Africans and Europeans worked together to promote slave trade

 

For a very long time the idea that only Europeans were involved in the slavery trade that took Africans away from Africa to be used as slaves has been peddled and it is an absolute lie.

White Europeans and Black Africans worked together, traded together, to enslave other black African peoples.

In fact, African kings sold their own peoples to European traders. The idea that Africans could sell Africans is abhorrent but it is very much the way in which the slavery trade prospered. 

As the song of the Cabaret movie goes ´money makes the world go around´. Even today there are individuals that would willingly sell their own countrymen and countrywoman for a profit. You do not have to go too far to find such individuals. Politicians of a certain political party now in government have received generous donations from a certain community and those donations are dictating British Foreign Policy.

Yes, it happend hundreds of years ago and it is happening right now in the United Kingdom.

The War of Words is what comes before the Physical War

People must understand that the War of Words is what comes before the Physical War, when bombs fly and people die. Any war is a financial affair. In fact, there is always a financial reason for wars to happen. 

At this point in time there are economic rivals fighting to prevail and this is accelerating to the point when there will be a point of no return. We know how wars begin, but we cannot foresee how wars will end. This sort of wars have happened in the past. The Mighty Roman Empire saw the sacking of Rome by invaders. So the success of the so called West is by no means guaranteed.

Going into the not so remote past, we must remember the history of Europe. There was a time when the Moors (Arabic Invaders) and the Turks took over entire regions of Europe by force and kept them under their rule for hundreds of years. The naive belief that demographic changes will occur without consequences is dangerous. Peaceful colonisation will suddenly turn into a more violent expression of colonisation as foreign populations grow in numbers inside the so called West.

China is the Target: US has said it loud and clear at every opportunity

 

China is the Target: US has said it loud and clear at every opportunity.

When in Europe US representatives stated that the emphasis of its military approach in the Pacific, they were telling Europeans exactly where things are heading.

The move about tariffs has a clear aim which is to undermined the Chinese economy that at the moment in increasing investment in defense massively. So how do you make China suffer? Trade. Trade provides the resources for defense. Is not that the logic of sanctions against the Russian Federation?

Money pays for guns. Do you want to limit another country´s expansion? Limit Trade. And this is exactly President Trump´s strategy.

As always, Europeans create wars and US lives are spent to rescue them

 

Europeans created wars and US had to intervene to rescue them. World War One? World War Two? 

How many of those protesting on the streets will be willing to join the Armed Forces to go and die?

So, now the new American government is telling them that the US is not willing to engage in WWIII.

Suddendly, quite a few warmongers will fall quiet. How was the Good Friday Agreement negotiated? How was the Camp David Agreement between Egypt and Israel negotiated? You need to talk to the sides involved in the conflict. Politicians and media want you to believe a lie and accuse US of selling out when it fact all US is trying to is to bring the sides to the negotiating table.

I have got many reasons to criticize the US, but the intention to bring the parties together to end the war is not one of them. Dealing with reality is the best thing that anyone can do. The longer the conflict goes on the greater the chances of having a catastrophe in Europe.

When everybody is celebrating war.....

 

When more and more people who will not be fighting any wars are jumping in promoting war, you know that something will be going awfully wrong.

Mark Rutter, as many other war promoters who will be watching war, comfortably sitted in their offices or living rooms, could not care less about those who are going to die, including his own compatriots that rejected him in free elections.

The images coming from Gaza give you an idea of how many European cities will look should there be war in Europe. This is something that all those listening to Mark Rutter should internalize. Will David Lammy ever put on an uniform and head for war? Never. They can say 'we will stand. as many times as they wish, but the fact is that they will never stand where it matters. People fighting the war themselves understand the full meaning of what is going on. Mark Rutter will continue getting his monies paid into his bank accounts without ever having to face the possibility of being shot in the battlefield.

However, should a European War happen, then the battlefield will come to us. London, Brussels, Berlin, Paris and many other European cities will be part of the battlefield and your home, the one you have been working for and paying for for so many years will be turn to rubble with you and your family inside. Or perhaps you will be at work in an office or factory when the nuclear blast comes.

European Elections: Instead of thinking about the reasons why, politicians plan to regroup to continue ignoring the reasons why people are voting what they are voting for

 

Instead of listening to voters, political parties plan to gang up to continue ignoring the reasons people voted what they voted for.

