REFLECTIONS

 As Gottliebsen emphasized yesterday, and this is something I've been pushing for 10 years, the room to manoeuvre for fiscal and monetary authorities is shrinking to alarmingly low levels so that the economy and the society are walking on a knife edge: keep current policies, and inflation destroys society; raise rates ever so slightly...and you destroy the economy, which destroys society.

That's called a dilemma (Greek, di [two], lemma [hypothesis])...

Kerr Nielsen at Platinum (note: I have argued since Cambridge days, that all ex dictatorships are mercantilist, therefore emphasis on Asia...and Germany):

"Investors in high-growth emerging markets should also accept that nearly all Asian nation states are mercantilist, according to Mr Neilson. “Korea, it’s the leader,” he said. “Followed by the Japanese and Chinese. They believe everything should be made at home. And you should only have exports, and everything that comes into the country is a curse, and I’m barely exaggerating."

This MOST EXCELLENT article by John Davidson contains an implicit thesis, which he does not develop probably because he is not aware of it, that the FAANGs have collectively represented an unprecedented historical transfer of wealth from production to advertising! 

This, again, is something I have argued for at least the last five years.

https://www.afr.com/technology/why-facebook-s-disastrous-result-could-just-be-the-start-20220208-p59un8

If you needed evidence for “the decline of the West”, you can’t go past the last three articles I have linked…

The future now is in the hands of societies that can “withstand pain” - China, Asia generally, Russia, Islam. The West will simply wither away and be swallowed by these…er…”civilisations”…

If you look at all the best analysts, they all are turning to this thesis, which I have advanced for many years under the title of Machtpolitik (power politics)…

Incidentally, the shrinking of “elbow room” for economic policy in the West is due mainly to this unwillingness by both elites and their citizenry to adopt “shared pain” measures to counter the enemy dictatorships and regimes that are slowly but surely “swallowing” us.

The rise of the FAANGs (advertising and entertainment over production) is an evident symptom of our decline…

By the bye: ADD TAIWAN TO THE MERCANTILIST DICTATORSHIPS! 

Here people import little or nothing. People live miserably in parlours conditions, save for “positives” like health services and public safety (crime).

What was that I was just saying about “withstanding pain”?

This just in at the NYT:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/08/world/europe/ukraine-putin-russia.html

Two observations: you can see why Han Chinese are rats that will destroy the planet.

Second: but Rats still fight for their lives! They have the will to power, the will to survive and dominate!

- Something Western civilization has lost .. totally...