Tuesday 31 March 2020

"We are racing to the edge of disaster"


 
Noam Chomsky: Coronavirus - What is at stake? | DiEM25 TV
A conversation with philosopher and co-founder of DiEM25, Srecko Horvat.

Posted 30, March 2020

https://youtu.be/t-N3In2rLI4


Iran Sanctions Are Biological Warfare Against Civilians



This is not an economic policy. It is the collective punishment of civilians. It is an act of biological warfare against children, the elderly, and people of all ages.


By Richard Eskow
March 30, 2020 "Information Clearing House" - 

 The world was rightfully shocked and outraged in 2005 by the death of Neda Agha-Soltan, the young Iranian woman shot during a protest. “She was a person full of joy,” said her music teacher, who was with her when she died. “She was a beam of light.”

According to her teacher, Neda’s last words were, “I’m burning. I’m burning.”

In the United States, politicians from both parties mourned Neda. 

Where are they now, as the Trump Administration tightens sanctions against Iran? This is not an economic policy. It is the collective punishment of civilians. It is an act of biological warfare against children, the elderly, and people of all ages.

That may sound like heated rhetoric, but it’s the product of careful analysis.

The Sick and the Innocent
Even before the pandemic, Iranian civilians were suffering and dying as a result of US sanctions. A report from Human Rights Watch found that “current economic sanctions, despite the humanitarian exemptions, are causing unnecessary suffering to Iranian citizens afflicted with a range of diseases and medical conditions.”

An article in The Lancet medical journal concluded in November 2018 that sanctions “will inevitably lead to a decrease in survival of children with cancer.”

“A decrease in survival of children.”

An Iranian physician who practices nuclear medicine wrote in another medical journal that sanctions have made it extremely difficult for medical companies to obtain supplies, with nuclear medicine further complicated by its use of material regulated by atomic agencies.  The conclusion: “The most critical patients have been affected the worst including children, patients with cancer, hemophilia, cardiovascular disease, asthma and epilepsy.”

That was before the pandemic. And now?

“Iran is Italy,” said a former State Department official, “only on steroids.”

The Iranian people are being deprived of critical medical supplies even as the pandemic strikes in its full force. Sanctions don’t target Iran’s leaders, who will in all likelihood receive the care they need. It targets civilians, which very likely violates international law, and therefore US law.

It clearly violates moral law.

Martyrs and Children
Murder by deprivation is a central theme in Iranian culture and history. It is reflected the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, grandson of the prophet Muhammad, who  was trapped with his family and surrounded by hostile forces at Karbala.

The soldiers refused to give them water, a sanction that led to thirst. Hussein finally approached his enemy, the story says, to plead for mercy while holding his infant son. In response, the child was murdered with an arrow.

Now, the United States is playing out the ancient role of a ruthless and murderous enemy, willing to bring about the deaths of children in pursuit of power. It’s an act that could resonate for generations, destabilizing the region and the world. These sanctions are America’s arrow.

Silent Complicity
The Trump Administration’s smug glibness reflects the pathological inhumanity of these sanctions. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo insists that they don’t apply to medical devices, even as an equally thuggish State Department operatives brags about the “super-maximum economic pressure” being brought to bear against the plague-ridden country.

They’re playing it cute in the State Department. We’re not stopping them from buying medicines of medical equipment, they say. We’re just blocking their access to oil sales, banking, and other financial transactions, so they have no money to buy them. People are dying, and they’re playing word games.

Only nine members of Congress signed a recent letter calling for an easing of those sanctions. Where are the others, the ones who once told us how much they cared about Neda?

To be silent about this collective punishment is to be complicit. People should call their senators and representatives to insist they stand against this act.

US sanctions were already causing death and suffering, including a pre-existing shortage of medical goods and supplies going into the pandemic. To continue them now is to create even more deaths. More Nedas. More Karbalas.

John McCain, the hawkish senator who achieved some sort of secular sainthood after his death, insisted that Neda’s death was “a defining moment” in Iran’s history. But then, John McCain also sang “bomb Iran” to the tune of an old doo-wop song. In the warped moral arithmetic of American politics, apparently some lives are worth more than others.

If we can wake up to the savagery and immorality of our own actions, this could become a defining moment in ours. In the meantime, the new Nedas of Iran have a message for us:
They’re burning. They’re burning.

Richard (RJ) Eskow is Senior Advisor for Health and Economic Justice at Social Security Works and the host of The Zero Hour with RJ Eskow on Free Speech TV. Follow him on Twitter: @rjeskow  "Source"

Beijing won't just 'watch Huawei be slaughtered on the chopping board', company chief warns US


Beijing won't just 'watch Huawei be slaughtered on the chopping board', company chief warns US 
Banning Chinese products from the American market may result in a retaliation from the Chinese market, Huawei head has warned. If the electronic giant is barred from the US, the same may happen to American firms in China.
"The Chinese government will not just stand by and watch Huawei be slaughtered on the chopping board," Chairman Eric Xu told reporters at the launch of Huawei's annual report.
"Why wouldn't the Chinese government ban the use of 5G chips or 5G chip-powered base stations, smartphones and other smart devices provided by American companies, for cybersecurity reasons?"
The US claims Huawei equipment gives the Chinese government opportunity to snoop on clients' communications. Washington placed it on a blacklist last May and has been pressuring allies to bar the company from upgrading their networks to a 5G standard. 
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Some, like Germany and Britain, wouldn't yield to the pressure, saying they found no credible evidence that Huawei technology poses a security threat.
Xu predicted that further attacks against Huawei may result in Beijing barring the Chinese market to American chip producers and switching to new suppliers.
"Even if this situation you mentioned happened, Huawei and also other Chinese companies can choose to buy chipsets from Samsung from [South] Korea, MTK from Taiwan, and in China, and use those companies to develop chips," Xu said when asked about an alleged plan of the Trump administration to torpedo Huawei's supply from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.
He added that a full-fledged war involving bans and restrictions between the US and China would disrupt the entire microelectronic industry and not just Huawei.
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The annual report showed Huawei sales slopping to a three-year low in 2019. But 2020 will be an even more difficult year for the company, company officials said, citing the global economic slowdown amid the Covid-19 pandemic and continued pressure by the US.
The pandemic and its consequences have been given much attention at the Tuesday event, starting with the fact that all journalists had only a virtual presence at it. Huawei said the health crisis showed the necessity for reliable communication capacities and that it was prepared to do its part in helping its clients throughout the world to deal with the situation.


Covid-19 crisis could be the turning point for green energy, with the right investment
This pandemic may be Donald Trump’s chance to fulfill his promise to rebuild US infrastructure, while also leveling the energy field for renewables. Trillions are needed but nothing as far-reaching as a Green New Deal will result.
The irony, of course, is that the president has long dismissed environmental concerns as impediments to economic growth. At the same time, though, he has been pushing for new infrastructure investment. But the two are in fact interconnected, and proper investment can fulfill both Trump’s goals and those of the environmentalists.
The country spends surprisingly little on infrastructure — 3 percent of gross domestic product. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, upgrades to surface transportation alone would cost $1 trillion but would have positive returns: both Trump and the Chamber of commerce have estimated a handsome payback for every dollar invested. And therein is the common ground between the two political parties: a focus on improving everything from seaports to highways to airports is a way to kill two birds with a single stone. It also means building transmission lines and even pipeline infrastructure — things that require steel production and the use of metallurgical coal. And there is nothing wrong with Democrats exacting concessions such as improved emissions or air quality standards.
“We are going to fix our inner cities and rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, schools, hospitals,” said Trump. “We’re going to rebuild our infrastructure, which will become, by the way, second to none. And we will put millions of our people to work as we rebuild it.”
How is all this green? Study-after-study has examined the need for more transmission wires to move renewable energy from the rural areas where it is generated into the cities where it is consumed. The Wind Energy Foundation says as much as 51,000 megawatts of renewable energy could fail to reach the market by 2025 if the transmission network is not expanded.
The American Society of Civil Engineers says that at least $2 trillion in energy infrastructure is necessary to put America back on track. Its 2017 Infrastructure Report Card says that the nation can begin investing in such things as safe drinking water, surface transportation, airports, rails and public parks — not things that appeal only to ‘tree-huggers’ but those things we all use.
“Congress and the states must invest an additional $206 billion each year to prevent the economic consequences to families, business, and the economy,” the engineers’ report says.

Stark Reminder

To be sure, President Trump has said he would not use the stimulus plan to craft a Green New Deal. And the package passed over the weekend and left out any such monies for renewable energy such as an extension of the tax credits now given to wind and solar.
But it may be reasonable to assume that the Democrats agreed to return later to this matter. Beyond wind and solar, the benefits could extend to battery storage and microgrids — things to encourage the use of onsite energy to avoid massive brownouts during hurricanes, and pandemics. It may involve new energy efficiency standards for buildings and extended tax credits for electric vehicles.
“Economic recovery packages must serve to accelerate the transition,” says the International Renewable Energy Agency’s (IRENA) Director General, Francesco La Camera, in an interview. “Legislation to promote grid interconnections, energy system flexibility and cleantech innovation, while redirecting perverse fossil fuel subsidies towards clean energy technologies including green hydrogen, may be steps in the right direction.”
The global health pandemic is a stark reminder that the international community needs to think about the unthinkable. If a disease can spread with millions getting sick and thousands of those dying, then it is realistic to assume that global warming could have the same deleterious effect — that millions could be displaced and livelihoods torn asunder.
The funny thing is that the coronavirus may be the antidote to President Trump’s climate denialism. That is, investments in clean energy – let’s call them ‘infrastructure’ – would fulfill his goal of creating world-class highways and byways. And the greenies are in full support of that.
Bloomberg New Energy Finance, for example, now says that the global demand for solar-powered electricity will fall by 16 percent in 2020: it had estimated 121-152 gigawatts of new capacity – a forecast that has been downgraded to 108-143 gigawatts. The American Wind Energy Association says that millions in investment is now at risk. And that means jobs, too.
“The pandemic shows that delayed action brings significant economic consequences,” says IRENA’s La Camera. “It is critical that, while we protect jobs and livelihoods, we remain committed to the unchanged need to decarbonize our societies and meet sustainability goals. The energy transformation and acceleration of sustainable energy may address both concerns. For many reasons, now is the time to prioritize investment into sustainable energy infrastructure.
Climate issues have gotten short shrift, given that resources are spread thin. But stimulating economies and expanding green energy programs go hand-in-hand. The good news is that the president now has a chance to realize his infrastructure expansion if he crosses the aisle and works with Democrats to let them enact policy that would mitigate carbon emissions.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

Has America Reached Its Endgame in Afghanistan?


 


Photograph Source: Billy Hathorn – CC BY-SA 3.0
In an extraordinary statement titled “On the Political Impasse in Afghanistan,” Washington has admitted to the failure of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s mission to Kabul on March 23, which was taken up to heal the political rift among Afghan politicians and to urge them to form an inclusive government so as to implement the peace agreement signed in Doha on February 29.
In exceptionally strong words, Washington flagged its disappointment over the political rift between the factions led by Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani and former chief executive Abdullah Abdullah respectively, which has “harmed U.S.-Afghan relations and, sadly, dishonors those Afghan, Americans, and Coalition partners who have sacrificed their lives and treasure” in the 18-year-old war.
Soon after the failure of Pompeo’s mission became clear, the state department disclosed that the Trump administration is cutting back its aid to the Afghan government—“a responsible adjustment to our spending in Afghanistan” by $1 billion immediately in 2020 and another $1 billion next year—and will also “initiate a review of all of our programs and projects to identify additional reductions, and reconsider our pledges to future donor conferences for Afghanistan.” A calibrated Plan B with President Trump’s approval is unfolding, for sure.
Importantly, the state department statement added ominously, “We have made clear to the [Kabul] leadership that we will not back security operations that are politically motivated, nor support political leaders who order such operations or those who advocate for or support parallel government.”
The reference is unmistakably to the troika of hardliners surrounding Ghani, comprising Vice President Amrullah Saleh, National Security Adviser Hamdullah Mohib and Defense Minister Asadullah Khalid.
However, the state department statement leaves the door open to “revisit the reviews initiated,” provided the Afghan leaders “choose to form an inclusive government that can provide security and participate in the peace process.
The alacrity with which this statement has come implies that U.S. President Donald Trump directed Pompeo to convey to the Kabul elite that his patience has run out and to reiterate that no matter the shenanigans of Afghan politicians, “We are proceeding with the conditions-based withdrawal of our forces in accordance with the U.S.-Taliban agreement.”
This is the nearest Trump has come to threatening that if push comes to shove, he may unilaterally end the war and wash his hands of it.
Evidently, Washington is calling Ghani’s bluff. Ghani bragged recently that Kabul has the necessary resources to carry on for at least two years even without any U.S. assistance, signaling his grit to dissociate from the U.S.’s peace talks with the Taliban.
On its part, Washington has put Ghani on notice that if the game plan of the hardliners in his circle is to precipitate security situations with a view to drag the U.S. military into violent confrontations with the Taliban and thereby destroy the understanding forged painstakingly through the negotiations in Doha during the past year and more, that won’t happen.
Equally, Washington has distanced itself from the political rift between Ghani and Abdullah by making it clear that it has no favorites.
The startling development has three dimensions to it. First and foremost, will the Trump administration’s shock therapy have a sobering effect on the rival Afghan factions locked in a struggle for power?
The answer is, unfortunately, that such a probability is unlikely to happen as per current indications—given the vaulting ambitions of the protagonists. Both Ghani and Abdullah also have associates who would have their own agenda.
With that being said, Afghans also have a great tradition of reaching compromises and consensus at the last minute before an irrevocable breakup. Such a fortuitous turn of events can happen in the present circumstances only if Ghani accepts a coalition government with power-sharing of key security portfolios.
Arguably, the struggle may even take an ugly form and become “physical” unless great self-restraint is exercised. There are ominous reports that the warlords have come out of the woodwork and are marshaling their militia.
The government also commands shadowy militia groups beyond the pale of law who have been trained by the U.S. to function as a state within the state. Indeed, Afghanistan has a violent history, and its democratic temper is only skin-deep. Peaceful transfer of power is a recent phenomenon under the U.S. diktat.
Second, what will be the impact on the security situation? The critical factor here is that, undeniably, there are ethnic undertones to the Ghani-Abdullah political rift, and how they might impact the cohesion of the Afghan army and security forces is anybody’s guess. Of course, the U.S. has been bankrolling the Afghan army.
Looking back, it was former Afghanistan President Mohammad Najibullah’s inability to pay the salaries of the Uzbek militia guarding Kabul city in the critical period since the Soviets withdrew aid that ultimately became a clincher for the leader of the Uzbek ethnic minority in Afghanistan Abdul Rashid Dostum’s treacherous defection to the Mujahideen camp of Ahmed Shah Massoud. That, in turn, resulted in the roof coming down on the communist regime.
Third, how will the Taliban react to these big shifts in the politico-military alignment? Clearly, the Taliban is already at peace with the U.S. forces. Strict orders have been given to the commanders not to engage with the U.S. military.
Thus, the state department’s assurance that the U.S. military will not be party to any conspiracies by the hardliners in Kabul to precipitate confrontations with the Taliban becomes important. In good measure, Pompeo also flew to Doha to meet the Taliban leaders to discuss the current impasse. The Taliban will make careful note of Washington’s eagerness to stick to the Doha pact—and it will reciprocate.
Now, if Ghani resorts to delaying tactics much longer in releasing the Taliban, it may provoke the Taliban into ending the current (tacit) ceasefire and step up its operations against the Afghans’ security forces with a view to demoralize them.
There are also indications of the Taliban having infiltrated the Afghan army and police and security agencies.
Suffice to say, it will come as a surprise if the Taliban does not take advantage of a most conducive situation arising in Afghanistan—a rump administration ruling the roost in Kabul, lacking in political legitimacy (and the U.S. distancing from it); the grim political struggle for supremacy amongst the Afghan factions that may take a violent form; the chain of command of Afghan forces coming under stress due to the ethnic fissures; and, the strong possibility of Trump unilaterally extricating the U.S. out of the war at some point in the near future.
The big question is whether the Taliban will be savvy enough to wait for Kabul to fall like a rotten apple or will hastily pluck it like a low-hanging fruit.
The bottom line is that the Taliban (and Pakistan, which mentors it) would see that the political ascendance of the Taliban in Kabul, whenever it is due, happens with international legitimacy. The Trump administration’s stated preference still is to reach a negotiated peace settlement as envisaged under the Doha pact through intra-Afghan dialogue. And the Taliban too adheres to the Doha pact.
It is unlikely that the Taliban will opt for a decision to grab power through force. The preference at this stage will be to pitch for an interim government that is inclusive so as to carry as many Afghan factions as possible.
Make no mistake that time works in the Taliban’s favor. Unlike in the past, the Taliban has networked extensively with the international community in recent years—especially with the major regional states—and its interest lies in securing world recognition for any future government under its leadership.

