Russia is retaliating against the recent frequent cross-border drone attacks on its territory, over the weekend bombing several key Ukraine infrastructure sites, chiefly through drones.

On Sunday Russia’s defense ministry announced its forces launched a successful UAV attack on an oil depot that’s near the Romanian border. It was reportedly destroyed, but was seen as vital to supplying Ukrainian forces deployed in the Odessa region.

“The Russian Aerospace Force made a group strike by unmanned aerial vehicles this night against fuel storages used for supplies to military vehicles of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the port of Reni, Odessa Region. The strike objective was achieved. All the designated targets were engaged,” the ministry said.

The statement continued: “Tactical and army aviation, rocket troops and artillery of battlegroups of the Russian Federation Armed Forces engaged manpower and materiel of the adversary in 119 areas.”

The main oil depot that was hit is located on the bank of the Danube River which lies opposite NATO-member Romania, raising tensions given Romania has been key to setting up an alternative grain export route for Kiev.

Additionally, more military and infrastructure facilities were hit particularly connected to Ukrainian ports.

RT reported separately that “MOD officials also said Russia had taken out two Ukrainian ammunition depots and a drone command center in southeastern Dnepropetrovsk Region and a Kiev-controlled part of Kherson Region, again using UAV strikes.

At this point amid the last several months of Kiev’s stepped-up campaign to attack Russian territory, there have been multiple dozens (if not possibly hundreds) of strikes on Russia and the Crimean peninsula – including as deep into Russia as Moscow and parts of the northwest.

The Kremlin has frequently said it would step up its retaliation on ‘decision-making centers’ in Ukraine, and that campaign appears to be in process.

While Western and international press reports have highlighted the occasions of brazen cross-border operations against Russian territory out of Ukraine, the major Russian strikes on Ukrainian sites have received less attentions in headlines of late, which has angered and frustrated Kiev officials.

These UAV assaults on Russia and Crimea have become almost daily, particularly drone assaults, but really nothing has changed on the battlefield in terms of the failing counteroffensive. 

By Brian McGlinchey via starkrealities.substack.com

As millions of Americans struggle to recover from the latest hurricane, state government officials are issuing stern reminders that criminal penalties loom for anyone who engages in “price gouging.”

“Price gouging” is the pejorative label applied to the charging of substantially higher prices for goods and services that are in high demand and short supply in disaster-stricken areas. Anti-price gouging laws typically apply to things like food, fuel, lodging, medicine, building materials, construction tools and other necessities.

The idea of charging higher prices in the midst of a crisis goes against human impulses about fair play. However, a dispassionate examination of “price gouging” reveals that it actually benefits people in disaster areas — and confirms that, like other forms of price control, anti-price gouging laws make things worse for the people they’re supposed to benefit.

Before diving in, it’s essential to fully appreciate what prices are. They aren’t just numbers on cases of water, hotel signs or gas pumps. Embedded with information, prices transmit important signals to would-be buyers and sellers alike.

Sharply higher prices announce that the demand for a product is suddenly much higher than the supply. At the same time, the higher price performs two enormously beneficial functions:

• Incentivizing consumers to more deeply consider if they truly need the product right now — and, if so, in what quantity.

• Incentivizing sellers to go to great lengths to bring more of the product to the market as quickly as possible.

Let’s first consider the effect of crisis-driven price spikes on consumer behavior, using gas prices as an example. When gas prices in a disaster area are allowed to soar alongside surging demand and plummeting supply, consumers are pressured to buy only what they think they really need. If they’re on an evacuation route, they’ll be more inclined to buy only what’s needed to get them out of the disaster area and to a place where gas is in greater supply.

On the other hand, when laws compel gas stations to keep the same price as during normal conditions, customers are prone to top off like they always do. When a station runs out, it will have served fewer people’s needs and left more people with no opportunity to buy gas at any price.

Similarly, consider the market for hotel rooms. When prices spike, a family with two teenagers will be incentivized to share one room rather than indulging in two. Another family may choose to travel a little farther, where the supply of rooms is greater and the price lower. Others will pursue non-hotel substitutes, like staying at the home of a friend or relative.

In each case, the resulting consumer behavior sees price signals organically guiding the market toward a broader and more rational distribution of scarce products, with those products more likely to be obtained by people whose need for them is greatest.

At the same time they’re positively influencing consumers, crisis-driven price surges offer powerful enticements to businesses and entrepreneurs, pushing them to rush products into the disaster area so they can reap outsized rewards.

Sellers have a particular motivation to be among the first to introduce new inventory into the area, before the supply-demand imbalance is neutralized and prices collapse. In that way, larger profit margins foster an urgency among sellers that’s aligned with the urgency of disaster-area buyers.

Even those who can’t afford the higher prices initially asked by the “gougers” benefit from them, as those prices draw new supply into the market that will push prices down to more affordable levels.

