How Russian propaganda works in the West

BERLIN – Until recently, the phenomenon of Russian government propaganda was only interesting to a small group of Russia experts, news junkies and counter-propaganda fundraisers. It was mainly seen as a tool for keeping Russians supportive of Vladimir Putin. No longer. Thanks to post-U.S. election blame games, and the upcoming election season in Europe, how the Russian state pushes its messages to Western audiences is a hot political topic. It’s also woefully misunderstood.

As the Russian journalist Alexey Kovalev, who started his own project to debunk Russian government propaganda, puts it: “The fight against fake news has itself turned into fake news. It’s a kind of meta-propaganda.”

China may be ending dollar’s hold on reserve currency as early as September

On March 9, sources within China provided new information that validates that the Far Eastern economy is now ready to compete with, or even supplant, the dollar as the sole global reserve currency as early as September of this year. Having already completed a message interchange system that mirrors the same one in the West, the Chinese equivalent of SWIFT is now ready and is expected to be fully operational by the 3rd quarter of 2015, which will allow other nations to transact with the world’s largest economy without the need to purchase dollars as a medium of exchange.

Russia Dumps 20% Of Its Treasury Holdings As Mystery “Belgium” Buyer Adds Another Whopping $40 Billion

Back in mid-March, there was a brief scare after the start of the Ukraine conflict, when Fed custody holdings plunged by a record $104.5 billion (if promptly bouncing back the following week), leading many to believe that Russia may have dumped its Treasurys, or at least change its bond custodian. We noted that we wouldn’t have a definitive answer until the May TIC number came out to know for sure how much Russia had sold, or if indeed, anything. Moments ago the May TIC numbers did come out, and as expected, Russia indeed dumped a record $26 billion, or some 20% of all of its holdings, bringing its post-March total to just over $100 billion – the lowest since the Lehman crisis.

Russia Could Crush the Petrodollar

Russia threatened to dump its U.S. treasuries if America imposed sanctions regarding Putin’s action in the Crimea.

Zero Hedge argues that Russia has already done so.

But veteran investor Jim Sinclair argues that Russia has a much scarier financial attack which it can use against the U.S.

15 Signs That We Are Near The Peak Of An Absolutely Massive Stock Market Bubble

Essentially, what we have is an overvalued market where investors have seen a prolonged period of rises and have jumped to the conclusion that the markets are all good again. However, they’re missing the critical fact that it’s all built on hot air. The best examples, like the article pointed out are Facebook, Pintrest and Twitter… all of which have never seen a profit, yet are suppoed to be worth millions and billions (Facebook). It’s a fool’s rush to the top of the financial mountain to see who the biggest idiot is before it all implodes in a financial crash likely worse than 2008’s, or possibly the worst in U.S. history.

One of the men that won the Nobel Prize for economics this year says that “bubbles look like this” and that he is “most worried about the boom in the U.S. stock market.”  But you don’t have to be a Nobel Prize winner to see what is happening.  It should be glaringly apparent to anyone with half a brain.  The financial markets have been soaring while the overall economy has been stagnating.  Reckless injections of liquidity into the financial system by the Federal Reserve have pumped up stock prices to ridiculous extremes, and people are becoming concerned.  In fact, Google searches for the term “stock bubble” are now at the highest level that we have seen since November 2007.  Despite assurances from the mainstream media and the Federal Reserve that everything is just fine, many Americans are beginning to realize that we have seen this movie before.  We saw it during the dotcom bubble, and we saw it during the lead up to the horrible financial crisis of 2008.  So precisely when will the bubble burst this time?  Nobody knows for sure, but without a doubt this irrational financial bubble will burst at some point.  Remember, a bubble is always the biggest right before it bursts, and the following are 15 signs that we are near the peak of an absolutely massive stock market bubble…

Hoarders: China Has Imported 383 Tons of Gold in the Last 6 Months

Ironically, in another article several days ago, it was mentioned (See “China Recasts Gold Bars” heading) that China was recasting larger gold bars into smaller ones. A possible motive for this being a new globally dominant currency that will end the USD’s rein. The validity of this remains to be seen, however, the world is one crisis away from a collapse. This is likely economic warfare

Not impressed by the headline? Consider the following: China has acquired more gold in the last six months than there is in all of Portugal, one of the EU’s largest holders of the precious metal.

Does that sound a bit more impressive?

“While the highly ‘sophisticated’ traders that make up the gold market continue to buy or sell the precious metal based on whether the Fed will or will not do the NEW QE [Quantitative Easing] tomorrow … China continues to do one thing. Buy,” writers at Zero Hedge report.

And they’re not kidding. China is on a mission:

…

“[I]nstead of purchasing US paper, Beijing continues to buy non-US gold, in the form of 68 tons in imports from Hong Kong in the month of June. The year to date total (6 months)? 383 tons,” the Hedge reports.

“In other words, in half a year China, whose official total tally is still a massively underrepresented 1054 tons, has imported more gold than the official gold reserves of Portugal, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, the UK, and so on, and whose YTD [Year to Date] imports alone make it the 14th largest holder of gold in the world,” the report adds.

…

“[T]he moment the PBOC [People’s Bank of China] does announce its official updated gold stash, a gold price in the mid-$1000 range will be a long gone memory,” Hedge adds ominously.

Let’s do a quick recap, shall we?

1. Has China been selling off its stake in U.S. Treasurys? Yes.

2. Has China been importing hundreds of tons of gold? Yes.

3. Has China been buying and developing large portions of land in Africa? Yes and yes.

4. Are both land and gold considered safe haven investments during times of economic and social unrest? Yes and yes.

If China’s actions are any indication of what lies ahead, is it safe to assume things are going to get really interesting, really fast?

Full article: Hoarders: China Has Imported 383 Tons of Gold in the Last 6 Months (The Blaze)