The Dow Closes At A Record High For The 9th Straight Time But Experts Warn That A Stock Market Crash Could Be Imminent - Michael Snyder THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG

The Dow Closes At A Record High For The 9th Straight Time But Experts Warn That A Stock Market Crash Could Be Imminent

Posted: 07 Aug 2017  Michael Snyder  THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG

The bigger they come, the harder they fall.  On Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at a record high for the ninth straight session.  It has been a remarkable run, but many experts are pointing out that big trouble is brewing under the surface.  As you will see below, 79 components of the S&P 500 have already dropped more than 20 percent below their 52-week highs, and it is mostly just a handful of high flying tech stocks that are still propping up the market at this point. 

Over the past several weeks, I have been documenting so many of the prominent voices that are loudly warning about an imminent stock market crash, and in this article you will hear some more of these warnings.  There is no way that stock prices can keep going up like this, and when the inevitable correction does arrive it is going to be exceedingly painful for millions of investors.

When the market is about to turn in a major way, one of the key things to watch is market breadth, and according to Brad Lamensdorf market breadth has now turned “exceedingly negative”…

Market breadth, a measure of how many stocks are rising versus the number that are dropping, has turned “exceedingly negative,” according to Brad Lamensdorf, a portfolio manager at Ranger Alternative Management. Lamensdorf writes the Lamensdorf Market Timing Report newsletter and runs the AdvisorShares Ranger Equity Bear ETF HDGE, -0.70% an exchange-traded fund that “shorts” stocks, or bets that they will fall.
“As the indexes continue to produce a series of higher highs, subsurface conditions are painting an entirely different picture,” Lamensdorf wrote in the latest edition of the newsletter.

When Lamensdorf uses the phrase “exceedingly negative”, he is not exaggerating at all.  As I mentioned above, 79 components of the S&P 500 are already in a bear market…

According to an analysis of FactSet data, 79 components of the S&P 500 are trading at least 20% below their 52-week high; a bear market is typically defined as a 20% drop from a peak.

Another key measure that I like to keep my eye on is Robert Shiller’s cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings ratio.  At this point, it is roughly at the same level as it was just before the stock market crash of 1929, and the only time it has been higher was during the peak of the dotcom bubble.

This is why so many investors are making extremely large bets that a major correction is imminent.  History tells us that stocks are likely to only go down from here.  And when stocks do start falling, the price action could become quite violent.  In fact, Barry James is comparing this current market to the Yellowstone supervolcano…

Warning: A correction in the market is “inevitable” and there are three key factors that could spark chaos on Wall Street, according to James Advantage Fund president Barry James.
The investor likened the market to Yellowstone National Park’s famous supervolcano, which many believe is close to eruption.

Of course not everyone agrees with James.  Michael Wilson of Morgan Stanley insists that everything is just fine and that “there continues to be a level of skepticism that seems out of whack with what is actually happening”.

In the end, we will see how the coming months play out.

Over the past several years, there have been two primary trends that have been relentlessly driving up stock prices.  One of these trends has been an unprecedented level of stock buybacks.  And so far this year, hundreds of billions of dollars worth of stock buybacks have already been announced…

Through May, some $390 billion in buybacks have been announced this year, $13 billion more than at this time in 2016, according to figures compiled by Jeffrey Yale Rubin at Birinyi Associates, a stock market research firm.
June 28 was the biggest single buyback announcement day in history. That was when 26 banks disclosed buybacks worth $92.8 billion, largely a response to having just passed the stress tests administered by the Federal Reserve Board. That figure blew past the previous record of $56.4 billion announced on July 20, 2006.

Secondly, central banks have been pumping trillions upon trillions of dollars into the global financial system, and this has perhaps been the biggest reason for the surge in stock prices.  But now central banks are starting to pull back, and that could mean big trouble very soon.  The following comes from Matt King…

With asset prices displaying a high degree of correlation with central bank liquidity additions in recent years, that feedback loop makes the economy, upon which both corporate profitability and bank net interest margins depend, more reliant on central banks holding markets together than almost ever before. That delicate balance may well be sustained for the time being. But with central banks beginning to move, however gingerly, towards an exit, is it really worth chasing the last few bp of spread from here?