“Poor people may not be able to afford the high prices at first, but having empty shelves wouldn’t help poor people either,” said Duke University Professor Michael Munger. “Anti-price-gouging laws keep the shelves empty longer. High prices are better than empty shelves, and high prices come down quickly if we’ll just let producers do their jobs.”

Price signals can even inspire those who aren’t normally in the business of selling a particular product to jump into the market in pursuit of attractive profits.

That’s no classroom hypothetical: After Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast and wiped out electricity for more than 2 million people in the region, Kentuckian John Shepperson bought 19 generators, rented a U-Haul truck and drove 600 miles to Mississippi, where he offered them at twice his purchase price.

If you’re flinching at Shepperson’s “price-gouging” markup, consider his time, his long trek that grew increasingly difficult as he proceeded deeper into the disaster zone, and the financial risk he took by buying the generators, renting a truck, and paying for fuel along the way —all with hope but not certainty of reaching buyers.

Shepperson wasn’t acting as a charity. However, his actions show how, in a free market, individuals pursuing their own separate interests are driven to act in a way that benefits other people at the same time it benefits themselves.

Sadly, in a particularly vivid illustration of Robert LeFevre’s observation that “government is a disease masquerading as its own cure,” Shepperson was arrested for violating Mississippi’s anti-price-gouging law and held in a jail for four days. His generators were confiscated and locked away in police storage where — rather than powering the homes of those who’d be happy to pay Shepperson’s asking price — they sat idle.

In more than 30 states, the law embraces that outcome — one where police intervene to prevent willing buyers from paying prices that a government official subjectively determines to be “excessive” or “unconscionable.” To borrow from Thomas Sowell, those who champion such laws — whether they’re legislators or the citizens who cheer them on — are “long on indignation and short on economics.”

The Price Gouging Hotline is activated for #Idalia.

You can report extreme price increases on essential commodities by using our free NO SCAM app, calling 1(866) 9NO-SCAM or visiting https://t.co/T17XitLuGo.https://t.co/ItvNRtFImF pic.twitter.com/1lGJ8nA95c

— AG Ashley Moody (@AGAshleyMoody) August 28, 2023

None of this is to say that higher prices make everyone better off or result in a perfectly fair allocation of scarce resources in precise order of need. “But the question is whether alternative systems of rationing are usually better or worse,” wrote Sowell in his indispensable book, “Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy.”

Anti-price gouging laws impose a first-come, first-served rationing system, one that encourages hoarding and empties shelves faster, while doing nothing to prioritize the distribution of products by urgency of need, or to incentivize a rapid influx of new supply to ease the crisis.

At a superficial level, “price-gouging” may feel wrong. However, those who turn society’s impulsive indignation over the phenomenon into outright criminalization ultimately do a great disservice to their fellow citizens.

Stark Realities undermines official narratives, demolishes conventional wisdom and exposes fundamental myths across the political spectrum. Read more and subscribe at starkrealities.substack.com 

At the recent Rick Rule Precious Metals Symposium, experts Matthew Piepenburg, Rick Rule, and Jim Rickards sat down to discuss the future of the USD, the rising BRICS tide, and the Realpolitik of any realistic (i.e., immediate) gold-backed BRICS trade currency.

The conversation revolved around the idea that the dollar has not only been debased but also weaponized, which has led to decreasing trust in the currency as a global reserve.

Rickards noted, “It’s the weaponization of the dollar… you’re not just stealing our money with inflation, you’re actually telling us we can’t get it back,” emphasizing that while the BRICS countries might not fully trust each other, they are more likely to trust a “common trading currency backed by gold.”

Rule described the U.S. dollar’s previous “exorbitant privilege” advantage is coming to an end, thereby making things more expensive for Americans.

“The enemy of the U.S. dollar isn’t in Beijing or Moscow or Riyadh, it’s in Washington.”

For Piepenburg, the end-game is clear.

• Debt drives policy and debt drives current market directions.

• This debt will not and cannot be sustained by GDP growth or tax revenues,…

• …which means ultimately money printers will continue to de-value that world reserve currency,…

• …and hence devalue the once hegemonic respect for the US holder of that currency.

Piepenburg states, “America doesn’t seem to be the America that it was in 1944 or the America that it was under Kissinger in the early 70s,” indicating a significant shift in global economic dynamics.

While all experts seemed to agree that gold could play an increasingly important role, Piepenburg was skeptical that national leaders and central bankers would willingly give up their power to print money at will, dubbing this the “Nietzsche thesis,” questioning why leaders would want to “relinquish that ability to print at will.”

Overall, the panel agreed that the weaponization and debasement of the dollar have diminished its credibility, setting the stage for other forms of currency or assets like gold to gain importance in protecting investors from this increasingly beleaguered, self-destructive, debased and less popular US currency.

