Ex oriente lux

Who could have ever thought, say 20 years ago that one day all major Western economies would be abating their breath waiting for the news on the Chinese government's next move in the hope of their own economic recovery.

How very ironic: a Communist-led planned economy is yanking capitalism out of its self-created mess.

Goodwin pension scandal

I do not get what this Goodwin pension scandal is about. The dude has fucked it up to the tune of 2.4 billion pounds just this year and you want his 16 million back? How will that help now?

Hot Air Fails To Lift US Economy

Surprise, surprise: perfectly crafted and inspiringly delivered appeals to "revitalise the economy" and make "America lead the world again" failed to accomplish both. Even worse, the stocks have actually fallen after President Obama's as usual toe-twirlingly amazing speech.

Perhaps, it is time Barack realised that it takes more than Magic Negro chanting to do his job.

The Consequences Of Joining The Seemingly Unbeatable

Britain's dogged attempts to imitate its overgrown colonial cousin are fun to watch. Following every trend and fad on the other side of the Atlantic must be giving Britain a cause to feel superior to its more desate neighbours over the Channel. In London you hear police car sirens so many times, you'd think you're on a set of a Hollywood movie. CCTV cameras watching every nook and corner, credit card history, abandoning railway system in favour of private car ownership: Britain went to great lengths not to be like its European neighbours. Most of the copycat routine is quite harmless and even, to a degree, natural: after all, UK does share a lot of cultural heritage with the USA.

However, adopting America's major prosperity-generating mechanism has turned out disastrous. I am talking about the vicious system of living from borrowed money with no plans to ever repay the debt. In fact, it is a British invention: Americans just perfected it and took it to an extreme, pushing the national debt over 11,300,000,000,000 (11.3 trillion) dollars. In the heyday of Tony Blair's Cool Britannia it seemed like it would go one forever. The economy was booming for over a decade fuelled by crazy borrowing and overbloated housing prices, creating the false sense of well managed prosperity growth.

However, the jig is finally up. Big boys of the City and Westminster who were so good at the cheek-puffing game of appearing important and with-it turned out just a bunch of shockingly incompetent liars. The irony of it is that the very people, bankers and poiticians who cocked up world's fourth largest economy will be, at utmost, be given severance packages and shuffled around while the rest of the population will be stuck with the bill.

By the way, that bill has just been hiked up to a trillion pounds by those shit-for-brains good-for-nothings. It's like borrowing a grand to pay the hundred you owe. Smart move, Eyebrows.

On the Financial Crisis

World's leaders and the financial community seem flabbergasted: "We have been bloating something out of nothing for so long and just when it was going so well it went bust. Why?" I can't believe this wide-eyed naivete is not feigned but it seems it actually is real. The old boys really thought it would go on forever.

Last year I was in communication with a City man who I studied with in Japan some time late last century. I said that this big boys' worldwide game with the money that does not exist is none better than poor people juggling their debt between more and more credit cards -- sooner or later you are going to have to pay up. The more you put it off, the more interest you are going to pay. He accused me of negativism and ignorance of how it all works. His stance was: the present financial system is very good, it provides money for big projects. In response I pointed out to the US federal debt closing in on 9 trillion dollars at the time (it's over 10 now so they are one digit short on the clock) and that means that world's largest economy is in fact a humongous negative equity waiting to implode and take the rest of the world down with it. My party wrote it off as anti-Americanism, so typical from a Russian man like myself.

Well I don't know what kind of euphory-inducing drug they inject people in their overpriced MBA in Finance courses but one thing for sure they immunize them against all kind of moral concerns. As long as tweaking spreadsheets and clocking up sheer digits in bank computers makes profit, it's all good fun. To hell with thinking who is going to fork out the bill when the buck stops passing.

Just a month ago the public got frights from the patently dumb rumour that the CERN's collider would create a black hole that would suck the Earth in it. Little did we know the real Black Hole has been in the making in New York, London, Tokyo and Hong Kong last few decades. It may leave the physical reality as it is but, no doubt, the economic reality will never be the same when the implosion is complete.

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P.S. In the not very likely event that the US Government's assets are really to be liquidated to pay off its debts, Japan, China and UK will get more than a half while Russia - almost 3 percent.

Why We Have To Sponsor The Realty Bonanza

I remember reading in Het Amsterdamse Dagblad (no link can be provided as they have no online edition) a few years ago that it costs about 25,000 Euros to build a new apartment in Amsterdam. Then they go on to be sold at a whopping 200 thousand plus. Without that shameless profit margin any family would be able to effortlessly afford their own place in just a few years. But then all the construction contractors, realtors and housing corporations bosses would have to suffer without their custom-made German cars, third homes on the Mediterranean and diamond trinketry for their bitches so, in all probability, we are going to have to keep financing their expensive habits for all the years to come.

All Good Talk About Saving Africa...

The African Union (all African countries except Morocco) has only 2% of the world's international trade. Because over 90% of international trade consists of currency futures, Africa's 2%, however, actually makes up the bulk of real commodity traded worldwide, including about 70% of the world's strategic minerals, including gold and aluminum. Africa is also a large market for American and European industry (money earned from selling natural resources are spent to purchase Western-made goods).

Like they say on EuroNews, 'No comment.'