Russia launches missile strikes leaving parts of Kyiv without power

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"Vladimir Putin's Stock Market"

 

     My promise to you is that I am always on the lookout for obscure sources and very important stories that major media outlets overlook. Yesterday, I hit "paydirt!"

     Regardless of what country you are in around the world, you have seen the value of your retirement fund and investment portfolio drop in value. Do not feel alone, numerous billionaires around the world have seen their net worths take "a big hit."

    Conventional wisdom says that investors are "spooked" by inflation fear. I have an unconventional take on the whole thing. I nickname the current stock market full of pain and losses as: "The Vladimir Putin Stock Market."

       When you hear this what jumps to mind is that everyone fears that the war in Ukraine will escalate to World War III with a nuclear exchange between Russia,  the European Union, and the U.S. I have written several Op-Eds on this subject where I have quoted a well-known US professor of Russian Studies who has been a personal friend of Putin for over 20 years. He says that Putin is sane and rational. He tells people not to worry. I do not fear this wild escalation to nuclear Armageddon. Rest assured that Putin is going to frighten us and make life hard for all of us for a couple of years to come.

    I encountered a very special and insightful YouTube video yesterday afternoon that paints an entirely different picture. When I give you a video link, I generally advise you to have a look at it if time permits. In this case, I am going to urge all of you to take a look at it as follows:

 

ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4StLA309XI

 

       To make a long story short, Russia and Belarus control all sorts of strategic commodities that are essential to keep the world going. Oil and natural gas immediately come to mind. Nickel is another one. There is a long list of other commodities and vital agricultural products that Russia is rich with. The current situation of sanctions and this war put the delivery of these commodities at risk.

      There is another ominous problem on the horizon. Russia no longer gets Western help to provide maintenance to continue its oil production. This winter we could see major freezes that causes oil pipelines to burst with a significant cut in Russian oil and gas production. World oil prices will explode upwards. The last time Russian oil pipelines burst in winter. it took them 30 years to recover their oil production. Russia is on a slippery slope leading to poverty and economic misery for years to come.

The financial war against Putin and the oligarchs | Bill Browder

Mr. Putin And Your Generals: Hasn't History Taught You Anything?

      The war in Ukraine has entered a very ugly phase. The FT of London pointed out this morning that Russian military planners had decided that using Iranian drones to destroy Ukrainian infrastructure was better than using nuclear weapons. The strategy is to destroy things like electricity generating capacity, heating facilities and the like to put Ukraine through an awful and frigid winter to break their will to resist.

    History has taught us that such brazen and brutal air attacks do not break the will of those being attacked to resist. They have the opposite effect. They make people more determined to resist.

    In World War II, Nazi Germany was subject to day and night air attacks by US and British aircraft. Most German cities were reduced to heaps of rubble. Civilian casualties were massive. When Germany surrendered, Hitler's armaments minister Albert Speer was captured. US Army Air Corps and Royal Air Force generals interviewed Speer. They asked him how effective their strategic bombing had been. Speer shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. He said to the generals: "It did no good at all."

        Likewise, Japan was subject to a merciless air bombardment by US and British aircraft. Two atomic bombs were used on Japan. It did not break the will of the Japanese people to resist. They only surrendered to avoid being occupied by Russians.

         In the Korean war, the US dropped more tons of bombs on North Korea than had been dropped on Germany in World War II. It did not break the spirit of the North Korean people. They never surrendered.

     North Vietnam was subject to constant bombardment by US bombers and fighters. The worst air attack came in December of 1972. Massive formations of US B-52s attacked Hanoi and the port of Haiphong. The tonnage of conventional bombs used was equal to the explosive power of the two atomic bombs used in Japan in 1945. It did not break the will of the North Vietnamese people to resist. They went on to conquer South Vietnam.

 

The Cuban Missile Crisis @ 60 How John F. Kennedy Sacrificed His Most Consequential Crisis Advisor | National Security Archive

The Cuban Missile Crisis @ 60 How John F. Kennedy Sacrificed His Most Consequential Crisis Advisor | National Security Archive

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"You Can Run But You Just Can't Hide!"

