Politics > Politics-USA > ...THE FIRE IS NO LONGER ON ITS WAY IT HAS BEGUN: An Important Announcement by Michael C. Ruppert
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...THE FIRE IS NO LONGER ON ITS WAY IT HAS BEGUN: An Important Announcement by Michael C. Ruppert |
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http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/031005_globalcorp.shtml#0
GlobalCorp.
I AM NOT A POLITICIAN
THE FIRE IS NO LONGER ON ITS WAY
IT HAS BEGUN
An Important Announcement
by
Michael C. Ruppert
© Copyright 2005, From The Wilderness Publications,
www.fromthewilderness.com. All Rights Reserved. May be reprinted,
distributed or posted on an Internet web site for non-profit purposes
only.
Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people
who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it. - Mark Twain
(special thanks to Bill Tamblyn for finding this quote.)
March 10, 2005, PST 0900 (FTW) -- I am not a politician. I will never
be a politician.
With this article both I and the FTW family will never again think in
terms of whom we might offend or what bridges we need to build, burn or
fireproof. As Don Henley wrote in a song of profound spiritual
gratitude, "Sometimes you get your best light from a burning bridge."
I'm going to burn a few with this essay.
Peak Oil is no longer on the way. It is here. Forget for a moment
whether or not global oil production has actually begun (see below) its
hopelessly irreversible decline. We will not know that for certain
until sometime after it happens. The political fact, however, is that
global inertia in response to Peak has driven our species, all of it,
past the point of no return. There is no changing course for us. We
have committed to a path of bloody destruction that can no longer be
postponed or evaded. Energy investment banker Matthew Simmons - long a
smoke alarm for Peak Oil - has said repeatedly, "The problem is that
the world has no Plan B." Simmons is right.
Seeing clearly that there is no Plan B, it is now also too late to come
up with a Plan C or Plan D. What I had hoped to accomplish with
Crossing the Rubicon is now a missed opportunity. Yet the map so many
of us drew in Rubicon remains astonishingly accurate and unaltered. It
may prove to be an indispensable survival tool in and of itself very
shortly.
Politicians come in varieties. They are in business. They are sometimes
activists. Many pose as journalists. Some are economists and academics.
They work in think tanks and manage the editorial decisions of major
press outlets. Many average citizens behave and think like politicians
because they accept as their primary mantras: "Don't rock the boat,"
and "Don't offend anyone." Politicians are more deadly than any weapon.
They see their primary mission as building consensus to improve outward
appearances.
For a politician the questions are always: "How can I superficially
address an immediate problem without going to its root causes? What is
the least amount of work I have to do to make this go away while I'm on
duty? How can I deal with this problem without burning bridges?"
Lately, economists, business and religious leaders, and everyday people
have been behaving more like politicians than politicians themselves.
Much like the incestuous, sealed-off, fetid Bush administration, the
politicians are going to other politicians to make policy - when they
dare even to do that. Refusing to make policy is also a policy.
In fact, most people have become politicians and it may well be that
political correctness (including the fear of speaking out) - to
whatever degree it is observed - will be the sword on which we now (not
tomorrow) impale ourselves.
Bridges are burning all around us; bridges to responses that might have
mitigated the already brutal (and just beginning) ravages of Peak Oil;
bridges to reduce the likelihood of war and famine; bridges to avoid
our selectively chosen suicide; bridges to change at least a part of
energy infrastructure and consumption; bridges to becoming something
better than we are or have been; bridges to nonviolence. Those bridges
are effectively gone.
Stan Goff was right when he warned activists that "the gun," in all its
forms, would be brought out before this was over. It was inevitable.
False flag terror attacks, a fake war on terrorism, routine political
murders, stolen elections, and Republican traffic in pedophilia remain
causes for outrage and defiance, but they can no longer be useful
avenues to justice: the legal system is broken. It's broken for reasons
far greater than what used to be called corruption. And it cannot be
fixed when a world war and unprecedented economic and ecological
collapse are smashing down every wall between humanity and the
unthinkable.
Politicians are creatures of economics. Their success has always been
measured first and only by what economic benefits they returned to
constituents or themselves. The victim has been the future. We have all
told the politicians what we really want them to do for us while
speaking platitudes from the other side of our mouths. As I have said
for so many years, we are all prisoners of the way money works. Until
we change that, any solution is only temporal and illusory. No
electoral change is possible now that elections all over the world have
sworn their allegiance to privately owned software programs and obvious
manipulation.
FOR THOSE WHO CAN READ THE MAP
As the evidence grows stronger that we are at Peak now (or very close
to it), there is a distinct correlation between oil price hikes and
military budget increases, weapons deployment, warfare and covert
operations around the world. Economists don't consider such things so
they don't report on them. Their orthodoxy scorns any integrated view
of world developments outside their own discipline.