Throughout our history we have seen financial bubbles come and go, but we never seen to learn from our mistakes.  Right now, Warren Buffett is sitting on nearly 100 billion dollars in cash in anticipation of being able to buy up financial assets for a song after a crash happens, but meanwhile multitudes of ordinary Americans continue to pour vast quantities of money into stocks even at such absurd valuations.

Despite all of the warnings, many will be caught unprepared when the music stops playing.  Just like all of the other financial manias in our history, this one will come to a bitter end too.  The following comes from the New York Times…

In the late 1960s the mania was for the “nifty 50” American companies like Disney and McDonald’s, which had been the “go-go” stocks of that decade. In the late 1970s it was for natural resources, from gold to oil. In the late 1980s it was stocks in Japan, and in the late 1990s it was the dot-com boom. Last decade, investors flocked to mortgage-backed securities and big emerging markets from Brazil to Russia. In every case, many partygoers were still in the market when the crash came.

In life, timing is everything, and those that got out of the market in time are going to end up being very happy that they did so.

But those that stay in too long are going to see their “paper wealth” disappear in a blinding flash, and there won’t be any way to get it back once it is gone.

Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

The Bank For International Settlements Warns That A Major Debt Meltdown In China Is Imminent - Michael Snyder THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG

The Bank For International Settlements Warns That A Major Debt Meltdown In China Is Imminent Posted: 19 Sep 2016   Michael Snyder  THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG The pinnacle of the global financial system is warning that conditions are right for a “full-blown banking crisis” in China.  Since the last financial crisis, there has been a credit boom in China that is really unprecedented in world history.  At this point the total value of all outstanding loans in China has hit a grand total of more than 28 trillion dollars.  That is essentially equivalent to the commercial banking systems of the United States and Japan combined.  While it is true that government debt is under control in China, corporate debt is now 171 percent of GDP, and it is only a matter of time before that debt bubble horribly bursts.  The situation in China has already grown so dire that the Bank for International Settlements is sounding the alarm… A key gauge of credit vulnerability is now three times over the danger threshold and has continued to deteriorate, despite pledges by Chinese premier Li Keqiang to wean the economy off debt-driven growth before it is too late. The Bank for International Settlements warned in its quarterly report that China’s “credit to GDP gap” has reached 30.1, the highest to date and in a different league altogether from any other major country tracked by the institution. It is also significantly higher than the scores in East Asia’s speculative boom on 1997 or in the US subprime bubble before the Lehman crisis. Studies of earlier banking crises around the world over the last sixty years suggest that any score above ten requires careful monitoring. If you are not familiar with the Bank for International Settlements, just think of it as the capstone of the worldwide financial pyramid.  It wields enormous global power, and yet it is accountable to nobody.  The following is a summary of how the Bank for International Settlements works that comes from one of my previous articles entitled “Who Controls The Money? An Unelected, Unaccountable Central Bank Of The World Secretly Does“… An immensely powerful international organization that most people have never even heard of secretly controls the money supply of the entire globe.  It is called the Bank for International Settlements, and it is the central bank of central banks.  It is located in Basel, Switzerland, but it also has branches in Hong Kong and Mexico City.  It is essentially an unelected, unaccountable central bank of the world that has complete immunity from taxation and from national laws.  Even Wikipedia admits that “it is not accountable to any single national government.”  The Bank for International Settlements was used to launder money for the Nazis during World War II, but these days the main purpose of the BIS is to guide and direct the centrally-planned global financial system.  Today, 58 global central banks belong to the BIS, and it has far more power over how the U.S. economy (or any other economy for that matter) will perform over the course of the next year than any politician does.  Every two months, the central bankers of the world gather in Basel for another “Global Economy Meeting”.  During those meetings, decisions are made which affect every man, woman and child on the planet, and yet none of us have any say in what goes on.  The Bank for International Settlements is an organization that was founded by the global elite and it operates for the benefit of the global elite, and it is intended to be one of the key cornerstones of the emerging one world economic system. Normally the Bank for International Settlements is not prone to making extremely bold pronouncements, and so this warning about China seems a bit out of character. Is something going on behind the scenes that we don’t know about? Without a doubt, the global financial system is shakier and more vulnerable than most people would dare to imagine.  Global central banks have been on the greatest money creation spree in recorded history, and interest rates have been pushed to ridiculously low levels. If you can believe it, approximately 10 trillion dollars worth of bonds are trading at negative interest rates right now.  This is completely and utterly irrational, and when this giant bond bubble finally explodes it is going to create a crisis unlike anything the world has ever seen before. Just recently, Michael Pento of Pento Portfolio Strategies commented on this bubble… He said the current financial conditions are “the most dangerous markets i have ever witnessed in my entire life – and i’ve been investing for over 25 years… The membrane has been stretched so wide and so tight that its about to burst.” Pento believes that once the bond crash happens, it will trigger a cataclysmic wave of crashes throughout the entire global financial system… Mr Pento has now warned that when policymakers signal they are set to stop buying, which will stop bond prices rising, there is going to be a devastating crash – not just in bond markets but across all investment assets. He said: “When the bond market breaks, when that bubble bursts, it will wipe out every asset, everything will collapse together… I mean diamonds, sports cars, mutual funds, municipal bonds, fixed income, reits, collateralised loan obligations, stocks, bonds – even commodities – will collapse in tandem along with the bond bubble burst.” Many had been anticipating that we would have already seen a major financial crash in 2016, but so far things have been pretty stable, and this has lulled many into a false sense of complacency. But it is important to remember that we have seen corporate earnings fall for five quarters in a row, and it is expected to be six when the final numbers for the third quarter come in. Never before in history have we had a stretch like this without major economic and financial consequences.  The following comes from a recent Fortune article which referred to an earlier piece authored by Jim Bianco… None of this, however, is apparent from how stock market indexes have been moving lately, which unlike the charts above have been going up and to the right. “Since 1947, every time profits fell this much, or for this long, a recession was either underway or about to begin,” writes Bianco.“The only exception was the middle of 1986 to early 1987.” If you remember, there was a pretty important event that happened in 1987: A massive stock market crash that sapped close to 30% of the S&P 500’s value in just five days. It is only a matter of time before this earnings recession takes a major bite out of Wall Street. Stock prices can stay at irrationally high levels for quite a while, but history has shown that every bubble bursts eventually. And when this bubble bursts, it is going to make 2008 look like a walk in the park.

