Interest Rates And Geopolitics

Yesterday CTH ran a post that raised a lot of important issues, although I disagreed with its key point. I was turning it around in my mind, thinking of addressing that key point, but decided to hold off. Part of my thinking was that it all played into additional geopolitical complications—the patent US and NATO campaign of provocations against Russia and China. None of this can be viewed in isolation, not if you want a clear perspective on where humanity is at this point in history. The hot war in Ukraine, the economic sanctions war against Russia, domestic US politics and EU politics—it’s all intertwined. Another reason to postpone addressing this post is because Alex Mercouris said yesterday that he will be debating these issues with Tom Luongo in the near future—and that he disagrees with Luongo (as presented below).

Here’s the CTH post with the core paragraphs:

Something is Looming Geopolitically, and We Better Start Taking It Seriously

Western governments’, specifically western Europe, North America (U.S-Canada) and Australia/New Zealand, are intentionally trying to lower economic activity to meet the intentional drop in energy production.

This is the core consequence of the Build Back Better agenda as promoted by the World Economic Forum.

Anyone who says there is a reference point to determine both the short-term and long-term consequences is lying. There is no precedent for nations’ collectively and intentionally trying to reduce economic activity.

Hiding behind the false justification that current inflation is driven by too much demand, central banks in Europe, the Bank of England, Bank of Canada and U.S. federal reserve are raising interest rates. The outcome we are currently feeling is an intentional economic contraction and global recession.

Go ahead an read it all, if you haven’t. But here are two points:

1. The real goal is simply power—total power, to be wielded by the WEF crowd, what Tom Luongo calls “Davos”. The “green” agenda is partly simply cover, although the Neo-Malthusian agenda is real enough.

2. The core assertion that I disagree with is the assertion that the Fed is operating in concert with the other central banks. I side with Tom Luongo’s argument that the Fed—under the direction of the major NY commercial banks—is actionally operating against the interests of the other central banks.

Now, I get where CTH is coming from. CTH is, in my belief, a front for a GOP faction that lost in its power struggle with The Turtle, Mitch McConnell. A signal of that is the constant focus on the US Senate. I’m not unsympathetic to that point of view, which regards the NY banks—which wield enormous political influence over the Senate—and the Fed as the Great Satan. But there’s more going on both economically and geopolitically, and there just may be something worse than CTH imagines in its philosophy.

So this is what Tom Luongo addresses in his post today, and this post I find so compelling that, well:

There is No Pivot, Only Zul

As regular readers will recall, Luongo’s view is that the Fed is raising interest rates in order to crush the EU system and to protect the interests of the big NY commercial banks. Luongo makes no bones about any of this—he says what’s coming is going to be terrible for all, or most, of us. But there are choices to be made. Here is his argument.

First, to understand what’s going on the key is to understand the incentives and motivations of the major players—the people who set the policies. Luongo breaks the geopolitical world into two camps, which amounts to The West and The Rest. The rest is, if not led, then at least in sympathy with Russia. The West is led by Davos and the American Empire:

It really does breakdown into two camps at this point, those who back the old European colonialists trying to leverage what’s left of their power using financial and kinetic warfare to grasp for the brass ring of global control (*The Davos Crowd*) and those who stand against that.

That’s clear enough. Davos, with the backing of the American Empire, wants to exercise global control. But—is the West united in this ambition? Luongo argues that it is not. And it so happens that the main opposition to Davos within the US happens to be the 800 lb. gorilla—the NY commercial banks, which own and direct the Fed. Luongo’s view is based on his analysis that leads to the conviction that the interests of New York and Davos are at loggerheads. If Davos prevails, the NY banks will be basically put out of business:

The only question is whether there are those that have a positive incentive within the West’s power elite to oppose Davos and their dystopian desires. In discussion after discussion the biggest obstacle I encounter is presenting the Fed’s (and those the Fed represents) incentives as out of phase, or even orthogonal, to that of Davos.

It’s a simpler world to just think it’s all just one big club, and to quote George Carlin, “we ain’t in it!” But is it really?

Because if that were the case then the Fed wouldn’t be raising rates when the clear loser is the bedrock on which Davos’ power rests. They would meekly go along with the needs of Europe and European banks, who clearly do not want higher rates.

The reason Davos doesn’t want those higher rates is because it neuters their agenda:

The entire Davos agenda is based on selling us this lie that we as a species have to create and spend hundreds of trillions of dollars to combat Climate Change and marry that with a Minority Report style, AI-driven, technocratic full surveillance state fueled by CBDCs.

The real hard sell is that this is necessary to control everyone’s behavior ensuring we don’t ever approach this type of Apocalypse ever again. Too bad the whole thing is a bald-faced lie and anyone still believing in it is engaged in the biggest political cope of all time.

But here’s the key part, the reason why the New York banks cannot possibly be on board with Davos in the long run:

Under that rubric there is no need for a dominant central bank or reserve currency. The Fed itself is no longer needed, nor the banks who [the Fed] ultimately serves.

That means, out of sheer self interest—not altruism—the New York banks that the Fed ultimately serves must resist the reset. They’d be fools not to. And that’s why the Fed is raising rates, which undermines the EU financial system and could ultimately lead to the EU and Davos’ collapse.

Of course the usual suspects don’t want to look at that big picture, and so you keep hearing about the Fed “pivoting” to lower rates to avoid a crackup. But there’s zero evidence of that happening:

If you think they aren’t capable of taking rates to 5% or 6% then you aren’t reading the room properly.

This late summer rally in stocks leaves them with plenty of ammunition from the perspective of the guys who scream about the Fed subsidizing the ‘Wealth Effect.’

The media’s obsession with not calling the current economic conditions a recession also support the Fed tightening further.

Keynesian dogma that the Fed Funds Rate should be higher than the projected inflation rate says the same thing.

What’s the counterplay?

So, while the Fed stays the course and refuses to knuckle under to pivot, because it would mean its destruction, the counter-move by Davos is to accelerate the tensions between the US and China/Russia on geopolitical terms.

This is what I’ve been trying to understand. The provocations, led by the US, directed against Russia and China have been egregious on any terms. The attacks in Crimea, the shelling of the Zaporozhiye nuclear power plant, and so forth—that’s all approved by the US. The Pelosi trip, the followup trip by other Congress critters, the insulting rhetoric, the new and provocative trade talks. It’s all designed to take Russia and China to the limit of what they can tolerate. So far they’ve resisted reacting, but the goal is clearly to incite a crisis that could lead to a political takeover between now and January. Ask yourself, also, why Mitch McConnell appears to be trying to suppress populist voter turnout. What’s the J6 show trial about? There’s so much going on, and ain’t anybody telling you …

Nothing they tell you is the Real Story. Their allergy to the truth at this point is complete. You know they are lying because things are serious. They spoon feed us lies to keep us and the markets pacified, to keep relevant court stenographers at Bloomberg, CNBC, CNN and the War Street Journal.

Trump had to go because he got in the way. Now anybody else in the way will have to go.

Luongo did an interview that covers all of this and more. It’s long but rewards listening to a time or two: