Recognizing the Islamic State might be a way…

Posted on December 13, 2015 by SimonQ

Ok, so to say that what has been going on with ISIS is an absolutely disgusting shame is not helping, so I’ll refrain…. But someone is going to have to stop them…

Super Vladimir is at it again, undoubtedly with a broader agenda. The good news (relatively) is that the Russians are not held hostage by their media in how they deal with a war… And war is by definition the most horrible activity humans get themselves busy with…

Quite large numbers of Europeans (as well as Americans, Canadians, Australians, …) joined ISIS. What do we do? We do track them and offer all kinds of things upon their return to “help”. Seriously!! Ok, most now do go straight to jail and might stay there a while, but is that the right thing to do? Does it make us feel better about the fact that it is our Society that has brought them up to do what they do…?

Here’s an idea: the EU member States, Russia, the USA and others should formally recognize the Islamic State and in the same statement, declare war. This means that anyone from those States who goes to fight on the side of ISIS would be guilty of high treason under the rules of war and thus be promptly executed if they return or get caught. Not nice? Well, toughen up! It will make anyone think twice about which side they’re on and save us the pathetic intellectual debates about why it attracts some of our youth to whom we neglected to teach human values and respect of others and themselves…

What this means is war. We’d have to go out there and beat the holy crap out of them. This means killing the “enemies”, all of them, with the dreadful certitude that we’ll count among the victims innocent people, the elderly, women and children….

Are we ready for that? Think it over as we are getting there, slowly though, but that is where we’re going….

Unpleasant times ahead indeed…. And again: Watch the next elections!!!

Posted in 2084 - Scared Or Prepared | Leave a comment

The business of Migration…

Posted on December 13, 2015 by SimonQ

Well, to say the least, there’s been a heck of a flourishing business out there, taking advantage of human and economic misery, horrors of war on the one side and political weakness and brainless media on the other….

In the first quarter of the year, it was all about boatloads of migrants trying to make it to European territory, crossing the Mediterranean Sea from the north coast of Africa. One of those sad stories caught my curiosity: a hardly floating boat with one thousand people on board abandonned by its crew and “saved” by the Italian navy; well, average price of  being on that boat was USD 2’000 per person, i.e. that is a two million dollars cruise…. No doubt that type of sum will attract “entrepreneurial minds” lacking any other opportunity to earn a decent living…

Politicians in Brussels then spend weeks mulling over it to come up with the ever so wise view of wanting to offer to welcome up to 20’000 migrants in 2015, and distributing them throughout the EU. Wow, I do remember thinking that the people behind this business do not need to spend any money on marketing, Brussels does it for them. They just need to start selling the tickets.

So how are we doing today? We are getting close to one million migrants for the full year…. For the French speakers, I encourage to read “Le Camp des Saints” by Jean Raspail (ok, now an old chap, and a bit on the right of the right side of the political spectrum); it was written in 1973 and is a “tad politically incorrect”, i.e. if written today, I’m not even sure it would get published; my point is in fact to read the foreword in the most recent edition called “The Big Other”…. Pretty acute judgement of what is wrong with the politics and media nowadays (the book in that respect is incredibly “right on”!)

As I often wrote in previous blogs “watch the next elections”, and now we are shifting more and more to the “right” (e.g. see the French latest elections). What people want is the State to enforce authority, and apply the existing laws. The role the media play in criticizing any politician who happens to apply existing laws is appalling (e.g. the Hungarian Prime Minister).

Where are we going on this? Towards likely very unpleasant actions to stop it and furthermore unpleasant actions, however so necessary, to cut the flow at its source,… The latter has started, with the help of some young lunatics that get manipulated into shooting and killing innocent people, only boosting the hatred they promote, but against themselves…

To that we need to add a strong dose of geo-politics and we are heading for some really tough times. One possibility if the States do not handle it is to see “normal people” take it into their hands, eventually creating pockets of “quasi civil war” in some part of European cities…

Very spooky indeed…

Posted in 2084 - Scared Or Prepared | Tagged | Leave a comment

A good book for a good deed…!

Posted on April 20, 2015 by SimonQ

Its FREE !!! And I even hope this will cost me a max….

My book is free on Kindle for 5 days, because of a bet I made with a friend. Not a bet for my own gain, as here’s the deal: if free downloads do reach a certain level, I win the privilege of donating a fixed sum to a charity I shall refrain from naming (but it does good to many); and each multiple of the threshold thereafter, the amount goes up…

The figure is 1’000 (one thousand) downloads.

So here’s the gig.

Step 1:

You have Kindle, go ahead and “buy” my book for free by clicking on the link(s) below.

(btw, if you don’t have a Kindle, apply for the free “Kindle reading app” that is on the same page of the links, as it’s also free and works great on tablets, smartphones and computers).

Both versions of the book are for free:

English link

Russian link

Step 2:

Very important not to miss this one please….

Share this and the Kindle links on Twitter, Facebook or whatever source of multiple contacts you have and let’s see how far we get.

Part of any readers group? Please forward this to them…!

5 Days to go!!!

Let’s see how far we get on this one….

Thanks for your help!

Simon Q.

Posted in 2084 - Scared Or Prepared | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

A few thoughts for the summer….

Posted on June 15, 2014 by SimonQ

Was mentionning elections in the last posts and warning to watch them in many previous posts.

So, what happened? EU elections? The brain-unswitched left-wing media are up in arms “Oh, my God, the far-right is gaining audience like never before!!”. Of course, they are the Devil and Evil people and all… ok, but wait a minute, Democracies have expressed their views, no? And agreeing or not is not the point; this result should come as no surprise… people are fed up and want to be heard!

No reason to panic (yet, that is), as the far-right will indeed gain a good slice of the seats in the European Parliament, but nowhere close to be able to impose anything; however way enough to be heard, and loudly… is that not Democracy, after all?

What will be most important to follow and influence is where we go from here…

Now Ukraine? Well, chocolate and a strong punch was an easy thing to foresee in my last post, i.e. Mr. Poroshenko was elected President and Vitaliy Klitchko mayor of Kiev. One key point to be hopeful for changes for the better is that both are in no need of money…

Now summer is ahead, with the usual slow months of July and August, and the traditional September awakening. The French call it the “Rentrée Sociale”, and no doubt it will continue to be interesting this year….

Just to raise a few points: I picked-up 4 topics in the Wall Street Journal of the first of this month, and they are all within the first 5 pages:

– “US Economy shrank during frigid 1st Quarter”. Bad news, as no “horny” Quarter foreseen ahead….

– “Election over, Europe launches a Turf War”, on the election of the European Commission President by the new Parliament… well, let’s see how the votes from the Evil side will go, as they will be heavily courted by many…

– “Police Battle Barcelona Squatters”. Yep, after the indignados, the looting of supermarkets organized by Unions (see that blog here) , keep following these topics, as the proportion of people likely to go over the edge and express their views and hopes violently will not diminish…

– Last but not least: “Britain Adds The Wages From Crime To Its GDP”. I am not making this one up!!! Cool, huh? Getting pretty desperate to show nice statistics, as the Government claims it is 2.3% of GDP….

Keep smiling and enjoy the summer!!!!

Simon Q.

 

Posted in Economic Realities | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Is there a Chinese problem?

Posted on May 22, 2014 by SimonQ

 

China is a lot in the news recently, and not because of exports, or growth…

Corruption? Big-time!

Anti-Chinese resentment? Look at Vietnam these days. Given the overall feeling against “Chinese” throughout Asia, expect some more of that to pop up here and there….

Knife attacks in train stations? Bombs in open-markets? The domestic front seems to have many cracks..

Hmm, honestly, worrisome trend to follow closely. As if and when Chinese sociological pressure cooker will go boom, it will do so in a mega-way (see “The Tale of the Chinese Meltdown ” chapter in the book)…

More on that one in some weeks?

Simon Q.

Posted in 2084 - Scared Or Prepared | Leave a comment

As said numerous times: Watch the next elections….

Posted on May 22, 2014 by SimonQ

So here we go, European Parliamentary elections throughout the EU this weekend!

Now to have an idea of the general “ambiance”, let’s take a quick look at the news presented officially as “good” over the past months (not to mention the “fantastic, let’s throw a party!” tone usually used).

Portugal is out of the dolldrums… really? Anemic growth last year and back to red in Q1 this year; let’s keep an eye on the huge social costs of the austerity measures which made that “growth” possible. Socio-political impact is yet to be recognised, and that will likely not happen before people take to the streets… or express themselves through the balott boxes?

The Euro-Zone’s GDP has started growing again… youpiiiie! Yeah, by a whopping 0.2% in Q1 this year. OK, any analysis of what growth that was, in which area, how? Nope…. Well, better news than if it were negative, and all those statisticians out there who will mention that given the margin of error, it might well be red, please don’t spoil the party.

Borrowing costs are way down for EURO-Zone Government bonds! Well, lots of money needs to find a home and will be looking for the safer ones…. so great news, the EURO-Zone is back in favour, which means that the rest of the world is doing…. worse! Not sure that is good news, but let’s take it all the same.

