Saturday, September 9, 2023

Terminating French Neocolonialism & the CFA Zone in Africa | Ibrahim Traoré

African states are one by one falling outside the shackles of French neocolonialism. Six decades after 'independence' Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger reject France's uninterrupted domination of African financial, political, economic, and security affairs. It is absolutely impossible to understand Africa's current turmoil without understanding the nature of French neocolonialism. The key is the CFA franc, the colonial franc, introduced in 1945 in French Africa, which still rules over 14 African countries. 
 
» The slave that cannot carry out his own revolt deserves no pity. «
Captain Ibrahim Traoré, President of Burkina Faso, July 2023.


The whole world remembers that after the 2008 global financial crisis, Libya’s Leader
and President of the African Union, Muammar Gaddafi, called for the establishment of a pan-African currency pegged to gold, the African Gold Dinar. By that time Gaddafi had developed Libya from one of the most miserable into the richest country in Africa. Libya was economically and socially stable, had a prosperous and educated people, its own currency, no obligations to the IMF, the World Bank nor the BIS, zero foreign debt and about 150 tons of gold, kept in its own fully sovereign central bank - not in London, not in Paris, and not in New York. Together with South Africa's gold the new pan-African currency would have had its own independent financial center in Tripoli, Libya, and a sovereign African Development Bank in Yaoundé, Cameroon. For scores of African nations that was the plan and strategy to finally jail break from the CFA and from the entirely fraudulent Western global monetary and financial system that was imposed at gunpoint on the 'decolonized' after 1945 by the new 'free world' champions: the US, the French and the British. 
 
What Libya still did not have was nuclear weapons, satellite-guided long-range missiles nor an efficient air defence. In March 2011 the first airstrike on Libya came from a French Mirage fighter jet. France's bombing campaigns on Tripoli, Misrata, Sirte - on water supply and electricity infrastructure, on public buildings and civilian living quarters alike - started even before simulated 'emergency talks' between western leaders in Paris ended. The US kept on bringing in through Cyrenaica tens of thousands of their Jihadists out of Syria and Iraq via US bases in Türkiye for the dirty work on the ground. In the course of the assault the French COS looted the central bank in Tripoli and airlifted all of Libya's gold to Paris while the EU Commission seized all Libyan assets in Europe (by the way, during the 2014 Maidan coup UKSF rushed out 40 tons of Ukraine's central bank gold to London and New York). After murdering Gaddafi in October 2011, France became the first country in the world to recognize a US-fabricated mercenary Jihadist 'National Transitional Council' as the legitimate government over a completely destroyed and dysfunctional Libya, contaminated by countless US, British and French Depleted Uranium projectiles. 
 
The African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, was immediately cut off from all funds and cleansed from pan-African sovereign aspirations and diplomats by a concerted coup of the US, the British, the French and the EU Commission. The new head of the African Union became one of Jacob Zuma's ex-wifes, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. Her agenda replaced formerly well funded programs for health, education, infrastructure, industrialization and pan-African trade with mass-vaccination and sterilization campaigns of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, WHO-'Ebola' test runs for the Covid-19 plandemic, gender issues, CO2 reduction programs, WEF-Central Bank Digital Currency experiments, and an EU-funded African Union military intervention in Somalia, to name but a few of her achievements. When Zuma's term ended in 2017, any genuine purpose of the African Union had been erased. Since 2011 the neocolonial consortium of the US, the British, the French and the EU Commission had launched the so called 'Arab Spring', destroyed Libya, established some two dozens of additional military bases, fostered ethnic separatist movements, armed jihad fanatics, imposed bogus 'peace keeping' and 'humanitarian' military interventions and turned the Horn of Africa, the Great Lakes Region, and the Sahel from Mali to Sudan into quagmires of violence and misery. This triggered displacement and migration of tens of millions within Africa  - Egypt alone now hosts some 11 million refugees - as well as mass migration of epic proportion into Türkiye and Europe.  

The French CFA racket in Africa makes the Mafia look like street punks. The monetary policy of 14 African nations with a population of more than 120 million is controlled by the French Treasury in Paris. The Central Bank of each African nation was initially required to keep at least 65 percent of their annual foreign exchange reserves in an 'operation account' held at the French Treasury, plus another 20 percent to cover financial 'liabilities'. Even after some 'reforms' were enacted since 2005, these nations were still required to transfer 50 percent of their foreign exchange to Paris, plus 20 percent V.A.T. The CFA Central Banks impose a cap on credit to each member country. The French Treasury invests these African foreign reserves in its own name on the Paris bourse and pulls in massive profits on Africa's dime. More than 80 percent of foreign reserves of African nations in those  'operation accounts' are used by the French Treasury as if they were French capital and as collateral in pledging assets to French payments to the EU and the ECB. French conglomerate Bolloré controls ports and marine transport throughout West Africa; Bouygues/Vinci dominates construction and public works, water, and electricity distribution; Total has huge stakes in oil and gas. And then there is France Telecom and big banking - Societe Generale, Credit Lyonnais, BNP-Paribas, AXA (insurance), Areva - France's highest valued company (uranium) - and so forth. France de facto controls the overwhelming majority of infrastructure in Francophone Africa. It is a virtual monopoly. Policies are issued by the President of the Republic of France and his 'African cell'. They have nothing to do with parliament, or any democratic process, since the times of Charles De Gaulle. The 'African cell' is a General Command and uses the French military apparatus to install 'friendly' leaders and to get rid of those that threaten the system. 
 
ECOWAS = Of the Colonialist, by the Colonialist, for the Colonialist?

The French exploitation scheme became shaken to its core by the 2021 military coup of Colonel Assimi Goïta in Mali, the 2022 military coup of Captain Ibrahim Traoré, now President of a transitional government of Burkina Faso, and the recent military coup of General Abdourahmane Tchiani in Niger in July 2023. They are now counting on their own abilities and capacities and support from Russia and China. During the past twenty years China became Africa's biggest trading partner and foreign investor. No wars, no coups, no destabilization involved. Without a single shot. Bypassing the African Union and based on bilateral agreements, China built thousands of kilometers of railways and roads,
cargo trains, high speed trains, urban transportation systems, dozens of airports, sports stadiums, schools, universities, some twenty deep water ports, container hubs, hydroelectric dams, some eighty large power plants, tens-of-thousands of kilometers of power lines, hundreds of factories, mining projects and hospitals, sent twenty thousand Chinese medical workers providing free care to hundreds of millions of Africans, and had invited some one hundred fifty thousand Africans with all inclusive academic scholarships to China. Many African countries expect an increasing Russian engagement, mainly in order to promote their defense capacities and food security.

Reference: 

Friday, September 8, 2023

Considering a Career in Organised Crime

 

Cycles Write World History | Donald A. Bradley

Research embracing many fields of scientific pursuit and all available historical records proves that the climate of the earth as a whole goes through long cycles. World-climate shifts from cold to warm periods and from wet to dry periods with amazing regularity. Dry periods accompanied by colder weather take place about every 170 years, every third such “cold drought” being severe in its effects.

"The turning points between old and new civilizations occur when 
cold-dry times reach their maximum severity."

Professor Raymond H. Wheeler, eminent psychologist of the University of Kansas, heads this study project which finds an important correlation between world climate and political history. Dr. Wheeler's analysis of an immense accumulation of data shows that great international changes occur on these shifts from warm to cold and vice versa. Nations deteriorate on the shift from warm to cold, the study reveals. What is probably most fascinating among the findings is that totalitarianism is representative of world-wide political sentiment during warm periods. Democracy is vivified and sought after by men during cold periods. Intervals of cold droughts usually coincide with eras of civil wars. International wars are fought, for the most part, during warmer times. The Wheeler project has identified basic mass-psychological patterns with every climatic condition found in the global weather cycle. Public attitudes and popular ideas are directly colored by the general nature of the world-climate prevailing at any time.
 
Raymond H. Wheeler and his 'big book'.
 
Astrology offers a logical explanation for this 170-year rhythm in world activities. It is hardly a coincidence that every cold-drought is synchronized with one of the solar system's major planetary configurations. Called a great mutation in astrological parlance, a conjunction of the planets Uranus and Neptune occurs every 171 years, on the average. These conjunctions are within effective orb for 15 years before and after their central date of coming-together in the sky. This Uranus-Neptune cycle leaves a continuous impression on the unwinding scroll of world history in inciting those conditions in human and natural affairs described.

