Tuesday, January 06, 2015

2015: Grounds for Optimism

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This may seem like an odd line of reasoning to pursue given what everyone else seems to be saying. Some are thinking that 2015 will be a repeat of 2014 with a few incremental changes (always a safe bet, but makes for boring reading) while others are warning of the potential for a nuclear confrontation between the US and Russia (always a possibility, on par with an asteroid strike or a supernova in our galactic vicinity). But this is all more of the same. The interesting question to ask is, How has the ground shifted in 2014, if indeed it has?

To my mind, the really interesting development of 2014 is that the world as a whole (with a few minor exceptions) has become quite lucid on the topic of what the United States, as a global empire, is and stands for. It is now very commonly and completely understood that:

1. The United States is an evil empire, attempting not so much to rule the world as to disrupt it to its short-term advantage.

2. The United States is failing, as an empire and as a country, and no amount of fraud, mayhem, torture and murder is going to save it.

3. The United States is still quite powerful and can cause massive damage on its way down. This damage must be contained, while plans are drawn up for an international arrangement that will arise upon its demise.

Looking back on 2013 and before, such sentiments were already being expressed, but on the fringes and quietly. The difference is that in 2014 they became commonplace knowledge, and their expressions thundered from presidential podiums. What's more, there just isn't that much of a counterargument being voiced. I don't hear a single voice out there arguing that the US is a benevolent force that is on the up-and-up, would never hurt a fly and is the permanent center of the universe. Yes, some people can still think that, but it's hard to see value in such “thought.”

There are still a few holdouts: the UK, Canada and Australia especially. But even there the true picture is being distorted because of their Murdockified national media. Judging from what I hear from the people there, they are almost uniformly nauseated by the subservient pro-US antics of their national leaders. As for the EU, the image of political uniformity presented by Brussels is largely a fiction. In the core countries of Western Europe, business leaders are almost uniformly in favor of close cooperation with Russia and against sanctions. Along the fringe, entire countries appear to be on the verge of switching sides. Hungary—never a friend of Russia—now seems more pro-Russian than ever. Bulgaria, which has had a love/hate attitude toward Russia for centuries now, seems to be edging back closer to love. Even the Poles are scratching their heads and wondering if close cooperation with the US is in their national interest.

Another major shift I have observed is that a significant percentage of the thinking people in the US no longer trusts their national media. There is a certain pattern to the kinds of messages that can go viral and spread wildly via tweets and social media. Fringe messages must, by definition, stay on the fringe. And yet last year something snapped: a few times I ran a story in an attempt to plug a gaping hole in the US mass media's coverage of events in the Ukraine, and the response was overwhelming, with hundreds of thousands of new readers showing up. What's more, a lot of them have kept coming back for more. I take this to mean that what I have to say, while by no means mainstream, is no longer on the fringe, and that bloggers have an increasingly important role in helping plug the giant holes in national media coverage.

Of course, the national media still has an important role to play. For instance, I have no idea how big Kim Kardashian's derrière is—but I hear it's big in the media. Can it sing? And so if you are looking for authoritative information on that important subject, then American national media is your friend. But for most non-ass-related things, it seems to me that the Americans who run the nation's political and media circuses broke a fundamental rule, which they apparently forgot, because it was first expressed by an American by the name of Abe Lincoln: “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” In case somebody out there in the media realm is tired of playing it safe and printing stuff that's only fit for wiping your Kardashian with, here are a some points for you to try to refute:

1. Economic inequality has to increase continuously, until the whole thing crashes, because that is the only way to continue propping the financial bubble while the real, physical, productive economy is actually shrinking. The rich can't possibly spend all of their money in the real economy. Instead, the poor things have to content themselves with investing in various luxury items, which they can't use all the same time, and so most of them sit and slowly decay. Or they put their money into paper wealth of various kinds—and that, of course, is very good for the financial bubble. In any event, if you have a financial bubble you need to prop up no matter what, in the face of serious physical limitations on land, energy, fresh water, high-grade ores and other essential industrial feedstocks, then your best bet is to do the reverse-Robin-Hood thing and go rob the poor and give to the rich.

