Power without Principles and Ambitions without Abilities

The week ended on January 23, 2026, interesting news items to look at from the past two weeks are:

1. Power without Principles and Ambitions without Abilities: It is only three weeks into 2026 and my head is already spinning from all the Geo-political adventures that the US is maneuvering either as counter punches to China or to consolidate her power base to remain as the apex predator in an increasingly chaotic world. It would be wrong to assume US has made a strategic retreat based on the old “Monroe doctrine” - the “Donroe Doctrine”. My thesis is US is experiencing “Desperate Times” and therefore engages in “Desperate Moves”. Canadian PM Mark Carney said in Davos this week that we are looking at “a rupture in the world order, the end of a present fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality where geopolitics, where the large main power geopolitics is submitted to no limits, no constraints.” Allow me to present a map showing the US intentions already expressed and evaluate the possible fall-outs. (Fig. 1).

(i) Venezuela - The most stunning revelation from the U.S. military operation that captured Venezuelan Nicolás Maduro isn’t just the audacity of the January 3rd raid—it’s what made it possible. New reporting confirms that Diosdado Cabello, Venezuela’s feared interior minister and Maduro’s supposed enforcer, had been secretly communicating with the Trump administration for months before American forces swooped into Caracas and extracted the socialist strongman. (Fig. 2).

So it wasn’t the might of the Navy SEALS and Delta Force but an inside job that shuts down the air defense system, stood down resistance and opened the gates to the barbarians.

From the UK News Media Guardian “Andrés Izarra, a former government minister who now lives in exile, believes Maduro’s abduction has undermined Cabello and that he will bow to the US. “Diosdado is a walking zombie,” Izarra said. “He’s been left with his pants down.” The failure of Venezuela’s security apparatus to protect Maduro leaves Cabello little choice but to follow the lead of Rodríguez, and her brother, Jorge, the head of the national assembly, who have cooperated with the Trump administration, said Izarra. “He just was totally overrun. I mean, he is the security minister. And they took away the head of state under his nose. I mean, what the fuck? He has no agency. He has no power.” 

Without boots on the ground as enforcers and US oil majors opined that Venezuela’s oil is “univestable”, I suppose US can still play some role using the US Navy as “Pirates of the Caribbean” and siphon off proceeds of the pirated oil shipments to bank accounts in Qatar. (Fig. 3).

Why Qatar? Well money owned by Venezuela are subject to a number of claims including IMF, China and US and foreign creditors and so by Presidential Executive Order Trump annulled all creditors claims against the oil proceeds and then parked in Qatar and to bypass Congressional supervision. (Fig. 4).

But just guess who bought the pirated Venezuela at a deep discount. (Fig. 5).

The roughly $250 million sale (first reported as having a value of $500 million) of Venezuelan crude went to Vitol, a Geneva-based energy and commodity trading firm whose US arm is headquartered in Houston. The Financial Times reported late last week that John Addison, a senior trader at Vitol, was involved in his company’s efforts to secure the deal. Addison, who attended a recent White House meeting with other top oil executives, donated $6 million total to Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign via several super PACs, including $5 million to MAGA Inc. US Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), noted on social media that Vitol has a “criminal history of bribing foreign governments” and called the Venezuelan oil deal “fundamentally corrupt.”

In the meantime, Chinese Oil Enterprises is said to continue its operations in Venezuela (Fig. 6).

(ii) Greenland - Another name of US resource grab without compensation or consent in the guise of global security. But why a sudden U turn and a withdrawal of military and tariff coercion? Details are scant at this stage but EU as a creditor to US of $10.4 trillion in Equities and Debt, a financial retaliation can be lethal. (Fig. 7).

