True - Chomsky used to say many interesting things until de unmasked himself by providing support to Hillary Clinton. Chomsky's popularity went down like an asteroid. Still, I prefer the "listen to all and trust none" approach, so I still listen to a few of his interviews. He has many original ideas as a (BIASED!!!) thinker. At least he's not a teleprompter OCD reader like Obama Banana and Kama-Kama-Kamala
The sky is falling, the sky is falling! The end is near! Zerohedge just turned un the "paid" button. Or, did I miss that earlier?
ZH has zero credibility after they said no war. They have degraded to being just a propaganda mouth piece with no opinion of their own.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/11/russians-liquidating-crypto-in-the-uae-to-seek-safe-havens.html 6 billions heading to Australia. More "Axis" money for Aussies. “We have one guy – I don’t know who he is, but he came through a broker – and they’re like, ‘we want to sell 125,000 bitcoin’. And I’m like, ‘what? That’s $6 billion guys’. And they’re like, ‘yeah, we’re going to send it to a company in Australia’,” the executive said.
While America can print from thin air and leverage and control the fake assets and derivatives, theres no replacement for real assets. The world will learn that soon enough .
I guess you haven't been to China and haven't seen how they print cash and how the new generation is spending away all their cash. Those who know are shocked because over here, we save quite a lot and don't really spend on luxury even though our income is multiples. China is using the younger consumer generation to bribe Europe, but I don't believe they can continue splurging on luxury for much longer as their extravagant lifestyle is being funded by their parents property investments.
Agriculture is vital nowadays. Perhaps people will revert to a traditional way of life: having a garden and growing your own food will become the new trend. Almost everyone depends upon the major shop chains and food producers. It's as if agriculture has become an "industry" instead of having remained agriculture. I doubt that the "luxury splurge" will end. There will always be places like Dubai, where tremendous wealth accumulation centres attract the "big moneymakers" of the world. I am very curious what changes will occur in China and Asia overall in the current global context: - will China emerge as the powerhouse-superpower of the world: perhaps now the events are turning in favor of China... if they are smart, they can push China ahead even more - China's and India's investments are very interesting in Africa - perhaps Africa will be the next "untamed continent" where the major economic powers of the world will compete with each other (and, I think Africans are more open to Chinese and Indian investments due to less political pressure) - production costs in China are likely to rise even further and transportation costs (of Chinese products to the rest of the world) are already rising, so the test of the world can say goodbye to cheap products (and I'm referring to cellphones, laptops, digital cameras, not just of the "cheap trinkets" and tiny plastic accessories...) I still think that we're headed towards a multipolar world and perhaps within a decade we will see 3 Asian countries (China, Japan, India) on the first 3 positions of the world's GDP list.
I don't know what they said, I've never been a fan anyway. It's a blog-level controversial site that I never trusted anyway. I was just surprised how they turned on the "pay button". What did they say? Regardless, you can't trust anything nowadays, it is all just propaganda. No-one can know what reality is. I am allergic to politics anyway... What I'm interested in are the economic trends and what changes will affect us in the near future. The world was sadly turned upside-down in the last 2-3 years and everything looks so messed up, one can barely understand the trends.
I still keep asking myself what "real asset" would mean. Perhaps something physical, tangible, like a house and a beautiful garden. To me it is weird how easily people can trust crypto. I can't. It is true that it's technically an interesting thing, but still... it can drop like a rock. With gold you can see a long term growth with SOME corrections and when it goes up, people's reactions are usually: "Finally!", "It was so undervalued, now it is closer to its real value", "Hooray, gold has proven once again that it's a great safe haven asset", "Gold is money, fiat money is not worth the paper it's printed on". With crypto, no matter how high it goes, people always have that "fear of heights" feeling: like, "How low can it drop now", "Yep, it can go to zero, because it has no backing", "It's just a glitch on the screen, it can go down anytime, just as easily as it shot up", "Yep, a correction is going to come, but how deep will it go?" A few years ago (until around 2014) the word "tangible assets" was heard so often. Since then, it is all about crypto. But it's dodgy. Excitingly new, but if you look at the faces who promote them... they have no idea about how the economy works. Will crypto follow the economy? Or will crypto reinvent the economy and will everything follow crypto? I don't know... but it sure looks like crypto is just as dodgy (or even worse) than debt-based fiat currency.
So how will you pay the bills when your growing your own food? Because growing and preserving your own food is your full time job. You have to be rich to be self sufficient because being self sufficient is so much work that you can't go to a paying job therefore you have to rich enough to be able to not go to work. tree changers are discovering this now and many have a new found respect for food farmers.
I heard some people have wells and solar power and a garden (obviously). Garden is not enough of course... so, at least they have less bills to pay, but still need food and a bunch of other stuff. Most of these people still have regular jobs or run their own business. Otherwise they would be living like in the middle ages or like some hilltribe. One still needs money, otherwise you can't buy yourself anything. I just think it is going to be a trend: having a garden and growing at least 10% of your GREEN food (vegetables and fruits) is something, but up to 50-60% can be achieved. Some foods, fruits won't grow everywhere (like Bananas in Germany) and you won't wait 30 years for a tree to grow big enough to produce fruits If you can at least produce SOMETHING, then that will be great. I know very little about "off-grid" electricity (through solar panels) and having a well from which to pump water out. Still sounds difficult to achieve and not everyone can do it. You are not going to do this full time, obviously. And, even a small garden requires many many hours of work each month.
So true @Ag bullet. Adam Smith and others worked that out over 200 years ago when they recognised the critical role that division of labour plays in enhancing wealth. Nowadays we've taken it even further with globalised trade, in economics we call it comparative advantage.
. In a nutshell, based on one's individual circumstances, to try to reduce costs as much as possible by being as independant as much as possible so as to best ride out what is not within one's power to control. So as a simplistic example, by using a pushbike to ride to the postoffice in order to mail something instead of using the car save $ in petrol but not getting rid of the car because one might need to take granny to the doctor and it's hard doubling granny on the pushbike.
There's no shortage of rice. While the price of wheat and other food has gone up by leaps and bounds, the price of long grain rice hasn't moved much. I wonder if this will change as bread and pasta eaters change to eating rice?
Rice is healthier than pasta, but I think the western people look down upon rice ("poor people's food"). A bit seasoned and with a handful of "added content" (vegetables, meat), a complete meal can be created. A good solution to high food prices and less food available in stores.
in 2014 China didnt support Russia for annexing Crimea and yet to recongize it as part of Russia, called upon Russia to withdraw from Syria and Georgia when Russian troops openly fought on the ground, with the west. in 2022 China is closest ally to Russia, who pushed these two sleeping giants closer together? What was the strategic purpose of EU/NATO expansion towards Russia, since the collapse of USSR. Western Powers would be apoplectic if Russia or China built millitary bases next to their border but thought Russia and China would be all ok with it. China knew Russia will win the war in much weakened position when Xi shook hands with Putin during the winter olympics China now has an ally who will be in need of help and in return provide China even more strategic global power. In not too distant future China will take Taiwan and South China Sea, all China just needs to be prepared and not make the same mistakes Putin made. After watching Russia take Ukraine can Taiwan still whole heartedly believe any Western power will do anything more than sanction China. 2022 is the start of the new divided world and the game of domination will be played out in Africa.
