News Updates
News Updates
History Happening In Real Time
Since the last global news article in early February, at the same time a lot has happened and not much, leaving us collectively in a bit of a haze.
So I will try to organize events a little, by theme and by order of importance as well as in a somewhat coherent narration (as much as possible), starting with the most significant news first.
Gold Woke Up
The price of gold and silver is shooting up, with both hitting their highest points in 5 years and gold at its highest point ever!
Physical silver traded at around $35 in China, essentially sucking the “paper” silver out of the West through arbitration.
This is emblematic of the progressive return of gold into the monetary system, something I discussed almost a year ago.
The reason is that gold will be the natural, and truly ONLY possible currency for intra-BRICS trading, especially with the association expanding to new members quickly.
This does NOT mean that ordinary people will start paying in gold coins, nor that we will see a gold standard quickly replace fiat currencies.
But what it does mean is that monetary reserves will not anymore be stored in sanctionable dollar bonds that can be stolen at any time by Washington DC, even from nuclear superpowers.
Nor will trade imbalance between multiple partners be settled in USD or local currency, less say for example the triad Russia-India-China.
India's trade deficit with Russia will be settled in gold, which will use it to buy what it needs from China, which will use it as a reserve or as a financing tool for Belt and Road initiatives.
In the long run, losing the USD reserve status would cost the US at least 1 TRILLION per year, which is roughly what it pays currently in interest on the debt OR the whole military…
Tariff, Sanctions & High-level Visits
Visiting China
The US sends Blinken and Janet Yellen citing China, respectively to threaten them for selling stuff to Russia, and to beg them to buy more US debt.
Blinken’s visit has been accurately resumed by X users as:
How do you DARE not help us crush Russia, so we can refocus on crushing YOU sooner?!
Yellen’s visit success can be measured by China's sale of USD -denominated bonds, the largest EVER.
Meanwhile, Putin visited Xi Jinping with:
Multiple industry leaders
Former defense minister Shoigu
Foreign minister Lavrov
CENTRAL BANK DIRECTOR Elvira Nabiullina
Sanctions
Meanwhile, trade wars and diplomatic activities are on overdrive.
The US is looking to sanction everyone not complying. This of course includes Russia, but also China, under the nonsensical accusation of “overcapacity”, aka. higher productivity than the West.
The 100% tariff on Chinese cars is just the beginning. It comes together with more semiconductor sanctions, quantum computing sanctions, green energy sanctions, etc..
China’s semiconductors will be the topic of the next report in this newsletter as a result
No wonder China is feeling that the West is a little hostile.
At this point, the West is all stick, and the carrot has rotten.
The likely result is that the Western block will start lagging behind the way the Soviet Union did.
Where the USSR missed the boat on computers and automation, the West will miss the boat on 4th generation nuclear power, 4th industrial revolution (automation, smart factories), drones, EVs, renewables, superconductors, advanced biotech, etc.
MORE sanctions
Even countries intended to be used as tools against the Eurasian Tripod (Russia+Iran+China) like India are not immune from sanctions threats, because they dared … get a stable energy supply from the first Iranian deep sea harbor of Chabar.
Another country that can brace for a flurry of sanctions is Georgia. They dare want to know when an NGO is financed abroad.
Mind you, not banning said NGOs. But force them to declare who pays their bill. Never mind the proposed law is almost a copy-paste of a US law, it is of course a “Russian law”.
With 25,000 NGOs in a 3.7 million people country, or 1 NGO for every 154 inhabitants, elderly and newborn included, foreign interference seems a likely realistic occurrence.
A protest of up to 60,000 people against the law would also mean 3/NGO, not really surprising that this amount would fear losing their “job”.
Visits in person by foreign ministers and parliament members from the Baltic states, Germany, or Iceland to support the protesters reinforce the idea of a Maidan-like coup tentative to push Georgia into the meat grinder.
Ukraine Weakening?
The other big news is that Ukraine seems to be increasingly on its last leg militarily.
This will not surprise my readers, but it is important to notice that it cannot be hidden under propaganda anymore.
Some of the signs:
Ukraine lost almost all the small amount of territory gained during its summer “offensive”.
A new front opened around Ukraine's second-largest city, Krakhov.
Despite the limited size of Russian troops (less than 30,000 soldiers), Russian advances have been surprisingly quick, breaking the pattern of a static attritional war.
Forced mobilization is turning even more brutal, and a new mobilization law will now hunt for every man from 18-60 without restrictions.
Rumors of ANOTHER front opening in SUMY in the next week would stretch Ukraine’s reserves even further.
