Geopolitical Compass #13
Geopolitical Compass #13
Price cap stupidity. Vote harder stupid! Sitting ducks. No fly zone in France.
Notable events in geopolitics and capital markets this week. Expand your perspective, gain context, and discover actionable insights.
Eurasian Economic Union
The EEU established for the movement of free movement of goods, services, capital and workers inside member nations (Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and potentially Iran) may soon create it’s own ratings agency to remove dependence on existing US-biased ratings agencies. Russia already created it’s own agency for domestic ratings.
Another link in the chain for separation from the US dominated financial system.
France
In case you need more proof that the ‘Climate Crisis™’ is about control:
Taking effect this week, France has banned short haul flights inside the country. Just one more choice removed for people, which they have come to accept after swallowing the ‘world will end soon due to climate change’ narrative.
How long before they start introducing regulations to stop you travelling say 200km from your home without first attaining permission? Then 100km. Then…..it’s all coming…
Greece
As has become tradition inside the EUSSR, national elections in Greece have ended in no clear mandate to govern. So what happens next?
'Vote harder' - there will be another election in the coming months. Keep voting until you return the result they want. Weak governments under an unelected politburo that doesn't threaten its power is exactly what the EUSSR has become.
Price Caps
What have recent events taught us about bad government policy? That when the last policy inevitably fails, the solution is to bring another policy to counteract the problems the first one caused. When the fix for the fix fails also….. you get the idea.
After the EUSSR decided to self-immolate by placing sanctions on Russia, destroying local energy and going ESG crazy including destroying farmland, we now see the inevitable results appearing in rapidly escalating food prices as well as rationing.
The solution? Price caps of course!
It’s sad that this still needs to be said in this day and age, but bureaucrats never learn (their incentive is not to). Artificially limiting the price of products in the free market simply leads to producers curtailing production volumes since their costs escalate but they are unable to pass on the costs and also unable to absorb them. Government is making them unprofitable, so producers will slow or even stop production and deploy capital elsewhere.
Price caps will make food shortages worse in the Europe, not better.
Are we sensing a theme yet? Sanctions don’t work - we better sanction harder! Energy prices are increasing - subsidise everyone! Food prices are increasing - cap the prices!
Sitting Ducks
China’s military recently conducted war game simulations to make clear what has been obvious for some time to those in military circles and not living in delusions of the past:
Hypersonic weapons could be “catastrophic” for the most potent aircraft carrier group in the US fleet, according to war game simulations run by a team of military planners in China.
Over 20 intense battles, Chinese forces sank the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier fleet with a volley of 24 hypersonic anti-ship missiles, in a simulation run on a mainstream war game software platform used by China’s military.
In the scenario, the US vessels are attacked after continuing to approach a China-claimed island in the South China Sea despite repeated warnings.
Of course you wouldn’t expect China’s military to say otherwise, but aircraft carriers are nothing but sitting ducks since the advent of hypersonic missiles. A topic which Andrei Martyanov went into great detail for those interested.
These days aircraft carriers are only useful for force projection over former colonies and small defenseless nations. Against a real foe prepared to fight back such as Russia or China, they are the most expensive scrap metal you’ll come across.
Ukraine
The city of Bakhmut has fallen to Russian occupation, but the western media can’t admit this.
Putting aside for a moment feelings on the war itself, the fact that accurate reporting is no longer a ‘thing’ is the bigger problem facing us all. Once prestigious, credible and reliable information sources that people used to and should still be able to trust are outright denying truth and reality to further a narrative dictated to them by political actors.
Take care where you consume your information in the new world we’re in.
Zoltan
An interview worth reading, starting on page 147.
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