What so called maintream political parties lack is the intelligence to listen to people and to do what people want them to do.

Unbridled migration is increasingly opposed and this is why more and more people are voting againt mainstream political parties that promote unbridled migration. So what mainstream political parties plan to do? To continue promoting unbridled migration.

If you are the manager of a company that produces products that nobody wants, you won't have a brilliant future. Mainstream political parties don't seem to get the message. People don't want to spend more money that they don't even have to buy fancy alternatives that they don't need. Greens across Europe are discovering that scaremongering no longer works when you have got to pay higher bills. In Germany, SPD down, Grüne down and FDP down because of its association with SPD and Grüne in a desperate coalition. In fact, support for SPD - the ruling party collapsed to less than 14 per cent and is now below AfD that got 16 per cent and rising. How democratic it is for such coalition to continue ruling Germany?

Warmongering Grüne are being rejected by German voters. Germany needs energy to continue as the manufacturing and exporting leader in Europe. Firstly, Germany was let down by Angela Merkel that got rid of nuclear power making Germany practically entirely dependent on fossil fuels - much of which had to be imported from abroad. When due to geopolitical decisions, imports were reduced, Germany ended up depending more and more on coal. Because of their geopolitical stances, Grüne seems to support the use of fossil fuels. This contradiction left them exposed and people are walking away from them. 

Integration or disintegration: Keir Starmer faces backlash for including flag on electoral campaign

It looks and sounds like a contradiction that people coming to Britain or who have been born see the national symbols as a threat. Why is this happening? The education system might have a lot to do with it. Negative attitudes towards Nation and nationalist are being promoted throughout the education system, thus turning Britons against their own country and their own national identity.

Instead of being encouraged to love the country in which they live, they are being taught to hate the country in which they live and to see the country in which they live as evil. This state of affairs has to change and the time for change is long overdue when Britain might be about to face yet another historical challenge for its survival. 

Olaf Scholz: Hesitating man or man deeply aware of the dire consequences of knee jerk reactions

 

An article on The Guardian newspaper qualifies the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz as 'hesitant', supposedly a label for somebody seen as weak or indecisive because he is not fully committing Germany to yeat another war in Europe.

As a German, Olaf Scholz is extremely aware of the consequences of war. He might not have been around during World War II, but he certanly knows about what happened in Germany all the way until 1945 and after that.

Despite all odd, Germany prospered and with a lot of hard work managed to reach an enviable position, leading those who were supposed to be the conquering nations, the winning nations, after World War II.

The recipe for German success? Ingenuity, creativity and a lot of work done from the very beginning in the worst of circumstances. Germany started the way to recovery and excellence as an occupied and devided country. It capital city was not more. Berlin was divided by the victors and for a time Bonn became the capital of the Federal Republic of Germany. Much of its territory had been lost. Much of it was taken by Poland, Prussia was chopped to bits. The DDR was born, the so called Polish corridor - German land - was given to Poland and much of the eastern side of German was also given to Poland. Eastern Prussia was taken by the Soviet Union and is now part of the Russian Federation.

The fall of the Berlin Wall was much celebrated as was celebrated the end of the DDR and the reunification of Germany, a reunification that is very much incomplete as vast expanses of German land are still in other countries.

Olaf Scholz explicitly said that despite the fact that Germany is part of NATO - in fact is still under American occupation and its contitution was not designed by Germans. It was imposed by the USA that maintains a substantial military pressence in the Federal Republic of Germany. So Germany is still an occupied country.

The German Chancellor has to move with extreme caution. He is the head of a coalition that is intrinsically weak and SPD won an election without winning a big number of votes. It was the debacle of CDU/CSU that fell so massively what made it possible for SPD to win an election with less than 30 per cent of the votes cast.

A new party now has more than 21 per cent of electoral support and, unlike SPD that is only represented in 11 of 16 Federal States, Alternative für Deutchland has captured the imagination of German voters to the point that in the last days of the then Chancellor Angela Merkel many elected representatives of CDU were working together with Alternative für Deutchland.

The present German Chancellor knows full well that if things take a turn for the worst the present coalition will not survive. He also knows that after decades of constant lecturing and self-imposed and imposed guilt, the German peoples themselves are reluctant to engage in yet another European war that would be fought not because of German interests, but of American interests that go against German interests. The German peoples are not willing to throw away decades of hard work and prosperity to please the invaders that fragmented Germany and left Germany in ruins.

