It Is Getting Boring...

... in its sheer triviality and stupidity akin to "disclosing" a fact of human mortality to a 60 year old mortician.  

Regulators closed troubled Silicon Valley Bank after deposit outflows and a failed capital raise plunged the country's 16th largest bank into crisis, roiling the larger lending industry. It became the largest bank to fail since Seattle's Washington Mutual during the height of the 2008 financial crisis and, behind Washington Mutual, the second largest bank failure in U.S. history. It is also the first bank to fail since 2020. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen acknowledged the industry turmoil Friday, saying there are "a few" banks the department is closely watching. 

Don't worry, they will come up with yet another definition of "industry turmoil" and, probably, will define it as a Type A supernova in the vicinity of the Solar System, at which point it wouldn't matter how it all ends, or possibly as Moon falling to Earth. In both cases that would still serve only one purpose--to cover up a complete bankruptcy of the Dollar-based financial system and of the US finances being nothing more than an elaborate Ponzi scheme, concocted by people who never produced anything in their lives but quarterly reports and Power Point presentations.  

The desperation is palpable, but there is no happy ending here--all Ponzi schemes collapse because they run out of empty air to sell. Here is one of the exhibits of the Wall Street types' "skills". 

Former Goldman Sachs banker Roger Ng was sentenced by a US court to ten years in prison on Thursday for his role in embezzling billions of dollars from Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund. The verdict follows Ng’s initial conviction back in April last year, when he was found guilty of helping Tim Leissner, his former boss at Goldman Sachs, drain money from the fund. Goldman Sachs helped 1MDB, a fund set up in 2009 to finance development projects in Malaysia, raise $6.5 billion through bond sales back in 2012 and 2013. According to US prosecutors, some $4.5 billion of these funds were diverted by Ng and his co-conspirators in the process. They were then used for bribes to government officials, purchases of high-end real estate and other luxury items. According to the Department of Justice, some of the money even went to finance the 2013 Leonardo DiCaprio film ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’, which is itself a story of defrauding and money laundering.

The time is running out for many in Washington, and when stealing and BSing is the only type of degree one needs to get to the corridors of powers, what would one expect as a result? And BSing is in progress as I type it--on an industrial scale.  

The Pentagon's plan for scaling up production of the shells over the next two years marks a breakthrough in the effort to quench Ukraine's thirst for weapons. But the conflict has laid bare deep-seated problems that the United States must surmount to effectively manufacture the arms required not just to aid its allies but also for America's self-defense should conflict erupt with Russia, China or another major power. Despite boasting the world's largest military budget - more than $800 billion a year - and its most sophisticated defense industry, the United States has long struggled to efficiently develop and produce the weapons that have enabled U.S. forces to outpace their peers technologically. Those challenges take on new importance as conventional conflict returns to Europe and Washington contemplates the possibility of its own great-power fight.

As I already stated--you cannot explain to an average WaPo or NYT bottom feeder or some Congress dweller what real war economy is and why the US finds itself in a classic vicious circle of diminishing returns. It is a combination of factors, among which technological and warfare ignorance of the US "elites" is one of the most important. Just yesterday, Russia ran out of missiles and high-precision weapons... again, if you know what I mean. 

Russia’s overnight missile attack on Thursday showered Ukraine with an array of missiles, in one of Moscow’s biggest aerial assaults for months. Nearly half a million people are without power in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, following the latest barrage of strikes, according to the regional governor. And there are concerns about how effectively Ukraine can stand up to such bombardments. “They’re sending a very strong signal to everyone in Ukraine, and to perhaps some of our refugees outside of Ukraine, that life is very far from returning to normal despite the fact that over recent weeks there was more quiet,” Alexander Rodnyansky, an economic adviser to Zelensky, told CNN.

These things are so beyond the experiences of Western decision makers, be them civilian or military, that it is impossible to explain it to them--they simply have no intellectual faculty and education for grasping this. Which brings us to this, now notorious, Daily Mail piece when discovering:    

As British supermarkets ration eggs and an array of fruit and vegetables amid shortages provoked in large part by the Ukraine war, no such hardships afflict Vladimir Putin's citizens. The pictures were taken at a food hall, two superstores and a corner shop in Perm, a city with a population the size of Birmingham in the Ural mountains, a 24-hour drive from Moscow. The images suggest the West's much-vaunted sanctions on Russia, imposed to punish President Putin for his invasion, are not having a deep bite. What's more, the scenes are a reversal of 40 years ago, when many of us watched pitiful TV footage of Russians under the Communist regime queuing for staples such as bread and eggs. Now it's Britain's turn to suffer. Supermarkets here are rationing tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and lettuces as UK farmers struggle with higher energy costs which stop them using hothouses in winter to grow them. Soft fruit, including raspberries, are also hard to find in the shops.

Again, I repeat, you cannot explain why and how it works to an average Western "master of discourse"--many of them still believe that their post-WW II economic recovery was some kind a miracle of American benevolence and financial trickstery of Bretton Woods. It was way more complex than that, and if not for the events on the Eastern Front in 1941-44 even Bretton Woods System wouldn't have been possible--now try to explain this to Blinken or BoJo with Sunak. So, it is getting boring listening (and reading) about combined West discovering basic truths of life, based on not elaborate BS but on objective economic, social and military laws in whose study and application West failed miserably. But even exceptionalists and neocons are forced to admit through their teeth:

The growing presence of Russian submarines off the coast of the United States has sparked Cold War comparisons from military observers and a retired NATO admiral. The Russian military has undergone a sweeping modernization drive after it was forced to abandon many new ships following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Russian navy now commands one of the most diverse submarine fleets in the world, with an estimated 58 vessels. Some of them are capable of carrying ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads, which Moscow considers key to its strategic deterrent. Russian President Vladimir Putin has been set on expanding Russia's underwater capabilities. Over the past several years, Moscow has been producing a series of submarines that have the capability to reach the most critical targets in the U.S. or continental Europe.

