Xerxes

Thanks John ! ---- Somewhat related, we must not forget TV commercial that keeps popping on my Bloomberg either.

Damn !!! I keep losing money on my "oppertunity cost" tab of not having more

Understood. Cheers !

I found this interview with Rubenstein very wierd. The way he responds to the comment by the hosts. I think somehow he regrets that while he was not invested into FTX, he was invested optically, by doing that interview with SamB-Fried. Doing interview is not a crime, but he also gave credibility to that FTX franchise. I have not read his new book, but I think there is a bit there about crypto.

Why there is a need for a referendum ? (rhetorical Q) If Ukrainian blood has been spilled to re-conquer lost territory. Than whoever doesn't like it, and doesnt want be a newly minted Ukrainian citizen, can just move to Russia. A referendum implies that there is a possbility of Russian Crimeans voting to stay in Russian Federation. And what would be the return on investment on all that Ukrainian blood spilled to re-conquer those territories. If Russian Crimeans vote to stay in Russian Federation, after Ukrainian re-conquest, I think it is clear that they do not want to move out of their houses, but rather the border to move so that they remain Russian. By that logic, therefore, a referendum would never happen. If there is no referendum, Ukraine needs to protect its "weakest" link in the Russian-speaking territories with the newly minted local population, such that it is fully sovereign over Crimea. This is complicated.

Is that related to Bailie investment fund ? EDIT: actually it is. So you are buying the "manager" of the funds as a business Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust | Global Investment Trust | Low-cost Actively Managed Equity Fund | Baillie Gifford | Individual Investor | Baillie Gifford

I dont know about a book, but there was a Business Breakdown podcast episode on LVMH. Perhaps there are references there you can use ‎Business Breakdowns: LVMH: The Wolf in Cashmere’s Conglomerate on Apple Podcasts

Like everything else ... And then what ? @Spekulatius I am curious, suppose that Ukraine takes back Crimea and somesort of cease-fire is established. What do you think will happen to the majority Russian-speaking population in Crimea ? Afterall, Ukraine would need to ensure that Russian concentration in Crimea is diluated through forced re-location etc. No ? They do not want a potential rebellious territory so close to Russia. And I would do the samething if I were Ukrainian. I would want to bring Ukrainian population into Crimea and do everything I can to cap the local Russian population, either through forced location etc. How would you go about solving that ?

@Dinar Don't fight it. There is no use. These mood swings come and go. 20 years ago, after 9/11, the talk in town was all about "muslim spreading islam by the sword". If you saw a bearded person, you needed to look at them suspiciously. Everyone suddenly became a history expert. I, a persian, who actually has grievences for the islamic invasion of Persia, was utterly disgusted everyday-Westerner behaviour toward everyday-Arabs after 9/11. Now 20 years later, Westerners literally fall over themselves to run (not fast enough) to Dubai and Abu Dhabi, Egypt and to do selfies. It is a process that needs to exhaust itself. ------------------------------------ EDIT @formthirteen This is not toward you at all. Just a general comment. Please dont take it the wrong way.

the conclusion from the long RUSI report were cited in the AW article, precisely on the topic of air dominance and need for Western surface to air missiles

What does that mean exactly ? devalue by 50% ? I think what you mean is the purchasing power of USD goes down by 50%. I doubt you will see major devaluation against other currencies (all safe perhaps Swiss Francs). That would in turn mean the purchasing power of most currencies going down as well

Is that fair ? The type of prison he is heading. I am guessing that is short term until he is pulled into US https://ca.yahoo.com/news/bahamian-prison-where-sam-bankman-024059598.html “The rate of imprisonment in the Bahamas is one of the highest in the world, with 409 per 100,000 people detained in the country, according to a 2020 US State Department human rights report. The sheer number of Bahamian prisoners means Fox Hill is overpopulated, and conditions at the facility suffer as a result.“

I agree. It is geopolitics. My note was for folks who for whatever reason decided this is the first time civilians are targeted since the dawn of mankind. And how sad it is. Never mind that we do that ourselves on a dime, with no second thought. On Houthi, your comment is a simplification. Houthi themselves would heavily push back by being called pawns of Tehran. They are a Shia-offshoot but pre-dated 1979 Iranian revolution I imagine by centuries. It is one of those situation where the tie between Tehran and Houthi drastically strengthened thanks to the Saudi invasion in 2015. Much like that of West and Ukraine, and how Kremlin got a blowback for trying to bring Ukraine under its yoke. Like it or not, ignore it or not. U.S. is the prime enabler for Saudi atrocities in Yemen.