Major Eruption Imminent? Earthquake Swarms Reported at Mt. Hood, Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens - MICHAEL SNYDER CHARISMA NEWS

Major Eruption Imminent? Earthquake Swarms Reported at Mt. Hood, Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens

 5/18/2016 MICHAEL SNYDER  charisma news

Is an eruption of one or more of the major volcanoes in the northwest United States imminent? (Public Domain)

Is an eruption of one or more of the major volcanoes in the northwest United States imminent? In recent days, very large earthquake swarms have been reported at Mt. Hood, Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens. It is certainly not unusual for each of these volcanoes to experience earthquake swarms from time to time, but right now we are seeing this happen at all three volcanoes simultaneously, and this comes at a time when seismic activity along the Ring of Fire is on the rise all over the planet. If you have followed my work for a while, then you probably already know that I have been consistently warning that an eruption of Mt. Rainier is coming, and of course Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens are exceedingly dangerous volcanoes as well. If any one of the three were to erupt on a massive scale, it would instantly become the biggest news story of the year.

Mt. St. Helens

Many of my older readers remember the devastating eruption of Mt. St. Helens back in 1980 very well. This volcano is probably not as dangerous as Mt. Hood, and it is definitely not as dangerous as Mt. Rainier, but a full-blown eruption could still do an immense amount of damage to nearby communities.

Over the past couple of months, there has been a very disturbing series of earthquakes at Mt. St. Helens, and just within the last 30 days, there have been 103 quakes. In this article, I am going to share with you a series of maps that come from the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network via Google Earth. 

Scientists tell us that the reason for all of this activity at Mt. St. Helens is because the magma chamber is likely recharging.

Multiple small earthquakes beneath the surface of Mount St. Helens the past two months suggest it may be recharging magma.

These tiny quakes which started March 14 have been happening at a depth of two and seven kilometers—or 1.2 to four miles beneath the surface. Over the last eight weeks, there have been over 130 earthquakes formally located by the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network and many more too small to be located, says USGS.

The small earthquakes beneath the surface may suggest Mount St. Helens is recharging magma. The magma chamber is likely imparting its own stresses on the crust around and above it as the system slowly recharges. The pressure drives fluids through cracks, producing the small quakes, per USGS.

Mt. Hood

Mount Hood is located only about 50 miles away from Portland, Oregon, and it is one of the most dangerous volcanoes in America. Over the past 30 days, there have been 96 earthquakes at Mt. Hood, and most of them have been centered on the south side of the mountain.

According to Wired, the majority of the earthquakes that are happening are at a depth of between three and five kilometers, and this could be a sign that magma is ascending.

Right now, the earthquake swarm at Mt. Hood is centered just to the south of the main edifice (see below) and most of the earthquakes are between 3 and 5 kilometers below the surface. This is likely the zone where magma is being staged as it ascends from its source.

Mt. Rainier

There haven't been quite as many earthquakes at Mt. Rainier over the past 30 days—only 37—but without a doubt it is potentially more dangerous than either Mt. Hood or Mt. St. Helens because it sits so close to major population centers.

For a long time, I have been warning about the apocalyptic consequences that a major eruption of Mt. Rainier would have. For example, here is an excerpt from one of my previous articles.

Mt. Rainier has been dubbed a "time bomb," "the most dangerous mountain in the United States" and "one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world" because it sits so close to Seattle, Tacoma and other major cities along the coast of Washington state. In the event of a full-blown eruption, countless numbers of people would literally be buried alive in a tsunami of super-heated mud. These tsunamis of super-heated mud are known as "lahars," and scientists believe that Mt. Rainier is capable of producing lahars that could move at speeds of up to 50 miles per hour. I am so convinced that an eruption of Mt. Rainier is in our future that I even put one in my novel.

My wife and I once lived out near Seattle for about a year, and we know very well that Mt. Rainier looms in the distance as an ever-present reminder of the major disaster that is coming someday. This extremely dangerous volcano is clearly visible from the central part of Seattle.

It is hard to even describe the death and destruction that we could potentially witness during a full-blown eruption of Mt. Rainier. According to Wikipedia, super-heated mud from Mt. Rainier could potentially even "destroy parts of downtown Seattle."

If Mt. Rainier were to erupt as powerfully as Mount St. Helens did in its May 18, 1980, eruption, the effect would be cumulatively greater, because of the far more massive amounts of glacial ice locked on the volcano compared to Mount St. Helens[33] and the vastly more heavily populated areas surrounding Rainier.[38] Lahars from Rainier pose the most risk to life and property,[39] as many communities lie atop older lahar deposits. According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), about 150,000 people live on top of old lahar deposits of Rainier.[8] Not only is there much ice atop the volcano, the volcano is also slowly being weakened by hydrothermal activity. According to Geoff Clayton, a geologist with a Washington State Geology firm, RH2 Engineering, a repeat of the Osceola mudflow would destroy Enumclaw, Orting, Kent, Auburn, Puyallup, Sumner and all of Renton.[32] Such a mudflow might also reach down the Duwamish estuary and destroy parts of downtown Seattle, and cause tsunamis in Puget Sound and Lake Washington.[40] Rainier is also capable of producing pyroclastic flows and expelling lava.

Scientists assure us that someday Mt. Rainier will experience another massive eruption, and it will be an apocalyptic event unlike anything the northwest United States has ever experienced before. Let us just hope and pray that we have a lot more time until that happens, because nobody should ever want to witness death and destruction on that scale.

Unfortunately, the crust of our planet is becoming increasingly unstable, and the west coast of our country sits directly along the Ring of Fire. It is only a matter of time until a major seismic event strikes, and it may be a lot sooner than a lot of people think.

Michael Snyder is the founder and publisher of End Of The American Dream. Michael’s controversial new book about Bible prophecy entitled "The Rapture Verdict"is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

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Michael Snyder - THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG: Robert Kiyosaki And Harry Dent Warn That Financial Armageddon Is Imminent

