When Sprawl Can’t Be Tall How Los Angeles Became the Most Densely Populated American City

 

When you think of teeming masses, crowded cities, the vision of Manhattan’s skyline leaps to mind. But that vision ignores the fact that those skyscrapers, signature New York buildings, are housing millions of people vertically as well as horizontally across adjacent boroughs. Take a similar population and shove them into thousands of small houses and foxhole apartments. That is the definition of much of Los Angeles, a city that grew on the promise of vast stretches of sun-filled land yearning for a vast array of houses with white picket fences.

A gaggle of Los Angeles Times writers put together a massive examination of the impact of crowding in The City of Angeles, where COVID spread like wildfire in the most densely populated city in the United States. Start with the facts: “The infamous examples of overflowing apartments, such as 19th century tenements in New York City, are mostly relics. A Times analysis of census data shows that 3% of U.S. homes are overcrowded, defined by the federal government as having more than one person per room, excluding bathrooms.

“In Los Angeles, the overcrowding rate is 11%. In Pico-Union, it is 40%, making the community just west of downtown one of the most crowded in the country. Some 40,000 people live in its 1.33 square miles — a population density that surpasses New York City’s, without a skyscraper in sight.

“Here, people rent spots to sleep on the floors of laundry rooms. Teenagers do homework in alcoves outside apartments. Families use the bathroom in shifts… There is nowhere to hide when an infectious disease strikes.” In the megalopolis in Southern California that stretches from Ventura County, through Los Angeles County, embraces San Bernardino and Riverside Counties, zips through Orange County and south, through San Diego Count to the Mexican border, there are huge pockets of super-crowded areas, none more toxic than the areas of central Los Angeles.

Los Angeles began luring new residents, parallel with the movement of the motion picture industry from New Jersey to sunny Los Angeles, in the mid-1920s and 30s, but the explosion of movement really hit the city after World War II. Mostly Los Angeles was very welcoming to white citizens, accommodating black, brown and yellow only to service the richer migrants. With earthquakes, the notion of survivable high-rise buildings also faced another challenge. The relevant building codes and construction sustainability of such tall buildings did not create structural viability until the latter years of the 20th century. To date, there are still a ton of dangerous unreinforced building all over the city.

The Times continues: “To understand the contradiction underlying L.A.’s status as the nation’s capital of both crowding and sprawl, The Times reviewed historical archives, oral histories and newspaper accounts, analyzed decades of U.S. census data and conducted dozens of interviews with academic experts, public officials, residents of cramped apartments and people whose family legacies in the region date back more than a century. What emerged was a singular thread tying civic leaders’ decisions from the founding of modern L.A. to today’s living conditions.

“In the late 19th century, the city’s railroad magnates and newspaper publishers began promoting Southern California as a slice of paradise and encouraged white Americans to come buy a piece of the dream… The promise of Los Angeles was bright winter sun; clean, dry air; single-family homes with lawns in front and orange trees in back; and panoramas of mountains and sea. It lured millions from dark, big-city tenements and cold Midwestern farms to the new suburbs.

“To bring the vision to fruition, business leaders recruited Mexican laborers en masse to build rail lines, houses and schools; pick crops; clean homes; and work in slaughterhouses, sugar-beet refineries and steel plants. But racist real estate rules and low pay sequestered Mexican workers and their families in cramped, often pestilent shacks, where deadly tuberculosis spread just like COVID-19 has today.

“In the middle of the 20th century, L.A. leaders bulldozed Mexican neighborhoods in Chavez Ravine, forcing out thousands with the promise of new, low-cost, public housing to meet the needs of a city exploding in population after World War II. Then real estate interests exploited the communist paranoia of the Red Scare to defeat the housing projects. Instead, the city gave the land to the Dodgers for a stadium to entice the team’s move from Brooklyn… ‘We had affordable housing,’ said Carol Jacques, 79, who grew up in Chavez Ravine and lost her family home. ‘We had the opportunity to do generational wealth building and have us do better.’

“By the 1970s, ‘slow growth’ fervor, combined with a diminishing supply of new land to develop, spelled the beginning of the end of L.A.’s home-building booms. This change happened just as Mexican, Guatemalan and Salvadoran immigrants were pouring into the region to work, leaving them no choice but to pack into low-rise slums and hastily converted garages. In recent decades, as immigration has waned, skyrocketing housing costs have locked generations of Latino families into grim cycles of overcrowding.

“For many, living in crowded spaces and sharing the burden of unaffordable rents has become the last line of defense against joining L.A.’s ever-swelling homeless population… Overcrowded homes have left scores dead in horrific fires and, studies have shown, stunted children’s health and achievement in school. But more than any other calamity, the pandemic exposed how vulnerable Los Angeles is to mass outbreaks of communicable diseases.”

While housing unaffordability is a national problem, the Federal Reserve’s push to stem inflation by raising interest rates has created a living nightmare in the most expensive urban regions in the country, where most of the jobs remain. Rents are soaring. Fewer Americans can afford even to think about home ownership. Realtor site Redfin tells us that the “average sale price of a home in Los Angeles was $950K last month [September], up 3.3% since last year. The average sale price per square foot in Los Angeles is $607.” While prices are moderating somewhat under pressure from the Feds, that is not resulting in increased affordability; instead, it has forced more people to rent… and rents in some LA neighborhoods have skyrocketed (over 30% in Glendale, for example).

The system does not work. Cutting taxes for the rich – like the multi-trillion-dollar tax cut in 2017 – doesn’t work. Raising interest rates doesn’t work. And policies like redlining and offering economic incentives to white residents has finally backfired. It is very, very hard to rebuild a city whose very attractive lure has created an out-of-control urban sprawl. As the Los Angeles City Council devolves over its internal racial prejudices, we can clearly see why LA has the issues it does.

I’m Peter Dekom, and equal opportunity and political racial neutrality have real value and real issues when they are not applied.

Social Insecurity – Are Medicare & Social Security on the Chopping Block?

Millennials and younger seem to share serious doubts about whether Social Security will still be around when they are ready to retire. If it were up to a majority of elected Republicans, that negative expectation just might begin to become reality very, very soon. Republican doctrine uses the term “entitlements” with the same pejorative intention of their misuse of the words “socialism” or “woke.” The GOP’s constant belief that “private is always better,” as they tout 401(k) private plans mostly build on the stock market in lieu of government retirement benefits, seem to overlook the recent fall in the US stock markets of almost 25%. They pretend to “shore up” the entire Social Security system… by eliminating people and cutting benefits. And if the GOP takes the House, you can expect some tangible steps to erode both Medicare and Social Security.

Supply-side economics – incent the job creators with lower taxes and watch the rising tide float all boats – is a philosophy the sank Liz Truss as the shortest tenured UK prime minister, but it is still the gospel economic GOP platform. Even though it has never worked anywhere it has been applied. The justification is often to remove those “entitlements” (huh? You mean those benefits I have been paying for decades?) from essentially freeloaders who are putting a drag on our economy. Like elderly folks? But since they comprise a significant portion of GOP voters, you have to pretend that you are improving the financial viability of Medicare and Social Security. Financial stability could more directly be solved by stopping the government giveaway to rich people instead. The reality is that we have a system with an aging population that our leaders simply have ignored.