2. Worldwide chaos must be driven up because that's the only way the US military can justify its existence. It is a very expensive military, but not a particularly effective one. (Just the new F-35 fighter cost over a trillion to develop—and yet it is a complete dud of a project and may never even go into production.) But in spite of this lavish spending the US military is incapable of scoring a decisive victory in just about any conflict, against any adversary, no matter how weak and impoverished, and their end result is always some sort of ongoing low-grade conflict that can flare up again at any time. Nevertheless, it can still threaten the weak and the poor, and use these threats to its financial advantage. But the only way to make these threats effective is to destroy some country on a semi-regular basis: “Nice country you got there! We'd hate to see it go the way of Libya.” A military confrontation with any of the real military powers—Russia, China, India, even Iran—is, of course, entirely out of the question, because a single humiliating military defeat for the US (which is inevitable given its track record against smaller, weaker adversaries) would be sufficient to undermine the entire program of US militarism.

3. As another American (Dwight Eisenhower) once put it: “If you can't solve a problem, enlarge it.” But it stands to reason that you do have to solve a problem once in a while; you can't just go on enlarging every problem you see ad infinitum. Now, what problems has the US solved lately? Anything good happening in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria or Ukraine? No, worse than ever. How about financial reform in the wake of the narrowly averted collapse in 2008? No, and there is another big one coming up in the form of the fracas in the fracking patch due to low oil prices. Anything good to report on health care reform? No, it's more ridiculously bloated and expensive than ever. Student debt repayable now? No, not by a long shot. How about an effort to reduce carbon emissions, to postpone (no longer to avoid!) the eastern seaboard, where half of everything is, going underwater? No, not a glimmer of hope. Problems with runaway public debt or unfunded government liabilities solved? No, there have been no efforts in that direction at all. Is the country still on course for national bankruptcy and collapse? All systems check, go with throttle up!

Now, your mileage may vary, but I have discovered that a surprising number of people around the world (though not especially in the US) is now very much clued into these things. And that is something that makes me feel optimistic about 2015.

42 comments:

V. Arnold said...

Nary a word about crashing oil prices. That, to my understanding, is a serious threat to the stability of the major powers.
Ilargi, over at The Automatic Earth has some interesting things to say about that;
http://www.theautomaticearth.com/this-oil-thing-is-the-real-deal/

Unknown said...

Hello Dmitry,

Enlightening read as usual. I too have completely lost all trust in American news media over the last 6 years. I'm always happy to see anything new from you.

- Reg

Dmitry Orlov said...

Arnold -

The cure for low oil prices is low oil prices. Once all the high-priced producers are gone (the US, Nigeria, Norway, UK, Canada) supply will shrink and prices will rebound. Low-cost producers like Russia and Saudi Arabia will remain. Russia can survive low oil prices just fine provided the ruble doesn't strengthen too much more. Of course, if all of the world's industrial economies collapse in the meantime, oil will become just so much toxic waste. But then the Russians won't need to maintain their industrial base and military spending, and just chill, while Saudi Arabia implodes.

Marc L Bernstein said...

I agree with more-or-less everything you said in this article, which itself is rather boring.

You did leave out a few mentionable matters.

The USA seems to be one of the few major industrial powers that are almost completely oblivious to the dangers posed by genetically modified organisms and the toxic herbicides and pesticides that go along with their use, such as glyphosate.

The USA seems to be unconcerned with the long-range consequences of pumping carcinogenic materials a couple thousand feet down in shale deposits in order to extract tight oil or natural gas. There is no way to predict the long term consequences to aquifers that are not far from such fracking operations.

Anyway, you get the picture. Woody Guthrie's "This land is your land" is becoming "this land is ruined and nobody in their right mind would want to live there for long."

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=this+land+is+your+land+lyrics

Jason Heppenstall said...

There are still a few holdouts: the UK, Canada and Australia especially. But even there the true picture is being distorted because of their Murdockified national media. Judging from what I hear from the people there, they are almost uniformly nauseated by the subservient pro-US antics of their national leaders.

Check.

Let the great tug of war commence. On the one side we have the failing and flailing US and on the other side we have Russia and China. In the middle is (western) Europe, including my own native soggy island, full of puffed-up cargo cultists as it is. I suspect that in the longer run Europe will return to its Oriental fold, accepting that it is an appendage of the Eurasian landmass and not, as it likes to think, a separate continent.

Whether it gets ripped to shreds in the tug of war remains to be seen.

22BillionEnergySlaves.blogspot.com

Unknown said...

Thank you for the article Dmitry.
It is not boring.
What's happens to America this year won't be either.

Judy said...

