ECONOMIC WEEK IN REVIEW

Why did the S&P 500 reach record highs last week in the U.S? 

For the same simplistic reason the mainstream business media gives for when they go down: the U.S.-China trade war. 

This time, it was “positive” news of a partial “Phase-One” deal to roll back tariffs that pushed up equities.

The dollar still remained strong at $98.40. Gold fell yesterday to $1,455 per ounce.

TREND FORECAST: Should gold drop below $1,450, it has the potential to slide to the $1,390 range, which we forecast will be the bottom.

Brent crude remains at the $62 range per barrel. 

OPEC is meeting in December to decide whether they’ll reduce production to meet a lowering demand. Operating oil rigs have been reduced to 684 this week, the lowest since April 2017. This same week last year, there were 886 active rigs.

Adding more pressure to the supply and demand issue, Brazil, Canada, Norway, and Guyana are expecting to add almost a million barrels of oil a day in 2020 – and a million more in 2021 – to a saturated market that outputs 80 million barrels a day. 

In an attempt to boost U.S. oil sales to Europe, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, speaking in Berlin last week on the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, played the “Let’s fear Russia” card. He said, “Today, Russia – led by a former KGB officer stationed in Dresden – invades its neighbors and slays political opponents.” 

He went on to state: “We – all of us, everyone in this room – has a duty… to recognize that free nations are in a competition of values with those unfree nations.”

What “competition of values”?

The same “competition of values” that the U.S. has used as excuse to invade/overthrow Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Venezuela… and impose sanctions on Iran: Oil.

Pompeo confirmed the “competition for values” was in fact oil by saying, “We make a tough case ensuring that Germany doesn’t become dependent on Russian energy. We don’t want Europe’s energy supplies to be dependent on Vladimir Putin.” 

It should be noted the U.S. has launched a relentless campaign to stop the Nord Stream pipeline project that would bring Russian natural gas to European nations, including Germany, via the Baltic Sea.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The U.S. has launched endless wars in the Middle East and continues to destabilize nations in South America over oil and natural resources. 

Yet among both political parties, the leading Democratic candidates running in the Presidential Reality Show, and the media, there is no moral outrage of the killing of millions and destroying entire nations in wars based on lies, costing taxpayers trillions of dollars to benefit Washington’s special interests.

If you would like to help reverse this trend, consider donating to Occupy Peace.

The time is now. According a recent Pew Research Center survey, 64 percent of veterans say the Iraq war was not worth fighting, while 58 percent of veterans say the same about Afghanistan.