https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVezbVxp2Pw
Monday, 9 May 2022
WHAT IS ELON MUSK DOING?
9 May 2022
Capitalism requires freedom and private ownership. The idea is to create enterprises that buy and sell goods and services purely for profit. The limited company allowed shareholders to provide start-up capial and be included on the Board as owners.
However, what's happened is that for various reasons, the group of shareholders running the company was broadened to include all stakeholders.
These new stakeholders brought new values and additional goals to the direction of the company and thus instead of capitalism we got a left-wing corporatism. Personally, I can see this heading to a WEF world.
Musk and his band are a reform movement whose mission is to purify and restore the founding values and create a New Capitalism.
Sunday, 8 May 2022
MAKE MONEY THROUGH ARMS SALES
8 May 2022
https://youtu.be/SAGjpzAtZUU
That is very well put together and explained.
She says how much, who's getting it, what you get, and why war is good for business.
She quotes from Eisenhower in his farewell address to the American people on 17 Jan 1961:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenhower%27s_farewell_address
Eisenhower gives alternative govt uses for that money. Keeping up in the arms race is what broke the Soviet Union.
It's outside her frame in this 8 minute video to say what proportion of US debt is attributable to govt purchases, nor that US tax payers will have to repay this debt and so in the final analysis forego domestic programs - schools, hospitals, infrastructure - which could make America great again.
She does wonder if manufacturing at this scale is necessary.
She doesn't mention the inflation that QE is causing, nor the tax hikes, interest rate rises, QT, all needed to stave off collapse of the US economy.
We are reminded in whose interests is this war - and it's not the people. And the massive death and destruction.
We don't want peace through victory, we want peace without victory.
Saturday, 7 May 2022
DARK CLOUDS
7 May 2022
Plague, war, famine, global warming, migrations, rioting.
The indicators are all on red, with major economic consequences that states cannot foresee - cause-effect chains, feedback loops, multipliers - and may not have the resources to buffer. Eg the energy bills you mention; or who'd have thought gas and fertiliser were so tightly bound? or the 700 container ships waiting outside Shanghai port for covid clearance.
In addition, we are nearing the end of a long debt-cycle and central banks are raising rates and tightening money supply, with recession and maybe depression beckoning, clubmed economies could really suffer, the Euro is threatened, the EU even.
For investors, demand and revenues will surely be hit by inflation costs will be hit when it comes to rolling over debt at the new higher interest rates then you get into a downgraded spiral and there's no money for investment but it is precisely higher productivity that lowers prices and raises wages.
Globally, the three blocks are going down three different plugholes, with Europe probably tumbling down the deepest.
And not much of this seems to have been predictable or is much controllable. Turkey inflation is 70%, Egypt eats the most bread in the world and all the wheat comes from Russia and Ukraine. The least well-off are the most numerous, though excessive diversification and wokism aggravates everyone, pushing govt.s to erect barriers of all kinds.
Friday, 6 May 2022
RUSSIA'S MANIFEST DESTINY
This one had me puzzled for a while. We know that America is "the indispensable country" - God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America~Otto von Bismarc.
Russia’s Manifest Destiny
We can pit Patriach Krill head of the Russian Orthodox church in Moscoe, against the Pope in Rome:
Krill
"Russia has never attacked anyone — it’s amazing that such a great and powerful country has only ever defended its borders”
"May God grant that our country remains like this till the end of the century: strong, powerful, and loved by God. . . May the Lord protect our Russian land from internecine strife and invasion by foreigners, and strengthen the Orthodox faith, the only spiritual force that can truly hold our people together.”
Pope
The Pope deplored the “macabre regression of humanity” taking place in Ukraine, and demanded an end to “continued military and verbal escalation” and the “perverse spiral of weapons”.
Manifest destiny
What is this, Russia's "manifest destiny"?
Sea power and land powers, from Athens v Sparta to Russia v America, are fated to clash. The global seat of land power — inner Eurasia aka "the Homeland", the territory of the Russian Empire — is forever in global competition with the sea power, the United States, reprrsented in Europe by the UK, the "rimpower".
Alexander Dugin is or was a right wing intellectual and bohemian, who emerged from the time of Perestroika in the the 80s as Russia’s chief nationalist.