In support of your post, I saw this article yesterday about President Hollande wanting to end sanctions on Russia. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-30679176 I am holding my breath that he makes it to the meeting on 15th January without external pressures being applied by the US before then.

The year before last I could see one house from my kitchen window with solar PV panels on its roof, last year 3 and now there are 12. The year after next I will be counting the houses that don't have PV (in theory). Everything changes quickly once the tipping point is reached. I am glad you are seeing increased activity and hope that the momentum kicks in soon.

Personally, I don't get the impression that people see the US as an evil empire that is failing, but I am in the UK, one of your 'holdouts'. Even if people disbelieve the media hype about Russia being an evil empire, the jump to the US being evil doesn't necessarily follow. Plus the US stats look positively buoyant compared to Europe. When focusing on your own problems it is harder to see the bigger picture, or maybe part of the game is to screw the EU so the US appears in better shape. Which is the failing state again?

2015 is certainly going to be interesting...

Anonymous said...

Can we get one thing correct once and for all? Robin Hood did not rob the rich to give to the poor. No, he took back what the government elite took from the poor.

So, what we are seeing is the same that Prince John did: rob the poor of the fruits of their labor (through overt or covert taxation, like inflation) and give it to the court and its courtesans.

The question is: where's Robin Hood when you need him? Oh, right, we the people mocked him, Ron Paul, for not being presidential enough.

Jon Rudd said...

@Reg

Only six years?! In my case it's been more like a dozen. The Iraq War sales campaign and Judith Miller pretty much did it for me as far as the US media is concerned.

k-dog said...

You say the world is clued in and that gives you hope but that the American people have their collective heads stuck up an anatomical part you can read about in national media. Anatomy that doesn't sing but toots.

I recall (though I wasn't there) that support for Hitler wasn't universal but that he and his party still had enough support to trash the world. We still have enough Joe Six Packs who think America is JUST GREAT! With this large flock of compliant sheep our leaders can do what they want and not care what people think about them in Bulgaria or wherever.

I understand your optimism but it seems to me the American way of life remains non-negotiable for many. Enough to spark huge conflicts when the going gets tougher.

As you say, Dwight Eisenhower said: “If you can't solve a problem, enlarge it.” I fear the numbers who would go along with unpleasant enlargements to keep the tottering system going in increasingly desperate circumstances is huge.

I'm going to share your optimism but I'm going to be guarded about it.

forrest said...

The destruction of the Evil Empire will undoubtedly be good for the world but it's difficult for me to be properly enthusiastic due to the fact that we inmates of the US are likely to see interesting times in the process, of the sort you've described previously. I don't think refugees from here will be welcomed in Mexico all that much better than we've welcomed Mexican refugees so far. Yes, they are a hospitable nation; but we've behaved so very badly!

My donkey said...

Never underestimate the stupidity of the populace.

It's extremely difficult to make livestock vacate a barn that's on fire, and even if you manage to get them outside, a single mouse can spook the entire herd into running back into the flames.

Although the year ahead doesn't bode well for domesticated beasts, the outlook is rosier for rodents, who will readily leave a burning barn.

Dmitry Orlov said...

Your donkey -

On the other hand, I have heard of sheep spontaneously stampeding into a barn and urinating synchronously. Perhaps that will put out the fire?

Rhisiart Gwilym said...

Your stuff just gets better and better, Dmitry. Unmissable!

Jason, thanks for the LOL: "puffed up cargo cultists"! You're so right, fellow Brit! Love it! :) And Ca-moron and the goves (or Miliband and the crypto-goves) are the ideal clueless idiots to keep pushing this lunacy until it finally goes over the edge. Hope to god Scotland gets out of the no-hoper ukstate ASAP; and my country shortly thereafter. High time.

dax said...

As Cocteau said, "Mon pessimisme n'est qu'une forme de l'optimisme."

My pessimism is just another form of optimism. I consider it my motto.

Unknown said...

" The cure for low oil prices is low oil prices. Once all the high-priced producers are gone (the US, Nigeria, Norway, UK, Canada) supply will shrink and prices will rebound. Low-cost producers like Russia and Saudi Arabia will remain"

Brilliant answer Demitry! This is exactly what the market dictates will happen! The crash in US Shale and Canadian Tar sands will be epic, as they are leverage up for their bubble like expansion of late. Many economics bloggers fail to see this simple conclusion to falling oil prices. So thank you for posting that little bit of truth. Falling oil will kill the Fracking Miracle and even worse for Tar Sands in Canada. Once they are destroyed supply will come from the LOW cost producers, just as a free market dictates.
Lower oil transfers wealth from the financial world and speculators to the people. Banks could fall on lower oil prices, while lower class people have more money left every month.

