Do Central Bankers Want War to Hide the next Global Financial Crises?

Rob Kirby former derivatives broker/dealer & institutional trader discusses the ridiculous short positions on silver where there is not enough silver in the world versus the amount of short contracts at the COMEX

Rob also believes that geopolitical rhetoric ratcheting up of possible war by the U.S. and cohorts could be a cover up for the next Global financial crises, which he thinks could happen very soon.

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Russia Claims it Could Completely Disable US Navy With Electronic Warfare Tech

There is an old saying in war. “No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy.” As China, Russia, and the United States beat the war drums and boast about the capabilities of their armies, they should take that saying very seriously. These geopolitical juggernauts may think that they have an ace in the hole for their militaries, but there’s no telling who would win in a war until the shooting starts.

In America’s case, our government puts a lot of faith in its expensive high-tech military. However, for decades countries like Russia and China have been developing cheap countermeasures to our best war machines, and they may be more effective than our politicians and generals would like to admit.

Or at least, that’s the takeaway from a Russian propaganda video that was released by Vesti, a media mouthpiece for the Kremlin. They claim that the Russian military has electronic warfare systems that can severely hinder the US Navy’s assets, including ships, planes and missiles.

The report claims that Russia has had a major breakthrough with this technology, which was demonstrated in an incident that occurred in the Black Sea in 2014. After Russia annexed Crimea the US deployed the USS Donald Cook to the area, and on April 12th, an unarmed Russian Su-24 fighter jet made a dozen very close range flyovers of the ship. Allegedly, the fighter jet was equipped with an electronic jamming device that disabled the ship’s AEGIS missile defense system. Though we know that the jet flew over the ship 12 times in a very provocative manner, the US government has never confirmed that the USS Donald Cook endured an electronic attack.

The report quoted a social media post from an unnamed sailor who was on the ship, which to be honest, sounded awfully fake, and doesn’t translate in a convincing way to English speakers.

“We watched the Russian on our locator until he reached the kill zone, to then ‘shoot him down.’ But when he entered the damned zone, mysticism began. Our locators were the first to go out, and then the whole Aegis went out. The pride of our fleet became our shame!”

The report also claims that Russia has electronic jamming equipment that can conceal their bases from radar, as well as devices that can jam signals to radio controlled landmines

Again, this is a work of propaganda, and shouldn’t be viewed without applying some critical thinking and research. However, to what degree that it is a work of fiction, is not clear. We don’t really know what the Russian military is capable of. Hopefully we’ll never find out.

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Why We’re Ungovernable: Europe Gets Its Doomsday Scenario

The rise of French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has made a lot of people nervous since, among many other things, she’s in favor of leaving the Eurozone, which would pretty much end the common currency. But since polling has shown her making the two-person run-off round but then losing to a mainstream candidate, the euro-elites haven’t seen any reason to panic.

Here, for instance, is a chart based on February polling that shows Le Pen getting the most votes in the first round, but then – when mainstream voters coalesce around her opponent – losing by around 60% – 40%. The establishment gets a bit of a scare but remains firmly in power, no harm no foul.

Then came the past month’s debates in which a previously-overlooked communist candidate named Jean-Luc Mélenchon shook up the major candidates by pointing out how corrupt they all are. Voters liked what they heard and a significant number of them shifted his way.

Mélenchon: Far-leftist surges in French polls, shocking the frontrunners (France 24) – In a presidential campaign with more twists than a French braid, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s sudden play to become France’s third man — or better — is shaking up the race. With ten days to go before April 23’s first round vote, the colourful, cultured and cantankerous far-leftist has the frontrunners on the defensive.

Suddenly, the grumpy far-leftist — a showman in a Chairman Mao jacket who openly admired late Venezuelan populist leader Hugo Chavez — holds the mantle of France’s most popular politician. In the course of a whirlwind month, the 65-year-old Mélenchon surged nine spots to number one in weekly glossy Paris Match’s opinion poll. A full 68 percent of those surveyed hold “favourable opinions” of the far-left candidate, the poll by the Ifop-Fiducial firm showed.

On some polls, Mélenchon has now bypassed embattled conservative François Fillon for third place in a presidential race that will see the top two advance to the May 7 run-off.

An Ipsos poll on Tuesday put Mélenchon a half-point ahead of Fillon for third place in the race, behind National Front leader Marine Le Pen and the independent centrist Emmanuel Macron. With 18.5 percent, the far-leftist has gleaned 4.5 percent in just two weeks, with Macron and Le Pen tied on 24 percent.

Mélenchon wants to quit NATO, the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and block European trade treaties with the United States and Canada. He promises a French referendum on whether to stick with the reworked EU he is pledging to negotiate or leave the bloc altogether.

