Category: Uncategorized

Michael Every: This and That

Latest Russia-Ukraine War related observations from Rabobank’s Chief Global Strategist.  And I’m quoting.

  • The Russian Defense Ministry officially released data showing 9,861 Russian troops have been killed, with 16,153 injured. That is getting close to the tally of the entire 11-year Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
  • The US also decided it needed escalation on another front – it sanctioned Chinese officials over human rights abuses related to Xinjiang and the treatment of Uighurs, an issue which seemed on the backburner.
  • Quite clearly to some, this is a shot across the bows about Chinese support for Russia. Equally clearly to most, it will generate a furious Chinese backlash. And this is as Russia warns it is close to severing all diplomatic ties with the US completely. In short, our pre-war scenario C –messy global fragmentation– looks a step closer to potentially materializing.
  • The problem is, of course, that while the free world is increasingly united, most of the world isn’t free in that sense. Indeed, while we all congratulate ourselves on how ‘Ukraine has won the media war’, consider that this is not how it is playing out in swathes of Asia, Africa, or even Latin America. And unless the West intends to leave all of these economies to set up a new bloc without it, which the current scramble for energy shows is not possible, it needs to do better, or at least make a more substantive offer.
  • Against this backdrop, what is a central bank to do? If you listened to Fed speakers, especially Powell, yesterday, you heard them suggest raising rates faster, perhaps going 50bp and not 25bp at some meetings, and removing QE even more aggressively. If you listened to the ECB’s Lagarde, you got a very different message.
  •  Stocks are generally holding up on the view that this hawkishness is aberrative silliness that will soon give way to the usual QE and money on a plate for those who never have to worry about what’s on their plate, even as hundreds of millions literally risk having nothing on theirs.
  • Yet if we are seeing a struggle for a new world order, you can make a strong case that a sign of health, not weakness, would be higher interest rates in the country aiming to lead it.
  • Freedom isn’t free; and freedom isn’t free money.

DON’T BE SURPRISED IF THE US CAN’T CONTROL OUTCOMES IN A WAY TO WHICH IT HAS BECOME ACCUSTOMED.

POWER IS NOW MORE DIFFUSE.

Hydrogen Powered Aircraft?

I wouldn’t bet the FARM on it or even Maxine’s 5 acres.

Serious issues regarding weight, range, storage and safety — both on their own and in relation to SCALABILITY — remain.

The most optimistic forecasts have passengers flying on planes fueled by hydrogen by around 2035.

But then a lot can happen between now and then — and in EITHER DIRECTION.

Here’s the article:

The Epic Attempts to Power Planes with Hydrogen

Sheraton New York Fire Sale

I pass by this hotel almost every night I’m in New York during my 10 PM to midnight walk.

And apparently, it’s been HEMORRHAGING MONEY as its just been sold for less than HALF IT WAS PURCHASED FOR in 2006.

The buyer?

MCR Hotels which has been apparently SCAPPING UP hotel properties in Manhattan since the start of the pandemic.

I must research what they’re up to.

The link to the entire article:

NYC’s Third Largest Hotel to Sell at a Staggering Loss

China’s View of the Russia-Ukraine War

The following points are from sources developed by Michael Every at Rabobank:

  • Beijing blames the US for the crisis by expanding NATO, rather than Russia expanding Russia;
  • Has stated that the US has to resolve it using a Chinese idiom;
  • That this includes addressing Russian security needs too, and linking this all back to Taiwan;
  • Saying China will help if the US backs off on trade war, tech war, AUKUS, the Quad, etc.

Note how ALL ROADS always lead back to WHAT’S GOOD FOR CHINA.  Sure, that’s REALPOLITIK, but it’s also a constant ONE-NOTE SAMBA.  China must ALWAYS gain advantage.

Hey, China, what’s in it for the rest of us besides your “help?”

Hedges Tells It . . .

. . . or at least the OTHER SIDE of It.

Want to know why you should read this article?

TRY THIS:

“The Cold War, from 1945 to 1989, was a wild Bacchanalia for arms manufacturers, the Pentagon, the C.I.A., the diplomats who played one country off another on the world’s chess board, and the global corporations able to loot and pillage by equating predatory capitalism with freedom. In the name of national security, the Cold Warriors, many of them self-identified liberals, demonized labor, independent media, human rights organizations, and those who opposed the permanent war economy and the militarization of American society as soft on communism. 

“That is why they have resurrected it.”

How’s that for an OPENING?

But wait . . . IT GETS STRONGER . . . though MANY WILL DEPLORE WHAT IT ACTUALLY SAYS.  Still, there are usually two sides to EVERYTHING  . . . though that doesn’t ensure some BINARY RESOLUTION.

Truth can TURN UP where you least expect it.

Waltzing to Armageddon

Hedges’ concluding paragraph:

“The only true patriots will be generals, war profiteers, opportunists, courtiers in the media and demagogues braying for more and more blood. The merchants of death rule like Olympian gods.  And we, cowed by fear, intoxicated by war, swept up in the collective hysteria, clamor for our own annihilation.”

He doesn’t pull punches, does he.

“Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for 15 years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East bureau chief and Balkan bureau chief for the paper.”