Wednesday, May 9, 2018

Craig Murray — Trump’s Act of American Hubris

In short, if the US fails to prevent Europe and Asia’s burgeoning trade with Iran – and I think they will fail – this moment will be seen by historians as a key marker in US decline as a world power.
Trump & Co. (GOP) betting the farm? The ROW is opposed and so are a majority domestically.

Craig Murray Blog
Trump’s Act of American Hubris
Craig Murray, formerly British ambassador to Uzbekistan and Rector of the University of Dundee

See also

Adam Jezard

See also

The Philosopher's Stone
IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT YOU READ THIS
Robert Paul Wolff | Professor Emeritus, University of Massachusetts Amherst

See also

Interfluidity

24 comments:

Unknown said...

Now it is quite possible that there may be no North Korean deal. Who will trust the US to make any treaty?

Tom Hickey said...

I doubt that tIran decision greatly influenced matters. No one seriously thinks that the US will meet NK's conditions (security guarantee) or that NK will just cave.

This is merely kabuki. From the US side, JDT can claim he was winning until NK backed out, in which case it had said he would walk away from the deal.

From the Chinese side, China is setting it up so that the US looks like the intransigent party in the eyes of the world and can therefore warn the US that an attack on NK will bring China in.

There are two things going on from the US side, the political dimension driven by DJT and the strategic aspect — China as the only significant adversary the US face in the quest for world domination — driven by the US deep state as the US counterpart of the Russian siloviki and nomenklatura a.

djrichard said...

Not sure how this campaign with respect to Iran is supposed to work without the threat of war. And to me, it doesn't seem like the US is serious on the threat of war - I don't see the media doing any heavy lifting to cheer lead for that potentiality. If the media isn't part of your war campaign, you don't have a war campaign.

Tom Hickey said...

The US elite, part of which wants war with Iran, is not a good position for a hot war with the ROW and a majority of Americans opposed.

So the US is reengaging its strategy of economic warfare against Iran while also engaging in it with Russia, China, NK, Cuba, Venezuela, etc.

This is the preferred strategy now.

We'll see how it works out.

What is happening now is that allies and vassals are rebelling to some degree (just not going along with US policy is rebellion in the eyes of the US), and the ROW is looking to de-dollarize to escape US financial and economic clutches.

The question is who can last the longest min financial and economic war with the US assuming it wins hands down, and whether hot war will break out if someone feels cornered.

The crazies are in charge in the US and it's pretty bipartisan among the elite.

djrichard said...

I agree. It's easy to understand that the US elites would like to change the path that that part of the world is on. And that they would like to achieve it without war. I just don't understand how they achieve it without credible saber rattling. Typically in this type of situation the media never fails to be banging on the drums on the side line, to make the threat of war seem credible. And to carry the population along in case that becomes plan A. But so far the media has been disengaged. Contrast to the water carrying the media did with respect to bombing Syria and threatening North Korea. Which to me suggests the elites aren't even unified on trying to change the course of events over there, much less risk an all out war with Iran and whoever.

Matt Franko said...

“US fails to prevent Europe and Asia’s burgeoning trade with Iran ”

LOL that is Trump’s PLAN.... get in the current decade...

Matt Franko said...

There is no reason that Iran can’t take EUR and CNY in trade for whatever they can sell...

Noah Way said...

Who put the psychopaths in charge, and how can we get rid of them?

Konrad said...

DJRICHARD WRITES: “Not sure how this campaign with respect to Iran is supposed to work without the threat of war.”

Threat of war is not necessary. Boeing and Airbus, for example, have just lost a collective $39 billion in contracts because of Trump’s new sanctions on Iran. As a result, Trump will eliminate many American jobs.

This is about Trump desperately trying to convince the world that the U.S. Empire is not in its twilight.

This is about Trump desperately trying to show his Israeli masters that he is their loyal servant.

As the U.S. Empire dies, it is lashing out; its evil tentacles flailing in all directions. But nothing can halt the spread of the internal cancer.

