"Expect changes not seen in centuries."
Xi, who was granted a third consecutive presidential term last week used the occasion to break cover.
Xi told industry leaders that "Western countries led by the United States have implemented all-round containment, encirclement and suppression of China, which has brought unprecedented severe challenges to our country's development" and also announced "Expect changes not seen in centuries." ahead of Wang Yi unveiling the Iran and Saudi Arabia rapprochement
"China has faithfully fulfilled its duties as a mediator between Iran and Saudi Arabia, achieving a major diplomatic shift in Middle Eastern affairs." -Wang Yi
The US has treated Iran as a Pariah State ever since The Peacock Throne was upended by Ayatollah Khomenei and Xi's words about ''all-round containment, encirclement and suppression'' could just as well be applied to Iran since 1979.
If we consider the Middle Eastern Pax Americana a three legged stool, with the US the main leg, Israel the second then The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been the third leg of the stool and since February 14, 1945 when King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia met President Franklin D Roosevelt aboard the USS Quincy in Great Bitter Lake and the the petro dollar economy was symbolically born.
Xi has moved the Geopolitical Needle, has broken Iran's containment and seemingly prised the Saudi Prize out of America's grasp. The Fist Bump business was an early Signifier and the Future King of Saudi Arabia is exhibiting a degree of autonomous action nevere heretofore witnessed in any of his predecessors. The Abraham Accords which were designed to triangulate Iran have themselves been triangulated.
@naftalibennett tweeted
חידוש היחסים בין סעודיה לאיראן הוא התפתחות חמורה ומסוכנת לישראל ומהווה ניצחון מדיני לאיראן.
The renewal of relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran is a serious and dangerous development for Israel and is a political victory for Iran.
מדובר בפגיעה אנושה במאמץ לבניית קואליציה אזורית למול איראן.
This is a fatal blow to the effort to build a regional coalition against Iran.
זהו כישלון מהדהד של ממשלת נתניהו ונובע משילוב של הזנחה מדינית עם חולשה כללית וסכסוך פנימי במדינה. >>
This is a resounding failure of the Netanyahu government and results from a combination of political neglect with general weakness and internal conflict in the country. >>
The Gas Yuan and the Petro Yuan have contributed to a $200b swing in China's terms of Trade and this is meaningful.
President Biden upended a more than half century diktat of American Foreign Policy which was to keep Russia and China from ever coming together and in fact presided at their wedding ceremony, which is the equivalent of a gross geopolitical dereliction of duty.
Today the Queue to join BRICS includes Mexico and the Coalition of the Willing is a small group of Deadender Economies [with the exception of the US], presiding over the steepest fall in living standards in living memory. The War in Ukraine is lost and The hypersonic missile has ended the golden age of the aircraft carrier. [@JosMiddendorp]
The Kh-47M2 Kinzhal (in Russian: Х-47М2 Кинжал, "Dagger", NATO reporting name Killjoy) is a Russian nuclear-capable hypersonic air-launched ballistic missile. It is claimed to have a range of 3,000 km (1,900 mi) and Mach 12 speed (2.5 mi/s).
& therefore Taiwan will eventually go the way of Hong Kong. With respect to Ukraine I refer you to a clip from (2015)
OLIVER STONE to PUTIN (2015): "In a hot war, is the US dominant?"
Putin is basically making the overarching point that he is not Gaddafi, he is not Saddam [Unlike Saddam he has WMDs] and not the elusive Mullah Omar.
Biden, Blinken, Nuland et al indulged in Fantasy land thinking and have presided over a geopolitical trainwreck.
This Fantasy like bubble has gone on so long because no alternative viewpoint is permitted a Platform and the claque of Think Tanks are surely the poorest Intellectuals in America's History.
Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev who has a Hunter S. Thompson way with words
has been delivering a real time critique on Telegram and social Media
For the third day, another epic drama from Hollywood is unfolding before our eyes. The sequel to the film, which was dedicated to Saddam's chemical weapons with a demonstration of test tubes at the UN.
The world, opening its mouth and experiencing a slight gag reflex, looks at the numerous bowel movements of the Western media about “who did blow up the Nord Streams after all.” And really: who framed Roger Rabbit?
It turns out that the whole thing is in some unknown “pro-Ukrainian group”. Which (it is especially emphasized) is in no way, well, absolutely, absolutely, not a single wire and switch is connected either with Bandera Kiev, or with Europe zombified by gynecologists, or with America plunged into senile insanity, or with the other Western world that has fallen ill with Russophobic hysteria. Just lone heroes who have come to grips with the damned Muscovites! The new salvation of the world by some inglorious bastards.
It turns out so-so - the actors are mediocre. Obviously not at the level of Brad Pitt and Christoph Waltz. And the director is not the level of Quentin Tarantino. Very poor casting and camera. The script is just boring shit. Stupid American propaganda. Nobody likes it. Even the European inhabitants poisoned by it do not believe. They feel sick, as if they ate pork knuckle with beer.
As the American beacons of freedom of speech and the vassal German mass media who joined them write, the mysterious divers (no other than in black balaclavas over wetsuits) were “citizens of Ukraine or Russia.” At the same time, they have nothing to do with the Kyiv regime. Especially with the free world.
In general, from no state, here! Citizens of the world. Just fighters with Muscovy. Loners-schizophrenics, such as initiators. The layman is offered a bunch of cheap special effects. Like, six hardened saboteurs, among whom even one femme fatale (and how without her in the film?), Went out on a yacht into the stormy Baltic Sea. They took on board half a ton of explosives, dived beautifully. And then how two huge pipes at the bottom would blow up! And they went into the sunset. Unnoticed. At sea, full of NATO ships and international tracking systems. They also returned the yacht to the owner, cool, but law-abiding!
Here is such a frank low-rated shnyaga category B.
Actually, the film failed immediately after the premiere. Western viewers do not believe it: they ask uncomfortable questions, why did the old version about the “Russian trace” suddenly begin to turn 180 degrees (or 360, as Granny Burbock thinks?).
And why is it necessary to excuse the Kiev regime so actively, defending its innocence and innocence with foam at the mouth?
The answers are quite understandable, given the current mood of Europeans, who are less and less pleased with the prospect of paying out of pocket for ever new packages of sanctions, arms supplies to Ukraine, an energy crisis and falling living standards in once prosperous countries.
And if the Ukrainian Nazis, and not Russia at all, blew up the gas pipelines, what is the point of supporting them with fire, sword and money transfers? To fool the Europeans brains, it seems that this whole cheap movie was created.
I wonder if there will be a continuation of the action movie? With a plot like this: the same heroes, led by the Polish cannibal Duda, who escaped from a psychiatric hospital, penetrate the bunker of the brave President Ze, who has sniffed white powder. They take him hostage and then accidentally strangle him. For it is not a pity and tired. And then the zombie apocalypse begins in the manner of The last of us.
Wait, stock up on popcorn.
We have entered a moment of Farce.
''They want us to believe a bunch of snorkelers on a sailboat blew up Nord Stream ......the mother of all bad cover stories'' @RealScottRitter @georgegalloway
I was brought up in the West but never have I witnessed such complete idiocy. I am genuinely perplexed and appalled. In my misspent Youth, we used to play a Game called Red Eye. Everyone gets a card and you place your card on your head without looking at it facing the others. You can see all the cards except your own. The Winner is the one with the highest value card. Biden is the reckless Player with a 2 of Spades betting everything. Its painful to watch.
Lets turn to the markets.
Financial regulators have closed Silicon Valley Bank and taken control of its deposits, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. announced Friday, in what is the largest U.S. bank failure since the global financial crisis more than a decade ago.
As of the end of December, SVB had roughly $209 billion in total assets and $175.4 billion in total deposits, according to the press release.
This was a lightning-fast bank run that saw companies withdraw a fifth of its assets — $42 billion in a day.
Looks like SVB held $120b in securities but basically didn't hedge their interest rate exposure. That's totally crazy. No wonder they failed. @FedGuy12
This is Mismanagement of Interest rate risk exposure.You essentially had callable deposits and You invested in long term MBS and Treasury Bonds, which have been impaired.
The systemic risk is that more than a decade of financial repression means this might not be an isolated instance.
My timeline has been flooded with Tech Bros demanding a bailout. It is unconscionable. Powell has to stand firm because if he pivots back to QE and rate cuts all is lost and the Dollar most of all.
Its Andrew Mellon time for Powell.Mellon doctrine Territory. Mellon believed that economic recessions, such as those that had occurred in 1873 and 1907, were a necessary part of the business cycle because they purged the economy.
In his memoirs, Hoover wrote that Mellon advised him to “liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate. Purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. ... enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people.”
The markets did their pavlovian thing Friday
US 2Y says #Fed must cut on Monday to avoid a sector wide bank run, now that market gets that large parts of the sector are basically insolvent (despite zippo credit risk) due to re-rating of their „zero-risk“ (oh the irony) fixed income book in past 12 months. #Banks $SIVB [@BurggrabenH]
If Powell cuts rates, it will be a debacle. The US 2Y is a Sell. Inflation is running hot.
I think the above captioned Index is overdone to the downside.
& Therefore I agree with with Andrey Sizov, managing director of SovEcon, one of the leading agriculture consultancies in the Black Sea region
At the same time, we see record-high funds' wheat shorts position. Just imagine what would happen to that big short and the global prices if something bad happens in the region. It feels like we are sitting on a powder keg during the biggest war of the 21st century.
And I am now limit Long Wheat.