This article was produced in partnership by Indian Punchline and Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

World reaches another grim Covid-19 milestone as global cases surpass 800,000


World reaches another grim Covid-19 milestone as global cases surpass 800,000
The number of cases of coronavirus infection around the world surpassed 800,000 confirmed cases on Tuesday, according to the John Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.
At the time of writing the total number of coronavirus cases worldwide stood at 800,049 resulting in some 38,714 deaths. 
Of this grim tally, the US accounts for 164,000 cases followed by Italy with 101,739 and Spain with 87,956, marking the three largest and most severe outbreaks within the wider, global pandemic.
Authorities the world over are preaching continued caution, as WHO experts in Asia warn that the pandemic in Asia is "far from over."
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Thankfully, over 170,000 previously infected people have recovered, as authorities scramble to bring the situation under control and intensive care units the world over are stretched to breaking point.

For 40 years I watched ‘rampant fraud’ on Wall Street destroy capitalism, Covid-19 nailed its coffin shut

For 40 years I watched ‘rampant fraud’ on Wall Street destroy capitalism, Covid-19 nailed its coffin shut
The Covid-19 market turmoil set off a chain of flashbacks in my mind, from crisis to crisis over the past 40 years. They all fit together in a picture of Wall Street fraud and criminal policies, with the virus as the last straw.
Last week, I spoke with a young stock trader currently working on Wall Street. I remember saying: The last time I remember seeing volatility like this in markets, my 40-year Wall Street career flashed in front of my eyes. I was like a deer in the headlights.
Thirty seconds of silence followed before I added: “Well, actually, the volatility we have seen since mid-February is unprecedented; in history, nothing like this has ever happened. It’s a case of 12 years of climbing up the staircase only to be pushed down the elevator shaft – with more downside ahead.” 
Later that evening, thinking about my conversation, I recalled the highly-rated Wall Street crashes I saw during my career. In 1982, the fraud at Drysdale Government Securities INC. made one of our traders on the floor frantic. He was wildly flailing his arms, jumping up and down, and threw the handset of his phone to the floor, smashing it to pieces. All the while, he was shrieking: “F**king Drysdale has gone f**king bust. They will take down Chase Manhattan Bank with them, and the entire global f**king banking system. Repo is finished.” 
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Repo is an abbreviation for Repurchase Agreements. The Repo marketplace is like a securities dealers’ pawn shop for government bonds – bring us your securities and some other player will provide short-term loans.
Shortly after his tirade, the Telerate screens flashed “Drysdale misses interest rate payments.” Drysdale was crashing and Chase Manhattan Bank, Manufacturers Hanover Trust, and US Trust Co. were all on the hook. 
But luckily for them, the Federal Reserve was there to bail them out. The Federal Reserve Bank is not part of the federal government and is not actually a bank. It’s owned by the big member banks and acts to protect banking interests – it seems they enable fraud and cover it up.
The Federal Reserve called in the 30 broker-dealers and an opaque bailout was arranged. Chase was on the hook for around $300 million, which was tax-deductible, because its client Drysdale was a total fraud. Two bankers were jailed and this killed Repo volumes for a few years.
A “broken Repo market” indicates something is very seriously wrong with financial markets, and a few short years later, we had another crisis. Who could forget living through October 19, 1987, Black Monday, when the stock market plummeted 508 points or 22.6 percent – the biggest one-day percentage decline in history? After markets closed, we all had drinks on the 107th floor of our building in One World Trade Center. It felt like a funeral. With my eight years of experience, I calmly said: “Don't feel bad. It’s probably a buying opportunity.” 
If looks could kill… I am just glad the windows in the Windows On The World’s bar did not open or they may have given me a push. I later found out that many of them had lost millions of dollars, of their own money, in a single day.
My memory then flashed to the Savings and Loan Crisis. I remember the Dow Jones new board headlines flashing across the trading floor: “Numerous bankers arrested for their part in the S&L crisis.” Many of these bankers were jailed for a series of frauds and other illegal activities that took place. The S&L crisis saw 1,043 out of the 3,234 Savings and Loan associations in the United States from 1986 to 1995 go bust. Real crimes were committed, and bankers were jailed. The Resolution Trust Company was born to unwind the 1,034 S&Ls in an orderly manner. The S&L unwind has long been referred to as the most “catastrophic collapse of the banking system since the Great Depression.
And then came the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 (GFC). I still recall seeing a video of ex-Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan on stage with then-Fed Chairman Bernanke. Greenspan, commenting on the Lehman Brothers collapse, lamented that “if you have adequate capital, you do not have defaults of senior debt and you do not have contagion.
Greenspan, aka “The Maestro,” continued as Bernanke twitched, looking increasingly uncomfortable: “I think there was rampant fraud in a lot of what was going on in these markets. We need to get far higher levels of enforcement of existing fraud statutes… things were being done that were certainly illegal and clearly criminal in certain cases, by which I mean fraud. Fraud is a fact. Fraud creates very considerable instability in competitive markets. If you cannot trust your counterparties, it won’t work, and indeed, we saw that it didn’t." 
Bernanke seemed shocked at how easily Greenspan admitted Wall Street’s rampant fraud. Illegal and criminal activities played a major role in the GFC for which no bankers were jailed and no banks closed down. They paid tax-deductible fines that were insignificant relative to the gains made.
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The same players who were bailed out then went back to what they do best. Too big to fail is now bigger, but with one crucial difference – the concentration of toxic risk remains in fewer hands and is enabled by Washington’s pay-to-play swamp. As corporate debt hits new all-time highs, balance sheets remain riddled with accounting fraud and enforcement hits all-time lows; we will soon see who is naked and it won’t be pretty. 
Last autumn, I warned investors that Germany’s economy was falling off a cliff and was either in a recession or would be very soon. I cautioned that Italy’s debt is a huge problem and other member states and the rest of the world are not far behind Germany. Now in March, you can expect and will need to prepare for a full-blown economic depression. 
Banks, politicians and governments will scapegoat Covid-19 to shift the blame for over 30 years of fiscal profligacy, loose monetary policies, fraud, and the lack of any proper regulatory enforcement away from themselves and onto anything or anyone else. Eventually, taxes will skyrocket to pay for these opaque bailouts, reckless spending policies, and record low interest rates during the past three decades. 
Covid-19 presents an easy way to assign blame while forcing through “emergency legislation” allowing big government to implement 1984-style draconian social controls that will impinge and dismantle personal freedoms, liberties and democratic principles as they fleece taxpayers – again. If you think the 2008 recession and bailouts were bad, wait until you see how the greatest economic depression in history plays out.
This bubble has only begun to pop, and there are many more shoes to drop from this centipede before prices hit bottom. The downside will be significantly worse than the upside. Until leverage, valuations and corporate debt return to reasonable levels, stay clear. When these events do happen, we will see once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to create wealth.    
The two most important lessons I learned from my 40 years in international financial markets, lessons that can also be applied to politics and to life in general, are to never make any decision based on emotion or ideology and to never, ever trust the news. Today’s media are exponentially worse than they were in the 1980s and 1990s. They no longer provide news. What they provide are stories that are around 80 percent ideology and opinion,10 percent lies and spin, and 10 percent fact. 
You need to divorce yourself from emotion and ideology. You need to base decision-making on statistical probability utilizing raw economic data, rational reason, logic and facts. Fasten your seat belts tightly; severe turbulence is coming, and the ride will be bumpy.
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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.