WHAT IS GADOO GADOO?

4 September 2022

I'm here in Bali for a month. Do I escape a routine and stressful home life? Not really - I bring my routine with me : excel, blogg, correspondance, chat with family and friends, politics, airbnb, Youtube .... And I can hardly describe my life as stressful.

But the routine activity volumes are down because a new destination means local activities to explore. Beach burn, walking round town monuments galleries temples museums, shopping centre (Krishna is good for Indonesian visitors, a bit inland; Beach Broadwalk is trendy for foreigners).

Talking to the taxi driver yesterday on our way to Krishna, he said most of his work was taking foreigners to restaurants, the insides of which he'd never see. He wondered what the restaurants were like, but could never know as they were not his class, not his paygrade. He wondered what his customers do back in their home country, and what they think about.

So one day he asked a customer what he would eat in that restaurant and the man said "gadoo gadoo". Well, gadoo gadoo is local food - some vegetables, boiled egg, peanut sauce, chinese wafers (like I ate yesterday at Krishna)  here's a picture of a quality example....of course no meat, meat is very expensive to buy here for local people.

The driver was surprised and asked the man  "what is gadoo gadoo?" And the man replied describing a dish with vegetables yes, meat (he thought probably a steak), french fries. Which is true, this was the tourist's typical restaurant gadoo gadoo!

So the native population in this tourist economy are a simple people, homogenous, conformist, living a poor life, often in a minority to a colonising army of tourists, whose faces change every few days.

This is a true story, but it's also a variation on the old "prince and pauper" fairytale.

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WHY IS STERLING COLLAPSING?

2 September 2022

It's about inflation, the current account balance, the govt budget, the national debt and prospects for growth in the UK economy. They are all moving in the wrong direction and everytime a forecast is published, it's worse than the previous....could there be still worse to come? 

Result: stirling is hardly a safe haven for people wondering where to invest and as exports fall so does the demand for the pound.

Last time I looked at inflation it was supposed to hit 18% by January '23, but today when I looked, Goldman Sachs are saying 22% if Energy prices hold at current levels.

The standard response to deal with inflation is to put up interest rates, even though for much of the inflation, there's nothing much the bank of England can do about it. Two-year government bonds have just gone up 100 basis points -  1% really is a lot - to almost 3% and the forecast is for 4% by May '23. Yet the theory is that interest rates should rise higher than the inflation rate if the Bank of England is to get on top of inflation.

I don't have the figures to hand for UK debt, but I remember that a quarter is index-linked, so if interest rates go up and inflation goes up, the UK is really skewered - particularly as at the moment Liz Truss is thinking that the only way of dealing with the cost of living crisis is by reducing taxes. This would mean yet more borrowing and at the new higher rates of interest .

So while all the UK indexes were plummeting badly yesterday, the footsie 100 slightly less than the others and because this is where the big int.l companyies with foreign earnings are found.

You'd think gold would do well with this threat that hyper inflation will devalue the currency, but in fact 'No', it has not been  doing so well this year - I guess that is dollar strength.

So once again looks like American indexes will outperform as this is the only safe place to put your money, ie into the dollar. But into short term US bonds is the particular advice.

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THESE AMERICAN SAVAGES

31 August 2022

https://youtu.be/wmOePNsNFw0

Totally brilliant intervention from Jeffrey Sachs. I've been following him for a long while. He may not be the world's most entertaining speaker, but he is certainly the most mature and accurate.

 Yea I'd like to comment further.

It is desperately important that Europe work on its independence and get out from under these American meatballs.

A "Europe 2049" would be appropriate.

Russia may have invaded Ukraine, but the war was caused by America - hardly "unprovoked"! America takes us for fools. I will say below why America is doing this.

Look up the broken promises from 1991 promising Russia's near abroad would remain neutral, through to Minsk in 2015 respect for a certain autonomy in the east of Ukraine. After all, this is New Russia built by Catherine back in the 18th century. 

Look at the Catholic Polish-Lithuanian Slavs in the West, shelling the Orthodox Russian Slavs in the East. It's just hatred from Kiev, simple barbaric hatred.

America feeding in weapons from 2015.

Shelling high intensity 2021, reaching a crescendo in Jan/Feb 2022.

Causes are with America. Effects with Europe. 1.  America & Europe will be defeated militarily by Russia in this proxy war. 2.  The sanctions are killing the European economies, never mind America's, and 3.  the West is getting well-alienated from the global South.

And all for what? 

