• Moon-Mars Mission Fits the Call To Lift Up America’s Culture
• U.S. Oil Shale Debt Bubble Poised for Explosion
• Bolton Behind Embargo of Venezuela, Russia and China Tension
• Threat of U.S.-China Currency War, and How It Might Be Ended
• Central Banks Unite for a Low-Carbon Economy
• Stock Buybacks Soar, as Earnings of Goods-Producing Companies Contract
• Putin States U.S. Withdrawal From INF Treaty Poses Serious Risks for Everyone
• China Is Now the “Most Important” Dialogue Parner of ASEAN
• Dennis Meadows Boasts, Rise of Green Brand of Authoritarianism Is Unavoidable

EDITORIAL

Moon-Mars Mission Fits the Call To Lift Up America’s Culture

Aug. 6 (EIRNS)—A new prospectus of the Moon-Mars mission, organized around the six points of the LaRouchePAC petition “We Commit to the Moon-Mars Mission,” and authored for LaRouchePAC by Ben Deniston, will appear in the Aug. 9 Executive Intelligence Review to be issued tomorrow. The piece lays out the extraordinary science and technology driver which the President’s and NASA’s “Project Artemis” could become, as an Apollo Project-style crash program to make the Moon the workshop and launch point for the Solar System. The prospectus specifies the commitment to carry out this effort cooperatively with at least the Chinese, Russian, Indian space programs, as well as the Japanese and the European.

The first section elaborates the LaRouchePAC petition: We are committing ourselves and our nation to send a rocket to orbit the Moon next year; to construct a space station in lunar orbit within two years after that; to send four astronauts to orbit the Moon in 2023—human beings escaping Earth gravity for the first time since Apollo—and committing our nation to land astronauts on the Moon in 2024.

More, within four years after that, we commit to having a human settlement on the Moon, meaning that the people in that settlement will be in the Solar System with the potential, after some years’ development of the settlement, to travel from there to Mars.

The settlement will strive to begin mining and producing resources such as hydrogen and oxygen fuels as well as water, and building transportation infrastructure there. Possibly, the first magnetic-levitation train in which American industry participates, will be on the Moon. The first Solar System transport may be built there. Perhaps the first plasma processing of materials will be done there.

The prospectus brings forward the two visionaries who foresaw this escape from Earth’s bounds to the Moon, and its development for Solar System travel—rocket designer Krafft Ehricke and economist and statesman Lyndon LaRouche. They fully designed such a human future in the mid-1980s. “Settlement and industrial development of the Moon” is their conception. Generating the financial credit for this international science-driver mission is also LaRouche’s conception, and the document lays this out under Point 5 of the petition.

President Donald Trump, in his remarks of Aug. 5 which addressed the woe of America’s mass shootings, said, “Cultural change is hard, but each of us can choose to build a culture that celebrates the inherent worth and dignity of every human life.”

This Moon-Mars mission, if done in the way LaRouche and Ehricke described more than 40 years ago, responds to that call by the President. Signs of change were seen in the excitement over the Apollo 11 fiftieth anniversary two weeks ago, as millions of Americans, in thousands of celebratory gatherings, thought of the heavens. The human being who actually achieves travelling, living, working in space has no limits to his or her potential. Any young person can choose to support what President Kennedy called “the untried mission”—the worth and dignity of a human species that can learn to live in conditions completely unlike those in which we evolved, but still exhibiting the intelligence of our creator.

U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC

U.S. Oil Shale Debt Bubble Poised for Explosion

Aug. 6 (EIRNS)—The U.S. oil shale industry is experiencing, in some sectors, severe cash shortages and burgeoning company failures, that could trigger crisis in the bankrupt world financial system.

The oil shale industry, which uses hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to bust open and extract oil and natural gas entrapped in shale deposits, has long overstated its projections of what deposits it can bring to the surface. Its wells are drying up more rapidly than predicted. Still, against its glittering promises, the oil and gas shale industry was lent a mountain of money by Wall Street, investment firms, etc.

The oil and gas industry has $240 billion in debt that matures by 2023, a significant portion of which is that owed by the oil shale companies, reports OilPrice.com, a leading industry news site.

A June 30 New York Times article, “U.S. Oil Companies Find Energy Independence Isn’t So Profitable,” reports a cascade of bankruptcies: “In the last four years, roughly 175 oil and gas companies in the United States and Canada have filed for bankruptcy.” On July 1, Weatherford International, the fourth leading oil services company in America filed a $8.3 billion bankruptcy protection in Houston. There is no let-up in sight. DeSmogBlog, a Canadian blog, whose manifesto is “Slamming the Climate Skeptic Scam,” in its ongoing series on the finances of fracking, reported on the cumulative damage in April 2018, writing “Since 2007, the oil and gas industry has lost $280 billion betting on the shale boom.”