Robert Kiyosaki And Harry Dent Warn That Financial Armageddon Is Imminent Posted: 30 Mar 2016  Michael Snyder  THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG Financial experts Robert Kiyosaki and Harry Dent are both warning that the next major economic crash is in our very near future.  Dent is projecting that the Dow will fall to “5,500 to 6,000 by late 2017″, and Kiyosaki actually originally projected that a great crash was coming in 2016 all the way back in 2002.   Of course we don’t exactly have to wait for things to get bad.  The truth is that things are not really very good at the moment by any stretch of the imagination.  Approximately one-third of all Americans don’t make enough money to even cover the basic necessities, 23 percent of adults in their prime working years are not employed, and corporate debt defaults have exploded to the highest level that we have seen since the last financial crisis.  But if Kiyosaki and Dent are correct, economic conditions in this country will soon get much, much worse than this. During a recent interview, Harry Dent really went out on a limb by staking his entire reputation on a prediction that we would experience “the biggest global bubble burst in history” within the next four years… There will be… and I will stake my entire reputation on this… we are going to see the biggest global bubble burst in history in the next four years… There’s only one way out of this bubble and that is for it to burst… all this stuff is going to reset back to where it should be without all this endless debt, endless printed money, stimulus and zero interest rate policy. And of course he is far from alone.  Without a doubt, we are currently in the terminal phases of the greatest financial bubble the world has ever known, and it is exceedingly difficult to see any way that it will not end very, very badly. Ultimately, Dent believes that we could see U.S. stocks lose two-thirds of their value by late next year… The Dow, I’m projecting, will hit 5,500 to 6,000 by late 2017… just in the next year and a half or so.  That’ll be most of the damage… then it will rally and there’ll be some aftershocks into 2020… my four cycles point down into early 2020 and then they start one after the other to turn up… I think the worst will be over by 2020, but the worst of that will be by the end of 2017. If that does happen, it will be a far worse crash than what we experienced back in 2008, and the economic consequences will be absolutely terrifying. Another highly respected financial expert that is making similar claims is Robert Kiyosaki.  My wife is a big fan of his books, and I have always held him in high regard. But what I didn’t realize is that he had actually predicted that there would be a major financial crash all the way back in 2002… Fourteen years ago, the author of a series of popular personal-finance books predicted that 2016 would bring about the worst market crash in history, damaging the financial dreams of millions of baby boomers just as they started to depend on that money to fund retirement. Broader U.S. stock markets are recovering from the worst 10-day start to a year on record. But Robert Kiyosaki — who made that 2016 forecast in the 2002 book “Rich Dad’s Prophecy” — says the meltdown is under way, and there’s little investors can do but buy gold or silver and hope the Federal Reserve slows the slide. I agree with Kiyosaki that one way that investors can shield their wealth is by getting gold and silver.  In a recent article, I explained exactly why I believe that silver in particular is ridiculously undervalued right now. Kiyosaki also believes that the coming crash could be delayed a bit if the Federal Reserve decided to embark on another round of quantitative easing.  But even if that happens, Kiyosaki is absolutely convinced that eventually “it’s all going to come down”… Kiyosaki told MarketWatch that the combination of demographics and global economic weakness makes the next crash inevitable — but the Fed could stave it off with another round of quantitative easing, which might stimulate the economy. The Fed turned more dovish at its March meeting, with the central bank penciling in fewer interest-rate hikes this year than were previously part of its implied framework. The Fed signaled those hikes would happen more slowly than had been anticipated earlier, owing to a weak global economic environment and a volatile stock market. “The big question [whether] we do ‘QE4,’” said Kiyosaki. “If we do, the stock market will come roaring back, but it’s not rocket science. If we stop printing money, it crashes; if we print money, it goes up. But, eventually, it’s all going to come down.” Another voice that I have come to respect is Jim Rickards.  He is not quite as apocalyptic as Kiyosaki or Dent, but without a doubt he is deeply concerned about where the global economy is headed… Global growth is slowing both because of weakness in developed economies like Europe and Japan, and weakness in some of the emerging markets champions such as China, Brazil and Russia. The limits of monetary policy have been reached. The evidence is now clear that negative interest rates don’t stimulate spending; they are only good for devaluation in the ongoing currency wars. World trade is shrinking; a rare phenomenon usually associated with recession or depression. And he is exactly right.  The economic downturn that we are witnessing is truly global in scope.  Brazil has plunged into an economic depression, the Italian banking system is in the process of completely melting down, and Japan has implemented negative interest rates in a desperate attempt to keep their Ponzi scheme going but it really isn’t working.  In fact, Japanese industrial production just crashed by the most that we have seen since the tsunami of 2011. Here in the United States, investors are generally feeling pretty good right now because stocks have rebounded substantially in recent weeks.  However, Rickards is warning that this rebound is very temporary… Stocks are clearly in a bubble. The stock market is ignoring the strong dollar, which in turn hurts exports and devalues overseas earnings. It is also ignoring declining corporate earnings, imminent defaults in the energy sector, and declining global growth in general. Never mind. As long as money is cheap and leverage is plentiful, there’s no reason not to bid up stock prices, and wait for the greater fool to bid them up some more. There is so much that we could learn from all these three men. Sadly, just like we saw in 2008, most Americans are ignoring the warnings. The mainstream media has conditioned the public to trust them, and right now the mainstream media is insisting that everything is going to be just fine. So will everything be just fine as the months roll along? We will just have to wait and see…

