Sive Morten
Special Consultant to the FPA
- Messages
- 18,669
Fundamentals
The news stream this week becomes narrower. Closer to the end of the year, markets become quiet and no important statistics usually released. So, today we prepare a kind of "special" report that let us to explain why gold market should get inspiring future ahead. You will see that all ongoing events, political, economical become a parts of this major process. It is really big stakes on the table - either the US and allies will keep control over the world or its hegemony will be destroyed and they will become just one among the many others. With so poor situation in economy the US will meet cruel deep crisis that could change the structure of the state. But they are not alone who vitally depends on results. For China this is also the question of survival. Not because they will disappear but because they will appear under the US authority if they will loose. When events of such scale stand in the world, you can't stay without gold as it becomes the only reliable wealth preserver. It is a time when investors very soon start asking return of the investments, rather than return on the investments...
Market overview
Gold prices gained on Thursday as the dollar retreated after U.S. economic data fueled expectations the Federal Reserve would cut interest rates in March next year. Data showed U.S. gross domestic product increased at a 4.9% annualized rate last quarter, revised down from the previously reported 5.2% pace, while weekly jobless claims increased slightly. The market expects an 83% chance of a Fed rate cut by March, compared with 79% before the data, according to the CME FedWatch tool.
The Fed's dovish stance has caused markets to price in several rate cuts in 2024. However, some Fed officials have spoken out against imminent rate cuts. The U.S. dollar fell 0.5% and 10-year Treasury yields hovered near a five-month low.
October was the second-largest month for sales of US stocks to foreign investors, official institutions are getting rid of Treasuries, and gold reserves are growing. ️For the second month in a row, total net inflows of foreign long-term portfolio investment into the United States were tiny (just $3.3 billion). ️However, the reporting month is not entirely indicative now, since sales reigned in the markets in October, and then a rally began.
Situation with global trade is deteriorating. Baltic dry index jumped for 3% this week, global supply pressure is growing either. FedEx shares plunge 9% after report
In general, problems with logistics companies are a bad signal for the economy. Transportation is a key indicator of economic health. The Dow theory was even built on this.
The US strategy aimed at de-industrializing Europe has begun to bear fruit: investments in the construction of factories in the US have risen sharply. Bloomberg calls this a “construction boom.” However, adjusted for accumulated inflation (29.5% since 2015), the figures do not look so impressive: the volume of investment is approximately consistent with the previous peaks of 2015-2016.
And the growth of investment in factories is not confirmed by statistics on the growth of industrial production. Despite all the numerous advantages of the United States (lower taxes, ultra-cheap energy, incentives for relocations, the largest sales market), industrial production in the United States has been stagnating since April 2022.
The main problem of the US is the shortage of qualified personnel (they are extraordinarily expensive here compared to China, Mexico or even European countries) and demotivation for unskilled labor - huge unemployment benefits are corrupting.
China is draining treasuries, that's a fact. Already almost $125 billion in the 12 months from September 2022:
By the way, this is not the first call from the ex-adviser of the PBoC the famous economist Yu Yongding, to get rid of American debt. Let's add a little context and quotes - Yunding spoke at an international forum in the Chinese city of Sanya:
Actually, the recent information warm-up on the part of the EU about the confiscation of Russian assets speaks of the same thing. We are on the verge of an active phase of capital market decoupling. Everything that is "bad" will be blocked.
Western countries, including the United States, are exploring the possibility of justifying the seizure of Russian Central Bank assets frozen in the financial system and using them to finance Kiev . However, legal experts warn that this would be a sharp departure from usual practice, fraught with legal and economic risks . In addition, this issue causes a lot of controversy among allies.
️The G7 countries, the EU and Australia froze about 260 billion euros of assets of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation in 2022. Most of these assets - about 210 billion euros - are held in the EU, including cash and government bonds denominated in euros, dollars and other currencies. By comparison, the United States has frozen only a small portion of Russian state assets: about $5 billion euros. Once again EU will take the major part of this political risk.
It means they have given up on the global financial system. Once we confiscate assets, we are starting an irreversible process of disengagement and there will soon be no large Asian capital on Western markets. Second is, Germany and Russia are exchanging assets. On a surface it looks like mutual expropriation of frozen assets, but we suggest that this is agreed procedure. Its just simpler to do by mutual seizing now.
The German Prosecutor General’s Office wants to seize part of Russian assets worth more than €720 million and replenish the state budget with them. As reported by Der Spiegel, a corresponding request has been submitted to the court in Frankfurt am Main. Meantime Russia considers to hold OMV and Wintershall assets.
Next big news, as we think is Russia statement on ignoring of credit ratings by Rating Agencies, IMF and World Bank in decision making on loan providing to other States. It might become turning point and other countries could follow including China that for a long time already dissatisfied with dirt deeds from so-called "international and independent" rating agencies. This is big political move, because now Russia and other countries could finance different projects in Africa (and other poor countries) with acceptable loan rates ignoring external basic rules of capital value that make such investments just impossible.