Many oil shale companies expended more, including for debt service, than they take in in revenues, creating a deficit called negative cash flow, or colloquially, “cash flow burn.” The Aug. 1 Wall Street Journal reported, “In the first quarter of this year a basket of seven unconventional oil-focused drillers collectively reported free cash flow of negative $1.58 billion … more than four times worse than during the first quarter of 2018.”

It is this paradox that is leading so many newspapers and oil industry journals to report that this show can’t continue.

Bolton Behind Embargo of Venezuela, Russia and China Tension

Aug. 6 (EIRNS)—In an action bearing National Security Adviser John Bolton’s and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s fingerprints, President Donald Trump late last night issued an Executive Order establishing a total economic blockade of Venezuela. This will block all property of the Venezuelan government in “the jurisdiction of the United States,” and target for secondary sanctions any nation or individual “who provide material support to … or enable the illegitimate Maduro regime and undermine the National Assembly of Venezuela and interim President Juan Guaidó.”

Aside from killing more Venezuelans, the White House action also ratchets up the geopolitical conflict with Russia and China, governments that have opposed the U.S. war party’s regime change policy for Venezuela and backed a negotiated settlement. Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry called the U.S. action “economic terrorism.” Russia’s Foreign Ministry called it illegal.

Speaking this morning in Peru at the Lima Group-sponsored “International Conference on Democracy in Venezuela,” Bolton declared that it is the “moral imperative” of the U.S. to defend Western Hemisphere “neighbors against any threat, internal or external.” He harkened back to past London-supported U.S. regime-change offensives in Ibero-America to warn that Washington won’t hesitate to repeat them. “Not since an asset freeze against the [Manuel] Noriega government in Panama in 1988, a trade embargo on Nicaragua in 1985, or the comprehensive asset freeze and trade embargo on Cuba in 1962 have we taken this action,” he boasted, the Miami Heraldreported.

“In each of these instances, we used robust economic tools against dictatorships…. It worked in Panama, it worked in Nicaragua once, and it will work there again, and it will work in Venezuela and Cuba,” Bolton threatened. He went on that, outside of Cuba, “the U.S. has used similar economic sanctions on the governments of Iran, North Korea and Syria. Now, Venezuela is part of this very exclusive club of rogue states.”

As for Russia and China, Bolton warned them that “your support to the Maduro regime is intolerable, particularly to the democratic regime that will replace Maduro.”

COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM

Threat of U.S.-China Currency War, and How It Might Be Ended

Aug. 6 (EIRNS)—President Donald Trump’s Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin late on Aug. 5 designated China a “currency manipulator” after the yuan fell to below 7 to the dollar as a result of global currency speculation following the latest U.S. tariff announcement. A Treasury statement said: “Secretary Mnuchin, under the auspices of President Trump, has today determined that China is a Currency Manipulator. As a result of this determination, Secretary Mnuchin will engage with the International Monetary Fund to eliminate the unfair competitive advantage created by China’s latest actions. This pattern of actions is also a violation of China’s G20 commitments to refrain from competitive devaluation.”

The administration appears to have gotten unnerved when the new tariffs and following drop in the yuan triggered a plunge of more than 3% in U.S. stocks Monday, Aug. 5. It was looking only at the surface, the “proximate cause.” Trump demanded more interest-rate cutting from the Federal Reserve in a Twitter message: “China dropped the price of their currency to an almost a historic low. It’s called currency manipulation. Are you listening Federal Reserve? This is a major violation which will greatly weaken China over time!”

The People’s Bank of China responded Aug. 6, “The U.S. labeling is an arbitrary unilateral and protectionist practice, which … will significantly impact the global economy and financial markets.” China has not intervened to set a yuan value since 2013. Since that time it has maintained a managed float of the currency, with major currency speculators, including George Soros, shorting it aggressively. Deliberately devaluing would cost China foreign reserves which sustain its investments in infrastructure domestically and worldwide.

America could ask WTO action against China; could try (through the IMF) to get allies to declare China a manipulator; could declare “punitive” tariffs, although most of the tariffs already have been punitive. There are “extreme” options” To order Treasury or even (under color of “emergency”) the Fed to sell dollars to drive down their value. That would be currency war.

