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Title: Western Sanctions Against Iran vs Expected Eastern Blowback
Published: 2018-05-01
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhcNgEzr5BA
Title: Western Sanctions Against Iran vs Expected Eastern Blowback
Published: 2018-05-01
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhcNgEzr5BA
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Thanks for watching this latest episode of Money and Fear offered exclusively here on the NewsBud Network. Now as part of celebrating NewsBuds 2-year anniversary, we are temporarily opening all of NewsBuds content, whether exclusive videos, articles, papers, or other unique programming, to you, the viewing public so that you can witness how NewsBuds married expert contributors provide credible, increasingly rare journalism that corporate media nowadays are often ordered2/65
to stay away from. Please enjoy our research content without limits and feel free to share our site's links with others. Now onto this week's episode, Western sanctions against Iran versus the expected blowback from the global east. Iran's currencies, the Riyal and the Toman, collectively referred to here as the Riyal, have been plummeting in perceived value for months now, nay years, nay decades, against the US dollar.3/65
The Riyal's aggressive drop in value since December 2017 alone is neither due to core Iranian economic fundamentals, which would otherwise theoretically justify a national currency skydiving in such a fashion, nor is it coincidental with the wider currency wars being conducted between the global west and east. It is in fact the most recent salvo in a precariously heightening high stakes duel of each side trying to collapse4/65
the other's currency or currencies and thus harm their wider sense of economic stability. The land assists standing behind dollar hegemony and the building Eurasian contingency fighting it, are attacking each other's currencies either clandestinely via both technological and deployed trading agent means or overtly through sanctions regimes in order to ultimately either maintain or appropriate respectively standards for the future of the world's economy. There is a race5/65
against time to do so for each side and the race is completely reliant upon which way global perception leans with regard to the more viable credible macro-moditary standard for conducting international trade, foremost in the leading perishable commodities on earth, oil and natural gas. Currency wars, sanctions and related actions against Iran ultimately have nothing to do with whether Iran is or is not compliant with the joint6/65
comprehensive plan of action or a JCPOA which was agreed upon a few years ago between various states. It is and has been to the letter compliant with said JCPOA agreement and since the agreement went into effect. No, this is clearly about control, control which the Atlantis west lacks over Iran and more so over Iran's tight and building relations with other nemices such as Russia, China, Turkey,7/65
Lebanon, Syria, Pakistan, Yemen and other nations routinely targeted by Washington politically or economically. Sigal Mandelcare, U.S. Undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, tellingly said in April of this year that Iran had not followed through on other demanded reforms separate to the nuclear deal, citing the example of, well, a continued lack of transparency in the Iranian banking system. The west does not repeat does8/65
not want a traditionally discipline nation of 80 million people who sit on massive reserves of oil, natural gas, minerals and other valuable resources to integrate strategically as seamlessly as Iran is doing with Russia, China and their spreading list of allies whether across Eurasia or abroad. Iranian banking reforms have indeed been gaining steam, yet apparently not openly enough for Anglo-American banks which ultimately want insider access into9/65
and ultimate regulatory influence over Iran's private banks and central bank. For years Iran has used an official central bank issued exchange rate between the Riyal and Dollar alongside an unofficial, unregulated, quote-unquote, market exchange rate in early April of 2018 that unregulated rate reached 60,000 Riyals to the Dollar, up from about 48,000 Riyals to the Dollar on April 1 and from around 36,000 last September of 2017.10/65
Mind you, before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, a dollar cost only 70 Riyals, a rate that held before jumping to almost 2,000 Riyals in the early 1990s, then to 8,000 Riyals in 2002, 25,000 Riyals in 2013, an onward to where we are now. All along the way the Iranian government has steadfastly held to what it terms an, quote, economy of resistance which in part entailed applying as11/65
much fiscal discipline to its debt, trade books, and other features under strains of conspicuous economic sanctions and other acts of war from the U.S. and its Atlantis partners. Nonetheless, and despite currently retaining a trade surplus of $17 billion, $133.7 billion in forex and gold reserves, putting Iran ahead of the U.S. there, 3.5% GDP growth per the IMF, the U.S. only had a 2017 listed GDP growth12/65
