I read a lot of books and articles on strategy and history; this article is excellent in that it is relevant, timely, comprehensive and compelling. John Keegan and Boyd would be impressed.
Reading today's press, It looks like fact, fiction and history are all meeting to end the world as we know it! In 1983 the USSR reckoned that NATO’s Able Archer exercise was a smokescreen and that NATO was planning to deliver a genuine nuclear first strike.
The extent to which John F Kennedy took his NATO partners into his confidence during the Cuban crisis remains debatable. In 1962, the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, colloquially known as SuperMac, was supposedly JFK’s chief confidant and adviser throughout the crisis. What were the consequences of that?
For starters it meant that anything JFK (via the CIA) and/or SuperMac shared with MI6 about how best to manage the crisis was also shared with Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro via Kim Philby who was then in his heyday. In addition, Dr Richard Alan Fairclough (ex MI1 and a leading British scientist) was a close confidant of SuperMac.
Since then Richard Fairclough (aka Roger Burlington) featured in The Burlington Files series of fact based spy novels which were centred on the life and times of his son Bill Fairclough (aka Edward Burlington, real life MI6 codename JJ).
One could ask were the Fairclough family involved in the seventies in the Haitian equivalent to the Cuban Bay of Pigs? Before it's too late we had all best read Beyond Enkription, the only novel published to date in The Burlington Files series, to find out what has been disclosed to date on all these issues. As for today's concerns, hopefully in 50 years from now we can read about today's Kim Philby and Oleg Penkovsky.
We can't possibly understand how we arrived at such an incompetent bunch in charge as the economy begins a rapid decline. They were prepared for social change, Obama style, which has no traction as inflation explodes. Even the great ESG efforts of Blackrock are now being backed away. Few could understand what ESG could do back in 2015-16 when it started restricting investment in those nasty dirty fuel producers. Investments needed back then were deferred in spite of a growing economy and we see the result. Exxon is now being praised for sucking down losses last year for record profits this year in spite of reducing some holdings. Other less rich producers are a bit stuck awaiting a depreciating investment to arrive at higher carrying costs. The seeds for the crop now were not there.
We really are fortunate in that others are in worse shape, particularly China. Some of their African investments may go south as Africa decides to end the rape of their resources. Going central as China has done bespeaks a future failure particularly as their best customers stop buying stuff. It really would be a good time to promote US manufacturing but the current bunch in charge hates business.
That tidy increase in government revenues will see a decline in real terms. What then? As you note something has to go and with 60% outlays in transfer payments we are stuck. Will we means test those payments, finally? We won't be happy with whoever has to deal with the long simmering mess.
I read a lot of books and articles on strategy and history; this article is excellent in that it is relevant, timely, comprehensive and compelling. John Keegan and Boyd would be impressed.
Reading today's press, It looks like fact, fiction and history are all meeting to end the world as we know it! In 1983 the USSR reckoned that NATO’s Able Archer exercise was a smokescreen and that NATO was planning to deliver a genuine nuclear first strike.
The extent to which John F Kennedy took his NATO partners into his confidence during the Cuban crisis remains debatable. In 1962, the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, colloquially known as SuperMac, was supposedly JFK’s chief confidant and adviser throughout the crisis. What were the consequences of that?
For starters it meant that anything JFK (via the CIA) and/or SuperMac shared with MI6 about how best to manage the crisis was also shared with Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro via Kim Philby who was then in his heyday. In addition, Dr Richard Alan Fairclough (ex MI1 and a leading British scientist) was a close confidant of SuperMac.
Since then Richard Fairclough (aka Roger Burlington) featured in The Burlington Files series of fact based spy novels which were centred on the life and times of his son Bill Fairclough (aka Edward Burlington, real life MI6 codename JJ).
One could ask were the Fairclough family involved in the seventies in the Haitian equivalent to the Cuban Bay of Pigs? Before it's too late we had all best read Beyond Enkription, the only novel published to date in The Burlington Files series, to find out what has been disclosed to date on all these issues. As for today's concerns, hopefully in 50 years from now we can read about today's Kim Philby and Oleg Penkovsky.
We can't possibly understand how we arrived at such an incompetent bunch in charge as the economy begins a rapid decline. They were prepared for social change, Obama style, which has no traction as inflation explodes. Even the great ESG efforts of Blackrock are now being backed away. Few could understand what ESG could do back in 2015-16 when it started restricting investment in those nasty dirty fuel producers. Investments needed back then were deferred in spite of a growing economy and we see the result. Exxon is now being praised for sucking down losses last year for record profits this year in spite of reducing some holdings. Other less rich producers are a bit stuck awaiting a depreciating investment to arrive at higher carrying costs. The seeds for the crop now were not there.
We really are fortunate in that others are in worse shape, particularly China. Some of their African investments may go south as Africa decides to end the rape of their resources. Going central as China has done bespeaks a future failure particularly as their best customers stop buying stuff. It really would be a good time to promote US manufacturing but the current bunch in charge hates business.
That tidy increase in government revenues will see a decline in real terms. What then? As you note something has to go and with 60% outlays in transfer payments we are stuck. Will we means test those payments, finally? We won't be happy with whoever has to deal with the long simmering mess.