President Trump recognizes the salient fact that the dollar has appreciated significantly against all other major currencies since early 2018. This is due to capital flows into the United States economy following the large corporate tax cut of Jan. 1, 2018. The Fed cannot weaken the dollar by cutting rates: Those of the other major central banks are already below zero!

U.S.-China tensions are now intense. A solution can only appear from a higher economic standpoint, and then, only if and when Trump’s circles recognize the U.S. “recovery” is breaking down and debt bubbles are ready to explode. At that point, the way out of currency war would also foster recovery: Agree on new currency values with a significant yuan increase against the dollar; keep the new values stable with currency controls; and remove all tariffs since mid-2018. China’s capacities for investment in great projects in North and South America—jointly with a U.S. credit institution—would greatly increase.

Central Banks Unite for a Low-Carbon Economy

Aug. 6 (EIRNS)—In an open letter published on April 17, the central bank governors of the United Kingdom and France declared that “34 central banks and supervisors—representing five continents, half of global greenhouse gas emissions and the supervision of two-thirds of the global systemically important banks and insurers—joined forces in 2017 to create a coalition of the willing: the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS).”

Parallel to that, an alarmist speech calling for climate action was made by Sarah Breeden, Executive Director for U.K. Deposit Takers Supervision at the Bank of England, echoing the XR movement’s slogan that time was running out to prevent catastrophic climate change and previous efforts to combat the problem have been nowhere near vigorous enough.

Breeden’s message to the financial sector, the Guardian reported on April 15, was that they need to incorporate climate change into their corporate governance, their risk management analysis, their forward planning and their disclosure policies or face the prospect of losing an awful lot of money—a sudden drop in assets prices known as a Minsky moment (after the economist Hyman Minsky). Breeden said a climate Minsky moment was possible, in which losses could be as high as $20 trillion (£15.3 trillion).

The Bank of England’s Prudential Regulatory Authority (PRA) has taken the lead in setting out what it expects from the banks and insurance companies it supervises. And “when the PRA says that firms are expected to act, what it really means is that they have no choice but to do so—and they have until October to do so. That’s entirely appropriate and not before time,” the Guardian wrote.

Stock Buybacks Soar, as Earnings of Goods-Producing Companies Contract

Aug. 6 (EIRNS)—A bad combination for American non-financial corporations is materializing. Stock buybacks are forecast to be near $1 trillion in 2019, 13% higher than 2018. Buybacks so far this year equal 104% of corporations’ liquid assets, so a significant portion of the buybacks are being financed by borrowing. This shows that the Trump December 2017 tax cut supply of cash for buybacks has run out. Corporate cash on hand has declined over the past 12 months through July by 15% or $270 billion. Simultaneously, corporations are foolishly increasing their debt leverage, reducing their liquid assets and reducing their equity (by taking their own stock off the market).

Worsening this is the decline in earnings (profit) of goods-producing companies. For the first six months of 2019, the following sectors have reported earnings higher than 2018: “healthcare” companies and “financial” companies up 5%; real estate up 1.5%. But the goods-producing and distributing sectors have earnings lower than 2018: “Consumer staples” down 2%; consumer durables producers down 4%; IT companies down 11.9%; energy companies down 9.8%; industrial companies down 12.2%; materials producers down 18.8%, according to FactSet. Earnings are much lower in these sectors because manufacturing and mining are contracting. This is the process that will trigger collapse of the non-financial corporate debt bubble at some point soon.

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER

Putin States U.S. Withdrawal from INF Treaty Poses Serious Risks for Everyone

Aug. 6 (EIRNS)—Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a statement yesterday warning that the end of the INF Treaty increases risks for everyone in the world. The U.S. withdrawal from the treaty, he said, “under a far-fetched pretext and the dismantlement of one of the last fundamental arms control treaties, creates major complications for world affairs and brings about serious risks for everyone.” All responsibility for this, Putin went on, rests with the United States. “Instead of engaging in a meaningful discussion on international security matters, the United States opted for simply undercutting many years of efforts to reduce the probability of a large-scale armed conflict, including the use of nuclear weapons,” he said.

In this context, Putin ordered the Defense and Foreign Ministries and the Foreign Intelligence Service “to monitor in the most thorough manner future steps taken by the United States to develop, produce and deploy intermediate-range and medium-range missiles.” He said that if Russia obtains reliable information that the U.S. is developing INF range missiles, Russia will have no choice but to respond by developing similar missiles in response. In the meantime, Russia will rely on its current arsenal of sea-launched and air-launched missiles to include weapons under development, such as the Tsirkon hypersonic missile. “At the same time, Russia maintains the unilateral commitments it has assumed, and will act only when it has to respond,” Putin said. “This applies to developing, producing and deploying land-based intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles. We will not deploy them in any given region until U.S.-made intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles are deployed there.”

