Geopolitical Compass #17
Geopolitical Compass #17
Switzerland...we hardly knew ye. No peace for Ukraine, but a slush fund. Moldovan “Democracy™”. Beware the Bitcoin ETF. A 'Coup' in Russia.
Notable events in geopolitics and capital markets this week. Expand your perspective, gain context, and discover actionable insights.
Bitcoin
Spot ETF
The greenlight has been given in the US; BlackRock has announced its filed for a spot Bitcoin ETF. This differs from existing US based ETFs as the BlackRock vehicle will hold physical Bitcoin, where as other products only offer price exposure through financial derivatives. A spot ETF has been applied for by numerous players previously and rejected every time.
Considering BlackRock is on the inside track in the corridors of power and only applies for products when it knows approval is a forgone conclusion (575 approvals, 1 rejection), a cavalcade of the world’s largest fund managers have followed suit, this week applying for their own Bitcoin ETF product.
Players filing applications include; WisdomTree, Valkyrie and Invesco, and rumors Fidelity will move to take out the GBTC trust.
While many casual Bitcoiners are celebrating this move and the inevitable price bump it will provide as these financial behemoths suck up the dwindling supply of Bitcoin, take a moment to think of the longer term ramifications. These ETFs are not necessarily what they seem.
At best they are vehicles for those interested in price exposure to Bitcoin, but not freedom from the existing financial system or self sovereignty it offers. Portfolio bros will jump on board for exposure and trading.
The middle ground move will be to control the price of Bitcoin through manipulation and fake paper Bitcoin creation. The creation of fake paper Bitcoin through FTX during the last bull run is what suppressed the price and stopped it moving above the USD 69,000 level. Later it was found FTX printed billions of fake promises.
At worst, these vehicles will be co-opted in the future by the US government when it decides on a 6102 seizure, compensating owners with fiat cuck bucks.
If you understand Bitcoin and the future it provides, be sure to buy the real thing and self custody so it can’t be taken away from at the convenience of fund managers or the government.
Electricity Grids
Many have heard how Bitcoin is ‘detrimental’ to the climate and is a waste of electricity. This is an easy headline grabbing talking point.
The reality is much different. 60% of Bitcoin hashrate (mining) uses sustainable energy as of this time last year. Even more crucially, Bitcoin is actually bringing resiliency to electricity grids, making them more reliable in times of higher need as is currently being illustrated in Texas during a heat wave.
Texas has a large Bitcoin mining industry and just as the industry did in 2022, miners are again voluntarily shutting down operations temporarily, allowing ERCOT the state grid operator to redistribute power to residential and commercial customers with increasing demand to avoid brownouts and blackouts.
Bitcoin miners in Texas curbed operations, crimping power usage, as a heat wave drove electricity prices sky-high Tuesday and threatened to cripple the grid in the second-largest US state.
The extent of the intentional shutdown and the amount of power conserved for other uses — such as residential air conditioners, medical centers and municipal water systems — was not yet immediately clear. But the curtailments were confirmed by industry participants and grid manager the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or Ercot.
The ramifications on electricity grids worldwide shouldn’t be underestimated. For gird operators, Bitcoin miners are a reliable customer they can base demand forecasts and infrastructure build out on, but unlike other industries Bitcoin miners have the option to shut down operations within minutes during peak demand times like when residential customers crank up air conditioners during a heatwave (or perhaps charge their electric cars en masse?). Bitcoin miners can provide a demand response very few other businesses can.
This shows one way Bitcoin can make electricity grids more resilient, robust and efficient. A win for producers and end users.
Heating
Due to the heat put out by Bitcoin mining machines, more people and businesses are using the machines for heating requirements such as heating homes in winter or as revealed this week by New York City’s Bathhouse - to heat their pools instead of using traditional pool heaters.
This will see the business reduce its energy bill with income produced from mining, a trend I believe will be widespread a decade from now.
BRICS
Last week I said with each passing month we see another application for a country to join BRICS with Egypt looking to join. The pace seems to be picking up, less than a week later another BRICS application is incoming. Up this week; Bangladesh and it’s population of 169 million.
