46 thoughts on “World Affairs”

  1. Reply
    mega says:

    Mega’s dispatch from England:- Distant war drums
    Oh My……….its only been a few days but suddenly i see how “worried” the BBC has become about Yemen. It was once part of the Empire but the natives got all upperty & wanted to run the place for themselves.

    Now with the Houths taking all the coast line & being rather unhelpful about Saudi exports via the Red sea the British MSM has begone the time horrored job of setting the narrative for Blight & others to pop in & lend a helping hand.

    The BBC pitched in some footage of scared looking kids (Poster Child) & women. The fighting blokes had very little kit & looked like a bunch of locals that the BBC had driven to a disused building site & started firing round at vaguely in one direction.

    I heard no return fire………….

    The BBC has form on this, back in the Vietnam war they did a report from a “On going firefight”……in fact the battle had ended weeks early & a few burnt out vehicles were left. The BBC “Reporter” bravely poured gas into the vehicles & threw a few hand fulls of loose ammo.
    Then he set it burning……..crouging by one of them he reported that the battles was still going on while the fires burt & the ammo cooked off.

    My late Father was somewhat unimpressed by this, he worked on a bomb dump & knew the difference between real fire & cooking off.

    Anyways………..i can smell “Deployment” a coming…………..
    Cheers
    Mike

  3. Reply
    Finster says:

    While we’re challenging MSM narratives, another interesting disconnect is with economic reporting. We’ve noted before plunging consumer confidence, plumbing record lows despite supposedly rosy econometrics.

    Media have been hammering high fuel prices for months. I have family and friends across all socioeconomic strata, from wealthy to barely scraping by, yet I’ve not heard one complaint about fuel prices. Inflation in general, yes, but fuel prices specifically, no. Nor tariffs incidentally. It’s almost as if US media live in a different reality. Or have an agenda …

  5. Reply
    mega says:

    Very little rubber in modern tyres am told, you don’t burn rubber, you burn Polymers.
    The Germans has a synthetic rubber in WW2, they drove into Russia………then the winter came 😉

    1. Reply
      Finster says:

      Some natural rubber is used in almost all vehicle tires, about 30% on average. But the point was just a jovial poke at the suggestion that making tires from trees is new or different … that it’s “reinventing the wheel”, so to speak … 😉 …

      1. Reply
        mega says:

        Rubber comes from latex eg the rubber plantations in far east….the rest is petro chems.
        My late Father told me that his firm (Dunlop) had shown a “Plastic tyre”. When asked how it would work they said “No idea, but it allows us to have a patent on it.

        Mike

        1. Reply
          Finster says:

          Possibly they’re making tires without petroleum products … eg only from trees … that might be noteworthy …

  7. Reply
    mega says:

    Just before the fall of the CCCP they put a Satellite up to try the same thing………..but it failed

  9. Reply
    Finster says:

    France is frightening the life out of the bond markets

    “France’s debt mountain stands at 119 per cent of its GDP. The UK’s is much lower at 95.1. It is not in an ideal situation. The UK might have less debt, but its interest rate payments are higher. It has many more inflation linked bonds, Bank of England base rates are higher than in the Eurozone and it has been suffering from the effects of the bond markets’ distemper, too.

    But that distemper is an increasingly global phenomenon. As I write yields (interest rates) on French, Spanish, and also American bonds, are on the rise as the markets search for their next victim.”

    1. Reply
      mega says:

      “Victim”?
      Criminal enterprise you mean?
      The “Invisible hand” is about to bitch slap them!

  10. Reply
    mega says:

    🇬🇧🇸🇦 Britain joins the US in providing aid to Saudi Arabia.

    A British tanker aircraft is flying toward Yemen to back the Saudi air force in its campaign, while Saudi jets have shifted their launches from Jeddah to Prince Sultan Air Base, which is operated by US forces.

  13. Reply
    Finster says:

    Jaguar 01

    Jaguar needs to rediscover a bit of the old school style that made it great. You know, when you could look at one and instantly know it was a Jaguar?

    Jaguar

  14. Reply
    mega says:

    ………………….& to think Enzo Ferrari called the E Type the most beautiful car he ever seen.

    1. Reply
      Finster says:

      Jaguar E-Type

      Besides its distinctive style, the other thing Jaguar always had going for it was an awesome combination of ride and handling. Hard to tell from looks alone, but the Type 01 doesn’t look designed for real world roads. It looks more like an Elon Musk nightmare.

    1. Reply
      Finster says:

      The gold backed treasury bond is an interesting idea and one investors should be aware of, but it has some big negatives.

      For one thing, it’s said to have the potential to reduce the government’s borrowing costs. That’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. We’ve just been through an era of low borrowing costs and it encouraged the government to borrow more. By providing a mechanism to ease the government’s debt burden, it lightens the pressure to address at the source and become more fiscally responsible. It’s a fiscal irresponsibility enabler.

      Worse yet, while it creates the appearance of lower borrowing costs, it sends them higher. When years after the borrowing occurs the bond holders decide to demand gold, the government’s costs will soar. The binary optionality is a bug dressed up as a feature … the bond is payable in dollars or gold. This bit of complexity makes it messy … inviting interpretation according to one’s agenda. It’s a can kicking scheme at its core.

      Finally, it’s something Treasury could actually default on. One of the attractions of treasuries has always been that you were certain to get the dollars promised, even if the value of those dollars were uncertain. Repayment in depreciated currency is the standard mode of sovereign default and well understood. The government can’t print gold. These bonds would require pricing in the kind of overt default risk that heretofore has been reserved for credit.

