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This is a must-read if you want to learn about Russia's internal politics as they affect Russian economic foreign policy.  There is a video of a roundtable discussion including Khazin touching on the same topics here. http://goo.gl/3E4QWL (I've borrowed the clip below from that page.) Mikhail Khazin is a mathematician and economist in Russia (graduated from Moscow State University in 1984). After working in various government and banking positions, he was discharged from his position as Deputy Chief of the Economic Directorate for attempting to fight corruption during Russia's failed experiment at privatization in 1997. Since 2000, he has worked as a consultant. He's an acquaintance of President Putin and is well informed of Kremlin politics, including the behind-the-scenes power struggles.  Besides being an expert economist, he seems to have a knack for predicting major world events. In 2000 he predicted the 2008 economic collapse (having previously predicted Russia's 1998 default). Then, on 10 September 2001, he predicted large-scale, U.S.-organized terror attacks as a cover for the States' economic deterioration. Now, in August of this year he predicted the end of a period of consumption stimulated by credit and a fresh round of bankruptcies and unemployment in the last quarter of 2014.  Back in September he had this to say about the current 'dollar economy': "There is nothing we will gain anymore from the dollar model. It's run dry."

Urban Survival website.  George Ure & Clif High will discuss their Web Bot technology on Coast to Coast 4/01/2010, which has continued to give archetype descriptors of future events. They'll share predictions about world events and the U.S. economy, and what's in store for the summer of 2010. The WebBot predictions are based on a massive algorithm analyzing conversations and documents.  They focus on key words, basing their predictions on human intuition.  amazing stuff.  One of the terms that stuck out is that of "SKED", a Roman term used to describe the debating analysis of a opposing speakers where, the language and presentation style of the opponent was believed to reveal the reality of who they were, where they came from  and what was their heartfelt viewpoint. SKED istself could also stand for subjective knowledge escalated through global distribution. Great predictions.  Watch out for July 2010, where the revolution against the illuminati gets very real.  The dollar is being intentionally diminished and destroyed.  This will culminate in November of 2010, with something approaching civil war in the USA brought on by the collapse of the dollar.

Incredible must read analysis. Take away: the world is going to go "medevil". It's the only way out of this mess. Since the zero hedge layout is so bad, i'm going to post as much of the article as Diigo will allow: Jim Kunstler's 2014 Forecast - Burning Down The House Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/06/2014 19:36 -0500 Submitted by James H. Kunstler of Kunstler.com , Many of us in the Long Emergency crowd and like-minded brother-and-sisterhoods remain perplexed by the amazing stasis in our national life, despite the gathering tsunami of forces arrayed to rock our economy, our culture, and our politics. Nothing has yielded to these forces already in motion, so far. Nothing changes, nothing gives, yet. It's like being buried alive in Jell-O. It's embarrassing to appear so out-of-tune with the consensus, but we persevere like good soldiers in a just war. Paper and digital markets levitate, central banks pull out all the stops of their magical reality-tweaking machine to manipulate everything, accounting fraud pervades public and private enterprise, everything is mis-priced, all official statistics are lies of one kind or another, the regulating authorities sit on their hands, lost in raptures of online pornography (or dreams of future employment at Goldman Sachs), the news media sprinkles wishful-thinking propaganda about a mythical "recovery" and the "shale gas miracle" on a credulous public desperate to believe, the routine swindles of medicine get more cruel and blatant each month, a tiny cohort of financial vampire squids suck in all the nominal wealth of society, and everybody else is left whirling down the drain of posterity in a vortex of diminishing returns and scuttled expectations. Life in the USA is like living in a broken-down, cob-jobbed, vermin-infested house that needs to be gutted, disinfected, and rebuilt - with the hope that it might come out of the restoration process retaining the better qualities of our heritage.

"The first world war... Look back with angst ... Thanks to its military, economic and soft power, America is still indispensable, particularly in dealing with threats like climate change and terror, which cross borders. But unless America behaves as a leader and the guarantor of the world order, it will be inviting regional powers to test their strength by bullying neighbouring countries. The chances are that none of the world's present dangers will lead to anything that compares to the horrors of 1914. Madness, whether motivated by race, religion or tribe, usually gives ground to rational self-interest. But when it triumphs, it leads to carnage, so to assume that reason will prevail is to be culpably complacent. That is the lesson of a century ago. - Economist Magazine Dominant Social Theme: Beware the coming wars ... Free-Market Analysis: You can't make this stuff up. The top men in the globalist community have been hard at work building wars and potential wars, and now it's time to let 'er rip. This is one dominant social theme we saw coming miles away. We've been writing about its imminence for years, and predicting war and more war as internationalists try to blunt the effect of the Internet Reformation. After the Gutenberg press blew up the Middle Ages and the Roman Catholic Church besides, the globalists of the era used economic chaos, war and the invention of copyright to fight back. We predicted they would use the same tools this time around and have no reason to revise our predictions thus far. The only thing we've consistently pointed out that has not yet been addressed is the inability of the top men to launch a full-out world war because that would involve nuclear weapons. And lacking a full-out war, we have questioned how successful the strategy can be. Obviously, the top elites see something we don't. Or perhaps they are willing to risk an all-out war anyway - as they retreat into reported fully-stocked, underground "cities." Here's more fro