Watch the full discussion below:

Via Remix News,

The EU’s Foreign Affairs Council usually calls for peace talks between the opposing parties in remote armed conflicts, but the opposite principle is applied toward the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, said Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó while he was in Slovenia on Tuesday.

“Anyone who advocates an immediate ceasefire and peace talks is immediately condemned and branded a Russian spy, a Kremlin propagandist, a friend of Putin,” the minister said.

He noted that with war raging on the continent, the position of peace is suddenly not the position of the EU bloc, despite the fact that it has been more than a year and a half since the war began and hundreds of thousands of people have lost their lives while Europe’s economy has directly suffered.

Szijjártó said at a panel discussion at the Bled Strategic Forum that the EU is not in good shape today and has weakened a lot in recent years in the areas of security, the economy and energy security.

The Hungarian foreign minister said that this situation did come out of nowhere, but is the result of a series of decisions that were taken or not taken.

On the issue of security, he said that “the negative consequences of the war in Ukraine in the immediate neighborhood were particularly serious and that Hungarians were also dying in the fighting.”

In addition, Szijjártó said the European Union needs sensible reforms, enlargement of the bloc must be treated as a top priority, and the Western Balkan states must be admitted to the EU as soon as possible, as this would significantly strengthen the community.

Economic cooperation with China?

Szijjártó also stated that in 2010, the European Union’s share of world GDP was 22 percent, while China’s was 9 percent. However, today the situation has reversed, with China’s share at 18 percent and the EU’s at 17 percent.

He called the cutting of economic ties between Europe and China, the so-called “de-risking,” which some people wish to see, a mistake.

“I think the real risk is de-risking itself. It is not a risk to cooperate with a rapidly emerging economy, but to cut ourselves off from it,” he said.

Szijjártó added that strong economic cooperation with China could make a major contribution to the EU’s economic growth.

In the latest manifestation of the War State’s depraved indifference to human suffering in Ukraine, the United States will soon pour depleted-uranium munitions into its proxy war against Russia, according to an exclusive report from Reuters. 

The shells, which are designed to penetrate enemy armored vehicles, will be used by US M-1 Abrams tanks that will begin arriving in Ukraine within the next several weeks. In March, the United Kingdom was first to announce it would give the controversial rounds to Ukraine, for use in British Challenger 2 tanks. 

The ammunition is made from the byproduct of uranium that’s been processed for nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. In anti-tank use, depleted uranium is valued for its density, which is 1.7 times the density of lead. It’s used to manufacture dart-like sabot rounds that penetrate armor and then ignite when they contact the oxygen inside the targeted vehicle. 

While the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) says the risk posed to civilians by the residue of depleted uranium (DU) rounds “was not significant,” a different study points to potential links between the ammunition and a variety of genuinely horrifying birth defects in Iraq. That study centered on the Iraqi city of Nasiriyah, which was attacked by the US military in the early 90s and again in 2003. 

According to the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons: 

When DU bullets hit an armored surface, they are burned by the high temperatures generated by the impact. This creates a very fine dust that is radioactive and chemically toxic. Through food and respiration, this toxic dust is absorbed by the body. In the body, the radiation and the chemical poison cause serious damage.

Many diseases can be caused: alteration and damage to the genome, malformations of the human body in the womb, impaired fertility in men and women, cancer in almost all organs, kidney failure and behavioral problems.

It bears emphasis that these rounds will be used by the Ukrainian military on land it’s purportedly seeking to “liberate” for the benefit of the civilians who live there and will be exposed to this hazard for many years to come. 

The ammunition will be included in a new military aid package that will be revealed next week, Reuters reports. The new package will redistribute between $240 million and $375 million in American wealth to Ukraine, on top of the more than $135 billion poured into the proxy war so far.  

This isn’t the first form of highly controversial ammunition the US government has pushed into the war in recent months. This summer, the Biden administration sent cluster munitions that are fired by 155mm artillery pieces. More than 100 countries are party to a treaty that bans the ammunition. 

“Cluster bombs scatter small submunitions over large areas, making them especially hazardous for civilians,” wrote AntiWar.com’s Dave DeCamp in July. “Submunitions that don’t explode immediately on impact can kill or maim civilians for decades to come, as they have in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, where the US dropped hundreds of millions of bomblets during the Vietnam War.”

In an interview with CNN, Biden let slip that he’d approved the transfer of cluster munitions because Ukraine was running out of conventional rounds — and the US was too. 

Last seek, Republican Senator Mitt Romney demonstrated the casual ghoulishness of Washington’s warmongers. The billions being poured into Ukraine, he said, “is about the best national defense spending I think we’ve ever done. We’re losing no lives in Ukraine!” 

