Around The World
And just because you think you’re small,
That doesn’t mean that you’re small at all.
And just the way a tiny branch,
Is like a tree to a twig,
To someone else you are big.
The world is a circle that has no beginning,
And nobody knows where it really ends.
La la la la.
Everything depends on where you are in the circle that’s spinning around.
Half of the time we are upside down.
The World is a Circle - Motion Picture Lost Horizons (1973) – Written by Burt Bacharach
…..
We all know what is happening in the hot wars in the Middle East and Ukraine and the cold war with China. There is a lot going on in the rest of the world as well. Some of it is related to the wars. Some is not. Here follows a roundup of just a few things you may or may not know.
Turkey is not on the minds of most Americans. But it is an important country geographically and militarily and has been for centuries going back to the Ottoman Empire. Turkey is a member of NATO, has pursued membership in the European Union and has one of the largest standing armies in Europe. It is located at the crossroads between Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Turkey has been majority Muslim for centuries but had been moving in a more secular and cosmopolitan path in recent decades. However, Turkish President Erdogan, who was recently reelected, has been moving the country back to a much more fundamentalist Islamic path and made various secular movements illegal. Then last week, he declared Turkey’s unwavering support for Hamas declaring “they are not terrorists. They are defending their homeland.”
This is a big deal. The rest of NATO is behind Israel and now you have a member country supporting an enemy that has a connection through Iran to the country that NATO stands against (Russia). If Turkey transitions from friend to enemy or even to very unreliable sort of friend, the security of Europe and the Middle East becomes more perilous.
In Britain a few weeks ago, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak changed course in his country and is pushing back the senseless “carbon net zero” policies that had previously been adopted. While not scrapping carbon goals altogether, he scrapped an expensive high speed rail plan and is moving forward on drilling a new large North Sea oil field to attain more energy independence for the UK. Good for him. Are you listening Mr. Biden?
Meanwhile in the United States, the Treasury department today issued their plan for Treasury debt issuance for the next three months. I’m sure if you are a government debt geek, you always pay attention to this stuff. But I can tell you that I never have, nor have I seen it prominently in the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg. But it is a big deal today. That is because they will be selling a record $776 billion of new debt in the next three months. The other major news was the make-up of that debt. Traditionally, they sell 15-20% of it in short term (1 year and under) bills. But they will be selling a much greater percentage of those bills in the next 3 months. Why? Because they are afraid there won’t be enough buyers for the 5-30 year notes and bonds. So, they will pay more in interest, and thereby increase the deficit, rather than risk a “failed” bond auction. Also if you do the math and they keep issuance at this rate, that will be over $3T in new debt over the next year, even without a war.
This is not a good thing. How do you fund 2 or 3 wars with debt when you can’t get people to buy your peacetime debt?
California Governor Gavin Newsom recently visited China, where he sat down for a meeting with President Xi Jinping. It is painfully obvious that the real reason for his visit was to shore up his foreign policy bona fides in case he has the opportunity to replace the fading Joe Biden as the Democrat’s standard bearer in 2024. But his official reason was to encourage China to do more on climate change. Of course, Xi told him they would. I’m sure he may have also told him that China is a free country and they never imprison people for being against the government and they love George Washington. It stuns me how otherwise intelligent people can be taken in by the obsequious crap dished out by totalitarian leaders around the globe.
Speaking of China and Russia, they both have an interesting problem about which I hear little discussion. Both have internal Muslim populations with which neither dictator is very happy. The Uyghers in China are regularly used as slaves if they don’t murder them in mass. Russia has had decades of problems in Chechnya and other regions of Russia with large Muslim populations that necessitated military action from Moscow.
However, since the enemy of my enemy is my friend, the CCP and Putin find themselves wanting to aid Islamic countries like Iran and groups like Hezbollah. So, they don’t like the Muslims within their countries but like the ones elsewhere? This may eventually bubble up as a problem to maintain these opposing positions.
California’s tax collections for what was their biggest month of the year (October) were less than half of projections and were $24 billion short. Even for California, that’s lot. A $100 billion surplus a few short years ago is looking like a $40 billion deficit this coming year. Hard times in Sacramento.
Germany was once the second most powerful economy in the world. The rise of China along with the Germans nonsensical headlong move away from nuclear and natural gas into unreliable and expensive wind and solar has hurt their economy. They appear to be one of the first industrial powers to slip into recession. The question is whether the German industrial malaise is temporary or a more secular move that will find buyers around the world moving to products produced in other countries. I tend to think it is the latter.
Antisemitism has been around the Western World for thousands of years. Jewish people are disproportionately successful wherever they are. That success creates resentment. Since the holocaust however, open antisemitism has been seen as completely unacceptable behavior by all.
It would seem that is changing. Since the attacks of October 7th, many “rallies” have been held around Europe and the Americas declaring “from the river to the sea.” I question how many of these idiots know which river and which sea they are talking about. Regardless, it is a euphemism for “kill the Jews.” However, just last week in New York and Los Angeles and other major cities, chants explicitly calling for “kill the Jews” have sprung up. The cabal of media, entertainment and government have been muted in their condemnation of these chants. What if those chants had been “kill the transgenders.” Would they have reacted the same way?
The holocaust museums have long said “never again.” Well, it is happening….again.
I remain respectfully,
Congressman John Campbell
Drive Fast & Live Free