Finally as an interludes to next section, we see that operation "Evergreen 2" is just started. We need to enter a new inflationary circle; it’s time to bring cargo transportation out of its blissful state. But by the way, this hits Eurasia more than America. The Chinese comrades may well respond by causing a sudden accident in the Panama Canal, although there was news that it had already become shallow due to natural reasons.
The transit of ships through the Suez Canal has been mostly stopped. Until November 2023, about 12% of all global cargo traffic passed through the Suez Canal. However, since the beginning of the Gaza war, ships in the Red Sea have come under fire from the Yemeni Houthis, who support Hamas. Since October 2023, 15 ships have already been attacked.
The largest shipping and oil and gas companies, including Moller-Maersk, BP, etc., began to redirect their ships around the Cape of Good Hope. This increases delivery times by 10-14 days. Container shipping companies, which have so far suspended transit through the region, account for 95% of all shipping capacity through the Suez Canal, according to Clarkson Research Services Ltd., a unit of the world's largest ship broker.
There is currently only one container ship in the Red Sea, 67 container ships have headed around the Cape of Good Hope and another 75 are delayed and awaiting instructions on how to proceed, said Ryan Petersen, founder of logistics company Flexport. The EU does not yet know what to do with the Yemeni Houthis and attacks on ships in the Red Sea.
The main thing is not yet clear the volume of economic losses caused by the re-orientation of ship routes from a short route through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea to a longer route around the Cape of Good Hope. But now already there is another problem appears - bad preparation of other African ports for so wide fleet transition and servicing.
The background of all this stuff is worrying as media starts preparation of public opinion for possible campaign against Iran. All these events is another sign of coming global fragmentation. All the events taking place in the world's oceans, when the Houthis fired at some ships in the Red Sea and the straits, and the Iranians, as they say, fired at others in the Indian Ocean, give rise to thoughts about insuring maritime transport.
Strange as it may seem to some, the dominance of naval forces or, let’s say, the projection of power in the world’s oceans is closely related to such insurance. It is not at all a coincidence that since the end of the 19th century, while the British fleet was the strongest, it was the British who ruled the world shipping insurance. In essence, buying insurance meant buying protection from the British from the unfriendly actions of various fleets and criminal gangs. It’s trivial because only the most dumb person wanted to upset gentlemen by causing them losses due to the need for insurance payments.
The current global system is an updated and reborn old one, with a new master in the area/maritime hegemon and a new financial infrastructure on the foundation of the old one. With new mechanisms such as reinsurance, but old pirate-bandit concepts. And the fact that the Houthis and Iranians can afford to sink whatever they want, and the Somali pirates have woken up and do not scare of the American fleet any more, which plies there in large numbers nearby, but no one touches Russian tankers, means that the most the basic risks of physical security of transportation are being realized and, accordingly, the fragmentation of the world based on the fundamentals is proceeding by leaps and bounds.
Do you want to swim in the Red Sea? Buy insurance from the Russians, they will come to an agreement with the Houthis, give them a share and everything will be ok. This is usually called risk reinsurance. If you want to sail a container ship off the coast of Iran, Iran has excellent insurance friends from friendly countries.
The same Iranians can, you see, they can also detain a ship with a fast-moving cargo under the pretext that they are transporting some prohibited substances, and in the meantime the cargo will have time to deteriorate until it becomes clear that they are not there. If only we had insured ourselves with whoever we needed, we wouldn’t have any problems.
Russia already did it in its own "pocket" Seas - national reinsurance company, providing guarantees of the safe navigation in the Black and Azov Seas. This is such fragmentation. As we've said yesterday, the heaviest negative burden will be for EU. They have blasted North Streams, now they totally depends on LNG delivery and other consumer goods from China. All this stuff should become more expensive...
The US desire to take control of the Bab-El-Mandeb Strait is understandable. Even a temporary shutdown, and even under a plausible pretext: let’s restore order in commercial shipping, threatens serious problems for the economies of China, Europe, India and especially Russia. Trade and economic ties are too closely intertwined. The Rotterdam-Singapore trade route through the Cape of Good Hope is 40% longer than through Suez. This is a commensurate increase in costs for insurance, transportation financing, and freight.
If the closure of Bab El Mandeb becomes systematic, this will require a noticeable increase in the world fleet of all types of vessels (tankers, gas carriers, bulk carriers, container ships) currently operating on the Europe-Asia route.
However, troubles here have been a long time coming. The leaders of China, Iran, India and Russia understood that sooner or later, through the efforts of the White House, the straits would be blocked. Hence China’s gigantic investments in the land corridor - the Belt and Road, the Indo-Iranian North-South project, and the Russian Northern Sea Route. Logistics was heavily tied to the narrow corridor. As for the US, it is also the question of prestige to resolve this problem and confirm that the US still a Master of Seas and control the situation of global cargo shipping.
