Letting Fly Again

I was hopeful that the recent holiday North Korea took from firing missiles over Japan was a sign that either Kim Jung Un had been possessed by sanity.  I thought maybe China had finally gotten through to him. But no. North Korea resumed its antics, sending another missile headed towards Japan, and it appears that China, who seems to have a different view of them than does the USA, is not assisting in putting water in the fire.

I expect there will be U.S. military action by Spring of 2018. Sad because this is a situation in which there could be a lot of deaths and injuries.

Thor vs. JLA

I saw the new Justice League and Thor movies this week. No question in my mind about which was more entertaining. There are some good lookers in Justice League (the gal, Gal, who plays Wonder Woman is beautiful and has engaging expressions, and Ezra Miller, playing the Flash…well, he’s just delightful…my fav superhero as a kid was always the Flash, and Ezra has come close to making him my favorite again), but the Thor movie drew me in more and seemed a tighter and more unified story than JLA. The mandatory cameo by Stan Lee was in Thor.

I am reminded that I had the first Fantastic Four comic book, the Superman 25^th anniversary number, and several other special issues of DC and Marvel that today would make me a gazillionaire, but I also had a little sister and a little brother that eventually found my stash. Made mash of my stash. Oh well, they turned out pretty good after all.

Bitcoin Bites?

We’ve discussed Bitcoin here a few times --- how it serves the function of money but doesn’t behave like money. I have always been suspicious of it. I think there is a major collapse coming.  Sure, the price could soar much higher. There is a technological limit of 21 million bitcoins, and there are over 17 million already. Further, each new one takes more resources to create. It is unlikely that the 21 million limit will be hit because of the huge computing power (and electricity consumption for cooling and computation) that would be needed for those last few coins.

One threat to bitcoin is quantum computing technology. The day may come when the whole system can be hacked in minutes. Another problem is that the bitcoin supply cannot expand with the economy, so as money it can only be deflationary. You can’t have an economy thriving in deflation because borrowers will be hard to find. Who wants to borrow money that is relentlessly climbing in value? It has to be repaid. And who wants to spend that money? And if there are no borrowers or spenders, there is no bond market and no consumption market. Hard to picture a modern economy without a bond market or without people buying consumables. So bitcoin has limited uses. And maybe eventually no uses once government seeks to intrude into the process.

And if China Calls back its Money from the USA.....?

China is a big producer, but their people are not big buyers. China is an exporting nation. The Chinese produce for other nations, primarily the USA. China is basically its prosperous, exporting coastal regions and the poverty struck interior where the standard of living for the billion plus people that live there is about the same as it is in Ghana. These people are not a significant market for Chinese production. 

If China was to repatriate its investments in the USA, it might collapse the American economy….in fact, it probably would….but, it would implode China.  China depends on America! If America sneezes, China will catch pneumonia. 

Canada has traditionally tied its economy to the USA. That is the way the natural transportation routes go. It is much easier to ship to the USA than to elsewhere. The notion that some Canadian politicians espouse that we should be less reliant on American markets and export to China is myopic. Yeah, if the USA falters, Canada stumbles, but China even more so. Trading with China is another way of being reliant on the USA. My sense of the situation is that Canada should position itself as an adjunct to the USA economy, but should do it competitively with an emphasis on technological development and marketing sophistication. Canada, be part of the American economy, but be the most outstandingly profitable part of it.  

So What if Russia Interfered with the U.S. Election?

I notice a lot of commotion again about whether the Russians interfered in the U.S. election, and I think “So what?”  Did more electoral votes go Trump’s way than Clinton’s, or didn’t they? Each of the voters had their reasons for voting as they did. The Russians didn’t cast those votes. They didn’t count those votes. They didn’t proclaim the count. Besides, if we talk about nations that have interfered with foreign governments, which nation comes first to mind?  Russia?  Puhleeeze. 

Who is it that has jockeyed for world domination? After WWII ended, what nation opened military bases all around the world?  What nation parked nuclear weapons on other nation’s doorsteps and then refused to remove them even when those other nations were putting forth peace initiatives one after the other?  Something changed when Truman moved into the White House. Roosevelt had been trusting of the Soviets; Truman was not. So far as I can tell, he was confrontational and insisted that the USA have dominance in high powered weaponry. Eisenhower ramped up weapons production. Kennedy brought a bit of sanity to the table, as did Nixon and Ford later. Carter partook in the SALT negotiations. But Ray-Gun undid the benefits of that treaty, and no president since has really done anything significant to wind back the clock on the escalation of nuclear arms.  I don’t think Putin has or will ever be as threatening to world peace as has each of several U.S. presidents.