In the upcoming months, an attack on Kyiv from Belarus could even be possible, but not very likely yet. Another option could be crossing the river toward Kerson in the south.
As mentioned before, the moment of truth about Ukraine escalating into a global conflict is getting closer.
Tactical nuclear drills by the Russian army made the risks pretty clear.
Either the USA abandons the failed Zelensky project like it did South Vietnam, or it doubles down with NATO boots on the ground, and all bets are off, with European soldiers expected to bear the most of the casualties…
World Disorder: Riots, Assassination, Mass killing
While these larger-scale events happened, the Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico was almost assassinated for political reasons.
A strong proponent of NOT helping Ukraine, Fico even predicted these risks a few weeks before in an interview.
Only days later, the Iranian president and foreign minister die in a helicopter crash.
Fico's wannabe assassin might be a “lone wolf”. And the Iranian presidential crash could have well been an accident.
But of course, it is hard not to feel something fishy is going on with opponents to Western power.
Especially in the case of Iran, as the president was coming back from Azerbaijan, a country that received a lot of weapons from Israel recently, as well as murky intelligence connections:
In the same weeks, Turkey claims to have foiled a new coup attempt against often double-faced Erdogan. To make it more complicated, remember: Turkey is Azerbaidjan's most enthusiastic supporter.
Secret CIA armies in foreign countries, including Europe, committing assassinations? I will just let you read about Operation GLADIO for the ones who do not know yet about it, and let you judge for yourself if it is likely…
Israel
These political turmoils also came on top of the bombing of Iranian diplomatic personnel in Syria by Israel, a big red line to cross.
The bombing led to a short lived attack by Iran on Israel, consuming 1-1.5 billion dollars of air defense to shoot $50M of Iranian drones and missiles.
The same cost imbalance persists in the Red Sea and Yemen as well, with a cargo ship hit every other week.
Israel's situation keeps degrading militarily, as it struggles to beat Hamas in Gaza while displacing starving civilians once more in Rafah.
The final goal seems still to be the deportation out of the country of the whole Palestinian population of Gaza.
This led to a warrant for an arrest of Netanyahu issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for a wide array of war crimes and essentially genocide attempts.
This degrading of international capital & goodwill is a dramatic threat to Israel's survival, more than any military pressure could ever be.
It is not clear what will be the consequence of the last days’ Iranian helicopter crash and ICC warrant, but the risk of a broader escalation of conflict in the Middle East keeps rising.
Also, to stay true to form, the US senators had already preventively threatened with sanctions the ICC judges AND THEIR FAMILIES a few weeks ago.
Others
Meanwhile, somewhat of a sideshow and a distraction, France’s colony of New Caledonia is in chaos from independentist insurgents.
It might be good for nickel spot price, with Caledonia the 3rd largest producer.
And insurgents have oddly enough been armed by … Azerbaidjan, in retaliation for France's support of Armenia. And yes, this is an official accusation by the French government.
I swear it feels like Baku could be the theater of a new Casablanca movie these days.
As a more disheartening sideshow, but one with potential consequences, the Baltic states (where I live) are looking to persecute (no other word possible here) Russian pensioners and an Orthodox monastery that barely survived the Soviet persecution.
Pukhtitsa Monastery was founded in 1891, with much assistance from St. John of Kronstadt. Besides the Pskov Caves Monastery, it is the only holy habitation to have never closed during the long decades of atheist Bolshevik rule.
although representatives of the Ministry of the Interior have previously promised that no churches will be closed either way, Läänemets told err.ee that if they don’t willingly leave the Moscow Patriarchate, the state “will have to apply through the court for a forced termination of activities.”
As an Estonian Orthodox myself (converted from Roman Catholicism), but not under Moscow jurisdiction, I cannot express how short-sighted such policies are.
Are we attacking religious communities in a worse manner than the Soviets now?!
Let’s keep politics out of religion, shall we?
Conclusion
The last months have vindicated my strategy, with unfortunately most areas evolving toward the predicted directions of growing instability and Western decline.
From an investing point of view, defense stocks seem the way to go, or maybe even better as technology risk is real for individual defense stock, just the ONLY tungsten mine available in the Western bloc.
Chinese hardware technology stocks are also a buy. Consider that the US had to put a 100% tariff to become somewhat competitive against Chinese automakers. Guess who will sell more cars in the coming decade in South America, SE-Asia, Russia, India, the Middle East, and Africa?
Oil & gas are also still a good way to edge a close of the Hormuz Straight, especially the Colombian stocks previously discussed.