United States

Submitted by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov has accused the U.S. of pretending to fight ISIS in the Middle East, in response to the Pentagon refusing to share intelligence on ISIS with Moscow.  Konashenkov has said that the Pentagon are fighting ISIS “in word only” during a press conference on Monday. Tass.ru reports: He thus commented on a recent statement by the Pentagon spokesperson Michelle Baldanza who confirmed that the US military did not intend to share with Moscow the information on IS targets until Russia changes its policy towards Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Via Finanz und Wirtschaft's Christoph Gisiger,

Howard Marks, Chairman and founder of Oaktree Capital, warns that investor behavior has entered the zone of imprudence and thinks that China is the biggest threat for the US economy.

Submitted by Arthur Berman via ArtBerman.com,

Congress ended the U.S. crude oil export ban last week. There is apparently no longer a strategic reason to conserve oil because shale production has made American great again. At least, that’s narrative that reality-averse politicians and their bases prefer.

Why WWIII Is On The Horizon

Paul Craig Roberts

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 gave birth to a dangerous American ideology called neoconservativism. The Soviet Union had served as a constraint on US unilateral action. With the removal of this constraint on Washington, neoconservatives declared their agenda of US world hegemony. America was now the “sole superpower,” the “unipower,” that could act without restraint anywhere in the world.

The Washington Post neoconservative journalist Charles Krauthammer summed up the “new reality” as follows: