Vanity of Vanities! All is vanity
The World was once a more simple place [or so our received memory will lead us to believe]
Vanity[a] of vanities, says the Preacher,
vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
A generation goes, and a generation comes,
but the earth remains forever.
The sun rises, and the sun goes down,
and hastens[b] to the place where it rises.
What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there a thing of which it is said,
“See, this is new”?
It has been already
in the ages before us.
There is no remembrance of former things,[c]
nor will there be any remembrance
of later things[d] yet to be
among those who come after.
Ecclesiastes 1:2-11 2 11 [1]
There can be no doubt that Speed illuminates the present and Events move in a non linear fashion and can cascade.
One of the best descriptions of the current zeitgeist was written in a blog [dated] OCTOBER 30, 2014 BY DOMINIC CUMMINGS The Hollow Men II [2]
Complexity makes prediction hard. Our world is based on extremely complex, nonlinear, interdependent networks (physical, mental, social). Properties emerge from feedback between vast numbers of interactions: for example, the war of ant colonies, the immune system’s defences, market prices, and abstract thoughts all emerge from the interaction of millions of individual agents. Interdependence, feedback, and nonlinearity mean that systems are fragile and vulnerable to nonlinear shocks: ‘big things come from small beginnings’ and problems cascade, ‘they come not single spies / But in battalions’. Prediction is extremely hard even for small timescales. Effective action and (even loose) control are very hard and most endeavours fail.
In the same article Cummings continues
Blofeld: Kronsteen, you are sure this plan is foolproof?
Kronsteen: Yes it is, because I have anticipated every possible variation of counter-move.
Politics therefore suffers from a surfeit of narcissists.
The occupants of No10, like Tolstoy’s characters in War and Peace, are blown around by forces they do not comprehend as they gossip, intrigue, and babble to the media.
The MPs and spin doctors steer their priorities according to the rapidly shifting sands of the pundits who they are all spinning, while the pundits shift (to some extent unconsciously) according to the polls.
The outcome? Everybody rushes around in tailspins assembling circular firing squads while the real dynamics of opinion play out largely untouched by their conscious actions.
In terms of a method to ‘manage’ government, it is not far from tribal elders howling incantations around the camp fire after inspecting the entrails of slaughtered animals.
Layer on top of this a highly managed media construct which is essentially a Claque where alternative voices are deplatformed and we have an environment which was accurately described thus by @FukuyamaFrancis
The democratization of authority spurred by the digital revolution has flattened cognitive hierarchies along with other hierarchies, and political decision-making is now driven by often weaponized babble.
At a time when what is required is agile multi disciplinary thinking we have ''weaponized babble''
Less than two months ago The ''Leader of the Free World'' President Biden said his sanctions against Russia would “reduce the Ruble to rubble” and this has happened
FX SPOT Returns @ZiadMDaoud [3]
The Architect of the Sanction warfare program said
The @POTUS Official Who Pierced Putin’s “Sanction-Proof” Economy @NewYorker [4]
Singh said, “We’ve made him stare into an economic abyss. But he could choose to pull back.”
The markets are where these two systems touch—the supply of buckwheat, the joint energy ventures, the price of the ruble—and within this arena the sanctions were a demonstration that Washington still had levers to pull.
“You know, we can play chess, too,” Singh said. “It was important for us to show that the fortress could come crumbling down.”
The geoeconomic debacle is off the scale.
To reiterate and from Sunday, April 10 ‘’You can print money, but not oil to heat or wheat to eat’’ wrote @CreditSuisse’s Zoltan Pozsar [5]
Russia essentially gave the $ and the Euro the very same exorbitant privilege that King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia gave President Franklin D Roosevelt aboard the USS Quincy in Great Bitter Lake in February 14, 1945 when the petro dollar economy was symbolically born.
By insisting payments are made in Russian Rubles for Russian commodities Vladimir Putin has withdrawn that exorbitant privilege.
The Russian Ruble rally is real and has much further to go.
Russia's current account surplus is soaring. @RobinBrooksIIF
BREAKING NEWS: The price of gas, oil, and wheat are so high that President Putin has demanded that any peace negotiations will include maintaining all EU sanctions against Russia for the foreseeable future. @GarlandNixon
The Hubris is at a Shakespeare level
Hubris (/ˈhjuːbrɪs/; from Ancient Greek ὕβρις (húbris) 'pride, insolence, outrage') describes a personality quality of extreme or excessive pride or dangerous overconfidence, often in combination with (or synonymous with) arrogance
Meanwhile Our Leaders make speeches at Davos, dress up in military fatigues and call for Regime change. It is a complete farce.
Looking forward to Kyiv. @vonderleyen
We are now approaching day 100 of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Part of the reason I am so disturbed by delusional western analysis of the Ukraine war is that they are driving Ukraine to senselessly fight on in a war they cannot win, killing more Ukrainian soldiers @witte_sergei
Many commentators have been spinning an imminent Ukrainian military victory.
