News & Analysis
IMF Fantasy Report: Afghanistan Needs a VAT!
Afghan economy better than expected, says IMF ... In 2013, the economy will continue to grow and inflation is expected to be stable. An IMF report, released on Monday, noted that a large crop has boosted real GDP growth to 12 per cent and helped moderate inflation, which was 6pc year-on-year in December 2012. The IMF team reached staff level understandings with the authorities on a path to complete the combined 2nd and 3rd reviews, subject to implementation of key structural benchmarks for submission of laws to parliament and strengthening banks' capital. − Dawn
Dominant Social Theme: Let us civilize Afghanistan properly with a stiff dose of Western regulatory democracy.
Free-Market Analysis: We often repeat our points because they are idiosyncratic and no one else will. Perhaps it costs us readership but the truth is not always convenient.
One important argument is that the West's current wars are for control not resources. We get a lot of pushback on this because we don't offer the standard argument that the West is in the grip of despotic corporations looting impoverished countries via military action and unilateral demands.
In fact, we don't believe corporations run the world at all. We believe corporations are run by a tiny, ruthless power elite and that this power elite does not care about resources, as the world contains plenty of resources and the elite already controls most of them.
The furor over Peak Oil is just one example. Turns out that fracking allows US and Australian industry – just two examples – to turn from oil importers into oil exporters.
There are also reports (on alternative websites) that fracking is a suppressed technology that has been around for decades.
Oil, like most other resources, would likely be in plentiful supply were the Invisible Hand allowed to operate. But a power elite struggling to create world government suppresses easy access to many resources. It even attempts to make food and water scarce.
Scarcity is a main dominant social theme of the elite. Another dominant social theme is that modern war is necessary for self-defense or it is part of a "great game" played by nation-states to gain resource advantages and strategic dominance.
Today, the Great Game is supposedly being played out between the US and China.
But this is probably nonsense. China was controlled entirely by British officials throughout the 1800s. And there is ample evidence that Western powers have steered China's fate ever since and even conspired to put Mao in power.
Elites NEED faux opposition in order to make their world-spanning plans a reality. They create false-flag opposition and resultant military conflicts all the time.
The war in Afghanistan famously has no purpose and no reason at this point to exist. But the mainstream media is constantly offering rationales. The most popular ones nowadays often have to do with occupying Afghanistan so that it does not fall into the Chinese "orbit."
Of course, the Pentagon INVITED China into Afghanistan to exploit Afghan minerals and energy resources. But we are presumably not supposed to remember this.
The other fortitudinous event that has come out of the war in Afghanistan is that it has given the West the opportunity to build a civilized economy in what had been a tribal backwater.
This is the "White Man's Burden" dominant social theme, a hoary one that has been dusted off with new rhetoric.
The power elite never lets memes go. It just dusts them off and recycles them.
The IMF in this case is the "white man" and this article in Dawn is intended to be a reaffirmation of how far Afghanistan has come since the US decided to attack it, er ... free it, er ... keep it out of the hands of the Chinese, er ... civilize it.
Well, you get the point. Here's more:
The economic outlook for Afghanistan is broadly positive and growth and inflation in 2912 were better than expected, says the International Monetary Fund.
An IMF team visited Kabul during Jan 19 to Feb 2 to conduct discussions on the combined second and third reviews of Afghanistan's IMF-supported programme under the Extended Credit Facility.
To build revenue momentum over the medium term, the Afghan authorities will continue and intensify their preparations for the successful implementation of the value-added tax in 2014.
You may believe all this is, dear reader, but we don't. What it does tell us is that the REAL reason for the Afghan war had to do with extending the power elite franchise in order to put the finishing touches on the feasibility of world government.
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Northern Africa were evidently and obviously not fully under elite control. That's the reason that war has flared up in these regions, from what we can tell.
War is the anvil. Supra-national organizations like the IMF are the hammer.
They are brought in after the fire of war has raged to reshape the economy. In this case, we can see that the IMF intends to inflict on Afghanistan all of the failed recipes with which it has tortured other economies.
Its officials want VAT taxes, austerity and certain economic policies. In this case, the IMF has done us a service because the ludicrousness of this report highlights the REAL reason for the Afghan war.
Afghanistan is in no way a Western country and the latest attempt at bringing it into the Western orbit has seemingly failed, just as a previous one 100 years ago failed.
The exact same outcome is anticipated. The stubborn Pashtuns and devious Punjabis – two of the oldest tribes in the world – have fought off Western depredations and probably ended incipient hopes of creating true world government.
The IMF's ridiculous verbiage is highlighted for us in this regard. Afghanistan was supposed to be pacified by now. But the idea of the Taliban paying a VAT tax only emphasizes the disconnect between what the Western power elite intended and what has actually occurred.
There probably will be no VAT tax in Afghan's immediate future. There may not even be a Karzai government or a central bank or any of the other "modern" facilities of economic control that the West has tried to emplace.
The IMF may end up exiled. Women may continue to wear veils and be educated separately.
Some of the changes the West wished to bring to Afghanistan were no doubt positive. But these changes were mostly promotional.
The real reason the US and NATO were in Afghanistan was to impose a Western style demos onto a tribal peoples.
Not for resources. Not to fight China.
To control what's left of the world. The IMF proscriptions show us that.
Western-style regulatory democracy is not an unmitigated blessing, by any means. The elites that propound it have an agenda that has nothing to do with the betterment of the world.
They are seeking to rule this weary globe not to better it.
The IMF was supposed to be in charge by now. Instead, its silly – and injurious – recipes ring hollow.
We can see in their purveyance what was really intended – and what will probably not come to pass.
The elites that want to run the world justify war in all sorts of ways. Do not be fooled. There are plenty of resources and those who run such places as China have much more in common with Western power elites than they do with anyone else.
Conclusion: Please internalize this insight to better understand the Way the World Really Works.
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Posted by Summer on 02/07/13 02:12 PM
For the most part an excellent article.
DB: They are brought in after the fire of war has raged to reshape the economy. In this case, we can see that the IMF intends to inflict on Afghanistan all of the failed recipes with which it has tortured other economies.
Via interest - lone-shark scum!
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Posted by JMcClarin on 02/07/13 05:38 AM
"noted that a large crop has boosted real GDP growth"
Can they possibly mean the opium crop? Isn't that what drives the Afghan economy? Is the IMF seeing green shoots in the poppy fields here?
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Posted by marty on 02/06/13 11:15 PM
No no no, you've got it all wrong. In Afghanistan, VAT stands for Veil Added Tax. A per wife tax on wealthy muslims that can afford more than one wife!
Seriously, though, there is little enough nonsubsistence economic activity in the country now. Who in their right mind, would deploy their capital there? What kind of idiot, would decrease the incentive to create value? Do they want everyone but the NATO military to starve. I suppose that would solve some problems for Washington.
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Posted by daddy warbucks on 02/06/13 04:23 PM
Thank you again for connecting the dots.
I would love to see you guys do an easy to understand article on what the UN and all it's agencies are costing the world.
One federal dollar in the USA costs tens times more than if a 'state' dollar did the same job, imagine what an 'international' dollar must cost?
Afghanistan, what a convenient, out of the way, place to grow the 'crop' to use to control targeted populations (and make $$$$$$$$$ for payoffs, and such while working in the shadows). Can we say HBSC?
I doubt you will see push back from China and Russia regarding the UN's Agenda 21 because it fits so well into their own central control of everything model.
Speaking of China have you noticed all the articles, images and videos of masked Chinese trying to survive the pollution?
There is no reason for this pollution, scrubber technology has been around for decades & would fix their problem almost overnight. It is economical, easy to retrofit, very effective in capturing particles (that can be recycled as a 'product'), would create another market, service and manufacturing base (JOBS).
But this of course doesn't fit the NWO talking points for the 'carbon tax' & 'global warming' pushing UN regulatory mega maniacs, world banksters and elitists that need to sell their carbon credits & control you & tax you.
This is an all out COAL IS BAD propaganda campaign to again mis lead the masses into the 'global warming' world scam.
Coalition plans tax on fresh air to 'help improve environment'
1 Apr 2011
THE air we breathe is set to be taxed as part of a revolutionary Government plan to raise more money.
Rural folk will have to cough up the most under the new charge - already dubbed a gasp bill - while those living in our polluted cities will be expected to pay less.
Excerpt:
Special plants will later be built to capture clean air and regulate its flow around the country, monitored by tracking devices being developed at Ayr University.
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Instead of capturing the pollution 'before' it goes into the air, capture the clean air and sell it to the people that will be taxed endlessly and forced to pay to breath. As long as the air stays polluted a great market will exist for the elites.
It is evident rural areas are now being -attacked (see below), I'm guessing once they establish their rural control they will then move outward towards larger towns and cities. All the while the puppet governments around the world will tell you it will help reduce levels of asthma and bronchitis.
The NWO and world banks are in full throttle, they know there is a growing and dangerous threat to their plan so they are forging ahead ASAP before to many people wake up and start picking off the complicit local officials allowing their communities to be overcome by a few vampire squid.
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Google: Amid Federal Land Grab in Brazil, Whole Towns Evicted at Gunpoint by Alex Newman
Federal Brazilian police and military personnel, some wearing United Nations insignia, are forcibly relocating whole communities in Brazil at gunpoint under the guise of returning huge tracts of land to a small group of Indians whose ancestors were allegedly there at some point.
Excerpt:
Critics& local residents have accused the government of Brazil of mass corruption, saying the end goal is to smash private property ownership &all potential resistance - starting with the rural population. They argue, among other points, that federal authorities are doing the bidding of foreign interests &are in cahoots w/ the UN, massive international corporations, Western-based non-governmental organizations like Greenpeace, &other interests.
Remember this?
Armed Troops Burn Down Homes, Kill Children To Evict Ugandans In Name Of Global Warming
Prison Planet, September 23, 2011
Armed troops acting on behalf of a British carbon trading company backed by the World Bank burned houses to the ground and killed children to evict Ugandans from their homes in the name of seizing land to protect against 'global warming,' a shocking illustration of how the climate change con is a barbarian form of neo-colonialism.'
'The evictions were ordered by New Forests Company, an outfit that seizes land in Africa to grow trees then sells the 'carbon credits' on to transnational corporations. The company is backed by the World Bank and HSBC. Its Board of Directors includes HSBC Managing Director Sajjad Sabur, as well as other former Goldman Sachs investment bankers.'
Act locally will be the most effective way to stop the needed complicit local officials, will enough people wake up in time?
The UN seems to be getting 'back door' funding as the world is going broke:
The EPA in the USA is now working 'internationally' (INTERNATIONALLY'?) with the UN; the EPA has awarded a five-year, $2.5 million grant (US citizen's taxes) to the UNU Institute for Sustainability and Peace (UNU-ISP)…we've been taxed to fund UNU since 1972, how's that 'sustainablility and peace' going UNU? How many of these UNU professors and administrators are now retired with tax funded pensions? For accomplishing what?
and where the fek did the EPA get the money?
Did they first mention that to the people freezing in New Jersey? This is (actually 'you will' pay) to clean up 'e-trash' around the world (around the world?), at least that is what they are telling us what the money is for. So, the USA is providing the world's libraries with $6,000 (each, google it) Kindals that is creating some of the "e-trash" and now is also the world's trash collectors?'for Sustainability and Peace' right.
... and this:
'Should Law Enforcement Agencies Have The Power To Write And Enforce Whatever Laws They Desire?'Posted on August 4, 2011 "This is how unelected bureaucrats, such as those in the EPA, can write law that wasn't necessarily intended by the Congress. We see it all the time. A good example are the recent new regulations being promulgated by the EPA to control carbon emissions from power generating plants that effectively will enforce a carbon cap-and-trade law that the Congress has in fact already rejected."
If you write the law you can fund yourself at will. Here's a few more UN agencies that we need to stop funding with our taxes:The UN 'World Tourist Organization' (UNWTO), another tax black hole.UNESCO & ICLEI, recently exposed in their war on private property rights & liberty -Agenda 21
NO WONDER THE WORLD IS GOING BROKE! (while slowly enslaved)
The UN, the other vampire squid, and all it's agencies needs to be defunded & kicked out of every country
The UN has already control over your parks, water (google it) & is well into forcing carbon taxes, Agenda 21 & smart meters down your throat, seize your property, shackle you with regulations, eliminate gun rights and other freedoms.
Reply from The Daily Bell
Obviously you are good at putting dots together yourself ... A somewhat depressing picture unfortunately. Anyway, you perceive as we do that the elites are speeding up their plans - probably before the Internet entirely exposes them to an overwhelming mass of people. It may already be too late ...
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Posted by IndyLyn on 02/06/13 02:31 PM
"Please internalize this insight to better understand the Way the World Really Works"
I've never considered myself the brightest penny in pile... but this is perfectly clear to me. Why not to so many others?
Reply from The Daily Bell
Because you are not afraid to read and think, IndyLyn.
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Posted by dave jr on 02/06/13 12:01 PM
Dawn: An IMF report, released on Monday, noted that a large crop has boosted real GDP...
jr: What crop? Is it the cheif export of +/- 300 billion per year street value... ?
DB: We believe corporations are run by a tiny, ruthless power elite and that this power elite does not care about resources, as the world contains plenty of resources and the elite already controls most of them.
jr: Why would the tiny elite maintain control of something they don't care about? Really, control of anything beyond oneself doesn't come without a price. Please stop using corporations as an all inclusive entity. ie. a vehicle can be used for everyday transportation or as a get away car.
Readership aside, it is always fascinating listening to anyone contradict themselves.
My understanding of peak oil doesn't buy into the scarcity meme. My theory is based on the link between the standard of living increase due to available energy and the cost in terms of human effort to extract said energy. And the price of war is just one ledger entry of cost. You are right that it is not about profit, except that it may help fund a war. Is is more about the fact that a modern economy is hinged on energy. It is about control of economy which is control of everyones daily activity.
In order to control, one needs to take away (gain control) any and every means that individuals can use to be self sufficient, period.
Reply from The Daily Bell
"Why would the tiny elite maintain control of something they don't care about?"
We think they care about controlling as much of the world as possible. Interesting point you make about the "crop."
