Uncontrolled Chaos

The week ended on Feburary 8, 2025, interesting news items to look at this week are:

1. Uncontrolled Chaos: Two remarks will underpin the geopolitical and economic conditions for the next 4 years. The first was by US Treasurer Bassett in his private briefing to Wall Street Financiers (paraphrase) “In Trump 1.0, you have to take Trump seriously but not literally, but for Trump 2.0, you have to take him both seriously and literally”. (Fig. 1)

Now Bassett is a no nonsense hard nose numbers person and reflects what he truly believes. The second comment was from Russian FM Sergey Lavrov “US is incapable to make agreement”. The bottom line of Trump enforcing MAGA is US allies and unaffiliated weaker states will see unbridled demands made on them by an Empire with insatiable appetite for freebies and advantages brought on by skyrocketing debts and a hollowed out manufacturing sector. For countries that have not bend the knee to the Empire, they will all queue up to join BRICS to insulate themselves against the wrath of a predator vulture. BRICS in turn will decouple from the Empire because to China, Russia, Iran and their allies, there is no assurances on pieces of paper signed by any US Officials.

(i) Mexico, Canada and Panama capitulated for a reprieve - Mexico will spend money to guard US border against illegal immigrants and Panama rumored to give free pass to US Naval Vessels crossing the Panama Canal. (Fig. 2)

(ii) Gaza genocide sanitized to mass expulsion and a Trump resort deal: First fantasized by son-in-law Jared Kushner in Trump 1.0, Trump would now want to take charge of Gaza and turn into a Middle East Riviera with casinos and hotels with lucrative offerings Saudi, UME and Qatar for a piece of the action. Forget about legality, morality of the ethnic cleansing and expropriation, well at least in Trump eyes, the killing may end. (Fig. 3).

If Egypt is forced to house the evicted Palestinians, the blow back from this former US ally and now a BRICS full member could prove explosive with PM Sisi destabilized. (Fig. 4)

(iii) Musk’s DOGE Goon Squad - A team of inexperienced youngsters, none aged above 26, are working 120 hours week to indiscriminately amputate branches of US government deemed inappropriate under Trump 2.0. (Fig. 5).

USAID was the first to go and 20,000 CIA staffers have received letters offering voluntary departure. The first blood against the Deep State has turned into a torrent. To the relief of countries under threat of a US sponsored covert color revolution, at least any future destabilization effort may officially come through the front door.

(iv) Cyber Attack on DeepSeek - Received a post from the old school classmate chat group which is worthwhile to re-post here: In context, globally Google only need to respond to 300,000 enquirers per second on her multiple Data Centers, when DeepSeek was under attack, she received 230 million hits per second and that would mean over one million zombie computers were employed to stage the attack. It is a blatant large scale State Actor from North America and it did not even break China’s civilian cyber defence. Just how very afraid US has become of a 130 people startup in China. The question is if a counter attack were launched of equal magnitude, can the US dilapidated infrastructure be sustained.

2. Changes in Financial Markets for the first week of February 2025.

(i) Key Financial Asset Category Performance: (Fig. 6) Copper (+7.92%), Jpy (+2.46%), Gold (+2.26%), Silver (+1.83%), Ruble (+1.62%), Uranium (+0.98%), AUD (+0.78%), Nasdaq (+0.22%), GBP (-0.08%), S&P500 (-0.17%), USD Index (-0.26%), Euro (-0.48%), Dow (-0.49%), Rmb (-0.51%), Oil (-1.37%), and Bitcoin (-5.73%).

Commodities and Precious Metals continued their surge against the Dollar as Trump begin his trade war with BRICS and reciprocating tariff revenge but relent on Mexico and Canada. As Bullion Bank repatriate the physical metal from LBMA, gold shorts were scrambling to find physical bullion to make delivery, Gold Lease Rate spike with spot gold price continue to climb. (Fig. 7).

(ii) Short Term Interest Rates: Short Term Rates remained steady with on and off tariff rumblings by  Trump (Fig. 8)

(iii) Duration Treasuries were bid as US Employment began to crack and rates softened. (Fig. 9)

Proverbs 16:18  Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall. 19  Better to be of a humble spirit with the lowly, Than to divide the spoil with the proud. 20  He who heeds the word wisely will find good, And whoever trusts in the LORD, happy is he.