Republicans want to force the issue and hide behind issues like insisting on a debt ceiling to leverage those unpopular benefit reductions. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has rather openly campaigned to reverse those recent Biden Inflation Reduction Act Medicare caps on insulin and annual prescription drug costs, eliminate the new benefits for hearing aids and glasses and find ways to reduce the hard dollar benefits paid to the elderly. That we are the only developed nation on earth without universal health is countered with avoiding “creeping socialism,” conflating programs developed to benefit citizens with government takeover of private property (the real meaning of “socialism”). The GOP is very good at misusing labels to defeat benefits for most of us.

So, let’s visit the debt ceiling extortion attempt. The United States has never defaulted on its national debt, and to so would plunge us into a world where such unreliability will be factored into the interest we would have to pay for our national borrowings. Are Republicans willing to do that to all of us? Increase our budget by these higher interest payments with no benefit at all? But they love to threaten, and one day they just might self-inflict that damage. But they are laser focused on cutting Social Security and Medicare.

Writing for the October 21st Los Angeles Times, OpEd writer Michael Hiltzik explains: “In its latest manifestation, four Republicans angling to become chair of the House Budget Committee in a Republican House talked openly about holding the federal debt ceiling hostage to an agreement on ‘entitlements’ — that is, Social Security and Medicare — plainly aimed at cutting benefits… In fact, the Republicans are proposing to deny benefits to millions of Americans, all in the name of ‘strengthening and shoring up” those programs, as House Republican Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) described the proposals for Fox News on Oct. 16… In interviews with Bloomberg, the four laid out their vision. Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) said the GOP’s focus in budget cutting has ‘got to be on entitlements.’

“Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), told Bloomberg that the party caucus would oppose options for shoring up Social Security’s fiscal condition that included tax increases but would look kindly on raising the eligibility age for that program and Medicare… ‘Republicans have a list of eligibility reforms, and we don’t like the tax increases,’ Arrington said… “Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) — who’s hoping to become speaker if the GOP wins control of the House — added his voice to the GOP chorus calling for using the debt ceiling as ‘leverage’ to achieve their budget goals…

“Now let’s examine the GOP proposals for Social Security and Medicare. According to the party’s model federal budget , they include raising the eligibility age for Social Security and Medicare to as high as 70… This idea is both ignorant and insane. The current full retirement age for Social Security is 67, for those born in 1960 or later, but workers can start collecting as early as age 62. (They get reduced monthly benefits for life if they do so, but higher benefits for life if they wait as long as age 70.)

“Most workers don’t wait until their full retirement age to start collecting benefits, almost always because they can’t — they need the money and can’t continue working. According to program statistics, about 37% start taking benefits at 62, and more than half do so before their full retirement age. Only about 6.7% can afford to wait until age 70. In other words, force people to wait, and more than 98% of future beneficiaries would be left behind.

“The GOP defends this proposal by pointing to the increase in life expectancy for those reaching 65 — ‘the average life expectancy for men reaching 65 increased from 77.7 to over age 82.9,’ they write in their budget — implying that the average American spends a longer period collecting retirement than in the past. The average, however, masks a lot of diversity.

“The life expectancy tables issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that the figures cited by the GOP apply chiefly to white males. For Black males, the average life expectancy is only 81 — two years short of the white male cohort. Would the Republicans adjust for this discrepancy? They don’t say, so the answer is probably no.

“The Republican plan would also allow workers to divert some of their Social Security contributions into private retirement plans. The drawbacks to this idea are no secret — they helped torpedo a similar proposal by George W. Bush in 2005 , thank goodness… The GOP says its goal is to ‘provide workers the freedom to choose how to save their own money for retirement.’ Here’s a translation of this coded phrase: It’s a way to place your retirement resources into the hands of Wall Street. The GOP asserts that ‘requiring all young workers to participate in a one-size-fits-all government-run retirement program does not make economic sense.’”

But given the reality of how most are unable to save for their retirement, the GOP plan seems to portend a significant increase in the number elderly homeless. And if you think all this leads to getting prices and inflation under control, there’s bridge in Brooklyn you should consider buying!

I’m Peter Dekom, and the GOP has managed to build its constituency with powerful support from the mega-rich, conspiracy theorists and religious extremists.

Home, Hearth and Mortgage Payments Adjustable, Unaffordable or Lucky

It is interesting to observe how high gas prices, general price increases, falling home prices and sky-high rent are all being blamed on Joe Biden, as if the United States was somehow able to avoid global market trends, if only we would elect Republicans in the mid-terms. The GOP tells us that they will save money by cutting back Social Security and Medicare benefits, reduce support for Ukraine, deny student loan relief to low- and middle-income families. However, somehow scores of GOP adherents had no issue getting massive federal subsidies and loan relief during the height of the pandemic or slorping at the “trough of the rich” from the trillions of tax dollars lost by reason of the massive corporate tax cuts in 2017. We’ll be paying off that deficit debt plus interest for decades. That the GOP still builds it economic model on the very failed “supply-side” (cut taxes for the rich) philosophy that tanked Conservative Liz Truss’ 45 day tenure as UK’s Prime Minister never ceases to amaze me.

We all know that the OPEC+ cutback of two million barrels of oil exports a day combined with the continuing market response to Putin’s war is impacting fossil fuel costs for everyone on earth. Major grain producer Ukraine is barely able to export even 10% of what she did last year, also driving food prices up everywhere. But one phenomenon I have not focused on is how global housing prices have been impacted by the higher interest rates most central banks have imposed on their citizens, all following the lead of the US Federal Reserve (over which neither Congress nor the President has control), to system “inflation.” In particular, the October 20th The Economist thinks the damage to overall economies from these housing anomalies is being undervalued:

“Over the past decade owning a house has meant easy money. Prices rose reliably for years and then went bizarrely ballistic in the pandemic. Yet today if your wealth is tied up in bricks and mortar it is time to get nervous. House prices are now falling in nine rich economies. The drops in America are small so far, but in the wildest markets they are already dramatic. In condo-crazed Canada homes cost 9% less than they did in February. As inflation and recession stalk the world a deepening correction is likely—even estate agents are gloomy. Although this will not detonate global banks as in 2007-09, it will intensify the downturn, leave a cohort of people with wrecked finances and start a political storm.” But Canadians, Brits, Germans, etc. aren’t blaming Joe Biden for this debacle. And they are experiencing vastly more financial damage than we are. So far anyway.

We seem headed for “worse economic times,” whether we hit the formal definition of a recession or not. Supply chain issues (especially in sophisticated computer chips which are not yet made in the US in sufficient volume to matter) combined with an explosion of pent-up demand when COVID numbers dropped to “controllable” left labor shortages and supply-related price increases all over the world. Actually, the United States seems to be weathering the storm better than most, although one more Fed rate hike could flush that progress down the toilet.

But housing mortgage hikes are pushing buyers out of the market, curtailing sales and reducing prices… forcing many to rent instead… which in turn has forced many into a now over-heated rental market. The silver lining in all of this has to be the lack of a tsunami of under-qualified homebuyers driving massive foreclosures as we faced in the 2007 subprime collapse. Institutionally, we are on reasonable ground, even as those with adjustable-rate mortgages or seeking new homes are slammed between their teeth.