(iii) Canada - Just 10 days after US aggression on Venezuela, Canada PM shook hands with China in a State visit to Beijing to openly trade coveted oil, natural gas and uranium exports with previously China banned canola oil, agricultural and livestock products, lobsters and seafood. Correspondingly, Canada has relaxed import restrictions on Chinese electric vehicles, reducing the tariff from 100 percent to 6.1 percent. However, the current limit is 49,000 Chinese-made EVs per year, with the quota expected to grow annually.  Thanks to Trump, Canadians found so quickly the enemy of my enemy is my friend. (Fig. 8).

Breaking it down, Carney’s China visit included the signing of a memorandum for a third-phase bilateral central bank swap. The exact amount to be exchanged is not yet known. …. In trade settlements, the countries can use the swap notes as payment, bypassing the U.S. dollar. This is a concrete step toward internationalizing the renminbi, with far-reaching benefits beyond the balance sheet. 

(iv) Iran - The Iranian experience is a classic playbook of CIA engineered regime change and have gone through all the developmental stages of (a) Demoralization - the classic psy-war of demonizing an opponent, (b) Destabilization - severe trade and economic sanctions to weaken a country’s financial and economic well being and hardened public rebellion, (c) Crisis -  implant armed agent provocateur to incite violence and create excuse for military attack.

What remains is a kinetic war. Trump has twice backtracked on an attack. The first was when a number of US Gulf allies refused to lend their territories as an air strike staging platform. I suppose credit for that should go to China on the historic reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Iran in March 2023. The second set back was when agent provocateurs were taken out after Musk’s starlink were nullified as a communication tool between agent provocateurs. (Fig. 9)

Instead, through a deployment of Chinese black technology and drone swam, Iran was able to track starlink satellite terminals, disrupt its messages and identified the locations of the agent provocateurs. Iran is a big country and without intelligence on the ground, it will be a monumental task for the US military to score a surgical strike.

In the meantime the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group is sailing towards Iran. (Fig. 11).

However Iran is not Venezuela and a single Carrier trike Group already proved inadequate to take out even the Houthis. Military analysts believe it will take 3 Carrier Strike Groups to confront Iran. Let’s pray that common sense will prevail over what may be an escalation into WWIII.

2. Follow the Money: We have moved from Psy-wars, Trade Wars, Tech Wars, Proxy Wars, Currency Wars, Capital Wars and now unto Resource Wars. Large legacy powers  lie, cheat, print, pirate and kill for resources or choke their opponents from resources because slogans and empty promises have gone beyond their used by date. Allow me to present the Chart below (Fig. 12), there are 5 commodities that the brave new world have secured and one legacy resource which the bygone powers desperately is grasping in the hope to frame forever her past glory.

From December 31, 2024 to January 23 2026, their performance were as follows: Silver (+257.02%); Uranium (+114.76%); Gold (+91.40%); Lithium (+79.45%); Copper (+45.65%), Hang Seng Index (+33.47%); S&P500(+16.64%); Euro (+13.64%); JPY (+0.78%); Bitcoin (-3.38%); USD Index (-9.83%) and Brent Oil (-11.67%).

My friends be guided and keep well.

Proverbs 20:18  Plans are established by counsel; By wise counsel wage war.  

Puzzles, Checkers and The Game of Go

The week ended on January 9, 2026, interesting news items to look at from the past week are:

1. Puzzles, Checkers and The Game of Go: In our last Blog we used 4 chess-type board games to represent the level of sophistication and thinking of officials that are running major nations. We like to take the analogy a step further to examine the US invasion of Venezuela, the kidnap of President Maduro and the piracy of oil tankers in international waters. No one of course has complete information on the incidents. By no one, I mean from all person of interest be they from US, Israel, Venezuela, China, Russia and nations in the Western alliance and the Global South. The incidents of course has catastrophic global consequences and we all need to take time to gather the missing pieces of this puzzle of “Pirates of the Caribbean” and to prepare for its fallout. (Fig. 1).

(i) Immediate Known Reaction of Consequence: (a) 5 Senate Republicans jumped ship and voted with the Democrats to advance a bill to check Trump’s power for further military action against Venezuela unless with Congressional Approval. (Fig. 2).