Palestine: People are dying by the thousands, but in UK and in other places it is as if nothing is happening.

I witness events in disbelief. It is not the first time something similar happens. We have just become desensitized. We see it as natural. Like Stalin said: one death is a tragedy, a million death is a statistic.

Most of us are sitting comfortably. Most of us are not even thinking about it. Some will be using what is happening in Palestine to promote their own agendas that have nothing to do with what is happening in Palestine. The method is well known and it is all 'Generalization'. In Europe, anti-Muslim agendas and anti-Jewish agendas are not new and the causes vary, but the real issues are vastly different from what is happening in Palestine. The realities are completely different, but most ignore the differences and create what I call anti-Muslim packages and anti-Jewish packages as justification to promote their own agendas. This is lamentable, but it is part of the political mix.

Somebody is blue and is a killer. I happen to be blue and therefore people will assume - for the benefit of their own agendas - that because I am blue I am also a killer. This is what I refer to as 'Generalization'. Politicians use Generalization. Mass Media use Generalization. It is the kind of over simplification that leads to violence. It is irrational, but it premeditated.  

The Warsaw Ghetto of Palestine: it was bound to happen

 

It was bound to happen. You don't force hundreds of thousands of peoples to live under occupation in virtual ghettos and expect that nothing will happen. The Israeli Apatheid Regime will suffer tragedies from time to time and when the anger spreads far away from the borders of the occupied territories the conflict will grow and grow until it spirals out of control.

Most revolutions - the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Soviet Revolution - were born out of anger, frustration and discontent and festering anger, frustation and discontent will become explosive and this is exactly what we are seeing now in Palestine. Once you join the dots, geopolitics will take over and this will spread to countries that are farways from the conflict and some of which are very much the reason there is a conflict today.

With every new tragedy, determination on both sides of the conflict is reinforced and sooner than later other players will get involved and then it will havoc for all concerned.

It seems that the recipe for all conflicts is not negotiation but simply to add logs to the fire until the fire can no longer be controlled. 

Blank attacks against all Russians and anything Russian will strenghten Russian determination and NATO will be seen as the 1941 Wehrmacht

For those of us who bother to learn about Russian history, the idea of launching an attack against all Russians and all things Russian will take the Russian Federation back to the 22th of June 1941, the start of Unternehmen Barbarossa when the strives towards the implementation of Adolf Hitler Plan to exterminate Russians and replace them with German farmers in Lebensraum begun.

Demolishing monuments used to remember those who fought against National Socialist Germany will return Europe back to World War Two. Those who forget the past are forced to relive the past. 

So what is the brilliant idea that the Baltic Republics and others got? Confiscate anything Russian. Why? To prevent any Russians from entering Europe. As soon as the news hit the headlines across the Russian Federation those who oppose national mobilization in the Russian Federation will support national mobilization and when this happens Europe as a whole will once again face the prospect of an all-out war.

NATO will be seen as the 1941 Wehrmacht.

https://www.meetup.com/london-online-chat-big-question-philosophy-group/events/296109310/

You are welcome to discuss about this and other issues following the link.

 

China will make a move taking the world by surprise

 

My belief is that China will make a move when the world least expect China to move. Taiwan might not be a strategic target from a territorial point of view, but it has huge political significance. The West, and in particular the USA, have made Taiwan a target. By recoving the territory we today called Taiwan, China will be making a gigantic political statement and will leave the West at a loss and facing massive embarrassment.

By making regular political statements that it cannot back up with actions, the West will be left eggfaced. Taking back Taiwan, China will gain massive credibility as the West will lose credibility. American allies and pseudo allies in Asia will have to think very hard about their political and strategic alternatives.

How soon might China launch a military operation to bring back Taiwan into the fold? As minds are focus on the European continent, China knows that keeping things together in Europe will require every bit energy and no matter how many allies or psedo allies USA has in the region, the support and/or capability of the said allies and peudo allies cannot be guaranteed.

Will defeat in Asia, after the failures in Iraq and in Afghanistan, be an all-time low for American foreign policy?

Can the Gulf Stream be used as a weapon for war?

The Gulf Stream could be more powerful that many nuclear weapons exploding at the same time. 

