Sunday, December 1, 2013

The EU and the Ukraine

The Ukraine recently made the decision not to join the EU. Not surprising considering the current state of the EU and the Euro (their currency). I think the better question is why they would even consider joining the EU at this time as they could then be liable for lending money to Spain, Ireland, Portugal and Greece. So in response to the decision people actually rioted. The fact is the people living in the Ukraine want to join the EU; but, Russia is opposed to the idea.

The media for their part have not done a credible job explaining what is going on. Simply put, Russia abused the people of the Ukraine for about the last 100 years. The history includes starving the people, removing them from their land and extreme prejudice against Ukrainian Jews. I dated a woman from the Ukraine for a bit, she told me about how she had managed to get into college only because of her parents (one a scientist and one a doctor), she was Jewish (although an Atheist by philosophy).

Why do the Ukrainians want to be in the EU, simple, to free themselves from Russian influence over their countries affairs. That really is the bottom line, it is not about money, it is not about national freedom. Why does the EU want the Ukraine to join them, they have little to offer? The reasons are also simple, the EU is seeking to become a nation unto itself and wants to cover as much of Europe as possible.

Russia claims that the Ukraine should sign a free trade agreement with them; but, why can't it sign free trade agreements with both Russia and the EU. The United States is currently working on a free trade agreement with the EU and Asian countries. So, what is a free trade agreement? In theory and the way it is portrayed in the media, it is nothing more than an agreement to not put tariffs on goods from another country. In reality, it regulates what the laws of a country are. Currently, 80% of the laws in England come from the EU.

For those who have not been following the story, this is meant as a small summary.

An Information Dump

I have a lot of articles that I saved and don't know which I have posted, so I will post them all with little comment.

LA Times - JPMorgan's Dimon put in a rough spot. The man should in be in jail for the fraud his company committed.

The Independent - Exclusive: 'Jaw-dropping' breakthrough hailed as landmark in fight against hereditary diseases as Crispr technique heralds genetic revolution. If I could put a virus in you and change individual genes in your body for good, couldn't I do it against your will? How would you know?

Rolling Stone - Chase Isn't the Only Bank in Trouble. The author of the article is one of the best around right now.

Yahoo - AP - Biometrics researchers see world without passwords.

Yahoo - CNBC - Americans are worried about work: Poll. This is good information as they keep trying to tell us that we are lazy and don't want to work, it is a lie. People are worried about losing their jobs.

Yahoo - Reuters - Illinois legislative leaders strike deal on pensions. The thing that scares me the most in this world is genetic modification; but, the biggest lie is that pensions are in trouble when they are not. The US Postal Service, we are told, is in trouble because of pensions and inefficiency and that is a lie. A few years back they were forced to front load all their pensions, to have the money now for people who will not retire for 30 years. They are the only group required to do this, state and local governments are not and the neither is the federal government. You have to ask yourself why and who controls where their pension money is invested.

Lets talk about work benefits for a moment. Europe has traditionally provided more benefits than the US. They give more vacation, sick time, health benefits and better retirements. Still, Germany continues making high quality cars and items and being able to afford these things. We on the other hand have given away our manufacturing to China. Donald Trump complained that he couldn't buy windows made in America for some large projects he was working on. It is not that our workers are lazy, it is that our business leaders are lazy and that is because they are not businessmen, they are financial people. Business people create new industries, they create companies that make things that people want. With all of our financial resources, why are we not creating manufacturing jobs. We could still make steal if we wanted.

The story we have all been told is that manufacturing went to China because the labor was cheap. The truth is that today most manufacturing is automated and it is assembly that is not. Think about your computer, do you really believe a person made the computer chips by hand? Machines made the chips, people assembled the product. This is another example of why what Steve Jobs said was a lie. He said Americans were too dump to manufacture IPhones. Too dump to turn little screws? If we can build houses, we can turn screws.

