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Parties, Protests & Politics
Beware Physicists The last edition of The Perspective Pool was entitled “ October Entropy ”: the reference was intended as an amusing and somewhat throw-away quip about the significant geopolitical events that seem to be destroying the accepted world order, as “entropy” implies a tendency for order to disintegrate in to chaos (and by further extension that process occurs in a single direction, thereby giving a direction and structure to time ). I thought it was a mildly entertaining comparison that would bring a wry smile to those who appreciate such things; in fact I hope it did. However, it also resulted in a number of over-attentive readers engaging me in some very complicated debates on the Second Law of Thermodynamics , which - after a short period of bluffing - I felt very under-qualified to engage in. The moral of the story is “do not meddle in the affairs of physicists”; maybe the other lesson is don’t try to be a smartass… Record Breaking President Xi As predicted, the Congress of the Chinese Communist Party anointed Xi Jinping as its leader for an unprecedented (and hitherto un-constitutional) third term. Not only did President Xi take on the mantle of the greatest, and longest serving leader of The Communist Party and therefore of the People’s Republic of China since Chairman Mao, he arranged to have his predecessor, Hu Jintao forcibly removed from the seat next to him on the front rank of the Politburo in full sight of the Congress, and global media. We may think of President Putin of Russia as a “strongman”, but having your elderly predecessor of a decade before carted off for the sin of not being you is more resonant of the glory days of that other great Communist leader, Joseph Stalin . Xi now appears to be unassailable and unimpeachable, with a clear vision of how the PRC will dominate the world, and much greater capacity than ever to do so . As the UK and US were explicit and swift to point out this is very dangerous for everyone else. Record Breaking Liz Truss While President Xi was breaking records and brutalizing his opponents, hapless Liz Truss had already resigned as UK Prime Minister, after a record breaking 44 days in office - the shortest since the job began in 1721 - and that is including the 10 days of hiatus caused by the official mourning for HM The Queen. In that short time Ms Truss launched a mini-budget that had not been checked by the OBR, induced a record low for GBP against USD, spiked 30yr Gilt yields (and therefore the cost of Government borrowing) at over 5% for the first time in 20 years, threw the pension market in to chaos, caused the Bank of England to intervene with more QE when its stated objective was to do the opposite, sacked her long-time friend and newly appointed Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, made all British mortgages, bank loans and corporate debt more expensive, caused the ratings agencies to put the UK on negative watch and achieved a popularity rating lower than the 10.1% inflation rate. The resignation of Ms Truss caused former PM, Boris Johnson, her immediate predecessor recently removed by his own Conservative party for - in the view of some - his cavalier relationship with veracity, to fly back from his holiday in the Caribbean to assess his chances of a miraculous Lazarine comeback. The Tories came to their senses, and Boris didn’t run, which left the way clear for Boris’ former Chancellor Rishi Sunak to take over. The markets reacted well (look at the chart), but Rishi takes on an unenviable mess of high energy prices, Brexit headwinds and a war in Europe, needlessly made worse by the Truss era. Mr Sunak is British-Asian, and rather more encouragingly for UK democracy amidst the political turmoil the first person of color to occupy 10 Downing Street. Mr Sunak is also only 42 years of age, making him the youngest Prime Minister since Robert Jenkinson the 2nd Earl of Liverpool in 1812 (the year France invaded Russia). Iran’s One Way Attack Drones The wave of protests triggered by the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22 year old woman accused of wearing her hijab too loosely, are entering their sixth week. The Iranian government forces have - according to dissident news outlet Hrana - killed nearly 250 demonstrators in that time, in protests across all parts of the country. On Saturday a huge crowd, estimated to be as many as 100,000, demonstrated against the Iranian theocracy in Berlin (Germany has a large population of the Iranian diaspora, after the UK, Canada and the US). In Iran the demonstrations are predominantly organised by students and younger people; somewhat redolent of the demonstrations against the Communist Party in China in the mid-1980’s; which tragically culminated with the massacre in Tienanmen Square in 1989. Although the Iranian government appears to remain in control for the time being, these demonstrations have achieved a couple of things: (i) greater unity of the notoriously fragmented and often foreign-based opposition, and (ii) an even more negative view of the US, the UK and their allies against Iran: the US Pentagon has publicly confirmed that Iran is supplying “one way attack drones” - miniature modern day “doodlebugs” - to Russia and that it regards them as “militarily ineffective”, although a weapon of terror against civilians. The