America has said its aim is to weaken Russia and preferably regime change in Moscow. America would rather go down with the planet than risk losing its place as global hegemon - that's the reason: it's American Alpha-male security concerns. So dumb. America knows only conflict, doesn't do cooperation, it shoots from the hip and Ukraine will be a far greater disaster and humiliation than was Vietnam and Iraq and all the other failures of American adventures in foreign policy .

The consequences will hopefully not be a nuclear war, but certainly there will be a split between the global North and the global South and the death of the dollar as the world's reserve currency, and a lot more insecurity and poverty. That matters to me, because I don't want some alien culture taking over Europe's foreign policy space, my culture.

Europe needs a plan to boot out or reform these savages - maybe "Europe 2049" would be a good heading under which to work towards our independence.

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MACRON WAVES TO THE CROWDS IN ALGERIA

29 August 2022

https://youtu.be/-s8n_LbCORg

I love this....the Algerians hate Macron, but he ignored that and made it look like they were cheering him!!! Algerian independence from France was declared in 1962, not 1960, incidentally. 

The French ran Algeria for 132 years, the war of independence lasted 8 years from 1954 and was marked by murder and torture and the death of over million people. The French were even accused of genocide, which admittedly is a word that's thrown around rather loosely these days.

France failed to hand over respectfully like Britain did and doesn't have a Commonwealth like Britain - it's just been kicked out of Mali for example.

In fact, there's been no Truth and Reconciliation commission - how could there be? - France has never admitted its war crimes, though it's kind of admitted to facilitating torture, in a nuanced kind of way.

I don't know if you know any Algerians but I've always found them to be really aggressive complainers (am I allowed to make this general statement?) and I perfectly understand why, but sometimes for diplomatic reasons it's best to put these things behind one.

Anyway Macron went out there hoping to get some Algerian gas, I think it was, on the cheap and open up Algeria to some more of France's luxury goods, but he didn't have any more luck than did Biden with the House of Saud, did he!

I seem to recall that the last time Macron visited Algeria, he was talking to a bunch of descendants of the Algerian collaborators they call "Harkis" (Arabic word meaning "war party" or "movement", it is muslim French locals), and he asked them if Algeria had actually ever existed as a country before France colonised the Magreb ie before France created it from primeval fluid.

That's sure to have gone down well on this visit!!!

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REBUILDING MARIOPOL

29 August 2022

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/russia-outlook-charts-wall-street-investing-analysis-market-strategy-economy-2022-8

Looks like Russia is rebuilding mariupol v v quickly. Impressive.

That is a really amazing progress. Potemkin would be proud. Wonder if the Chinese will get in on, after all, construction is their bread n butter, they can slip these new pieces into their jigsaw silk road.

The Russians on the front line, wrecking and burning to rubble; then the Chinese following around after, building back better (but doing it - Boris' was just airbrush, Potemkin facades).

What a system!

The Russians did this in what is now Kaliningrad after the previous war. The city was in rubble. They cleared out all the Prussians, rebuilt into an attractive, modern country, offered numerous incentives for Russians and Kazacs and Ukrainians etc to move in, which they did rapidos - all mod cons, employment, nice weather and landscape ...

Yes Mariopol has a bright future and will up Russian GDP and make more citizens of the demographics of the next generation.

Maybe Mariupol will be the Milton Keynes or Livingstone of the New Novorussiya.

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GREATER DISASTER THAN VIETNAM, IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN

29 August 2022

The "unprovoked invasion" is being revealed as one scenario anticipated by western planners of this conflict, when Kiev stepped up its bombing of its Donbas back in 2021 and then intensified further in January and early February 22, 

With Russian acquiesence to Ukraine's joining NATO, or an outright proxy war with Russia as the two possible results; defeat for Putin and his replacement by a western sympathiser was expected in either case. 

(who would also incidentally - this is my guessing so probably seems madly misjudged - give access to China from the North, completing China's encirclement ... this bit is my guessing, but it makes sense if you see China as the major threat to American hegemony).

But things didn't turn out that way, alas. The utter disaster for the West is lapping, the tsunami is on its way, we are heading into a multi-polar world, perhaps a world in two camps, the global North, the global South. 

For example, the West is choosing recession over inflation - this choice is the result of years of outspending your income and topping up from the printing presses, but this war has brought the forces of decline to a head.

The political leaderships cling to their original assumptions. While the technical advisors - military leaders, economists and central bank officials, and also I'd guess foreign office officials responsible planning the war but also for soft power - these domain advisors have the data picture and the assessments that flow logically and objectively from this data, but the politicians do not update their assessments and plans : the Western leaders still want to weaken Russia and presumably still believe they can overturn the Putin govt. What is blocking the thinking of our leaderships?

UK's Conservative party has a great opportunity to choose a peace negotiator, but instead is choosing another war monger! 

The court of public opinion suffering from the sanctions will sooner or later see through the stupidity and injustice of their Western governments and in a democracy should unblock the leadership and rod through the new realities.

It does look like a far far greater humiliation for the West is on the way than were even the humiliations of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

If you're looking for peace, justice and stability, and longer term prosperity, then surely you would update your vision and aims and methods, from the data your technical advisors are presenting to you, and choose compromise and co-operation as more economical, more efficient and more effective in advancing "the public interest"?

Imho, it is the role of Europe through the international institutions to explain this to America. If America wants to keep its position in the world, it needs to change its mentality.

Too commonsensical? Too much to expect? Then America, strategic danger to the planet,  press on with the war, to your ultimate destruction.

The worry is that America will take the planet with it.

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CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT OR RADICAL DISRUPTION?

Actually I am someone who by temperament favours continuous improvement where you make the best better and transfer best practises to poorer performing processes.

Step change or disruption is often portrayed as a choice between the staying on the burning platform or  jumping into the freezing seas.

But one reader had an interesting reply to this criticism of breaking with the past.

"Growth needs change...even broken ..

From seed to tiny plant need to be broken.

A chicken emerge when the egg broken.

Lava from mountain after eruption need to make the land fertile."

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CONDEMNED TO YEARS OF MISERY AND SQUALOR

28 August 2022

It's a bit weird that even after six months of fighting in Ukraine, people seem largely ignorant of the real causes and real consequences of this war. They made up their minds on the 24th of February on the basis of almost no understanding and they haven't moved on in the light of new and relevant evidence. Each side battles on for total victory, indifferent to the appalling casualties and costs.

Applying logic to this crisis doesn't seem to work!

But why so irrational? 

Too proud to admit a mistake? Stuck in the rut of their ideology? Plain, lazy stupidity? Politics before reason?

Mearsheimer would probably tell you that it's about the balance of power and the resolve of your adversary. To end this war requires one side to show devastating, overwhelming force; and the other side to be completely dispirited. And I'd imagine that Russia, in the light of its experience since 1991, would never trust America and its allies in Europe to actually implement any peace settlement. And whatever happens Ukraine will continue fighting asymmetrically and sabotage any peace, once it officially loses the war.

It's just America bringing misery to the world and as usual. There'll be years of misery for us on both sides; and for future generations years of squalor paying off the stupid debt.

If Europe had pushed out America and taken responsibility for its future, as De Gaulle wanted, it would be top of the world now.

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THE DECLINE OF THE WEST

26 August 2022

Mearsheimer with his story took us up to when the Russian Bear wrecks its neighbour because it doesn't like being poked in the eye

Example from six years ago

https://youtu.be/JrMiSQAGOS4

From a couple of months back

https://youtu.be/qciVozNtCDM

... but after that? This is what comes next:

The failure of negotiations, the moral defeat of the West, the end of the monopolar world, the re-integration of half of Ukraine into Russia and the half with the industry and resources, the rebuilding of a New Russia, the success of the Russian economy and increase in its GDP, the decline of the West.

The greatest disaster of all American adventures, wreaked on all of us, and that we talked about from day 1.

Which is my worry - bit dramatic maybe - that America would prefer to go down with the planet than to cede its monopoly of power.

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WESTERN GOVTS, ANALYSTS AND MEDIA - HOW PROPAGANDA WORKS

26 August 2022

Simple-minded banalities and prejudice. This is the diet fed to the public through official channels.

In the UK, the ministry of defence MoD publishes daily bulletins on its site, and these talking points are picked up by the mainstream media, which then goes into a little more detail, and this is fed to the British public, which is why so many people who have a diet of only mainstream media have such a restricted and false view of the causes and consequences of this conflict. That is how consent for this war is manufactured.

Today we are being told that while the cost of living in the UK has gone up as a result of this war, the British are paying in money for what the Ukrainians are paying with their blood. The French public, perhaps more honestly, are being told that this is the high tide of Western economic power and the end of the "period of abundance" and "the time for sacrifices" (not however that Western elites will have to shed blood fighting or much face inflation) ie the end of the consumption economy, petrol, electricity, the end of production.

Take a typical example of MSM propaganda.

Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, tells Bild in this article what he couldn't argue out with the Russians in negotiations, because Zilensky refuses to negotiate. How far can such simple-minded inanities recounted by him in this article, advance the cause of peace?