World War III Approaches: Saudi Arabia And Turkey Drop Hints That An Invasion Of Syria Is Imminent - MICHAEL SNYDER THE ECONOMIC COLLPASE

World War III Approaches: Saudi Arabia And Turkey Drop Hints That An Invasion Of Syria Is Imminent Posted: 15 Feb 2016   MICHAEL SNYDER  THE ECONOMIC COLLPASE As you read this article, Turkish forces are massing along the border with Syria, and the largest “military exercises” in the history of the Middle East are being held in northern Saudi Arabia.  The Saudis are publicly warning that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad “will be removed by force” if a political solution cannot be found, and Turkey is claiming that it may have to establish a “safe zone” in northern Syria “for humanitarian purposes”.   Saudi Arabia, Turkey and their Sunni allies have poured massive amounts of money and arms into the conflict in Syria, and now that their Sunni insurgents are on the verge of total defeat, they are trying to come up with a way to justify going in there and doing the job themselves. For the Saudis, their focus is on trying to convince everyone that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is an extremely dangerous dictator that must be removed at all costs.  The following comes from the London Independent… Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will be removed by force if the peace process fails, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister has said. “Bashar al-Assad will leave – have no doubt about it,” Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told CNN. “He will either leave by a political process or he will be removed by force.” Saudi Arabia has sent troops and fighter jets to a Turkish military base ahead of a possible ground invasion of Syria. So precisely who will be doing the “removing” if force is necessary? Are the Saudis ready to send in ground troops? Apparently they are.  Just consider what Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told CNN… Saudi Foreign Minister Jubeir made clear that his country’s troops would not go it alone. “I can tell you that there is some serious discussion going on with regards to looking at a ground component in Syria, because there has to be a possibility of taking and holding ground, that one cannot do from the air.” “We are saying we will participate within the U.S.-led coalition, should this coalition decide to send ground troops into Syria, that we are prepared to send special forces with those troops.” But if the Saudis try to take Damascus and remove Assad by force, the Syrians and their allies will certainly fight back.  That means that the Saudis will be fighting Hezbollah, the Iranians and the Russians. Needless to say, Saudi Arabia is going to need a lot of help to do that. So that may explain why Saudi Arabia has organized the largest “military exercise” in the history of the Middle East.  CNN finally reported on this gigantic gathering of military forces in northern Saudi Arabia earlier today… Saudi Arabia launched a massive military exercise that will include troops from 20 nations, state media reported Monday. The drill, dubbed North Thunder, involves Arab and Muslim countries, according to the Saudi Press Agency. It’s taking place in King Khalid Military City in northeastern Saudi Arabia. The news agency did not provide much information on what the exercise entails but called it “the largest in the region’s history.” The agency said it will involve air, sea and land forces. This is the list of nations that are reportedly participating in these “exercises” so far… -Saudi Arabia -Jordan -Bahrain -Senegal -Oman -Qatar -United Arab Emirates -Sudan -Kuwait -the Maldives -Morocco -Pakistan -Chad -Tunisia -Comoro Islands -Djibouti -Malaysia -Egypt -Mauritania -Mauritius As I discussed yesterday, 350,000 soldiers, 20,000 tanks, 2,450 warplanes and 460 military helicopters are reportedly gathering for these “military exercises”. To me, that seems to be a great deal of overkill if the goal is just “training”. Here is more about these “exercises” from RT… The Saudi state agency made the announcement on Sunday, adding that participating troops will begin arriving in “the next few hours.” The oil-rich nation described the exercises as “the largest and most important” military drills in the region’s history. The so-called “Northern Thunder” exercise will take place in the north of the country and will include air, sea and land forces. SPA said that it will show that Riyadh and its allies “stand united in confronting all challenges and preserving peace and stability in the region.” So are these forces massing for a ground invasion of Syria? We shall see. In the end, we probably won’t have to wait too long before we find out the answer. Meanwhile, Turkish officials continue to assert that they may have to establish a “safe zone” for refugees in northern Syria.  