This time it's for real. It seems Russia not only has serious intentions, but really no way out.
They were heavily hit by the VISA-Mastercard sanctions and they have to respond.
Right now they are going to gain a lot if they start trading in rubles.
I suppose the west will respond to this as well. Trade wars, financial wars... like James Rickards says: currency wars too!
Either the idiots in control are deliberately destroying the U.S. or they are some of the stupidest people on earth. Didn't they learn anything in school?
You never pick a fight when you are weaker than your opponent. You will lose every time. We have deliberately made ourselves VISIBLY weak to the world at large by our RECKLESS irresponsible monetary policies. Then we pick a fight with a country with virtually UNLIMITED resources? What idiocy.
We are now at the point where the ONLY solution for our survival is to bite the bullet NOW before it is too late, assuming that we have not passed the point of no return already. That means IMMEDIATE monetary surgery, from the top to the bottom. That means STOPPING all government spending UNTIL the money is already in the bank. Of course, the takers in our society would riot and throw a fit destroying much of the infrastructure when "their" money is cut off. We would have a virtual civic war on our hands.
The alternative is foreign boots on our ground in a real war and even worse conditions. Our choices are to become another "Greece" now, or to lose our country to the jackboots of some foreign power shortly down the road.
If we would immediately return to the gold standard where every dollar is backed by a real asset, we would have serious internal problems for a few months/years, but we would survive. Doing that would stop Russia et alia in their tracks.
Of course, our politicians are too stupid/greedy/naive/traitorous/cowardly & whatever to ever do that. We get to pay the price. We elected them. Now OUR stupidity/greediness/cowardliness etc is coming back to bite us in the ass.
The next major crash is due in 2018/2019. I expect it to be the mother of all crashes for this country. Possibly the death knell for the United States.
Look what happen decades ago. Crash in 1929. Germany militarizing then invading Poland in 1939 starting WWII. Fast forward to today. Crash in 2008. Germany in the process of militarizing. What do you think might happen around 2018 or so? And WHO do you think the target will be THIS time? And WHY?
Maybe because we STOLE their gold? Maybe because we reneged on our debts through printing FAKE money? Maybe because we are so weak that we are easy pickings? Maybe because it is time for the bankers to CLAIM collateral for our debts? Maybe because they detest us because we won the last several wars against them? Maybe because 3000 years ago they conquered us and now it is time for them to do it again?
One thing is positive. No nation in history has ever been able to borrow money from their enemies to fight a war against those enemies. After the currency and trade wars that WE are starting that we cannot win, we will have NO money left to finance a war when those currency and trade wars morph into bloody wars. A nation CANNOT be strong militarily when they are weak economically. We will NOT be able to protect ourselves.
Do I like this scenario? Absolutely not. But that is the road we are on. Unless we get back on the straight and narrow, we are doomed. And I expect to live long enough to see it happen. I suspect that most of you are a lot younger than I am, so I am sure most of you will live to see the results of our stupidity.
The worst part is that I know of no nation in history that turned itself around once it started down this road. I don't see it happening now, either. And it saddens me to watch the greatest nation in the history of the world deliberately heading to the ash heaps of history.
The only good thing is that EVENTUALLY our people will again become a great nation elsewhere in the world. Similar things have happened to us in the past, and we always started over, but never in the lands that we were dispossessed from. Our peoples have been enslaved several times in the past, and will be enslaved again in the near future. Generations later we returned to the straight and narrow and became great again, only to fall a few generations later. We are repeating our history AGAIN.
We never learn!