excellent read with lots of non political reality based thinking. good stuff, even if you disagree. "George Friedman founded Strategic Forecasting in 1996. Stratfor's existence is based on the controversial but now influential premise that geopolitical events can be anticipated and even predicted in ways that can benefit private-sector actors. Friedman stayed at the pioneering political-risk firm until May 2015, when he left to found a new company called Geopolitical Futures. Friedman is a commentator on international affairs and author of the book "The Next 100 Years." He spoke to Business Insider earlier this month about the future of war, the next stage in the European debt crisis, and how and whether it's even possible to predict what's coming next. This interview has been edited for length and clarity."

"When Barack Obama leaves the White House tomorrow, he leaves with his worst dreams unrealized. Still, what he leaves behind is awful. Thank goodness he'll be gone. The very day after Obama was elected in 2008, I predicted in this space that his team would steal the Senate by hook and crook (see: Al Franken); nuke the filibuster at least for judicial nominees; liberalize voting laws (or enforcement thereof) to make fraud easier while charging opponents with "vote suppression"; drum up spurious allegations of civil rights violations; punish anti-abortion protesters; enact "copious new regulations, especially environmental, to be used selectively to ensnare other conservative malcontents"; invasively use the IRS to harass conservative organizations; and tacitly encourage civil unrest in furtherance of Obamite goals. All those predictions of course came true. Obama and company also waged bureaucratic war against independent inspectors general; tried their hardest (even illegally) to hobble fossil fuels industries; evaded Congress's intent by sending cash and uranium to a near-nuclear-ready Iran; fumbled and stumbled while veterans suffered virtually criminal neglect; wasted hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on projects that were not "shovel-ready" and did not create many jobs; oversaw an economy in which the workforce participation rate dropped to historically low levels while real median household income also fell and personal debt rose, and in which food stamp rolls grew to a number larger than the population of Spain; horrendously politicized the Justice Department; and saw race relations worsen for the first time in decades. In what should have been treated by the media as major scandals (or more major than the media represented them), the Obama administration encouraged illegal gun-running to Mexican cartels, with untold numbers of resultant deaths; failed to provide adequate security before or rescue during the Benghazi tragedy; provide

The InTrade realtime electoral vote predictor has been tracking Dow Jones stock market averages with near perfect precision. As Obama's stock rises on InTrade, (and McCain's falls), the Dow Jones sinks. Meaning, McCain's InTrade value is tracking the stock market averages with an incredible precision. This should not come as a surprise since InTrade Prediction Market investors are betting on what they believe to be the elections outcome. They do not bet on who they personally favor or politically support. McCain has an investor friendly - free market friendly - capitalist friendly tax plan. Obama is a socialist bent on taxing the productive members of the economy to redistribute those valuable investment and business resources to the least productive. Obama is not offering a wealth producing - jobs producing plan. Socialism is not what made America an economic powerhouse - a wealth producing engine the likes of which mankind had never previously seen or imagined. Free market capitalism balanced with Constitutional rule of law, property ownership and individual freedom account for this success. All of which the free market traders at the Irish InTrade market seem to recognize as important.

When radical leaders over the last 2,500 years have sought to enforce equality of results, their prescriptions were usually predictable: redistribution of property; cancellation of debts; incentives to bring out the vote and increase political participation among the poor; stigmatizing of the wealthy, whether through the extreme measure of ostracism or the more mundane forced liturgies; use of the court system to even the playing field by targeting the more prominent citizens; radical growth in government and government employment; the use of state employees as defenders of the egalitarian faith; bread-and-circus entitlements; inflation of the currency and greater national debt to lessen the power of accumulated capital; and radical sloganeering about reactionary enemies of the new state. The modern versions of much of the above already seem to be guiding the Obama administration - evident each time we hear of another proposal to make it easier to renounce personal debt; federal action to curtail property or water rights; efforts to make voter registration and vote casting easier; radically higher taxes on the top 5 percent; takeover of private business; expansion of the federal government and an increase in government employees; or massive inflationary borrowing. The current class-warfare "them/us" rhetoric was predictable. Usually such ideologies do not take hold in America, given its tradition of liberty, frontier self-reliance, and emphasis on personal freedom rather than mandated fraternity and egalitarianism. At times, however, the stars line up, when a national catastrophe, like war or depression, coincides with the appearance of an unusually gifted, highly polished, and eloquent populist. But the anointed one must be savvy enough to run first as a centrist in order later to govern as a statist.

The Dollar Crisis Quick Synopsis:     * Abandoning the gold standard in 1971 has resulted in large global trade imbalances and a massive buildup of foreign currency reserves     * These trade imbalances and buildup of foreign reserves have resulted in frequent booms and busts since 1971     * The Japanese bust of 1989, the Asian economic crisis of 1997, and the current US credit market collapse have resulted from the post-1971 paper money monetary system     * Abandoning the gold standard has gradually resulted in a very overvalued US dollar, and that the dollar is headed for disaster     *  "The dollar standard is inherently flawed and increasingly unstable. Its collapse will be the most important economic event of the 21st century."

