Mixing Finance and Politics

 

Blog dated 13 March 2022 

 

I often, too often, decry the American education system which teaches economics and politics as if they were unrelated ; while most other countries have ‘political economy’  in their core curriculum.  Seldom have I extended the meme to finance, but it is true that  financial activity is only connected to politics when corruption is involved.

 

Now a pair of long article from the team at the Financial Times  has  presented a very practical case study of Finance being  weaponized for political ends.  Both parts are outside the firewall and thus free to read. They were published April 6 and April 7.

 

Weaponisation of finance: how the west unleashed ‘shock and awe’ on Russia

.This is the first of a two-part FT series on the sanctions on Russia’s central bank and a new era of financial warfare....

War in Ukraine: free to read

Financial warfare: will there be a backlash against the dollar?

Providing some answers

 

 I have beenwrong about most events in 2022...here ismy attempt at penance....

Why does it take so long to ramp up chip production? https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/08/technology/intel-chip-shortage.html?smid=url-share

 

Who pushed Putin into this madness? https://www.ft.com/content/69853fce-dbfd-470f-ad41-8b321d8cb739  Vladimir Zhirinovsky, 1946-2022: a far-right Russian firebrand

[and we learned the term ‘xenophobic pugilism’]

Can Putin be stopped?  Bill Browder on Putin, Sanctions and How to End the War - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

 

When did financial sanctions evolve into weapons?

Weaponisation of finance: how the west unleashed ‘shock and awe’ on Russia

...By the evening, agreement had been reached.The weaponisation of finance This is the first of a two-part FT series on the sanctions on Russia’s central bank and a new era of financial warfare....

 

Are we tempting WW III? Slovakia gave its S-300 air-defence system to Ukraine, following entreaties by Mr Zelensky for more Western military equipment. In response the Biden administration said it would deploy a Patriot missile-defence system to Slovakia, to be operated by American soldiers. Earlier the Czech Republic sent Soviet-made tanks to Ukraine and Britain promised an additional £100m worth of “high-grade military equipment”.

 

How stupid are US politicians?  Covid Updates: At Least 53 People Test Positive After A-List Dinner in Washington

Deconstructing voices in Media

 

The twin swords of Cognitive Bias and Hyper-objectivity dominate discourse and media.

Nice to have all the world’s ills packaged into tidy bundles.  No more wondering if aging politicians and their followers are crazy – everyone , according to current wisdom, has gravitated to extreme cognitive bias in their opinions. [ see Wikipedia reference below]. Their views slot nicely into twenty clusters of, by my count, 191 documentable observed biases. Beyond an amusing tavern exercise, these categorizations seem to make sense and fit [ also a bias called, I believe observational dependency].

Is everyone obsessed?  Of course not, nor are they what we arrogantly wrote off as ‘true believers’.  By gravitating to their extreme posture, they display a concentration on clear objectives [again see references] that are much larger than we, apparently, can appreciate. Fortified by clear hyper-objectivity, these self-anointed ‘spokespeople’ offer us views which:

o   Speculate

o   Exaggerate

o   Reference selective information

o   Oversimplify

o   Alarm

Someone like myself clearly cannot fathom the energy that their moral clarity offers.  We continue to drift along in our attempt at neutral objectivity.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Cognitive_bias_codex_en.svg?utm_campaign=mb&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=morning_brew

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/timothy-mortons-hyper-pandemic

A new year and forcing a new perspective.

Today's NYT had a piece in its Modern Love column :
(https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/03/style/modern-love-trying-to-keep-up-with-grandmas-love-life.htmlaction=click&module=MoreIn&pgtype=Article&region=Footer&action=click&module=MoreInSection&pgtype=Article&region=Footer&contentCollection=Pop%20Culture)

that said it all.

Grandma had found somebody to spend all her time with...they were totally devoted to each other, they were incredibly happy, and the family just plain could not handle it.

Well....on July 23 we received the word "I have news for you that is totally life changing" from a primary physician.

It was...now six month later what were plans for construction, plans for gardening, plans for travel, plans to visit mutual friends, sharings of readings and music and most of all film seem like a distant foggy memory.

Now we have the ritual raindance that is family circling around grandma, and like they say in the article: "

Grandma had found somebody to spend all her time with...they were totally devoted to each other, they were incredibly happy, and the family just plain could not handle it."

Sometimes you can just smell economic development

Been in Greece for two weeks, not just an escape from the realities of climate change (cannot function in the frozen Northeast Us) but getting a chance to know Greece as much as a foreigner can.

What do I know?  All the leading soft indicators are as positive as possible -- there are investment projects everywhere .  In the island more than ever.  There are no available laborers -- not Greek, not Albanian, not even refugees. If the missing link is investment -- then investment is in front of our very noses.  If the missing ingredient is a boost in tourism--duck!  My friends in the tourism industry are beaming at full bookings.  My friend in Naxos , himself a bit of an entrepreneur, has raised his rates and is still fully booked. The planes are full.  The ferries have no space.  This is only March.

So what about the complainers; the have a point.  Officially 2.2% is anemic at best.  The surplus is a drain and a pain, but it takes time for the effect of the two tranche upgrade to trickle.There is still a segment of the population (older, have lost their pensions, have health issues) who are vocal and are not participating, just grousing. The banks are straightjacketed, but we know not about the effect of alternative finance.  There is still a segment of young people who get their college degrees and go to London.  But the troubles in London are also moving companies to Greece -- slowly -- but noteworthy.(and most noteworthy are headquarters of shipping companies). These movements do not appear in the statistics...yet.

And the neighbors; difficulties indirectly benefit Greece.  Turkey and Italy are now officially in recession. Tourists do not care (they care about Egypt) but investors do.  The Chinese bull rush into Greece is slowed but not stopped -- the these are infrastructure investments and many many jobs.

Is Greece at a tipping point?  I don't know, and I will be here two more weeks and learn what I can.

Frozen at Last...Lordy Lordy, frozen at last

Never thought I would complain about winter not being cold enough, but thus far there has been little opportunity to get out into lower fields.  We have had anything between 58 and 69 inches of rain in 2018 and the water table is so high that places are flooded than never flooded before.
The local rumors have mice coming into homes, and roads deteriorating, but we see it as supremely inconvenient.There was also the risk that the bugs would not freeze out -- the stink bugs and the dreaded latern fly.  Now we got 'em...and we still got to see the eclipse.  Good start to 2019

New Year’s Ritual No More

Without belaboring the details 2012,2013,2014, and especially 2015 were not the best of years. To attempt to exorcize the years in entirety, I had a brilliant ritual accompanied by my trusted hound (Zeke) and a bottle of cognac, probably a good one.

Each 1 January I would take down the Great Dane calendar from the bulletin board to replace it with the same for the New Year.  Simple enough.  It dawned on me that a little pagan ritual was perhaps in order; so, beginning in January of 2012 Zeke and I would build a large fire in the hearth and park in front with cognac and calendar in hand. Tearing off a page, folding it a bit differently each time, I would launch the month into the fire …” January, you really sucked!”  Followed by a pause until the entire page was consumed.  Sip of brandy;” February, you were really shitty!”  and by March I was making a bit of a chant out of it. “March, don’t happen again!” One page at a time.  Like the soldiers in Wizard of Oz. Baskets of miserable memories all rolled up and ready to burn.

I did not need to burn 2016 and 2017.  Must have worked.