UK Ministry of Defence said that Iranian Revolutionary Guards were in Ukraine actively training Russian forces, which means Iran is now embroiled in a proxy war with NATO. The theocratic government will come under more pressure internally and externally, and dictatorial countries under pressure - as we have seen in the case of Russia - are capable of making very bad decisions indeed. Saudi’s MBS allegedly mocks Pres Biden The Wall Street Journal has reported on the deteriorating relationship between the youthful ruler of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), Mohamed Bin Salman (MBS) and the 79 year old President Biden of the US. According to the WSJ, MBS is alleged to have mocked President Biden’s “gaffes” and “mental acuity”; in private at least, which MBS has denied. This is the latest round of unedifying power politics between the US and KSA centered on the oil price. The US Administration is very frustrated with KSA for its role in the latest OPEC+ decision to reduce the production of oil, thereby maintaining the price, and a direct rejection of President Biden’s request to push prices down made in person to MBS in June. The US Administration says the OPEC+ decision helps Russia, but a cynic would also add that high energy prices add to US inflation - which President Biden said would be transitory and has turned out to be anything but. KSA has also been exporting fuel oil to Russia, which has added to the annoyance in DC. This brings to an end a warm period of relations between the US and KSA, albeit they have to live with each other in defiance of Iran. And finally.. President Biden welcomed the appointment of the new UK Prime Minister as an “ astounding milestone ”, although as that clip shows the President may have pronounced him as “Rushi Sinook”, which let the noble sentiment down a little bit, I could not help feeling. Be good, everybody. Duncan If you enjoyed The Perspective Pool please share it! It is free to subscribe.
Duncan Wales
Oct 25, 2022 · 7 min read
October Entropy
President Putin’s Birthday President Putin turned 70 a few days ago. He did not have much to celebrate, though, with his forces seriously under pressure in Ukraine. It is worth remembering that although the Russians are the aggressors, it is the Ukrainian forces that have the numerical advantage: the whole country has been mobilized and men of fighting age have been legally prevented from leaving from the beginning. The Russians engaged in the Special Military Operation may be outnumbered by as many as 4 to 1, and are now on the receiving end of a series of Ukrainian counter-attacks. Ukraine’s efforts are powered by a flow of weapons, advice and finance from the US, UK, EU, Poland, Germany, Canada and others, to the extent that they have depleted their own reserves of equipment, which they are having to back-fill. Maybe a good time to look at defense stocks? Ukraine tells Elon to “F*ck off” President Putin recently said Russia was in a war with the “collective West”, which is exactly what it is: the G8 expelled Russia from its club after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, becoming the G7 in the process, and it is the nations with the most developed militaries from that same group of industrialized countries that are contributing the most: as one ex-military friend said this week “we are letting Ukraine fight our war for us”. The logical conclusion of that reality is that Russia is seriously outgunned, out-manned, out financed and - in all probability therefore - is not going to win. That is even before the errors of Russia’s dysfunctional military system. President Putin has clarity on his antagonists, but with that knowledge it underscores what a strategic error it was by the Kremlin to attempt to overthrow the (however previously hopeless) Ukrainian government. Meanwhile, the eccentric serial entrepreneur and richest human being, Elon Musk suggested a solution to the conflict via his acquisition target Twitter, which involved Ukraine accepting that it would have to give up Crimea and other parts of the Donbas and earned him the pithy advice to “fuck off” ( sic ) from Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, who added that “no Ukrainian will EVER buy your f…ing tesla crap”. The resilient and youthful President of Finland, Sana Marin was more diplomatic but no less steely when asked by a journalist what the way out of the conflict would be: “the way out of the conflict is for Russia to leave Ukraine.” Burning Bridges As if to underscore the level of risk for Russia, on Saturday actors unknown (one would assume the Ukrainians) blew up part of the Crimea Bridge that connects South Western Russia to Crimea: a snaking, elegant road and rail connection that spans the short gap between the pointed eastern tip of Crimea and mainland Russia. President Putin had the bridge built over the Kerch Straight that leads from the Black Sea in to the Sea of Azov after Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and it was the President who opened it with much fanfare - and by driving a construction lorry in the first official crossing in characteristically macho style - in 2018. Although the bridge is already back open, images of it on fire have dealt another demoralizing blow to Russian pride, and resulted in a series of missile attacks on Ukrainian cities in reprisal. Russia is now outmanned and outgunned on the battlefield and burning off military capability that will take years to rebuild and - with the “partial mobilization” - is denting domestic goodwill. I have written before about the inability of the Russian/Bolshevik state to have orderly transitions of power : I suspect President Putin is now concerned not just what the collective West might to do him, but his own political circle, as more battlefield defeats occur and more troops and territory are lost. President Putin is now a wounded tiger: I would guess that the risk of a coup against him and him resorting to extremes such as nuclear weapons now have similar - non-trivial - probabilities. China’s New Emperor The Director of the UK’s intelligence, cyber and security agency, GCHQ, Sir Jeremy Fleming today told the BBC that although Russia is the current enemy it is the threat from China that the West needs to deal with in the longer term. A stark warning from a very senior intelligence official within the UK deep state. Sir Jeremy’s remarks precede the 20th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, which starts on Sunday, and at which Xi Jinping is expected to be confirmed in an unprecedented third term as political leader of the Party (in a one party state that also means leader of the country) as either General Secretary or Party Chairman. The Congress, which only occurs every 5 years, brings together central and regional Party apparatchiks and the leadership of the People’s Liberation Army and is likely to be a disciplined and structured acclamation of General Secretary Xi, and some rubber-stamping of Politburo appointments and Party administration. Xi’s China is an assertive player on the world stage and is now willing to recommend the “China model” to others, rather than the more modest “communism in one country” (i.e we do it our way you do it yours) version of the past. Communist officials are gleefully describing the current era, and what they perceive as the chaotic weakness of liberal democracies (in sharp contrast disciplined one-party success of China) as “the rise of the East, and decline of the West”. As someone - admittedly a cynic - put it to me recently, “while the West agonizes over what pronouns to call each other, China is taking over the world”. The UK U-Turns In sharp contrast to the austere discipline of the Chinese Communist Party, the UK’s Conservative Party conference was chaotic, with protesters, open dissent, counter-briefing and criticism from Tory MP’s and even Cabinet members against the fiasco-prone new Prime Minister, Liz Truss. Days before Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng was forced in to an embarrassing climb-down by scrapping the 45% tax rate for higher earners; the most controversial of the expansive tax cuts announced in his recent mini-budget that induced a collapse in GBP and chaos in the UK’s sovereign debt markets. Under more pressure Kwasi and Liz have now had to bring forward their updated fiscal plan on how to pay for the rest of the tax cuts from the end of November to the end of October - which like the reversal on the tax cut they originally said they would not do. Even if there is some conceptual merit to the new administration’s plan to grow the economy it was very ill-advised to throw experimental economics in to a febrile and uncertain market, with the backdrop of an overvalued USD, and without warning or the oversight of the OBR. UK Inflation risks becoming baked in UK inflation has hitherto been driven by exogenous forces; notably the soaring price of energy and food. What the UK’s unwise experiment has done is devalue GBP (which is tantamount to raising taxes for everybody, ironically) and increase the size and cost of government borrowing: that makes all imports more expensive and puts pressure on government spending, which creates structural, endogenous inflation (prices for everything, including domestic borrowing go up, and effective government spending goes down). Such is the ongoing chaos in the long end of debt markets that the Bank of England has had to extend its debt buying program to try and stop the price of 30 year Gilts collapsing further. The UK is still a big economy with a more manageable debt to GDP ratio than many, but it has certainly made its own recovery harder. The Ironic European Political Community Liz Truss must have been relieved to be able to escape the market turmoil, her own party and its 25% poll deficit to un-charismatic Labour, to attend the comparatively welcoming inaugural meeting of the European Political Community. The EPC is the brainchild of French President Macron, and had its first meeting on 6 October in Prague: it is an informal club comprising the 27 EU Member States, the Presidents of the European Council and European Commission and 17 other countries, including the UK, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Ukraine. It is Russia and Ukraine that has given European cooperation more impetus than it has had for decades; it has brought about at least a temporary entente between the British and French and at least some rapprochement between the UK and the EU. There would have been zero chance of this meeting occurring with that membership before the invasion of Ukraine, so on that front President Macron is right: never let a good crisis go to waste. Be good, everybody. Duncan If you enjoyed The Perspective Pool please share it! It is free to subscribe.
