I guarantee that the stock markets will crash sometime between now and maybe a year from now. The market is run by rich people who borrow money to run up the entire market. They are confident that they will continue to make big money, because the FED keeps reporting that 95+% of all working age American have jobs. However, to get that number, the FED treats all those without jobs for longer than a month or so are treated as though dead. Whereas, the truth is that, by now there are between 24% (definitely), and likely closer to 50%, of all working-age Americans can no longer find a decent job. And even those who are counted as having jobs are likely to have menial ones, and so they can’t buy the rich people's products. Thus, when the fat cats finally realize that the game is over, much of their wealth will go down together with their rigged stock markets. And, boy, do they ever deserve it.

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Will President Trump Take The Blame When the Stock Markets Crash?

Stock markets continue to reach record high levels, but it’s only a matter of time before they crash back to earth. When they do, there will be a lot of finger pointing at those deemed to be responsible for the crash. Given the current political climate, President Trump will undoubtedly come in for criticism. But will that be a fair criticism?

President Trump is certainly taking the credit for the hot stock markets, and his supporters view this as market approval for his allegedly pro-growth economic policies. Trump’s critics will undoubtedly seize on something to criticize him when stock markets crash, no matter how flimsy their case may be. All of this obscures the fact that Presidents just don’t have that much of an effect on the economy, at least not in the short term.

For one thing, Congress is responsible for passing the federal budget, one of the biggest drains on the economy. Sure, the President can submit a budget proposal, but ultimately it’s Congress that determines just how many trillions of dollars are siphoned away from taxpayers and shuttled into non-productive endeavors.

Where Presidents are most responsible for affecting the economy is in their selection of Federal Reserve Board members, particularly when they pick a chairman. The chairman ultimately determines the direction of monetary policy, which has far more effect on the economy than anything else the federal government does.

This stock market bubble has been years in the making, a natural consequence of the trillions of dollars that the Federal Reserve System has been pumping into financial markets. It’s not a surprise either, at least to those of us who adhere to Austrian economics and understand that the Fed’s response to the last financial crisis would result in another larger bubble.

President Trump has a chance to change things for the better at the Fed if he appoints a chairman who will upend the Fed’s traditionally loose conduct of monetary policy, although that doesn’t appear likely. But no matter who he picks now, the wheels for the next crisis were set in motion years ago. It was the monetary policy of Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen that will bring about the next financial crisis, so the blame should fall squarely on the shoulders of Presidents Bush and Obama who appointed them.

Nothing President Trump or his appointees do now will stop the next financial crisis, they can only react to it. How they react should certainly be subject to critique, but placing the blame on President Trump for something that he inherited will be a classic case of playing politics – attacking the President for something he didn’t do, while continuing to obscure the Federal Reserve’s role in monetary malfeasance.

- Ron Paul

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Blogger's Note: This was originally brought out by Goldco, a company that you may look up in order to use their system for getting rich when the stock markets crash ...or you can use the any or all of my "Royal" gold and silver stocks as follows: RGLD, OR, AEM, or WPM, all on the New York Exchange. N.B. The term "Royal" means a rich company that owns gold and silver but is not a miner. Rather then mining, they buy small amounts of gold or silver rather cheap, because the miners always need more money to dig deeper.

If the U.S. should be forced by the neocon military/security complex to attack Russia with nuclear weapons, the certain result would be the destruction of the whole human race. This would mean that your grown children’s lives would be cut short and your grandchildren would never grow up. Think about that! You won’t hear anything like that from the so-called “main stream media” because they would lose their jobs if they don’t repeat your government’s lies. So, if you should want to know the real truth, you will have to get it from individuals like Paul Craig Roberts …who has a 6-year PhD in economics and has worked for Ronald Reagan and on Wall Street, but now lives on his government pension (and donations from people like me) in order to spread the truth. Can I count on you to spread this to some of your friends?

