This time in history might be like no other – or at a minimum is on a much
bigger scale. There is more access to information, analysis, and expert opinions
than ever. Obviously, everyone claims to be telling ‘the truth’. A few
psychopathic individuals notwithstanding, nobody sets out in the business of
providing information, then says ‘But we’re going to lie like a rug, 24/7,
how about them apples?’. Everyone is telling the truth. The odd thing about
all this is that the stories that come out of these ‘truth telling’ outfits
couldn’t be further apart from each other. That leaves the average person
with a distinct problem – it is up to YOU to find the truth. To seek it, to
think it, to try to live it.
At the end of the day, the truth is more about perception than anything
else. It is amazing how ten different people can look at the same facts and
come to 10 different conclusions. Perhaps that is a tribute to our ability to
think and cogitate or perhaps it is simply the sum total of our biases and
perceptions. This becomes insanely apparent when dealing with politics, and
even economics. Since they’ve become inextricably linked, even the study of
economics has become poisoned with normalcy bias, perceptions, and dogmatic
stubbornness.
We are going to take a look at a couple of examples from economics –
politics is a lost cause – and a place where people who seek to analyze have
no business dabbling anyway. The good news is that in the case of America,
economics does transcend politics because all of the negative (at least we
see them that way based on history) trends extend for long periods of time
and continue unaffected by changes in the political structure. This will
undoubtedly annoy some people because they thought their political idols were
just so smart and said all the right things, when in fact they were merely
just part of a machine – again, in our opinion.
We also believe that pretty much everyone has made up their minds one way
or the other about all this. People fall in to one of several groups. First,
there is the group that will naively believe whatever the television/media
has to offer, question nothing, and accept whatever the clowns in Washington,
their state capitol, or county have to say. The same is true of economics.
Then you have the folks at the opposite end of the continuum. They reject
virtually all of what they are told by government ‘officials’ and the media.
They aren’t buying it.
Then you have a group that knows there is something wrong, but just can’t
believe that such wickedness could take place in America. They’ve bought into
the Hollywood version of America. We’re the good guys; everyone else is wrong
about everything and there’s always a happy ending. This all must be someone
else’s fault. These are the dangerous people – again, in our opinion, because
it doesn’t take much to get their attention and not too much beyond that to
get their finger pointed directly at you.
Finally, there is a tiny slice of America and the world who is still
undecided. They’ve heard some parts from the various sides, but they haven’t
come to a conclusion yet. These are the people we mostly write for. We try to
provide information rather than subliminally telling them how to think. It is
difficult and we certainly fail on occasion. We admit that. We also write for
the people who understand as we do; to provide them with information and
analysis that their busy lives don’t permit them time to gather on their own.
Why is Syria Such a BIG Deal?
With all that said, let’s look at the economics of the situation with
regards to Syria. We know that in 2013, Exxon Mobil, headed by now Secy of
State Rex Tillerson cut a deal with tiny Qatar to pipeline Qatar’s natural
gas to the Mediterranean Sea, thereby putting a crimp on Russia’s monopoly on
European gas markets. Nobody likes to lose a good monopoly. US companies are
constantly fighting to maintain monopoly status whether it is Microsoft’s
landmark battle in the 1990s or Pfizer’s
battle to keep its blockbuster drug Lyrica under patent protection for
just a little longer. It’s all about monopoly. So let’s keep that in mind
before we intellectually string up Putin, Medvedev, and the Russians. We do
the same thing here.
Pushing
ahead, the deal between Exxon and Qatar was to construct a pipeline. The
House of Saud declined (at the time) to have a pipeline running through their
country. If they’d agreed, there is an outside chance the pipeline could have
avoided Syria, although there would have been some interesting maneuvering
required to make that happen. The easiest option was to swing the pipeline
through the already US-controlled Iraq and then West through Syria.
Unfortunately, the Syrians also declined.
Houston, We Have a Problem
The
May 2013 deal between Exxon and Qatar, evidence of which has been
scrubbed from Exxon’s corporate website, was followed just a few months later
by war drum rhetoric against Assad from the USGovt. Assad’s government is the
entity who refused US access to Syria for the pipeline. Everyone following?
The Russians, who realized how critical Syria was had already buddied up with
Assad and they’d formed an alliance, which
actually dates back to the 1950s. America was a little late to the party
– at least publicly. Within a few weeks of the rhetoric ramping up, suddenly Assad
was accused of attacking his own people with chemical weapons; something
he’d never been accused of before. Odd that he waits until the attention of
the world is focused on him to pull such a ridiculous stunt. Unfortunately
for the military-industrial complex, the issue never got any momentum, the
Russians dug in with regards to supporting Assad and his government, and the
issue got pushed to the back burner. It was later determined that Assad hadn’t
done anything wrong with regards to any chemical weapons attack.
We are sure that Assad is no angel; you can’t be a leader of a country in
today’s world without being a psycho/sociopath at some level. Let’s keep that
in mind. However, it’s a big leap from being a garden variety egomaniac to a
new low by perpetrating a chemical weapons attack on your own people.
