Vanguard News Network
VNN Media
VNN Digital Library
VNN Reader Mail
VNN Broadcasts

Old December 18th, 2014 #1
Dawn Cannon
Senior Member
 
Dawn Cannon's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: The Vampire Ball
Posts: 6,409
Default The Obomber Regime's Attack on the Russian Ruble

America attacks Russian ruble

The US government, perhaps surprised at the ease at which all financial markets can be rigged, is now rigging, or permitting large hedge funds and perhaps George Soros, to drive down the exchange value of the Russian ruble by massive short-selling in the currency market. On December 15 the ruble was driven down 19%.

Just as there is no economic reason for the price of gold to decline in the futures market when the demand for physical gold is rising, there is no economic reason for the ruble to suddenly loose much of its exchange value. Unlike the US, which has a massive trade deficit, Russia has a trade surplus. Unlike the US economy, the Russian economy has not been offshored. Russia has just completed large energy and trade deals with China, Turkey, and India.

If economic forces were determining outcomes, it would be the dollar that is losing exchange value, not the ruble.

The illegal economic sanctions that Washington has decreed on Russia appear to be doing more harm to Europe and US energy companies than to Russia. The impact on Russia of the American attack on the ruble is unclear, as the suppression of the ruble's value is artificial.

There is a difference between economic factors causing foreign investors to withdraw their capital from a country, thereby causing the currency to lose value, and manipulation of a currency's value by heavy short-selling in the currency market. The latter can cause the former also to occur. But the outcome for Russia can be positive.

No country dependent on foreign capital is sovereign. A country dependent on foreign capital, especially from enemies seeking to subvert the economy, is subject to destabilizing currency and economic swings. Russia should self-finance. If Russia needs foreign capital, Russia should turn to its ally China. China has a stake in Russia's strength as part of China's protection from US aggression, whether economic or military.

The American attack on the Russian ruble is also teaching sovereign governments that are not US vassals the extreme cost of allowing their currencies to trade in currency markets dominated by the US. China should think twice before it allows full convertibility of its currency. Of course, the Chinese have a lot of dollar assets with which to defend their currency from attack, and the sale of the assets and use of the dollar proceeds to support the yuan could knock down the dollar's exchange value and US bond prices and cause US interest rates and inflation to rise. Still, considering the gangster nature of financial markets in which the US is the heavy player, a country that permits free trading of its currency sets itself up for trouble.

The greatest harm that is being done to the Russian economy is not due to sanctions and the US attack on the ruble. The greatest harm is being done by Russia's neoliberal economists.

Neoliberal economics is not merely incorrect. It is an ideology that fosters US economic imperialism. By following neoliberal prescriptions, Russian economists are helping Washington's attack on the Russian economy.

Apparently, Putin has been sold, along with his internal enemies the Atlanticist integrationists, on "free trade globalism." Globalism destroys the sovereignty of every country except the world reserve currency country that controls the system.

As Michael Hudson has shown, neoliberal economics is "junk economics." But it is alsoa tool of American financial imperialism, and this makes neoliberal Russian economists tools of American imperialism.

The remaining sovereign countries are slowly learning that Western economic institutions are deceptive and that placing trust in them is a threat to national sovereignty.

Washington intends to subvert Russia and to turn Russia into a vassal state like Germany, France, Japan, Canada, Australia, the UK and Ukraine. If Russia is to survive, Putin must protect Russia from Western economic institutions and Western trained economists.

It is too risky for the US to take on Russia militarily. Instead, Washington is using its unique symbiotic relationship with Western financial institutions to attack an incautious Russia that foolishly opened itself to Western financial predation.

Paul Craig Roberts

http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/col...anipulation-0/
__________________
The Bloodbath is Coming
7.6 billion savages multiplying and running wild over the earth, devouring everything in sight, trampling over every other lifeform without mercy or compassion.
 
Old December 18th, 2014 #2
Dawn Cannon
Senior Member
 
Dawn Cannon's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: The Vampire Ball
Posts: 6,409
Default BRITZOG: North Sea oil industry 'close to collapse'

The UK's oil industry is in "crisis" as prices drop, a senior industry leader has told the BBC.