Central conjunctions of Uranus and Neptune took place in the A.D. years of 
110, 281, 453, 624, 796, 967, 1139, 1310, 1481, 1653 and 1824 [1906-10, 1993, 2078-81, 2165]

[The years cited mark the general centers of the 30-year influence at work. They are computed for the conjunctions in mean heliocentric longitude, and not for the apparent (geocentric) times of occurrence. The time-margin allowed for this difference is nearly a whole decade.]

Each of these epochs is at or near the dead center of a period of serious cold drought recorded in the annals of history and science. It is no surprise to the astrologer that lowered mean temperature, lack of much rainfall, political stress and civil war itself should be typical of our earth’s response to these vibrations. Uranian influences alone have long been recognized as revolutionary in action. Neptune is peculiarly associated with meteorological matters, and also with canons of idealistic thought. Astrologers are generally agreed that Neptune is the planet of “isms” and ideologies which provoke national and international changes of attitude. Uranus is disruptive in action and progressive in the long run. Neptune, on the other hand, is said to determine world sentiments which have an emotional base. Conjunctions of these divergent forces bring about the years of famine and civil strife which make and break the great economic and political structures we call nations.

The primary precipitation-and-temperature cycle is obviously connected with a particular interplanetary periodicity. There are dozens if not hundreds of other cycles in man’s social and natural environment which can be traced to similar causes. Relations of two or more planets to each other as viewed from the earth are called aspects. The positions of any moving heavenly body across the great star-sprangled backdrop of the sky are called transits. In astrology, we make use of the term transit to mean the location of a planet by the sign of the zodiac it occupies. Aspects and sign-transits of the various planets are the fundamental causes of cycles on earth. Although not actually zodiacal factors, the declinations of certain planets and changes in the elements of planetary orbits are found to be strong components in the astrological theory of world cycles.

Above and beyond true physical phenomena is the strange tendency of world affairs toward cycles which reflect the general connotations of successive zodiacal signs. This is apparent if one reconsiders the famous historical analyses of Oswald Spengler in the light of astrology. Spengler’s anthropomorphic outlines of spiritual, cultural and political “contemporary epochs” seem to follow a fascinating zodiac of characteristics, commencing each broad swing in mankind’s affairs with typical Aries qualities, and culminating it, after ten more eras, with Piscean attributes. The reason for this inclination is inexplicable, at the present, as no astronomical connection has been discovered.

Mention of such interesting matters lays the groundwork for our immediate subject — that of applying astrology as a calculable gauge of contemporary economic conditions.

The Art of Forecasting Wheat Prices Using Harmonic Cycles | L.H. Weston

Numerous attempts have been made during the past century to find a fairly reliable method for determining, long in advance, the probable price of wheat and grain in general [...] We have a wheat record that runs back, upon unimpeachable authority, for several hundred years, the one given in this booklet beginning in the year 1270 and running up to present time, with years as the unit of time, and it would indeed be strange if, with such a record, we could not pick out the useful cycles in it, providing any such cycles really do exist [...] That there are recurring cycles of movement in nearly all, if not, indeed, absolutely all natural phenomena, there is now no longer any reasonable doubt. No scholar of the day, no scientist, no investigator of these times, would for a moment argue against this well established fact.
 

[...] In the following pages I give the recorded mean price of wheat for each year in England from the year 1270 to 1909, in both a table and a diagram. Also, in a diagram, the monthly mean price of wheat at Chicago and Cincinnati from 1844 to present date. Special charts are also given to illustrate the explanations regarding the method of forecasting by means of cycles. By means of these tables and charts I show in this work how a forecast of the wheat market can be made up for over 40 years. In fact, I chart the forecast in advance over 10 years, for the benefit of readers and students. It is done just as proposed above, namely, by first proving that the harmonic cycles really do exist in the records, and then carrying them on into future years. The calendar year is used as the unit of time (or the calendar month) and therefore the forecasting, as taught, is necessarily of the long swing movement. 
 
