through today.
It is very important to honestly assess the situation, to concentrate on real rather than artificial global problems, on removing the imbalances that are critical for the entire international community. I am sure that in this way we will be able to achieve success and befittingly parry the challenges of the third decade of the 21st century.
I would like to finish my speech at this point and thank all of you for your patience and attention.
Thank you very much.
Klaus Schwab: Thank you very much, Mr President.
Many of the issues raised, certainly, are part of our discussions here during the Davos Week. We complement the speeches also by task forces which address some of the issues you mentioned, like not leaving the developing world behind, taking care of, let’s say, creating the skills for tomorrow, and so on. Mr President, we prepare for the discussion afterwards, but I have one very short question. It is a question which we discussed when I visited you in St Petersburg 14 months ago. How do you see the future of European-Russian relations? Just a short answer.
Vladimir Putin: You know there are things of an absolutely fundamental nature such as our common culture. Major European political figures have talked in the recent past about the need to expand relations between Europe and Russia, saying that Russia is part of Europe. Geographically and, most importantly, culturally, we are one civilisation. French leaders have spoken of the need to create a single space from Lisbon to the Urals. I believe, and I mentioned this, why the Urals? To Vladivostok.
I personally heard the outstanding European politician, former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, say that if we want European culture to survive and remain a centre of world civilisation in the future, keeping in mind the challenges and trends underlying the world civilisation, then of course, Western Europe and Russia must be together. It is hard to disagree with that. We hold exactly the same point of view.
Clearly, today’s situation is not normal. We need to return to a positive agenda. This is in the interests of Russia and, I am confident, the European countries. Clearly, the pandemic has also played a negative role. Our trade with the European Union is down, although the EU is one of our key trade and economic partners. Our agenda includes returning to positive trends and building up trade and economic cooperation.
Europe and Russia are absolutely natural partners from the point of view of the economy, research, technology and spatial development for European culture, since Russia, being a country of European culture, is a little larger than the entire EU in terms of territory. Russia’s resources and human potential are enormous. I will not go over everything that is positive in Europe, which can also benefit the Russian Federation.
Only one thing matters: we need to approach the dialogue with each other honestly. We need to discard the phobias of the past, stop using the problems that we inherited from past centuries in internal political processes and look to the future. If we can rise above these problems of the past and get rid of these phobias, then we will certainly enjoy a positive stage in our relations.
We are ready for this, we want this, and we will strive to make this happen. But love is impossible if it is declared only by one side. It must be mutual.
Klaus Schwab: Thank you very much, Mr President.
Filed under: China, Climate Change, Global Elite, Globalization, Putin, Russia, Syria | Tagged: Armenian-Azerbaijani war, Biden, COVID-19 pandemic, Davos, G20, Karabakh, WWII | Comments Off on Russian President Putin Delivers Speech at Virtual World Economic Forum
January 04, 2021
https://thesaker.is/we-are-at-war/by Peter Koenig for the Saker Blog
We are at war. Yes. And I don’t mean the west against the east, against Russa and China, nor the entire world against an invisible corona virus. No. We, the common people, are at war against an ever more authoritarian and tyrannical elitist Globalist system, reigned by a small group of multi-billionaires, that planned already decades ago to take power over the people, to control them reduce them to what a minute elite believes is an “adequate number” to inhabit Mother Earth – and to digitize and robotize the rest of the survivors, as a sort of serfs. It’s a combination of George Orwell’s “1984” and Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World”.
Welcome to the age of the transhumans. If we allow it. That’s why vaccination is needed in warp speed, to inject us with transgenic substances that may change our DNA, lest we may wake up, or at least a critical mass may become conscious – and change the dynamics. Because dynamics are not predictable, especially not in the long-term.
The war is real and the sooner we all realize it, the sooner those in masks and those in social distancing take cognizance of the worldwide dystopian situations we have allowed to become our governments, the better our chance to retake our sovereign selves. Today we are confronted with totally illegal and oppressive rules, all imposed under the pretext of “health protection”. Non-obedience is punishable by huge fines; military and police enforced rules: Mask wearing, social distancing, keeping within the allowed radius of our “homes”, quarantining, staying away from our friends and families.
Actually, the sooner We, the People, will take up an old forgotten characteristic of human kind – “solidarity” – and fight this war with our solidarity, with our love for each other, for mankind, with our love for LIFE and our Love for Mother Earth, the sooner we become again independent, self-assured beings, an attribute we have lost gradually over the last decades, at the latest since the beginning of the neoliberal onslaught of the 1980s. Slice by tiny slice of human rights and civil rights have been cut off under false pretexts and propaganda – “security” – to the point where we begged for more security and gladly gave away more of our freedoms and rights. How sad.
Now, the salami has been sliced away. We suddenly realize, there is nothing left. Its irrecoverable. We have allowed it to happen before our eyes, for promised comfort and propaganda lies by these small groups of elitists – by the Globalists, in their thirst for endless power and endless greed – and endless enlargements of their riches, of their billions. – Are billions of any monetary union “riches”? – Doubtfully. They have no love. No soul, no heart just a mechanical blood-pump that keeps them alive.
These people, the Globalists, they have sunk so deep in their moral dysfunction, totally devoid of ethics, that their time has come – either to be judged against international human rights standards, war crimes and crimes against humanity – similar as was done by the Nuremberg Trials after WWII, or to disappear, blinded away by a new epoch of Light.