“The cause of the crunch is soaring interest rates: in America prospective buyers have been watching, horrified, as the 30-year mortgage rate has hit 6.92%, over twice the level of a year ago and the highest since April 2002. The pandemic mini-bubble was fueled by rate cuts, stimulus cash and a hunt for more suburban space. Now most of that is going into reverse. Take, for example, someone who a year ago could afford to put $1,800 a month towards a 30-year mortgage. Back then they could have borrowed $420,000. Today the payment is enough for a loan of $280,000: 33% less. From Stockholm to Sydney the buying power of borrowers is collapsing. That makes it harder for new buyers to afford homes, depressing demand, and can squeeze the finances of existing owners who, if they are unlucky, may be forced to sell.

“The good news is that falling house prices will not cause an epic financial bust in America as they did 15 years ago. The country has fewer risky loans and better-capitalised banks which have not binged on dodgy subprime securities. Uncle Sam now underwrites or securitises two-thirds of new mortgages. The big losers will be taxpayers. Through state insurance schemes they bear the risk of defaults. As rates rise they are exposed to losses via the Federal Reserve, which owns one-quarter of mortgage-backed securities.

“Some other places, such as South Korea and the Nordic countries, have seen scarier accelerations in borrowing, with household debt of around 100% of gdp. They could face destabilising losses at their banks or shadow financial firms: Sweden’s central-bank boss has likened this to “sitting on top of a volcano”. But the world’s worst housing-related financial crisis will still be confined to China, whose problems—vast speculative excess, mortgage strikes, people who have pre-paid for flats which have not been built—are, mercifully, contained within its borders.” The Economist.

In the big California cities, home prices have hovered under or even over (in San Francisco) the million-dollar average sale price, well north of $600 per square foot. Globally, home prices may have fallen, but affordability is still a global issue. By far, homeownership forms the largest segment of private net worth ($250 trillion) with the total public stock market values trailing (at $90 trillion). “A further problem is concentrated pain borne by a minority of homeowners. By far the most exposed are those who have not locked in interest rates and face soaring mortgage bills. Relatively few are in America, where subsidised 30-year fixed-rate mortgages are the norm. But four in five Swedish loans have a fixed period of two years or less, and half of all New Zealand’s fixed-rate mortgages have been or are due for refinancing this year.

“When combined with a cost-of-living squeeze, that points to a growing number of households in financial distress. In Australia perhaps a fifth of all mortgage debt is owed by households who will see their spare cashflow fall by 20% or more if interest rates rise as expected. In Britain 2m households could see their mortgage absorb another 10% of their income, according to one estimate. Those who cannot afford the payments may have to dump their houses on the market instead.

“That is where the political dimension comes in. Housing markets are already a battleground. Thickets of red tape make it too hard to build new homes in big cities, leading to shortages. A generation of young people in the rich world feel they have been unfairly excluded from home ownership. Although lower house prices will reduce the deposit needed to obtain a mortgage, it is first-time buyers who depend most on debt financing, which is now expensive. And a whole new class of financially vulnerable homeowners are about to join the ranks of the discontented.” The Economist. Indeed, if American voters believe that Republicans can and will lead us out of this global economic quagmire… well, they ain’t seen nuffin’ yet. And the Brooklyn Bridge is still for sale!

I’m Peter Dekom, and even if blaming the incumbent head of state for any and all economic problems does not help solve the issue, sorry Joe, it’s just human nature.

The Great Texas-California Population Trade-Off

 

The Great Texas-California Population Trade-Off

California Gets the Young Well-Educated; Texas Gets those Seeking a Lower Cost of Living!

The press loves exceptional stories, tales of billionaires like Elon Musk or mere millionaires like Joe Rogen leaving California for lower taxes and right-wing values in Texas. But while Dems and Republicans like to attribute the population movement to political motivations, that only influences a very tiny proportion of those moving. “It’s the economy, stupid!” that is the major determinant. The fact remains that these migratory patterns are really so much more about income than politics. Or moving to be closer to family.

When you just look at the sheer numbers, you’d think Texas holds the winning hand. In reality, it’s about the kinds of people who are willing to travel so far to make a change. Simply, there are many more folks in the “I need a cheaper place to live” category than there are “I want to take my superior education to a place with more cutting-edge opportunities.” Texas boasts about the abundance of jobs, but unemployment is hardly a relevant factor anywhere these days. There are plenty of jobs in both states. But which category of migrant creates more value to the destination state? And there, California is the clear winner. Richard Parker, writing for the October 17th Los Angeles Times, has some real questions about this Texas/California population go-round:

“For at least 15 years, it has become cliché that Californians are moving to Texas, where jobs abound and the price of housing is far cheaper. But nearly unnoticed is the traffic that has long headed the other way, from the Lone Star State to the Golden State, where between 35,000 and 40,000 Texans move annually, regardless of economic conditions.

“Indeed, if Texas expats who arrived in California since 2000 had their own city, it would be close to the size of San Jose — about a million people. But the Texodus to California bears a sharp distinction: While Californians headed east are drawn by the promise of affordable suburban tract homes, many of the Texans bound in the other direction are recent college graduates seeking a fresh start to their young careers and lives. California continually attracts talents — and drains brains — from Texas.

“Ignore the Lone Star myth regularly promulgated by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott: There’s no evidence that Californians move to Texas because of its deep-red politics. Some may appreciate those politics; some may loathe them. But political ideology is hardly a reason for people to make the financial investment in moving halfway across the country. People move for family and money — often for a higher-paying job or a lower cost of living.

“The reality is that the big-population states are typically the largest sources of new migrants for other big-population states. It’s just math. South Dakota isn’t going to flood New York with new faces. California is still the most populous state, and Texas ranks second… In that context, California’s migration to Texas — though larger overall than the traffic in the other direction — ebbs and flows.

“The number of Californians decamping to Texas jumped from just over 60,000 in 2017 to more than 85,000 in 2018, according to U.S. Census Bureau data analyzed by William Fulton at Rice University’s Kinder Institute. By contrast, the migration from Texas to California has been relatively steady over the past 15 years.

“Thus, the route between California and Texas is a story of exchange, not a one-way journey — and one shaped by income… Californians leaving the state tend to be working and middle class, looking for a cheaper place to live. Between 2010 and 2020, about 700,000 lower-income people left the Golden State, followed by more than 300,000 middle-income people, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. The Kinder analysis found that migration from California to Texas lags behind the former state’s trend in home prices by a year or two… Newcomers to California, on the other hand, tend to be more educated and to make more money.”

I must say I am amused at the efforts by Texas to lure folks to their state by guaranteeing electricity (see sign above)… when they have a clearly decayed power grid that took out most of the state in February of 2021, creating a killer crisis of unprecedented proportions. Californians do not question climate change and are the leaders in seeking fossil-free alternative power. And yes, California has earthquakes and wildfires, a question of dwindling water supplies, but Texas weather is hardly a big selling point. They too face water shortages and wildfires, but their history with hurricane and tornados cannot be a big selling point. Heat, heat and more heat is all over Texas. But in reality, it's not about weather or indigenous cooking. And its certainly is not driven by politics.