In a recent interview with the NY Times, Trump boasted the only thing which can stop him is "My own morality. My own mind", indicating a belief that he is not bound by international law or other external legal constraints when making decisions as president. (Fig. 3)

(b)  Trump has committed “aggression crime,” founding International Criminal Court prosecutor says (Fig. 4).

(c) “Era of lawlessness”: UN blasts Trump over Venezuelan raids (Fig. 5)

(d) '‘Uninvestable’: Trump pitch to oil execs yields no promises (Fig. 6)

(e) Protesters Worldwide Condemn U.S. Assault on Venezuela - Cities include  Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C., in the US and Ankara, Brussels, Havana, London, Madrid, Mexico City and cities throughout Venezuela. (Fig. 7)

Now let me ask the readers of this Blog, were any of the above reactions a surprise to you?  I expect all of you would answer with a resounding NO!. Similarly, I do not expect any reader would buy into the narrative that the invasion of Venezuela was to stop drug trafficking into the US.  The US DOJ already admitted the drug cartel cited by President Donald Trump as a justification for his military strike on Venezuela and capture of President Nicolas Maduro doesn’t actually exist. (Fig. 8).

Therefore, if the US military action to control the oil reserves in Venezuela  is a Hail Mary charge with no measurable economic benefits and certain of an avalanche of negative blow backs, what one may ask is the ultimate end game. 

At this juncture I like to table a few more pieces of the puzzle not commonly reported in Western MSM. They are  (a) The Security Chief of Maduro’s Palace Guard received US$50 million as the price to betray Maduro but was himself killed during the kidnap. (Fig. 9)

translated from Taiwan ETToday) and (b) Open Intelligence source mentioned on December 23, 2025 around midnight11 planes departed from Venezuela and in sequence the first 3 to Miami, USA from Simón Bolívar International Airport in Caracas, purportedly carried mining equipment but included a small portion of Venezuela’s refined strategic reserves, the fourth and fifth planes departed from Luisa Cáceres de Arismendi International Airport and carried senior executives of Petróleos de Venezuela, SA and their family members to land at Panama City.the sixth and seventh planes departed from a private airport in  the Portuguesa State and carried extremely valuable mining equipment, the eighth and ninth planes were Russian registered Antonov An-124 large transport planes with payload capacity of 120 to 150 tons which took off from Canaima National Park for a stealth cargo operation. The Canaima National Park is secretly linked to a storage facility of Venezuela’s silver mines. The tenth and eleventh planes were registered in China and operated privately by Cosco Shipping with unknown takeoff point nor destination. The final result were 847 tons of Venezuela’s strategic silver reserve were removed from Venezuela and majority of went to Russia and China and not Miami in a double sting operation. Then on December 29 2025, a most spectacular silver short squeeze was engineered which brought Western Bullion and SIB to its knees. (Fig 10).

This has been reported in my last Blog post. (c) China announced on October 2025 new silver export controls, transitioning to a licensing system that took effect January 1, 2026, replacing older quotas to tighten state oversight on strategic minerals, requiring licenses for designated companies and elevating silver's control similar to rare earths to prioritize domestic needs, with the policy impacting 2026-2027 exports.

(ii) Checkers and the game of Go: The famous Trend forecaster Gerald Celente said “our ability to read trends is in seeing the interconnections of global events”. Whilst Trump celebrate a successful Delta Force Operation Absolute Resolve, we are not short in memory of the failed Black Hawk Down, the retreat in Vietnam and Afghanistan. On the other hand Operation Absolute Resolve has all the hallmarks of covert operations of Mossad and the Israeli Defense Force (“IDF”). Within the same period, three events have come up for mentioning here: (a) Beginning on 28 December 2025, mass demonstrations erupted across multiple cities in Iran amid widespread dissatisfaction with the Islamic Republic government and a deepening economic crisis with every sign of a sponsored color revolution (b) Operation Iron Strike was approved by Israel’s war cabinet in January 2026 after consultation with Donald Trump. (Fig. 11).