Here’s a chart from the Washington Post showing just how tight the race for the run-off spots has become:

It’s still unlikely that both Le Pen and Mélenchon will make the run-off, but based on the above chart it’s suddenly possible. This would be the cultural equivalent of a Trump – Bernie Sanders race in the US, but with – believe it or not — even higher stakes because both Le Pen and Mélenchon would threaten the existence of both the Euro and the European Union, the world’s biggest economic entity.

So it almost doesn’t matter who wins that run-off. Just the prospect of having one or the other in charge would tank the Euro and set off a stampede out of Italian, Spanish and Portuguese bonds, possibly doing irreparable damage to the Eurozone before the eventual winner even takes power.

To repeat the theme of this series, when you screw up a country’s finances you take its politics along for the ride. In France, the right feels betrayed by open borders and excessive regulation, the left by an unaccountable elite that always seems to profit at everyone else’s expense. And both sides suffer from soaring debt at every level of society.

So if a fringe candidate doesn’t win this time around, the mainstream will just make an even bigger mess, raising the odds of a fringe victory next a few years hence.

- Source, John Rubio via the Sprott Money Blog

Rick Rule: Extremely Rare & Bullish Trading Pattern in Gold and Silver

President and CEO of Sprott US Holdings Rick Rule says gold, silver, and the US dollar rarely trade how they are trading right now…

Gold, silver, and the US dollar are all trading higher. This trading pattern is extremely bullish for gold and silver, Rule says.

Rule also notes the current strength in the US dollar is not reflective of economic strength. He explains why the US economy is actually weak. In addition, US dollar strength won’t last. With a national debt nearing $20 trillion and unfunded liabilities above $100 trillion, long term there is no practical option out of this debt besides devaluation.

- Source, Silver Doctors

The Real Reason The Federal Government Have Been Keen to Blame Russia for Everything: Gold

How would you feel if you had planned a gathering of your closest family and friends and your list of invites grows to include some 185 guests. You also invited your known trouble-making cousin. Your cousin shows up drunk, armed and belligerent. He begins harassing a good portion of the guests, smashes some of your prized possessions and then, as an added bonus, he shoots and kills 12 of your guests.

As your cousin is leaving the gathering, he takes your wallet and your wife’s purse. He also goes in your bedroom, opens your safe and removes all your gold and silver. Your cousin now has all your credit and debit cards and all the cash you had on hand. You can not conduct business in any manner. You can’t even pay the caterer for their services.

If this sounds like a horrific story, you’re right - it is. The drunken cousin is a metaphor for how the U.S. has been acting for the past several years and how it has treated countries around the world. Do you suppose some of these nations are more than a little tired of being treated in this manner? Do you suppose that instead of acting as this oppressive “cousin” acts that some of these countries would find it better to simply develop a way to leave the “gathering” in a peaceful manner and get on with their own business?

As we reported on March 30 China and Russia are taking steps to move away from their out of control “cousin”, the Federal Reserve Note, U.S. dollar, world reserve currency.

We learned in March 2016 that Kazakistan had been in formal talks with the Shanghai Gold Exchangeregarding gold as currency along the New Silk Road (One Belt One Road) spearheaded by China. Kazakistan also smelts most of Russia’s gold and mines a small amount gold annually and is a member of both the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and Eurasia Economic Union (EEU).

Then, in October of 2016 we continued covering how China had been working directly with the IMF to get the yuan/renminbi currency added to the SDR basket of currencies for global trade. That now appears to be a cover story for what lay ahead. With the renminbi now a global currency that changes how the renminbi functions within the currency markets and in global trade negotiations.

For the better part of the past year it has seemed as if the mainstream media, with talking points from the federal government, had been 100% obsessed with “Russia did it!!” “It” could be anything as the story has morphed so many times it’s hard to keep track. The “it” is not near as important as the cheerleading by the MSM to remind the public Russia is to blame!

The Russian obsession has, for the past several months, been running along side a new “enemy” – China. China and the South China Sea has been another point of beating war drums for the mainstream media. We now have two new enemies outside of Syrian President Assad, Iran, Iraq, Libya and whoever else we feel we need to bully. The whole list of enemies continues to grow even though there are exactly zero threats to the U.S. from any of these countries.

China began working their CIPS system, global trade settlement system, in October 2016, the same time the renminbi joined the SDR basket, allowing China to conduct global trade outside the U.S. owned and operated SWIFT system. Both systems are used to settle global trade transactions and the SWIFT system has been geared to the Federal Reserve Note – U.S. dollar – while the CIPS system is geared to the Chinese renminbi.

- Source, Sprott Money

Jim Rickards Warns Financial Calamity is Coming

Financial expert James Rickards is adamant that a financial shutdown and calamity is “Coming Sooner Than Later…”

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