Yep, that is called deterrence. Hey, at least in terms of diversity Russian Navy does well, wink, wink;) Did anyone ask how non-stop sanctioned Russia managed to come up with this "diverse" extremely advanced fleet?

On The Issue Of Being Slightly Pregnant.

By now, after the "dump" of some really interesting info-bombs from US MSM about US being in contact with Russia, as if thinking it was not enough, Bloomberg reports this: 

US Quietly Asks Banks to Keep Some Ties With Russia, Even as Congress Balks. Treasury, State prod JPMorgan, Citi to bank some Russian firms. Congress lambasted banks for continuing to do work in country.

Yes, we know that the US has been highly selective in terms of Russia sanctions it imposes--many things are simply removed from sanctions list--while being very insistent on Europeans to commit economic suicide. The US is trying to be slightly pregnant. But this stream of info "dumps" from MSM in the US is not accidental. I speak about it today in my video.

There is only so much that MSM brainwashing can do in terms of the effect of SMO on the economies of the combined West, as well as on the reluctance to provide Ukraine with what is touted inside combined West as super-pooper weapon systems. Who needs an additional embarrassment which is increasingly difficult to obfuscate and spin. And, of course, mid-terms are almost here. Can we get a ...
 

Believe me, we will need it, a lot...

Oh, No! Not That!;)) Not Sinking.

Western "economists" and "analysts" are a very interesting breed--they carry worthless pieces of paper called degrees in "economics" from universities where people who never worked a day in life on real job teach them how real economy works, and they love hyperbole. Like this:

The ruble sank early Monday as Russia allowed so-called "friendly" countries to re-enter Moscow's bond market. Moscow's fiat currency fell as much as 1.5% to 61 against the US dollar, while also pulling back roughly 0.2% against the euro. The Kremlin announced plans last week for investors haling from countries that haven't taken part in sanctions against Russia to trade in debt securities. Russia will also convert global depository receipts, or GDR's, into shares to be traded on the Moscow Exchange. Russia's central bank said on Monday that it planned to write off the GDR's from account holders and then credit the shares. Moscow closed off its markets in February to keep a tighter seal on outflows of capital, after President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine. And the ruble's latest fall adds to the wild swings the currency has seen after notching all-time highs and record lows this year.

As you all know I don't deal with this voodoo which Western economics is because I don't deal in magic, occult and magic spells, aka Wall Street. But as always, for anyone who wants to glimpse at economic reality of the world it is worth noting that Ruble was revolving around 60-61 (Hey, Joe, where is those promised 200 for a dollar) for a duration of the last week or so and today it closed at:

Of course, the piece above reports in a proforma manner this piece of news:

NEW YORK, Aug 15 (Reuters) - Several major Wall Street banks have begun offering to facilitate trades in Russian debt in recent days, according to bank documents seen by Reuters, giving investors another chance to dispose of assets widely seen in the West as toxic. Most U.S. and European banks had pulled back from the market in June after the Treasury Department banned U.S. investors from purchasing any Russian security as part of economic sanctions to punish Moscow for invading Ukraine, according to an investor who holds Russian securities and two banking sources.

Allegedly it is all about divestment and ridding off the "toxic" Russian assets. Sure. But something tells me that there is a lot more to this story than Reuters puts on, and the issue here is very simple: in the long run real economy on which the financial system rests, not the stock market, wins. And while I am no specialist in securities--I am simply not that interested in speculation in general--I give you one example to illustrate the issue. 

Japan has revealed it will keep hold of its stake in the Sakhalin-1 oil and gas project in Russia, despite Western energy giants abandoning projects in the country. Industry minister Koichi Hagiuda argued the project was key to diversifying Japan’s energy supply. He said: “Sakhalin-1 is a valuable non-Middle East source for Japan, which depends on the Middle East for 90 per cent of its crude oil imports. There is no change in maintaining the interests of Japanese companies in it.” Sakhalin Oil and Gas Development, a Japanese consortium, owns 30 per cent of Sakhalin-1. Russia has banned investors from so-called unfriendly countries from selling shares in banks and key energy projects, including Sakhalin-1, until the end of the year. This is despite firms such as Shell and BP unilaterally ditching stakes in projects situated in the country following the invasion of Ukraine. 

You try to kick them out, but no--they just don't want to. You see, when one's life is dependent on real, tangible things, not some funny papers--sanctions or not--try to kick them out. And mind you, Russia is imposing her own sanctions on the "unfriendly" countries. But, getting back to Ruble, it is absolutely not a secret that Russia since June went public stressing that:

Russia Doesn’t Want Stronger Ruble, Seeks to Avoid ‘Sharp’ Gains

And that Russia is now in the process of "weakening" the Ruble and tries to find a "golden middle" which will be both good for revenues and budget. The discussion is on now about what is this rate comfortable for Russian economy. Some say it is 65, others go as high as 70. But under no condition all those changes are "sinking" as some try to portray a normal work of the government, which is in a full control of national economy and works with it as a unified organism, unlike it is the case in Western world where suicidal economic and ideological concepts got a stronghold on the West's future which is bleak. But then again, what do you expect from people who cannot find the definition of recession. I am on record, most of those people cannot find their own ass with their own two hands in a brightly lit room, so it is all good. Somebody, tell me where can I buy Tesla or Apple stock, I need to make a good investment before electricity rationing and food shortages start, wink, wink... 

P.S. Something tells me that there are many people in D.C. who would love to lift many more additional sanctions from Russia while making sure that EU imposes new ones. Just a wild thought. But what do I know.