Hello Gaiaman:

Many, many thanks for answering my questions concerning the financial and geopolitical crises on the horizon. I'll venture to guess that the reason that Shanghai may be strong in your visions is because of the Shanghai Co-op (SCO)- which perfectly encapsulates your visions of China/Russian cooperation in the mideast and other areas. Here's a brief but recent snippet about it from the "Turkish Weekly" - ( [link to www.turkishweekly.net]

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"Is the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation the ‘rising beast in the East’? (Thursday , 23 August 2007)

"When Moscow and Beijing engineered the creation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) six years ago, I am not sure if they foresaw its emergence as an important actor in the international order.

Iran, India, Pakistan and Mongolia, currently observers, are lobbying hard to get accepted into this club. The US request for membership was rejected two years ago. A number of American scholars view the SCO as a challenge to Western interests. It has been described as an enigma, a security organization, a regional forum, an anti-terrorism coalition, and as a Russian and Chinese-led alliance created to counter US hegemony. Some have described it as the beginning of a new Warsaw Pact-type organization (or a “NATO of the East”). It seems that the SCO is set to play a major role in the emerging geo-political fault lines in the region, and indeed, in the world."
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...and here's another snippet about the Shanghai Coop from a financial website.
[link to www.321gold.com]
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"...Two other boxers are in the ring, rarely even mentioned in a military setting. The older boxer lurks behind the Iranian curtain when not donning European colors, unrecognized by the US intrepid lapdog press. The bear is in key respects every bit the counter-puncher. It is Russia, which is assembling a gigantic energy juggernaut as awesome as Japan's manufacturing powerhouse in the 1980 and 1990 decades. The younger boxer hides not at all, strutting its national bird in the urban crane and boasting of unprecedented growth. The dragon possesses wisdom in battle from ancient times (see Sun Tzu). It is China, which has assembled its own archipelago of industrial plants. Being the nexus of the new alliances, Iran thus stands as the quintessential prize fight location. The Shanghai Coop Organization receives painfully little open public attention or discussion, despite its growing importance. SCO represents in my view all the energy components of OPEC with all the security components in NATO, but with zero US involvement and thus zero US dominance."
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Here in Shanghai, locals and western expats are absolutely oblivious to what may be happening right in front of them in the very near future - everything is just fine...economy is booming and everybody gets along great. People REFUSE to see the storm clouds on the horizon. So, I make it a point for my band to always do CCR's "Bad Moon Rising" at our regular gigs - and substitute a few phrases in such as "subprime meltdown" just to slip some Reality in on them subliminally, but too little - too late, I think.

However, I am absolutely amazed at the forecasts coming from sober-minded but non-mainstream financial websites (financial sense online, safehaven.com), in that they are now closely matching the predictions on this thread. These people arrived at their predictions from the conventional "hard facts" world of financial research - where metaphysics is not tolerated, but also where if you stick your head in the sand concerning unpleasant facts - you lose big - as the mainstream herd is now finding out about their housing investments. The fact that relevant predictions in this thread are now being echoed by financial forecasters, should give all of us a good reason to start preparing in earnest, me included.

Sorry for the long post - but I just wanted to share some information that might shed some light on how and why this China/Russian prediction could be coming true very soon.

Best Regards,

Shanghai Expat