The single most important thing we can do to strengthen America relative to China is to see Russia defeated in Ukraine. A weakened Russia deters the CCP’s territorial ambition, and halts Putin’s vision of reestablishing the old Soviet Union. Supporting Ukraine is in our interest. pic.twitter.com/X21GGs0lTW

— Senator Mitt Romney (@SenatorRomney) August 25, 2023

Romney’s rhetoric is clearly part of a coordinated, bipartisan PR campaign aimed at boosting sagging support for the war. After a trip to Kiev and a meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal published an op-ed in which he first gushed about Zelensky’s “magnetic energy,” then crowed that Americans are getting their “money’s worth” because “not a single American service woman or man [has been] injured or lost.” 

Given their disinterest in Ukrainian lives sacrificed for the neocon agenda, these warmongers surely don’t care if a generation of Ukrainian civilians is condemned to endure horrific birth defects and cancer from depleted uranium or losing limbs to cluster munitions. 

These people don’t care about Ukrainians. And they don’t care about you. 

Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,

The older I get the more time I spend asking the question, “Why does someone want me to know this?” Our media is so compromised that questioning the editorial bias of every issue is a full time job.

And I know that it is done on purpose to distract us from the real issues in some instances while advancing an agenda in others.

In 2023, the topic of de-dollarization has been all the rage. It’s been a non-stop barrage of hype and hyperbole. The din of de-dollarization talk became so loud in the lead up to the recent BRICS Summit that it drowned out what was really on the agenda for those few days.

This talk came from all sides, from the BRICS leaders themselves as well as the western press dominated by both British and Davos interests.

People fell all over themselves talking up the “BRICS gold-backed currency” trying to edge each other out in being ahead of the curve on this issue. After a while it became another moment to ask who benefits from all of this amplification?

I’ve been writing about these things for years, knowing that those who control the production of commodities would ultimately get tired of the wealth extraction schemes operated by the financialization masters in New York, London, and Zurich.

It was only a matter of time before they would make their move.

And I can tell you for real that I’ve never been amplified on any subject like this until such time as people in Moscow, Brussels and Beijing wanted this commentary out there.

Don’t take this for grousing, because it isn’t. It’s just an observation born of years of experience. I’ve come to understand what a lack of amplification means; that this is the story no one wants to be told.

So, this begs the question, why do they want it told now?

In many ways this is how I know I’m usually on the right track with respect to a particular issue. It’s my forever internalizing the baseball great Wee Willy Keeler who famously said that baseball is an easy game, “Just hit ’em where they ain’t.”

So, a lot of important someones wanted us to know about de-dollarization this year.

They had their reasons to promote this concept. And, as always, it has to do with influencing global capital flow while distracting the commentary from what was really on the agenda.

For Davos de-dollarization is just another attack vector on the United States.

By playing up the problems the US has domestically as well as geopolitically they create uncertainty. Capital hates uncertainty.

Throw in a purposefully-belligerent and incompetent “Biden” administration and you have a perfect cocktail of uncertainty which keeps capital markets globally distrustful of both the near-term policy mixed with the long-term trends.

Conclusion? The US is FUBAR.

Russia is at war with the West, so, of course, Vladimir Putin will talk his book on de-dollarization. He is the point man on the BRICS being “anti-dollar.”

There’s only this one little problem with all of this: The US dollar itself and the lack of alternative infrastructure for ditching it. Despite all of the jawboning and, frankly, propaganda on this subject, the reality is far, far different.

While everyone is talking de-dollarization, the real currency losing it’s position in global trade is the euro. But no one is talking about de-eruoization. I guess it doesn’t roll off the tongue as well?

According to the latest data from the SWIFT RMB Tracker, there is no currency that has lost more ground in global trade than the euro. In just over two years the euro has fallen from 39.5% of global payments outside the euro-zone to just 13.6%.

The dollar absorbed most of those payments with the British pound, Japanese yen and, yes, the Chinese renminbi taking up the rest.

So, the great distraction about de-dollarization is, in part, about paying no attention to the rapid demise of the euro and the emerging sovereign bond crisis that ECB President Christine Lagarde works everyday to paper over.

I’ve talked about this so much people are getting sick of it. (Here, Here, Here, and Here)

Eventually, however, no matter how hard they try to game the math, paint the tape and make deals to keep up appearances, markets are simply smarter than central planners.

So, with this in mind I fully expect over the next couple of months for the bond vigilantes to return with a vengeance now that Jerome Powell has everyone’s attention. He can further up his street cred with another 25 basis point raise in September, but honestly, he may not have to.

BRICS in the Wall

But, back to the BRICS. If de-dollarization wasn’t the point of the Summit this year, then what was?

Expansion.

And not just expansion for the sake of expansion, but geographically strategic expansion.

The BRICS formally added six countries — Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Egypt and Ethiopia. They could have added others and almost added Algeria if not for a last-minute veto by India on behalf of France.

Algeria is symbolic of the fight between Italy and France for access to African oil and gas. There can be no Ital-exit from the EU without Italy minimizing France’s influence in North Africa, shoring up its energy needs as collateral for a return to the lira.