 
 
[...] On page 27 is given the table of composite and harmonic values in the 49-year cycle. That composite is, as before stated, the result of eleven cycles added together, while the harmonic values are merely the smoothed curve of this same composite, and both are charted together on page 26. 

 
[...] This result is given in the Composite Chart of the 49-year cycle and it is the one used as the basis of all forecasting. If we examine the composite chart with some attention we will find that there are just about eight places where tops come out and likewise there are eight bottoms. Eight into 49 goes 6.125 times, so it seems very much as though the famous 7-year cycle of the ancient Jews was in reality about six and one-eighth years instead of 7. It is the eighth harmonic that gives the best results in the 49-year cycle, instead of the seventh.

The Gann 707 Fractal | Allen Reminick

W.D. Gann understood the nature of how markets expand, how they contract, the differences between time frames and the similarities between them. Nowadays we call this fractal geometry. Fractal geometry is extremely important to understand how markets develop and has been used by various market technicians. 
 
How do we use the 707 fractal to forecast the next few months in the S&P 500? In our most recent forecasts we've talked about a continued rally into the 20th or 25th of September 2023, and probably another high around October 3rd. After that we're looking for a decline that may be somewhat severe:


 
The number 707 shows up here on several different time frames. In the chart below the blue line is the 240 minute bar chart of the S&P 500 Futures shifted forwards by 707 units, and the red bars above are the actual current market: 
 

What is really interesting is that 707 weeks (707 weeks ≈ 12.9 years) and 707 months (≈ 58.916 years) are also repeating. This is where the concept of fractals comes in. Different time frames are having the same form or pattern. Look at this chart of the weekly S&P 500:
 
The major low of 2009 and the major low of October 2022 are 707 weeks apart.
 
The low in 2009 lines up to the week with the low in October 2022 - the major low that kicked off the whole bull market since 2009. This is lining up exactly with the low in October 2022, and the pattern in the decline between 2008 matches the decline in 2022. Even though the price action was much more severe back then, the form was the same. And we are talking about the form and now the rally that was taking place since October is also repeating very nicely 2009 into 2010 and 2011. 
 
 
So we saw two examples of 707, the first on the 240 minute bar chart and the second on the weekly chart. From this we take it one step further and look at 707 months (58.916 years). 707 months turns out to be two times the exact length of the cycle of Saturn. 25.457 years is the exact number of years of Saturn's revolution times two which equals 707 months to the day = 10,759 days.

 
See also:

Sunday, September 3, 2023

S&P 500 Pre-Election Year Seasonal Pattern 1949-2022 vs 2023 | Jeff Hirsch


 

Stacey Burke Style Trading in a Nutshell | Cameron Benson


S&P 500 Cycles Forecast | Sergey Ivanov

S&P 500 / ES Major High = ± Sep 08-11, 2023 (Fri-Mon)

 

The 2nd half of this week [Sep 04-08] is going to be bullish for the index. Talking about the most probable date for expected (at daily time frame) bearish turn we may rely on the Moon cycle at M30 chart. If today's drop is considerable then a local top is was already set. The next date for local high will be reached by the end of Friday [Sep 08] or the very beginning of the next Monday [Sep 11].

Friday, September 1, 2023

Crush Europe and Strengthen the U.S. | RAND Corporation

January 25, 2022 
Confidential
Distribution: WHCS, ANSA, Dept. of State, CIA, NSA, DNC 
 
Executive Summary
[...] The current German economic model is based on two pillars. These are unlimited access to cheap Russian energy resources and to cheap French electric power, thanks to the operation of nuclear power plants. The importance of the first factor is considerably higher. Halting Russian supplies can well create a systemic crisis that would be devastating for the German economy and, indirectly, for the entire European Union. The French energy sector could also soon begin to experience heavy problems. The predictable stop of Russian-controlled nuclear fuel supplies, combined with the unstable situation in the Sahel region, would make French energy sector critically dependent on Australian and Canadian fuel.
 
"A reduction in Russian energy supplies - ideally, a complete halt of such supplies -
would lead to disastrous outcomes for German industry
." - RAND Corporation, Jan 25, 2022.
 
