'AMERICA IS BACK' Biden Fanning Flames in Ukraine With Weapon Transfers; TOP TREND 2022 'DRAGFLATION'
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says, “We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can't do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.”
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After two decades of failed war efforts following 9/11, the U.S.’s military-industrial complex came roaring back.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin admitted yesterday—“We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can't do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.”
BET THE TRENDS POLL: RUSSIA WINS IN UKRAINE
Austin met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv on Sunday and told reporters Monday that the U.S. wants to see “Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.”
He continued, "So it [Russia] has already lost a lot of military capability. And a lot of its troops, quite frankly. And we want to see them not have the capability to very quickly reproduce that capability."
Yet, while such words are applauded by the American media, such a statement would be called “Acts of War,” by Washington if Russia declared its intent “to see America weakened” for its Yugoslavia, Afghan, Iraq, Syrian, Libyan, and Yemen wars.
OpenSecrets.org reported on Austin’s close ties with defense contractors. In 2016, after the election of Donald Trump, Austin exited the military for the riches promised by the private sector.
He “assumed positions on the corporate boards of steel manufacturing giant Nucor Corporation, Tenet Healthcare and United Technologies, which merged with defense contractor Raytheon Company in 2020. The merged corporation, Raytheon Technologies, is among the top five top lobbying spenders in the defense sector and spent almost $11 million on lobbying in 2020. Austin earned seven figures from the defense companies.”
Austin took to Twitter later Monday to apparently walk back the comments, saying that Ukraine can, in fact, defeat Russia and long as its given (drumroll)…more weapons.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley went as far as to tell CNN that global security is at risk if Russia doesn’t pay for the war.
"If this is left to stand, if there is no answer to this aggression, if Russia gets away with this cost-free, then so goes the so-called international order, and if that happens, then we're entering into an era of seriously increased instability," Milley said.
British Prime Minister Boris “COVID party” Johnson became the first Western leader to admit -at least publicly - that Russia could end up winning the war with its neighbor. He said it was a “realistic possibility.”
“Putin has a huge army,” Johnson said. “He has a very difficult political position because he’s made a catastrophic blunder. The only option he now has really is to continue to try to use his appalling grinding approach led by artillery, trying to grind the Ukrainians down. He’s very close to securing a land bridge in Mariupol. The situation is, I’m afraid, unpredictable at this stage, but we’ve just got to be realistic about it.
TREND FORECAST: We maintain our forecast that Russia will defeat the Ukraine government despite the billions of dollars of lethal weaponry being sent to Ukraine by the U.S. and NATO. Yet, there is not a word in the Western media about a possible Ukraine defeat, nor are there any pushes for peace by the United Nations to end the slaughter and destruction and negotiate a ceasefire.
TRENDPOST: Gerald Celente, the publisher of the Trends Journal, accused the United States and NATO of prolonging the war by sending more armaments to Ukraine that will lengthen the war, lead to more deaths and destruction of the nation rather than taking ceasefire measures to negotiate for peace.
Celente has pointed out that Napoleon sent 420,000 brave young men to defeat Russia and 410,000 were killed. He also pointed to Hitler’s Operation Barbarossa campaign that resulted in the deaths of 27 million Russians, who still ended up defeating Germany.
And Mr. Celente is among the very few calling for peace, and for nations to stop sending military armaments to Ukraine and end the needless death and destruction. He has said that the U.S. and NATO cannot defeat Russia in a military conflict.
BANNING RUSSIAN GAS WOULD COST GERMANY €165 BILLION, BANK WARNS
An immediate and complete ban on all Russian natural gas from Europe would cost Germany’s economy €165 billion, the Bundesbank, Germany’s central bank, warned.
Germany gets about 55 percent of its natural gas from Russia, a third of which is used by industry.
The bank assumed that German manufacturers would not be able to fully replace the gas for nine consecutive months. In that situation, inflation—already at a near-record 7.3 percent—would rise 8.8 percent, the bank calculated.
TREND FORECAST: Germany has no good options. If it stops accepting gas from Russia, (click here for premium content)
TOP TREND 2022 DRAGFLATION: WORLD BANK CUTS 2022 GROWTH FORECAST
To cope with the global economic crisis sparked by Russia’s war in Ukraine and resulting sanctions, the World Bank is putting together an aid fund larger than the one it assembled to deal with COVID’s worldwide infestation.
The bank is contemplating a $170-billion package that would be disbursed over 15 months. The program would begin this month and extend through June 2023.
About $50 billion would be spent by August.
The bank’s board will discuss the plan in the next few weeks, according to a statement by World Bank president David Malpass, who noted that the scope of the plan surpasses the $157 billion the bank spent to soften the initial impact of the COVID War.
TREND FORECAST: The World Bank’s forecast is for recession, but the catalog of economic woes it describes point to Dragflation, our Top 2022 Trend that sees prices continuing to inflate while nations’ economic output shrinks.
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