Russia's MVV (after Dugin, as adopted from Mackinder):
MISSION An irresistible destiny to accomplish this essential duty to expand out of the (indefensible) Eurasian plain, over the nine gateways (Baltic, Polish gap, Suwalki gap, Carpathian mountaims, Bassarabian ....), over and into Central European plain and on to the warm waters and defeat the sea people (originally UK, but now updated to the Atlantic power: the States.
VISION To redeem and remake the West in the image of Russian Orthodoxyianism...I might be wrong on this one. This is about what system of governance you want: authoritarian or democratic.
VALUES The special virtues of the Russian people (not vodkism, please) and their institutions (somewhat personalised by dear Putin, but then there was Stalin as the gold standard in dictatorship).
This follows a routine SWOT analysis based in the reality that
GEOGRAPHY IS FATE
There are many determinants of foreign policy. Geography is the most deterministic of constraints.
The Rus were dealt a really poor hand. They are like The Hordes, a people of the plains, the Eurasian landmass is their land. The plain continues to the West onto the plain of central Europe, with - as I see it so maybe I've misunderstood - defensive natural barriers for Russia, but these are just beyond Russia's grasp. Russia has 2,000 kilometers of long and vulnerable borderland rhat it must defend to stop any invasion from a well-funded and technologically sophisticated Western European sea-power.
What are these natural defences? The Carpathian mountains - but alas, they're in Romania! Access to the Black Sea - it's in Ukraine! (or was). The Suwalki Gap which also gives access to the Baltic Sea - it's the other side of the Balkans (but Russia has Kaliningrad at the other end of the Gap - see a map)!
And so on - there are nine such gateways that enemies use to invade (identified in a Zeihan Youtube pres.), and Russia must have them under lock and key, to feel secure. They'd need to plug the Transnistra gap in tiny Moldova. It's been invaded by the Swedes through the three Baltic countries so there are three NATO countries Putin would also need to invade (was he really planning this? Surely not.), the French through Belarus, twice by the Germans through the Polish gap, the Bessarabian gap in Romania favoured by the Turks. Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia complete the nontep.
Geography means Russia's manifest destiny is to expand westwards into central Europe, a messianic duty or survival necessity as you wish, and capture the nine gateways.
So it's not about personal ambition or nationalism or imperialism or historic revenge, it is a purely rational strategy to ensure national survival, it is about Russia's understandable insecurity.
STOP NOW - PEACE WITHOUT VICTORY
6 May 2022 THE DAILY RANT
It is a cost to Russia maybe, but the really big costs are being born by America & UK. Europe is being bullied into following.
That senile fool in the White House is bragging about sinking the Moskva and shooting down a Russian transporyer carrying hundreds of young men.
Biden's advisors are openly calling for a war - this is war between two nuclear armed powers. (India and Pakistan? No, America and Russia.)
What you say is true: what we see doesnt fit with what we read
The people who know, military men, say that Russia will win in Ukraine.
Although right up to 23 Feb, most of us couldn't believe that America and Russia would be so stupid as to go to war with each other in Ukraine. But they did.
Now, Russia is doing what it always does, which is to totally trash the country. And Russia is now on top of the arms supply routes that were making a difference. They tell us the West is winning but actually the data points otherways. Truth is, there are no winners and the biggest losers are Ukraine and perhaps we haven't seen even a quarter of what is to come.
1.7 billion people in food insecurity and poverty because wheat, corn and fertiliser is not available in 2019 quantities and at prices .
Gas and oil we know about. Begging bowl out to pariahs Iran and Venezuela. Again, America is safe - far away, safe, independent.
Sanctions against Russia are being reciprocated. America is fine.
All of Africa, most of S E Asia and Latin America are reticent, dont agree, but dont want to offend. This includes India.
It is only America up for war, and Europe ex UK are bullied into supporting.
This is the biggest by far of all the monumental American Foreign Policy disasters - Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen ... - it is unfolding before your eyes.
So yes, I cannot make any sense of this, the solution is what was available in 2015 but with the subsequent loss of a country's people and infrastructure, and yes what we see is not what we hear on MSM - we are being fed a pack of lies.