We know that the Gulf Stream controls temperatures in Europe. By redirecting the Gulf Stream or making the Gulf Stream collapse, NATO will be finished and most of Europe will be neutralized for many years to come with massive loss of European population.

By neutralizing Europe - or in other words if Europe ceases to exist - the balance of forces across the world can suddenly be altered for good. 

Every world war is similar in some ways to the previous world war and also different in some ways. In 1939, the French believed that their Armed Forces were marvellous as they were the victors of 1914-1918. They fought and lost World War Two using the same conventional strategies of World War One with no communications, no proper command, in a war they believe was going to be like World War Two. They event sent the biggest numbers and the most capable forces towards Belgium and were caught up in a bag, leaving the way open for German forces to advance to Paris with little resistance.

Today, the world relies on nuclear weapons. Are nuclear weapons the biggest threat. Climate is the biggest threat. Climate is more powerful than nuclear weapons and has more lasting consequences. What can change climate dramatically? The sea. The sea is a weapon for war that can destroy hundreds of millions very quickly and neutralize enemies for many years to come. If the sea were to be used for war, Europe would be no more.

 

European Union could re-start war in Northern Ireland: Rishi Sunak hanging from a thread

European Union is bent on destroying the United Kingdom, but the nearest chapters could be very bloody. Forcing Rishi Sunak to accept unacceptable terms, EU could trigger a new conflict in Northern Ireland that could spread and affect community relations motivating attacks against Asians if such deal is seen as the actual partition of the United Kingdom and there are precedents. Prime Minister Theresa May was very quickly given her marching orders and there were no other repercussions apart from the end of her political aspirations. In Rish Sunak's case the situation is a lot worse. If anger grows against an Asian Prime Minister classified as a traitor, things could become extremely ugly. This is one of the reasons why Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is being very cautious. He knows that Boris Johnson and Liz Truss are not the worst that could happen to him and his family and countless of other families across the United Kingdom.

Many politicians, including some in the European Union, have claimed that they want to protect the Good Friday Agreement and Peace in Northern Ireland, but paradoxically they are doing their worst to destroy the Good Friday Agreement and Peace in Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland Assembly has been paralized not once, but several times forcing the Westminster Parliament to impose some kind of direct rule. If a deal means the end of power sharing then the Good Friday Agreement will be dead and violent confrontation will flare up with little to prevent it. Because of the ethnicity of the Prime Minister, there is the certain danger that things could spread like wildfire across the entire United Kingdom.

What happens in Northern Ireland is being closely followed by external operators, and especially at a time when NATO is bent on making things worse in Europe.

Ukraine: Dwight Einsenhower was right all along

 

General Dwight Einsenhower
(later President Dwight Einsenhower)

When the then Commander of Allied Forces in Europe raised the alert about the power of weapons industries to get completely out of control, he was right all along and what happened along decades has proven that he was rightly concerned about the consequences of the fever to make vast amounts of money by promoting conflicts everywhere.

During a recent interview, Oliver North - a former advisor to President Ronald Reagan - merely confirmed that the military escalade not just in Europe but also across areas bordering China - is a business much more than a geopolitical issue. This is the place where geopolitical reasons are used as a pretext to spend and spend taxpayers money to enrich the military industrial complex.

William Hartung, especialized in defense analysis and coverage of economics of the Pentagon, indicates that the United States and its NATO allies have spent tens of billions in the conflict in Ukraine, but that the Pentagon, the military services and the big weapons contractors appear to be poised to seize on this crisis to permanently expand the size and scope of the US arms industry in ways that go far beyond what is needed.

Amont the plans being floated, indicates William Hartung, is the construction of new weapons factories, dramatically increasing production of ammunition, anti-tank weapons and others systems, and easing oversight of weapons procurement. This is reducing controls in terms of the monies spent.

Lack of supervision of monies spent to create something that William Hartung indicates is both unnecessary and unwise. There is the certain risk of lowering safeguards against waste and poor performance. To put in everyday language, there is the danger of producing bad quality equipment and wasting resources that could be used to meet other urgent priorities.

The issue remains that, as Oliver North stated, so called aid for Ukraine is in fact monies that never reach Ukraine, but benefit directly the military industrial complex in the USA transforming aggresion into a very profitable business for corporations but being very bad deal for the USA.

More will be revealed once Congress passes the Fiscal Year 2023 Pentagon spending bill and the administration announces its proposal for Fiscal Year 2024 early next year, states William Hartung. Given the present impass concerning the election of the Leader of the House of Representatives with Republicans that don't seem to be to agree who is going to replace the outgoing Nancy Pelosi, one can imagine that the present political entanglement will add delay upon delay. In the meantime, there is every sing that procurement will go ahead without much needed supervision. The amount involved much exceed the amount  committed to the conflict in Ukraine.

Apparently, Army Acquisition chief Doug Bush announced that there are plans to triple ammunition production and double production of Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems and High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems launchers. The Pentagon's overall weapons acquisition chief William LaPlante is said to be pushing measures to speed up production of weapons and this would include multy-year production commitments. William LaPlante counts on Congress to add billions of dollars into the so called industrial base to fund these production lines.

Going back to Ukraine being used as justification for massive long term military investment, this looks and sounds like preparation for another conflict - namely a war against China. Having said that the equipment being made would be for fighting on the ground and there is no prospect of the US fighting a war against China on land.

Judging by other endeavours like the F-35, that has been seen as overpriced and underperforming, there is the issue that the numbers being built will exceed what is needed as a trend towards unmanned aircraft is prevailing. With regards to aircraft carriers, William Hartung says that aircraft carriers are extremely expensive and increasingly vulnerable and that this makes them a very poor investment.

No need to be reminded of Admiral Erich Raeder who gave priority to the construction of big ships like the Bismark, ship that ended up being sank no long after a naval encounter. Karl Dönitz asked for more U-Boots, but Admiral Raeder had other ideas. After a major encounter, the surface fleet with its expensive ships could not play a major role and by the time Karl Dönitz became Admiral crucial had been lost because Germany did not have enough U-Boots to take advantage of a temporary window of opportunity. This risk is ever present when it comes to weaponry. By the time the Eurofighter became available it was already outdated. Mechanical failures and delays have the F-35 not a very good choice.

In recent months, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that Germany was planning to invest more than 230 billion Euro to beef-up German Armed Forces and among his plans was the acquisition of F-35 aircraft. While the now President of the European Commision Ursula von der Leyen - was then German Defense Minister - Germany had big issues with the F-35. At one point, only a few of all F-35 were actually fit for flying. Having to depend of supplies provided by foreign providers is always an issue. Something similar happenend when Britain launched its two newest aircraft carriers going to sea without fix wing aircraft. There were problems of either availability or of lack of maintenance parts.

If far too many aircraft are built that end up being obsolete even before they leave the factories, it all becomes a massive waste. This is why with American military expenditure at Pentagon level set to reach 850 billion US Dollars in 2024, William Hartung believes that the time is long overdue for a more realistic strategy and more disciplined spending priorities. 

The danger is that almost always greed takes precedence over sound decision making and that there are always excuses to over spend.

   

 

War in Europe: Wann wird man je verstehen?

Listening to politicians, to the mass media and even to the present Head of Nato, one would believe that what happened in Europe 70 or so years ago never happened.

As the build up for yet another European-wide war continues, we see that the memories of World War Two are been flashed away to encourage the new generations to get involved in yet another war - and perhaps the final war for millennia to come as it is more than likely that nuclear weapons will be used to erase every single European capital. Talking about the merits of Democracy, what is happening right now speaks volumes against Democracy. Democracy is a political form of governance that gives a blank cheque to politicians to erase Humanity from planet Earth.

Politicians do not represent us and they simply use the powers given to them to do as they please and lead us towards Armageddon. Strikes happening right now in Britain, the state of upheaval in Britain, was created by catastrophic geopolitical decisions that led to economic instability that mixed with an arms race will not only cause instability, but will also push us towards extinction.

Those who remember what happened after Chernobyl - it was merely an accident that affected reactors at an energy plant - know full well what will happen if a Nuclear Holocaust is triggered intentionally. The entire continent will be uninhabitable for ages to come. Our way of life will be gone forever. Thousands of years of social and technological evolution will be wiped out. Whoever manages to survive will have to live in a human jungle without any rules. It will be about killing or being killed in a state of widespread lethal anarchy. This is Mad Max World.