For long-time readers of FTW I need do little more than discuss a few
recent developments to put this in perspective. For the rest I will
provide you with some of a great many available dots you can connect if
you care to. Most people find themselves unable to tolerate the sight
of the pattern which the connected dots reveal. After this, FTW will no
longer try to detail the dots of Peak Oil. What we have published over
the last seven years is proof enough. We had it right. I refuse to go
over it again. Those who get it now, get it. Those who do not may
possibly be beyond saving, because their own choices have deprived them
of critical months of preparation for the crisis - especially since
most of this "preparation" is psychological in nature. It is very hard
and very painful to get one's mind to accept this reality.
Nature does not grant time outs.
THE CIA
I recently had a conversation with someone who spent 17 years in the
CIA's Directorate of Operations. Thinking of the purge and power shift
that has - over the course of the last nine months - decimated the
Central Intelligence Agency (long my Bête Noir) and shifted much of its
power to the Pentagon, I asked the following question.
"Look, the agency does many things in many roles from raw intelligence
gathering, to economic warfare, to satellite recon, to paramilitary
operations requiring cover and deniability, to drug smuggling. But
since its inception it was always focused in large part on medium and
long-term intelligence gathering and covert operations through the
costly, patient, expensive means of placing NOCs (non-official covers)
or assets in missions where it might take five, ten or fifteen years to
bear fruit. These programs were always centered on "what if"
contingencies which inherently implied that multiple outcomes were
possible; that there were alternative futures to be influenced and
shaped.
"Battlefield intelligence is a different critter. It presupposes that
there is nothing more important than the battle that has been joined at
this moment. If the battle is not won, there are no future choices.
Hence nothing matters other than the war that is being fought today. No
Yaltas or Potsdams; no future deep cover moles will be needed.
"Every country in the world is betting everything it has on this one
hand knowing that after 2007 or 2008 the game ends. The map of the
future after that is unknowable and, to large extent, irrelevant.
That's why Rumsfeld has won the battle to control American intelligence
operations and why the new National Intelligence Director John
Negroponte is getting the job.
"Is that right?"
Without the slightest hesitation the former CIA employee answered,
"Yes."
It is the ultimate testimony to the madness of Donald Rumsfeld, Paul
Wolfowitz and ***** Cheney that there are no more tomorrows left to fix
anything. Since 9/11, and especially since a second presidential
election was stolen four months ago, the setting for a real Armageddon
has been locked in place. It may well have been for years before that.
GASOLINE PRICES
A recent USA TODAY story, giving us the new word "Petronoia," warned
that gasoline prices could jump by 25 cents per gallon within the next
few days. That increase, it said, would take $90 million per day out of
a consumer economy that relies on profligate spending to sustain
already bursting bubbles. How are we getting the money to sustain these
bubbles? We are, according to Bill Fleckenstein of MSN, using our
houses as ATMs just to keep up, even as the housing bubble has already
begun to burst.1 Our paychecks certainly aren't increasing.
OIL PRICES
Oil has topped $54 a barrel. It's gone up more than 25% in less than
three months and fifty per cent over the last year; 400% since 1999.
This amid strong signs that global oil production may have already
peaked, as declines around the world are not being offset by new
production. New fields may come online but the respite will be very
short-lived. There may be a few "mega" projects (about a six-day supply
for the planet in each) which may produce momentary price declines but
the trend is irreversible. Official bodies like the International
Energy Administration (IEA) are openly wishing that demand growth might
slow in 2005, when actual figures already prove this wish utterly
fanciful. China's oil demand is expected to grow by 33% this year.
Industrialized and developing nations are expanding their economies as
fast as possible to generate cash and liquidity as a means of securing
more oil.
The vicious cycle is in full swing. And yet, according to economist
Andrew McKillopŠ
We then move on to actual declines in production. For the majority
of non-OPEC producers - (in fact nearly all except Russia and some
Central Asian producers) rates of decline are stubbornly high, despite
vaunted technology improvementsŠ
One of the biggest problems facing the IEA [a UN sponsored agency],
the EIA [a US government agency] and a host of analysts and 'experts'
who claim that 'high prices cut demand', either directly or through
damping oil economic growth, is that this does not happen in the real
world. Since early 1999 oil prices have risen about 400%. Oil demand
growth in 2004 at nearly 4% was the highest in 25 years. In each year
since 1999 world oil demand growth has been higher than the previous
year - as prices rise.2
McKillop's analysis, which essentially says that rising oil prices are
either good or of no consequence, falls way short for two reasons.
Energy investment banker Matt Simmons a year ago in Berlin stated that
he saw the actual point at which price would curb demand at around $180
per barrel. The consumers are bearing most of the costs of these
increases. Is this the consumers' choice, or is it simply the point
beyond which "the American way of life" will become impossible,
regardless of how many incremental cuts people accept?
Go ahead; try to choose to use less oil of your own volition. What
reductions are available to you are minimal because the world in which
you must make your house payments, feed your family, drive to work and
pay your bills is leaving you little choice but to consume more and get
less for your money. Only at around $180 a barrel will the consumer no
longer be able to subsidize the corporate and economic superstructure
on his/her shoulders. This is essentially what Simmons was saying.
The poor will be the first to suffer and they will suffer the most.
They will be the first to die.
