• It was only a matter of time before someone had to admit what the instructions were within the Biden administration.  Today, the video surfaces showcasing Energy Secretary Jennifer Grandholm making the admission.
  • During a The U.S. Department of Energy roundtable on February 28, 2022, launching the Biden administration Better Climate Challenge initiative, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm explained the core of the Biden energy policy.  Underneath all the blocks to oil and gas development is the larger objective to transition away from fossil fuels to Green New Deal climate change initiatives.
  • $10/gal gasoline is a feature, it is part of the plan. Rising electricity rates and massive increases in home heating and cooling costs is part of the plan. The downstream impacts of inflation inside the entire U.S. economy are structural issues to be managed.  The financial pain to the U.S. citizen is the biggest problem they need to manage.
Source: theconservativetreehouse.com

EU agrees crypto measures against Russia

  • European finance ministers will take unspecified measures to prevent Russia from using crypto technologies to dodge the financial sanctions that the EU has imposed against Moscow, France’s Bruno Le Maire announced on Wednesday during a press conference.
  • We are taking measures, in particular on crypto currencies or crypto assets which should not be used to circumvent the financial sanctions decided upon by the 27 EU countries,” the French official said after the meeting.

Source: rt.com

Inflation, De-dollarization, and Russia’s Ultimate Goal for War in Ukraine

  • Why now? This is all happening at the late stages of something that I have written extensively about called the long-term debt cycle. A time period characterized by high-debt levels, near-zero interest rates, and extreme money printing.
  • When interest rates hit the floor at zero marks the beginning of the end of the long-term debt cycle and the start of a deleveraging period where central bankers begin to devalue their currencies.
  • With interest rates at zero, policymakers only have two remaining options; quantitative easing (printing money and buying financial assets) or printing money and putting it directly into the hands of people in the form of stimulus payments.
  • For example, both the 2008-2009 Global Financial Crisis and the 1929-1933 Great Depression coincide with interest rates hitting the zero percent floor. In response to both, the Federal Reserve printed money, devalued the dollar, and bought financial assets. This currency devaluation period ends when inflation rises and central bankers can no longer print money or keep interest rates at zero. 
  • Russia is one of the world’s largest exporters of oil with the United States importing more than 600,000 barrels per day. Russian oil represents more than a third of Europe’s total imports.
  • There are four main countries that purchase the majority of Russia’s crude oil: The Netherlands, Germany, Poland, and Belarus. In 2017, these four countries accounted for seventy percent of the total export volumes. Other countries that have some of the largest exports in 2020 included Italy, Finland, and Slovakia.
  • Russia is also one of the world’s largest gas exporters. The countries in Europe that receive the highest percentage of their natural gas from Russia include, North Macedonia (100 percent), Finland (94 percent), Bulgaria (74 percent), Slovakia (70 percent), Germany (49 percent), Italy (46 percent), Poland (40 percent), and France (24 percent).

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Source: Statista

  • Russia is the world’s largest supplier of wheat, and together with Ukraine accounts for 29% of the global wheat trade and nearly 20% of the global corn trade. In response to Western sanctions on Russia, China has relaxed restrictions on imports of Russian wheat. This agreement provides Russia with a secure buyer at a time when exports to other countries might be complicated by financial sanctions or other disruption.
  • Furthermore, Russia is the largest exporter of fertilizer in the world with the United States importing $700 million of fertilizer from Russia every year. War, sanctions, or disruptions in Russian fertilizer markets will have a significant impact on the price of food across the globe.
  •  the United States and Europe cannot sanction Russia’s oil and gas industries, unless they want to face a massive inflationary crisis that pushes energy prices through the roof in their own countries. Without Russian oil, gas, and wheat, Europeans will suffer a cold and hungry winter.
  • With Russia’s economy depending heavily on the price of gas, oil, and commodities, Putin may have tactically assessed that the global market is at the turn of a commodities supercycle (commodities increasing in price and historically undervalued to equities), and decided that his economy could manage the sanctions if his invasion led to price increases in the commodities that his country depends upon.
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Source: Crescat Capital
  • Thanks to the incompetence of U.S. and E.U. policymakers, western nations have foolishly dismantled their own energy independence in exchange for Russian oil and gas. As a consequence, Russia and China have invaded Ukraine with the ultimate goal of sparking increased inflation in the west, increasing the cost of food and energy, and speeding up the global process of de-dollarization.

source:  kanekoa.substack.com