Now I want to get back to pensions. The financial people decided they could send the jobs overseas and not have to be committed to their employees. Mr. Jobs was notorious for not caring about employees. He would work people beyond their breaking point. How can a Republican applaud sending jobs overseas to a Communist country; but, they support it. Once they decided to send the jobs overseas, they no longer felt a need to provide a pension to those in the United States. Why provide benefits to people you don't need even if they already earned the benefits. That is why they are killing public pensions, they don't need us to do well themselves.

Lets talk about oil for a moment. We are told that both clean water and oil are limited resources. We have all heard about peak oil. The story goes that there is X amount of oil in the world and once that is gone there is no more. Sounds reasonable; but, is by definition a lie. Oil is organic, which is to say that it came from something living. When I was young, I was told it came from dead dinosaurs; but, that is simply foolish and there is no evidence that it is true. We drill for oil in the middle of the ocean where no dinosaurs died. You probably think what I am saying is silly. Lets try an easy one, why does Alaska have so much oil when it was frozen? Why is there oil under the ice of the north pole? Is that where all of the dinosaurs decided to die?

I want you to go back and reread the last paragraph and really think about what I said. Now, if oil is an organic compound and came from a living thing, why would it stop being created? Are oil fields created from the bottom up or the top down? The LaBrea tarpits are interesting. We know that these oil fields were like little lakes and that animals got caught in them because we have been able to retrieve very old animals out of them. The saber tooth tigers we have retrieved from them did not turn into oil, they were preserved by it. So, how do oil fields that go thousands of feet below get created and how come the earth is no longer creating them?

If what I just said is hard to wrap your head around, lets try this. During World War II, the Nazi's were producing fuel that did not require oil. They could not get enough oil so made alternate fuels and managed to put on a pretty good fight. Our government knows how the Nazis did it, we got all of their scientists after the war. Heck, they created our rockets. The people that made those fuels were brought to America under Operation Paperclip, this is a fact and I knew one of them.

Here are a couple of things to consider. While the world is working on taxes for carbon emissions, China (the biggest polluter) is practically exempted. China is buying American coal mines and heavily investing into oil. Soon, China will not need dollars to buy oil. The west is moving towards "green energy" or "renewable energy" which brings down the cost of oil for China as we compete less to buy it. Last year, China was the largest oil purchaser in the world. If we don't need workers in the United States then we don't need the oil to transport them, heat them or make things here.

Something else to consider. Why do the Chinese outsource to Africa? We are told that we outsourced to China because of cheap labor; but, the Chinese outsource to Africa because their labor is even cheaper. Does that make sense? Why didn't we outsource to Africa and build up that part the world that isn't communist? We wanted China to be heavily invested in capitalism, money is the drug. China cannot afford a world war, a nuclear war or any other real war or their economy will be completely and utterly destroyed and the problem they will face will be with their own people.

Most people tend to look at the obvious; but, do you really believe that people like me do not exist? I personally have changed four industries and some of my readers watched me do these things. They know that I think more than one step forward and anyone who reads my blog should know that. If I can think more than one step ahead then so can others. If I am trained in looking beyond the obvious then so are others. If I could predict, as I did, the housing bubble and the market crash then so could others. Why didn't the mainstream media tell us these things were coming?

I have a friend that tutored, she is a wonderful lady that will do very well. While we were working together the head of a hedge fund and the head of real estate for the Rockefellers contacted us. I was in a bad place at the time and didn't really care what they had to say. I was acting merely in an advisory position with my friend, I needed a distraction from the horrors that were going on in my life. None of the deals went through and I later discovered that the people involved didn't care about the deals, they wanted to know how my friend knew what was coming. She knew because of me and they wanted to talk to me, never happened. I had a rule, I didn't want to talk to anyone other than my friend and was very rude when I had to talk to others. Do not allow yourself to assume that the world is run by idiots, it is not, that is the propaganda. If it is run by people smarter than you then you must ask yourself if that has anything to do with their winning the class game and taking advantage of every advantage they have, including having resources that the rest of us do not.