Secondly, McKillop assumes a "trickle down" benefit to consumers from
high prices. International capital flows and your own checkbook should
be enough to dispel this belief. Need I say more? Didn't we hear enough
about trickle-down from Ronald Reagan?
PRODUCTION
Oil industry guru Jan Lundberg - who seems to be getting a lot less air
time than he used to - recently wrote the following brilliant
assessment for (ironically of all places) Electric Vehicle (EV)
Magazine. Lundberg got it right.
The end of abundant, affordable oil is in sight, and the
implications are colossal. About now in our hydrocarbon phase of human
history, we have pulled out of the Earth approximately half of the
available petroleum (crude oil and natural gas). The other half still
in the ground is harder to extract and may not - as assumed - fuel the
global economy or even provide a transition to another phaseŠ
This means that the next tough oil shortage, even if it is not
acknowledged as a post-peak oil extraction phenomenon of diminishing
supply, will cripple the globalized economy. Understanding of both the
economics and social dynamics of collapse is rare, and even when it is
present there is an absence of taking into account the "market factor"
in ushering in collapseŠ
Despite the need to be prepared for imminent, final energy shortage
- which could happen now or in several years at the latest - people
persist in focusing too much on the likely date of the passing of the
peak. It is already clear that the oil industry and OPEC numbers on oil
reserves are suspect.
The scenario I foresee is that market-based panic will, within a
few days, drive prices up skyward. And as supplies can no longer slake
daily world demand of over 80 million barrels a day, the market will
become paralyzed at prices too high for the wheels of commerce and even
daily living in "advanced" societies. There may be an event that
appears to trigger this final energy crash, but the overall cause will
be the huge consumption on a finite planet.
The trucks will no longer pull into Wal-Mart. Or Safeway or other
food stores. The freighters bringing packaged techno-toys and whatnot
from China will have no fuel. There will be fuel in many places, but
hoarding and uncertainty will trigger outages, violence and chaos. For
only a short time will the police and military be able to maintain
order, if at all. The damage that several days' oil shortage and outage
will do will soon wreak permanent damage that starts with companies and
consumers not paying their bills and not going to work.
After an almost instant depression seizes the modern industrialized
world, and nation-states break down, the frantic attempts of people to
feed themselves, stay warm and obtain fresh water (pumped presently via
petroleum to a great extent), there will be no rescue. Die-off begins.
The least petroleum-dependent communities will survive best. These
"backward" nations will be emulated by the scrounging survivors of the
U.S. and the rest of the "developed" world, as far as local food
production will be tried - in a paved-over, toxic landscape by people
who have lost touch with the land...
The prospects of mitigating peak oil or avoiding collapse are
almost nil. U.S. petroleum demand in 2004 grew at its strongest rate in
five years. In December the daily consumption of refined oil was 21
million barrels in the U.S, a quarter of world use. The U.S. leads the
industrialized world in population growth, part of a domestic policy to
assure more car and oil salesŠ
Š The Earth cannot, as of the world oil peak in extraction, give up
ever greater quantities of black gold. Most of the world exporting
companies are now reducing extraction rates due to fewer discoveries
and depleted fields. Oil production in 18 producer countries has passed
its peak and is declining faster than previously thought: at about 1.14
million barrels a day.
"International Energy Agency figures put the total spare capacity
of all 11 countries in OPEC at just 330,000 bpd (down from 6 million
bpd in 2002). Conventional Saudi spare capacity is zero... An IEA
report from August 2004 indicates Saudi Arabia needs up to 800,000 bpd
of newly discovered oil each year just to offset declining fields and
maintain its current production level." [Al-jazeera] - This can't
happen, so watch for the ensuing energy crisis.
The world needs to produce another 2,723,530.2 barrels per day by
the end of 2005 just in order to stand stillŠ
Petroleum is the Great Leveler, in the sense of "leveling" or
flattening oil civilization. But petroleum will also be the Great
Leveler in terms of equalizing everyone: People will go through a
final, grasping petroleum grab with whatever funds and connections they
have, before the attempt fails for good. Then all people will have no
choice but to work together or perish. Until then, we have skewed
values: for example, when a kindly old lady drives to a shop and has
her charitable concerns, the use of oil makes her a killer of the
planet and she is not pursuing a sustainable form of transportation.
Meanwhile, a mean old man who scowls at little children who walks to
the shop might be a much more valuable citizen in a practical fashion
that matters to the world.3
THE MOST EVIL STATEMENT I HAVE EVER HEARD
Detroit News columnist Thomas Bray recently described an interview with
two "experts"; authors who come from the corporate/industrial/Neocon
camp. The aberration of his thinking is symptomatic of the guilt we all
share and the consequences we all seem to be begging for.
"We will never stop craving more," say Huber and Mills, "nor should
we ever wish to. Energy is what brings light out of dark, civilization
out of disorder, prosperity out of poverty."4
What was the title of the book that Bray was so jazzed about? The
Bottomless Well: The Twilight of Fuel, the Virtue of Waste, and Why We
Will Never Run Out of Energy.