I’m Peter Dekom, and California is hardly the be-all and end-all in daily quality of life, but its sure beats Texas if you can afford to live here, a big “if”!

Climate Change is Beating the Crab Out of Us

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Climate Change is Beating the Crab Out of Us

The Deadliest Catch?

In my never-ending quest to blend the little climate change stories – those canaries in oh-so-many coalmines – with the dramatic mega-climate slams in the form of intensifying natural disasters, I stumbled upon another one of those “little stories.” Unless you are a fisherman whose life and livelihood depend on abundant and predictable resources from our oceans and seas. While an increasing number of crops will not be able to survive the increases in average temperatures and water availability (or excess) on land – and may have to move if there is sustainable available alternative agricultural regions – for those tethered to specific regions where moving is too expensive, where specialized equipment and infrastructure are not readily movable, the choices may be limited. Like the sea.

For fishermen, if species completely disappear or migrate beyond their accessible reach, or worse, migrate into waters which are within sovereign territorial limits outside the US control or free navigation, they simply face professional extinction. So, today’s aqua-canary in the coalmine is the Bering Straits crab, where US governmental agencies are facing massive declines in regional sea life.

Bloomberg’s Zahra Hirji (October 18th) explains: “Bering Sea snow crabs have declined by ‘multiple billions,’ said Michael Litzow, NOAA’s shellfish assessment program manager…’We’re still trying to figure it out, but certainly there’s very clear signs of the role of climate change in the collapse.’ [The upshot:] Alaska officials recently canceled the Bering Sea snow crab season for the first time ever after scientists discovered an unprecedented decline in crab numbers…

“The decision to cancel, announced by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game on Oct. 10, came as a devastating blow for local fisheries in a state where the seafood industry is an economic cornerstone . Commercial landings last year of Alaska snow crab alone came to 44 million pounds and $219 million, according to NOAA data… The bad news didn’t end there. State officials also announced the cancellation of the Bristol Bay red king crab season for the second year in a row because of consistently low crab numbers.

“The Alaska commercial crabbing fleet ‘is bracing for half a billion dollars in losses going into the second year of stock collapse,’ the Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers trade association said in a news release, plus more ripple-effect losses in revenue to processors, support businesses and communities. The trade association represents about 60 vessels and 350 fishermen…

“In 2018, the NOAA-run annual survey revealed the population was booming. ‘We were looking at the largest amount of small crab’ — i.e., young crabs — ‘in the water that we’ve ever seen in the survey,’ said Ethan Nichols, assistant area management biologist at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. ‘There was a lot of hope and anticipation’ that this would translate to more commercial fishing in the area for years to come, he added.

“But the 2019 survey revealed a much-reduced population of small crabs, and the 2020 survey was nixed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. ‘Then in 2021, we went out, and there was just nothing,’ Litzow said. There were just enough adult crabs to meet the regulatory threshold to keep the commercial crabbing season open. But with so few smaller crabs around, the outlook for 2022 was grim. This year’s survey only confirmed that, resulting in the closure of the snow crab season for the first time.” Maybe those young crabs will survive, mature and reignite Bering Sea crabbing industry. But maybe they won’t.

The fishing industry has taken to fish-farming (or “ranching”), which recently added the coveted bluefin tuna to the species being raised… in off-shore cages. A bluefin tuna can sell for tens of thousands of dollars if not more, so this is big business. Not only is there great build-up of waste toxicity where these cages are located, but the ecological balance – from prey to predators – is materially disrupted. Further, these changes also impact those fishermen focused on other species.

As the global population grows and demand for increasing amount of food soars, the number of food impaired people is rising fast, not just from climate change but from the ravages of conflict as well. According to the International Food Policy Research Institute: "Almost a billion people are suffering from undernourishment. They simply don't have enough to eat… And more than two billion people are suffering from nutritional deficiencies…” But food insecurity and fear of running out of sustenance for your own population give rise to conflicts as well. Battles for dwindling resources. Malthusian population growth and hyper-accelerating climate change are particularly bad mix.

China’s expansion of its manmade island in the Spratly chain was just as much about claiming the regional oceanic resources as much as it was a military statement. Russia’s claim of Ukraine and its assertion of control of Arctic waters reflect a growing willingness of this superpower to use force to take what they want. And maybe richer nations can afford to pay for the higher food prices – which is a huge issue in our own mid-terms – but those at the bottom of the economic ladder are running out of options. They simply starve to death.

I’m Peter Dekom, and my little story about a few fishermen losing their livelihoods just might be part of the biggest story in mankind’s history.

Generational Polarization – Investment Strategy

They fear the rising ravages of climate change more than their elders. They are vastly more tolerant than the average American. They are very pessimistic about the very institutions their parents and grandparents cherished… and the future of their country. They do not believe that Social Security will remain sufficiently funded or, for many, that they will ever own a house or a condo. Today, more than half of younger Americans have at least some college education, and more than half of those are women. They are millennials and younger. And while we see young MAGA supporters at rallies across the land, the more educated they are, the less they believe in conspiracy theories and autocratic solutions. Yet many believe that their votes no longer have meaning. The balance in the mid-terms hangs on their turnout, but apathy remains an issue.

Z generation are struggling with student loans, unaffordable housing and the worst rise in the cost of living we have seen in decades. While those who want jobs have little trouble finding work, the pay levels have lagged well below our new inflation levels. Millennials have been in the work world for a while now and have more established patterns. They are often parents, settled in their career paths now and many even have the incomes stabilized sufficiently to have investments. But their fearful lack of faith in traditional American institutions also translates into their investment strategies and portfolios. And believe me, Millennials are very different from generations past.

Clint Rainey, writing for the October 12th FastCompany.com, reviewed a detailed Bank of America survey and report, released on October 11th, examining those millennial investment practices, often completed entirely on smart phones. With both their earnings and their expected $73 trillion inheritance from their Boomer parents, their changes in how they approach savings represent a monumental shift that will impact every corner of the US capital and debt markets… and those broker-dealers designed to service what may become a very old-world approach to investing:

“The report, which surveyed about 1,000 adults with at least $3 million in investable assets, says the younger generation of investors is much less enamored with stocks, opting instead for cryptocurrency and other alternative investments. Roughly three-quarters of younger investors—those between the ages of 21 and 42, for Bank of America’s purposes—believe they’ll never beat the market by investing only in traditional stocks and bonds. That view is held by just 32% of the older generation, according to the report.