FOR PEACE WITHOUT VICTORY
STOP NOW
Tuesday, 3 May 2022
BUY GOLD IN THAILAND
7 July 2022
PRICE
https://gold.price-today.info/en/THB/thailand_chiang-mai_chiang-mai/
The purpose of buying gold is to insure against currency collapse or at least to have money that cannot be touched by any counter-party, for spending in retirement or when unemployed.
However history has shown that there is a real risk that the government will not tolerate individuals holding gold and if they know where you are they will call and take it off you. See last section.
CASH
Buy in cash, not credit card, to save 3% fee.
TAX
No tax on nuggets (bars) (normally 7% in Thailand).
But tax is 7% on jewellry (7% is low compared to my
country).
Jewellry - a bracelet and necklace - I can take out of
Thailand and into my country. But this is very difficult - I would sell in
Thailand.
COMMISSION FEE
Low commission. About 0.02%.
WORKMANSHIP
(ทักษะฝีมือ)
For jewellry, pay for workmanship (ทักษะฝีมือ) - 500b (?)
for a simple necklace.
When you sell, you do not get back the ทักษะฝีมือ fee.
PURITY
In Thailand, you buy 96.5% pure (see the website) which is
23.2 karat.
But be careful with the gold - 96.5% is very soft.
WEIGHT
จำเป็นต้องซื้อเครื่องชั่งน้ำหนักราคาถูกที่สามารถใส่ในกระเป๋าของคุณได้
เพื่อให้คุณสามารถตรวจสอบการวัดน้ำหนักของทองคำที่คุณซื้อได้ รับสเกล 0.01g ที่แม่นยำ
WHERE TO BUY
Your shop. Is it in Chinatown? We need the biggest and the
oldest shops in Chinatown. They won't scam.
CONFISCATION RISK
COMPARE WEIGHT
There is a big difference between the density of gold and silver: gold is 19.32 g/cm3, silver only 10.49 g/cm3.
With the result that a 1 oz bar of gold will be almost half as small as a 1 oz bar of silver.
COMPARE VALUE
The gold/silver ratio changes. It is the weight of silver it takes to purchase one ounce of gold. If the ratio is 25 to 1, that means, at the current price, you could use 25 ounces of silver to buy one ounce of gold. 25 to 1 would be considered a narrow ratio.
A narrow ratio indicates that silver’s relative value is up and a wide ratio indicates that gold’s relative value is up. This ratio is an indicator that can be used to determine the right and wrong times to buy or sell gold and silver.
SPEND
If you are buying gold to cover a shortfall of income at some point in the future, then bear in mind that you may want to sell small portions of gold - perhaps single coin - and therefore when you purchase gold keep in mind this requirement to later sell gold in small units.
WAYS TO BUY GOLD
There are three main ways to gain exposure to the gold price as a retail investor: bars and coins, gold-backed exchange traded funds and gold mining equities.
Bars and coins give you a piece of metal you can store at home, giving you something physical to hold in your hands. They range in size from one-tenth of an ounce to one kilo or larger. The disadvantage is that the premiums to pay over the spot gold price to buy bars and coins can be substantial, meaning there is a big transaction cost once you sell the gold back, as well as storage and insurance costs.
Gold-backed ETFs have evolved into two main categories of high and low-cost products. These save the buyer from taking physical custody of the bullion. The higher-cost products provide greater liquidity with low transaction costs but are better suited to fund managers moving hundreds of millions of dollars at a time. For retail investors, a newer generation of ETFs with lower management fees and less liquidity are better suited such as Invesco’s Physical Gold ETF or BlackRock’s iShares Gold Trust.
Gold mining company equities is another option to gain exposure to prices of the yellow metal. However, these can come with surprises, positive and negative. If discoveries are made, the share price may rally sharply but if there are technical or political problems, the shares can tank irrespective of the gold price. The world’s largest gold mining companies — Newmont, Barrick Gold and Agnico Eagle Mines — are all dual-listed on the New York and Toronto stock exchanges. Gold mining equity funds including VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF are a way to diversify risks.