Interestingly, in an environment where we want to talk ourselves out of trouble by not mentionning bad news, or the suffering in real people’s lives and hope that it will all just get better because we say so, well, some new words have appeared, further enriching the English vocabulary: Grecovery, Grecession… or even Grepression? (Remember that our Greek friends did indeed invent many things… ;-).

Well, what will really happen for Greece (and others)? One indicator: Youth unemployment still at 60%, with many people simply dropping out of the system entirely, so not even appearing in the statistics anymore…

This means that out of ten young people, four might have some kind of job, many on a temporary basis and if you make more than EUR 1’500.- gross? Man, you are now among the mega-privileged!

As said in numerous previous blogs: Watch the next elections! And that is this weekend….

And in any case, and for whatever it’s worth: my advice in two words: Go Vote!!

Simon Q.

 

Posted in 2084 - Scared Or Prepared, Economic Realities | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

So far, so good….. No, seriously!!!

Posted on May 22, 2014 by SimonQ

Well, Ukraine is calming down…. Good ol’ Vladimir did get Crimea, made a fuss everywhere else to divert attention and raise enough fears so that all settle for a “Phew, he only took Crimea, so we’re good… !”. Well done, Vlad’! (You’ve been reading my blogs, huh?)

News from Ukrainian friends was that some biznessmen had to chip in to pay for gasoline to fill the military vehicles’ tanks so they could at least get out of their compounds; and the local population was delivering food to the soldiers, so they would eat. Speaks a million words about the way military budgets evaporate before even leaving the various ministries. Didn’t I use “the very worst Banana Republics in history” in the book….? Also loved the coverage of the facilities inside the financial administration building in Kiev…

Now how about that referendum in Eastern Ukraine? They sure made some noise beforehand, didn’t they? But since the vote? Nothing, no press coverage of any results, and no reaction from either side… interesting, no?

Oh yeah, and the oligarchs are now getting into the game. They need to keep Ukraine as a country to even exist, don’t they? Just as a reminder of obviousness: smell the money!

Overall, the trend is not bad, honestly. Elections are coming up and results will be recognised by all…. There will be some people who know well all sides and respective “history and interests” that will take control and slowly sort things out (chocolate, anyone? With a hard punch?). I remain convinced it will work, only because those people will have the interest of Ukrainians in mind, all Ukrainians…..

More on this one soon. Right Vlad’?

Simon Q.

Posted in 2084 - Scared Or Prepared, Uncategorized | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Gee, this one could turn out real ugly…..

Posted on March 3, 2014 by SimonQ

So just before year end, I wrote about Ukraine (and other places of “unrest”) and see where they are today…..

So ok, the street movement was clearly very well organised and its strings pulled by many. We even had an anonymous posting on Internet of a phone conversation in which a US Under-Secretary of State sums it up with a “F*** the EU”!! Fun wasn’t it? Good phone-snooping skills too! Could we have some more of that? Like a chat between Putin and Yanoukovitch?

Amazingly, the street won this time (at least for now), the President is on the run and everybody swiftly follows the wind of “change”… Politicians, administration bosses, oligarchs? They always were with the poeple of Ukraine, weren’t they….

Anyway, the road ahead will be quite a challenge for all and very interesting to follow. What happened so far? The ex-or-still-President is hiding somewhere, likely plotting some not-so-nice moves yet to be played out, the Parliament is getting a bit carried away and acts before thinking and Russia is scaring the crap out of the world with that inimitable “soviet style” of  international politics.

Hopefully, they’re just going to ensure Crimea stays “theirs”; which is kind of normal, as there is no way they can let that one go… More invasive within the rest of Ukraine? Hmmm, unlikely in an overly blatant way, however expect some rough times for Ukraine and Ukrainians, between less or no gas (in any case far more expensive than what they got it for so far), a freeze of cross-border business through some over-zealous controls virtually blocking everything and quite some on-the-ground actions to destabilize whoever has some power that they dislike of.

Not much noise from the oligarchs though. They are all likely out of the country, scrambling to ensure they get as much of their assets as they can beyond the reach of Ukraine, Russia, the EU etc… which has become quite difficult these days.

Let’s see also what happens with their ex-Prime minister whose release from prison was one of the first decisions taken by the “new power”, giving a bit away who was behind some of this, as well as financing it. After being paraded around in a wheelchair, making a “moving speech”, she promptly left the country in a private jet to get proper medical treatment….

I did write “watch the political lines, and above all, smell the money” a couple of months ago…. let’s see where it will go from here!

Simon Q.

Posted in 2084 - Scared Or Prepared, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

And a few more points to ponder…

Posted on December 26, 2013 by SimonQ

Maybe it is the globalization of news, but unrest throughout the world is popping up all over the place, for various alleged reasons and in various forms.