of 2.3%. President Rohanis passed take down of the inflation rate from about 40% down to 9.9%, and consistent foreign currency surpluses. Iran's currency is somehow starting to nonetheless resemble Venezuela's or Zimbabwe's in the sense of shoulder rolling toward hyperinflation. Is that all due to economic fundamentals, though? Or do rather to nefarious fiscal, informational, and increasingly technological design on the part of powers wishing for immediate, quote,13/65
unquote, regime change and essentially state destruction of Iran? President Rohanis rightly announced in February of 2018 that there is no fundamental underlying economic reason for the realist devaluation. In response, the Iranian government is getting ahead of speculation to prevent it from damaging the wider economy while feeding the avalanching, quote, unquote, animal spirits and perceptual needs of inimical financial actors abroad. They surely decided to unify the14/65
disparate two exchange rate measurements, doing away with the so-called unofficial or, quote, unquote, black market rate while prohibiting traders from using it for arbitrage, labeling them as, quote, unquote, smugglers as they're essentially smuggling out wider national stability due to their rent seeking speculative activities, which more than likely retain foreign sponsors egging on-set behavior from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and in turn London, Washington, New15/65
York, Brussels, and Basel. Security forces even arrested around 100 money changers to send a message ultimately to their foreign inspirers while the government set the new single rate at $42,000 reels to the dollar. Iran had arrested 16 similar price manipulators for the same offenses six years ago as well, establishing a clear trend of those seeking to directly negatively influence internally Iranian affairs. A senior economist at16/65
the IMF suggested the exchange rate unification last year, Tehran followed said advice. The fact that it came out of the IMF, despite its seemingly deflecting damaging speculative behavior in the short term, should nonetheless give the Iranian leadership pause and food for further strategic thought. I.e., will a unified exchange rate lend necessary control to domestic regulators, or rather to those controlling perceptions against the dollar? Could Iran's17/65
digital currency trading computers have been hacked in the past and route to such inflationary spectacles? Are they vulnerable to artificial interventions from the outside? Would seek things like, well, the widening of official and unofficial exchange rate listings? Iran's no stranger to hacking, spying, and digital sabotage. In early April of this year, Iran was hit by yet another cyber attack that left U.S. flags alongside a warning18/65
left on screens reading, quote, don't mess with our elections. Said cyber attack made possible and interestingly latent vulnerability in routers originating from sysco systems of San Jose California. The infamous Stuxnet virus, which was concocted by U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies, telling reached its target via the networks of trusted business partners within Iran itself a few years ago. Time for a complete revamping of any and all19/65
hardware and software in the financial, monetary, and wider security spheres with perhaps the studied curated assistance of Iran's eastern partners, yet ideally for Iran to accomplish itself. All signs point toward Washington exiting the JCPOA agreement fairly soon, re-adding past sanctions to Iran, and related steps meant to draw belligerent responses out of Iran, which in turn would quote, justify, unquote, even harsher potential retorts from an exhausted,20/65
desperate, Atlantis' community clearly outwitted by more sober minds, both in Tehran and amongst Tehran's allies. Quote, primary and secondary sanctions, unquote, per U.S. Treasury Secretary Manuchin, are meant against both Iran as well as entities doing business with Iran. Most banks already do not feel comfortable engaging Iran, thereby partly resulting in oil revenues not being properly imported into Iran, which has been a longstanding aim for the21/65
U.S. Treasury strategically. This is meant to take the Iranian currency into unstoppable hyperinflation, this Trump's mere threats—threats—to leave the JCPOA, along with adding the likes of Neocon, such as Mike Pompeo and John Bolton to his cabinet, have already supposedly accounted for the over 45 percent drop in the Reale's value against the dollar since the December 2017 unrest. Per Steve Hanky, Professor of Applied Economics at Johns22/65
Hopkins University, but after the Reale dropped 59 percent in just a week last September of 2017 as well. Hanky's a name which will come up again later, by the way. The governor of the Central Bank of Iran, Valhalla Saif, stated before Iran's mageless or parliament that Iran's enemies are at work in attacking the national currency, quote, "'Enemies outside of our borders in various different guises are23/65