My donkey said...

Dmitry -

Sheep actually urinate on themselves. It's like using a cell phone to take a selfie.

Members of the family Ovidae also defecate on themselves. When someone says "Just saying", what they mean is "Just defecating".

Anonymous said...

I'm an old duck, and I remember a quote from TV when it was sort of interesting.

"You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, and those are pretty good odds"... James Garner, cc 1964

michigan native said...

I am optimistic that 2015 will be the year that the sheeple in the US and around the world will grasp their ears firmly and pull their heads out of their asses and realize the neocons and their satellite puppet leaders in the UK, Canada, Australia do not have their best interests in mind are but mere bitch boys for the elites back here in the US who are getting desperate as the dollar is finally getting recognized as being worthless and when it gets dumped forever this year so will the usual dirty tricks the US has used to rape, kill, plunder, and exploit other countries. I am optimistic that 2015 will spell the death of the US dollar, NATO, the IMF, US sanctions and hopefully as the US continues to collapse at home, the masses will grow tired of yet more military bullying as the lights go out, the heat gets shut off, and food disappears from their tables.

Guess what, sheeple? You had other priorities rather than that evil Vladimir Putin, this or that leader from this or that nation that proposed or started to dump the US dollar. This sudden drop at the gas pump should actually make people in the US livid. This proves the neocons could have relieved our pain at the pump by having their terrorist/human right's abusing pals in Saudi Arabia ramp up production, which is a stunt that will mean Saudi Arabia declining reserves will deplete even faster. They can do it to play games with Russia because they are mad at Putin for supposedly kicking the Rothschilds out and shunning the US dollar, but they did nothing to help you when your homes were being repossessed, while your cars were getting towed, when you had to chose between life saving medicine or food, which was getting more expensive and stale all the while they did nothing to help us.

2015 will see an increase in the antics of the police state, the general population is getting sick of having a back breaking days pay (in more sadistic areas of the country, like the south, a week's or even a month's pay) stolen from them by zealous, ravenous cops hiding around every nook and cranny in more speed traps, in a vain, futile, and undignified frenetic effort to steal money from people to try and prop up local, county, state, and federal governments because they will be experiencing chronic budget shortfalls due to an ever eroding tax base due to an economy that can no longer and will no longer grow and expand. (Dmitry's observations in the 5 stages of collapse are becoming clearer every day).

All this as a prelude to impose martial law when the dollar finally does collapse and the US undergoes a cruel process of de-industrialization for which it is woefully unprepared.

2015 will be a pivotal year, when the usual tricks (accounting fraud, gold manipulation, NATO and the IMF, warfare, sanctions, etc) no longer work. Hopefully Putin will balk at repaying the European banks and stop selling gas to NATO dupes and put them out of their misery once and for all. There is some reason for optimism after all.

Patrick DeBoard said...

hi dmitry,
the end of the usa is the best news for planet earth. good reporting!
patrick

Energyflow said...

Iheard the sony n. Korea lie as excuse for new sanctions was pretty much taken by media without any questioning. What if obama leaks to the media some lie about russia or china which requires wwiii type response and they just print it as fact and congress votes a nuclear attack and the people cheer?

Unknown said...

Global acceptance of the discourse you have described (USA = bad) has definitely taken strides in 2014. As much as credit is appropriately due to the myriad folks out there who have "eyes to see and ears to hear", and have chosen to actually use them - I believe that the biggest factor driving the acceptance of the discourse has been Russia's overt outward expression that the USA and its minions are no longer 'partners', 'colleagues' or 'friends', but full-scale enemies. This global media disclosure took a while to achieve maturity, but now that it's rolling along at full steam, there are plenty of people coming out of the shadows to join the chorus.
The times they are a changing, and all of humpty-dumpty's media men and women will not be able to put humpty back together again! A toast to the old year and a wish for the new!

John Doyle said...

Here's Kunstler's ideas about 2015 all set out in his inimitable style. There's a lot of agreement with you.
http://kunstler.com/forecast/forecast-2015/

Sparks McCoy said...

Gotta feel sorry for the good people in the US held hostage by the nutters in charge. You can almost see them scrawling help on their windows.

