EN — LARRY ROMANOFF — US Economic Statistics: “Unreliable Numbers” — August 08, 2021

A MUST READ — LARRY ROMANOFF -- The Next American Revolution? Anticipated Civil Unrest

  

The Next American Revolution? Anticipated Civil Unrest

By    Larry Romanoff

Preparing For Civil War?

US authorities have for decades become increasingly prepared for mass civil disturbances resulting from government and corporate attacks on American society. We can recall that in the early 1980s the Hidden State launched its open war on the middle class by the savage FED-induced recession and the unilateral revocation of the social contract that had existed since 1946. At that time, the US government had already anticipated widespread public unrest, fully expecting mass protests and riots, and had made preparations to deal with them in the form of internment camps. In a real sense, the government had prepared for another civil war.

Like most of the “Great Transformation”, it began during Reagan’s reign with what was called “Rex 84”, an abbreviation for Readiness Exercise 1984, a plan by the US government to detain large numbers of American citizens in case of civil unrest. This master plan involved the FBI, Department of Defense, the Emergency Measures group, the Secret Service, the CIA and altogether 34 government agencies.

F. William Engdahl -- How Globalization and China’s Economic Crisis Might Jeopardize Our Precarious Medical Supply Chains

How Globalization and China’s Economic Crisis Might Jeopardize Our Precarious Medical Supply Chains

By F. William Engdahl

Global Research, February 26, 2020

Region: Asia, USA

Theme: Global Economy, Science and Medicine

The grave risks and dangers in the process of worldwide out-sourcing and so-called globalization of the past 30 years or so are becoming starkly clear as the ongoing health emergency across China threatens vital world supply chains from China to the rest of the world. While much attention is focused on the risks to smartphone components or auto manufacture via supplies of key parts from China or to the breakdown of oil deliveries in the last weeks, there is a danger that will soon become alarmingly clear in terms of global health care system.

If the forced shutdown of China manufacturing continues for many weeks longer, the world, could begin to experience shortages or lack of vital medicines and medical supplies. The reason is that over the past two decades much of the production of medicines and medical supplies such as surgical masks have been outsourced to China or simply made in China by Chinese companies at far cheaper prices, forcing Western companies out of business.

Sole source China

According to research and US Congressional hearings, something like 80% of present medicines consumed in the United States are produced in China. This includes Chinese companies and foreign drug companies that have outsourced their drug manufacture in joint ventures with Chinese partners. According to Rosemary Gibson of the Hastings Center bioethics research institute, who authored a book in 2018 on the theme, the dependency is more than alarming.

Gibson cites medical newsletters giving the estimate that today some 80% of all pharmaceutical active ingredients in the USA are made in China.

“It’s not just the ingredients. It’s also the chemical precursors, the chemical building blocks used to make the active ingredients. We are dependent on China for the chemical building blocks to make a whole category of antibiotics… known as cephalosporins. They are used in the United States thousands of times every day for people with very serious infections.”

The made in China drugs today include most antibiotics, birth control pills, blood pressure medicines such as valsartan, blood thinners such as heparin, and various cancer drugs. It includes such common medicines as penicillin, ascorbic acid (Vitamin C), and aspirin. The list also includes medications to treat HIV, Alzheimer’s disease, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, cancer, depression, epilepsy, among others. A recent Department of Commerce study found that 97 percent of all antibiotics in the United States came from China.

Why West Fears ‘Made in China: 2025’

Few of these drugs are labeled “made in China” as drug companies in the USA are not required to reveal their sourcing. Rosemary Gibson states that the dependency on China for medicines and other health products is so great that, “…if China shut the door tomorrow, within a couple of months, hospitals in the United States would cease to function.” That may not be so far off.

F. William Engdahl -- Will China Virus Trigger New Great Depression?

11.02.2020 Author: F. William Engdahl

Will China Virus Trigger New Great Depression?

Column: Economics

Region: Eastern Asia

Country: China

Historically the greatest economic depressions have started with unexpected events on the periphery of major financial markets. That was the case in May 1931 with the surprise collapse of the Austrian Creditanstalt Bank in Vienna which brought the entire fragile banking system of postwar Germany down with it, triggering the Great Depression in the United States as major US banks were rocked to their foundations. Will it be again an unanticipated event outside the financial markets, namely the China 2029 Novel Coronavirus and its effects on world trade and especially on US-China trade that triggers a new economic depression?

Until around January 20 when the news broke about the coronavirus exploding in China’s Wuhan and surrounding cities, global financial markets and especially in the US were optimistic that the combined actions of the Federal Reserve to pump in more liquidity and of the Trump Administration to do all possible in an election year would keep the economy positive. Stocks continued their artificial climb as Fed liquidity fueled the fires of the most overvalued stock market in US history for January.

However since then, as official China infection numbers soar daily and the deaths attributed to the corona virus climb, it is beginning to sink in that the world’s major manufacturing center and source of a huge part of the global industrial supply chains, China, could face catastrophic economic consequences from the health emergency and resulting cordon sanitaire closings of cities involving at this point more than 77 million citizens and the manufacturing that is linked to it. That in turn could drag the entire world, most especially the USA, into a severe economic downturn at a time it is ill-prepared.

US Economy Already Fragile

What is usually downplayed in major media is the fact that the world’s largest economy, the United States, was already showing alarming signs of economic decline before the China virus shock.

One of the most alarming declines in the past months before January was the sector that many believed was the lead of an American energy renaissance, namely the once-booming shale oil and gas sector. Over the past decade, to the surprise of much of the world, the USA emerged as the world’s largest producer of oil, passing both Russia and Saudi Arabia. At the beginning of January US oil production stood at 13 million barrels a day. The vast share of that rise was due to unconventional shale oil wells, most in Texas.

The World Must End the US’ Illegal Economic War. Sanctions Imposed on 39 Countries

The World Must End the US’ Illegal Economic War. Sanctions Imposed on 39 Countries

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers

Global Research, January 14, 2020

Region: USA

Theme: Global Economy, Law and Justice, Police State & Civil Rights

The United States is relying more heavily on illegal unilateral coercive measures (also known as economic sanctions) in place of war or as part of its build-up to war. In fact, economic sanctions are an act of war that kills tens of thousands of people each year through financial strangulation. An economic blockade places a country under siege.

A recent example is the increase in economic measures being imposed against Iran, which many viewed as more acceptable than a military attack. In response to Iran retaliating for the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani and seven other people, Iran used ballistic missiles to strike two bases in Iraq that house US troops. President Trump responded by saying he would impose more sanctions on Iran. Then he ended his comments by urging peace negotiations with Iran. The United States needs to understand there will be no negotiations with Iran until the US lifts sanctions that seek to destroy the Iranian economy and turn the people against their government.

The sanctions on Iran have been in place since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which made that country independent of the United States. Iran is not the only country being sanctioned by the United States. Samuel Moncada, the Venezuelan ambassador to the United Nations, speaking to the summit of the Non-Aligned Movement of 120 nations on October 26, 2019, denounced the imposition of sanctions by the US, as “economic terrorism which affects a third of humanity with more than 8,000 measures in 39 countries.”

It is time to end US economic warfare and repeal these unilateral coercive measures, which violate international law.

Take Action: Join The International Days Of Action Against  Sanctions And Economic War, March 13 – 15, 2020

Sanctions are war. From havaar.org.

Sanctions Are A Weapon of War

The United States uses sanctions against countries that resist the US’ agenda. US sanctions are designed to kill by destroying an economy through denial of access to finance, causing hyperinflation and shortages and blocking basic necessities such as food and medicine. For example, sanctions are expected to cause the death of tens of thousands of Iranians by creating a severe shortage of critical medicines and medical equipment everywhere in Iran.

Prof Michel Chossudovsky -- Global War on Humanity: America’s Unceasing Pursuit of Hegemony

Global War on Humanity: America’s Unceasing Pursuit of Hegemony

A conversation with Michel Chossudovsky

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky and Michael Welch

Global Research, December 26, 2019

Region: Canada, China, Europe, Russia and FSU, South-East Asia, USA

Theme: Crimes against Humanity, Defence, Global Economy, GLOBAL RESEARCH NEWS HOUR, History

Global Research, and the Global Research News Hour radio program operate on a shoestring. This holiday period, please consider a one time or monthly donation. Go to Global Research’s main donation page and tag your gift ‘GRNH.’

“Essentially what we’re looking at is a broader perspective of how the United States de facto supported Nazi Germany with a view to destroying the Soviet Union, as well as weakening the British Empire and competing empires including of course France, Belgium, Holland, etc. and again those countries virtually are no longer colonial powers.” – Professor Michel Chossudovsky (from this week’s interview).

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

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America was born out of a revolt against British imperial rule.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the British Empire was “the hated enemy”. In 1812, the young republic declared war on Great Britain and tried unsuccessfully, to conquer the Canadian colonies.