Operation Iron Strike is currently in the mobilization phase with US and Israel and could begin as early as the next 72 hours and (c) China is in escalation dominance in response to a move by Japan to re-militarize. The diplomatic term used was “奉事召見”. The term "奉示召见" is a highly formal phrase used by the Chinese government to convey a top-level, stern diplomatic warning that carries the weight of national resolve. Neither Japan’s PM nor FM took heed when Japan Ambassador to China was summoned in response to Japan PM’s comment of a possible military intervention over China’s unification with Taiwan and now a full spectrum of pressure will escalate until Japan breaks.

In gaming of Go, both US and China are using a tactic called “壓強不壓弱”meaning taking out peripheral weak pawns before entering an opponent’s main theater. The dynamics has changed and the competitors on each said has hyperscaled all available resources, tactics and strategies. (Fig. 12)

Everyone has crossed the Rubicon and WWIII is not an if but a when. My prayers is that you stay alert and keep well.

Luke 21:34  "But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly. 35  For it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. 36  Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man." 

 

Black Swans, Grey Rhinos and The Long Cycle of History

A look ahead for 2026 written on January 3^rd 2026.

1. Black Swans, Grey Rhinos and The Long Cycle of History: If 2025 can be summed up in one word, the word I choose is “awaken”. Awaken in the sense that a large population in the global village has finally woken to a reality that the promissory notes given to them by the ruling elites would not be honored. For the most part of my working life I was able to function because the prevailing environment was “Thy Word is Thy Bond”. I also witnessed first hand a gradual deterioration of integrity with a passing of the baton through generational changes. 

For 2026 my choice of words is “春” as in the season “Spring”  the passing of a period of cold and darkness into a season of early budding and life. “Spring” in English could also mean a coil under pressure ready to decompress in force. Depending on the individual circumstances, both may be applicable. For the majority of people, the future cannot be predicted with certainty, however, my Christian world view says” there is nothing new under the sun”.  So for pure academic interest, allow me to highlight a few signs that will mark what is to come.

(i)  Black Swans - A "Black Swan event" is a rare, unpredictable event with massive consequences, like a financial crash or major war, that people rationalize after the fact. What happened in Geo-politics and economics in 2025 and to happen in 2026 and beyond are but a continuation of well known frictions that are decades in the making. Allow me to post a cartoon I created back in October 2022.  (Fig. 1)

- the burning Dollar, China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Afghanistan and Islamic Terrorism, what else is new.  It has always been beyond Uncle Sam’s band width to take on a handful of nations that would not bend the knee to the Empire. Sadly it took 7 years and a doubling of debt burden ($17 trillion to be exact) for the elites in US to learn they can never win by playing checkers with masters of the game of Go. For those readers who do not play board games, (Fig. 2) is a simplistic view of the level of sophistication between Checkers, Chess, Chinese Chess and Go.

It is a tragedy to have Checker level players running a big country.

(ii) Grey Rhinos - A "grey rhino" is a metaphor for a highly probable, high-impact threat that is often ignored despite obvious warning signs. Second only to Geo-politics and economics, is the impact of AI on the economy and employment. Jensen Huang CEO of Nvidia used a 5 layer cake as an analogy to represent the artificial intelligence ecosystem. (Fig. 3).

As a major beneficiary of the AI investment boom in US we need to take Huang’s narrow focus with a pinch of salt. For the past 70 years, educators have horned the pathway in the complexity of human learning with Benjamin Bloom’s learning model. (Fig. 4).