Mar 5, 2022 I try not to make too many predictions. I think given all the problems in the Russian campaign, delusional assumptions, an unworkable concept of operations, little prepared for a sustained war like this, I give it ~3 more weeks before this is an exhausted force. @KofmanMichael [9]
Mar 25, 2022·Let me stick out my neck: @anders_aslund [10]
1. I think Ukraine will win this war.
2. I don't think it will be a long war of months, but perhaps one more month.
3. I think the demoralized Russians will start running home, or abroad.
4. I don't think Putin can survive this madness politically.
Mar 4, 2022 Bellingcat investigator Christo Grozev says that #Russia has resources left for the war until Sunday, after which they will collapse. @nexta_tv [11]
Also next week, Russia is facing sanctions, the scale of which “we have not seen before”, and they will also affect Putin
Narratives are more powerful than facts until reality intrudes. No matter how long it takes. The trick is understanding when the turn is to take place. @paulburrer [12]
The Turn is now.
It is clear now that the military situation has moved decisively in favour of Russia and even the Media can no longer deny the obvious. The risks are around an accelerating cascade like collapse no different to what was witnessed in Afghanistan.
Ukraine said on Friday its forces may need to retreat from their last pocket of resistance in Luhansk to avoid being captured by Russian troops pressing an advance in the east that has shifted the momentum of the three-month-old war. Reuters [13]
Sunday, April 10, 2022 It looks like Russia will seek to peel off the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and a swathe of access to the Black Sea from Mariupol to Odesa. [Apocalypse Now] [14 ]
I continue to expect Russia to reach Odesa landlocking the Ukraine before completing this operation. The Ukrainian Military is being extinguished, the idea that there will be an insurgency that will bleed Russia a pipe dream.
This, therefore, is looking like a Russian victory all ends up and this is the reality. This could be a Trifecta of reversals under one Administration [Afghanistan, Ukraine and Taiwan]
It is also clear that Putin is seeking a quid pro quo between easing the Food situation with a removal of sanctions. The UNFAO Food Index sits just under a record reached in March this year.
Liz Truss accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of holding the world to ransom over food, responding to a question about whether she supported lifting sanctions in exchange for grain exports from Ukraine.
"What we cannot have is any lifting of sanctions, any appeasement, which will simply make Putin stronger in the longer term," Truss said.
Russia controls about 19.5% of global exports of wheat—the world’s most important food crop and Russia and Ukraine together account for nearly a third of global wheat supplies. Chicago wheat futures hit a record price in March on supply concerns, and are still up by 30% since Feb. 24.
Ukraine is also a major exporter of corn, barley, sunflower oil and rapeseed oil, while Russia and Belarus - account for over 40% of global exports of the crop nutrient potash.
Time is running out to get some 22 million tonnes of grain out of Ukraine ahead of the new harvest as Russia continues to blockade the country's Black Sea ports, Ukrainian lawmaker Yevheniia Kravchuk said
Most-active CBOT #wheat futures May 27: @kannbwx [15]
The Question is whether there is an appetite for a quid pro quo because if there is not, then we are going to see another serious spike.
TFMetals
US spring wheat way behind in planting.
Ukraine at war.
India bans wheat exports.
UN report shows just a 10-week global supply.
Yet, this chart.
When everything is financialized, everything can be managed and controlled.
(Until it can't.)
References
1 Ecclesiastes 1:2-11https://bit.ly/3PKam5c
2. OCTOBER 30, 2014 BY DOMINIC CUMMINGS The Hollow Men II: Some reflections on Westminster and Whitehall dysfunctionhttp://bit.ly/2rOVkFd
3. FX SPOT Returns @ZiadMDaoud
4. The @POTUS Official Who Pierced Putin’s “Sanction-Proof” Economy @NewYorker https://bit.ly/3JJo7Ob
5. Sunday, April 10 ‘’You can print money, but not oil to heat or wheat to eat’’ wrote @CreditSuisse’s Zoltan Pozsar.https://bit.ly/3rfkf0c
6. Russia's current account surplus is soaring. @RobinBrooksIIF
7. BREAKING NEWS: The price of gas, oil, and wheat are so high that President Putin has demanded that any peace negotiations will include maintaining all EU sanctions against Russia for the foreseeable future. @GarlandNixon
8. Looking forward to Kyiv. @vonderleyen
9. Mar 5, 2022 I try not to make too many predictions. I think given all the problems in the Russian campaign, delusional assumptions, an unworkable concept of operations, little prepared for a sustained war like this, I give it ~3 more weeks before this is an exhausted force. @KofmanMichael
10. Mar 25, 2022·Let me stick out my neck: @anders_aslund
11. Mar 4, 2022 Bellingcat investigator Christo Grozev says that #Russia has resources left for the war until Sunday, after which they will collapse @nexta_tv [11]
Also next week, Russia is facing sanctions, the scale of which “we have not seen before”, and they will also affect Putin
12. Narratives are more powerful than facts until reality intrudes. No matter how long it takes. The trick is understanding when the turn is to take place. @paulburrer [12]
13. Ukraine says troops may retreat from eastern region as Russia advances @Reuters https://reut.rs/3wQQFRQ
14. It looks like Russia will seek to peel off the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and a swathe of access to the Black Sea from Mariupol to Odesa. Sunday, April 10, 2022 Apocalypse Now
https://bit.ly/3rfkf0c
15. Most-active CBOT #wheat futures May 27: @kannbwx