[...] The only feasible way to guarantee Germany's rejection of Russian energy supplies is to involve both sides in the military conflict in Ukraine. Our further actions in this country will inevitably lead to a military response from Russia. Russians will obviously not be able to leave unanswered the massive Ukrainian army pressure on the unrecognized Donbas republics. That would make possible to declare Russia an aggressor and apply to it the entire package of sanctions prepared beforehand. Putin may in turn decide to impose limited counter-sanctions - primarily on Russian energy supplies to Europe. Thus, the damage to the EU countries will be quite comparable to the one to the Russians, and in some countries - primarily in Germany - it will be higher.
 
The prerequisite for Germany to fall into this trap is the leading role of green parties and ideology in Europe. The German Greens are a strongly dogmatic, if not zealous, movement, which makes it quite easy to make them ignore economic arguments. In this respect, the German Greens somewhat exceed their counterparts in the rest of Europe. Personal features and the lack of professionalism of their leaders - primarily Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck - permit to presume that it is next to impossible for them to admit their own mistakes in a timely manner.
 
Thus, it will be enough to quickly form the media image of Putin’s aggressive war to turn the Greens into ardent and hardline supporters of sanctions, a ‘party of war’. It will enable the sanctions regime to be introduced without any obstacles. The lack of professionalism of the current leaders will not allow a setback in the future, even when the negative impact of the chosen policy becomes obvious enough [...] This will ensure a sufficiently long gap in cooperation between Germany and Russia, which will make large German economic operators uncompetitive.

"The prerequisite for Germany to fall into this trap is the leading role of the German Greens."

[...] A reduction in Russian energy supplies - ideally, a complete halt of such supplies - would lead to disastrous outcomes for German industry. The need to divert significant amounts of Russian gas for winter heating of residential and public facilities will further exacerbate the shortages [...] A complete standstill at the largest in the chemical, metallurgical, and machine-building, plants is likely, while they have virtually no spare capacity to reduce energy consumption. It could lead to the shutting down of continuous-cycle enterprises, which would mean their destruction.

The cumulative losses of the German economy can be estimated only approximately. Even if the restriction of Russian supplies is limited to 2022, its consequences will last for several years, and the total losses could reach 200-300 billion euros. Not only will it deliver a devastating blow to the German economy, but the entire EU economy will inevitably collapse. We are talking not about a decline in economy growth pace, but about a sustained recession and a decline in GDP only in material production by 3-4% per year for the next 5-6 years. Such a fall will inevitably cause panic in the financial markets and may bring them to a collapse.

The euro will inevitably, and most likely irreversibly, fall below the dollar. A sharp fall of the euro will consequently cause its global sale. It will become a toxic currency, and all countries in the world will rapidly reduce its share in their forex reserves. This gap will be primarily filled with dollar and yuan.
 
NATO's purpose is "keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down",
as Lord Hastings Lionel Ismay, NATO's first Secretary General, put it.

Another inevitable consequence of a prolonged economic recession will be a sharp drop in living standards and rising unemployment (up to 200,000-400,000 in Germany alone), which will entail the exodus of skilled labour and well-educated young people. There are literally no other destinations for such migration other than the United States today. A somewhat smaller, but also quite significant flow of migrants can be expected from other EU countries.
 
Since 1871 the prime U.S. geopolitical foreign policy doctrine for Europe is:
"Keep Germany and Russia separate and in conflict."
Or as Victoria Nuland put it in 2014: "Fuck the EU!"

The scenario under consideration will thus serve to strengthen the national financial condition both indirectly and most directly. In the short term, it will reverse the trend of the looming, economic recession and, in addition, consolidate American society by distracting it from immediate economic concerns. This, in turn, will reduce electoral risks.

In the medium term (4-5 years), the cumulative benefits of capital flight, re-oriented logistical flows and reduced competition in major industries may amount to USD 7-9 trillion. Unfortunately, China is also expected to benefit over the medium term from this emerging scenario. At the same time, Europe's deep political dependence on the U.S. allows us to effectively neutralise possible attempts by individual European states to draw closer to China [...]



See also: