Explore the possibility of confiscating, that's the words that the Financial Times article which is claiming that the Biden White House and the G7, they have put together a working group to explore the possibility of confiscating. That's the words that the Financial Times use, is confiscating the 300 billion in Russian frozen assets and the date that they have marked for this confiscation is, of course, the two-year anniversary of the Special Military Operation, February 24th, 2024, is when they would like to announce this confiscation of the 300 billion in Russian frozen assets. No surprise that they're trying to create a media narrative, a show out of this confiscation, which will damage the United States and the European Union in a big way... But you know, Alexander, they've been warned by everybody. By everybody. Even the IMF, even US Nobel Prize winning economists, they've all warned the Biden White House and the European Union, Don't do this. But when has this ever stopped the Biden White House? Anyway, your thoughts on this Financial Times article?

Well, you're absolutely right. Now, this article, by the way, has been commented upon in Britain. It's now being discussed in Britain as if it is a leak from the administration, which confirms a policy that this is now what they're going to do. I think we can take it as read that this is what they're going to do. The US has decided. Britain and Canada, of course, are going along for some reason, which I don't understand, but that's their decision, I suppose. The Japanese are also bagging it. The Europeans are a lot more nervous because most of these assets are actually located within the territory of the EU. But the US wants it and it's going to get it. They said that the article says that no final decision has been made. Well, we've heard that many times. It's going to be made. It's already been made. Clearly, this is where we're heading towards. There's going to be three working parties, one which is going to discuss the legality of the measure. But of course, we know that the measure is illegal. Every single credible, reputable lawyer who is a specialist in this area has said it is illegal.

Imf has said it's illegal. Central banks have said it's illegal. The European Commission's legal department has said it is illegal. The British government's legal department apparently said it's illegal. What are we discussing? Why are we going to discuss the legality of the measure that we already know is illegal? In fact, it's clearly simply a device to create some legal rationale for doing what the administration has decided to do. The other two working parties are of a more technical nature. One is how the money is going to be used, the other is about how exactly it's going to be enforced, apparently. This is going to happen, and I think people now really need to understand that the decision, the really important decision, the one that matters has been made and it's been made in the White House. The administration, Biden, Sullivan, Newland, Blinkan, they've been told unequivocally, Don't do this thing. It's a very bad idea, but they're going to go ahead and they're going to do it. Interestingly enough, there was even an editorial about this in The Daily Telegraph which supports it but doesn't really. They say that there's only three legal bases upon which this can be done.

One is by a decision of the Security Council under Chapter Seven. The second is following a judgment of the International Court of Justice, which isn't going to happen. The third is by agreement with the Russians after Russia itself has been defeated in the member war, which isn't going to happen. Then in spite of that, the daily telegraph says it's probably going to happen because there isn't really any choice. It is going to happen. It is illegal. Everybody can see it. Bloomberg has spoken out against it. Everybody who's spoken out against it, everybody who counts, everybody who matters about these things. But as you absolutely correctly say, when do expert advice and matters of law restrain the Biden administration? They have crossed every single red line when it comes to the conflict with Ukraine, the frozen sovereign assets. They're now going to steal them. They've interfered in the operation of the world energy markets. Unsuccessfully, I would add. They've supplied ever more advanced weapons to the Ukrainians, types of weapons. They never said they would supply. Now finally, they've come to this, they came to seize, confiscate, steal Russia's assets.

This is the destruction of trust in the financial markets and financial sectors for the United States and the European Union, the entire collective west. Yes. This is it. Yes. Trusting your money, whether you're a state, whether you're a very wealthy oligarch, a prince, whatever, get your money out is basically the message that they're saying. Actually, I even think the Nobel... Schiller, the Nobel Prize-winning economist said that the message that you're sending is, Today it's Russia. Tomorrow, it's me. I think that was actually what he said, and he's a Nobel Prize-winning economist. This is it. This is the final big nail or one of the final big nails in the that was the US, the collective West, the EU financial system.

The single biggest asset, the single most important mechanism of power that the West possesses is its domination of the international financial system. The Biden administration has systematically trashed it. They booted Russia out of Swift, the central banks, the Federal Reserve Board, the IMF told them don't do it, but they went ahead and did it. They froze the Russian central bank's reserves. Again, they knew that all the central banks would oppose it, so they didn't even let them know. Central banks, the IMF are telling them don't seize the Russian assets, but they're going to do it anyway. You're absolutely right. It is going to destroy, finally, trust. It's not as if it's just you and me saying it. Lots and lots of important people are saying it. Everybody in the financial system who is concerned about these things is saying it. In fact, we've already seen it. Apparently, funds are already leaving the European Union and the United States. They've been doing so for more than a year now. The Chinese have been cutting back on purchases of treasury bonds for quite a long time. All kinds of other international investors will continue to do that.

There's a queue that's a mile long already to join the Bricks, the Saudi, and the UAE who are major investors in the global financial system are now reconsidering their alignments, their geopolitical alignments, as we have seen, and all of this is going to accelerate. But this is the Scotch-Dust policy that the Biden administration and the neocons have brought us to. Because as we've discussed so many times, these guys have no reverse gear. They just don't. When they have launched a project like the one they have in Ukraine and they find that they can't get funding out of Congress because Congress won't authorize anymore, which is ultimately what this is all about, they're now on a hunt. They're hunting around for more money from other sources. Now, there's all kinds of complicated ideas coming out in Europe. You float euro bonds. I did a program about this. You float euro bonds guaranteed by Germany because it's the Germans who are going to do it. It doesn't really work very well and it's probably unconstitutional. The German constitutional court will probably strike it down. You get the international financial institutions, the IMF and the World Bank to come around and say that we can only provide so much money, more money to Ukraine.

What we're doing providing money to Ukraine anyway, contradicts the terms of our own charters. What you do is you don't give up on your project. You don't say there's no more money. You don't say that it's impossible to raise money in honest ways. You simply steal the other sides. That is what these people do. Because the one thing they will not do is stop and certainly they won't negotiate. By the way, the most interesting thing about that article is that when you actually drill down and look to the rationale, the reason, this is the Financial Times article itself, the reason they're going to do it, the ultimate justification is it is to show resolve. What neocons always talk about that it's always about showing resolve. We're going to show to the Russians, we're going to show to Putin that he can't outlast us on Ukraine. We will go on battling on indefinitely for as long as it takes in order to achieve this victory, which is fact is melting away in Ukraine. In fact, it's the Russians who look much more likely to win a victory than we are. But it is it is classic neocon thinking.

You don't let little things like the law or principles of self-restrain or diplomacy or considerations of what the global community might feel or what the global financial community might feel or what the experts are telling you. You don't let anything like that stand in your way. You just press on.

The whole world understands that Ukraine has lost. The whole world. The best course of action for the collective West is to just admit that you lost. Admit that you lost and move on. You don't even have to shake Russia's hand. Just admit that you lost and move on and just leave it there. But the whole world understands that this project is over.

Yes.

It's incredible. There is not one world... I was going to say world leader. There is not one leader in the collective West. Not one politician to tell Biden and Ursula and Sunak and Trudeau, Stop. Stop. To take the keys away from them and just put a stop to this madness. Congress, just a couple of weeks ago, Congress passed some bill, some legislation where they're going to prevent the President from removing the United States out of NATO because out of fears of Trump. They're afraid of something that hasn't even happened yet. Where is Congress right now to pass some legislation to say, Biden cannot steal these frozen assets because, and this is real, we're talking about the national interest, the security of the United States dollar, of the US financial system. So we're going to prohibit any President from stealing frozen assets.

Just the fact that they're frozen is bad enough. But is there no one there to do this?

No, nobody is. This is what is so astonishing and it is so absolutely depressing. Obviously, this is all fun. He's going to say this is a terrible mistake. There is a Robert Fitzo, no doubt. Others people like him. But the really big players amongst the really big players, the G7 states, there isn't a single political figure of any significance. Well, Marine Le Pen is, but she's not in power and they'll do whatever they can to keep her out of power. But no one else, no one of any significance, no parliamentary majority in any one of these states to come out and stand up and say, No, this is just absolute crazy. This is bad shit crazy. This is lunacy. This is the most utter act of folly. Not one. There isn't a single person. There's barely any debate about it. We had this one article in the Financial Times. There's been a few scattering of articles elsewhere in the media here, but nothing very much. This very mealy-mouthed, dithery editorial of The Daily Telegraph, a similarly dithery editorial of The Financial Times, which opposed this idea, by the way. But there's hardly any public debate, hardly any public discussion.

There's no sign that Congress is going to come together and discuss it. There's certainly no sign that anybody in any parliament in the West is going to raise this issue. Well, there'll be Claire Daly and Mike Wallace in the European Parliament who will no doubt have their say. But the political class across the collective West has made up its mind and they're going to do this thing. I get to say something. They're going to be euphoric about it. They always are. Whenever they pass the red line, it intoxicates them. It gives them this tremendous feeling of power. I'm sure the same was true of Nord Stream, by the way. I'm sure it's true for everything else. And this one, too.

That's why the date has been chosen as the two-year anniversary. Exactly. Absolutely. Let me throw something at you, a statement. I've been thinking about this. Putin is laughing at all of this. They're playing right into Russia and Bricks' hands. Well, I'm Yeah, they give warnings. The Russians give warnings, don't take this money. But I put money on it that the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, the Indians, all of Bricks, South Africa, all of Bricks, I bet you is looking at this and just laughing because they're doing the Biden White House is doing exactly what they thought they would do.

Absolutely. Can I just quickly add about this? There's this story that's circulating that the Russians supposedly have threatened that they're going to break off diplomatic relations with the United States if the US moves ahead with this. I haven't seen a single comment to that effect in any Russian media publication from any official of the Russian government anywhere. I just haven't. This is again a story that has been put about so that when it doesn't happen, they'll say, Well, the Russians are just bluffing. We can call the bluff all the time. Of course, the Russians are not going to criticize. I'm not going to take that step because you're absolutely right. The Russians know perfectly well. They're never going to see this money back. They're never going to see it. It's not ever going to be repaid to them. $300 billion is a lot of money, but the Russian-Chinese trade next year is likely to be $300 billion worth. Russia is making this money every year, more than this money every year. They don't need this money. They do need a new global financial system which operates outside the dollar. That's what the Russians really want.

They're never going to get this money back. They don't need this money. But this other alternative system is just be given the best possible reason that for it to be created that anybody could provide. If Putin could pay them $300 billion to do this thing, he would probably want to do it. It is an absolute gift to him. And of course, it's an even bigger gift to see if you can pay.

Yeah. That leads me to my final question. How is the Biden White House? First of all, I wonder how many citizens in the collective West understand know what exactly the G7 is about to do and the implications of doing this. I imagine very few because this story outside of the financial times, it's not really being covered so much, even though this is a huge story if what happens on February 2024 does take place.

But I.

Wonder how the countries of the of the Collective West, the G7 and the Biden White House, I wonder how they're going to use the eventual catastrophe and debacle that will take place when they do steal these frozen assets in order to exert more control on their people and the financial institutions in the collective West and the money being held in the collective West. I'm just trying to figure out how are they going to use this mess that they're going to create to their benefit in order to consolidate more power. Because at the end of the day, once this takes place, it is going to be the people, the everyday people that are going to suffer because of this stupidity from the administration.

Well, absolutely. Can I just point out the same secrecy and the same lack of discussion and open debate has surrounded the entire sanctions process? Most of the sanctions decisions have been made by a tiny group of people meeting in private and discussing things between themselves. The general population of the West is not informed about these decisions or consulted about them. We are just presented with them. In the case of this particular decision, the number of people across the collective West who know that this is coming and who are well-informed about it and about what it means is a very, very small fraction of 0.1% of the total Western electorate. I'm not going to say that you can just count the people on your hands, but you need to be the person who reads the Financial Times and Bloomberg and follows what the IMF is saying and those people. There are obviously such people, but there are not many of them. It's a tiny fraction of the people who are being informed. Of course, the number of people who make these decisions, you could count them. You could probably count them on your hands, the key decision makers.