I am just hoping when it kicks off Australia can pull off pretending we we've never seen this guy called America before.

Nathan said...

Sparks,

We've got, 1500 US Marines gung-hoing around the Top End though. Or is it 5000? Can't remember what Tony Obama said now, off the top of my head. Anyway, all of Darwin is in lurv with the US Military. House construction booming, new infrastructure etc. What will happen when 1500 - 5000 well armed Marines stop getting a pay cheque?

Unknown said...

Dmitry I hear you but let's touch base for a moment on an important subject for many westerners still left unanswered.
When the SHTF are you still going to be able to supersize it at the drive thru?

Anonymous said...

Dima, as always great stuff. Not merely perceptive, but articulate and funny. Here's the rub, as I see it. True, the USA is facing increasing international pressures from various factions, administrative and civilian, globally. And, I do agree the chickens are coming home to roost.

However, there is an increasingly menacing influence aloft: bread and circuses, like Kardashian's derriere, are fast spreading like wildfire around the globe. In other words, the same horses shit that is being pumped into the mushy brains of American's is also being slopped across the world, and not only because of the push of a Madison Avenue or Pennsylvania Avenue. Idiots across the globe, here in Altai Krai, Siberia (on the very edge of Mongolia) for god's sake (as if she really gave a damn), also are mesmerized
by the distractions of capital, and spectacle of plenty which they now see on the 'rely', the advertising kiosks and billboards daily and hourly.

This, I believe was one of the strategies of the USA very early on in terms of achieving political hegemony, by instigating cultural hegemony. (I'd like to buy the world a COKE.')

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VM2eLhvsSM

Just tell me this isn't propaganda and brainwashing all wrapped up in one nice little jingle. And the sad part is, the world is buying into this nonsense. So, while the USA might very well face a day of reckoning... and I believe it will, their puppet masters have already done more than enough damage to the cultures of the world to guarantee an apocalyptic conflagration. In other words, the continuous destruction and depletion of all resources and life forms will go on until there is nothing left, but one man standing. Capital has done its job.

Joseph McCafferty said...

Perhaps the greatest success of corporate propaganda is to describe those people who have had debt rolled over on to them by their rulers, and had what wages they can find eaten into by the rich, as "poor"

The condition of such people is one of chronic debt. A condition in which they must kow-tow to the whims of their masters, under the constant threat of "participate or die."

Under the current power structures, these people are commoditized and kept alive by financial regulation. But there comes a time when the value of these lives is less than the cost of keeping them alive.

To be poor is something we must aspire to, because it is the ultimate economic sanction against the rich and powerful. When movement in this organic degrowth gains traction, I'll be optimistic.

Ed-M said...

Kulturcritic & Dmitri,

Exactly right! The biggest threat to traditional values is *not* people who are differently sexually oriented (although pedophiles must be kept away from children) but rather, American style capitalism and it's seductive advertising and prepackaged entertainment, now completely globalized except in N Korea and among uncontacted indigenous peoples.

Ed-M said...

Joseph Mccafferty,

"But there comes a time when the value of these lives is less than the cost of keeping them alive."

Which is why corporations are dumping their employees over 50, and Congress in it's wisdom has allowef states to dump people who are on foodstamps, yet are not disabled, do not have kids, are not in an educational institution or a job "training" program, or able to demonstrate that they are unemployable due to a medical condition. And states like Kansas, Louisiana and Maine are doing so!

Steve said...

"Judging from what I hear from the people there [UK, Canada and Australia], they are almost uniformly nauseated by the subservient pro-US antics of their national leaders."

I'm one of those uniformly nauseated Canadians. I'm disgusted and appalled at how dictator Stephen Harper has succumbed completely to the American neocon agenda of world domination, and in the process has entirely destroyed Canada's good image in the world. I used to be proud to be a Canadian; now I'm embarrassed.

I immigrated here from the US decades ago. My wife is Russian. I think its time to consider immigrating again, especially when my loonies will exchange for twice as many rubles as before:) Russians know how to survive anything. What do Americans/Canadians know about survival? Where are my credit cards?!

Anonymous said...

I am an uh-merikkkan that has been trying to incite my fellow peons to stop taking the cr@p being dished out by our elected terrorists and stand up for our rights. Thank you for actually giving me some hope after a few bleak years.

Degringolade said...

Nice:

Dmitry, I have been reading you a long time and I like this post the best.

