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Tag: Russia

  • Finland in Financial Finale?

    I wandered into a video about why Finland sucks. Some I agree, some I don’t, but I put a longish comment there and decided to republish it with some modifications and additions.

    The downward turn of Finland became a point of no return at EU membership.

    The money circulating in economy now goes to Brussels and multinational corporations operating under international rules, while Finnish economy is being strangled by EU directives designed to favor the looting of peripheral provinces like Finland. Everything else is downstream symptoms of this colonialism.

    Including chopping state services like electric grid, elder care, and soon common water resources, for sale to international bidders (which I suspect to happen because the administrative and tax structures are heavily stacked against those domestic enterprises that do not use tax sandwiches and cheap foreign labor.)

    Using regulatory capture via EU is a modified version of standard globalist modus operandi, sending economic hitmen to subvert national governments to facilitate their countries looting. Here it is a supranational structure operating under severe democracy deficit that functions as a middleman and a fig leaf of legitimacy to borderless looting. After quick googling, I got the impression EU itself seems to consider the political legitimacy a perception issue, i.e., the system may get (cosmetic?) changes and the EU subjects might be probagandized more, if the issue becomes more relevant to the powers that be.

    Among other economic issues, the video mentioned refugees, which in case of Finland was a GDP Ponzi scheme coordinated at EU level. In general, the whole multiculturalism is just a marketing term used by elites pushing for their ‘remedies’ to economies that are already underperforming because of the epic looting that has been going for a long time.

    The real original reason for the refugee business was at first ‘tax payers are not breeding, let’s import more labor’ (and charge the public purse cost plus for integration services by well-connected providers, which, surprisingly, have zero incentives to run out of people to provide integration services for). If nobody paid for the great social benefits to them (AKA the immigration industrial complex) the immigrants would go somewhere else. As would the integration service providers siphoning this money.

    In California, we have a massive homeless industrial complex, with more and more tax money collected to subsidize more and more homeless services serving more and more homeless. Now people have began asking evaluation of results, even audits to find where 20 billion dollars (20 * 10^9 $$$) paid over 5 years went.

    Then, when the newcomers did not get employed (the economy was still sick due to looting, and using the ‘integration services’ rather than job opportunities as a bait attracts different cohorts of immigrants), the rationale began to shift towards consumer headcount method of economy – more consumers mean more economic activity.

    Except to pay for the new army of unemployed, the successive Finnish governments needed to borrow more money, cut other services and pay taxes. Which did not increase economic productivity but increased money in circulation while shifting it from pocket to pocket. Which means inflation and rising unemployment. But at least the economic numbers were manipulated to the EU standards using approved methodologies.

    I don’t know what the next phase of immigration will be, but I would be surprised if it worked better than the previous two phases. Finland, I think, is still in the first phase but beginning to have doubts about it (I might be wrong because I don’t follow Finnish media that much any more.)

    Slightly expanding on the subject, I think NATO’s current whining for war is just the grand finale in the leveraged buyout of nation states like Finland. The EU cash cows have been milked out of all the profits a peacetime economy can provide, let’s sell them to meatpackers. The military industrial complex, the war bond markets (large parts of Ukraine have been put as collateral for the loans required to continue the war against Russia), the reconstruction contracts, the overall firesale of the desperate (or dead) people’s resources for cheap to multinational investors. Finland is, of course, eager to go against traditional enemy, thinking that NATO will help them or that they will help NATO, or something.

    TLDR: Finland is just a case example what happens to once stable and prosperous countries once EU gets to rule them. I suspect that once looting Finland with just current methodology is no longer cost effective, it will be one of the assets to be liquidated in the war against Russia.

    Economic low pressure over remaining small businesses, a metaphor.

    Checking photos of Finland to best illustrate the situation, I think this is better than one of the runners up, a dead tree full of concs.

    Here is a sky darkened by rain clouds and a thin line of trees, cosmetically around a road rest spot, but no trees behind them. To the right was a rain drenched bog with sparse, stunted pines.

    It could be that the line of trees surrounds a farm (those are also usually under heavy regulatory and financial burdens), but thin lines of trees can be seen standing between roads and clear cut openings all over Finland. Such a line could be easily considered a metaphor for cosmetic ‘Happiest Country Statistics’ masking over the remnants of Finland’s economy, while behind spread ploughed through clear cut openings, that would be the real state of Finlands economy. And the dark clouds of global economic collapse and war are looming.

