UK - The Hades of Birmingham (Video - 45mn)

  Normally I would run away from a video like the one below. But these are not normal times. 

   Birmingham is where the industrial revolution started. You will find not so far away the unbelievable Iron Bridge above built in 1781 from cast iron. This was followed by a century of innovation. Giant steam and later electric machines built in the city at a time when England was an empire. Coal was transported by boat in the canals crisscrossing the urban area.    

  The 20th century was not kind to Birmingham. Industry withered away, downtown was ravaged by German bombs during the second World War then destroyed again by brutalist architects who thought that 4-lane highways snaking around concrete blocks was "modern". This could have been punishment enough but the 21st century had worse in store.   

  10 years ago I was ridiculed when I said that we were heading towards a second middle age. A technological one for sure but from a social standpoint, a time almost as cruel as what our ancestors endured a thousand years ago. We are almost there. Don't believe it? Watch the video then. It is well made and worth the time. Our descendants will probably not understand the meaning of "canary in the coal mine" but homeless under solar panels will probably ring a bell. For this is what utopia and socialism finally brought to Europe.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8La_NOvv77Y

Trump Deal DEAD, Venezuela War Begins | Larry Johnson & Patrick Henningsen (Video - 1h18mn)

   I have seldom heard a more stern indictment of the Trump administration and the man himself and I am afraid they have a point.

  Beyond the narcissism and the hypocrisy, the incompetence is simply stunning. Nobody in this administration seems to know what he is doing, let alone know what he should be doing. There is no strategy, worse not even pretense of one. Trump himself boast that he is unpredictable as if you could build relations with other countries on such foundations. Bullying across the seas has one direct consequence under the surface: A rapid acceleration of the build up of BRICS. 

  Well, if you look carefully, far from the devastated land of Ukraine, there is "one" strategy at play. If you are working for, sorry "with" Israel and consequently want to attack Iran sooner than later, then, you need to secure Venezuela's oil as soon as possible in the likely case where Iran would close the Hormuz Strait to navigation. That much seems to be as far as the American administration can think. When you think that a few short weeks ago, Trump thought he was a worthy contender for the Peace Nobel Prize! (Not that the final recipient was any better, but that's another story.)   

  In the end, as for Europe, propaganda and narrative have taken over. Inflation is down! (not really) Employment is up! (not really) and America is back. That is, if you believe it! But fewer and fewer people believe it and that's a problem because on these tracks Trump is very unlikely to win the midterm elections and could well become a lame-duck president in a year or so. Of course that means another full year of random decisions, gunboat diplomacy and abuse of super-power status. That is, if we avoid a larger war and the bursting of the current everything bubble. A big if for 2026.       

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7IRs16mtA4

Russia’s Response Shocks Europe as the EU’s $105 Billion Asset Seizure Backfires (Video - 12mn)

  As Europe moves to harden it's position against Russia it looks more and more like the continent is shooting itself in the foot. 

  Capitalist financial markets were invented in Europe. They rely on the free flow of money but more fundamentally on the sanctity of the ownership of assets. Break this rule and you destroy the trust on which the markets are built.

  To believe that Russia should not be in Eastern Ukraine is one thing. To want to help Ukraine militarily and economically is another one. But in order to do that, to destroy the trust on which markets and therefore in the end, European prosperity was built looks like desperation and sheer stupidity. 

  The war in Ukraine for now is limited to NATO and Russia but by involving financial assets in the balance, Europe is forcing the rest of the world to make a choice. Now if you are an average African country, the choice looks rather stark: Should you bow once again to your former colonial masters who are pressuring you and could cease your assets anytime they choose, having proved that laws are flexible, or should you side with the rising multi-polar world let by China and India, and profit from their cheap financing and readiness the invest in infrastructure?       

  As these choices are being made in real time, capital moves away from London and Frankfurt towards new trading platforms in Singapore and Dubai. The current vertical rise of gold but also the higher interest rates everywhere in the West are a clear indication that the world is changing and that invisible financial currents are shifting, transforming the landscape. 

  The video below reminds us that what is at stake in Ukraine is a complete transformation of the post WW2 financial system which was built around the dollar but also in many ways benefited Europe with most of the financial infrastructure based in Zurich, London and Brussels. Are the Europeans ready to jeopardize all this to fund a few more months of a futile war which from a strategic point of view they now stand very little chance of winning? The answer seems to be yes. Well, let's hope that a few sane people will have the power to put an end to this madness. Not that this would stop the decline of Europe which we have commented at length on this blog, but there might not be any need to rush into the abyss in short order either!   

  PS: Warning: The video below is interesting and the message relevant but I am afraid this is unfortunately one of these AI generated channels which plague YouTube recently and which probably will be erased in short order.  (So you may or may not want to watch the video. The purpose of such channels is to get clicks and advertising income, which by the way YouTube is glad to pay them, not to influence people, which they couldn't care less.) 

 Another good reason to watch the video is to understand  how these channels are made: Thousands of hours of a famous person ingested by AI, then given a theme, a few relevant and up to date facts and lo, you have a video ready to upload. If nothing is done, in a year or so, the Internet and especially YouTube will list little else than this kind of junk!    

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDmu7Frv0Yk