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The Unraveling of American/Russian Relations — Paul Craig Roberts

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October 14, 2017 | Categories: Articles & Columns | 
 

The Unraveling of American/Russian Relations

Paul Craig Roberts

Dear Readers: I agree that the official Las Vegas story seems to be unraveling. A public mass shooting should be transparent, not opaque. I think we explored the story long enough to discover that without knowing the facts, we cannot arrive at an explanation with confidence.

It is time to move on to another unraveling—that of US/Russian relations. This unraveling is far more serious as it threatens life on earth. I have warned of the consequences of Washington threatening Russia’s security by breaking agreement after agreement, by placing missile bases on Russia’s borders, by orchestrating anti-Russian coups in former Soviet provinces, and by a continuing volley of false accusations against Russia. There is no act more reckless and irresponsible than to make one nuclear power fear nuclear attack from another.

Alert observers have become aware of the mounting danger. Canadian professor Michel Chossudovsky writes that Washington has taken nuclear war from a hypothetical scenario to a real danger that threatens the future of humanity. https://www.globalresearch.ca/towards-a-world-war-iii-scenario-breaking-the-big-lie/5348384 

Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet leader who worked with President Ronald Reagan to end the Cold War and the threat of nuclear Armageddon, has appealed to President Trump and President Putin to hold a summit meeting and bring an end to the rising tensions. Gorbachev wrote in the Washington Post that “it is far from normal that the presidents of major nuclear powers meet merely on the margins of international gatherings.” This is especially the case as “relations between the two nations are in a severe crisis.” http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48004.htm 

Gorbachev’s warning could be an understatement. Last March, General Viktor Poznikhir, the deputy commander of the Russian military’s Operation Command expressed concern that Washington could be preparing a surprise nuclear attack on Russia. See https://dninews.com/article/moscow-us-missile-systems-europe-may-lead-sudden-nuclear-attack-russia and http://www.newsweek.com/russia-us-global-missile-defense-lead-nuclear-war-europe-591244 and https://www.yahoo.com/news/russian-officials-u-global-missile-192829855.html 

Had any such statement from the Russian high command been issued anytime during the 20th century Cold War era, the President of the United States would have immediately contacted the Soviet leader and given every assurance that no such plan or intentions toward Russia existed. As far as I can tell, the Trump White House let this ominous announcement pass unremarked. If this is the case, it must have provided confirmation to the Russians’ conclusion.

For some time I have pointed out that the entirety of the West, both the US and its vassal states, continue to ignore very clear Russian warnings. Gilbert Doctorow has made the same point. https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/10/10/deaf-ear-dire-russian-warnings.html

Perhaps the most clear of all was Putin’s public statement that “Russia will never again fight a war on its own territory.” If Washington’s EU vassals did not hear this clear warning that they are courting their nuclear destruction—especially the Poles and Romanians who have mindlessly hosted US missile bases—they are as deaf as they are stupid.

One Russian official told the idiot British government to its face that if the British threat to first use nuclear weapons is directed at Russia, if such an attempt is made, Great Britain will disappear from the face of the earth.

There is no doubt that that would be the case.

So why do Washington’s impotent vassals talk tough to Russia, a government that only desires peace and has threatened Britain in no way. Nor has the Russian government threatened France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Greece, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, or any of the former Eastern European vassals of the Soviet Union that exchanged their captivity to the Soviet Union for captivity to Washington. Russia has not even threatened Ukraine, which Russia could wipe out in a couple of minutes. Why are all of these countries, apparently led by mindless, gutless two-bit politicians, aligned with Washington’s false propaganda against Russia?

The answer is money. The vassals are paid to go along with the lies. As Alain of Lille said as long ago as the 12th century, “not God, not Caesar, but money is all.”

What are the forces driving Washington’s provocation of Russia? There are three, and they comprise a vast conspiracy against life on earth.

One is the Neoconservatives. The Neoconservatives were convinced by the Soviet Collapse that History has chosen not the proletariat but American “democratic capitalism” as the socio-politico-economic system for the world, and that this choice by History conveys on America the status of the “indispensable, exceptional” country, a status that places America above all other countries and above international law and, indeed, America’s own laws.

America is so exceptional that it can torture people in total violation of both US law and international law. The government in Washington can, on suspicion alone without presentation to a court of evidence and conviction, confine US citizens indefinitely, torturing them the entire time, and can assassinate them at will without due process of law. This is the definition of a total police state tyranny. Yet Washington represents America as a “great democracy,” whose endless wars against humanity are “bringing democracy to the world.”

America is so exceptional that it can bomb other countries indiscriminately without officially being at war with those countries.

America is so exceptional that the separation of powers prescribed in the American Constitution can be totally ignored by the executive branch as, the Neoconservatives claim, the President has “unique powers” not limited by the Constitution, which, of course, is just another lie.

Russia, China, and Iran are targets of the Neoconservatives, as were Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, and provinces of Pakistan, because these countries have/had independent foreign policies and are/were not Washington’s vassals.

The Neoconservative doctrine states that it is the “principal goal” of US foreign policy “to prevent the rise of Russia or any other state” that can serve as a constraint on Washington’s unilateralism. 

The New York Times under this headline on March 8, 1992, explains the Wolfowitz doctrine:
U.S. Strategy Plan Calls for Insuring No Rivals Develop
A One-Superpower World http://work.colum.edu/~amiller/wolfowitz1992.htm
Special to The New York Times

WASHINGTON, March 7 In a broad new policy statement that is in its final drafting phase, the Defense Department asserts that America’s political and military mission in the post-cold-war era will be to ensure that no rival superpower is allowed to emerge in Western Europe, Asia or the territories of the former Soviet Union.

A 46-page document that has been circulating at the highest levels of the Pentagon for weeks, and which Defense Secretary Dick Cheney expects to release later this month, states that part of the American mission will be convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests.

The classified document makes the case for a world dominated by one superpower whose position can be perpetuated by constructive behavior and sufficient military might to deter any nation or group of nations from challenging American primacy.

Every state with an independent foreign policy is a constraint on Washington, especially states with nuclear capabilities such as Russia and China.

A second interest with incentive to provoke Russia is the US military/security complex. President Eisenhower, a five-star general, warned Americans in 1961 that the “military-industrial complex” was a threat to American democracy. Today the military/security complex is much more than a mere threat to American democracy. It has already taken over the US government and the Trump administration, which is run by generals, and it now threatens all life on earth.

The military/security complex has an annual budget of one thousand billion dollars. This sum is larger than the Gross Domestic Products of all but a handful of countries on earth. Such an immense budget conveying such power desperately needs a dangerous enemy for its justification. Russia has been assigned this role. Given the power of the military/security complex, the role assigned to Russia cannot be mitigated by Russian diplomacy. Moreover, the interests of the military/security complex and the Neoconservatives are in agreement.

The third powerful interest group leading to conflict with Russia is the Israel Lobby. In Washington the Israel Lobby is extremely powerful. If the Israel Lobby puts legislation or a resolution before Congress, it usually passes almost unanimously, as anyone who votes against it is likely to be eliminated in the next election.

The Israel Lobby is closely linked to the Neoconservatives, the principal figures of which are Zionist Jews tightly allied with Israel. Some are joint US/Israeli citizens. The Israeli influence in Washington is so strong that the Vice Chairman of the US Federal Reserve Bank is the former chairman of the Israeli Central Bank. Israel is so powerful in Washington that it even runs US economic policy.

The Zionists in Israel want to expand. Their doctrine is “from the Nile to the Euphrates.” That is the Zionist claim of the land that God gave to the Chosen People.

In pursuit of this goal, Israel twice sent the Israeli Army into southern Lebanon to occupy that part of the country in order to seize the Litani River, water resources that Israel desires.

However, twice the Hezbollah militia drove out the vaunted Israeli Army. Israel now fears to send the army again. Instead, Israel is using its power over the government in Washington to use the US military to put Syria and Iran in the same chaos as exists in Libya and Iraq. The reason is that Syria and Iran are the supporters of the Hezbollah militia. Deprived of support, Hezbollah can be defeated by Israel.