Pepe Escobar predicts escalation of the U.S. economic war against the BRICS nations, identifying hot spots that he predicts will become push-button issues.

Blackmail! excerpt: "Ten days ago, I publicly stated my belief that the NSA had used its spy apparatus to gather dirt on Supreme Court Justice John Roberts, then used that leverage to force him to change his vote on Obamacare. See the original article here. Five days later, I also predicted the NSA was using its spy powers to surveil members of Congress and the U.S. Senate. In an article published on June 16, 2013, I wrote, "There could already be countless cases of the NSA using its god-like powers to blackmail people in key positions in the U.S. Senate (which is full of pedophiles and perverts), the House of Representatives, the State Department or even the US Supreme Court. There are virtually no limits to the abuses of this power." Suddenly, new revelations prove this to be true. Russ Tice, a Bush-era NSA analyst-turned-whistleblower has sounded the alarm on the true depth of the NSA's surveillance abuses. In an interview on the Boiling Frogs Podcast, Tice stated: They went after -- and I know this because I had my hands literally on the paperwork for these sort of things -- they went after high-ranking military officers; they went after members of Congress, both Senate and the House, especially on the intelligence committees and on the armed services committees and some of the -- and judicial... They went after lawyers and law firms. All kinds of -- heaps of lawyers and law firms. They went after judges. One of the judges is now sitting on the Supreme Court that I had his wiretap information in my hand. Two are former FISA court judges. They went after State Department officials. They went after people in the executive service that were part of the White House -- their own people.

Know your day before you went out Aries Today is day of work for you. You can be busy and tied up with the work. This is a good day to start or take up any new work. Lucky No.s - 1 Lucky Colour - White Purchase of new things/Property/Signing of new contract - Yes

The War Party is not happy with the consensus position of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies that leaving U.S. troops in Afghanistan is futile. I offer them my lesson learned from 27 months of combat duty in Viet Nam: When you find yourself part of an invading force in a foreign land fighting patriots, it's time for a reality check on your world view.

Catherine is a frequent guest on CoastToCoastAM.com, so I've come to know her well.  Although this interview doesn't discuss her ability to see into the future, I know from experience that she is a real visionary hitting the mark at an astounding clip.  Chalk this interview up as a must read.

"Administration knew three months before the November 2012 presidential election of ISIS plans to establish a caliphate in Iraq  Administration knew of arms being shipped from Benghazi to Syria (Washington, DC) - Judicial Watch announced today that it obtained more than 100 pages of previously classified "Secret" documents from the Department of Defense (DOD)and the Department of State revealing that DOD almost immediately reported that the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was committed by the al Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood-linked "Brigades of the Captive Omar Abdul Rahman" (BCOAR), and had been planned at least 10 days in advance. Rahman is known as the Blind Sheikh, and is serving life in prison for his involvement in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and other terrorist acts.  The new documents also provide the first official confirmation that shows the U.S. government was aware of arms shipments from Benghazi to Syria.  The documents also include an August 2012 analysis warning of the rise of ISIS and the predicted failure of the Obama policy of regime change in Syria. The documents were released in response to a court order in accordance with a May 15, 2014, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed against both the DOD and State Department seeking communications between the two agencies and congressional leaders "on matters related to the activities of any agency or department of the U.S. government at the Special Mission Compound and/or classified annex in Benghazi." Spelling and punctuation is duplicated in this release without corrections. A Defense Department document from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), dated September 12, 2012, the day after the Benghazi attack, details that the attack on the compound had been carefully planned by the BOCAR terrorist group "to kill as many Americans as possible."  The document was sent to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, then-Defense Secretary Leon P

Re: "EIA predicts Russian crude production growth will be among the worst performers in both 2015 and 2016 - contrasted by continued growth in North America." That's not what is being reported. Many shale oil production facilities are no longer profitable in North America and credit for new efforts has completely dried up. And unless Congress can raise enough votes in both houses to overried Obama's promised veto of a bill to alow construction of the KXL Pipeline, Most of Canada's new oil production capacity will never reach the market. (Canada has ruled out pipelines from the Alberta tar sands to its own ocean coasts, so there is no alternative to KXL.)

A must-read. It's looking more and more like the Paris attacks were a false flag effort used to justify French intervention in Syria against the Assad government, albeit labeled as being against ISIL. Note the eery similarity with 9/11 and the Boston bombing, with a mirroring first responder exercise the same day on the same scenario as the attack. On 9/11, the U.S. Air Force was conducting an exercise involving a scenario in which terrorists hijacked airliners and crashed them into buildings. At Boston, concurrently with the real bombing, there was a first reponder exercise under way that hypothesized the bombing.of a large crowd. Reported on cable television: some "experts" are predicting that France will invoke the NATO treaty's Article 5, which requires all NATO member nations to respond to attacks on any of the member nations. So if correct, we're about to see a NATO/Russia faceoff in Syria.