Precious metals streaming companies are another set of equities to consider, since they take small cuts on sales of many projects in return for providing financing, meaning the risks of each project or company is diluted in a broader portfolio. Among the largest listed precious metals streaming groups are Canada’s Franco-Nevada and Wheaton Precious Metals.
BIG WARNING
Here is a persuasive set of arguments for buying gold. This is at 25 March 2023
https://youtu.be/A2G3MAxdZfU
I follow and agree with all the arguments made in that video. In particular, there's a line something like,
"How to manage members of the general public, who have more faith in the system than people people sitting round this table do"
At offset Kitco 13'40".
Notice who is sitting round the table. This is an FDIC meeting and the table is members of its systemic resolution advisory committee, SRAC
The SRAC advises the FDIC on how to manage threats to "too big to fail" financial institutions. Love it.
The quandary they are in is how to prepare such institutions - and the bond holders and depositors - for a systemic failure, whilst at the same time making sure these depositors and bondholders do nothing about it ... for example they don't pull their deposits or sell their bonds.
I suppose first you sting them, to numb and paralyse; and then you suck out all their funds. Ha ha.
But I would say two things about this video and its concluding advice to buy gold.
1. One is that it's a video promoted by the Gold Mining whatever they call themselves, so raise one eyebrow "-).
2. And the other thing is that if all goes in the way they suggest, and you have a safe under the floorboards stuffed full of gold and silver, tge fiat currency collapses as per the govt plan, there's a smooth transition to the new central bank digital curreny, and now the government is running a tight ship using its digital currency.
So, what makes you think that if you take your gold to the bank, they will give you the digital currency equivalent that you need to buy bread and pay your rent?
Wouldn't it be more likely that before the transition, the government says,
"bring us your gold! Bring us your silver! and we will give you the digital currency equivalent, but after the transition we will not recognise your gold"
And probably what they'll do instead, is call on you - because when you buy gold you have to declare your name and address - locate and break into your safe, and take your gold and put it into their safe!
So raise the other eyebrow ""-).
CONCLUSION
Considering relative weight and price, in the light of confiscation risk, you might like to consider whether it is worth holding this insurance in silver rather than gold or some mixture of the two. This is because the authorities would be very unlikely to call to collect your silver, whereas with gold if the s*** hits the fan they will almost certainly find out where you are and take your gold.
NOTE ON MEASURES - TROY OUNCES / BAHT
Gold internationally is usually measured in Troy ounces. One
ounce = 31.1035 grams.
A baht of gold is just under one half troy ounce.
When wr speak of “One ounce of gold”, we typically
mean one troy ounce = 31,1035 gram of 100% pure gold.
When a Thai speaks of “One baht of gold”, you typically mean
15.24 grams of 96,5% pure gold = 14.71 grams of 100% pure gold.
NEED
-Scales
-Passport
-Cash
-Check shop
ราคา
ทองคำมีราคาเท่ากันทุกที่ในโลก
ซื้อด้วยเงินสด
ไม่ใช่บัตรเครดิต เพื่อประหยัดค่าธรรมเนียม 3%
ภาษี
ไม่มีภาษีนักเก็ต
(บาร์) (ปกติ 7% ในประเทศไทย)
แต่ภาษีสำหรับเครื่องประดับคือ
7% (7% ต่ำเมื่อเทียบกับประเทศของฉัน)
Jewellry - สร้อยข้อมือและสร้อยคอ
- ฉันสามารถนำออกจากประเทศไทยและเข้าประเทศของฉันได้ แต่มันยากมาก - ฉันจะขายในประเทศไทย
ค่านายหน้า
ค่าคอมมิชชั่นต่ำ ประมาณ 0.02%
ฝีมือ (ฝีมือ)
สำหรับเครื่องประดับก็จ่ายสำหรับฝีมือ
(ทักษะฝีมือ) - 500b (?) สำหรับสร้อยคอแบบเรียบๆ
ขายแล้วไม่รับค่าธรรมเนียมงานฝีมือคืน
ความบริสุทธิ์
เพียว -
ในประเทศของฉัน ทองแท้ 100% คือ 24 กะรัต
ทองคำส่วนใหญ่เป็น 18 กะรัต = บริสุทธิ์ 75%
ในประเทศไทย
คุณซื้อบริสุทธิ์ 96.5% (ดูเว็บไซต์) ซึ่งเท่ากับ 23.2 กะรัต
แต่ระวังด้วยทองคำ -
96.5% อ่อนมาก
น้ำหนัก
จำเป็นต้องซื้อเครื่องชั่งน้ำหนักราคาถูกที่สามารถใส่ในกระเป๋าของคุณได้
เพื่อให้คุณสามารถตรวจสอบการวัดน้ำหนักของทองคำที่คุณซื้อได้ รับสเกล 0.01g ที่แม่นยำ
พยายามซื้อเครื่องกลราคาตรงที่ท้าทายในกระเป๋าที่ท้าทาย
รับยอดเยี่ยงว...