Thinking people came to this conclusion and the issue was never advanced. We
wrote at the time that Russia would never leave Syria due to the strategic
nature of their relationship. Assad needs the Russians to protect him and his
government from the military-industrial complex and the Russians need Assad’s
government to remain in place so they can hold their monopoly. It’s a
purely symbiotic relationship. Economics is morphed into geopolitical
strategy before our eyes based on the age-old principle of coincidence of
wants.
What Happens Now?
Nothing has really changed. There is still a deal in play. The Russians
are still in Syria and aren’t going anywhere. The USGovt is trying to move
the rhetoric forward again, this time with ANOTHER chemical weapons attack
allegedly perpetrated by Assad on his own people. There have already been
some rather prominent experts in this particular field who claim that there
was no way Assad could have done this; that in fact it isn’t even possible.
The military industrial complex responded rapidly; before the dust had
settled, and flew 5 dozen Tomahawks into a sovereign nation.
Before anyone pipes up what a dirt bag Assad is, we want to ask you where
the military industrial complex is vis a vis the USGoverment while atrocities
and human
rights violations take place in many countries in Africa, among other
places. These are well documented cases by groups such as Doctors
without Borders and others. Where are the mighty Tomahawks to crush these
tinpot dictators and aggressors? Answer: these countries aren’t strategic,
aren’t part of the big plan and therefore don’t matter. America cannot claim
the moral high ground on this issue. The ONLY reason we are interested in
Syria is because of its strategic value. Let’s not pretend it is about human
rights violations.
This, Not That… That, Not This
Last week the focus shifted suddenly to North Korea. Syria has been
forgotten. The Tomahawk attack was a joke, lacked the intended effect (unless
the intent was to put on a really expensive fireworks show), and again, the
issue failed to collect the momentum necessary to achieve critical mass. The
saber rattling was intense but it didn’t work. Russia didn’t back down, made
some threats of its own and all of a sudden the gears were switched to North
Korea. We don’t know of any pipeline deals involving North Korea, but we do
know that they don’t have an IMF/World Bank controlled central bank. That was
enough to get a bunch of Middle Eastern countries turned into parking lots
after George W. Bush made
his ‘Axis of Evil’ declaration. The one thing all those countries had in
common was the lack of participation in the IMF/Central Banking system. Of
those, Iran and North Korea, and Syria are three of the few remaining nations
that are not fully given over to the IMF/Central Banking system. Iran has been
on the hotlist forever, but again, lack of momentum has kept war at bay.
In 2000, the Project for a
New American Century released a whitepaper entitled ‘Rebuilding
America’s Defenses’ stating that ‘catalyzing events’ were necessary in
order to achieve America’s overseas agenda in any kind of reasonable
timeline. These ‘catalyzing events’ were discussed as events that would be
similar to Pearl Harbor and would provide instantaneous momentum and
justification for swift military action. The white paper in question was
called ‘Rebuilding
America’s Defenses’.
Actions in the geopolitical realm ALWAYS come back to
economics. Figure out who is going to benefit from any action or proposed
action and you are halfway to the truth. Benefit might mean monetarily or in
the form of leverage, which can be converted to a monetary benefit later.
However, it is often necessary to deceive in order to achieve such ends.
This, not that… That, not this. Syria, not North Korea, North Korea, not
Syria.
There are many people who look at the Project for a New American Century’s
whitepaper as a blueprint for global domination. After all, 10 of the
think-tank’s original signees went on to serve in the Bush Administration. We
don’t know what their intent was, and stating an opinion would be essentially
blind speculation on our part. Whatever PNAC might or might not have been,
sometimes even innocuous things provide great windows into the great beyond
of geopolitical engineering.
The description of a ‘catastrophic, catalyzing event’ is what gives us
great pause. The think-tank realized that there wasn’t enough momentum to
propel the US into the battles the think tank believed necessary minus some
type of catastrophe. As we close, we point to the many stalled ‘initiatives’
that currently exist. Syria, North Korea, and Iran, just to name a few. It
would seem that these initiatives are going nowhere, minus another
catastrophic, catalyzing event. This reality might be something for people in
all the aforementioned groups above to consider.
Graham Mehl is a pseudonym. He currently works
for a hedge fund and is responsible for economic forecasting and modeling.
His current work has pinpointed at least half a dozen fracture points in the
global economy, three of which have yet to receive mention – even in the
alternative media. He has a graduate degree with honors from The Wharton
School of the University of Pennsylvania among his educational achievements.
Prior to his current position, he served as an economic research associate
for a G7 central bank.
Andy Sutton is the former Chief Market
Strategist for Sutton & Associates. While no longer involved in the
investment community, Andy continues to perform his own research and acts as
a freelance writer, publishing occasional ‘My Two Cents’ articles. Andy and
Graham also maintain a blog called ‘Extemporania’ at http://www.andysutton.com/blog.