We must prepare for a new world in which the weak will be naturally exterminated and natural selection will determine who lives and who dies, a world without mercy. In this new world, Charles Darwin's evolution rules will be more apparent than ever before. In a lawless world, only the strong and the most brutal will have the slightest chance to live another day. 

This was Germany by the end of World War Two. This might be Europe by the end of World War Three.

Permacrisis: new word officially added to the English language

From now on, we live in a state of permacrisis or permanent crisis. The word has been officially added to the English language. Events of the last two years and whatever is there to come more than justify the new addition. 

Despite the fact that the BBC, Sky and other media constantly fail to report what is happening not just in Britain but also abroad and especially in Continental Europe (for whatever reason they choose to 'blackout' the news and fail in their duty of care), Europe as a whole is in crisis. In Spain, hundreds of thousands went to the streets to demand better healthcare in Spain. The situation is critical due to mismanagement and lack of medical staff. Strike is the word across Europe. 

Unfortunately, those in power seem to be more interested in geopolitics than in real politics and ordinary people will suffer as a consequence of mismanagement and short-sighted approaches. Politicians appear to be acting first and thinking later, completely oblivious to the consequences of the decisions that they are taking. Some say that we need to cut down taxes to restore financial health. Others say that we need to increase taxes to restore financial health. The summary of it all is, nobody knows with any degree of certainty what is going to happen.

Flipping a coin in the air is all we have left to do. As a consequence of it, we are paying enormous amounts of money to people who are just guessing and don't have a clue about what is going to happen. This is Democracy for you. They sit inside a debating chamber, make a few speeches about things they know nothing about and we have to accept political gambling because this is what Democracy has become.

The ones making the decisions have little or nothing to lose and it is up to ordinary members of the public to deal with the consequences of their decisions.

Utility bills go up and grocery bills go up and this is very much what leads to inflation. Now, in order to reduce inflation we raise taxes that will make utility bills and grocery bills to go up faster and lead to more inflation, but 'those who know say that increasing utility bills and grocery bills will reduce inflation'. You know that it does not make any sense. You are going to be more often than not completely out of pocket and you will have to cut down vital expenditure or get into additional and higher levels of debt. The most vulnerable stand to suffer most from what is happening but because the most vulnerable stand at the bottom of the pyramic there is a domino effect. Suddenly, the hospitality sector detects that less and less people are using their services because they cannot really afford to use their services. Balance sheets go into the red and unemployment raises its head. Not only that, is the hospitality sector suffers others sectors that provide services to the hospitality sector suffer and follow a similar paths. More unemployment is added to the pile and tax receipts start falling. So the Chacellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt MP has formally declared that Britain is in recession and recession means that from now on unemployment is guaranteed.

Paralizing the economy with more and more taxes, fuelling inflation while not promoting added economic activity, will lead us to a permacrisis with higher levels of debt, unemployment and social ills. Before we had health lockdown. Now we will have economic lockdown leading to social breakdown and political instability.

  

 

Environmental gatherings: Saving the planet?

Environmental summits are no more than grandiose talking shops for picture opportunities and empty promises and am sure that mass media loved them because they give them something to write about without much effort and surely there is a crowd worldwide eager to swallow every fib that comes out of magnificent wastes of time.

Headlines like 'tens of billions needed to save the planet' might sound impressive - am sure they sound impressive - but they are as impressive as meaningless as no country in the world will ever consider spending such amounts of money that will surely come from additional borrowing that would lead them to implement austerity policies that no one likes to implement because they usually land those who try to implement into deep water. 

Questions that are seldom asked include 'who is going to get such amount of money and what they would be suposed to do with it?'. The 'what for', 'how' and issues of accountability are non existing. As soons the the mass media circus is over, it will be business as usual until the next mass media circus. 

After the mass media circus, the real issues of everyday life will once again be on the table. Ladies and Gentlemen, we have an energy crisis. Germany is said to be in talks with United Kingdom to seek gas supplies - Germany does not have enough storage capacity for liquidified gas and even if Germany had enough storage capacity the amount of energy obtained from liquidified gas is quickly reduced by the same process of turning liquified gas into usable gas. This putting aside issues involving transportation of liquified gas done with a lot of fossil fuels. All those ships that carry liquified gas use fossil fuels and this has a cost. The cost of maritime transport has gone up considerably to the point that bringing in goods from faraway places has become extremely onerous reducing commercial margins generated by low production costs abroad. Perhaps the German move to transfer production to China was inspired by the fact that bringing factories closer to raw materials will allow them to reduce production cost a lot more. Scania made a similar move years ago when much of the operation was transferred to Brazil. Brazil needed trucks and it was easier and cheaper to produce trucks in Brazil that incidentally was going to be a major market for Swedish trucks.