“The way this breaks down is that younger people are allocating three times more of their money to alternative investments than older people do, and half as much to normal stocks. This would represent a sizable shift for the market… Most of it is going into cryptocurrency. Forty-seven percent of younger investors hold digital assets of some kind. In fact, they allocate 15% of their entire portfolio on average to crypto. (It’s a solid 2% for the older generation.) Older and younger people trust the same authorities for investment advice: professional advisers, crypto experts, or their own online research more than family and friends. Except half of the young people say they turn to social media for ‘guidance.’ A third of them think crypto is a smart long-term investment vehicle, even more (35%) think it will go mainstream by 2025 to 2027, and 64% of them claim they ‘understand cryptocurrency quite well.’…

“Bank of America says a total of 16% of younger investors’ portfolios go toward alternative investments—that leaves a whopping 1% parked in something other than crypto, but it’s still something. The investments younger people believe present the best growth opportunities (if you eliminate crypto, which is No. 1) are real estate, followed by a tie between private equity and capital directly invested into companies, then ESG funds. Meanwhile, for the older folks, it’s domestic equities, then real estate, emerging markets funds, international equities, and direct investment, and finally private equity. Crypto comes in ninth for them, or third to last…

“Sixty-six percent of younger investors own art, versus 23% among the older crowd. Of the current owners, 83% of younger people bought a piece of art in the past year; for older people, it was 53%. Of course, if Gen Zers are collecting art, they’re doing it in a very fleeting, rebellious Gen Z way: Although two-thirds of both groups say they like art for its aesthetic value, once a piece becomes ‘valuable,’ 42% of young people concede they’re ‘very likely’ to sell it, compared to a quarter of older people.” And Gen Z are becoming digital millennials on steroids.

Still, the recent plunge in cryptocurrency value is simply a herald of the instability of that currency alternative. Nevertheless, it is the monetary tool of a highly disintermediated Web 3.0, a blockchain-driven version of cyberspace where buyers and sellers are increasingly put into direct contact with each other. Investment advisors, prepare! So, whatever else is said and done, America’s financial intermediaries not only have to deal with this entirely new cybercurrency trading trend, they may also be facing their own demise unless they find a way to provide genuine perceived value to these highly skeptical digital sophisticates.

I’m Peter Dekom, and this skepticism from younger generations may side-step national currencies entirely, quite detached from traditional governmental monetary and fiscal policies as well.

Hitting Below the Border, Our New Unpopularity Contest

Donald Trump did a lot of relationship damage dealing with Latin America, well beyond his “rapists and murderers” remark about Mexican immigrants at the border. His outright lambasting of troubled nations below the border, his politics of blame and derision, turned many of those countries even more against the United States, a factor which opened the door to China’s stepping in for its own economic gain at our expense. Biden’s administration may have inherited this mess, but his efforts – including sending VP Kamala Harris south on a disappointing effort to mend fences – fell incredibly short in the eyes of Latin American leaders. 

Indeed, Biden seemed almost Trumpy in barring Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua from the Ninth Summit of the Americas held from June 6th to 10th in Los Angeles. This pushed Mexico's President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to do what he had warned he would do: drop out of the Summit of the Americas. What’s worse is that Latin American countries are acutely aware that their powerful Narco cartels would not exist but for US demand for narcotics and American gun laws that allow easy access even to military grade assault weapons, which have become the backbone of cartel power. 

Not to mention China’s relatively unrestrained checkbook as an easy alternative to the US. Recognizing that China’s inroads have grown strong and deep, and that the United States can no longer force Latin American nations to do much of anything anymore, President Biden sent Secretary of State Anthony Blinken back to Latin America to begin to rebuild our once powerful influence in that region… with Blinken’s addressing a lukewarm crowd at the October 6th meeting of the Organization of American States in Lima, Peru. China’s footsteps were already everywhere.

“As part of its $4.3-trillion Belt and Road Initiative, China has invested in infrastructure, mining and other projects across the globe, including in Latin America. And it never makes demands on human rights or other political steps, as Washington does… According to the World Economic Forum, in addition to more than $130 billion in investments made over roughly the last two decades, trade between China and Latin America has also grown from $12 billion in 2000 to $315 billion in 2020 and is expected to double in the next 10 years.

“The projects, such as a canal across Nicaragua, are often pipe dreams that allow China to control ports and waterways without actually completing the proposals. U.S. officials maintain that Beijing makes the loans to gain political influence then holds host countries hostage to its terms… China rejects that position. Blinken had just departed Santiago when the Chinese ambassador to Chile, Niu Qingbao, wrote a letter to the editor of the leading El Mercurio newspaper titled, ‘Response to Blinken.’… ‘As to whether Chilean and Chinese cooperation is a good thing, Latin American countries have their own evaluation,’ the ambassador wrote. ‘China insists ... in not interfering in the domestic affairs of other countries, in not imposing political conditions on cooperation… China also would be very happy if the United States would really consider what it means to be ‘partners’ to Latin American countries, helping them sincerely to develop their economies and improve the welfare of the people.’ 

“When [Blinken] was meeting with Pedro Castillo in Lima, the Peruvian president was facing impeachment for a litany of charges — and not for the first time… More than 2,500 miles to the north on the same day, in Mexico City, [President Obrador], arguably the United States’ most important regional ally, was railing publicly against U.S. policies… And in the ‘Northern Triangle’ of Central America — El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras — initially chosen by the Biden administration as a major focus of U.S. attention, plans have crashed harder than churning waves breaking on the Pacific coast… 

“From Mexico and Central America, all the way through the Andes, U.S. officials have struggled to find partners to work with and policies that will stick as they attempt to reassert U.S. influence, once dominant in the region but now in stiff competition with other powers, most notably China…. On Oct. 6, Blinken completed a weeklong, three-nation tour through South America, which included a day of talks with two dozen countries at the annual summit of the Organization of American States in Lima. His reception, by most accounts, was a mixed bag.

“A major challenge was to court newly leftist governments. But that was only part of the difficulty in finding interlocutors. Though the ‘pink tide’ shift to the left in Latin America has ebbed and flowed over the decades, there may be more left-leaning countries than ever if former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva wins his race this month [still facing a very Trump-like Jair Bolsonaro].

“More concerning, analysts say, are the numerous regional leaders drowning in corruption allegations, fighting for their own political survival against inflation and popular discontent, and unwilling to follow the traditional democratic rule of law. In some countries like Peru, instability has become the norm… ‘There has been a rise in anti-democratic practices across many countries in Latin America as well as around the world,’ said Cynthia Arnson, a Latin America expert and distinguished fellow at the Wilson Center think tank in Washington. ‘There are any number of governments that simply don’t share interest in democratic values and human rights and open markets.’.. At the same time, the U.S. is constrained in what it can offer the region amid a growing backlash against free trade agreements, she added.

“There remains a deep sense of distrust of the U.S. among many Latin American politicians and leaders. For decades, the single most thorny point has been Washington’s maintenance of a 50-year-old economic embargo and other punishing sanctions on Communist-ruled Cuba… Many throughout the region cheered when then-President Obama in 2015 embarked on a rapprochement with Havana. He did not lift the embargo — only Congress can do that — but he renewed long-frozen diplomatic ties, reopened the U.S. Embassy in Havana, and made travel, trade and sending remittances easier for Cubans and Americans…

“‘After years of self-imposed distancing, the U.S. is finding countries totally turned around toward Chinese capital and commerce, or they maintain pragmatic relations with Russia, which blocks any kind of condemnation of aggression against Ukraine,’ said Juan Pablo Toro, director of the AthenaLab security and foreign policy think tank in Santiago… At the OAS assembly, three of Latin America’s biggest countries, Brazil, Mexico and Argentina, refused to sign a U.S.-backed resolution against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Many in the region also thought relations might be easier with President Biden, who frequently boasts of his many trips to Latin America and first-name-basis relationships with heads of state. But there’s a new crop of leaders now. Biden was well into his second decade as a U.S. senator when the president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, was born.” Tracy Wilkinson, writing for the October 14th Los Angeles Times/AP. The Monroe Doctrine is long gone. Trump took away any possible American claim to a moral high ground, and China’s checkbook has been profoundly challenging for American diplomacy, further exacerbated by our “immigration policy of blame.”

I’m Peter Dekom, and in addition to our diplomatic inconsistencies and the Chinese alternative, countries in Latin America look at our own political instability and polarization as just one more reason not to trust or rely upon the United States or any of its pledges. 

The Undersea World of Kim Jong-Un Or The Missiles of October

“We are continuing to analyze details of the missiles, including a possibility that they might have been launched from the sea.” 

Japanese vice defense minister, Toshiro Ino, October 8th, after North Korea’s seventh round of weapons tests in two weeks.

These latest missiles mark North Korea’s 25th launch so far in 2022, including the most ballistic missiles fired in a single year since leader, Kim Jong-Un took power in 2012. By comparison, Pyongyang conducted four tests in 2020 and eight in 2021. Indeed, an October 4th missile flew over Japan itself, landing in the Pacific Ocean beyond. Alarms sounded, residents took cover, trains and subways were stopped and emergency radio and television messages were posted. North Korea is clearly a nuclear power, telling the world that it has built its nuclear program with supporting missiles fully capable of delivering a nuclear warhead as a defensive move against American aggression.

The world is so distracted with Putin’s diabolical war against Ukraine, his own threats to deploy nuclear weapons and his massive recent strikes that Kim’s attempts to remain center stage in the world of nuclear threats seem to have slipped under the radar. This escalation in North Korea’s capacity is focused on targets in South Korea, the US mainland and our regional allies. Writing for the October 11th Associated Press, Hyung-jin Kim fills in some necessary details: “North Korea’s recent barrage of missile launches was a simulated use of its tactical nuclear weapons to ‘hit and wipe out’ potential South Korean and U.S. targets, state media reported Monday [10/10], as leader Kim Jong Un signaled that he would conduct more provocative tests.

“The North’s statement, released on the 77th birthday of its ruling Workers Party, is seen as an attempt to burnish Kim’s image as a strong leader at home amid pandemic-related hardships as he defiantly pushes to enlarge Pyongyang’s arsenal to wrest greater concessions in future negotiations… ‘Through seven times of launching drills of the tactical nuclear operation units, the actual war capabilities … of the nuclear combat forces ready to hit and wipe out the set objects at any location and any time were displayed to the full,’ the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said.

“The news agency said the missile tests were in response to recent naval drills between U.S. and South Korean forces, which involved the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan for the first time in five years… Viewing the drills as a military threat, North Korea decided to stage ‘the simulation of an actual war’ to check and improve its war deterrence and send a warning to its enemies, the news agency said… North Korea considers U.S.-South Korean military drills an invasion rehearsal, though the allies have steadfastly said they are defensive in nature. Since the May inauguration of a conservative government in Seoul, the U.S. and South Korean militaries have been expanding their exercises, posing a security challenge to Kim.

“The missile tests — all supervised by Kim — included a nuclear-capable ballistic missile launched under a reservoir in the northeast; other ballistic missiles designed to launch nuclear strikes on South Korean airfields, ports and command facilities; and a new ground-to-ground ballistic missile that flew over Japan, the news agency reported. It said North Korea also flew 150 warplanes for separate live-firing and other drills in the country’s first-ever such training.

“Cheong Seong-chang at the private Sejong Institute in South Korea said the missile launches marked the first time North Korea performed drills involving army units tasked with the operation of tactical nuclear weapons… The North’s public launch of a missile from under an inland reservoir was also the first of its kind, though it has previously test-launched missiles from a submarine… Kim Dong-yub, a professor at Seoul’s University of North Korean Studies, said North Korea probably wants to diversify launch sites to make it difficult for its enemies to detect its missile liftoffs in advance and conduct preemptive strikes.”

Donald Trump’s multiple meetings with Kim – all taking place in Asia and even in Korea itself – were utter failures. Trump’s efforts only elevated Kim’s worldwide status by such meetings; Kim played the US President like a puppet. Nothing Trump offered even slightly tempted Kim to turn off his nuclear/missile program. The North’s program has continued to develop. But it is Kim’s ambitions to bring nuclear-missile-capable submarines off the US coast that is most troubling.

According to 19fortyfive.com (August 26th), North Korea operates somewhere between 64 and 80 submarines (including midget craft used for infiltration). All are diesel-electric which have to surface at least every few days and are more easily detected than most modern nuclear vessels in the US navy. But in 2014, the North began launching a larger, Sinpo/Gorae (“Whale”) class submarine, capable of serving as a missile launch platform. ‘According to the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), this metaphorical new kid on the block ‘likely features diesel-electric propulsion, but does not feature an Air-Independent Propulsion (AIP) system. This limits the Gorae’s capability as a survivable, second-strike nuclear deterrent, as it cannot remain submerged for more than a few days without surfacing.’ The boat boasts a top speed of 10 knots, a length of 219 feet (66.75 meters), a beam width of 22 feet (6.7 meters), and a surfaced displacement of 1,455 tons.

“Most significantly, back on October 22, 2021, the DPRK used its new Gorae to conduct a much-ballyhooed launch of a KN-23 short-range ballistic missile (SRBM). Vann H. Van Diepen of the Henry L. Stimson Center’s 38 North project opines that ‘The launch and associated announcements have much greater political than military significance.’ However, it’s not something that can be simply blown off altogether.” 19fortyfive.com. While the US Navy does not consider this submarine to be an immediate threat to the US mainland, the reality is that North Korea’s progress in nuclear weapons and missile platforms is both their national priority and happening at a rapid pace. Sooner or later…

I’m Peter Dekom, and as we polarize ourselves into total governmental dysfunction, we are generously aiding and abetting nuclear enemies delighting in our self-destruction, just as their egos and paranoia move them to become some of the greatest threats we have ever known.

Cheap Killing Machines in Malevolent Hands

Russia has crippled Ukraine’s power infrastructure, taking out roughly a third of their electrical generating capacity. If Russia continues to reduce Ukraine’s power generating capacity, that latter nation may face another, exceptionally cold winter, without the ability to heat homes and businesses. Yet Ukraine’s resistance continues, even in the face of Russian imposed misery.

Russia is using under-prepared conscripts in their partial mobilization effort, an estimated 222 thousand so far, against Ukraine. Supposedly this forced enlistment is only of those with former military training, but evidence suggests that these forces are being given old, unreliable arms without sufficient instruction and practice. Russia is desperately seeking to achieve sufficient advantage – even as it evacuates Kherson and other provinces that it once controlled that Ukraine is taking back – perhaps to force Kyiv to the bargaining table to make some territorial concessions to be able to claim some semblance of victory.

Winter is their secret weapon, and with the increasing statements from GOP leaders – like House Minority Leader and Speaker-wannabe Kevin McCarthy and a growing wave of other MAGA Republicans, including Trump himself – that if they take a majority in Congress, aid to Ukraine is likely to be curtailed, Putin is envisioning a path to semi-victory. But the “here and now” is that Russia really is running out of troops, munitions, and critical weapons. Every time they fire one of their cruise missiles to strike a target, a million dollars flies out the door. Enter their not-so-secret weapons deal with fellow American-hating Iran. Despite Tehran’s pathetic denials, Iran’s relatively inexpensive drones – $20,000 a pop – are making attacking Ukraine very affordable for Russia’s depleted military.

The battlefield evidence of Iran’s Shahed 136 drones – repainted in Russian with a Geran-2 (Germaniam-2) label – is hard to hide. They are being shot down all over Ukraine, but enough of them get through to wreak havoc on the ground. As the Associated Press (October 19th) tells us: “Packed with explosives [still significantly less than a cruise missile], they are programmed with a target’s GPS coordinates. They can loiter overhead and then nosedive in for the kill. That’s reminiscent of Japan’s World War II-era kamikaze pilots who would fly their explosives-laden aircraft into U.S. warships and aircraft carriers during the war in the Pacific.

“According to the Ukrainian online publication Defense Express, which cites Iranian data, the delta-wing Shahed is 11½ feet long, 8 feet 3 inches wide and weighs approximately 440 pounds. It’s powered by a 50-horsepower engine with a top speed of 114 mph.

“The drone has previously been used in Yemen and in a deadly oil tanker attack last year, said Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Washington think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies… And although its range is about 621 miles, drone expert Samuel Bendett of the Center for a New American Security said the Shahed is being used in Ukraine at much shorter ranges. That’s because its GPS guidance system — which is vulnerable to jamming — isn’t very robust.

“Shaheds are known to have been controlled via radio under the Iranians. Whether Russia is capable of doing the same in Ukraine is unclear… Because they are cheap and plentiful, Russia is able to flood Ukraine with Shaheds without risking the lives of pilots or putting sophisticated aircraft at risk.” But Shaheds menacing, hovering overhead, is disconcerting to civilians on the ground below. A powerful psychological effect with the added benefit that it gives Russia a kind of inexpensive air superiority that its air force could not achieve. Iran seems unconcerned that supplying such weapons flies in the face of a United Nations ban on giving Russia such military supplies.

Shaheds are often deployed in swarms, and even in such aggregations they are vastly less expensive than using larger cruise missiles. Swarms are more difficult to shoot down, plus these weapons are usually launched from highly mobile trucks. They’re not particularly sophisticated; according to Bloomberg (October 18th), they “can be shot down using old-fashioned anti-aircraft cannons, as well as more sophisticated missile defenses, and the Ukrainians have brought down some of them. The difficulty, in a country larger than France, comes in deciding where to place limited stocks of air defenses. The Shahed can fly hundreds of kilometers. (Iran’s claim of a range in excess of 2,000 km, or 1,243 miles, is likely an exaggeration). Ukrainian officials have expressed interest in buying air defense systems from Israel, which has a near perfect record shooting down even more sophisticated Iranian drones.” Iran seems ready to send Russia a whole lot more of these drones plus a yet unspecified number of “cheap” but deadly Iran made missiles.

The underlying problem that the Western World must face is simple. Failing to contain territorial aspirations of megalomaniacal autocrats, as they attack or threaten to attack their neighbors with overwhelming force, only encourages them to seek more and more territories to intimidate and/or annex. As the world learned in the 1930s, as Hitler sequentially invaded and annexed land in Czechoslovakia, Austria and ultimately Poland, a policy of tolerating territorial expansion (usually by force or intimidation) only encourages more annexation, more violence. Britain’s Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s failed policy of “appeasement” led to Hitler’s belief that he could have so much more… until a new PM, Winston Churchill, replaced Chamberlain… and WWII exploded into the horrific conflict it became.

Today, “appeasement” is what Putin believes is possible; the West is only willing to support Ukraine within limits, he hopes, and with recent elections in Italy and France showing a more isolationist trend, very reflective of a parallel MAGA movement here, Putin believes time (and his nuclear capability) are on his side. “I think people are gonna be sitting in a recession, and they’re not going to write a blank check to Ukraine. They just won’t do it,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said on October 18th. A harsh winter with exorbitant costs for natural gas for heating should be enough, particularly if the GOP dominates the American mid-terms, to give Putin what he wants… or so he believes. Is he right?

I’m Peter Dekom, and today we face two megalomaniacs with world-class military might – China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin – with major annexation as their obsessive goal.

The Dis-United Kingdom Seeking Relevance

 

“Well, the new British prime minister, Liz Truss, has laid out a terrific supply-side economic growth plan which looks a lot like the basic thrust of Kevin McCarthy’s Commitment to America plan.”

Republican Economic guru on Fox Business, September 23rd.

“Will Liz Truss still be prime minister within the 10 day shelf-life of a lettuce?”

London’s Daily Star tabloid on October 14th. She wasn’t.

With the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China, the sun set on the British empire for the first time in well over a century. The Britain that ruled the seas, held colonies all over the world, was reduced to a small island nation with a few remaining pockets of colonial holdings. The above map on the left shows Britain at a time of its maximum colonial reach; the pale-yellow map shows the UK’s global colonial holdings today. Sure, the “commonwealth” covers more, but I think my visual point is obvious. Britain ain’t what she used to be.

While the UK is an ultra-modern nation with a state-of-the-art military, a financial capital and home to some of the finest universities on earth, she’s not even the most populous nation in Europe; she lags Germany by almost 20 million. Her departure from the European Union in early 2020 removed her from significant connectivity to the rest of Europe, now bereft of her internal EU influence and forced to deal with that massively larger European political unit as an outsider, perhaps, in some ways as a supplicant. Brexit and post-Brexit have been anything but smooth. Still most troublesome is the difficulty between Ireland (EU) with its vast border with Northern Ireland (UK). Open or not open? It’s complicated.

The predicted “bad chickens” are beginning to roost in post-Brexit UK. The UK still has working ties with all of traditional Europe, is a member of NATO and counts the United States as one of her closest working partners. But internally, the UK is a mess. Lumbering under the same inflationary crush facing the rest of the world (yet a bit higher), having just ousted a very controversial Conservative Party Boris Johnson as Prime Minister, and having just dealt with the death of the longest reining monarch in British history, Conservatives elected Liz Truss as their new PM. Her appointment was hailed by the American right – see the above quote – as a brilliant step in the right direction – based on “slashing tax rates and deregulating energy.” Tens of billions of pounds being slashed.

While the American electorate has never figured out that “supply side economics” – that rising tide that was supposed to float all boats by cutting taxes for the rich – has never ever worked anywhere, the Brits rejected that notion almost instantly. But that phrase sounds so good, so logical, that it has now become the immutable GOP axiom of economic theory. Yet, nobody has ever convinced the rich, whose taxes have been slashed, that they must go out and immediately hire lots of people at solid wages and salaries.

Unfortunately for Ms Truss, the UK taxpayers figured that out immediately after she announced that her party would shepherd in a new supply-side massive tax cut for the rich. The British pound instantly plummeted to its lowest value, almost on par with the US dollar, in recent memory. Public markets also dropped, lenders pulled out of the mortgage markets, and after 44 days as British PM, on October 20th, Truss resigned saying that she could not “deliver the mandate on which I was elected.” Having reshuffled her cabinet, with no improvement, Truss claimed the prize as the PM with the shortest tenure in British history.