Contrast all of the above with the following February 28 quotation from
China's Xinhuanet news agency:
Global demand may average 84 million barrels a day in 2005, while
daily production in January was only 83.6 million barrels, according to
the International Energy Agency. Oil prices have risen 11 per cent in
the past three weeks in New York on growing concern that OPEC and other
exporters will fail to keep up with demand this year.5
That all of these factors are forming a perfect storm is now clear.
Marshall Auerback, a brilliant economist (www.prudentbear.com) who
dares to see the world whole, notes:
"At the time of the 1929 stock market crash, total US credit was
176 percent of Gross Domestic Product. In 1933 with GDP imploding and
the real value of debt rising even faster, total credit rose to 287
percent of what was left of GDPŠIn 2000 at the top of the late bull
market, total credit was 269 of GDP. An extraordinary statistic to be
sure but dwarfed by today's figure, in which total credit stands at a
whopping 304 percent of GDP, according to a recent study by fund
manager Trey Reik of Clapboard Hill Partners.
The title of Auerback's essay was, "Last Orders for the US Dollar."6
Auerback opened his treatise with a recent quote from former Federal
Reserve Chair Paul Volcker that should have sent politicians (all of
us) feverishly to work on a survival plan.
Below the favorable surface [of the economy], there are as
dangerous and intractable circumstances as I can rememberŠ. Nothing in
our experience is comparableŠ But no one is willing to understand this
and do anything about itŠ We are consumingŠ about six per cent more
than we are producing. What holds the world together is a massive flow
of capital from abroadŠ it's what feeds our consumption bingeŠ the
United States economy is growing on the savings of the poorŠ A big
adjustment will inevitably become necessary, long before the social
security surpluses disappear and the deficit explodesŠ We are skating
on increasingly thin ice."7
SOME DOTS
ENERGY
*
The world's network of crude oil pipelines also is now operating
at virtually 100% capacity. For almost all of 2004, the world's tanker
system operated at full capacity too. This sparked an unprecedented
rise in taker rates, which added up to $5 to $6 per barrel to the
wellhead price of oil in some key long-haul export routes. - Matthew
Simmons. Why are no more tankers being built? Because soon there won't
be enough oil to ship to cover what it would cost to build them.
*
Also from Simmons: [In the oil industry] A lack of qualified
manpower is looming high on the list of capacity problems. In addition,
the many layoffs and downsizing events that our industry has enduredŠ
As a consequence, we now have an aging workforce at a time when the
technical intensity of the industry is increasing each year. - Why?
Because the industry knows it is going to collapse and no replacements
are being trained to fill short-term, dead-end careers.
*
Officials of Mexico's state-owned oil company PEMEX have
announced that Mexico's largest oil field, Cantarell, will enter
permanent decline this year. - Bloomberg, March 1, 2005.
*
ExxonMobil is selling its 19 percent stake in China's Petroleum
and Chemical Corporation - Forbes, March 2, 2005. This is a likely move
to cut losses in the event of war.
*
Ukraine and Georgia have agreed to reverse the flow of oil in a
strategic pipeline from the Black Sea thus effectively reducing
Russia's control over some Caspian basin exports. - BusinessWeek, Feb.
28, 2005. A Ukrainian alliance with NATO would deprive the Russian Navy
of access to its Black Sea ports.
*
In a move to bypass US-led efforts to reduce her influence in the
world's oil supply chain and access to markets, Russia approved the
rush construction of three new oil terminals on the Gulf of Finland to
supply Europe. - Moscow News, March 1, 2005. (Three days after the
above pipeline decision? Surely these power blocks had been making
contingency plans for these events for years).
*
Saudi Arabia may have already peaked in production as a result of
over-producing its fields. Overproduction by water (and gas) injection
destroys a reservoir's geologic structure. It is an undisputed
certainty that if Saudi Arabia has peaked, the world has peaked. - Al
Jazeera, February 20, 2005.
*
Oil has been rising steadily in terms of dollars, but now it has
begun to increase in price relative to the Euro - James Turk, GATA.
*
Petro Canada has decided to invest $3 billion in the development
of Alberta's tar sands in spite of high costs, enormous environmental
destruction and dwindling supplies of natural gas needed to make steam
to wash the sands. - The Globe and Mail, March 2, 2005.
*
Royal Dutch Shell, which has downgraded its reserves four times
in the last two years (as a result of fraudulent bookkeeping), has
announced it may experience a 5% production decline this year. -
Forbes, March 2, 2005. The truth comes out.
*
Iran and Mexico have signed an MOU for mutual assistance in
developing oil and gas projects. - Tehran Times, Feb. 20, 2005.
MILITARY AND POLITICAL
*
Spain's foreign minister has voiced concerns held in Britain and
elsewhere in Europe that the era of the nation-state is coming to an
end as regional powers replace national identity. - The Sun, March 2,
2005. Energy-starved Britain will ultimately be forced to join the EU.
*
After Canada recently refused to participate in the US Strategic
Missile Shield, the US government accused Canada of relinquishing
sovereignty over its airspace and prompted a statement from US
Ambassador Paul Cellucci that the US would shoot down missiles over
Canada whether Canada gave permission or not. - CP, Feb. 24, 2005. [Two
years ago I clipped a story from the National Post stating that Canada
should not be surprised when US troops occupied the country to protect
the US. From Canada?!]
*
US forces in Iraq have apparently attempted to murder an Italian
journalist who was freed after negotiations with her captors. They
succeeded in killing an Italian Secret Service agent and US stories of
the account are falling under widespread criticism and rebuttal.
Anti-American sentiment in Italy is bubbling over. - Multiple sources.
*
China is experiencing massive shortages of coal to power its
electrical generation. - Multiple sources.
*
China is already buying and hoarding 60% of the world's
commodities: (Oil, Cement, Aluminum, Copper, Zinc, Manganese, Steel,
Coal, Gold, Silver, etc.). It has bought so much cement that it has
caused a slowdown in US construction. Last year it bought 90% of the
world's steel output and shipped it to China - Multiple sources. Why?
Because soon there won't be enough fuel for the globalized transport of
such heavy things, nor, presumably, for their industrial exploitation.
The world may also be at war shortly, further endangering international
trade and transport.
*
China has announced a 12.6% increase in its defense budget for
next year, pushing it into an overt arms race with the US. - Reuters,
March 4, 2005. This has put the enduring China-Taiwan flash point back
on the front burner as China has warned Taiwan against secession and
the US, Japan and Taiwan have countered with equally risky rhetoric
against China. Taiwan is crucial because of its location the South
China Sea and proximity to smaller but accessible oil deposits in the
Spratly Islands. Even more, should China incorporate Taiwan into its
borders, its claims to territorial waters as far as the continental
shelf would effectively deny Japan any future exploration off its
western coast. - Multiple sources. Japan, which has no energy
resources, is in deep trouble.
*
Chinese energy shortages have resulted in what may be selective
blackouts of Japanese auto and other firms manufacturing in China. -
Asia Times, December 9, 2004.
*
As frictions intensify between Japan and China [Knight-Ridder,
Feb. 15, 2005], Japan - America's strongest ally in the Pacific - has
been forced to sign an oil agreement with Iran [New York Times, Feb.
16, 2005]. This agreement came as a slap in the face to the US which
had opposed it.
*
Japan has announced a $1.1 billion emergency plan to build
liquefied natural gas terminals. - Bloomberg, February 14, 2005. Twelve
days later it was announced that Japanese destroyers had driven away
Chinese exploration vessels in international waters that were too close
to a possible natural gas field (claimed by Japan) in the East China
Sea. - The Herald Sun, January 26, 2005.
*
China has begun placing nuclear-capable ballistic missiles on
some of its submarines for the first time. - The Washington Times,
December 3, 2004.
*
Last November a Chinese nuclear submarine intruded deep into
Japanese territorial waters and was escorted (chased) by Japanese Navy
ships back into international waters. - The Asia Times, Jan. 16, 2005
*
China and India have agreed to hold first-ever joint naval
exercises in the Indian Ocean. - San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 13,
2004.
*
China is beginning a push to control the strategic Straights of
Malacca through which 80% of its imported oil passes. This strategic
waterway - only 1.5 miles wide at its narrowest point - lies between
the countries of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. - Asia Times, March
2, 2005. Yes, and 40% of the world's piracy occurs there.
*
Indonesia has sent warships in an escalating dispute with
Malaysia to an island off its west coast. The subject of the dispute:
Malaysian oil exploration. - www.news.com.au, March 6, 2005.
*
The following day Indonesia dispatched F16 fighters to the
Malaysian border, escalating the oil conflict. - The Standard, Match 7,
2005.
*
A number of stories have reported that Japan is secretly
considering the abandonment of its pacifist constitution and - if it so
chose - could have nuclear weapons in months, if not weeks. - Multiple
sources.
*
Britain's parliament is in revolt over a proposed "terrifying"
house arrest plan which would enable the government to order residents
locked up in their own homes without trial. - The Independent, March 2,
2005.
*
Venezuela intends to purchase advanced MiG 29s from Russia,
capable of downing F16s [and having no software systems that can be
compromised by US technology]. - Reuters, Feb. 12, 2005.
*
Venezuela (the world's fifth largest oil exporter) has purged its
state-owned oil company PdVSA of pro-American managers and is
implementing a 17% tax increase on the revenues of foreign oil
companies doing business there. - Multiple sources.
*
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has traveled to New Delhi, India
where he chose to make a public statement that he would cut off
Venezuelan oil supplies to the US in the event of any intervention or a
US-directed attempt on his life. The Indian government has thus tacitly
endorsed the threat. Meanwhile, the US ambassador to Venezuela has
imponderably replied that if that happened the US would just go
somewhere else to get its oil. [Where? Iran? Canada (which is signing
contracts with China)? West Africa? There is no elasticity anywhere.] -
Multiple sources.