ซื้อที่ไหน
ร้านค้าของคุณ อยู่ที่ไชน่าทาวน์หรือเปล่าคะ?
เราต้องการร้านค้าที่ใหญ่ที่สุดและเก่าแก่ที่สุดในไชน่าทาวน์ พวกเขาจะไม่หลอกลวง
หมายเหตุเกี่ยวกับมาตรการ
- ทรอยออนซ์ / บาท
ทองคำในประเทศของฉันมักจะวัดเป็นหน่วยทรอยออนซ์ หนึ่งออนซ์ = 31.1035 กรัม
ทองคำหนึ่งบาทมีค่าต่ำกว่าทรอยออนซ์เพียงครึ่งเดียว
เมื่อฝรั่งพูดถึง
“ทองหนึ่งออนซ์” เรามักจะหมายถึงหนึ่งทรอยออนซ์ = 31,1035 กรัมของทองคำบริสุทธิ์
100%
เมื่อคนไทยพูดถึง "ทองหนึ่งบาท" โดยทั่วไปแล้วคุณหมายถึงทองคำบริสุทธิ์ 96,5% 15.24 กรัม = ทองคำบริสุทธิ์ 100% 14.71 กรัม
ความต้องการ
-เครื่องชั่ง
-หนังสือเดินทาง
-เงินสด
-เช็คร้าน
Thursday, 28 April 2022
HOSPITALS CLEARED, ELDERLY COVID SENT HOME
28 April 2022
Matt Hancock: Public Health England to blame for sending patients to care homes without Covid tests
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/04/27/discharging-covid-patients-care-homes-unlawful-high-court-rules/
As usual, Matt is deserving only of praise.
1. Sending patients back untested was a political decision since its purpose was to clear the wards. I personally know of care homes that refused to re-admit untested patients at that time period ie from day 1. So it is not true that the cause was ignorance or lack of awareness and everyone knows asymptomatic transmission is usual.
2. Secondly, Matt held the highest post in the land. It is a really inane comment he makes when he says "well no-one told me". a) it is not true, as cited above, but more fundamentally b) it is the manager's job to think and ask questions.
3. Last point. The NHS and Matt had plenty enough time to consider and report on this - why did it take two years and an external enquiry?
Having said all that, we must be forgiving of each other as intentions were not malicious.
The advice given at the time by the author of this blogg was to spend £15 billion on isolating care homes and re-inforcing all covid-related measures. The focus should have been very much on the vulnerable and not a whole-society "whatever it takes" treatment, with the population of young fit and healthy being free to acquire immunity naturally, and the economy kept up and running as far as possible.
The reason for blanket lockdowns and door-to-door testing was the policy of zero-covid, zero tolerance. Not only is that unrealistic, it is unecessary.
A focused approach was needed. And in the focus is first the elderly. This is widely known and was obvious at the time, but public fear reached fever pitch. Now here's the thing.
This also explains Partygate. It explains a lot of the troubles in our society. Those in positions of responsibility know very well the risks are to minority groups and are otherwise negligeable, so parties are fine amongst the healthy; but the public and MSM so whip up a frenzy of fearful emotions that managers have to temporarly cede control to the mob.
This is an important point, in my humble estimation.
Wednesday, 27 April 2022
ORIGINS OF THE WAR IN CENTRAL EUROPE
27 April 2022
A provocative title as politically Ukraine is in Eastern Europe, though geographically you might say Central Europe as the European plane sweeps from the Ural Mountains in Russia across northern Europe, to the Pyrenees on the French-Spanish border. The plane is broken notably by the Carpathian mountains, which might offer a partial natural defensive border to the Rus, except it is in Romania!