Tom Hickey said...

There is no reason that Iran can’t take EUR and CNY in trade for whatever they can sell...

They already do.

Reuters:

Exclusive: Iran wants euro payment for new and outstanding oil sales - source

Iran accepts yuan in exchange for oil -FT

Tom Hickey said...

Threat of war is not necessary. Boeing and Airbus, for example, have just lost a collective $39 billion in contracts because of Trump’s new sanctions on Iran. As a result, Trump will eliminate many American jobs.

Both Russia and China are ramping up production of domestic aircraft, which is no problem for countries that have already shown that they can design and produce bombers and military transports.

This is further incentive to speed up those programs with the US creating customers for them.

Matt Franko said...

“They already do.“

GOOD!

Matt Franko said...

I’d think Airbus will get a waiver...

Andrew Anderson said...

Who put the psychopaths in charge, and how can we get rid of them? Noah

Who put Hitler in charge?

Well, who implemented or failed to fix the inherently unjust fiat (gold is not an ethical form of fiat) and credit creation (neither is a central bank that citizens cannot use ethical) systems that:
1) Allowed Germany's humiliation in WWI via the entry of the US?
2) Caused the Great Depression?

The answer is Progressives.

It's unknown exactly how Progressives, if allowed, will cause misery again but their unprincipled pragmatism guarantees that they will; i.e. God is not mocked.

Konrad said...

MATT FRANK WRITES: “I think Airbus will get a waiver.”

Yes. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says he has prohibited Boeing and the U.S. subsidiaries of Airbus from exporting to Iran --- but has he really? With $39 billion on the line?

It’s probably b.s. “tough talk.” Washington is half genocidal, and half bluff and bombast.

Konrad said...

@ Andrew Anderson: With respect, gold is not fiat. Gold is a commodity.

Gold is not money, and never has been money. Gold is valued in money, but without monetary systems, a mountain of gold would not be worth a cent (or a pence, or a yen, or whatever). Gold has some minor utilitarian value, but you can’t eat gold, sleep under it, or wear it as protection from the elements.

There are 20-dollar gold coins, but this is a sales gimmick. They are not money. They are not legal tender. Besides, a half-ounce gold coin could be traded for a lot more than 20 dollars.

Incidentally the “gold standard” was always a sham. Politicians used it when they wanted to falsely claim that the U.S. government had “no money” for social programs. Politicians dumped the “gold standard” whenever the USA needed to create vast amounts of money for war. After the war, politicians resumed their “gold standard” nonsense until the sham was finally done away with in 1971.

The “gold standard” was a sham for other nations as well. All countries that claimed to have a “gold standard” went on and off this “standard” many times.

Andrew Anderson said...

With respect, gold is not fiat. Konrad

Correct, but fiat can be needlessly expensive as in gold coins or a gold standard.

I certainly know that the taxation authority and power of the State trumps any shiny metal.

Btw, the British, being the first to go off the Gold Standard, were the first to recover from the Great Depression.

Andrew Anderson said...

So it's not gold that has ever backed fiat but fiat that has backed gold.

Konrad said...

ANDREW ANDERSON WRITES: “Btw, the British, being the first to go off the Gold Standard, were the first to recover from the Great Depression.”

I suspect that you still think the “gold standard” gimmick caused the UK and US governments to be revenue constrained. It didn’t. As I wrote above, the “gold standard” was always a sham. Politicians used it whenever they wanted to (falsely) claim that the U.S. government was “bankrupt.” Politicians dumped it whenever the U.S. government needed to create money for war.

Regarding the British being the first to recover from the Great Depression, I don’t know what you mean. By 1937, here in the USA, production, profits, and wages had regained their 1929 levels. Unemployment remained high, but it was lower than the 25% rate seen in 1933. The New Deal was working, and it angered oligarchs and business magnates, plus their toadies in Congress. How dare Roosevelt create jobs? The oligarchs were gods. The oligarchs (not the government) would decide the state of the U.S. economy.