In the United States, it's probably just four: Biden, Sullivan, Blinkan, and Newland. It is a tiny microscopic group. It's a point, by the way, that Jeffrey Sachs repeatedly makes that most decisions nowadays on foreign policy are made in secret by a tiny minority of people. And in this decision, which is, as you absolutely right, he said it is momentous, is going to have massive effect and implications upon everyone, everyone who lives across the world, but certainly in the collective West. Well, most people just don't know about it. And if they get any hint of it, it won't be explained to them what it really means. But what will happen? Well, first of all, every single one of the sanctions they have imposed has failed on its own terms. It has made Russia richer and it has made the West poorer. We've had a very high inflation last year, which was entirely the product of the disruption of the energy markets that the West created. We've had a de-industrialisation crisis in Germany and Central Europe, which is now gaining momentum and is accelerating by the day. We've had a weakening in investment flows around the world and especially into the collective west.

And of course, all of this is leading to higher prices, lower incomes for more and more people, increasing signs of economic distress. Now, what the Western powers up to now, the Western decision-makers up to now have invariably done is one of two… Well, firstly, they explain it in one of two ways. Firstly, they say that it is Putin who is doing this. It's not us making the decisions, it's Putin doing these things for us. You remember last year, it was Biden was talking about Putin's inflation. About a week ago, 10 days ago, Olaf Schultz was saying incredibly that it was Russia that cut off the energy flows to Germany. Firstly, they'll blame it on Putin. Secondly, they will try to keep this as distant from a discussion of the situation in the economy as possible. They'll try to separate the sanctions war and the economic war from what is happening within their own societies. They will say we're an economic crisis. The way we settle this economic crisis, especially in Europe, is by centralizing. They will use the crisis to increase still further the European institutions control over the European economy, which has already become extremely strong as a result of this crisis.

The European Union is now basically deciding energy policy, it's dictating transport links, it's moving, as we see again, towards Europe. It's reviving this idea about euro bonds, all of these things. They get a centralized economic decision making. They're going to extend government control. And of course ultimately they're going to, as they put it, close down tax loopholes and increase liquidity by introducing digital currencies, which will be another mechanism of control. And all of that with the disinformation industry, which is, of course, the opposite of what it really is, increasing in scope and strength and activity and all of those things. Yeah.

And it's going to be Putin's fault. The de-dollarisation, the lack of trust in the Western financial institutions because of Putin. Absolutely. Either Putin or Trump. It's one of the two.

Well, the two will be brought together again. If Trump wins and starts all this, then they'll be saying again that he's following Putin's orders.

Yeah. Anyway, let's wrap this one up. Yeah, I never imagined. I mean, we were afraid that Biden was going to do a lot of damage to the Biden White House, but I would have never imagined that he would even bring down the US dollar. I mean, the trust in the US financial sector, I never imagined that he would be this destructive. I mean, it's incredible.

It really is. It is incredible. But you pointed out to the real problem. I mean, the problem is not Joe himself. I mean, my impression of him is that he's an angry old man who is making all these decisions. He's got this little group of people around him who basically egg him on and encourage him to make these terrible decisions. But in a republic like the United States, there's supposed to be checks and balances in the system that act in order to control him, to reign him back. I mean, one should have had a situation in a situation like this. When the president comes up with this crazy idea, the chair of the Federal Reserve comes along and tells him, Mr. President, you can't even consider doing such a crazy thing. It would be a disaster for the dollar if you did. And if the President went on doing it, the chair of the Federal Reserve would probably ask to speak to Congress because he would be really worried about this. Congress would meet and they would debate this and people in Congress would have their say. One way or another, there'd be a debate and it would get out into the media and people would talk and there would be a discussion and eventually it would be stopped.

That was the American way. America had a way of using public debate and discussion and the mechanisms of the constitution to prevent decisions like this from happening. All of that now has completely broken down. What we see is that when a president is elected who wants to pursue a policy different from Biden's, a policy that the neocons disapprove of. When he's elected, which is to say what happened in 2016 with Donald Trump, he's not restrained in the way that I said, which is a legitimate political process. He is blocked through law fair, covert investigations, smear stories about him in the media, theft of his papers from the Oval Office, allegedly, all that thing. I mean, an open policy of subversion against him within the government. When it's a President who does what the neocons want, all restraints are taken off. This is a disastrous situation. Once upon a time, you would have have found prominent Democrats in Congress who would have spoken out against this thing.

No.

More. No more.

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