*
Venezuela has sold its (already in decline) San Cristobal oil
field to India. - Times of India, March 6, 2005
*
President Bush has given Syria a non-negotiable deadline of May 1
to withdraw its forces from Lebanon. One million Lebanese (almost a
quarter of the population) have marched in the streets in protest. -
Multiple sources.
ECONOMICS
*
Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told Congress the record
U.S. budget deficit is "unsustainable'' and that spending cuts are
needed before costs balloon for Social Security and other benefit
programs. - Bloomberg, March 2, 2005.
*
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has stated that high oil
prices are threatening the global economy and that those prices will be
one of the most important items on the agenda of the coming G-8 summit.
- The Daily Star, March 1, 2005.
*
The Bank of International Settlements has made it official: the
dollar dump is underway. Since 2001 the number of dollars held by Asian
central banks has fallen by 13% and the rate of sell-off is increasing.
- Reuters, March 6, 2005.
*
OPEC has announced that oil prices could reach $80 per barrel
within two years. - Agence France Presse, March 3, 2005.
*
A research foundation in Dubai has affirmed that western banks
have rigged and suppressed gold prices. - Gold Anti-Trust Action
Committee, http://www.lemetropolecafe.com/.
THE NEW WORLD ORDER
The New World Order is not a monolith; no single group of rich folks
sits together in one room debating our planetary future. It is, quite
literally, a new order in which world power aggregates along
geographic/geologic lines, forcing regions to become players against
each other and running roughshod over the nationalist sentiments of
their subject populations. The regions are Europe (including Britain),
Asia, South America and North America. Woe to those nations who are
stuck in between. In spite of Sino-Japanese tension, Japan, China and
South Korea have urged the creation of a Free Trade agreement to cover
the Western Pacific. Geography and money will prove to be the ultimate
trump cards because geography is governing economic decision-making.
There may be a war between China and Japan but ultimately Japan (like
the UK vis-a-vis Europe) will find itself swallowed into regional
hegemony, either as a winner or as a loser.
Take a look at Orwell's 1984 again. It is a wonder how he saw so much.
Yet behind all of this realignment, enormous streams of wealth or
capital are being expended and - most importantly - transferred behind
the scenes. The people controlling that money are not seeing their
control dissipate as the nation-states vanish. Money makes its own
rules.
Profits were made during the cold war by continuing the controlled
escalation of tensions between the superpowers while secretly
preventing those tensions from reaching critically dangerous levels.
The major players included Armand Hammer, the Rothschilds, the Bushes,
Averill Harriman, inter alia.
These people always find ways to eke profits from a system that is in
meltdown. They make money on the way up. They make money on the way
down. Their appalling justification, their pact with the devil that
makes this all possible, is that "As long as we're making money then
everything must be OK." This is what the real PTB (Powers That Be)
believe. This is the final distilled definition of "the bottom line".
The problem lies in the definition of "The Powers That Be." Most people
still think in terms of nation states. I always think in terms of
money, even to the point of looking at money (the way it functions now)
as the PTB without attachment to a human or national identity.
Not too long ago I had a dialogue with Catherine Austin Fitts after
which an epiphany struck. As the human race blows itself into
extinction, or destroys the climate, or starves itself to death, the
last corporate merger and acquisition will take place. And at the same
moment as mankind dies, the CFO of "GlobalCorp" will be shouting,
"Hooray! We did it!"
Those who win in a rigged game get stupid. We have all played this game
(to one degree or another). And compared to the rational, far-sighted
humanitarians that Jefferson and Whitman hoped for and expected, we are
all frightfully stupid.
In spite of all the warning signs that demand and energy use must be
curbed immediately, the only commercial effect of Peak Oil has been to
increase consumption as much as possible - so as to get as much "money"
as possible, as quickly as possible. This before the instant, possibly
only months away, when money - because of a lack of energy - becomes
valueless. Solutions that should enable a reduction in oil consumption
are only functioning as an insane rationale for using more. The pity of
this utterly unnecessary disaster is matched only by the arrogance that
created it.
With unmistakable desperation, China, the US, Russia, Europe and the
Middle East are fiercely jockeying for a measly 40 billion barrels of
Caspian heavy-sour oil instead of the 350 billion we were promised by
the major oil companies a decade ago. Caspian oil has some of the
highest sulfur content on the planet. It is expensive and
environmentally destructive to refine. The mountains of sulfur around
the Caspian are now so large as to be visible from space. Do you not
see the desperation here?
The only way to curb demand is to pull the plug on global economies,
starting first with the already partially cannibalized US economy. Our
manufacturing has been stolen or given away for "spare parts." So have
our savings, our Constitution, our resources, our credit, our
credibility, our confidence, our manufacturing base, our jobs; and soon
our houses, our personal bank accounts and ultimately our hope. The
United States is being liquidated after a fait accompli merger and
acquisition.
The bottom line turns out to be the suicide of the human race as
mergers and acquisitions lead to the final moment of malignant
capitalism: "the last corporation standing."
GlobalCorp becomes Global corpse.
Hurray, we did it!
