2016: A Year in Review
The president of South Korea (a country of economic significance, just check out at the brand names on your TV and on your car) has been impeached. The prime minister of Israel is under investigation on two major charges.
No one talks about Brexit anymore; have you noticed? In Italy, a major bank is being “nationalized” rather than being allowed to create a trigger that could destroy the entire eurozone (a temporary fix at best, as more triggers are coming). Japan is arming itself for the first time since WWII (!) to defend against Chinese seizure of islands in the South China Sea.
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In India, a land that considered itself a true democracy until very recently, Prime Minister Modi (now “strongman Modi”) has single-handedly brought the economy to a halt, closed entire factories, whacked the gross domestic product (GDP) of the entire nation, and encouraged “reverse migration” from the cities back to the countryside. Now he is seizing personal gold stashes.
Bitcoin is at an all-time high and gold is slowly coming off a secular low. Yet both are essentially the very same investment; is it a bet against the current system? (Ask your fifth grader to explain that!)
And China, a country that unintentionally has become the sole economic engine of the entire world, is facing a currency crisis which may require it to let the yuan float free: the so-called “nuclear” option. (We disagree on that; their true “nuclear” option is backing the yuan with gold.)
Meanwhile, the government of Turkey has publicly announced that it has hard proof that the U.S. created ISIS, a charge that the U.S. denies vehemently.
And the outgoing president of the United States says he has hard proof that Russia interfered in the recent election, and has gone ahead and expelled 35 Russian diplomats, seized Russian property in the U.S., and launched a secret hack attack on Russia, details unknown. For which Russia says it must retaliate. But we never actually got to see the proof?
That very same president has also made it his personal project to force Israel to create a Palestinian state—something Israel has resisted for, literally, decades—even though he has barely two weeks to accomplish this daunting task before the new president takes office.
And—amazingly—the new president is publicly assuring both Russia and Israel (mainly via tweets) to stay cool: he will sort all this out the moment he is in the White House (creating, in the process, a battle between the incoming and outgoing presidents never seen before in history).
Against the above backdrop, Michael Moore (why, of all people, Michael Moore?) is asking the population to rise in armed rebellion to stop the inauguration (no, that is not a misprint; that is his specific request.)
These days, to be a student of history and current affairs, you first need training in psychology, or else how can you possibly understand the insane world we all live in, the madness of crowds, and the vanity of men?
In a recent radio interview, respected historian F. William Engdahl offered what can best be described as the very first “unified theory” that manages to do something no one else has done so far. It explains how Donald Trump got involved in the presidential race in the first place; who his real supporters are behind the scenes; what agendas he will be following, both overt and covert; and how Trump intends to change the geopolitical arena. (Source: “Trump: Holding His Feet To The Fire; “The Incredible Trump Deception” – F. William Engdah,” The Daily Coin, December 25, 2016.)
Whether you agree with, or even like, his conclusions is not the issue. The fact is that this is the very first analysis that at least attempts to explain a lot of the “mysterious” actions recently undertaken by President-elect Trump, including for example, surrounding himself with ex-military and ex-billionaires to a degree never before seen in the history of the United States.
Most astonishing of all, after eloquently explaining his point of view (which among other things involves re-arming America to break up the recent Russia-China-Iran alliance which, otherwise, will crush us over time), Engdahl adds, almost as an afterthought, the comment that he personally does not believe these Trumpian agendas (both overt and covert) will actually succeed.
But that does not change the fact that the next four years, according to Engdahl, are going to resemble something from a Steven Spielberg film.
Could Mr. Trump be trying to befriend Russia to drive a wedge into the alliance between Russia and China?
It is perhaps significant that, as President-elect Trump enters the equation with a clearly pro-Israel point of view, the military appointees to his new cabinet have a clear and proven history of seeking war with Iran. Another coincidence? If the intent is to start a war with Iran via proxy, you could not find a better partner than Israel.
In fact, the 2009 Policy Paper from the Brookings Institute, titled “Which Path to Persia? Options for a new American Strategy Towards Iran,” basically says that is the preferred strategy to take. (Source: “Which Path to Persia? Options for a new American Strategy Towards Iran,” The Saban Center for Middle East Policy at The Brookings Institute, last accessed December 29, 2016.)
We wish our readers the best in the new year.