  • Current Events

    I was thinking about posting something light but two weeks ago I was not in the mood. I woke Saturday night briefly to the news that USA / Israel had struck Iran and from then on it was missiles all over the Middle-East. I still do not know which all countries are participating, either willingly or dragged into it. I just think this is bad. And it is expanding.

    The timing fits, though. Not going into this blood moon – planetary parade interpretation (solar maxima, maybe), the economic situation is very shaky and the release of the documents pertaining a large chunk of our (that is Western in general) elites, political, economical, cultural and even scientific ones, has pretty much removed what is left of their credibility, already in tatter due to decades of civic and economic mismanagement to the detriment of the masses. In short, the system is collapsing and usually the last thing the elites do in such situation is to start a patriotic / holy / justified war to drum up some support for the system, distract the masses (the shortages are due to The War, not the economic collapse, which is also due to The War), and to loot what is left of the treasury via military-industrial complex.

    Dollar was already failing through inflation (too many dollars had been printed, not to match the amount of bread to buy with these dollars), which was evident as gold and silver prices shooting up last year, peaking in January before some big players put breaks on it by changing the rules on metal trading. It only helped for a short time, the prices were climbing up again by Friday before the attack on Iran. Whether this uptick was caused by the natural demand on metals (especially the East – West arbitrage and trade war between USA and China), the COMEX halt on technical issue (again) spooking investors, or by big institutions moving metals as cued in on incoming geopolitical instability is irrelevant. The metal prices would not be rocketing up if dollars were as valuable currency as before the massive money printing. Of course, the metals then went down again. Whether this was due to forced liquidation as the private credit system is collapsing (a couple more notable examples of credit failures being Blue Owl and Blackrock) or strengthening of dollar (???) or some other arcane reason is irrelevant. I think many asset classes will now behave in seemingly irrational manner as hordes of panicky investors, or rather, their trading algorithms trigger waves of stop loss sell orders in a cascading series of events. An economic blowback, if I may use such term.

    Which brings to the second reason for the war in Middle East, namely oil prices. The chronic US debt requires buyers for US T-bills, but the main reason for anyone to buy T-bills is to buy dollar denominated oil. Gaddafi and Hussein tried to sell in other currencies. Iran, as an embargoed BRICS member, naturally sells in other currencies. United States has used dollar weapon and sanctions too often, reducing the natural demand for dollars, so petrodollar connection needed fortification. Not to mention the Strait of Hormuz being off limits during the exchange of missiles will drive the barrel prices up meaning a boost for T-bill demand. I believe that Iraq War II funded the Greenspan Moderation. I also think that increasing the price per barrel has a good chance of further hurt US economy, while helping Russian economy (remember the war in Ukraine?) But if the Western economies are already circling in a debt spiral down towards the sewer system, why not T-paper the mess with more treasuries? Besides, China will be in trouble, too, having lost Venezuela, and now Iran, and while EU regards Russia as their main opponent, USA is eyeballing The People’s Republic of China.

    Meanwhile, some billionaire predicted the AI will increase economic output so that nobody needs to be poor. I doubt this prediction.

    For the record, economy has been growing more or less steadily for the 20th century, what with occasional dip during recession or depression. The share of growth, however, stalled for the lower economic layers in early -70’s, meaning that the working class living standards have not increased with the economic productivity. We were promised shorter work weeks through technological advancement, what we got is a baroque bureaucracy plus private sector B*llsh!t Jobs (estimated to be about 40% of private sector work force), with chronic overwork for people struggling to survive on a diminishing share of a productivity pie, and mass unemployment for people who fell off the labor force or never bothered to join. Overworked people in the West are seething at NEETs, whereas the leaders in PRC is trying to discourage “Let It Rot” or Lying Flat mentality.

    Considering this historical precedent, I do not expect the AI to increase the living standards of the masses in any meaningful manner, just change the mode of exploitation.

    Provide entertainment and distractions, already happening. Control the population by algorithmic feed of ‘information’ (official newstainment and infoganda) and ‘opportunities’ (advertisements of sales and government grants, possibly even jobs, tailored for your planned role as a consumer and a cog in the system), sure. Has anyone else here had experienced the joys of ATS and modern job search? But actual empowerment of the people by allowing resource creation and utilization where the profits do not directly flow into the coffers of the 0.01% that own the AI models but benefit the individual people without creating dependencies? Unlikely.