      The saying: "You can run but you just can't hide" has a special place in my heart. I wish that I had invented it. Some 8 years ago, a Malaysian airline aircraft was flying over Eastern Ukraine on the way to Europe. A Russian anti-aircraft missile battery got a radar lock on the plane. They fired several extremely brutal missiles loaded with a form of buckshot. When the missiles impacted the plane, the aircraft was torn apart. 283 passengers and 15 crew members died in the vicious attack. Russian separatists led by Russian officers claimed that they thought that the passenger plane was a Ukrainian transport plane. The passenger aircraft had a transponder transmitting on several open channels identifying it as a Malaysian transport plane. A massive and intense worldwide investigation followed. Eventually murder charges were laid in Holland against people who fired the anti-aircraft missiles that killed so many innocent people. Convictions were obtained. All of the convicted men are being sheltered in Russia by Putin. Here is an excellent link if you want more details:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17

    I saw the most amazing article this morning in the FT of London. A crowdfunding site in Ukraine has raised a $150,000 US award for the capture or perhaps the killing ("Wanted Dead Or Alive") of the man deemed to be the leader of those who killed so many innocent people-Igor Girkin.

    The last report I had on this man is that Putin provides him with a 24 hour a day, seven day a week security detail. The amount of money raised will grow. Someone will take a giant risk and find this man, outwit Putin's security detail, and see that justice is done

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Will Putin Use Nuclear Weapons In Ukraine?

      The big question on many people's minds now is: "Will Vladimir Putin use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine?"

    My most trusted source on Vladimir Putin Is Professor William Craft Brumfield, head of the Russian Studies Department at Tulane University. He has been a personal friend of Vladimir Putin for over 20 years. Putin likes him so much that he awarded him the Russian Medal of Friendship. This is the highest medal that Russia can bestow on a foreigner. Professor Brumfield said to me during a luncheon discussion in New Orleans in May of this year: "Putin is a sane and rational man. He will not engage in first strike use of nuclear weapons."

      We have seen the news media and television stations filled with a large number of experts speculating on what Putin will do with respect to nuclear weapons and Ukraine. As far as I can tell, none of these people personally knows Putin.

    This morning the FT of London came out with an interview hosted by Gideon Rachman. The subject of the interview was Alexander Gabuev. He is a Russian scholar highly regarded worldwide. He is a senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment, He knows Russia well although his true area of academic specialization is China.

     He said some fascinating things in the interview. He believed that Putin could be pushed to the point of firing nuclear weapons on Ukraine. He also said something surprising. Despite the corruption and inefficiency in Russia, the massive system of shelters and by bunkers where Russian people could take shelter during a nuclear weapons exchange. He did offer some hope. He said that at the point Putin was ready to fire nuclear weapons, Putin would talk to President Biden. A summit conference would be arranged in Washington, DC to stop the use of nuclear weapons. A deal would be made to stop the war.

     I found a fascinating study on what a nuclear war would do to the US, Europe, and Russia. Princeton University performed the study. Here is the study:

 

William PY Liew

 

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How long would a nuclear war last?

 

Report & Images: Screencap from the Princeton University simulation. Provided by The Daily Digest.

First strike: 2,6 million casualties:

According to the Princeton simulation, Russia would attack first with approximately 300 nuclear warheads and short-range missiles, striking NATO bases and troops. NATO would respond with around 180 warheads carried by aircraft over Russian objectives. Casualties? 2.6 million in the span of three hours.

Second strike: 3.4 million casualties

With Europe in ruins, NATO launches 600 warheads from US soil and submarine-based missiles aimed at Russian nuclear forces. Russia counterattacks with missiles launched from silos, submarines, and road-mobile vehicles. This conflict continuation would last only 45 minutes and have a toll of up to 3.4 million victims.

Third step: Total annhiliation

NATO and Russia, following the scenario elaborated by Princeton University, would launch attacks on important economic and population centers to hamper the other side's recovery. Five to ten nuclear warheads would be used for each city. Thermonuclear warfare would kill 85.3 million people in 45 minutes.

Death toll: 34.1 million

The study estimates that, in total, a nuclear war would immediately affect 91.5 million people, which would cause 34.1 million deaths and 57.4 million wounded within the first four or five hours.

Repeating Hiroshima

The landscape after the conflict would be something like that: Hiroshima in 1945, when an atomic bomb dropped by the United States leveled an entire city. Over 800,000 people died and some 70,000 were wounded. Those affected by radiation would raise the death toll over the following years.

How would a nuclear war between Russia and the US play out?

Vladimir Putin has reminded Europe during the Ukrainian crisis that Russia is still a nuclear superpower.

https://www.msn.com/en-my/news/newsworld/how-would-a-nuclear-war-between-russia-and-the-us-play-out/ss-AAU1NGT?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=ff8d231b838f4586858aa209181a97ac#image=8

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Drugs In Ancient Times

 

Ancient Highs

Israeli archaeologists recently discovered traces of opium in a number of ceramic artifacts dating to the 14th century BCE, possibly the earliest known evidence of the drug in the ancient world, Smithsonian Magazine reported.

Researchers initially found the ancient pottery vessels at a burial site in Tel Yehud, a town seven miles from Tel Aviv, in 2012. They noted that the vessels were shaped like inverted poppy flowers, the plant that produces opium.

They wrote in a new study that they found traces of the drug in eight of the artifacts, adding that some of the vessels were imported from Cyprus.

The team theorized that the opium was used during burial ceremonies and was part of some kind of end-of-life ritual. They also suggested that the narcotic could have been employed “to help the person’s spirit rise from the grave in preparation for the meeting with their relatives in the next life.”

The opium poppy is one of the oldest medicinal plants in history. Still, the authors said the findings highlight possibly the earliest evidence that the opium substance was used in the Old World.

Even so, the use of narcotics was not unusual in the ancient Levant.

In 2020, another research team identified cannabis residue on an altar at Tel Arad dating to the eighth century BCE.

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The Cuban Missile Crisis @ 60 | National Security Archive

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Making The Poles Colder

 

Global Sun Screen

As the climate crisis unfolds, scientists are proposing a very ambitious – and highly controversial – plan to refreeze the Earth’s poles to dial down the global thermostat, Sky News reported.

The plan would involve sending a fleet of 125 high-flying jets to spray microscopic sulfur dioxide particles into the atmosphere. The planes would release the aerosol particles at an altitude of 43,000 feet and a latitude of 60 degrees in the northern and southern hemispheres.

An international research team explained that the sulfur dioxide would then drift to the poles on high-altitude winds and slightly shade the Earth’s surface beneath.

In their study, they wrote that releasing more than 14 tons of particles during the spring and summer would be sufficient to cool the poles by 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, with a more moderate cooling at mid-latitudes.

But to enact such a plan, governments will have to first reach an international consensus on whether to release particles into the atmosphere. Another conundrum is that governments will need to make around 175,000 flights to release the particles, which would consequently release millions of tons of carbon dioxide.

Other scientists are also wary of releasing solar-shading particles because they could have unforeseen complications, such as lowering crop yields.

Lead author Wake Smith and his colleagues noted that only one percent of the globe’s population lives in the targeted areas. They argue that the program will cost just under $11 billion annually, which is considerably less than the price of carbon capture or other methods of mitigating or coping with climate change.

Even so, Smith cautioned that their plan mainly treats a symptom of climate change and not the cause.

“It’s aspirin, not penicillin,” he said. “It’s not a substitute for decarbonization.”

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The Economist Magazine Cover For 10=01-2022

 

OCTOBER 1ST 2022

SUBSCRIBER ONLY Cover Story How we chose this week’s images

We have two covers this week: one on the worst start to a British government in memory and the other on our portrait of the world’s most powerful man, China’s president, Xi Jinping.   The 25-minute statement that Kwasi Kwarteng, Britain’s new chancellor of the exchequer, gave on September 23rd was meant to usher in an era of economic growth. Instead it triggered a crisis. As investors took fright, gilt yields surged, prompting the Bank of England to say on September 28th that it was ready to buy unlimited quantities of long-dated bonds in order to restore order to financial markets. Earlier, the pound had crashed to its lowest level ever against the dollar. The job of the cover was to make sense of it all.