The trouble is the only voice speaking for Europe to Putin was Emmanuel Macron and he failed. Strikes me there was no one listening to Moscow's severest warnings since 2008, no concerted diplomacy, or what there was - at Minsk - was ignored at the whim of Kiev.
Macron's efforts weren't exactly helped by NATO and America.
At the breakup of the old communist Soviet Union, NATO promised Russia that it would leave its near-abroad neutral, in particular East Germany, but instead it pushed its tanks right up to Russia's border and now what is happening in Crimea and Ukraine, with the West piling in wmd, just confirms Moscow's greatest fears.
I don't think Moscow is bluffing when it says military imports are legitimate targets...what will the next leg in the escalation look like?
Russian aggression, caused by its insecurity, has been met with the policy of Containment. The story starts from Woodrow Wilson in 1916 setting the goal of American foreign policy; to a more specific strategy fed from Mackinder's Heartlands of 1904, see also Peter Zeihan, as well as the Domino theory, fed to George Kennan and thence to Harry Truman in 1947.
The end of WW2 meant the liberation of much of continental Europe, but instead of restoring the sovereignty of states in Russia's security zone, its near-abroad if you prefer, they became incorporated into Soviet Russia. Hence the Cold War that pitted America and NATO against the USSR and its Warsaw Pact.
As a dentist might begin by anesthetising the patient, so America weakened Russian communism with an arms race and then Gorbachev came to believe in a free market economy with Perestroika and Glasnost.
The move in Russia from a communist monopoly of power, to a system that permitted opposition, created a chaos wherein the Union broke up and Yeltsin, Russian president, took over.
At this point, the dentist set to work, pulling out the former soviet provinces and throwing them into NATO in a number of waves ... 1999, 2004...
To me, The Domino Theory is a political misreading of history. It's not wrong as all govts try to foment dissent in their neighbours, but it led to Viernam, Central America and Grenada and it doesn't explain pre-Communist Russian misbehaviour.
I would go for an explanation based in the unfortunate hand geography dealt the Rus.
What structures and drives this? It is almost a contest between the competing emotions of Fear and Love.
John J Mearsheimer brilliantly offers a political-structuralist explanation for security conflicts. He teaches how these are resolved through balance-of-power arms races, which can break down eventually into the selfishness of war.
Or we have a structuralist-geographist kind of explanation, that can encourage sympathy from understanding the weaknesses of your neighbours, and accomodating them in Peace Treaties.
Monday, 25 April 2022
DE-DEGLOBALISATION AND THE SHANGHAI COVID OUTBREAK
25 April 2022
Strange how China, the world covid champion, is currently managing the latest outbteak in Shanghai.
There are 25,000 new cases a day and 9 deaths, offically. Only a third of over 65s are vaccinated as workers get priority. This is nothing, given popn.s of 57 million and 1.4 billion, compared to the UK's 27,000 new daily cases and 280 deaths daily - figures at 25 April.
The trouble for China is that the zero covid policy doesn't work with omicron. Especially not at Shanghai, a city as civilised as London or Edinburgh where much of the hi-so population voyage for conferences etc. And 45 other cities in that same area.
And so all the foreigners are leaving Shanghai. And the locals are under "house arrest", screaming and in rebellion. They've had this policy of confinement for two years now. The infected are shut into "concentration camps". Everyone is obliged to submit to regular testing. There are food riots. There are massive mental health problems. Shops and factories are closed. Entries to the city are blocked, with lorries backed up on the ring roads.
And finally there are two separate communities: the infected and the healthy.
So to summarise, there are problems with health, social and mental, and economic.
But despite this suffering, there are few signs in the data of victory. And it is not clear if sinovac works so well. China has been unable to develop a messenger-RNA vaccine and yet at the same time, China cannot really go begging the States for three billion doses.
What should Chinese authorities do? Should they double down on quarantine? Should they admit zero covid doesn't suit omicron?