Duncan Wales
Oct 11, 2022 · 8 min read
Head spinning global events
Where do I begin? There seems to be too much going on right now, amid falling markets, but these are some of the things that have been intriguing/horrifying me this week. The UK currency collapse The new UK administration led by 40-something Liz Truss had a frustrating 10 days to wait to get going during the period of mourning for the late Queen Elizabeth II. Once the Queen was buried the new government could make their big policy announcements, with flagship tax cuts at their center. Everyone was cautiously optimistic. On Friday the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng, briefed Parliament on an eye-poppingly extensive list of personal and corporate tax cuts and the prospect of the UK government borrowing as much as £165billion over the next year (forecasts vary) to support them. He also admitted that - contrary to modern expectations - he had not has his homework checked by the UK’s internal audit function the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). The combined effect of throwing everything including “the kitchen sink” (as the British would say) at policies to drive growth and failing to have the math checked by the grownups at the OBR spooked international markets and caused the Great British Pound to collapse against the US Dollar: that after a long downward slide of the value of GBP all year. Aiming for growth is great as is cutting tax for working people and companies hard-pressed by 10%+ inflation, but by trying to be too radical too quickly Liz and Kwasi look like they may have overcooked it. The FX market certainly thinks so: as I write GBP is at 1.0651, and earlier hit 1.03 its lowest level against the USD ever (i.e. since GBP decimalised back in 1971). Usually only Emerging Markets currencies collapse this far and fast. Italy’s New Right Wing It now appears inevitable that a right wing coalition led by Georgia Meloni, the ironically female leader of the Brothers of Italy party will form the next government, following a general election at the weekend. Meloni and her party are accused by opponents of being neo-fascists, and are certainly likely to be more euro-skeptic and anti-immigration than the center-left government led former European Central Bank chief, Mario Draghi, which collapsed in the summer. The other irony is that Meloni’s main coalition partner, the re-branded League party (formerly the Northern League, which until recently did what it says on the tin and advocated autonomy for Northern Italy), led by Matteo Salvini, is more radical than Meloni and the Brothers: the third of the coalition triumvirate is none other than octogenarian Silvio Berlusconi and his Forza Italia party (yes, he of the orange spray-tan and notorious “bunga bunga” parties). Berlusconi - despite his advancing years - remains as controversial as ever: last week he told journalists that Russian President Vladimir Putin had been “pushed” by the Russian people in to invading Ukraine to install “a government of decent people”. Expect the new Italian administration to be another dissenting voice around the EU table, along with Hungary and increasingly Poland: the new Italian government will be less openly hostile to Russia, against further EU integration, anti-immigration and more fiscally loose; as I write the Italian 10yr bond yield is 4.7%, the highest in a decade, while the German 10yr - the Eurozone’s benchmark - is at just over 2%. That is a big credit spread for countries issuing debt in the same domestic currency. Russia Mobilizes, and Threatens Such is the attrition of the conflict in Ukraine, that Russia has found it necessary to mobilize - or conscript - former soldiers or those with relevant skills to back-fill its lost manpower. Western media reports that the mobilization has caused something of an exodus of people fearful of being called up. President Putin said that additional forces were needed to fight the “collective West”, which given the rhetoric of the G7 and equipment and training support of the US and UK in particular, one could have some sympathy with. This does indeed appear to be a conflict by proxy. In a thinly veiled threat to use nuclear weapons the President added that Russia retains “various means of destruction”, which are “more modern” than those of NATO, and that all necessary measures would be taken to defend Russia. Shortly after this speech the self-declared and Russian-backed People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk said they would hold new referendums as to whether they become part of Russia. The result of these hastily arranged votes - however achieved - does not seem in doubt. It also means that any continued attempts by the Ukrainian military to retake land in those regions can be treated as an attack on Russia itself by Moscow. The G7 branded the referendums as sham and the US said that “catastrophic consequences for Russia” would ensue, if it resorts to nuclear weapons. This represents a serious escalation; ultimately caused by Ukraine’s recent success on the battlefield. Iran and the Morality Police Iranian state media reports that at least 41 people have been killed in a series of protests and demonstrations over 10 successive nights in nearly all corners of the country. Although the demonstrations have evolved to be against the hard-line Islamic regime in general, the original protests were triggered by the death in custody of a young woman arrested by the Morality Police for not wearing her hijab correctly. These violent events represent a significant enough challenge to the conservative Islamic government for the president, Ebrahim Raisi to say on Saturday that his government would crack down on the ongoing protests as a priority. Iran’s Islamic Republic is defended by a number of institutions created after the revolution that overthrew the last Shah in 1979, including the Moral Security Police and its “guidance patrols”, which are there to protect Islamic morals from inappropriate social behavior or clothing: the US Treasury added that agency and some of their leadership to the US sanctions list at the end of last week, more for symbolic reasons than anything else. It seems Iran is struggling with how to prevent people using social media to share ideas and arrange demonstrations; theocracies are designed with information control in mind. Let’s see how long that or the demonstrations last. And finally - economic bright spots In a world of inflation and recession fears, it is nice to see some positive analysis: first my colleague Rahul Shah at Tellimer Insights points to the companies with positive real yields even as interest rates rise ; good news/bad news though, as most are related to the extraction and carbon fuel industries: just shows - regrettably - what we in human society all rely on when times get tough; energy and raw materials. Second is the analysis of Ruchir Sharma in the FT - Ruchir is Chair of Rockefeller International, and is an analyst by background (with all due respect to our journalistic friends and colleagues) - and gives the examples of seven countries that are bucking the inflation and recession trend : Vietnam, Indonesia, India, Greece, Portugal, Saudi Arabia and Japan. Some surprises in there! Look after yourselves. Yours Duncan Please share the Perspective Pool with your friends!