Credit: Shutterstock One impulse was to portray the vertiginous realisation that Britain was suffering a catastrophic loss of confidence in financial markets. The pound-coin meteors raining out of the heavens seemed apt in a week when NASA had crashed a probe into an asteroid called Dimorphos in order to alter its course.   Another impulse was to convey the recklessness of the gamble by Mr Kwarteng and the prime minister, Liz Truss. In a losing spin, the pound has dropped out of the slot machine. It’s fun, but a broken one-armed bandit hardly captures the gravity of Britain’s predicament.

Credit: Getty Images has more punch. Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng are right to want to boost Britain’s anaemic rate of growth. But by rolling these dice Ms Truss could flatten her government. Cutting taxes was supposed to boost the economy. Instead the weaker pound is causing higher imported inflation, eroding real incomes. And interest-rate rises will add to the government’s own interest payments and harm people with mortgages.    Yet, even the giant dice are too kind. Only three weeks into the Truss premiership, her growth agenda may already be damaged beyond repair.

Sterling as a stick of dynamite is closer to the mark. Something bad is about to happen and the fuse did not light itself. The reaction to the budget means that it will hurt growth, not boost it. Tory MPs may well pocket the tax cuts and reject the reforms that might one day help pay for them. To regain market confidence, Ms Truss will have to reverse some tax cuts or slash public spending. The dynamite says that something is going to blow, either in the markets or in Number 10 Downing Street.

Credit: Getty Images That may yet happen. However, despite talk of another Conservative leadership contest, booting out Ms Truss so soon would seem ridiculous rather than ruthless. And Mr Kwarteng’s budget is unlikely to lead to a balance-of-payments crisis. Britain has a flexible exchange rate, it has minimal debt denominated in foreign currencies and its central bank is independent from the government.    More likely, therefore, the Truss government will be becalmed, its authority destroyed, its popularity damaged beyond hope, its dreams of radical reforms sunk far beyond reach.

China’s president, Xi Jinping, has amassed more power and wielded it more ruthlessly than any Chinese leader since Mao Zedong. As his dominance has grown, so has China’s ambition. At the party’s five-yearly congress, starting on October 16th, he will almost certainly be given another term as supreme leader, possibly setting him up as ruler for life.

Credit: Shutterstock/Getty Images Because understanding Mr Xi has never been more important, The Economist has spent nine months interviewing dozens of people who have studied him up close and from afar. The result is this week’s briefing and our new eight-part podcast series, “The Prince”. One way of showing that was to put Mr Xi under the spotlight. But it was better to adapt the graphic from the podcast. The title is a play on words. In China, Mr Xi is known (in whispers) as a taizi, or princeling. The term is most commonly applied to the offspring of leaders, especially the children of Communist China’s founders. Among the first 600 or so promising young officials identified by the Young Cadres Bureau in the early 1980s, about 5% were princelings. In the Politburo Standing Committee that Mr Xi took charge of in 2012, the majority were.

Credit: Getty Images “The Prince” is also the title of Niccolo Machiavelli’s work on how to be a ruler. As Machiavelli wrote, some 500 years ago, “Hereditary ­states…are maintained with far less difficulty than new states, since all that is required is that the Prince shall not depart from the usages of his ancestors.” Mr Xi may disagree with how easy that makes it sound, but the Chinese president clearly believes that preserving the party’s traditional ideological rhetoric is vital for keeping its 97m members in lockstep and himself in charge.  The contest between China and the West is, above all, one between competing philosophies. Western governments believe success comes from letting people choose their own destiny. China’s rulers believe that individuals must sacrifice their liberties, privacy and dignity for the greater good—as defined by the party. Mr Xi espouses a maximalist version of this. In “The Prince” we set out to explain why.

Cover image • View large image (“How not to run a country”) • View large image (“The Prince”)