In mid-1937 the oligarchs launched a massive propaganda campaign to convince the peasants that the New Deal put the USA in danger of imminent hyperinflation. They managed to seduce President Roosevelt to stop deficit spending, and shift over to a government surplus. This created a disastrous recession that began in the fall of 1937, and continued through 1938.

The US economy did not fully recover until December 1941 when the USA entered World War II.

Andrew Anderson said...

They managed to seduce President Roosevelt to stop deficit spending, and shift over to a government surplus. Konrad

Oh, I agree there are certainly enemies on the Right but you don't counter bad principles with easily abandoned pragmatism; you counter them with correct principles - not Paul Samuelson's "noble" lie about monetary sovereigns being revenue constrained.

So the charge is that monetary sovereigns may create hyperinflation? Then why on Earth did not Progressives advocate to allow all Americans to use dollars via accounts of their own at the Federal Reserve - TO INCREASE DEMAND FOR THE US DOLLAR since hyperinflation is caused by LOW DEMAND FOR FIAT? Instead, Progressives gave us government-provided deposit insurance to further lower the demand for fiat!

Progressives are bank-lovers, pure and simple. They are a corrupt lot, imo.

Konrad said...

ANDREW ANDERSON WROTE: “So it's not gold that has ever backed fiat, but fiat that has backed gold.”

Exactly. Most people do not understand this. Hence most people think that money which is not “backed by” gold is funny money. This is illogical. Without a monetary system of some kind, gold has zero monetary value.

Gold itself is not money. It never has been. Nor is money “backed by” gold except in a psychological sense. During the US Civil War the U.S. government (the North) started issuing “greenbacks” (U.S. dollars). The US government needed a way to get people accustomed to using them. So, in addition to using “greenbacks,” the US government issued “gold certificates” that holders could supposedly trade for gold. These were an alternate form of currency. They were a sham, since the aggregate nominal face value of “gold certificates” far exceeded the U.S. government’s gold supply. If you took your gold certificate to a bank and demanded to exchange your certificate for physical gold, you were told that the bank needed to retain its gold for “national security” purposes, but you could trade your certificate for greenbacks.

Thus, gold certificates (like “greenbacks”) were not “backed” by any gold.

The whole thing was a ploy to get Americans in a new nation accustomed to using a new currency (the US dollar). By 1933 the American public had become so accustomed to using dollars that the US government stopped issuing “gold certificates,” since they were no longer needed. The US government passed a law saying that all gold certificates had to be surrendered to banks in exchange for dollars.

In 1964 the US government stopped issuing silver certificates as paper currency. (Technically, however, silver certificates are still valid as legal tender, if you happen to have one left over from the past. Again, some people wrongly think that these are the only “real” dollars, and that regular dollars are "worthless.")

Konrad said...

ANDREW ANDERSON WROTE: “Hyperinflation is caused by low demand for fiat.”

I would phrase it differently.

There are several factors that can cause people to lose confidence in their society’s monetary system. It can be a war, or some other cataclysm imposed from without, or it can be excessive price inflation within, caused by shortages in consumer goods. If people start to lose confidence in the value of their money (e.g. if price inflation gets out of control) then a government may decide to create vast amounts of money to keep up with the madness. That’s hyperinflation.

In other words, hyperinflation (e.g. frantic creation of money by a government) is a response to inflation, not a cause of it.

Andrew Anderson said...

or it can be excessive price inflation within, caused by shortages in consumer goods. Konrad

Which speculators, fueled by credit from the government-privileged usury cartel, can front-run and exacerbate far beyond attempts by the monetary sovereign to keep up with the price inflation.

The chief privilege of the usury cartel is that only they in the private sector may even use fiat in convenient, inherently risk-free account form at the central bank - that and government-provided deposit insurance result in a low demand for fiat.

Andrew Anderson said...

I'm not saying that low demand for fiat is the only cause of hyperinflation but it certainly is a major factor and should be corrected anyway for a variety of reasons - not the least of which is economic justice.