Since thousands of refugees are continually pouring their direction, they claim that they have no other choice but to go in and take control of the situation. In fact, Turkey has already established several very large refugee camps on the Syrian side of the border… Some 100,000 Syrian refugees are being looked after in camps inside Syria close to the Turkish border, including 35,000 who this month fled a Russian-backed regime offensive in northern Aleppo province, a top Turkish official said Friday. Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Yalcin Akdogan, whose country has come under increasing pressure to open its border to people fleeing the violence, said the refugees were being accommodated in nine camps just across the border with Syria. But make no mistake – this is not just about helping refugees. The truth is that ISIS has been using Turkey as a home base for years, and hundreds of millions of dollars of ISIS oil has been shipped into Turkey where it has then been sold to the rest of the world.  Barack Obama knows about all of this, and yet he has refused to do anything to stop it. At this point the cooperation between ISIS and Turkey has become so obvious that even CNN is admitting that ISIS militants are being resupplied from Turkey… To the east of Aleppo, Kurdish forces are, with American support, eyeing the remaining ISIS strongholds along the Turkish border — Jarablus and Manbij. The U.S. wants ISIS out, to remove its access to resupply of materiel and fighters from Turkey. Meanwhile, Turkey, America’s NATO ally that is engaged in a brutal but often unseen war with the Kurds’ allies in Turkey’s southeast, doesn’t want the Kurds to advance, and may stop at nothing to prevent that. Fortunately, the Russian bombing campaign has pretty much put an end to the endless parade of ISIS oil trucks that were entering Turkey, and now the primary supply line to Sunni militants in the strategically important city of Aleppo is about to be cut off. The corridor that runs through the city of Azaz is vitally important, and the Prime Minister of Turkey recently insisted that the Turkish government “will not allow Azaz to fall”… Turkey shelled YPG positions for a third straight day on Monday to try to stop its fighters seizing Azaz, just 8 km from the border. Ankara fears the Kurdish militia, backed by Russia, is trying to secure the last stretch of around 100 km along the Syrian border not already under its control. “We will not allow Azaz to fall,” Davutoglu told reporters on his plane on the way to Ukraine. “If they approach again they will see the harshest reaction,” he said. Unfortunately for the Turkish government, it appears that Azaz is already slipping away from the militants.  The following was reported by an Iranian news source… Ankara is likely to take action to counter the Syrian military and allied groups on choking up a supply link on which militants relied to get weapons and logistics. Syrian troops and Lebanon’s Hezbollah fighters have retaken the town of Azaz, located to the northwest of Aleppo, prompting Saudi Arabia and Turkey to hint at deployment of ground forces to the region. Asked if Ankara might act to reverse the gains, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu (seen below) said on Friday, “Wait for the next few days and you will have the answer,” Turkish paper Hurriyet reported. Wait for the next few days and you will have the answer? That sounds rather ominous. Like I said yesterday, I don’t think that I have ever seen a scenario which was more likely to lead to World War III than the one that we are watching play out right now. Do Saudi Arabia and Turkey actually expect to waltz into Syria and start taking territory without a response from the Syrians, Hezbollah, the Iranians and the Russians? And if fighting does break out, how is the United States possibly going to stay out of it? The truth is that Saudi Arabia and Turkey would never invade Syria in the first place without the express approval of the Obama administration. The next couple of weeks are key.  If we can get into early March without an invasion, by that time Saudi Arabia and Turkey may have missed their window.  The troops gathered for the massive military exercise in northern Saudi Arabia will start to go home, and by then the Sunni militants remaining in Aleppo will probably be pretty much completely defeated. But will Saudi Arabia and Turkey really be willing to walk away after pouring so much time, effort and money into the conflict in Syria?  They had dreamed of turning Syria into a full-blown Sunni nation, and if they give up now Syria will end up being dominated by Iran and Hezbollah.  It will be a result that is far worse than if they never tried to overthrow Assad in the first place. So my gut feeling is telling me that Saudi Arabia, Turkey and their Sunni allies are not done in Syria.  But their obsession with that country threatens to plunge us into World War III, and if that happens the consequences will be felt by every man, woman and child on the entire planet.