Within less than a half century of its birth, the United States of America under President James Monroe, established a policy that came to be known as the Monroe Doctrine, which asserted that the USA would oppose any further colonization in the Americas (Western Hemisphere) by European powers. By establishing a sphere of influence outside its borders, the new republic was arguably taking its first steps in the direction of becoming an imperial power. [1]

Subsequent decades saw the U.S. continue to grow in geographic size, economic power and geopolitical influence. By the mid-twentieth century, the U.S. had become a significant military and economic player, and after World War II, the U.S. was to overtake all the European powers as the dominant force on the world stage.

Prof Michel Chossudovsky -- War is Good for Business and Organized Crime: Afghanistan’s Multibillion Dollar Opium Trade. Rising Heroin Addiction in the US

War is Good for Business and Organized Crime: Afghanistan’s Multibillion Dollar Opium Trade. Rising Heroin Addiction in the US

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research, December 20, 2019

Global Research 4 January 2019

Region: Middle East & North Africa

Theme: Global Economy

In-depth Report: AFGHANISTAN

“The Big Reveal for the Washington Post was the release of the Afghanistan Papers. A series of interviews and documents “compiled in secret” and then the subject of a “legal challenge” from the US government. The WaPo baldly calls it: “A secret history of the war”. But there’s nothing here that’s really secret, and very little actual history. What do they tell us? Absolutely nothing, except what we’re supposed to believe.” ( Kit Knightly, December 20, 2019)

What is the unspoken “secret truth” which has not been featured in the Afghanistan Papers? 

***

Afghanistan’s opium economy is a multibillion dollar operation which has a direct impact on the surge of  heroin addiction in the US.  

Despite president Trump’s announced US troop withdrawal, the Afghan opium trade continues to flourish. It is protected by US-NATO occupation forces on behalf of a nexus of powerful financial and criminal  interests. 

In 2004,  the proceeds of the Afghan heroin trade yielded an estimated global revenue of the order of 90 billion dollars. This estimate was based on retail sales corresponding to a total supply of the order of 340,000 kg of pure heroin (corresponding to Afghanistan’s 3400 tons of opium production) (See Michel Chossudovsky, America’s War on Terrorism, Chapter XVI, Global Research, Montreal 2005)

Today a rough estimate based on US retail prices suggests that the global heroin market is above the 500 billion dollars mark. This multibillion dollar hike is the result of a significant increase in the volume of heroin transacted Worldwide coupled with a moderate increase in retail prices.

Based on the most recent (UNODC) data (2017) opium production in Afghanistan is of the order of 9000 metric tons, which after processing and transformation is equivalent to approximately 900,000 kg. of pure heroin.

With the surge in heroin addiction since 2001, the retail price of heroin has increased. According to DEA intelligence, one gram of pure heroin was selling in December 2016 in the domestic US market for $902 per gram.

The Heroin trade is colossal: one gram of pure heroin selling at $902 is equivalent to almost a million US dollars a kilo ($902,000) (see table below)

Dmitriy Kovalevich -- Ukraine: Land Privatization Demanded by IMF, Links to Biden Graft Scandal. Engineered Bankruptcy of National Economy

Ukraine: Land Privatization Demanded by IMF, Links to Biden Graft Scandal. Engineered Bankruptcy of National Economy

By Dmitriy Kovalevich

Global Research, November 30, 2019

New Cold War 28 November 2019

Region: Europe, Russia and FSU, USA

Theme: Global Economy

In-depth Report: UKRAINE REPORT

November in Ukraine has been marked by the adoption of the so called ‘land reform’, in accordance of the demands made by the IMF amongst other international financial organizations. The reform opens the way for the mass privatization of Ukraine’s agricultural lands. The IMF has been making these demands for many years but assorted Ukrainian presidents have tried to postpone such an unpopular decision. Recent polls show that the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians of all political persuasions are opposed to land privatization, from far-right to far-left.

After an intensive period of deindustrialization, which has taken place in recent years, agricultural land remain the only asset with any value in Ukraine but even so, it may be bought for very little. A remarkable fact is that one of the deputies from the ruling party ‘Servant of the people,’ Nikita Poturayev, while pressing his colleagues at the Parliament to vote for the bill on land reform, claimed [1] that this would be ‘settling scores with maniac V. Lenin’, i.e. the purpose of the bill was to abolish the land nationalization carried out following the October revolution.

Ukraine’s fertile soil up for grabs

It has long been known that Ukraine’s soil is very fertile. Indeed, during WW2 the invading Nazis made a point of appropriating quantities of it; forcing POWs to collect the top soil and load it onto trains en route to Germany. Now these same lands could fall into the hands of international agro-holdings.