Duncan Wales
Sep 27, 2022 · 7 min read
Seismic September
HM The Queen takes her Last Salute It is with genuine sadness that I write following the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. The Queen was our “Boss” when I served in the British military: we felt that however short-term, populist or embarrassing our politicians were, The Queen was the person to whom we (and they) actually owed our allegiance, and her values and obligation to the people were our values and obligations, transcending politics. The British constitution is ancient, and has been radically altered and amended over the centuries: usually as a result of civil wars, religious conflict, secession crises, demographic changes and shifting economic realities. Having survived all that the Crown remains the source of all political power in the United Kingdom; the Prime Minister is prime minister to to the monarch, the government is the government to them, our currency bears their likeness, our armed forces swear an oath to the Crown not to politicians. The monarch represents the Crown, and the Crown represents the people: unlike so many politicians, the Crown represents all the people - whatever their beliefs, whatever their political affiliations, whatever their triumphs or mistakes, whatever their physical or psychological condition and whatever their age. Even prisoners detained “at Her (His) Majesty’s pleasure” remain citizens for whom the Crown still has regard and for whom there is always a non-judgmental opportunity for redemption. What we are currently witnessing amidst the pomp and ceremony of the funeral arrangements of the late Queen and the acclamation of the new King is a transition of political power: orderly, deliberate and with formality derived from the requirements of long experience. The Crown represents values bigger than ourselves: including integrity, selflessness, and willingness to help and defend others at one’s own risk. Her Majesty The Queen was particularly focused on and adept at living to those principles. These are old fashioned ideas, but they become very real in a crisis; the Queen saw the enormous pressure the Second World War put on her father, King George VI, and her mother Elizabeth the Queen Consort, and the stoicism and selflessness they had to display when the UK faced an existential threat. If you are skeptical of suffering for others and higher ideals just ask the combat forces of Ukraine, or examine the elevated public perceptions of President Zelensky (in January his government could only muster a 23% approval rating). As I have written before, crisis is the forge of institutions . Ukraine Counterattacks With a high degree of confidence I can say that the troops at the sharp end would tell you what they are fighting for is ideals and people other than themselves. Fortified with this morale Ukrainian forces achieved a significant break-through against Russian forces in north eastern Ukraine earlier this week. The town of Izyum, south east of Ukraine’s second largest city Kharkiv, has been retaken by the Ukrainians: this is significant for two reasons (i) Izyum is a key location on the Russian axis of attack in the northern Donbas region and (ii) it seems to have been taken without much of a fight, surprising both the Ukrainians and the Russians with the swiftness the Ukrainians’ success. Certainly this reverse will be bad for Russian morale, as well as its strategic position: Russia will soon have to decide if “victory” can be declared with the annexation of most of the Donbas, or whether - less plausibly - it has the ability to take all of Ukraine. Unfortunately, self-deceit seems to be a feature of the Russian military, and yesterday Kremlin spokesman Dimitry Peskov said that Russia’s “special military operation” would continue “until all the goals that were originally set are achieved”. We will see. Sweden shifts to the Right Sweden’s coalition government, led by the Social Democrat Megdalena Anderssen, applied to join NATO in May - alongside Finland - and at the time of writing appears to have lost the general election to the right wing Sweden Democrats, led by Jimmie Akesson. The demographics of Sweden make it one of the most diverse countries in Europe, a significant number of the 30% or so diverse “non-white” ethnicities that make up the population result from immigration in the last 15 years; notably from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Somalia. This rapid shift in population seems to have placed strains on politics and social perceptions with a surprising number of young people - 22% of 18 to 21 year-olds - supporting a political party that seeks to curb immigration and has its origins in the national front. 21 Years since the 9/11 attacks In some ways the terrible events of 9 September 2001 seem very recent, so vivid are the memories. That day is etched in the minds of many, including mine: it led to wars of revenge in Afghanistan and then Iraq, and changed my life and that of many. I cannot believe it was 21 years ago; it seems both recent and distant. New Offices Finally, and a more optimistic note, the Tellimer team in London moved our HQ to new offices near Liverpool Street this week. Much fancier than our previous very “start-up” digs! Yours Duncan
Duncan Wales
Sep 13, 2022 · 5 min read
August Things of Interest
What Mattered this Week Over the summer I and the team at Tellimer have been busy: we launched Scriber , the creator stack for financial writers - that I am using to write this - and are just about to launch Parsel Enterprise , which very accurately extracts and digitizes data from pdfs (I have been using it to manage invoices, but it is really designed to digitize whole industrial processes; it is the equivalent of me using a Lamborghini to pick up some milk). Anyway, it means I have not written my usual geopolitics or business essay, but have collected some thoughts on significant events of the last fortnight. Please let me know if you like this format; I may well use it from time to time; duncan@scriber.to . The Fed in a (Jackson) Hole I can’t help recalling the repeated claims of Fed Chair Powell and his predecessor, Janet Yellen, that inflation was “transitory” following the Covid-19 lockdowns and would soon abate as the US and global economy recovered. They may claim they didn’t know Russia would invade Ukraine (the CIA really should have told them - they most likely did in fact), but the get together of global central banks at the weekend has once again spooked markets as the Fed now admits that inflation is the main enemy and anything must be done to defeat it. It seems that Powell will raise rates until the US - and therefore global - economy is on the ragged edge of a full blown recession, mortgages are defaulted and unemployment goes up. Not happy metrics to hope for. The Death of Gorbachev Mikhail Gorbachev, former General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party has died aged 91 . Those of us who lived through any of the Cold War era will remember the transformative impact of the last Soviet leader: before his premiership the USSR was a feared dark power, full armed with nuclear weapons that could destroy the World, lurking the other side of the Iron Curtain and engaged in dangerous espionage and war via proxies. By the end of his time the Soviet Union and its communist experiment was ended, the Cold War was over and such was the sense of the significance that American thinker Francis Fukuyama predicted that liberal, enlightened capitalism was now accepted as the only really fair way to run society - what he described as the “end of history”. We all felt that Armageddon had been averted. Although much of what Gorbachev achieved has now been undone by the chaos of the USSR’s collapse in the 1990’s and the actions of President Putin, he still ranks as a great man to me, and I would guess many of my generation. Pakistan Floods Pakistan once again suffers from huge and destructive flooding . Many will remember the terrible floods and landslides of 2011, following a record breaking heatwave in Central Asia, Russia and Ukraine in 2010, that led to riots and the Arab Spring . It has happened again, with melting snow and monsoon-like rain. Unfortunately Pakistan’s government seems as unprepared as it was last time, despite making more progress in its rehabilitation with the IMF . Combined with droughts in Europe and China, this is a hellish vision of the future of global warming. Un-Finnish Business Sanna Marin, the youthful modernising Prime Minister of Finland has been in hot water for parting with celebrity friends . It would be easy to dismiss a young woman letting her hair down with friends as understandable decompression from a stressful job, but there are a couple of genuine political issues for PM Marin to worry about: (i) The Finns remain socially conservative; Marin wasn’t with a group of old mates, she was with celebs and posing an dancing for the camera: the Finns like a drinker but don’t appreciate a show off, and (ii) Finland has a 1,340 km land border with Russia; earlier in the year Marin made the decision to end Finland’s post-War neutrality and join NATO, which is a big - and bold - call. Underneath Marin’s charm, good looks and fondness for a party, she is must be tough. Nigerian Japa Wave Nigeria is a huge and diverse country with a massive amount of potential and many very smart and well educated people within its near 200 million population. Somewhat worryingly for the government, significant numbers of the most ambitious, clever and young people are starting to leave Nigeria for opportunities in foreign countries, in what is being called the “Japa Wave” . Japa is Nigerian slag for “run away swiftly”, as the young escape nearly 20% inflation and more than 30% unemployment. Nigerians have always had a broad diaspora, and there have been migration waves before. The UK is still a favorite for education and Canada is growing as a destination for work. It might feel bad for many of us sitting in the G7 right now, but everyone else thinks we are in a stronger spot. The Conservative Party selects the next UK Prime Minister On the subject of Great Men, I had the privilege of meeting former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan (he subsequently became the Earl of Stockton), when I was a child: he was dining with my grandparents and I was allowed to stay up to meet him. Macmillan apologized for the weakness of his handshake when he was introduced and explained that it was because of being shot through the wrist while assaulting German trenches in the Great War. Looking at the choice the Conservative Party is making for its next leader - and therefore the UK’s next Prime Minister - between “unimaginative” Rishi Sunak and “unguided missile” Liz Truss (not my quotes - rather alarmingly descriptions from people who know them), I cannot help reflect that British politicians used to to be made of rather sterner stuff. Yours aye Duncan
Duncan Wales
Aug 31, 2022 · 6 min read