Syria continues to be a tragedy, way too often described in the media as an “internal” issue, but when you look at the many “powers” interfering, from big to small, one must expect it to continue feeding the news with increasing drama.

Thailand? Well that is more of the same, each sides swapping roles every few years, between who’s in office and who’s in the streets…. Would personally love to see the King stand up and speak the mind of the people, all the people, not only the noisiest.

And of all places, riots in…. Singapore!? The weirdest news out of that one was the shock within the authorities and the police, who were so ill-prepared for such a possibility, that they had neither riot-gear and relevant “equipment”, nor had received any training on how to address such problems. Funny, no? They had not even thought it could happen, at any scale….

Aah, and Ukraine is at it again. Russia interferes with discounted gaz (am simplifying a bit here), which represents a few billion dollars a year for the few in control; how simple is that, you fiddle the numbers to say it was consumed in Ukraine, while reselling it on the international market at normal rates – through those ever so tax-efficient Swiss-based trading houses. Last time they so abused the statistics, that even the Russians got upset and closed the taps. Interestingly, the ex-Prime Minister – presently in jail on foggy grounds – who is so keen to present herself as a victim was in the “gaz bizness” with her husband in the nineties. Small circles we are turning in…. A solution would be to settle things through some fist fights, so the Klitschko guy would be a strong favorite.

Oh, and here comes Turkey. High-level corruption, big time manipulation and influence games between the military, the business-world and the government will not bring much good…. This is likely to have strong implications, as a big mess in Turkey would spread and be “quite unpleasant”. Just look at a map to see what I mean…

And the last one is for little Kim, North Korean buddy of Dennis Rodman, who is cleaning up some business conflicts and had his own uncle executed by a firing squad. In fact, news is now coming out that some underlings were executed with antiaircraft guns, with some top-guys watching (Kim himself is suspected to have been there). Just to give an idea, you do not to pick up any bodies after such an execution, as those weapons leave nothing to be picked-up…..

Anyway, and as always when these things hit the news, watch the political lines behind them, and above all, smell the money….

Simon Q.

Posted in 2084 - Scared Or Prepared | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

A year of progress? But towards what…?

Posted on December 26, 2013 by SimonQ

Sorry dear readers, it’s been a while…..

So I just thought I would reflect a bit on any progress made over this year before we cruise along into next.

As a long-retired colleague of mine liked to say, “we’ve had an average year, worse than last, but better than next”…

Quite some frontpage news covered the return to growth of some European economies, however anemic that growth might have been. The UK was boasting about avoiding a double-dip recession when they announced with fanfare a 0.1% GDP growth. Not exactly great, but the need for good news is so high that we took it gladly, though no one was really fooled by the propagandist thoughts behind such a statistical outcome.

Anemic growth there is, however. But anemia is not exactly a sign of great health, is it?

European banks’ issues? Well, each time capital ratios and so-called acid-tests are performed on their balance sheets, the results come out worse, mainly due to the scope of wiggling-space that is used (and abused) to calculate real amounts at risk…

The EU has supposedly decided to set-up a formal body to assess banks and eventually close them down if necessary. Well, that will be yet another EU red-tape monster without much clout and political interference at each national level will make it kind of fun to watch. And the latest official estimates talk about 500 banks that would need to be closed. Who will pay? Oh, c’mon, let’s not get bogged down into details…..

Remember Cyprus? That has pretty much disappeard from the news! Was it solved? No, of course not, progress is “snailingly” slow (just made that word up). One possible outcome is that Russia, oups, sorry “Russian depositors” will end up owning one bank there, and owning a full-fledged EU Bank is an interesting “asset” to have. Going back through the various blogs on this one might bring a smile to your face. And it isn’t over yet, by far….

Budgetary deficits have had ups and downs, more ups than downs though; given the level at which they were, that was not too tough a target, but again lets take any good news we can get. Though the trends might not be tooooo bad, the budget deficits are still large by any measure, and that in an “austerity” mood that is hammering a large part of the population, compromising their well-being, their future and that of their children. You saw me coming, this brings us back to what I see as the hottest topic of our times: Youth Unemployment.

Much is said about it and the youth of today is often called the “lost generation”; of course by elderly “experts” who might have long forgotten what being young is all about. “Lost generation”? I don’t think so, as youth will by definition build one for themselves, by any means they see fit…. Hopefully, more through the ballot-boxes than in the streets, though most probably a strong mix of both.

So back to one of my favorite lines: Watch the next elections…..

Simon Q.

Posted in Economic Realities | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment