Billionaire oligarch yachts and villas being “confiscated” solely based on those oligarch’s nationalities. Gold and foreign reserves being “frozen” (AKA confiscated until further notice) based on “sanctions.”
These are illegal. In common parlance, it’s called theft. The Anglo-American empire has long had a history of theft, of course, so it should come as no surprise. The UK has always maintained that all the stolen treasure in its museums was based on the well respected rule of law, “Finders, Keepers.” The US is busy looting Syrian oil under the guise of “keeping it out of the hands of a brutal regime” (AKA the rightful owners). Ukrain’s gold disappeared shortly after the 2014 coup, and hasn’t turned up (rumors are the US stole it). Venezuela’s gold was “frozen” because the US decided it didn’t like how the Venezuelan election turned out. Libya’s gold went missing after the overthrow, never to be found. Iraq’s, too. All the gold beneath the World Trade Center? Also never accounted for after 9-11. Most of the country that belonged to the Native Americans taken at gunpoint as they were massacred, treaties ignored by those with the guns. Theft is part of history, and human nature. Bullies steal from those perceived as defenseless. Old as time itself.
For those who are celebrating all this, I have some observations. First is you have no moral leg to stand on when other countries steal your resources or assets. Fair’s fair. Second, the same “we don’t need no stinking laws or trials” endorsers have zero reason to complain when exactly the same is done to them. An example would be the Canadian truckers’ fundraised cash being frozen, along with the bank accounts of those who supported it. Or with American “asset seizure” by law enforcement when you haven’t been convicted of any crime. It is simple theft with a post hoc rationalization. And it is the norm now.
This ultimately leads to the abandonment of the US dollar-centric system. If the US can decide it doesn’t like you for real or imagined reasons and shut down your accounts and steal your assets, nobody will want to use the dollar-based system over time. Why risk it? This is the kind of thing that banana republics do, not the issuers of the world’s reserve currency.
Of course I believe this is all deliberate, to displace the dollar and replace it with a global digital reserve currency generated by the usual suspects, who will be able to claim the collapse wasn’t due to the inexorable math of debt-based fiat currency that requires infinite credit expansion (kind of like Herbalife eventually requires everyone on Earth to be both selling and consuming their product for the latest-to-the-scheme to make any money), but rather to God (in the form of a virus) and Satan (AKA Putin). In that way they can continue to be at the top of the pyramid, dictating terms to the rest of the planet, which they will insist must use their completely invented currency (you can rest assured that will be the “solution” to the current “problem” - never a return to a currency backed by a hard asset that requires actual energy and effort to extract from the ground, but something they can create at no cost to themselves and convince the entire world to use as though priceless, or near to it. The dynasty behind the central banks hates having a cost of goods sold limiting its power and ability to conjur up currency at will, so it will resist backing it with anything but a basket of other completely unbacked fiat currency it also creates via its franchises.)
But no matter. The point is that the notion that one group can steal the assets of another group because it disagrees with that other group’s actions is preparation for what is to come, which is the unbridled power of the state, which everyone must subordinate themselves to and obey, or else. For the US and the EU and the rest of the “West,” that will play out as the mother of all depressions, the loss of reserve status of the dollar and the consequent drop in living standards and wealth of Americans (most don’t realize that prior to Bretton Woods in 1944, the Great Depression had 25% of Americans literally starving to death, and another 50% living in abject poverty, so “the American Dream” is quite literally a conceit made possible by the dollar becoming the world’s reserve currency towards the end of WW2, as well as its infrastructure having avoided being bombed into the stone age in Europe and Japan and its manufacturing being used to rebuild half the world).
This is where allowing one group to steal whatever it covets with no blowback leads. You can’t have a keptocracy without the vast majority being victims of the predators.
So celebrate away, or insist this time’s different and the theft is somehow justified because of the kerfuffle due jour. But this is the setup for what’s to come, and it ain’t pretty.
Really excellent and spells it out. Thanks again for taking the time.
I’d like to add another aspect of these criminal actions of ours.
US Constitution, Article I, Section 8: “The Congress shall have Power ... “to regulate COMMERCE with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.”
Note: for nations and tribes it is “with” not “among” or “between”; whereas for our states it is “among” which demonstrates the clear difference.
The US has no Constitutional power to regulate commerce between or among other nations. Such action is in violation of our Constitution of limited federal powers. Further, it’s always mandated, and as such threatening, therefore an international crime.
Thank you, Russell. It seems to me that just about anything in the UK which is inappropriate, unhealthy, regretable and/or degenerate is now being normalised. It doesn't augur well for the future.