It is Israel, not the US government per se, that is driving the US to war with Iran. Israel, which almost always gets its way in Washington, is encountering difficulties. Washington’s EU vassals are opposed to renewing conflict with Iran. Europe is overwhelmed with problems, many of which stem from Washington’s wars, and doesn’t need the Iranian one again. Neither does the US military, defeated in Syria and unable to win in Afghanistan after 16 years against a few thousand lightly armed Taliban. Washington’s defeat in Afghanistan on top of the defeat in Vietnam has destroyed any fear of Washington’s conventional forces, which is why Russia and China expect the next war to be nuclear.

Moreover, if Russia will not tolerate Washington’s overthrow of Syria, Russia certainly will not tolerate Washington’s overthrow of Iran. And it is unlikely that China will either as, according to reports, China gets 20% of its oil from Iran. Indeed, the Russian and Chinese interest in Iran is so strong that it is inexplicable that the Israel Lobby thinks it is so strong that it can drive Washington into war with Iran. The hubris and arrogance of the Neoconservatives and the Israel Lobby are the greatest the world has seen since Hitler marched off into Russia.

If the dumbshits in Washington repeat this folly, the lights on Earth will be turned off.

How NOT to be a patriotic American, i.e., One who believes anything claimed as fact by the so-called "mainstream media" …particularly regarding current foreign affairs.

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                               Published by Stephen Lendman at October 9, 2017

How to Succeed in Western Media Without Really Trying

by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)

Most important is loyalty to monied interests, war-profiteers, and the imperial state – serving as their press agents, abandoning fundamental journalistic principles, learning how to lie well, along with leaving honesty and integrity at home when heading for work.

Julian Assange offered his own recommended strategy for success. It’s simple, he said. Blame Russia for everything.

“You can do it” – without really trying.

“1) Pick random globally newsworthy event.
Russian press will also be reporting it by definition.

2) Write story: Russian state secretly behind globally newsworthy event as proved by their press reporting it.

3) Profit!”

Bashing Russia works, the bandwagon effect when everybody does it, following the same script.

Saying it makes it so. Repeating it ad nauseam works best. Lying is simpler than truth-telling – no evidence needed, no sources required.

Citing the usual unnamed ones works fine. Who’ll check? Lying pays well in America and other Western countries, truth-tellers shunted, contradicting the official narrative not tolerated.

Western major media are deplorable, truth-telling a lost art in their publications and broadcasts. The fourth estate, dominated by corporate giants, feature disinformation, fake news and advocacy instead of what legitimate journalism is supposed to be.

It’s shocking how low major media reporting has sunk. It’s biased, sensationalist, irresponsible rubbish, what Project Censored calls “junk food news.”

Major media are in cahoots with other powerful interests, government and private. Free and open societies are threatened when propagandists pose as journalists, letting fiction substitute for facts, stifling the free flow of content, shutting out dissent, working as paid liars, what famed journalist George Seldes called “prostitutes of the press.”

Imperial wars are called liberating ones, humanitarian intervention and responsibility to protect. Civil liberties are suppressed for our own good.

Beneficial social justice is considered heresy. The marketplace works best, we’re told, so let it. Patriotism means going along with what harms our welfare.

Independent journalism is the only legitimate kind, notably digital democracy, threatened by administration efforts to control Internet content.

Facebook, Twitter and other social media are willing accomplices. So are Google and other search engines, censoring and suppressing content, flagrantly violating the most vital of all constitutional rights – media and speech freedom. 

During pre-television days, noted journalist and author AJ Liebling once said “(p)eople everywhere confuse what they read in newspapers with news.”

HL Mencken called US journalism “predominantly paltry and worthless. Its pretensions are enormous, but its achievements are insignificant.”

He explained why major media sanitize news, filtering out unwanted content, saying:
“The most dangerous (person) to any government is (anyone) able to think things out for himself (or herself), without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos.”

“Almost inevitably (they come) to the conclusion that the government…is dishonest, insane, and intolerable…”

The state of Western media today is too deplorable to fix. Independent sources provide the only reliable news, information and analysis, no others.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
My newest book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”