What's this about many people not willing to risk returning to Ukraine in the event of a "shaky peace"? They flood back as soon as the new administration is established. It is a fact. Not being too cynical, but probably first of all to check their belongings.

And Zelensky's adviser says investments would also not come to the country. But once Russia has got back "New Russia", it will build-back-better, just like Potemkin did, probably using Donbas' rich skills and resources.

Potemkine is described as "an able administrator, licentious, extravagant, loyal, generous, and magnanimous and the subject of many anecdotes".

As to the Turkish empire and "Khanet de Crimée", in 1776 Potemkin sketched out a plan for the conquest of Crimea and Crimea was peacefully annexed in 1783. 

He was also busy with his Greek project to restore the Byzantine Empire. At least, the Greeks were the first to colonise that area, Troy was on the Bosphorus, and when he built New Russia in the 1780s, many of the cities were given Greek names.

That article again? Hard to believe, yes ... our politicians get dumber and dumber and everything turns around their egos and fortunes. 

But the right thing to do on any dossier in their in-tray is first of all to get a full geo and history briefing from the civil service. Then a good politician would determine where lies the national interest, set goals and strategies at Cabinet, and hand back to the civil service for financing, programming and execution.

But not only is the country trapped by the incompetence, partisanship and greed of its leadership;

 also the govt is not sovereign, independent and free but in hock to American power and technology;

 also we-the-people let them get away with it, they take our freedom, privacy and humanity and trade us Deliveroo and Uber instead. 

No pride.

The worst thing that has come out of this war was when Germany decided to spend its hundred billion on American arms. We should be building an independent Eurasian platform. Europe could so easily beat the States and China hands down, and America knows this.

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INDIA IS IN A GOOD PLACE

India is in a good place! This guy below,  has no need to lecture us on what our past glories meant for the other side of the transaction. On the contrary, we left India with superior governance.

America invited India into its World Order, but India held back. Even though America offeted start-up capital, its home market and guaranteed the supply routes.

But while holding back means India chose to be a laggard, it also means any collapse of the American Order wont worry India - cf China.

India's present woes are its choice, but India is well placed for the future. It is one of only a dozen countries with good demographics (under 40s). It is also geographically ok as it is able to command access to Middle East oil.

Plus if the US is withdrawing into isolation, there'll be no world hegemon, and India is likely to be the Regional Hegemon once China dies off.

And finally, what is this about "condescending"? Does he mean White Supremacy again (yawn). White Superiority is a better word and he feels condescended towards, that would be his justified inferiority complex!

https://youtu.be/Sj_ficQFz1o

Ah, are we talking about white supremacy here? White superiority (better word) is why Indians with their (justified) inferiority complex complained we are "condescending".

And anyway, who is lecturing who here?

Let's take a closer look ... India was the jewel in the empire: we took a lot, yes, we left them a lot as well - a whole new way to govern, not just the railways. Singapore isn't complaining, so why are the Indians?.

After independence, they never really joined the new American Order. It was better than the British in the sense that it provided not only capital to develop their resources further - incl human capital - but also markets for their goods if they wanted; and - and here's the difference - security on the global routes. As well as a universal and convenient currency for transactions and in which to store their savings.

But they hung back from joining (cf China after 1979) and now they blame us for their backwardness! You can see this if you compare the value of imports n exports with GDP - it is 20th in the G20.

He makes some very valid points though. America's disproportionate use of energy. The West outsourcing production and complaining the third world causes global pollution.

But as to forgetting the future and clueing into present needs. India has a great future.. .

If you believe the American Order is falling apart, then India not having joined in the first place means it's ok. Compare with China - if America withdraws, China is in deep trouble.

Demographics is in India's favour. The under-40s in a country are cheap semi-educated, they man the factories and army and fields; and they consume for cars, new families and houses. 

Cf countries who fought in WW2. The soldiers came home, the economy took off, the Great & Silent Generations created the fat and numerous Boomer generation, who created Millenials, a thin generation in number terms. The boomers were the middle class market for China. There are not enough millenials to consume all that can be produced. Nor enough to pick the fields or take care the elderly. 

At age 40+ however, they start saving and tucking away in ever-more-exotic destinations...like third-world govt debt and stock markets and even the Nifty Fifty. Then at age 65, they pull it all back, put it into safe (dollar) home-based assets eg me in value / divi shares for the future; and now we run down our savings on holidays, gadgets, netflix, house renovations and women ha ha.  

India, though, has a fat demographic of young people, it is one of only at most a dozen such countries. So it can produce and being more on its own, it can consume what it produces. Compare this with Europe, Russia and China - all aging fast, especially China.

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