Ukrainian political expert Ruslan Bortnik says that the President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky and his team came to power under an obligation to sell out the agricultural land of Ukraine to foreign companies. Those who buy these lands, according to Bortnik, will only be thinking about making the quickest possible buck. “Foreign companies are already operating on Ukrainian soil [renting land],” said Bortnik,

LARRY ROMANOFF -- China’s YiWu: Business Models You’ve Never Even Heard of

China’s YiWu: Business Models You’ve Never Even Heard of

By Larry Romanoff

Global Research, December 15, 2019

Region: Asia

Theme: Global Economy

 

The YiWu Commodities Market

A brief bit of background for context. YiWu is the world’s largest supermarket. YiWu is a small town (it’s actually a city with more than one million people, but in China that’s a small town) in Zhejiang Province, 45 minutes by high-speed rail from Shanghai. The surrounding area contains countless thousands of smallish (and some largish) factories producing vast amounts of small goods – hand and small electric tools, umbrellas, bags and luggage, toys, giftware, small appliances, kitchenware, small electronic items, adhesive tape. The products are mostly standard utilitarian items we generally refer to as commodities.

With this intense concentration of manufacturing clusters, YiWu has the largest commodity markets in the world. The largest wholesale factory market in YiWu, the International Trade Center, consists of eight 5-story buildings totaling about 5 million square meters and containing about 80,000 shops, each shop owned by one of the small area factories. It is so large that the aisles in each building have street names; maps are normally required for navigation. To save you the arithmetic, if you spend 8 hours per day, 5 days per week, with only 1 minute in each shop, you would need more than 8 months to visit all of them. And that’s only one market of about 20 in the city. Many markets specialise in a particular product: umbrellas, artificial flowers, stationery, toys, candles cosmetics, fashion jewellery, bags and leather products shoes, tissue, cloth, socks, lingerie . . . Typical markets would have 2,000 shops selling only belts or 10,000 shops selling small ceramic tea pots.

LARRY ROMANOFF -- China’s High-Speed Trains

China’s High-Speed Trains

By Larry Romanoff

Global Research, December 05, 2019

Region: Asia

Theme: Global Economy

One of the great advantages of train travel compared to flying is the saving in wasted time. A flight in most any country normally involves a one-hour trip to the airport with a requirement to arrive at least 1.5 hours prior to departure. At the arrival end, there is always the seemingly long wait to deplane, the long walk to the baggage carousels or the exits, then the one hour or more trip downtown.

When we take into account the commute and the necessary pre-departure allowance for check-in and security clearance and the 2-Km walk to the departure gate, then the post-arrival delays and the commute downtown at our destination, trains are equal to flying in trips up to 1,200 or even 1,500 Kms, and much faster than flying for shorter trips. Not only much quicker, but less expensive than air travel. The frequency of departures, at least between major centers in China is astonishing, the Shanghai-Beijing route having some 75 or 80 HSR trains each way each day, often leaving only 10 minutes apart.

In China, the railway stations are downtown so the commute is minimal, one arriving at the station with luggage in hand only 20 or 30 minutes before departure. There is no ‘check-in’ process as with the airlines, only the usual security check and luggage scanners when entering the station where you can spend time in comfortable waiting rooms or simply find the correct platform and board your train. Even though many stations are huge, walking distances are normally much shorter than in most airports.

Another advantage of train travel is the considerable convenience and comfort, trains being much superior in both categories with an absence of pressure and time apprehension. Trains eliminate most unpleasant elements of air travel, with the attraction of being able to see the countryside; from a plane, we see nothing. On a plane, we are forced to adhere to a rigid schedule: the time for coffee or a meal, the time to close the window curtains and darken the cabin so the staff can rest. If the food cart is out, you cannot get up to walk around or go to the bathroom. Everything seems regulated and under pressure. Leaving your seat is often a major inconvenience. By contrast, on a train you are free to do as you please. Your luggage is accessible at any time, the food carts come by regularly, the dining car is always there, seats have twice the leg room, the aisles wide enough to accommodate passengers, everything much more relaxed, pleasant, and enjoyable.

China’s high-speed trains are very quiet, without wind noise and mercifully free of the incessant hum of aircraft engines. On the latest generation of HSR with its flawlessly-welded rails, even the soft clacking of the rails is gone. The seats are as wide or wider than airline business class, they recline partially (recline fully in business class) and, with the comfort and silence, it is very easy to work or sleep on a train. At the destination, since that station is also downtown, taxis and subways are conveniently at hand.