In October, there's the 20th party congress. So time is pressing for solutions. All that really matters is that the CCP continue in power with no competition. If they have to take an economic or health hit, so be it - all that matters is to stay in power. They learnt from Soviet Russia not to open up, not at any price, not let go.
Yet Shanghai with a quarter of the popn of China is in lockdown for the last month and its port, the biggest port in the world, is shut.
Condo blocks and factories are locked, the the residents inside.
What we don't realise maybe is the extent to which the west, eg the automobile industry, relies on components made in China. We can't get them, so car prices go up and a second-hand car costs more today than a new car yesterday.
So we look for other suppliers. For example when I was with Airbus we used a lot of suppliers in the Magreb eg in Morocco there was a wiring factory in Tangiers. So why not give work to Tangiers?
And here are emerging the interesting points:
If this is all true, then the world is no longer flat and open, in fact it is round and countries have borders. We must decide where to place our orders, with what suppliers. But on what criteria?
Second, deglobalisation was already a trend but now you can see that this deglobalisation prompted by deteriorating balances of payments and growing civil unrest, has been sped up by the coronavirus and in particular by China's zero covid policy.
And thirdly, Yellen the US Sec of The Treasury, spoke somewhere recently of "friend-shoring". She is talking about a new primacy of politics over economics. This is the change. Ukraine is as responsible as China's zero covid. It's about choosing to work with partners who share our values, even if it means paying more. That's another new one and another nail in the Liberal coffin, which ordains that capital for investment flows to the areas where it will find the biggest returns. So work with other democratic countries and not the authoritarian ones, and this gives us two worlds and maybe to reserve currencies and two hegemons.
But, fourthly, having said that, how can Europe or America get away without the Chinese middle class, as suppliers and consumers? The deal with Airbus was that it had to install four production lines in China at Chinjing, if it expected China to buy its A320s. Same for German Mercedes. So China and covid is a far more importand driver than Russia and the war in Ukraine.
Saturday, 23 April 2022
RUSSIAN AIMS AND STRATEGY
23 April 2022
🎉🏴Happy St. George’s day🏴🎉
It is the land power (Russia, the Rus, the Mongol Hordes of Asia) v. The sea power (formerly the UK now America) for position as World Hegemon No. 1. That's why America and Russia are always fighting. Many think it's China? No. It's the no.1 land power v. the no.1 sea power. That's the game.
Russia could take in Iran & Pakistan, even Japan?, so Islam and Asia, and seek to separate the UK from Europe, while fomenting dissent along race woke etc lines in the US. Their plan. Seems mad?
The Russian homeland, home to four out of five Russians, is in the European Plain. The plain stretches from the Volga to the Yangzie and the Artic to the Caspian. Russian Govt policy is mainly made for Moscow and St Petersburg, the homeland - it is in Europe, we are fighting Europeans v. Europeans, thanks America.
That boundary Europe-Russia, in East Europe, is the world peace pivot. If you control that, you control Europe and Asia and should be able to dominate the world. It is 2,000 kms from Finland and the Baltics, South to Romania, and has Russia's natural geographic protective anchors, such as the Baltics, Suwalki, Carpathian, Volgograd, as well as nine gateways through these, gateways that Russia must protect from historic invaders.
So, taking Ukraine and Moldova would reduce its patrol area from 2,000 to 600 kms.
If it lost Georgia it would lose the Volgograd Gap and potential access to the Black Sea, Caucuses and Caspian.
You'd think cyber and air today, but after the artillery come the tanks and troops. How will they get through? Think Napoleon or Hitler.
You could ask, why the need for natural defensive frontiers when you've got nuclear?
Ultimately, Russian govt authority and legitimacy comes from conquest and respect abroad, as well as - as for us - meeting the needs of the core popn at home (well, our govts used to..).
As crises go, this one is more interesting than the debt 2008 crisis and coming liquidity; much more intetesting than covid; Woke is a distraction and a Big Yawn; but I wonder what comes next ... any ideas?
America is pushing Russia to the edge. Will it go nuclear?
It's true Putin has reduced countries to rubble when he can't get what he wants but in previous cases it has had little to no repurcutions on his own country whereas deploying nuclear missiles would be disastrous for him aswell and he may be crazy ( I dont think so, as above), but surely not suicidal.