fueling this issue and are going to some effort to make conditions tougher for the people,' end quote. Safe blamed the Saudis, the Emirati-based speculators, and social media, especially telegram, as being culprits. Telegram is an encrypted messaging app that an estimated 40 million Iranians were using, yet it easily became a tool for spreading panic and exaggerated market news. Telegram was blamed for spreading unrest during December of24/65
2017 as well, and is planning an initial coin offering which has seen us further threatening Iran's financial autonomy and sovereignty. The Iranian government shut it down and has offered a nationalized alternative instead,' entitled Soudouj. US social media stoking unrest isn't new to Iran, either. As Twitter was heavily involved as a tool for urging people to cause ruckus in the streets back in 2009. The Obama administration25/65
back then actually asked, read, ordered, Twitter staff to postpone a temporary shutdown and remain open in order to assist anti-government protesters. Tellingly, the Russians have come down hard on telegram as well as have laid, revealing two things here. One, that there are shared security concerns by these two close eastern allies over this clearly politically propagandistically deployed technology, and potentially thus, two, a mutual sense of cyber26/65
counter-strategizing being orchestrated against their western rivals. Now, I've covered the high likelihood of deep-state technological provenances, an ongoing governmental slash private corporate sector nexus surveillance activities behind cryptocurrencies in the wider blockchain across four of my prior episodes of money and fear here on NewsBud. All linked articles, texts, and other source material follow this video in our detailed show notes below for your review. Let's talk wider27/65
latent western macroeconomic and thus political risks again, shall we? The US national debt level is 21 trillion trillion with a T, 21 trillion dollars in growing daily. This puts the official US government debt to gross domestic product ratio at 103%. The UK's official debt to GDP stands at 88%, with Francis at 97%, Belgium's at 103% as well. The collective European Union debt to GDP at 88%,28/65
no doubt dragged higher by the wildly overleveraged quote-unquote club med nations such as Greece, Italy, Portugal, Cyprus, and Spain, all of which have debt to GDPs anywhere between 99% and 178%. And Japan's debt to GDP sits at a staggering 253%, that's the public debt to GDP listed. By the way, thanks for all the trilateral commission economic guidance afforded to Japan after the plaza accord took Tokyo's29/65
momentum out at the knees, Anglo-America. No wonder Japan is increasingly leaning on China for economic guidance. Related in profligacy news, worldwide, national derivatives values, dollar denominated and coordinated, of course, stand at well over one quadrillion dollars, which dwarfs global gross domestic product output by over 20 times. Now, I've emphasized derivatives risks frequently on this program, partly because their realities remain purposefully opaque in much of the30/65
mainstream corporate financial media, which are inevitably beholden to editorial Dictat from the banking industry itself. Derivatives risks are worth re-emphasizing here because they're directly germane to the above reference global currency war in procession. Leading US banks retain notional derivatives exposure in their off-balance sheet ether in the tens of trillions with city group, JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, each retaining total derivatives between 28 and 4731/65
trillion dollars. The top 25 bank holding companies collectively juggle over 222 trillion dollars in vulnerable derivatives, Venom. As lawyer, economist, and author Jim Rickards and others have made clear, under a systemic global financial crisis, the concept of quote unquote net becomes quote unquote gross. And that's otherwise arcane, notional derivatives values assume market value immediately under a forced market to market process for counter party institutions, the32/65
likes of which could veritably be triggered by well, I don't know, a massive switching away by major sovereign oil and gas producers from dollar-denominated pricing trading and reinvesting, which would then spike real interest rates way above quote unquote official central bank assigned rates. The world's most important commodities, namely oil and natural gas, are currently dollar-denominated, thereby allowing US debt issuance and derivatives betting to proceed literally33/65
at infinitum. However, should a significant enough amount of global fossil fuels trading and investment recycling be shifted enough into non-dollar alternatives, then the veritable death star quote unquote, that is the universal alchemical Ponzi scheme of dollar hegemony will explode to borrow a core pun intended analogy from the original Star Wars movies near finale. Well, the geopolitical and geoeconomic equivalent of rebel tie fighters here using the34/65
force of bonding currency reliance to both physical gold and energy resources as my article and longer paper for news but last year detailed are now racing down in the proverbial battle stations meridian trenches as we speak aiming for the only weakness which is an increasingly tepid mass perception of requisite confidence in the US dollar as perennial global reserve and thus energy trading standard. Here, this US35/65
dollar confidence trick remains the real life equivalent of the fabled death star's thermal exhaust port sitting naked waiting to be compromised. Now, by blaring contrast to the above numbers out west, Iran's debt GDP ratio clocks in at merely 32 percent. Russia's is just at under 13 percent. Turkey's is at only 28 percent and China's listed government debt GDP is 48 percent. Sure, China's private sector debt36/65
is routinely criticized out west for being north of 250 percent, akin to Japan's public debt listing. Yet China's is the second strongest economy on earth with over $3 trillion in 4x reserves, 1.2 trillion in US treasury bonds, a gross savings rate of 46 percent, and an official gold bullion reserve accounting of 1842 tons which is neck and neck with Russia's stated official gold reserves of 182837/65
tons. I re-emphasize the word official quote unquote here because some fastidious gold industry experts estimate that the notoriously quiet Chinese actually retain upwards of 20,000 tons of total above ground gold reserves, which if true, would trounce claimed US gold reserves of only 8133 tons. Moreover, China is co-designing a unique interdependency with its stated allies as well as other nations around the world and without committing violent38/65
over-throws in any of them in the process. Hence the rising Eurasian East is comprised of generally fiscally prudent nations and cultures which are interlocking with each other for mutual growth and for defense against an increasingly desperate, belligerent, fiscally bankrupt on a comprehensive market basis. West hell-bent upon bringing said east to kneel before infinite fiat money printing and further hegemonic expansion by force. US dollar reliance is39/65
thus the core hazard here. For Iran, for Russia, Turkey, for the rest of these targeted nations, and essentially for any other nation wishing to stray from the Washington consensus on foreign affairs, Iran's central bank governor announced plans to replace the dollar with the euro and foreign trade as the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Hamane had welcomed that decision. Ayatollah Hamane had suggested to Russian President Putin last40/65
fall that both nations should get completely off US dollar reliance which has expedited animosity's currency war and rushed considerations to exit the JCPOA completely in Washington. The US will naturally not state that tactical dollar snubbing as a core reason why as it would reveal justified worries out west over what systematic dollar exiting would do to everything from interest rates to bond markets to a triggered derivatives41/65
meltdown and thus immediate dollar crisis. Iran and Russia have further distance themselves from the dollar by extending their oil for goods supply agreement whereby 100,000 barrels of Iranian oil per day would be bought by the Russians in turn for 45 billion dollars worth of goods in route to 50 billion dollars of eventual Russian investment in Iranian energy and entrance for Iran into the Russian-led Eurasian economic42/65
union. This is in addition to Iran's already included status in China's one belt, one road or new silk road transcontinental macro project alongside Iran and China also agreeing to trade in non dollar terms as well. Yet even if European, Asian and other nations agreed to trade with Iran and Euro-denominated transactions, it still be no guarantee of protection against further fiscal sabotage considering what the Euro is43/65
ultimately a creature of. If sustainable as a platform Euro-relines would only be a short term nuisance for the Western Bank system which would merely adjust its sanctions regimes. How effective would a Euro switch away from the dollar be in its own right let alone with regard to consistency when weighed against continued bilateral currency swaps vis-Ã -vis Russia's rubble China's yuan or the Turkish lira? All said steps44/65
are meant to simultaneous defense and momentum against dollar hegemony. Yet how will they on their own put a dent into dollar dominance and trade? Partly because Russia too is under unilateral US sanctions which have complicated transactions and dollars because they have to be processed through the US financial system. Russian energy minister Alexander Novak indeed recently stated that Moscow is considering payments in national currencies and trade45/65
with both Iran and Turkey amid their escalating tensions with the United States. Russia is also considering introducing its alternative to visa and master card entitled the Mead card payment system into Iran's financial infrastructure as well as it could eventually integrate with Iran's corresponding Shatab payment system. Those are just a few steps towards building wider disconnection momentum from the US dollar. Considering how Russia and Iran are46/65