The other issue that lies around is fracking. For all the talk about fracking producing earthquakes, you would need specially sensitive equipment to detect such 'earthquakes', and obviously ordinary people who don't have such equipment will hardly ever know about the said 'earthquakes'. Mass media have been very active creating an artificial monster out of gullible minds that are very willing to believe whatever horror story they are told. Although fracking will not provide immediate results in terms of increasing energy supplies, it is something to take into consideration when energy supplies are going down. Nuclear energy is a certain possibility but it takes decades for a nuclear plant to be built to produce the energy that we desperately need. We need energy now. This is one of the subjects Germany will be discussing with Britain to avoid what now look like unavoidable blackouts in the biggest manufacturing country in Europe.

Jeremy Hunt: November 17th 2022 - Tax Day

 

November 17th 2022 - Tax Day

A hole in public finances of  more than 50 billion Pound will have to be plugged. Apart from the prospect of budget cuts affecting services, the alternative is a massive amount of tax increases.

Kwasi Kwarteng was slaughtered, thrown to the wolves, because he wanted to implement Liz Truss policies of tax reductions. What will happen to Jeremy Hunt when he announces a budget that contains punitive measures?

Let us remember that on the first round of the leadership election that led to the Premiership of Liz Truss the now Chancellor of the Exchequer didn't manage to progress beyond the first round. He was not popular among MPs and was not popular among the Membership of the Conservative Party. Now, the same man is going to propose a budget that goes against what is the declared ideological stance of the Conservative Party. Rising energy costs, rising interest rates plus rising taxes. If you are a business owner struggling to survive in the present financial environment, how are you going to react? Will you minimize your business to reduce fixed costs and in doing so sent your staff to the queue of the unemployed? A very harsh winter coming for those who lose their jobs when families are already struggling to pay for rental accommodation because they don't have the means to afford mortgage payments.

Wasn't Rishi Sunak the one who suggested that we should have a long term approach instead of shock therapy? Will such a budget be compatible with long term thinking? If Jeremy Hunt goes to far, this could the end of Jeremy Hunt and also the end of an already wavering Rishi Sunak? What next? Another leadership election?

Just a few months ago it was reported that recent interest rates will put more than 500,000 mortgages in jeopardy. Will more taxes and more unemployment make the situation better or worse? If the mortgage business falters, the financial system as a whole will be in serious trouble. We don't need even to explain what a wave of mortgage and load defaults will do to the economy.

The biggest enemy are not countries nor terrorist organisations. Corruption is the biggest enemy.

Forget about enemy countries and terrorist organisations. Corruption is the biggest enemy of the Western World. 

The imbalances that endanger the Western World have been created by the Western World and we have reached such point as a direct consequence of having proven to be unable to cope with new realities.  Key nations of the Western World have been committing either one error of judgment after another or this has been the intention from the very beginning by exploiting chaos as a way to divert resources into the hands of private operators that could not care less about the common good.

No matter how many technological advances the Western World has and no matter how much financial power the Western World has, corruption ends up destroying the things we care most about.

Conflicts are being used to syphon money away from where it is most needed. Under the cover of national security and defence used as justification, vast amounts of resources are being squandered with little or no accountability.

There is no mystery regarding the fact that we seem to go from one conflict into another. Conflicts mean money. Being constantly at war or about to go to war is the perfect excuse for misuse of taxation monies and elected representatives are very much part of the game. Therefore, we cannot expect that this situation will go away any time soon.

The monies that were supposed to help Iraq disappeared into thin air. No wonder then about what will happen to the billion of Pound sent to Ukraine. Long before the conflict in Eastern Europe started, Ukraine was swimming in corruption. There is no reason to believe that the same levels of corruption have not been swallowing foreign aid.

Both in the USA, Britain and elsewhere, such state of affairs is being financed with public borrowing. We borrow, borrow and borrow and when things reach crisis point then we talk about cutting down public expenditure that allows the survival of vital services.