BStone: *snip*

kohlrak: War may make alot of money for certain individuals (not something that i think has ever really been disputed), but that doesn't mean that the individuals in charge of causing war are necessarily benefactors. The claim you're making, which correct me if i'm wrong, is that, rather than Saddam Hussein's known attempts to acquire nuclear weapons, it was Bush senior's potential profits that were the motive for the Iraq war. Given the lead-up to the war, which I've noticed seemingly everyone has forgotten, I can think of some far more likely scenarios, including a trap to cause the very situation the US is in right now: constant war in the middle-east, draining the US military power and economy. We've been tied up in the middle-east ever since that war started, and we seem to be having a very hard time getting out of it. And, in case no one has been noticing, the benefactors aren't necessarily exclusively to the US. I heard France in particular is gaining alot in arms sales, for example, which is believed to be one of the major motives for the Paris shooting, iirc.

Based on all the information we have on fiat currency and how we all essentially use it, along with the race for Russia-tied countries to gain nuclear power, all this talk about Russia trading with other countries in a gold-backed currency with nuclear power being the primary deterrent against US invasion (since fiat currency is backed by the US dollar instead of something more tangible) seems to be the most likely explanation for what's going on. Get this...

https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/15/russia-may-soon-issue-its-own-official-blockchain-based-currency-the-cryptoruble/

https://www.engadget.com/2017/10/15/russia-hopes-to-launch-its-own-cryptocurrency/

https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-collapse-of-the-western-fiat-monetary-system-may-have-begun-china-russia-and-the-reemergence-of-gold-backed-currencies/5521107

These are new articles for a very old topic: Russia and China are trying to get their hands on Gold, which was the original basis for printed currencies. The issue is simple: if Russia and all other countries tied to these potential currencies refuse trade via fiat currency, and if businesses around the world get sick enough of this roller-coaster ride of fiat currency, they'll find ways to convert to this new currency, and it will absolutely destroy the US dollar, and all other currencies built on it. People will find more monetary value in burning the dollar and euro for heat in the winter than spending it on food.

Which explanation seems more reasonable to you?

EDIT: Oh, and the UN's Agenda 21 (which you can read yourself, getting it for free from the UN itself, so this isn't conspiracy BS) would become impossible under this. So, all this talk about chemical weapons in Syria, with Russian backed Assad saying they hit a sarin gas factory in an air strike vs Turkey (who has their own agenda, especially when it comes to getting in good with the US and UN) who says the rebels don't have chemical weapons, gets a little more interesting, doesn't it?

richlind33: The US gov't continued to provide Iraq with dual-use material and tech *after* it was known that chemical weapons were being used against Iran, So WMD was obviously nothing more than a convenient pretext for invading Iraq. War, you see, is essential for the maintenance of the military-industrial complex, and here's why: after the Soviet Union collapsed, the value of the defense sector dropped precipitously; after the "liberation of Kuwait", it was back like gangbusters. So it's imperative to have an enemy at all times if you're trying to maintain a permanent war-time economy. So the moral of this story is, as long as we continue to allow war profiteering, our nation will continue to engage in military aggression and commit crimes against humanity. Those committed to personal enrichment by whatever means necessary care nothing of the terrible toll that war exacts in blood and treasure, and will not stop until they are forced to stop.

Obviously, there are other geo-strategic interests involved, such as gaining and maintaining access to foreign markets, but the profit margin in the defense sector is only rivaled by the drug trade -- and unsurprisingly, the two frequently intersect.

I'll get back to you on the links you've posted.

drmike: I for whatever reason can't find the release thread for Papers, Please. We're having a bad day today so folks will have to forgive me.

Remember Papers, Please? Appears someone did a short film based on it:

http://comicbook.com/gaming/2018/02/21/papers-please-short-film-youtube/

The actual film comes right up on YouTube but I have a feeling that's a pirated copy so I;m not linking to it.

kohlrak: "So mark your calendars, because the short film is set to make its official debut on February 24th on YouTube, and then on Steam a few days later!"

drmike: I saw that as well but, as I noted the ones I'm seeing up on YouTube do not appear to be the official versions which is why I didn't link to them.

If you're going to copy and paste something of mine, please take a second and read it. Thanks.

kohlrak: Yeah, please do. You'll probably find your interpretation changes a bit when you see the evidence face to face. Depreciation of weapons is small potatoes, especially when war was happening without our intervention. To make matters worse, if it had to be us in the war to maintain profits, how comes we saw so many years of peace until Bush? The clintons have proven themselves quite interested in making money any way they can, including via war, as hillary was poising herself to go to war if she had beat Trump. Meanwhile, with Trump, all this talk about NK and other new wars is just that: Talk. Why didn't Bill boy jump into Iraq, which would've helped cover up the whole scam?

richlind33: For one thing, he squandered a very large amount of political capital weathering his bimbo eruptions, but the main reason is that the Clinton scams are primarily concerned with the solicitation of campaign contributions on a quid pro quo basis. As far as I'm aware, Bill has never lobbied for the defense industry, whereas Bush Sr. and Cheney both had direct ties. Furthermore, there was plenty of low intensity conflict on Clinton's watch.

kohlrak: Why is campaign funding so important, especially on Bill's second term? Think about it.

kohlrak: Simple: Fiat rides on everyone accepting the US dollar as the base currency for "the world economy." Value of currency is based on how it relates to the material it's "backed by." So the old dollars were backed by gold: meaning that you could go to the reserve and demand X dollars equivalent of gold in exchange for X dollars, and they would have to oblige you. No one would do so, though, since gold is pretty heavy. Fiat currency that we have today uses the US dollar as a backdrop, instead of something like gold, for the currency. So, when the US willy nilly prints more dollars, the only way for other currencies backed by the US dollar to maintain value is to not allow the printing of money to affect the value of the US dollar. Therefore, the whole system of US welfare spending, military spending, and so forth is basically unhindered and spending can continually be done, and money comes out of thin air, and really no one can dispute this.

That is, until currencies emerge that do not use the US dollar as a backing. Currencies that are not dollar backed don't have that constant ratio of dollar to currency. Since Russia is working on publishing a currency backed by physical gold, it can't willy nilly print like the US. While that looks bad on paper for Russia, it looks even worse for the US if anyone wants to, say, convert the Euro to Russian backed. Then their currency would have the stability of gold, instead of the instability of the US infinite value for nothing system. As more people convert, the US economy can't keep up with it's infinite IOUs that are dragging all the other countries down. This means the entire agenda of the UN, the US, and the EU as defined in Agenda 21 "for the benefit of a sustainable future" (in other words, a one world federal government with the UN in charge, as they themselves admit in Agenda 21) falls apart completely, because it'll become too expensive.

richlind33: If you control campaign finance, you control the party. No, Hillary didn't beat Obama, but Obama danced to Paneta's tune, and the Clinton's got a fat slice of the pie.

richlind33: People have been talking about replacing the dollar as the primary international reserve currency for about ten years, but how do you do it without bringing down the central banking system? Russia doesn't have much to lose at this point, and China is probably wondering if they have much to lose, so they are prudently hedging their bets. But they'd best make sure that those gold bars aren't salted with tungsten, or the financial wizards of The West will be having the last laugh.

kohlrak: The Clintons are famous for scandles far bigger than this.

richlind33: Corruption is systemic, and I care not which party has the biggest scandals. Rome is burning, and all we can manage to do is quibble over who is to blame.