the first and second natural gas reserve holders and seventh and fourth largest oil reserve holders respectively and considering how their core shared partner China is launching the much anticipated petro-yuan alternative to the petro dollar. The question becomes how and when do other nations shift over to non-dollar alternatives in energy trading and income recycling and what it would mean for the over leverage US dollar. I did47/65
a prior episode on Venezuela's similar petro-energy currency in March of this year as well for reference. Now I mentioned earlier a professor named Steve H. Hanky of Johns Hopkins and at the Kato Institute think tank. An interesting figure. Mr. Hanky is apparently quite versed on currency devaluations and what he's phrased as quote hot spots of international conflict. Or nations exhibiting egregiously quote anti-business policies. And quote48/65
by their leadership or essentially countries openly bucking Washington consensus aims. In a revealing 2013 article for the Kato Institute entitled quote troubled currencies companies. Mr. Hanky listed such states. Iran naturally alongside North Korea. Argentina under the Russian-leaning Christina Fernandez de Kirchner. Venezuela, Egypt and Syria. In each nation the exchange rate between the national currency and the dollar diverges aggressively. With subsequently spiking inflation, discuracy of machinations49/65
deployed with a quote unquote black market for foreign exchange. Data for which Mr. Hanky oddly has access to from each nation's past experiences with currency and stability. Hmm. He doesn't fully explain where this quote unquote black market all of a sudden comes from. Not coincidentally to overlap with politically and or economically unpopular stances which their governments take vis-a-vis Anglo-American preferences. He does a test to said50/65
states cracking down on their black markets. However unsuccessful their efforts. Each charty displays in his piece exhibits plummeting domestic currencies against the dollar as if done in a digital art project by a creative child. Some of the rate drops safer Venezuela or Syria. Look like well someone or some thing pushing a ton of cell orders. Somewhere on a computer screen with one or three key strokes.51/65
Bagging critical technical questions over just how precisely said foreign exchange markets work. When and this is vital every foreign currency is linked and weighed necessarily against the US dollar with regard to its ultimate valuation. Steve Hanky set up what's called the troubled currency's project. Jointly at Johns Hopkins and at the Cato Institute ostensibly to provide quote absolutely essential reliable economic intelligence. To the private and governmental52/65
sectors. Because quote indeed currency problems can often be a good leading indicator of other problems with a machine end quote. In a revealing slip Steve Hanky contradicts himself and said piece by on one hand claiming that Syria presented quote nothing to report by a way of reliable economic data end quote after the route of the Syrian pound five years ago. Only to then state quote to53/65
fill that void I employ standard techniques to estimate serious current inflation and implied annual inflation rate of 291.1% end quote. Well what standard techniques are we talking about here if there's an attested to void of reliable economic data. Better yet how much of his numbers which presumably government agencies intelligence firms and private corporations rely upon are based on genuine science versus something else perhaps say like54/65
an esoteric algorithmic tactical fintech lever in London, New York, Washington, Basel or all of the above for driving exchange rate divergences when deemed necessary. Mr. Hanky is also described in Wikipedia as and I quote a leading authority on dollarization whereby a country replaces its domestic currency with a stable foreign currency creating a de facto fixed exchange rate monetary system between two countries over the course of55/65
his career Hanky over the course of his career Hanky has written over 20 books and monographs and over 300 articles on currency boards and dollarization Hanky's views on monetary policy are influenced by his experience as a currency and commodities trader as well as by the economics of Milton Friedman, Robert Mundell and Friedrich Huyck and quote from Wikipedia there. Okay great I traded physical precious metals commodities56/65
for years as well the ultimate inability to apply viable technical or even fundamental analysis for trading purposes in said sector led me to years of obsessive research only to arrive at the object reality that commodity and currency and equity and bond markets are for the most part rigged whether the personnel and tools then for rigging perceptions assigned to foreign currencies whole economies and thus perceptual faith57/65
entrusted in national leaderships overseas when everyone must subscribe to a dollar standard at core also a prominent alumnus of Johns Hopkins previously mentioned analyst author and economic war game or gym records bluntly outlined the means by which currency war was deployed against Iran with the open intention of performing quote unquote regime change back in his 2012 address to the ironically named Carnegie Council for ethics in