As the number of awakening people is increasing, the western Powers that Be (PTB) are becoming increasingly nervous and spare no efforts coercing all kinds of people, para-government, administrative staff, medical personnel, even independent medical doctors into defending and promoting the official narrative.
It is so obvious, when you have known these people in “normal” times, their progressive opinions suddenly turning, by 180 degrees, to the official narrative, defending the government lies, the lies of the bought “scientific Task Forces” that advise the governments, and thereby provide governments with alibis to “tighten the screws” a bit more (Ms. Merkel’s remarks) around the people, the very people the governments should defend and work for; the lies and deceptive messages coming from “scientists” who may have been promised “eternal, endless ladders of careers”, or of lives in a hidden paradise?
What more may they get in turn for trying to subvert their friends’, peers’, patients’ opinions about the horror disease “covid-19”? – Possibly something that is as good a s life itself – and is basically cost free for the avaricious rich. For example, a vax-certificate without having been vaxxed by the toxic injections – opening the world of travel and pleasurable activities to them as “before”.
Other special benefits may include dispensation from social distancing, mask wearing, quarantining – and who knows, a hefty monetary award. Nothing would be surprising, when you see how this tiny evil cell is growing like a cancer to take over full power of the world – including and especially Russia and China, where the bulk of the world’s natural resources are buried, and where technological and economic advances far outrank the greed-economy of the west. They will not succeed.
What if the peons don’t behave? – Job loss, withdrawal of medial licenses, physical threats to families and loved ones, and more.
The Globalists evil actions and influence-peddling is limited in the east, where they are confronted with educated and awakened people.
We are at war. Indeed. The 99.999% against the 0.001%. Their tactics are dividing to conquer, accompanied by this latest brilliant idea – launching an invisible enemy, a virus, a plandemic, and a fear campaign to oppress and tyrannize the entire world, all 193 UN member countries.
The infamous words, spoken already more than half a century ago by Rockefeller protégé, Henry Kissinger, come to mind: “Who controls food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world.”
Quoting some lines and thoughts of a 1 January 2021, RT article, “Civil war, medical discrimination, spy satellites and cyborgs! How 2021 could make us yearn for 2020”
(https://www.rt.com/op-ed/511255-2021-chaos-civil-war-vaccines/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Email) – may point us in a direction of what may happen in 2021, we certainly do not yearn for.
“People everywhere are eager to bid farewell to 2020, a year in which our lives were turned upside down by power-mad elites who seized the Covid-19 pandemic as a chance to go full police state. But be careful what you wish for…. merely putting up a new calendar does nothing to address [the mounting repression and tyranny], which seem certain to reach a breaking point. Humanity has been pushed to the limit with arbitrary rules, enforced poverty, and mandated isolation — it will only take a spark or two for things to explode.”
And – ”As vaccines are rolled out to the general public, the divide between those obeying the rules and the dissidents will only grow. Those who decline to get the jab will be treated as pariahs, banned from some public spaces and told it’s their fault life hasn’t gone back to normal, just as so-called “anti-maskers” have been.”
And more glorious prospects – “Anyone who isn’t thrilled by the idea of ingesting an experimental compound whose makers have been indemnified from any lawsuits, will be deemed an enemy of the state, even separated from their children or removed from their home as a health risk. Neighbors will gleefully rat each other out for the equivalent of an extra chocolate ration, meaning even the most slavishly obedient individuals could end up in “concentration camps” for upsetting the wrong person.”
—–
Yes, we are in the midst of war. A war that has already ravaged our society, divided it all the way down to families and friends. If we are not careful, we may not look our children and grand children in the eyes, because we knew, we ought to have known what was and is going on, what is being done, by a small dark power elite – the Globalists. We must step out of our comfort zone, and confront the enemy with an awakened mind of consciousness and a heart filled with love – but also with fierce resistance.
If we fail to step up and stand up for our rights, this war goes on to prepare future generations – to abstain from congregating with other people. They are alsready indoctrinating our kids into keeping away from friends, school colleagues, peers, and from playing in groups with each other – as the new Normal. The self-declared cupula – the crème of the crop of civilization – the Globalist evil masters, already compromised and continue to do so, the education systems throughout the globe to instill into kids and young adults that wearing masks is essential for survival, and “social distancing” is the only way forward. See Children of the Great Reset https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ncE5yYQvJY .
They know damned well that once a civilization has lost its natural cohesion – the social fabric is broken, the very fabric that keeps a civilization together and dynamically advancing. The “dynamic advancing” – or simply dynamics itself – is their nightmare, because dynamics is what makes life tick – life, people, societies, entire nations and continents. Without dynamics life on the planet would stand still.
And that’s what they want – a Globalist dictator, controlling a small population of serfs, or robotized slaves, that move only when told, own nothing and are given a digital blockchain controlled universal income, that, depending on their behavior and obedience, they may use to buy food, pleasure and comfort. Once the slaves are dispensable or incorrigible, their electronically controlled brains are simply turned off – RIP.
This may turn out to be the most devastating war mankind has ever fought. May We, the People, see through this horrendous sham which is already now playing out, in Year One of the UN Agenda 21 /30; and may We, the People, the commons, win this war against a power-thirsty elite and its bought administrators and “scientists” throughout the world – and restore a sovereign, unmasked, socially coherent society – in solidarity.
Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he has worked for over 30 years on water and environment around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020)
Peter Koenig is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
Filed under: American Elite, China, Freedom, Global Elite, Russia | Tagged: COVID-19 pandemic, Divide and conquer | Comments Off on We are at War
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UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 