Tit for Tat or a Real War

Week ended January 13, 2023, interesting news items to look at this week were:

1. Tit for Tat or a Real War:  Last week I took my wife and adult children for a short holiday in Melbourne from early Thursday morning to late Sunday evening and so the week’s Blog is brief and somewhat short. The week earlier, my ex-colleague also visited us from Hong Kong with their adult children family, My friend’s two sons are in their forties and I am so happy to see their family traveling together for a much deserved break. Coming back to the harsh realities of Geo-politics, there is nothing to be happy about in the second week of January 2024.

(i) US and UK jointly strikes the Houthis in Yemen:  By launching an aerial assault of Yemen, US and UK just officially incriminated themselves as accomplices to the genocide in Gaza. But what a futile exercise, Western merchant ships were still effectively stopped from entering the Red Sea because the global marine insurance industry would not as a result be encouraged to write insurance policies for vessels going into that region.  The embargo just got worse. Strategically speaking, the Houthis have tied the Anglo American Empire to a long war of attrition and doing it on the cheap. This will accelerate the demise of the West.

(ii) South African ICJ Case against Israel on Genocide in Gaza: South Africa’s 84 pages filing to ICJ is cut and dry because the proof of genocidal intent of Israel against the Palestinians are all from public records from Israeli officials. Once a verdict is given, there is also no escape for US and UK as accomplices.

(iii) Taiwan Election: The Greens won despite a 60% public sentiment swing against them. A sad day for the Blue and White politicians as their infighting will cost Taiwan dearly.  

2. The Global South: During my Melbourne holidays, I went to see the Twelve Apostles in Victoria. (Fig. 1).

The Twelve Apostles are a collection of limestone stacks off the shore of Port Campbell National Park in Victoria, Australia. Eight of the original nine stacks remain standing at the Twelve Apostles' viewpoint, after one collapsed in July 2005. Mighty as these Rock columns once stood, there is no match from the relentless attack by the waves from the Antarctic. You can see from the map insert in Fig. 1 (the blue dot at the southern tip on the Australian Map is where the Twelve Apostles stands, there is nothing in between to the Antarctic.). The Western Hegemony are just like the Rock Columns of the Twelve Apostles, their days are numbered.

The week’s financial markets:

A. Stock Market: DJI rose 127 points for the week or  0.34% for the first week. (Fig. 2).

The week started sharply higher on momentum trade from the previous week but gave way to disturbing news on escalation of war in the Middle East. In fact, the US Exchange Stabilization Funds was seen in maintaining order in the various financial markets on Friday’s NY close.

B. Debt Market: (Fig. 3): USGGe10YR ended the week at 3.939%, a rate decline of 8.88 basis points.

Continued huge fiscal expenditures has propped up the Labor Market. Although headline numbers were robust but weaknesses is seen in the mainly productive side of the US economy. Liquidity in the US Credit Market continued to decline. My forecast for a liquidity crunch at the end of Fecurary 2024 remained unchanged. (Fig. 4)

C. Commodities and Precious Metals: Trading results for the week: (Fig. 5) Uranium (+15.75%), NASDAQ (+3.43%), Rubble (+3.32%), S&P 500 (+2.01%), GBP (+0.14%), Gold (+0.11%), Eur (+0.03%), Silver (-0.07%), JPY( -0.25%), CNY (-0.38%), Oil (-1.71%) and Bitcoin (-3.76%).

Another highly manipulated Friday NY Close with the US Exchange Stabilization doing massive window dressing in favour of the US Stock and Bond Market and against Oil and Precious Metals to slow down momentum against USD from the Yemen attacks. These are just background noise that fools no one.

^{Leviticus 26:38}  You shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. ³⁹  And those of you who are left shall waste away in their iniquity in your enemies' lands; also in their fathers' iniquities, which are with them, they shall waste away.