Thankfully, with the help of Russia and China, the Africans are taking care of the Italians’ French Problem all on their own.

If there is one common theme beyond the geography (more on that in a bit) with all six of these countries it is their relationship with the supposedly former British empire. From the Arab states and Egypt to those that defied the Brits in the past — e.g. Iran and Argentina — these additions represent a power shift that is profound.

One look at the world map should make this point crystal clear.

Countries in Red are members of the alliance. Those in green have formally applied for membership and yellow are those that have openly expressed interest.

But it is the 5 countries clustered around the center of global trade that should grab your attention.

Because all talk of a BRICS common currency are nothing more than theatre if there isn’t a fully developed alternative financial supply chain to capture the profits and minimize currency risks and friction for all the members.

Taking them one by one let’s discuss.

Iran

So, let’s start with the easy one. Iran, in my book, has been the “I” in BRICS for years. Because with India constantly keeping everyone off-balance, much like Erdogan in Turkey, that incentivized Russia and China to invest heavily in Iran, as a counterpoint, making it the key to both China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Russia’s long-desired International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC).

India dragged their feet for so long on their contracted work on the Iranian port at Chabahar, that Iran nullified the contract, handed it to China, who then finished the work in less time than it took for Iran to get India on the phone to complain about it.

This is the kind of pivot that gets results. China and Russia have pledged hundreds of billions in investment and sales to Iran, supporting them after Former President Trump tore up the JCPOA and put on sanctions which didn’t work, unless Trump’s goal was to ensure what has transpired since.

This is further proof Trump doesn’t play 4-d chess.

Both the ports at Chabahar and Bandar Abbas now serve to get Asian trade, especially coming from Russia, exits beyond the choke points around the Mediterranean, Red, and Black Seas.

So, Iran was always going to be the first country added to the bloc. It quickly put India on notice to stop playing games.

Saudi Arabia

Adding Saudi Arabia and the UAE weren’t on anyone’s radar back during the Trump Interregnum, because Trump understood how important the Saudis were to the US maintaining its presence in the region.

The problem for Trump was that the Saudis knew he wasn’t a long-term solution in the US. All during his presidency events occurred that trace a line straight back to Obama’s foreign policy. Undermining Trump was the sole focus of Obama’s shadow government, especially our relationship with the Saudis.

With the successful intervention by Russia in Syria, and their own disastrous results in the War in Yemen, it was only a matter of time before Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) came to his senses.

Saudi Arabia’s future was with the BRICS not the remnants of the British empire. As an aside here, I talk about Neocons all the time and the best way to think of them, beyond their hatred of pretty much the rest of the world, is to see them as the inheritors of the British empire’s foreign policy.

The US adopted this foreign policy a century ago under Woodrow Wilson (see my podcast with Richard Poe). Since then it’s been the one thing, aside from ruinous spending, that unites the Uniparty on Capitol Hill. Empire or bust. Looking at the ruin of our finances and domestic politics, “Bust” was the obvious outcome.

Saudi Arabia had no other option than to go along with its OPEC+ partner, Russia, if MbS wants the country to survive the end of its oil reserves.

UAE

The UAE addition is definitely part of the currency discussion. Dubai and Abu Dhabi have rapidly become centers for strategic commodities trading with very successful and deepening gold and oil trading. Dubai has its own crude oil benchmark. Even Moscow doesn’t have one of those (yet).

As Vince Lanci and I talked about at length in a recent appearance on Palisades Gold Raio (parts I and II here), in order to even talk about some form of gold-backed trade settlement system, there has to be a deep and liquid supply chain and financial industry in place to facilitate both that settlement and minimize the storage risks to gold and currency risks of the alliance members trading bilaterally without the dollar as the intermediate.

So, adding Dubai as one node in that network outside of China’s control was important to building trust there. Having multiple exchanges, vaults, and refineries simplifies everything. And, with that, minimizes the ‘convenience premium’ of using the US dollar and maximizing members’ use of local currencies with gold acting as the universal trust layer and a blockchain for back office and auditing functions.

So, first, you add the financial center, then you start really talking the whole “Gold-Backed BRICS Currency.” Order of operations matters folks.

The UAE was necessary to get India to even consider going along with Russia and China on this idea, which is why the UAE dirham will be the settlement currency between India and Russia on oil sales, and not the ruble. It both creates validity for a third party while also keeps India free from directly contravening US sanctions on buying Russian energy.

Argentina

It shouldn’t be underestimated how much the IMF and European corruption have wreaked havoc in Argentina over the years. This is another resource-rich country that has been kept under constant upheaval which now has the opportunity, like Egypt, to get out from underneath the IMF’s thumb, depriving vulture capitalists all across the west the opportunity to plunder the country one more time.