To look on the brighter side of this, my brother in arms Matt Savinar
helped me to see the good in Peak Oil. He wrote, "When people ask me
what is 'positive' about Peak Oil, I tell them (only half-jokingly)
that: "well, if there is no collapse, we're all going to be chipped,
tagged, drugged with FOX news being beamed into our brains while living
in slums patrolled by robotic soldiers with strangely familiar Austrian
accents."
The fire has begun.
FOR THE RECORD - FTW REORGANIZATION PENDING
I wake up now on a daily basis knowing that at any moment the story
might break signaling that the collapse has been triggered. It is my
mandate to scan the horizon for signs of this, to help discern where
the blows will fall, how hard, how quickly and where they will have the
most impact. Effective immediately (and taking into account stories FTW
has already committed to publish), it is imperative that FTW transform
itself into an informational / intelligence lifeboat for those who are
listening.
I will not be writing for FTW for a period of approximately two months
while I complete a corporate reorganization that is necessary to adapt
to the world as it is, not as we might wish it or pray for it to be.
FTW now has tens of thousands of daily readers who understand what is
happening and who are urging me to stop trying to convince the rest of
the world. They want us instead, try to and help those who are already
convinced. We cannot save everyone. We can only help those who are
asking for it. That is our constituency - our contract. The doors will
always be open for latecomers.
What you will see in two months or less is a new FTW; focused, precise,
and more useful on a day to day basis. If I lose support from
progressives or activists for this, so be it. If FTW falls from grace
with some for failing to be politically correct, then all I can say is
"Good luck to you."
We must all do what we must do and do it now. My conscience is clear
that I have done all that is possible to warn. When a tsunami is coming
there is a point at which one must stop trying to warn the indifferent
and just get out of the way and help others who are also trying to get
out of the way. For those who now see this, FTW hopes to become at
least a partial bridge to your safety. In order to do that, other
bridges must be abandoned.
ENDNOTES
1. Fleckenstein, Bill; Prerequisite to current events: Bubble 101; MSN,
Feb. 28, 2005.
2. McKillop, Andrew; Fundamentals in the oil-pricing game;
http://www.vheadline.com; March 2, 2005.
3. Lundberg, Jan; The Global Nutcracker Called Peak Oil; EV World, Feb.
20 2005.
4. Detroit News editorial by Thomas Bray, February 27, 2005 quoting
authors (and Neocon / Bush allies) Peter W. Huber and Mark P. Mills.
5. Crude oil prices may rise as output trails demand; Xinhuanet,
February 28, 2005; www.chinaview.cn.
6. Auerback, Marshall; Last Orders for the US Dollar;
www.prudentbear.com, March 1, 2005.
7. Ibid.
--
"Honestly, I think we should just trust our president in every decision that he
makes and we should just support that."-Britney Spears, 9/2003
"The American Way of Life is not negotiable." ***** Cheney, 2001
Free humor. Whenever you want. http://www.psmueller.com
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| User: "Roedy Green" |
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| Title: Re: ...THE FIRE IS NO LONGER ON ITS WAY IT HAS BEGUN: An Important Announcement by Michael C. Ruppert |
11 Mar 2005 03:01:17 AM |
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On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 23:02:41 -0800, Eyeball Kid
<jfm6949@nospam.ispwest.com> wrote or quoted :
China's oil demand is expected to grow by 33% this year.
Just what you needed! That all by itself will crank up oil prices.
America uses 20 million barrels a day. This is the largest factor in
the trade deficit. America's reserves represents about a 3 year
supply.
rank : Country : 2001 proved Oil reserves (billion barrels)
1. Saudi Arabia 261.7
2. Iraq 112.5
3. United Arab Emirates 97.8
4. Kuwait 96.5
5. Iran 89.7
6. Venezuela 76.9
7. Russia 48.6
8. Libya 29.5
9. Mexico 28.3
10. China 24.0
11. USA 21.9
"Never in human history have such genocide and cruelty been witnessed.
Such a genocide was never seen in the time of the pharaohs nor
of Hitler nor of Mussolini."
~ Mehmet Elkatmi, head of Turkish parliament's human rights commission
on Bush's genocide in the Iraq war. 2004-11-28
--
Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.
See http://mindprod.com/iraq.html photos of Bush's war crimes
.
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| User: "Roedy Green" |
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| Title: Re: ...THE FIRE IS NO LONGER ON ITS WAY IT HAS BEGUN: An Important Announcement by Michael C. Ruppert |
11 Mar 2005 03:06:16 AM |
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On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 23:02:41 -0800, Eyeball Kid
<jfm6949@nospam.ispwest.com> wrote or quoted :
Energy investment banker Matt Simmons a year ago in Berlin stated that
he saw the actual point at which price would curb demand at around $180
per barrel.
In other words, this guys is saying people will refuse to cut back
until prices rise to three times what they are now, in other words,
gasoline over $6 a gallon.