At the same time, Putin reiterated that Russia remains committed to dialogue, should the U.S. decide to reciprocate. “Russia considers that it is necessary to revive without delay meaningful talks on ensuring strategic stability and security,” he said. “We are ready to engage in these efforts.”

THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER

China Is Now the ‘Most Important’ Dialogue Partner of ASEAN

Aug. 6 (EIRNS)—That is the statement of Philippine Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin, who made this declaration at the conclusion of the ASEAN-China Foreign Ministers conference on July 31, reported Kyodo News on Aug. 5. Locsin further said that ASEAN’s relation with China “should be the most dynamic and substantive we have in the region.”

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations comprises the nations of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Speaking to the conference, Chinese State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi asserted, “China-ASEAN relations have now become a banner of regional cooperation in East Asia,” and their “exchanges have become a role model for inter-civilizational exchanges and cooperation in the world. China has maintained its position as ASEAN’s largest trading partner for ten years in a row.” Two-way trade in 2018 reaching $580 billion, greatly enhanced by the Belt and Road Initiative. The foreign ministers also took up matters of e-commerce, scientific and technological innovation, 5G network, and smart cities.

CCTV reported Aug. 4, that creating a South China Sea security agreement was a major concern, especially after remarks by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo regarding China in his meetings with ASEAN foreign ministers earlier in the week. While maintaining peace in the South China Sea is an ongoing process, “China and ASEAN countries have made crucial progress in talks on a widely-anticipated Code of Conduct (COC)” which will set “regional rules and safeguard peace and prosperity in the South China Sea,” said Wang. He told CCTV that China and the ASEAN countries finished the first reading of the Single Draft Negotiating Text of the COC ahead of schedule.

Cambodian government spokesman Phay Siphan told Xinhua on July 29, “Outsiders should not continue to stir up troubles in the South China Sea under the pretext of freedom of navigation,” and continued, with regard to U.S. naval exercises “Any interference from the third party or outsiders not only affects joint efforts made by China and ASEAN countries, but also sparks confrontations in the South China Sea.”

In their joint communiqué, ASEAN foreign ministers welcomed the efforts and progress made by the bloc members and China in negotiations on the COC in the South China Sea. Xinhua reported that thanks to these efforts, some 100,000 ships have been able to pass through the South China Sea every year, without being in any way interrupted or impeded.

OTHER

Dennis Meadows Boasts, Rise of Green Brand of Authoritarianism Is Unavoidable

PARIS, Aug. 6 (EIRNS)—In a feature on the existential threat of climate deregulation published on July 30, by Libération, the French daily presents a short quote from Dennis Meadows, co-author of the Malthusian Limits to Growth fraud published by the Club of Rome in 1972, and now a scientist at MIT. In 1972, only Lyndon LaRouche and his associates had the courage to immediately expose the Limits to Growth as a scientific and epistemological fraud, in a pamphlet headlined “Blueprint for Extinction,” which demonstrated that Meadows and Forrester’s program would require a special brand of “fascism with a human face” for its implementation.

Libération quotes Meadows as saying: “Climate deregulation, combined with the depletion of cheap fossil energy over the century, will eliminate the foundations of the current model of industrial civilization. We already observe a growing chaos such as uncontrolled migrations of populations between poor countries and in the direction of the richest. Chaos will worsen notably because it always provokes growing food shortages. We learned from history one absolute rule: When people have to choose between order and freedom, they will always choose order. The rise of authoritarianism is unavoidable. Personally, I’m very happy to live in a democracy. But we have to recognize that democracies don’t solve the existential problems of our time: climate deregulation, depletion of energy reserves, soil erosion, the rising income gap between rich and poor, etc.

“Do individual freedoms have to be given up to solve that? This issue implies that society has a capacity to anticipate and achieve proactive changes. I don’t see any proof of that. Personal freedoms are already restricted and this trend will continue. That will unfortunately not solve the problems provoking chaos, but in the short term increase the political power and the financial wealth of those supporting such authoritarian measures. All the current authoritarian governments—China, North Korea, Russia, etc. [sic]—are not solving the problems of our times.” Meadows implies that his brand of authoritarianism is the ostensible solution.

Correction: Yesterday’s Alert Editorial mistakenly said that President Donald Trump had called for a permanent base on the Moon by 2024. The plan is rather for a crewed landing in 2024, and establishment of a permanent presence in 2028.

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