NORWAY!

With New Zealand to place and Finland to show.

Funny thing though, I faced three major loss-making threats — one apiece — in each country.  I dodged the ones in New Zealand and Norway where companies headed for insolvency WERE PURCHASED AT THE ELEVENTH HOUR.

But my luck ran out in Finland in a case involving Russians, East Germans and a duplicitous country manager at a company that will go unnamed.

So, is there a CORRELATION between greater democracy and greater risk?

I could make a case for it.

It’s very FASHIONABLE today in WOKE and PROGRESSIVE circles to BASH THE WEST and its LEGACY.

Sorry, wokesters, but the countries of the Anglosphere and Northwest Europe — its first cousins — are still the among the LEAST CORRUPT IN THE WORLD.  And least corrupt as a bloc.

That said, corruption in the US is on the rise and must be dealt with swiftly and firmly.  Otherwise, we’re a THIRD WORLD COUNTRY IN THE MAKING.

In case you missed last June’s G7 B3W release, here it is.

Biden/G7 Fact Sheet on B3W Partnership Launch

In addition to focusing on rebuilding the US’s by now DECREPIT INFRASTRUCTURE, B3W’s goal has been to blunt the effects of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) which is creating new trade routes between Asia, Europe and Africa and which will eventually expand to include Latin America as well.

As part of B3W’s goal, the G7 hopes to beat China to the punch in financing all manner of infrastructure development — whether physical or digital — in every corner of the DEVELOPING WORLD.  In other words, another BANKER’S BANQUET meant to secure GEOPOLITICAL ADVANTAGE.  China does this ITS WAY, the West does it THEIRS.

Here are B3W’s guiding principles:

• Values-Driven
• Good Governance and Strong Standards
• Climate-Friendly
• Private Capital Mobilization through Development Finance
• Enhanced Impact of Multilateral Public Finance

Sound a little like LAST YEAR’S BUSINESS PLAN?  Or someone playing CATCHUP?  And since Biden’s Build Back Better agenda in the US failed to lift off, what are the odds of the West — acting in seamless concert — achieving the globalized version?

Is it too little, too late?

We’ll see.  This is straight from Davos, after all.

We buy their stuff.  They don’t buy ours.

If there’s one thing China doesn’t want, it’s a level playing field.

But why is the US down from 27% of world production to only 1%?

It would be JUST TOO IRONIC if it were for some environmentally-related reason. Because without lithium, THERE CAN’T BE EV’s and without EV’s, the whole GREEN AGENDA doesn’t work.

But this trend MUST CONTINUE.

The one thing that’s constant is change.

. . . and Actually Does Her Job.

MORE OF THIS, PLEASE.

Manhattan Judge Rejects No-Bail Bid, Sends Accused Teen Robber to Jail

The Baltic, June, 2014, somewhere between Tallinn and St. Petersburg aboard the svelte barquentine, Star Flyer. 

Some fade, others emerge, while others reemerge reinvented.

Creative destruction at lightspeed.