Sure, things are getting crappy, but hell they have been doing that for a while now. But the real joy is that people are beginning to figure it out. Even here in the "murdockified" (you really oughta trademark that) heartland.

Folks are starting to see things that they have ignored for a long time.

Maybe in a couple of years we will begin to do something about it.

We are looking at the seeds of beginning to get better.

All the best and a hHappy New Year.

John
(Degringolade)

Unknown said...

Hi Dmitry,

I hope you are right.

I live in Oz and I can tell you every time our Prime Minister Abbott gets involved with foreign relations I cringe. (foreign relations = doing what we are told by the US state department)

Our equivalent of "joe six pack" in this country thinks we are some sort of global military power, the "deputy sherrif" of the USA.

I guess a couple of submarines and a 100 second hand American tanks should be enough to take on Russia if & when the time comes...

On that subject the Murdoch press is extremely anti Russian here but when you go through reader comments, they are not buying Rupert's propaganda. Doesn't seem to change anything though at the moment.

All the best.Greg

Bukko Boomeranger said...

"Members of the family Ovidae also defecate on themselves."

"Dag" is the word for a ball of faeces caught in the wool of a sheep's hindquarters. One of my favourite Australian slang terms is "daggy," indicating something that's substandard, basically crappy.

As an American immigrant Down Under, I'm frequently asked about my accent. This leads to political discussions when I say I fled the U.S. to escape the Cheney Regime. When I came here in 2005, I found some support for my anti-American ravings -- detractors of the U.S. exist everywhere. But there were many who then regarded America as a benign presence, based on the laurels it earned defending Oz from the Japanese during WW II. Aussies of Anglo and European stock have an atavistic fear of Asiatic hordes, which is a big reason why they elect right-wing governments like the one in power now.

After living four years in Canada during the interim, I found a less America-friendly attitude when I boomeranged back in 2013. I'm not regarded as a self-hating nutter so much, and almost no one sticks up for the (other) States. Except Indians. Hindus from the Subcontinent still regard the U.S. as a dream place.

While America is a bit "on the nose" (Aussie slang for smelly) there's a reservoir of wishful thinking regarding the U.S. here. Psychologically speaking, it's tempting to think that a Wise Father nation is protecting this place. It's scary to concede in one's soul that Dad is a mean, irresponsible drunk. America still has a bit of good will, which it will retain until the next time it does something monumentally messed-up. Which I'm certain it will in 2015, or prior to the presidential election in 2016 at the latest.

Unknown said...

I agree that the general public has started to wake up and see the USA as an evil empire.

Even many Americans have woken up, as one can see from reading comments in the Guardian, NYT, or even the Huffington Post.

Something fascinating along this line happened last week. The pro-democratic, neo-liberal website Common Dreams closed down its comments section, basically because it became inundated with people who called out "liberal" democratic heroes such as Obama, Warren and Sanders as war criminals.

Common Dreams would post an article by some well known or not so well known pro-democratic pundit about the evil republicans, and the comments section would fill up with many perceptive people attacking the evil empire and both parties.

So its editor Craig Brown, and everyone suspects one commenter named Siouxrose, closed the section and will wait to open it again hoping all the bad people will disappear.

aka Paracelsus said...

Hello Dimitry,

Something did snap -- it was the collective that suddenly "got" your message. From my perspective - you were actually steering the collective narrative. Just perhaps, the genie may finally be escaping from the bottle.

For others reading this note & for what it's worth - I can personally attest that Dimitry's posts are consistent with stories from my grandmother in Lviv.

Please keep up the great work.

Best regards, Drew.

Unknown said...

Dmitry - what's to stop the US Fed from secretly using a proxy to buy much of the junk shale-oil debt and keep US production going? I can't imagine them allowing any financial bubble to pop at this point if it's within their underhanded powers to prevent it.

Jimmy said...

I like your articles and points of view Mr Orlov but why do you have Jim Rickards advertising on your site? The guys a bloody mountebank.

Dmitry Orlov said...

The site is Google's, and the ads are generated by Google Adsense. I don't choose what ads are displayed.

Judy said...

Looks like I was right about external pressures on France. The summit pencilled in for 15th Jan, to discuss withdrawing sanctions against Russia has been axed.

I hope I am wrong, but President Hollande is now a prime target for scandal or misfortune, because he may show further support towards Russia and this is upsetting those keen on keeping the sanctions in place.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for the article Dmitry.
It is not boring.
What's happens to America this year won't be either.

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