I don’t really want to keep talk about Ukraine, but it’s too hard to avoid. Besides, it’s not the same story anymore that it was when the week began, since the economic war vs Putin and Russia is now escalating. For reasons that have nothing to do with the plane crash, though they may seem to, a fact that completely seems to escape 999 out of 1000 people. We still don’t know who shot that plane (we’re not even sure
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“The fact that the coalition has fallen apart, that laws haven’t been voted on, that soldiers can’t be paid, that there is no money to buy rifles, that there is no possibility to fill gas storages. What options do we have now?” This is, as per Bloomberg, what US handpicked handpuppet and – now former – Ukraine PM Yatsenyuk told the Kiev parliament earlier today during a speech in which he announced the resignation of his “government”. Several of his
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A very impressive procession of hearses, containing the first 40 of the 298 caskets that will have to be ‘processed’, is going on as I speak in Holland, and has been for hours of slow driving, broadcast on live national TV. It’s a 100 mile or so distance, with thousands upon thousands of people along the route paying respect, from the airport where they landed form Ukraine to the facilities where they’ll be identified. Which in the most ‘fortunate’ cases
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Amidst the heightened media hysteria that expresses itself in claims of an “increasing burden of proof” of Putin and separatist involvement in the MH17 crash, where there is still no proof anywhere to be seen after 5 days, events are taking a sharp left (can’t bring myself to say ‘right’) turn towards a new, next, phase. Which promises to not be pretty. It’s, as we say, on. With the earthly remains of the victims now outside the rebel controlled area,
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I’m sorry, or I guess I am, but I find it hard not to constantly read up on the news about flight MH17 these days, and I let it drown out other things. Obviously, there’s plenty of it available in Dutch media, with much more to drown even that out in the English language press. For a country the size of Holland, losing 193 people in one go evokes the six degrees of separation. And that makes sense, grief must
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Presumed innocent. Innocent until proven guilty. Reasonable doubt. How long ago it seems that these principles guided our societies. Perhaps there are a few courts in the heartland left that still live up to them, but the aftermath of 9/11 certainly erased them from the overall American conscience. Some animals are more equal than others, said Orwell in Animal Farm. Guantanamo Bay showed that some people are far less equal than others, and laws that apply to everyone else don’t
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My, what a lovely day. Summer’s here. Then again, not so great perhaps if yours is one of the 18,000 jobs lost at Microsoft. Then again again, at least the move made Microsoft shares rise. Not anywhere near great if you, or someone close to you, were among the 300 or so on the passenger plane from Amsterdam that got downed just now over Ukraine. Still don’t like the role the US is playing in that conflict. Not a great
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There’s a lot of interesting pieces being written on a daily basis, if you care to look for them, and there’s never enough time and space to afford them the attention they should really deserve. Luckily, there are still many people out there, even in the financial world, who have a pretty astute understanding of what’s going on versus what we are told to believe there is. Not that I don’t think there are no smart people in finance, just
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Janet Yellen is a religious nutcase. She may not appear like one at first glance, but take a look at her picture again and you may find that instead that’s exactly what she looks like. She may have that nice little grandma façade, but then those are often the worst cases. I realize this is not a nice thing to say, but there are limits to what even nice little grandmas can say and do, especially when they run a
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The insanity doesn’t just continue, it intensifies. The overriding idea is still that the more companies and individuals borrow, the better the economy goes. But that is nowhere near true. It may have been at some point in the past, but not now, not with debt levels at historic highs. Today’s problem is not that there is not enough credit or money available, as central banks try to make you believe, but that people are not spending what they have.
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