Adding Argentina should see the development money necessary to build out its significant shale reserves at Vaca Muerta make its way into the country. This stabilizes its foreign exchange reserves and access to the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB) gives it an alternative to the IMF loan sharks.

The upcoming elections could quickly become a referendum on IMF requirements and capital controls.

Egypt and Ethiopia

Egypt is a fascinating turn of events, because Egypt’s financial weakness was the very thing to create a strategic opportunity for Russia and China to make President Al-Sisi a great offer. Use our New Development Bank and stiff the International Monetary Fund if they won’t negotiate a debt write-down.

Like what’s in front of Argentina, Egypt now has leverage in negotiations they didn’t have before.

Either way the IMF loses here, because Egypt has an alternative lender it can force a write-down by the IMF for the first time ever or they can just default. China is already willing to forgive $8 billion in Egypt’s debt while the IMF is holding fast only to restructuring.

And if you think Egypt doesn’t have this leverage here let’s not forget that the Suez Canal still handles 12% of global trade daily. The BRICS bloc now have a political ally that controls the Suez.

With Ethiopia, along with Russia’s deft diplomacy with both Eretria and China’s with Djibouti where they have port access, the BRICS now has effectively unfettered access to the Red Sea. The pressure will mount for Eretria and Djibouti to make peace with Ethiopia, thus opening up trade in eastern Africa.

Access to or circumventing the historic chokepoints to global trade has been a long-held goal of both Russia and China. And it looks like with these additions to the BRICS bloc, they have finally achieved that.

Meet the New Boss?

In my last article on geopolitics, I brought up the importance of physical collateral for the future of the West’s financial dominance, especially that of Europe. The main reason why I keep harping on why Europe is in such trouble is because it’s obvious now that those with physical collateral, including the US, are no longer interested in selling that collateral to a colonial-minded Europe at cut-rate prices.

Russia, under Putin, was happy to court the EU as energy partners because he thought it would secure Russia’s future from potential war with Europe. He was willing to sell Europe cheap gas to maximize the total profit to Russia, not directly measurable in things like GDP or trade balances.

Some capital is political. Some profits are social, despite crappy Marxist commentary to the contrary.

This is why he went along with Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s plea to build Nordstream 2, knowing it would incense the US/UK Neocons.

The peace dividend to Russia was just too big not to make a run at. Merkel’s betrayal of Putin over NS2 and the Minsk agreements are why we are in the mess we’re in today.

The Neocons struck geopolitical gold with blowing up Nordstream, depriving Germany and France of much needed gas. Things are so bad in Germany that they are now quietly dismantling their wind farms to rebuild coal-fired plants, going back to the one energy source they have in abundance in Europe.

Now Africa is in revolt against France. Last month it was Niger. This month it is Gabon. There is no way France can respond to all of these revolts on their own. They need outside intervention and it doesn’t look like it’s coming.

Queen Warmonger Vicky Nudelman went to Niger and was rebuffed. Reports are now circulating that she and her staff were caught completely by surprise with events in Africa and had no solutions, offers or even credible threats to bring to bear.

Pretoria was well aware of Nuland’s hawkish reputation, but when she arrived in Pretoria, the official described her as “totally caught off guard” by winds of change engulfing the region. The July putsch that saw a popular military junta come to power in Niger followed military coups in Mali and Burkina Faso that were similarly inspired by mass anti-colonial sentiment.

Though Washington has so far refused to characterize developments in the Nigerien capital of Niamey as a coup, the South African source confirmed that Nuland sought South Africa’s assistance in responding to regional conflicts, including in Niger, where she emphasized that Washington not only held significant financial investments, but also maintained 1,000 of its own troops. For Nuland, the realization that she was negotiating from a position of weakness was likely a rude awakening.

If you map Nuland to the UK/US Neocons who are not necessarily aligned with Davos then this report should shock you, because it tells us that neither are capable of moving into the power vacuum left by these juntas seizing power.

It says, with little equivocation, that all of the colonial powers of Europe are paper tigers. What started in Burkina Faso and Mali is spreading like wildfires set by Climate Change arsonists in Canada across Africa.

French President Emmanuel Macron can only scream impotently in Paris, Nuland can shake her fist screaming, “You’ll rue the day…,” and the US Dept. of Defense stands by and says exactly nothing.

At the same time clashes between Syrian Arab Army troops and US occupying forces east of the Euphrates River are back under the headlines.

Do you get the picture yet?

The fight for physical collateral is dovetailing perfectly with capturing control of the major trade routes. While the UK and their Neocon quislings are hell bent on starting WWIII over Ukraine, c.f. drone strikes on Russia’s Pskov airport from Latvia, the BRICS bloc understands that their best course of action is to continue building new relationships, networks, and pressuring the centuries-old colonial networks that have financed their power.

Staying out of a direct hot war simply makes good strategic sense. Attrition is a bitch, energetically.

Now they are being forced to expend their seed capital built up over these centuries on influencing events to their liking, and it’s clear they really don’t have the resources to do so for very long.

Against that backdrop, de-dollarization is the least of their worries.

It will be the thing that grinds away in the background, like Powell’s shrinking the Fed’s balance sheet, and will just emerge out of these events.

The choice the West is now facing is at what point do they stop fighting this and finally come to the negotiating table. Some factions, like the US military and the banking sector, have already made their intentions clear.

The others? Not so much.

When facing extinction, that’s when you find out where someone’s true loyalties are.

*  *  *

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The number of billionaires in the U.S. increased 5% compared to last year, going from 720 super wealthy individuals to 775.

As Visual Capitalist’s Avery Koop details below, the richest of the rich are concentrated in states like Texas, California, and New York, but there is almost one billionaire in every single state.

This map uses data from Forbes to showcase the wealthiest billionaire in each state.

The State-by-State Breakdown

According to Forbes, just four states are home to 61% of the country’s billionaires: California (179), New York (130), Florida (92), and Texas (73).

Here’s a closer look at the data on who takes the title of the richest in each state:

Many billionaires in the U.S. are extremely well-known, such as California’s Larry Page, New York’s Michael Bloomberg, or Washington state’s Jeff Bezos.

Interestingly, Bill Gates doesn’t take the top spot as the richest billionaire in Washington because Bezos has a higher net worth—$149 billion vs. Gates’ $104 billion—although they do live in the exact same town of Medina, WA.

Nearly every state is home to at least one billionaire, some far wealthier than others, like Nebraska’s Warren Buffett ($117 billion), compared to Alabama’s Jimmy Rane ($1.2 billion). Some new states, which gained billionaires this year include Alabama, New Hampshire, and Vermont.

Billionaire Wealth

The number of billionaires globally is following a different trend than the one in the U.S., declining year-over-year, and seeing billionaire wealth overall decrease by $500 billion.

The U.S. is home to almost 30% of all the world’s billionaires and while a few like Sam Bankman-Fried and Kanye West lost their billionaire status this year, many continue to get richer. In addition to Ron Corio, New Mexico’s first ever billionaire, eight other individuals on the U.S. list gained billionaire status in the last four years.

Finance and investments, food and beverage, fashion and retail, and technology are the top sources of wealth for U.S. billionaires, with almost 50% of them gaining their fortunes from these specific industries.

Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times,

The U.S. Defense Department said Thursday that it will extend the deployment of up to 400 active-duty American troops at the U.S. southern border with Mexico until at least the end of September.

The Pentagon had pulled 1,100 troops from the border last month but extended the deployment of the remaining 400 soldiers.

“On Aug. 24, 2023, the secretary of defense approved an extension of up to 400 personnel providing support to Customs and Border Protection on the southwest border through Sept. 30, 2023,” Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Devin Robinson told NBC News on Sept. 1.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin approved in May the deployment of 1,500 active-duty troops to the southern border for 90 days to assist border officials with a possible influx of illegal immigration at the border.

The Pentagon said the troops will “fill critical capability gaps, such as ground-based detection and monitoring, data entry, and warehouse support” but will not directly participate in law enforcement activities.

The troops were intended to help back up border officials dealing with the end of Title 42, which allowed U.S. authorities to quickly expel tens of thousands of migrants from the country in the name of protecting Americans from COVID-19.

Spike in Illegal Border Crossings

Data released by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on Aug. 18 showed that the U.S. Border Patrol recorded 132,652 encounters between ports of entry along the southwest border in July, up from 99,545 in June.

Migrants seeking asylum wait for U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents to allow them enter the United States at the San Ysidro crossing port on the US-Mexico border, as seen from Tijuana, Baja California state, Mexico on May 31, 2023. (Guillermo Arias/AFP via Getty Images)

According to CBP data, the U.S. Border Patrol encountered an average of 2,016 single adults per day in July alone, marking a 66 percent decrease from the 6,164 they encountered per day in the first 11 days of May.

“CBP’s message for anyone who is thinking of entering the United States without authorization or illegally along the southwest border is simple: don’t do it. When noncitizens cross the border unlawfully, they put their lives in peril,” it stated.

CBP One App

The latest numbers also reflect a sharp increase in use of the CBP One mobile app through which up to 1,450 migrants can get appointments at land crossings with Mexico to seek asylum. CBP processed more than 44,700 individuals with CBP One appointments at ports of entry in July.

CBP One is for people of any nationality in central and northern Mexico entering the United States by land and seeking asylum or humanitarian parole.

Migrants must book an appointment through the app and show up to the appointment at U.S. ports of entry. If they don’t have an appointment, they would be turned away.

Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) said on July 26 at the House Judiciary Committee hearing that the influx of people at the border has not decreased, noting that the CBP One app “allows migrants to bypass the southern border and enter directly in the United States’ ports of entry.”