    Having written the above, I am nevertheless curious about utilizing AI as part of my design processes, and may subscribe to some such service this spring. Hypocritical? Maybe.

    By Sunday, March 8th, the war against Iran had obviously become the sh!tshow that will define this century. In the Internet there are currently rumors that some official had admitted that the war may continue through September. Maybe, but I would not be so bold as to predict which year. Meanwhile, I think that the oil shock will be the last nail in the coffin of the Western economic hegemony (G7, OECD, World Bank, World Economic Forum, IMF, Basel, European Union, petrodollar, to mention some of the institutions which I expect to collapse or become irrelevant vestiges of bygone world, bit like British Imperial this and that after World War II). Maybe worse is the loss of large fraction of nitrogen fertilizer produced from cheap hydrocarbons with cheap energy in Middle-East. Even if the production is restored soon, the missing fertilizer production during the spring planting in Northern hemisphere is not good.

    I fueled my little car and bought some canned fish and protein bars to restore what I had recently eaten. Based on above, I expect temporary food shortages due to economic chaos, and permanent food price hikes due to increasing input and transportation costs, but such developments are already the new normal this decade, so there is little that can be done except to prep more, tighten the belt and hope that incomes increase to match the rising expenses.

  • Possible Bad News

    I fear that if the ceasefire between Israel and Iran fails, USA will be entering into two-front proxy war.

    Our current proxy war in Ukraine is not going well, and we are pulling our weapons help away (every other day, it seems, on the other days we are giving them more). European part of NATO is upset but considering the state of their economies and especially their armies (with a couple of exceptions), I doubt their help will be decisive in any manner. If it would be, this war would have been over years ago.

    I thought the news about us stopping to give missiles to Ukraine was about our economy and military-industrial complex, which in these days is more military than industrial (our industries having been long since outsourced), no longer sufficing for policing the world, but the latest rumor / development, namely China (PRC) strengthening its military support to Iran to counter our support to Israel, if true, means potential opening of a new proxy war. Against the biggest manufacturing powerhouse in the world that desperately needs a boost for its stalled economy. And needs the Iranian oil, the access to which has been complicated by the conflicts involving US backed Israel (although China has benefited hugely from US sanctions which have forced Iran to sell their oil on discount.)

    I have for some time thought about China and Iranian oil and China-Iran railway, and how Japanese got motivated to attack to Pearl Harbor by US blockade of Japanese oil imports. Just having an ominous feeling about this.

  • Estonia Has a Russian Problem

    No. I am not talking about their eastern neighbor, though the relationship between the two countries is currently even more strained than normal.

    I am talking about their Russian speaking stateless minority that is about 17% of their population (when Russian speaking citizens are included, the percentage climbs to 27.4%). I think that when Soviet Union collapsed and Estonia regained its independence, the native Estonians wanted to kick out the Russians and other Soviet nationals that had been imported or migrated into their country since the WWII, refusing to give citizenship to anyone who did not assimilate enough to pass the Estonian language test, but I thought that the sentiment had faded during the over three decades since, or at least something had been done to resolve the issue of large fraction of population being stateless. If I correctly remember, the newly re-emerged Russia had not wanted to take the Russians and other Russian speakers from Estonia, and I suspect many of the Russian speakers had been born in the country. Without Russian or Estonian passport, these people became stateless. To me, having about 17% of your population as a stateless minority, especially when preparing for war against their supposed native country seems very dangerous.

    An opinion poll comparing Estonian speaking, Russian speaking and bilingual households shows a clear rift in the opinions and attitudes of the ethnic groups. As far as I have seen, the Western media, of course, only publishes the Estonian speakers predominant opinion. The Russian speakers, anyways tend to follow their own media landscape. The pollsters comfort the readers (or themselves) telling that the Russian speakers are not a monolithic group and there is a diversity of opinions among them. This is true, but aside from the commonly differing prevalences of opinions between the linguistic groupings, the other two messages I got from reading this poll were 1) the difference in opinion about Ukrainian war between the region containing Tallinn (more pro-NATO and hawkish) and the rest of the country, and 2) the clear agreement between all groups that ethnic conflict within Estonia is possible, with Estonian speaking majority believing in it more .