What we currently have in both US and China in terms of AI is but at the initial levels of machine learning when compared with human intelligence. AI is only at the primordial level of recognition, memory, recollection and repetition, albeit, at a traveling speed of electrons in a 4-nanometer pathway. To that we then add algorithmic enhanced regression, decision trees, grouping, classification and mimic images and languages. What the Big 5 within the Magnificent 7 in US is doing has more to build a rent seeking monopoly than true intelligence development. Are we surprised that DeepSeek only takes $6 million to train rather than hundreds of millions for Large Language Models in the US. Why go through the entire Cyber Space for answers when a survey of 8 to 10 web sites can already provide a good enough answer for majority of questions. Was it beyond comprehension in the MIT report that 95% of generative AI pilots failed to show measurable profit & loss (P&L) impact within six months, with only 5% scaling successfully, despite billions invested in AI experiments. The US AI bubble will burst and with it a deflation of asset prices and credit contraction beyond known financial history. The first sign already appeared when Blue Owl Capital pulled its equity funding for a $10 billion Michigan facility in collaboration with Oracle and OpenAI. (Fig. 5).

Across the Pacific, small yet significant steps have been taken by China in robotics and AI application from coal mining in Shanxi (Fig. 6)

to Xiao Mi dark factory for smartphones in Beijing. (Fig. 7) that are giving China a competitive cost advantage by leaps and bounds.

Coming back to Bloom’s Taxonomy, application is a critical third level of learning towards the ultimate objective of creativity.

(iii) The Long Cycle of History - In a financialized economy, civilian research are only rewarded if the research results in actionable trades. So what you read whether in MSM or stockbroker’s report are all instruments to create a narrative and momentum driven trading environment. Charlie Munger said "The big money is not in the buying and selling, but in the waiting". Warren Buffet reinforces this idea by saying, "The stock market is designed to transfer money from the active to the patient". (Fig. 8).

I would suggest we all take shelter from the day to day background news and noise pollution and look back at the Long cycle of History.  A good indicator is to take a look at the long credit cycle represented by an interest rate graph of the US 10 Year Treasury (Fig. 9).

60 Years ago in 1964, we are about to enter a cycle of heightened inflation towards a default of Bretton Woods in 1971. This time round, the reverse will happen and Bretton Woods 2.0 will be reestablished. Human nature is such that no one wants to buy gold at $1,500 an ounce in 2019 but would queue up in front of bullion dealers when the price hit $4,500.

2. Asset Class Performance 2025.

For 2025, various asset class performance as follows(Fig. 10):

Silver (+142.56%); Gold (+62.5%); Uranium (+46.7%); Copper (+41.75%); Russian Rubble (+40.7%); Hang Seng Index (+30.61%); Shenzhen Index (+28.51%); Nasdaq (+20.34%); SP500 (16.64%); Euro (+14.4%); DJI (+13.38%); CNY (+4.38%); JPY (+0.55%); Bitcoin (-9.71%), Brent Oil (-19.68%).

Allow me to flag some short term red alerts that everyone should take note.

(a) The US financial system is out of cash despite the Fed already pumped $101 billion by Dec 30. It was only announced that from December 12, the Fed would buy $40 billion per month and the Fed cannot predict just 3 weeks out. (Fig. 11)

(b) The US Treasury can only fresh fund Treasury issues through synthetic demand via derivatives driven basis trade and SOFR volume (Inter-bank Overnight Lending) continued to increase crowding out commercial funding needs. (Fig. 12)

(c) Emergency Funding Arrangements (“REPO”) are tapped repeatedly in December even on Christmas and New Year’s Eve because of liquidity squeeze.(Fig. 13)

(d) There is apprehension amongst banks operating in the US. As at December 31, 2025, some $105 billion surplus liquidity are parked by some banks with the Fed using the Reverse Repo Facility despite a higher yield offered by SOFR. There are other banks in need which could not obtain overnight funding despite offering collateral of Treasury or Agency Notes. (Fig. 14).

My friends be on guard and stay safe.

Ecclesiastes 3:1  To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven: 

Ecclesiastes 1:9  That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun. 10  Is there anything of which it may be said, "See, this is new"? It has already been in ancient times before us.