Is it War Time?
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There are a couple of decent sized tensions simmering around at the moment.
Russia are moving troops to the Ukrainian border, and making noises about protecting their security if civil war breaks out (a civil war it seems to be accepted they are helping to nudge along).
China are looking more like they are itching for a fight, with Taiwan the prize.
I have become so used to a pretty settled world that it's real easy for me to brush these off as the usual sabre rattling. Is it different this time? Are the slightly mentaller countries ready to push the US and see if they still have the stomach for world policing?
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following this thread, would be very interested in people opinions
I think id convinced myself all out war is just less and less likely in a modern war, better communication, faster response to things starting, maybe a better understanding of "them" (not necessarily acceptance) who ever the other side might be
but i have no actual grounds for that would will be good to know how far off the mark i am -
@mariner4life said in Is it War Time?:
There are a couple of decent sized tensions simmering around at the moment.
Russia are moving troops to the Ukrainian border, and making noises about protecting their security if civil war breaks out (a civil war it seems to be accepted they are helping to nudge along).
China are looking more like they are itching for a fight, with Taiwan the prize.
I have become so used to a pretty settled world that it's real easy for me to brush these off as the usual sabre rattling. Is it different this time? Are the slightly mentaller countries ready to push the US and see if they still have the stomach for world policing?
Had a little chuckle at that.
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This is an interesting article on Russia / Ukraine current buildup (although it's about a week old already). It kind of surprised me actually.
No, Russia and Ukraine Are Not About to Come to Blows - Geopolitical Futures
Fighting has resumed between the Ukrainian military and Russian-backed rebels in Donbass who accused the government in Kyiv of preparing for a large-scale
I was surprised back when the Eastern Ukraine insurgencies began just after the annexation of Crimea, that Russia didn't just go all-in on these areas as well. Crimea had already happened and provoked a sanctions response, that from a Russian POV adding Dombass and Luhansk wouldn't seem to have been a big step.
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@mariner4life said in Is it War Time?:
There are a couple of decent sized tensions simmering around at the moment.
Russia are moving troops to the Ukrainian border, and making noises about protecting their security if civil war breaks out (a civil war it seems to be accepted they are helping to nudge along).
China are looking more like they are itching for a fight, with Taiwan the prize.
I have become so used to a pretty settled world that it's real easy for me to brush these off as the usual sabre rattling. Is it different this time? Are the slightly mentaller countries ready to push the US and see if they still have the stomach for world policing?
I think its' just sabre rattling. Covid has been a colossal reset for most of this world, not that you'd noticed it in Australia/NZ apart from the lack to tourists. Countries are really just focused on getting their own houses in order. Hell, between Northern Ireland flaring up again & Nikki desperate to get Scotland out of the UK, I don't think the energy is here for war.
Of course though, the great reset may have other leaders looking to use it as an opportunity to strike. Certainly hope not.
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Not to forget Iran and Israel, seems to be a bit more to it than standard day to day Middle East tensions
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Is there any need to exert pressure on the west while Covid and media polarisation is fighting the battle for you? Thinking of China or Russia vs USA
More likely for the yanks to start something in a Falklands like distraction I would have thought.
But hell, who knows anything for sure these days!
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I think China will keep pushing the envelope. Taiwan, HK, SCS, investing and building in PNG and others.
I think we will see continued cyber warfare, mostly from China and Russia, but plenty from the US I reverse also.
Can't see Russia doing anything too wild or far from home, who knows with Iran and NK
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@mariner4life Veteran BBC World Affairs editor John Simpson agrees:
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Russia could roll into Ukraine tomorrow or yesterday, easily. No way any US or NATO force could do much about it
But an amphibious invasion of Taiwan. Would be a hell of an effort. It would fail if US intervened. It would be a big risk even if Taiwan left to itself, eventually succeeding but at a large cost. The build up for this would be long and obvious.
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On this subject, how does the (13 years extant) era of quantitative easing and near zero interest rates end? Do we have a graceful decline, or a complete crash?
@JC - any opinion?
Assets prices seem completely insane to me, but I haven't put in zero % discount rate into a spreadsheet ...
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@sparky said in Is it War Time?:
@mariner4life Veteran BBC World Affairs editor John Simpson agrees:
My two cents.
Putin annexed Crimea with barely a response from Obama & Biden in 2014 and they turned a blind eye to Putin's expansion in the Middle East (unlike Trump it has to be said). So my guess he probably knows he can simply annexe more Ukrainian territory and get away with it with Biden. Hope I'm wrong.
China is different and poss, far more important. Biden has kept Trump's policy pretty much intact, but I guess the Chinese will be waiting to see how the US responds to Putin before making their next move.
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@tim I’m as interested in the answer to that as you are, to be honest. I'm not sure the spreadsheet is needed because this isn't so much a question of econometrics as solving a puzzle.
We should be seeing significant inflation, but we’re not. I mean if you have an oversupply of anything it’s value should fall relative to the value of things that aren’t oversupplied, like potatoes. When you increase the money supply the ratio of dollars to potatoes changes so you should be able to get fewer potatoes for a given amount of dollars. That’s inflation at it’s most basic. We as consumers may still experience inflation but we haven’t really felt it yet, which is curious.
There’s no doubting the increase in money supply. The US economy (and (I appreciate this isn't simply a US thing) is awash with cash. At the beginning of 2008 the US banks had around $11tr on their balance sheets. Last week it was $21tr. Similarly when QE was mooted to cushion the GFC, the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet went from just under $1tr to about $2.25tr. By the beginning of last year it had crept up to $4tr, now it’s at $8tr. I suspect that's a clue to what’s happened here.
On the face of it the banks haven’t passed on their windfall to the public. That’s not necessarily a bad thing if the additional money’s sole function was to reinforce confidence in the financial system, meaning it would sit as additional cash reserves, but banks don’t like idle money. There will have been a lot of corporate debt refinancing for sure. But if I had to guess I’d say that its biggest impact has been its use to underwrite the investment in equities and the consequent boost to stock prices.
Happily most public company executives get their rem referenced to stock prices so they’ve been big winners. If I had the time and inclination it might be interesting to go through each of the Fortune 500 companies and see how much of their own stock they’ve bought back using effectively free money. That has the triple benefit of consolidation of “friendly” ownership, reducing dividend liability and artificially increasing demand for the stock (which increases its price). looking at the correlation between money supply and executive pay would also be an interesting exercise.
So to answer your question, my suspicion is that the main impact has been to increase inequality.
It’s not black and white though: for anybody who has a pension fund invested in equities the value of their portfolio has been boosted along the way. It’s a pretty neat trick though to increase the average Joe’s paper wealth that he can’t spend right now - which might increase inflation - while the people whose liquid wealth has been increased tend not to spend it on things that get captured in inflation stats. But I imagine high-end real estate assets and luxury goods are doing very well indeed.
As the philosopher John Lydon once asked “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?”. It may not end well at all.
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@jc said in Is it War Time?:
So to answer your question, my suspicion is that the main impact has been to increase inequality.
fucking this! i have been meaning to get back to the "sustainable" thread.
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@jc said in Is it War Time?:
@tim I’m as interested in the answer to that as you are, to be honest. I'm not sure the spreadsheet is needed because this isn't so much a question of econometrics as solving a puzzle.
We should be seeing significant inflation, but we’re not. I mean if you have an oversupply of anything it’s value should fall relative to the value of things that aren’t oversupplied, like potatoes. When you increase the money supply the ratio of dollars to potatoes changes so you should be able to get fewer potatoes for a given amount of dollars. That’s inflation at it’s most basic. We as consumers may still experience inflation but we haven’t really felt it yet, which is curious.
There’s no doubting the increase in money supply. The US economy (and (I appreciate this isn't simply a US thing) is awash with cash. At the beginning of 2008 the US banks had around $11tr on their balance sheets. Last week it was $21tr. Similarly when QE was mooted to cushion the GFC, the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet went from just under $1tr to about $2.25tr. By the beginning of last year it had crept up to $4tr, now it’s at $8tr. I suspect that's a clue to what’s happened here.
On the face of it the banks haven’t passed on their windfall to the public. That’s not necessarily a bad thing if the additional money’s sole function was to reinforce confidence in the financial system, meaning it would sit as additional cash reserves, but banks don’t like idle money. There will have been a lot of corporate debt refinancing for sure. But if I had to guess I’d say that its biggest impact has been its use to underwrite the investment in equities and the consequent boost to stock prices.
Happily most public company executives get their rem referenced to stock prices so they’ve been big winners. If I had the time and inclination it might be interesting to go through each of the Fortune 500 companies and see how much of their own stock they’ve bought back using effectively free money. That has the triple benefit of consolidation of “friendly” ownership, reducing dividend liability and artificially increasing demand for the stock (which increases its price). looking at the correlation between money supply and executive pay would also be an interesting exercise.
So to answer your question, my suspicion is that the main impact has been to increase inequality.
It’s not black and white though: for anybody who has a pension fund invested in equities the value of their portfolio has been boosted along the way. It’s a pretty neat trick though to increase the average Joe’s paper wealth that he can’t spend right now - which might increase inflation - while the people whose liquid wealth has been increased tend not to spend it on things that get captured in inflation stats. But I imagine high-end real estate assets and luxury goods are doing very well indeed.
As the philosopher John Lydon once asked “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?”. It may not end well at all.
Fantastic post. You sound like Scott Galloway, but smarter.
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@mariner4life said in Is it War Time?:
There are a couple of decent sized tensions simmering around at the moment.
Russia are moving troops to the Ukrainian border, and making noises about protecting their security if civil war breaks out (a civil war it seems to be accepted they are helping to nudge along).
China are looking more like they are itching for a fight, with Taiwan the prize.
I have become so used to a pretty settled world that it's real easy for me to brush these off as the usual sabre rattling. Is it different this time? Are the slightly mentaller countries ready to push the US and see if they still have the stomach for world policing?
Russia is emboldened after seizing Crimean Peninsula. A bold gamble that showed NATO for the toothless organisation it is. Europe is simply terrified of being involved in another war, hence why it took genocide and American interference to do anything about the Bosnian War. But one has to keep in mind that there's little strategic benefit to invading Ukraine now so any hypothetical would have to start with "to what end..?"
As for China, they understand the benefit of playing a long game. I suspect they're willing to let us get worked up about their increasing intransigence in the South China Sea and hoping that as a result we do what the USSR did and slowly spend ourselves into an internally weakened state. American hegemony no longer exists and spending ever more sums on their military industrial complex at the expense of their populace given internal ructions seems a clever solution. China hasn't bothered invading Taiwan yet so I doubt they're in any rush. They've bought time and influence building islands in disputed areas, bullying smaller, weaker neighbours. I don't see them attacking South Korea or Japan, it's the dispute with India that could kick off a real war.
Best to ignore it all until we see large scale mobilisations. And then, just like the first World War, it will probably be too much effort not to have a war.
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@antipodean well that was depressing
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@mariner4life said in Is it War Time?:
@antipodean well that was depressing
its depressing how often i find myself saying that
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@mariner4life said in Is it War Time?:
@antipodean well that was depressing
Quite the opposite, I'd say it's optimistic. I'm more worried about whether we'll ever see growth not driven solely by immigration. Or the rise of Cyberdyne...
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@antipodean said in Is it War Time?:
@mariner4life said in Is it War Time?:
@antipodean well that was depressing
Quite the opposite, I'd say it's optimistic. I'm more worried about whether we'll ever see growth not driven solely by immigration. Or the rise of Cyberdyne...
Or massive unemployment due to automation before we become a post scarcity society.
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@kirwan said in Is it War Time?:
@antipodean said in Is it War Time?:
@mariner4life said in Is it War Time?:
@antipodean well that was depressing
Quite the opposite, I'd say it's optimistic. I'm more worried about whether we'll ever see growth not driven solely by immigration. Or the rise of Cyberdyne...
Or massive unemployment due to automation before we become a post scarcity society.
The Universal Basic Income question is pretty interesting