      The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

  16. Reply
    mega says:

    The Clown show that is Porsche are at it again……………Seems someone told them that the lower classes will not be able to “Lease Hire” their good anymore, thus they are raising their prices sharply high.

    The net Gen Boxster/Cayman will ONLY be an EV, & don’t expect much change from £100K. The turd has been floating about in “Camo” & “Under development”for years!. by the time its out it will be due a facelift.

    All the batteries are in one solid block behind the driver (After Porsche told everyone it should be split in two, one front, one back). It also grown somewhat in weight to over 1750 kgs (up from 1380 ish). Meantime Alpine are about to roll out the A110……….a car weighting at 1400 kgs ish (3rd of a ton lighter) Split battery packs & may be in wheel motors!

    In other words a cutting edge car v a fat slug…………oh and Alpine are deep into talks with CATL about more advanced battery type.

    Mike

  18. Reply
    Finster says:

    Nice little bounce in bonds today. I’ve been expecting a rally … but far too soon to say whether this is the beginning of it … or just a dead cat blip.

  20. Reply
    Finster says:

    America shut out Chinese EVs. Britain welcomed them — and now faces a difficult choice

    “Chinese EVs face only a 10% standard import duty in Britain, one of the largest major overseas markets without additional China-specific tariffs. Japan and Norway also lack them.

    It’s in contrast to the U.S., where a 100% tariff effectively shut Chinese EVs out…”

    In case anyone was wondering why electric cars are so expensive in America.

    “… The European Union, the U.K.’s biggest trading partner, has manufacturer-specific duties on Chinese EVs of up to 35.3%, in addition to a standard 10% import duty on all foreign cars.

    Now, the U.K. faces a difficult choice, as EU proposals may force it to impose tariffs to match the bloc’s.”

    Tariffs are only bad when Trump does them.

  28. Reply
    Finster says:

    From my perspective the only thing wrong with the diesel deal is it doesn’t go far enough. America should work to drop all sanctions against Russia post haste. I’ve been saying since the beginning that it should be pursuing better relations with Russia. The media have never justified their repeated claims that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was “unprovoked”. It takes more than just slipping an adjective into a sentence to make a case.

    The fall of the Berlin Wall and end of the Cold War was supposed to be the end of (a bad) history and The West has squandered a historic opportunity by refusing to accept it. The Ukraine War has cost countless human lives and inflicted massive economic damage. Relations with Russia have far reaching implications, notably including North Korea and Iran. It would be much harder for trouble spots around the world to be trouble if America and Russia were on the same page. Trump promised that he would end the Ukraine War on Day One and the Great Dealmaker is behind schedule.

  29. Reply
    mega says:

    Ah…………..The art of the deal
    The British are now spitting tacks BIG time, they just don’t matter now……….which is one reason they so upset. Jokes apart i was watching Art Beman on Youtube & he makes some good points.

    We not going back to the way things were.
    Green power/ Ev’s etc are “As well as” not a replacement for old fuels.

    I also see thing not going well for MBS down there in Saudi. If Saudi fall, they all fall!

    Poland hosted the AFD from Germany & Le Pen’s team………….big talk was getting the Norstream pipelines back.

    Never Mind Paris Motor show opens Monday i think…………..
    Mike

    1. Reply
      Finster says:

      We’re gonna have some mix of energy sources for the foreseeable future. The best thing government can do is prevent cost externalization (eg tax pollution) and otherwise get out of the way and let producers and consumers interacting in a free market work out what works best where and when. One-size-fits-all never does.

  30. Reply
    mega says:

    Trump just got called “Weak” by the Green goblin…….& attacked Russian Hydrocarbons against Trump’s wishers…………Trump wants him gone…….NOW!

    1. Reply
      Finster says:

      He could at least end US military support
      … like he could have on Day One.

      Trump administration obligates $307M for military aid to Ukraine

      “The Trump administration has made legally binding commitments to spend almost all of the $400 million Congress approved for military aid to Ukraine late last year, ensuring that the money will not expire on Sept. 30 …”

      Earth-Shakers

      “Let’s think about the Ukraine vs. Russia war quickly. When Ukraine loses, the world will change…

      … But the Ukraine war truly began in 2014, when Obama’s intelligence services executed the Maidan Revolution (coup). NATO is deep in this war.”

  31. Reply
    mega says:

    Mega’s Dispatch from England:- The British are nice……….. until they NOT!
    Are yes as Kipling once observed is now getting played out once again.

    My 1st real taste of post empire geopolitical wrath was when the sudden withdraw of US forces from Afghanistan. I was in government at the time & the FURY had to be witnessed to be believed. This latest blow to British soft power is not quite on that level but its not far off.

    With Ukraine going from bad to worse & the Middle east now on fire, time is short. I am not sure when the full blown energy crisis will hit but it can’t be long. The British built a large Natural gas plant in Qatar to ship to Blighty, its now a charged ruin.

    Even it wasn’t who in Gods name is going to sail a fully loaded LPG tanker in that part of the World?………….who insure it?

    Diesel might be getting the headlines but i think LPG is going to be the story by Xmas.

    We also hearing that an general election will be called in the new year, possibly for Feb. They hope bad weather will keep the right from voting. I suspect the deadbeat welfare class are the ones that will not bother. Oh Yes………….i almost forgot…….Labour are rushing to change the law that voter I.D will be required when voting………..gee i wonder why?

    Mike

    1. Reply
      Finster says:

      My dad drove Citroens and Saabs when we were kids.
      That is not my father’s Citroen;-)

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