Though we’re hesitant to accept it, the fact the world today is about corporate competition still remains the only real truth. That orphaned child in Gaza, Luhansk or some village in northern Iraq, that bombed out wadi in Libya, the oil spill in Canada, a melting ice cap, we cannot come to terms with it all being interconnected. But it is. Our minds refuse to grasp, even after centuries or the same, the idea we’re pawns and peons in a great game. It’s unfathomable, but it’s so, so true. We’re stooges of an unseen hand, whether you like it or not.
A colleague of mine and I, we recently discussed. the geo-political situation in between Russia and the western powers at length. On my assertion the “Cold War” actually never ended, he retorted; “It’s not a Cold War II Phil, it’s business survival.” At that moment, I thought he’d gone crazy. But wait, I pondered? Was my Netherlands cohort on to something? Holger Eekhof is a brilliant man. The former CDU chess piece who rose on the local stage here in Germany, he spends his days engineering German properties back to health now, but his evenings analyzing world events. He’s good at it too, but the weight of it all makes him drink too much.
You see, like many super intelligent people Eekhof cares on a level most people cannot imagine. But Mr. Eekhof’s story, that’s fodder for another time. Suffice it to say there are brilliant minds pondering the fates, especially this new “Great Game” (see cartoon below) we’re all part of. “Saudi Arabia has to sell their product Phil, and so does the United States,” Eekhof told me. Now there’s an “Aha!” moment for you. Growth, profits, loans, money, Russia nor anybody can stand in the way of that.
Give Me Liberty and Give Me Gas
And you thought those plummeting gas prices in Albuquerque were your good fortune! I know, I know, you could care less if you’re American, as long as you can ride, ride, ride the highways and byways back home. Yes, I understand, I loved my 4×4 and my ultra custom SUV too. America is, if anything, just tailor made for a long country drive – a long line into the drive-thru burger joint next door. Sorry. but you’d have to live in a village in Germany, or Slovakia to understand. You see, having a McDonald’s, a Krystal, a Burger King, a KFC, a Backyard Burger, Arby’s, Steak & Shake, Whataburger, and 14 gas stations in a quarter mile stretch of road is not normal. No, it’s not.
Now that I have your attention (some fearing I may take away your cheeseburger), imagine all those drive-thrus with 20 percent less traffic. Okay, how about 20 percent more traffic then? This begs the question; “How many companies are tied inextricably to energy in the United States?” I guess you know each and every one has an umbilical tied to energy. But let’s expand our horizons past the shored of America, shall we?
Which company in the world would you say is the biggest? Exxon Mobile, you say? No, not by a long shot. Would it interest you to know Saudi Aramco is the world’s biggest company, with an estimated worth as much as $10 trillion, that former US property dwarfs any other business conern. That’s trillion with a “t” mind you. So, when I frame this article “Saudi America” – the ramifications are duly in place. Bilateral relations between the US and that kingdom revolve around money, period. Make no mistake though, Washington nor Wall Street has any affinity for Arabians. It’s business, that is all.
As for “business” as usual, Obama’s convincing the Saudi’s to bump up production to “fix” Vladimir Putin and Gazprom’s “wagon” has also placated a numbed US citizenry here at Christmas time. With oil down, you see, the shopping malls do better, the illusion America is okay, it’s more convincing. Furthermore, Vladimir Putin’s just having “dumped” the south-stream pipeline concept for supplying Europe with natural gas, this shows America having won (figuratively) round two of Cold War II. Round one was clearly taken with Putin annexed Crimea. However, Saudi America is now in the driver’s seat to bump those prices back up any time princes and presidents see fit. You’ll be a lot less happy when that happens this Summer.
It Takes No Genius
So far I’ve been a tad nebulous as to just how world detentes is just plain old business survival. My aforementioned associate, Mr. Eekhof, he clued me on this one too though. If one considers America, the Middle East, Russia, and the EU (for starters) just supply chain amplified markets, a more clear picture of world events can be gleaned too. A section of this article at The Week entitled “Opec’s power under threat” gives us solid grounds for my case. Saudi Arabia is now in an energy competition for survival itself, as Eekhof suggests. Simply stated, the results of oil prices dropping out of the bottom are all good for Obama, Washington, and Abu Dhabi, and all bad for Russia, Vladimir Putin, and most of the rest of the world. That is, in the short term. In the mid to long term, the real losers will be Europeans, Americans, and in the end the Saudis as well. (once their competitive edge goes, it’s back to counting sand dunes)
How will Saudi America lose out, you say? Well for one thing, fossil fuels being dirt cheap makes demand for them high. Despite misdirects from the likes of mainstream economic media like Reuters here, suggesting alternative energies will thrive on account of cheap oil are ludicrous. We have to realize, for starters, the whole reason for Arab Spring, for the Ukraine turmoil, and for Syria-Iraq, was to help replace one fossil fuel with another. Gasoline is about to be supplanted with natural gas. Read Obama’s Climate Plan if you think I am crazy. Let me quote directly here:
“In 2012, America’s net oil imports fell to the lowest level in 20 years and we have become the world’s leading producer of natural gas – the cleanest-burning fossil fuel.”
Saudi America (the corporation not the country) has now instituted a worldwide marketing campaign to squeeze more out of those rapidly emptying oil wells, and in so doing, utterly destroy Earth’s climate once and for all. Fracking, the benchmark for Washington’s new energy boom, will utterly poison whole regions of America. Sure billionaire energy titans will become trillionaires, but 100 years from now abandoned autos will be the landmarks of some Mad Max reality we can only imagine now. Here’s (interestingly) the only big news report on negative fracking issues form the mainstream today. This one tells of billions of gallons of polluted water being America’s biggest energy product. If we are not diligent (caring) now, our kids will have a bitter reality to swallow.
So how do YOU figure everyday citizens are going to profit in all this? Mr. Eekhof, my educated friend, he says, “We never have, we never will.” Coldly calculating what is going on, the Dutchman says; “It’s understandable Phil, their businesses have to survive.” Eekhof was referring to the bankers, the industrialist, and the so-called New World Order (NWO). As it turns out though, the new order is really the same old one. Only now a Russian president has rebelled.
For those of you American brethren hating Mr. Putin, read this revelation about Saudi America before the Sochi Games started. The report gets down to, in no uncertain terms, what these Saudi American bastards are willing to do for competitive edge. This was in August of 2013, just before Obama, the LGBT coalition, the UK, and most of the west jumped on Putin’s Games. Give Putin credit at least, he did not back stab Syria.
Do you need to be a genius? Nope, you just have to give a damn.
The Business of Death
We Americans hate to think of, let alone accept, that our leadership is rotten to the bitter core. Like most humanoid creatures, admitting we are utterly wrong, bad even, it’s just not something in or DNA. You know what though? Most Americans are not really stupid either, though millions pretend. When Vladimir Putin made this momentous speech, more people should have heeded the warning. Every day, bit by bitter bit, Russia and the BRICS are distanced, moving away from the west, sliding into an orbit naturally self serving. Survival, that is. It’s business. It’s also a proof that rampant capitalism is fatalistic. Putin flat out calls out the NWO, warns the other members he’ll rat them out, fight them for another eventuality. Putin’s last point addressing the people of the world – THIS SHOULD BE OF INTEREST TO YOU –
“There is still a chance to construct a new world order that will avoid a world war.”
Yes, my dear countrymen, you’ve need read this Zero Hedge piece. Saudi America has declared a business war on the rest of the world. It’s growth and profits or death. and you know who’ll be doing the dying, now don’t you? Let’s take the gloves off finally. The United Nations is useless, NATO is the military industrial complex, Washington is the biggest corporate sellout sale on the planet, London is where the bankers really run things from, and Berlin is a shivering pawn quacking in the realization the EU is done for. Does this sound bad? Well listen to Russell Brand speak of the “truth” of our 21st century reality.
Well it is folks. CNN and the rest of the sold out western media, why they just feed Americans the idea of bipartisan democracy. The owned media claims Saudi is Arabia and not America? OPEC tells the US shale industry to go to hell? Right, like Saudi princes do not own fracking ventures in America. We are in a shell game of good cop versus bad cop, and Ferguson just told us how that works out.
This coming New Year we’d better put our thinking caps on, and get our heads out of the fracked shale sands of America. Life on Earth must not be “just business” – remember your childhood fables, then understand business survival surely spells death for some.
From the book of Proverbs I believe:
“The acquisition of treasures by a lying tongue is a fleeting vapor, the pursuit of death.”
Additional image credit: T.E. Lawrence courtesy Lowell Thomas (photographer)