Too bad they had not thought about sending Patriots to Yemen. You know that other war, where the bully wanted to re-establish its suzerainty, over what it consider to be its “sphere of influence”. Yemen lost. Qatar only survived the contest of being “independent” of Saudi yoke by being one of the wealthiest nation on earth. I thought the “sphere of influence” concept as per the board members should not exists in 21st century. Yet it seems like everything else it exists when it is convenient to exists. Those Patriots would have sure handy to deter Saudi bombing of school buses, hospital and schools. Not exactly a pretty scene. It could have been a message to the Saudi to knock it off. But maybe that would have been too weird !! After all the bombs, planes and missile came from the West, the enablers. Even the planes were re-fuelled by US tankers on the way to drop their payload. Hypocrisy and geopolitics always go hand in hand. Unfortunately. EDIT: ranting over. Aeroplane mode back “on”. Back on Ukraine being as that is the only thing that ever mattered.

The enemy gets a vote too. Both sides have to decide (or being compelled to decide) that it is over. Both sides will feel that they are not getting everything they wanted, such is the outcome with negotiations with equal peers. The concept of this xxx country winning or losing is highly relative. A “win” against tangible objective within a few weeks of war breaking out has more value than the same “win” against the same objectives achieved 4 years later. The longest a war goes the concept of win and losing start to overlap. Because as “duration” takes over, opportunity cost etc start to seep in, and become a factor. Win at what cost ? Lose at what gain. Is a Pyrrhic victory really a win. The only thing is that is absolutely absolute is the concept of “unconditional surrender”. Not seen since the dark days of world war 2, according to my history scrolls.

I meant mostly at government/state level (even with Putin being gone, government-level hate/dislike has interia). Think Vietnam and U.S. Or other example. Normal everyday people are often more mature, more reasonable (and dare I say, more humane) than their own government. Unrelated, incidentally, Putin’ presidency is up for grab in 2024. I think that is where the presidential term ends. A nice exit ramp for Putin to retirement (with state protection, just like the one he offered Yeltsin in 1999) and a fresh face taking over. I don’t buy these stories circulating of Putin and Igor Sechin looking for Venezuela or elsewhere in South America as escape plan. I think that is complete fabricated bullshit (and I don’t know by whom). They know that they live or die by Russia. Their fate and those of the state is intertwined. There is no escape.

Don't get me wrong, they are lucky to have Zelensky. He is the leader that the country needed in time of crisis. If you take out Zelensky from the equation today, the fight will continue as the genie of resistance is already out of the bottle, and it is much bigger than him now. But if he was taken out in Feb, during those fatefull days before he made the call to arms as he stood his ground, history would have taken a different path. Now interestingly and ironically, it may also been truth that no invasion would have taken place, if he never became the president. Meaning that it is very likely that as a former comedian, he must have seen as a "pushover" by Putin and this must have played into his calculus. With Putin everything is about image, therefore, how one appears to him plays a role. You cannot take a look at this image below from this pre-war meetings with Macron and not come out thinking that this comedian is way out of his league.