“Instead of bringing them to the southern border, you’re bringing them directly to ports of entry,” Mr. McClintock said.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton makes a statement at his office in Austin, Texas, on May 26, 2023. (Eric Gay/AP Photo)

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against the Biden Administration on May 23 to challenge a rule that encourages illegal immigrants to use CBP One app to seek entry into the United States.

Mr. Paxton said the app encourages illegal immigration to the United States because it “cannot verify that an illegal immigrant would qualify for an exception, which would prevent them from being deported.”

“The Biden Administration deliberately conceived of this phone app with the goal of illegally pre-approving more foreign aliens to enter the country and go where they please once they arrive,” he said in a press release.

Authored by Travis Gillmore via The Epoch Times,

Videos from San Francisco posted on social media Aug. 30 show morgue vans loading bodies amid scenes of widespread addiction, with people folded up and contorted in unnatural positions in what many describe as dystopian settings on the streets of downtown.

Posts on X, formerly known as Twitter, repeatedly shared by locals indicated that as many as 18 overdose deaths took place in San Francisco throughout the day, but a spokesperson for the chief medical examiner’s office told The Epoch Times by email Aug. 31 that 13 deaths occurred and are currently under investigation.

“Today, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner initiated examinations on 13 cases received within the past twenty-four hours,” the spokesperson wrote.

“The case and manner of death for these decedents remain under review.”

No toxicology results are yet available, and the examiner’s office had no further comment.

Approximately 2,500 people have died from overdose in San Francisco since 2020, according to medical examiner statistics (pdf) including the first seven months of 2023.

More than 81 percent of such cases revealed fentanyl during toxicology testing.

While deaths dipped slightly last year, numbers are now on the rise and on pace to set a record, as more than 500 have occurred in the city so far, with 71 accidental overdose deaths in July alone, according to the medical examiner’s data.

Overdose locations are spread throughout the city and concentrated in certain areas, based on medical examiner records.

Known for high crime and open-air drug markets, the Tenderloin accounts for approximately 18 percent of deaths, with the SOMA area, which is short for South of Market located blocks from Union Square, and Polk/Russian Hill—known for curvy, picturesque Lombard Street—each accounting for 20 percent.

Homeless people gather near drug dealers in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco on Feb. 22, 2023. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

Fentanyl is responsible for the majority of deaths this year, according to testing results released by the medical examiner.

Odorless, tasteless, and highly toxic, the insidious nature by which fentanyl poisonings occur in unsuspecting victims is leading to rising numbers of overdose deaths, according to experts.

New synthetic analogs—drugs that are similar chemically but not identical to fentanyl— and other tranquilizers including Xylazine and Isotonitazine further complicate matters, as they are resistant to opioid reversal medications like naloxone, better known as Narcan. Xylazine is responsible for at least 16 deaths in San Francisco in 2023, according to the report, and isotonitazine is reportedly 20 times stronger than fentanyl, according to the Drug Enforcement Agency.

Victim advocates and family members of those lost to addiction wrote thousands of names in chalk on the sidewalk outside City Hall that night, as the deaths occurred one day before San Francisco Supervisor Dean Preston held a gathering to bring attention to International Overdose Awareness Day on Aug. 31.

“Overdoses are at crisis levels,” Mr. Preston wrote on X the same day.

“Today & every day, I’ll continue to work to ensure our city is using every evidence-based tool at our disposal—including overdose prevention, treatment on demand, recovery resources—to reduce overdoses [and] save lives.”

Supervisors have faced scrutiny on social media, as concerned residents express disappointment in the public safety issues plaguing the city, and many questioned Mr. Preston’s post with comments about perceived policy failures.

A drug user displays fentanyl in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco on Feb. 23, 2023. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

At the drug awareness gathering, one advocate for harm reduction—which focuses on education and overdose prevention as opposed to prosecution—was pictured at the event waving a sign declaring “Downtown is for drug users,” and another wore a “police are terrorists” shirt.

Responsible for nearly 6,000 deaths a year in California, as of the latest statistics from the Department of Public Health covering 2021, fentanyl is drawing attention from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

Bipartisan bills seeking to increase penalties for fentanyl distribution were met with resistance in the Legislature, with members of public safety committees in both houses voicing preference for rehabilitation and overdose prevention.

Some lawmakers voiced reluctance to advance any proposals that include punitive measures, including incarceration, arguing that doing so would be extending the “failed War on Drugs.” Subsequently, eight of nine such bills were killed earlier this year.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced in May a joint operation between California Highway Patrol and the National Guard to disrupt fentanyl distribution in San Francisco.

Since then, hundreds of arrests have been made and enough fentanyl seized in two neighborhoods—56 kilograms—to kill nearly the state’s entire population, according to San Francisco Mayor London Breed’s office released Sept. 1.