These are hardly the halcyon days of economic prosperity for most of us. But the UK is feeling the pain more than most of her Western allies. Writing for the October 21st Los Angeles Times, Jaweed Kaleem describes the issues: “Britons have grown accustomed to near-constant governmental and economic crises since the country narrowly voted six years ago to exit the European Union. In that interval, there have been four prime ministers — each having resigned — with a fifth on the way… All have been from the Conservative Party, whose long-standing majority in Parliament has given it the ability to choose one leader after the next.

“Polls suggest that the party would lose if a general election to decide parliamentary seats were held today, prompting activists to call for such a vote ahead of schedule. The next one is not due until 2025. The last one was in 2019… Voters are clearly fed up.

“‘We’re the nation of Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher,’ said Sanmeet Singh, a tech worker who was out to eat in East London on Thursday [10/20] when the news alerts of the resignation flashed across his phone. ‘Now we have this clown car of a government, a parade of dunces… Who knows what nightmare Halloween will bring?’ [Adding] ‘I used to be proud of our country no matter the party in power. Now I am embarrassed.’”

If a general election were called today, Conservative would fall to Labour in an instant. The Conservatives, hoping to avoid that necessity, are voting to replace Truss with a member of her own… as even members of her own party, in acts of desperate self-preservation, hastily have thrown Truss under a bus. They hope to have one of their own in place by Halloween! But the bigger question remains: what is Britain’s place in global politics and influence in 2022?

I’m Peter Dekom, but at least the British voters understand the complete BS that underlies the entire notion of supply-side, trickle down (incent the “job creators”) folly.

Breaking NATO Solidarity, Iranian Drones & the Continuing Nuclear Threat

Breaking NATO Solidarity, Iranian Drones & the Continuing Nuclear Threat

As Ukrainian Resistance Stiffens

“The other thing, there's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a

lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it...It sounds horrible to me.” 

 Donald Trump during a July 25, 2019 phone call with Ukraine’s President, in which timely delivery of Javelin missiles was being put on hold pending Ukraine’s willingness to investigate the Biden family.

Ukraine is a fairly large nation, about the size of France, with a population of about 40 million and a GDP (in normal times) of slightly more than half a trillion dollars. The people are well-educated, and the country used to have a reasonably modern infrastructure. As one of the leading grain producers in the world, Ukraine’s food exports were once the mainstay of many nations facing increasing food insecurity.

After the breakup of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, a now liberated and independent Ukraine agreed to surrender its nuclear weapons to Russia in exchange for a treaty wherein Moscow guaranteed to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity. In 2014, Vladimir Putin severely violated that treaty by annexing Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, resulting in a litany of Western sanctions against Russia. Still, Russia made tons of money from the West, with much of Europe still relying on Russian oil and, particularly, natural gas… leverage which Russia still holds against nations like Germany where a cold winter threatens with the most expensive gas heating in the Western world. As fossil fuel prices soar, this inflationary problem is now a global political issue.

Ukraine built up its military forces to deter further Russian territorial claims, particularly in eastern Ukraine (bordering Russia), and the United States was most willing to supply upgraded weapon systems to Ukraine (some as aid, mostly as a sale to Kyiv). Unfortunately, in an infamous telephone call (see excerpt above) between then-President Donald Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky – which resulted in Trump’s impeachment – Ukraine’s military preparedness was accordingly delayed. That pro-Russian vector seems to have resurrected in the MAGA GOP recently, as both GOP Senate and House leaders are warning us that they are not willing to continue an open supply of military hardware to Ukraine if they gain control of Congress in the mid-term elections.

As isolationist movements in the European Union are increasingly winning more parliamentary representation, that anti-Ukraine voice is gaining, but nowhere is that more obvious that in Hungary, where “Russia's war in Ukraine is presented by [strongman PM, Viktor Orbán’s] Fidesz-controlled media as the fault of the US. While the prime minister has occasionally referred to ‘Russian aggression,’ the conflict is presented as a superpower battle, provoked by Nato attempts to encircle Russia - an argument used by Vladimir Putin to justify going to war.

“At the same time, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto holds regular meetings with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, and with the directors of Russia's state-run companies Rosatom and Gazprom, to secure continued nuclear and gas supplies.

“To encourage people to take part in the national consultation, and give the ‘correct’ answers, the government put up giant billboards all over Hungary this week… ‘The Brussels [NATO] sanctions are destroying us,’ is the message, with a bomb labelled ‘sanctions’ sailing through the air. The Momentum opposition party has made a formal complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority that the ad breaches ethical guidelines… Government media either fail to report or under-report the damage that sanctions have caused the Russian economy.

“The same authors assumed a rapid Russian victory, and now seem non-plussed by Ukrainian advances on the battlefront. Hungary's remaining independent or opposition media cover the situation on the ground in detail.” BBC.com, October 20th. The United States has officially denounced this campaign, reminding Hungary that is a NATO member bound by treaty to support properly approved NATO objectives. But the war is anything but a smooth predictable event.

Even as Iranian drone strikes have been particularly cost-effective, bringing down large portions of Ukraine’s power generating capacity, even as a harsh winter approaches, Ukrainians have never been more solidly willing to resist hated Russia. I certainly hope that the US can help stop Putin in this theater of conflict, preventing an escalation in his open ambition of reuniting what was once the Soviet Union… which could only be accomplished by force and intimidation.

But Putin’s territorial ambitions, which could envelop even the former Soviet Baltic states that are now members of NATO, are not the worst horrible the world faces. Yale University Professor Emeritus, Paul Bracken, in Yale Insights (October 11th): “The declared U.S. approach is to act as if nuclear use [even more limited tactical nukes as shown above] is ‘unthinkable,’ and not get drawn into intricate discussions that would only spook the European allies. But let me assure you, behind the scenes the Joint Chiefs of Staff are thinking and planning about responses to Putin if he should use nuclear weapons. In other words, there’s a big difference between declaratory and real U.S. strategy…

“What are the consequences for the world if tactical nuclear weapons are used on the battlefield?... Russia would be condemned by nearly everyone, and extreme U.S. economic and military actions would be taken. For example, the world would refuse to honor any Russian passport, and Russian overseas bank accounts would be frozen. There would be attacks on the Russian Navy, and major cyber strikes on their power grid and pipelines. The CIA would try to foment revolt in ethnic sub-regions of Russia, and to unwind Moscow’s alliance with Central Asia countries.

“It would get really dangerous, far more than anything we’ve seen before. Putin, if he wasn’t assassinated, could raise the stakes with a limited nuclear missile strike on Europe. Here, we’re really on the doorstep of the unthinkable.” Any escalation involving nuclear weapons is an existential threat, one that only a cornered madman could envision. Like a very unstable Vladimir Putin, for example.

I’m Peter Dekom, and despite the hardliners in the Kremlin, one would hope that real soldiers on the ground, generals who know what the risks really are, would not obey an order to implement such a nuclear strike… but this is little more than a hope.