China
The US capitulating to China this weeks during visit by Secretary of State Blinken during which he maintains the US never supported Taiwan independence. The amount flip flopping this US administration does would put bozo the clown to shame.
China knows the US is non-agreement-capable as the Russian’s put it, and will start up provocations again with 100% certainty.
Update: Before I even got this weeks issue out, Biden has again called President Xi a dictator. It was even quicker than I imagined and shows the complete disregard for diplomacy this administration has.
Moldova
“Democracy™” at work in Moldova where a pro-Russian minority party has just been outlawed.
“The Shor political party is declared unconstitutional… From the date of pronouncement of this judgement it shall be considered dissolved”, the court announced.
The Shor party’s five lawmakers can continue to represent their constituents but will be unaffiliated in the 110-seat parliament, the court added.
Russia
Attempted ‘Coup’
Western media of course started drooling once they learned Wagner military group head Yevgeny Prigozhin had taken action against Defence Minister Shougoi. The animosity between the two has been growing daily since the beginning of the Ukrainian conflict. They were already preparing to change the headlines of Wagner forces from terrorist mercenaries to glorious freedom fighters as they did with the Nazi Azov battalion in Ukraine. Remember, at the end of the day, anything and everything that can potentially weaken Russia can and always will be embraced, regardless of the evils.
In reality there was never any popular support from the people (remember Putin has 80%+ public support in all polls including those run by Western think tanks), nor anyone in authority in either the Russian leadership or military, in fact anyone outside of Prigozhin’s most loyal soldiers.
The major complaint Prigozhin has against the Defence Ministry is that Wagner was not being supplied with enough weapons and ammunition to fight. So pray tell how exactly was Wagner meant to be strong enough to conduct a successful coup? A logic that the West will happily ignore to perpetuate it’s fantasies.
The entire incident is in effect the result of a stressed, and mentally unstable Prigozhin taking his frustration one step too far.
The incident has already been resolved with Prigozhin negotiating within 24 hours once it was obvious he had no support. He will now essentially be banished to exile in Belarus, while the Wagner group will be disbanded and absorbed into the Russian military with the exception of perhaps some of it’s most loyal elements who face dismissal if deemed as treacherous - the one thing Putin never forgives.
This won’t however stop Western interests from portraying it as weakening Russia as well as Putin and pouring more money into Ukraine (see further below). There is still no comprehension Putin is a moderate holding back political forces that would take a much stronger view on both the war and the West. They can’t think further than ‘Putin bad.’
At the same time Western ‘geopolitical experts’ will continue destroying their reputation by passing of their wet dreams as legitimate analysis.
Manufacturing
The new Moskvich 6 sedan will begin sales in the third quarter. Sticker price around RUB 2,000,000 or USD 24,000.
This model is being produced in factories abandoned by Western corporations who quit the Russian market in 2022. The plants have re-opened in less than 15 months after being re-engineered to accommodate entirely different vehicles of Russia’s domestic brand.
Switzerland
First came covid restrictions. Then giving up neutrality and vilifying Russia. Now the Swiss have just voted to increase corporate taxes and confirm the climate hoax agenda.
Seems the Swiss are intent on giving up all remnants of sovereignty, independence and freedom. Piece by piece the land of cheese and cuckoo clocks is sliding and ensuring capital will continue to slowly drain out.
Syria
The EUSSR recently held the “Seventh Brussels Conference on ‘Supporting the future of Syria and the region.’
Just one problem…. they didn’t invite representatives from Syria’s government.
Country's Foreign Ministry warned that EU only invited corrupt individuals affiliated with ISIS, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and other terrorist groups that did and still doing the exact opposite of supporting country's future, being the same Western-supported groups that destroyed it.
The guests oppose the Syrian nation’s primary interests, obstruct attempts aimed at return of Syrian refugees to their homeland and impede efforts aimed at the transfer of humanitarian supplies to liberated areas and/or quake-devastated districts - Foreign Ministry.
Sure, let the EUSSR and the oil stealing US interests plan Syria’s future instead of its elected leaders. Makes about as much sense as taking a blind man to a strip club, unless of course you don’t want Syria to make progress.
Ukraine
No Peace
NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg on prospects of a freeze in the Ukraine conflict:
So even though NATO is supposedly ‘no party to the conflict’ (let’s make believe for a moment they aren’t sending machinery, weapons, artillery and training Ukrainian soldiers), NATO deems fit to dictate that no peace can be negotiated if it’s on Russia’s turns.
We now know this concretely since Putin revealed last week a peace deal was already reached in March 2022 - less than a month after the conflict began - and agreed to by the Ukrainian side before a quick visit from Boris Johnson ensured the deal was killed.
"I would like to draw your attention to the fact that with [Turkish] President [Tayyip] Erdogan’s assistance, as you know, a string of talks between Russia and Ukraine took place in Turkey so as to work out both the confidence-building measures you mentioned, and to draw up the text of the agreement. We did not discuss with the Ukrainian side that this treaty would be classified, but we have never presented it, nor commented on it. This draft agreement was initialed by the head of the Kiev negotiation team. He put his signature there. Here it is," the Russian president said showing the paper to the African delegation.
So feeding Ukrainian men into the Russian meat grinder will continue apace until it suits Western political preferences to end it or until Western armories run out of weapons to send. Until then, ‘peace’ has become a dirty word.
‘Reconstruction Bank’
Then we have this week another slush fund being set up:
BlackRock and JPMorgan Chase are helping the Ukrainian government set up a reconstruction bank to steer public seed capital into rebuilding projects that can attract hundreds of billions of dollars in private investment.
Now I know it’s a crazy thought - Russia is about to collapse, Ukraine is a magnificent war-fighting machine, German tanks aren’t burning, Slava Ukraini and all that….. but hear me out for a moment.
What do you suppose will happen to all that money if, just IF the western narrative is wrong and Ukraine is actually losing this war and is set for defeat? More evidence of this is slowly being drip fed into the mainstream propaganda.
The masses are being slowly conditioned to accept a Ukrainian defeat, the same way they were led to believe an ineffective vaccine solved the covid crisis once governments decided it was time to pivot, even though the clot shot didn’t actually prevent contagion and often worsened the effects.
So what happens if Russia holds most of the land east of the Dnieper River once the conflict is resolved? What happens to all the money if there is not much of ‘Rump Ukraine’ left to reconstruct in the west? Or what if the new Ukrainian administration that assumes control after the Cocaine Dwarf is ousted decides on neutrality or in some other way doesn’t please the Western backed funding?
What will happen to all the billions accumulating in the ‘reconstruction bank’ then?
That’s ok, no need for us to concern ourselves with details like that, I’m sure BlackRock and JP Morgan will know exactly what to do.
Russian Book Ban
Maybe they could just burn them? That’s always a good look in retrospect. 🤦🏼♂️
Obsession
The obsession with the Ukrainian regime and the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant continues.
Here as usual, a little common sense can go a long way. Russia now controls and operates the nuclear power plant, on land now part of Russia, and is even inviting international bodies in to help keep it safe.
Why is Ukraine obsessed with the power plant? Because a false flag triggering a nuclear scare at the power plant is literally the only thing Ukraine has left to try and draw direct NATO intervention into the war, without which, Ukraine is on path to complete failure.
The Ukrainian regime is becoming increasingly desperate as all its false flags continue to fail - people just aren’t buying it; multiple attempts at Russian ‘war crimes’, pipeline attacks, bridge explosions, dam attacks, as well as the numerous attacks Ukraine has waged on the power plant itself including shelling and destroying it’s water supply (the dam).
The only questions is whether the US is suicidal enough to enter the conflict directly via a false flag pretext. We know the rest of NATO including the EUSSR and UK are only too willing to jump off the cliff, but for now the power struggle behind the scenes in the US seems to be the only thing holding back WWIII.
United States
Biden is dispatching Anthony Blinken and nominal ‘underling’ but in reality his puppet master Victoria ‘Cookies’ Nuland to convince BRICS nations that war against Russia is a good idea.
Talk about tone deaf. Sending the chief war protagonists and instigators will not change anyone’s minds. The fact that ‘Biden’ is sending these two of all people shows that absolute delusional state of hubris the US administration is in.
A Quick Reminder
Where the Western world finds itself. Plan accordingly.
If you enjoyed this weeks Geopolitical Compass, please consider sharing it to spread the word to others.