LOL ... What a guy ! He is having a champaign while doing his thing in a nice looking room in the Kremlin. For a moment i thought he was going to cry when he mentioned the Kerch bridge. Watch closely, he does not call Ukraine by name, but rather as the "neighbouring country" that speaks volume of how he feels. Kremlin's PR machine gets a zero as a grade when it comes to PR. However, Ukraine PR machine gets an A+ Zelensky does not need to be in green military fatigue all the time, with every one of his footage showing him in a dark/half-lit room sometimes with sandbags around. He also has access to electricity, which means he can shave, (maybe not recently with the infrastructure bombing). It is all part of the "resistance" portait that he does so well and he gets exactly what resonates with the West. Bottom line, like everything else in this war, the Ukrainian have shown themselves to be extremely adaptable and leveraging all they can. Like it or not, the PR campaign is a huge compenent of the war effort. ----------------- EDIT: My assessment is that it will take a good 30-40 years before the scars are healed. An entire generation and then some ! Thanks to all the parties, governments, etc who pushed this to the brink and to the point of no return. Really well done (sarcasam)

Ahhhh not Calculus 2. I vowed decades ago before God to not re-open the Calculus books.

that is hilarious!!

Jeffrey Sachs is not going to get invited to Bloomberg after the comment he made about the pipelines but doesnt mean his views get expunged. It is very sad that at the end of the interview, he needs to re-affirm his opposition to the brutality of the war, because these days the narrative is that you push to stop the flow the arms to Ukraine as a bid to force people to talk to each other that means you like Putin. So if you are a neo-conservative, or part of the "war party" or a NATO-maximalist you better not watch this !

I was not aware that George Bush pushed back on the breakup

It is from Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studie Nothing with virus or anything like that. Attached anyways. I think we shoud all read it. It is a heavy read, I dont expect myself to be able to catch all of the nusances as it is heavy in details. It is very detailed analysis of the war, thus far. Here is the Executive Summary (page 1 of 3) Executive Summary The full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 has provided an invaluable opportunity to assess the capabilities of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (AFRF) and the implications of a range of capabilities for modern warfare. Many publicly made judgements on these issues have lacked supporting data or insight into Ukrainian operational planning and decisionmaking. To ensure that those drawing lessons from the conflict do so from a solid foundation, this report seeks to outline key lessons, based on the operational data accumulated by the Ukrainian General Staff, from the fighting between February and July 2022. As the underlying source material for much of this report cannot yet be made public, this should be understood as testimony rather than as an academic study. Given the requirements for operational security, it is necessarily incomplete. Russia planned to invade Ukraine over a 10-day period and thereafter occupy the country to enable annexation by August 2022. The Russian plan presupposed that speed, and the use of deception to keep Ukrainian forces away from Kyiv, could enable the rapid seizure of the capital. The Russian deception plan largely succeeded, and the Russians achieved a 12:1 force ratio advantage north of Kyiv. The very operational security that enabled the successful deception, however, also led Russian forces to be unprepared at the tactical level to execute the plan effectively. The Russian plan’s greatest deficiency was the lack of reversionary courses of action. As a result, when speed failed to produce the desired results, Russian forces found their positions steadily degraded as Ukraine mobilised. Despite these setbacks, Russia refocused on Donbas and, since Ukraine had largely expended its ammunition supply, proved successful in subsequent operations, slowed by the determination – rather than the capabilities – of Ukrainian troops. From April, the West became Ukraine’s strategic depth, and the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) only robbed Russia of the initiative once long-range fires brought Russian logistics under threat. The tactical competence of the Russian military proved significantly inferior compared with the expectations of many observers based within and outside Ukraine and Russia. Nevertheless, Russian weapons systems proved largely effective, and those units with a higher level of experience demonstrated that the AFRF have considerable military potential, even if deficiencies in training and the context of how they were employed meant that the Russian military failed to meet that potential. Factoring in the idiosyncrasies of the Russian campaign, there are five key areas that should be monitored to judge whether the Russian military is making progress in resolving its structural and cultural deficiencies. These areas should be used to inform assessments of Russian combat power in the future. 359-SR-Ukraine-Preliminary-Lessons-Feb-July-2022-web-final.pdf

You guys do know there is an ONEX thread in the investment Idea. Perhaps, @Parsad can do some magic and merge this unwanted offshoot with the main thread