But realise that the gasoline costs no more to produce than ever. So
the profits are astronomical. No wonder the oil company bastards in
the Bush cabinet are willing to suck the country into war, in order to
nail down the entire world supply starting at the top of this list and
working their way down:
rank : Country : 2001 proved Oil reserves (billion barrels)
1. Saudi Arabia 261.7
2. Iraq 112.5
3. United Arab Emirates 97.8
4. Kuwait 96.5
5. Iran 89.7
6. Venezuela 76.9
7. Russia 48.6
8. Libya 29.5
9. Mexico 28.3
10. China 24.0
11. USA 21.9
Indonesia 10.4
Canada 10
Brazil 8.4
Myanmar 3.1
Syria 2.5
Cuba 1.0
Sudan 0.563
"Never in human history have such genocide and cruelty been witnessed.
Such a genocide was never seen in the time of the pharaohs nor
of Hitler nor of Mussolini."
~ Mehmet Elkatmi, head of Turkish parliament's human rights commission
on Bush's genocide in the Iraq war. 2004-11-28
--
Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.
See http://mindprod.com/iraq.html photos of Bush's war crimes
.
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| User: "Eyeball Kid" |
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| Title: Re: ...THE FIRE IS NO LONGER ON ITS WAY IT HAS BEGUN: An Important Announcement by Michael C. Ruppert |
11 Mar 2005 07:22:45 AM |
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In article <bkn231dv4kenrq7kar8chhtbdbc68h06sq@4ax.com>, Roedy Green
<look-on@mindprod.com.invalid> wrote:
On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 23:02:41 -0800, Eyeball Kid
<jfm6949@nospam.ispwest.com> wrote or quoted :
Energy investment banker Matt Simmons a year ago in Berlin stated that
he saw the actual point at which price would curb demand at around $180
per barrel.
In other words, this guys is saying people will refuse to cut back
until prices rise to three times what they are now, in other words,
gasoline over $6 a gallon.
Popular anger will rise, countered by police repression, followed by
increasing and rapidly expanding poverty. It's probably true that the
parts of the world that will survive best are the parts that are
already underdeveloped. They're accustomed to living without complete
dependence on nonrenewable energy.
So, the Bush cabal is in command with their own narrative on how the US
will function as a society and how humans will survive as a species. So
far, Bush has millions drifting along in la-la land. Ruppert provides a
distasteful, but probably accurate narrative of his own. Are there
other possible narratives that could be used as a vision of our future
as a species? I woke up from a restless sleep with that question.
E. K.
But realise that the gasoline costs no more to produce than ever. So
the profits are astronomical. No wonder the oil company bastards in
the Bush cabinet are willing to suck the country into war, in order to
nail down the entire world supply starting at the top of this list and
working their way down:
rank : Country : 2001 proved Oil reserves (billion barrels)
1. Saudi Arabia 261.7
2. Iraq 112.5
3. United Arab Emirates 97.8
4. Kuwait 96.5
5. Iran 89.7
6. Venezuela 76.9
7. Russia 48.6
8. Libya 29.5
9. Mexico 28.3
10. China 24.0
11. USA 21.9
Indonesia 10.4
Canada 10
Brazil 8.4
Myanmar 3.1
Syria 2.5
Cuba 1.0
Sudan 0.563
"Never in human history have such genocide and cruelty been witnessed.
Such a genocide was never seen in the time of the pharaohs nor
of Hitler nor of Mussolini."
~ Mehmet Elkatmi, head of Turkish parliament's human rights commission
on Bush's genocide in the Iraq war. 2004-11-28
--
"Honestly, I think we should just trust our president in every decision that he
makes and we should just support that."-Britney Spears, 9/2003
"The American Way of Life is not negotiable." ***** Cheney, 2001
Free humor. Whenever you want. http://www.psmueller.com
.
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| User: "Roedy Green" |
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| Title: Re: ...THE FIRE IS NO LONGER ON ITS WAY IT HAS BEGUN: An Important Announcement by Michael C. Ruppert |
11 Mar 2005 02:52:36 AM |
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On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 23:02:41 -0800, Eyeball Kid
<jfm6949@nospam.ispwest.com> wrote or quoted :
Oil has topped $54 a barrel. It's gone up more than 25% in less than
three months and fifty per cent over the last year; 400% since 1999.
This amid strong signs that global oil production may have already
peaked, as declines around the world are not being offset by new
production.
Keep in mind, it is not OPEC squeezing supply that is causing the
prices to soar this time. It is the fact we really are running out of
oil.
Demand is rising. Supply is shrinking. The law of supply and demand
say prices HAVE to keep rising until it frightens off demand to
balance supply.
And fearless leader's response to this is: steal Iraq's oil. Steal
Iran's oil. This is only a stopgap solution with terrible
consequences.
We need alternative energy NOW.
"Never in human history have such genocide and cruelty been witnessed.
Such a genocide was never seen in the time of the pharaohs nor
of Hitler nor of Mussolini."
~ Mehmet Elkatmi, head of Turkish parliament's human rights commission
on Bush's genocide in the Iraq war. 2004-11-28
--
Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.
See http://mindprod.com/iraq.html photos of Bush's war crimes
.
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