Oil companies and service providers are cutting staff and investment to save money.

Robin Allan, chairman of the independent explorers' association Brindex, told the BBC that the industry was "close to collapse".

Almost no new projects in the North Sea are profitable with oil below $60 a barrel, he claims.

'Everyone is retreating'
"It's almost impossible to make money at these oil prices", Mr Allan, who is a director of Premier Oil in addition to chairing Brindex, told the BBC. "It's a huge crisis."

"It's close to collapse. In terms of new investments - there will be none, everyone is retreating, people are being laid off at most companies this week and in the coming weeks. Budgets for 2015 are being cut by everyone."

Mr Allan said many of the job cuts across the industry would not have been publicly announced. Oil workers are often employed as contractors, which are easier for employers to cut.


However, the Department of Energy Truth and Climate Change said: "The recent sharp reductions in oil prices are very challenging for companies active in the North Sea. We have seen very little evidence of new projects being cancelled or deferred in reaction to lower oil prices."

http ://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30525539
__________________
The Bloodbath is Coming
7.6 billion savages multiplying and running wild over the earth, devouring everything in sight, trampling over every other lifeform without mercy or compassion.
 
Old December 18th, 2014 #3
notmenomore
Senior Member
 
notmenomore's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2006
Posts: 3,633
Default

Quote:
'Everyone is retreating'
"It's almost impossible to make money at these oil prices", Mr Allan, who is a director of Premier Oil in addition to chairing Brindex, told the BBC. "It's a huge crisis."

"It's close to collapse. In terms of new investments - there will be none, everyone is retreating, people are being laid off at most companies this week and in the coming weeks. Budgets for 2015 are being cut by everyone."
While Dr. Roberts makes a more general and long range point, he doesn't seem to focus particularly on the immediate vector impacting the Russian ruble/economy, which is the precipitous drop in crude oil prices.

Clearly, the UK and Russia are not the only economies suffering from low crude prices. Even the US will see significant reductions in further oil prospecting at current prices, since it is well-known that the breakeven price for horizontal wells is in the $70-$75 range. At current prices only OPEC (which scoops the oil off the surface of the ground) can continue to produce at increasing volume.

The entire scene is purest economic warfare being waged to great effect and purpose by Washington. Both in competition and conspiracy with the "House of Saud" Washington has succeeded in closing the Russian foreign exchange store. Add the short-selling of the ruble and the plan for economic strangulation of Russia gains three dimensionality.

The price, of course, is the general decimation of the world oil prospecting business. This is of little to no consequence to Washington, since the Kwa, for the present, thinks it is "enjoying" the "low gas prices".

The similarities between today's renewed cold-war diplomacy and the conduct of Washington toward Japan in 1940-41 are hard to ignore. The results of this activity, if it continues, can be expected to be similar also.
__________________
No way out but through the jews.
 
Old February 12th, 2015 #4
Dawn Cannon
Senior Member
 
Dawn Cannon's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: The Vampire Ball
Posts: 6,409
Default Total to cut 180 UK jobs after $5.7bn loss

The French oil group Total has unveiled plans to cut 180 jobs in the UK, reduce refinery capacity and slow spending on North Sea fields after it crashed to a $5.7bn final-quarter loss.

The jobs are to be axed and the capacity reduced by half at the Lindsey refinery in Linconshire, once the centre of a huge labour dispute over the use of foreign workers. Total, which once tried to sell off the facility, said the staff working at the elderly plant would fall from 580 to 400 by the end of next year but that almost £200m could be spent by 2020 improving the refinery’s efficiency.

Cutbacks in Total’s French refineries are expected to be announced in the next few months, while 15% of the staff at its Paris headquarters are already set to go.

The big hit to Total’s accounts came from a $6.5bn impairment charge on its Canadian tar sands operations, its US shale business and European refineries.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/...ut-180-uk-jobs
__________________
The Bloodbath is Coming
7.6 billion savages multiplying and running wild over the earth, devouring everything in sight, trampling over every other lifeform without mercy or compassion.
 
Reply

Tags
ruble, russia, soros, ukraine

Share


Thread
Display Modes


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 04:07 PM.
Page generated in 0.05113 seconds.