LONG READ EXPLAINS EVERYTHING
Every self-confident "analyst", discussing the "global strategy of the Anglo-Saxons 'neo-colonization policy", begins with a description of their power on sea transport corridors; their US 6th fleet in the Mediterranean to control the flow of oil and liquefied gas; their oil companies controlling oil — " the blood of the world's industrial potential". Immediately they will name familiar words and combinations of letters-Exxon Mobil; Shell; TotalEnergies; BP ; Chevron Corporation, then the names of Rockefeller, Rothschild, Morgan will be mentioned.… Then they'll start talking about their power and who rules the world. And why they got mad at Russia, China, Xi and Putin... — well, let's figure it out.
To begin with, the vast majority of people - about 98% - see the world as they were allowed to see it; as it was painted for them. People live by myths, especially in politics: Anglo-Saxons still believe that Churchill was one of the greatest rulers of Great Britain, although he was particularly the person who really handed over the "great lady of the seas" to the Americans. It was after his actions and purposeful decisions that the UK rolled and still rolls into the society of ordinary regional powers with hordes of migrants and a bunch of frightened indigenous citizens.
But let's return to the oil magnates and their influence "on world politics, on the direction of the development of human civilization."
Everyone thinks that oil is almost the main source of wealth and earnings, let's count other people's money. In mid-November 2023, the World Energy Agency reported that it was producing 102 million barrels per day. Accordingly, we multiply by 365 days — this will be 37 billion barrels per year. What is the average annual price per barrel? Take, for example, $ 70-it doesn't matter if it's Brent or Urals. It turns out about 2.6 trillion dollars (the American estimate is 2.9 trillion). This is huge money, colossal-for and for the sake of such money, nations and states are destroyed, they shake test tubes with white powder at the UN, they fight in Syria and hold Middle Eastern monarchies by the throat. For the right to dispose of such revenues, the USSR was destroyed.
And if you compare it?! Are there any markets that are comparable in terms of the amount of live money available there? There are: the pharmaceutical market ($1.45 trillion) and the Cargo Shipping Market (last year its volume was $ 2.35 trillion).
In 6 years, by 2030, this market (freight transportation) will grow to 4 trillion dollars — at least. The oil and gas market will not grow like this, and with the growing wealth of citizens in China, India, Russia, Southeast Asia and Africa, the growth of revenues in the freight transport market will accelerate even more.
Also, the profitability of transportation is much higher than the profitability of oil production, because costs, especially overhead costs, are about a third lower.
You see, dear reader, tens of millions of Chinese cars, hundreds of millions of tons of their electronics, billions of tons of Russian wheat, ore, metals, gas and oil, hundreds of millions of tons of Turkish jeans and leather, billions of tons of their tomatoes, etc., etc. need to be delivered to about 3 billion people in Africa, Europe, Russia, China, India, and Southeast Asia. We don't even think about the 300 million inhabitants of the United States...
And what do such names as Gianluigi Aponte, Rodolphe Saade, and Vincent Bollore say to the general public today? Nothing at all. And such abbreviations as MSC, SCAC, CMA-CGM? Yes, also nothing. And why should those who hold in their teeth a share of the trillion-dollar pie of container transportation shine?
Yes, dear reader, we have revealed to you the names of some transport companies and the names of their owners — they manage trillions of freight traffic turnover. Their cargo transportation is insured, as a rule, by insurance financial monsters from the UK-the Anglo-Saxons, sea transportation is their fiefdom.
95% of the transportation is carried out by these firms by sea — they have seized everything: containers and barrels, container ships and tankers, ports and service points, educational institutions and tens of millions of personnel. And banks, exchanges - are monsters. This is the world empire that the "Mistress of the Seas — England" has grown up. This is the Anglo-Saxon empire, which tenaciously holds the whole world, and nothing could be done without it permission.
Russia and China took a swing at this particular monster-at transport flows, at the entire transport business in principle: they have decided to oppose the Anglo — Saxon maritime transport infrastructure with their own-land. They have decided to destroy the main business of the Anglo-Saxons, to take away their main financial income. Well, after the paper dollar-everything is already clear with it.
The world's most violent interests have collided, and these interests are shared by trillions of vehicles. And this is not a battle of ordinary bulldogs under the carpet — it is a battle between "sea kraken" and "land bears and dragons".
Everyone has heard about the Chinese initiative "One Belt, One Road", about the Russian" Northern Sea Route "and the transport corridor" North-South", about BAM. For the "sea Kraken", these plans are like a knife near the throat, because the revenue of many container sea carriers is hundreds of billions of dollars a year, and together-trillions! For them, the loss of cargo transportation is death, because the Anglo-Saxons simply have nothing else to earn.
Continued below...
The news stream this week becomes narrower. Closer to the end of the year, markets become quiet and no important statistics usually released. So, today we prepare a kind of "special" report that let us to explain why gold market should get inspiring future ahead. You will see that all ongoing events, political, economical become a parts of this major process. It is really big stakes on the table - either the US and allies will keep control over the world or its hegemony will be destroyed and they will become just one among the many others. With so poor situation in economy the US will meet cruel deep crisis that could change the structure of the state. But they are not alone who vitally depends on results. For China this is also the question of survival. Not because they will disappear but because they will appear under the US authority if they will loose. When events of such scale stand in the world, you can't stay without gold as it becomes the only reliable wealth preserver. It is a time when investors very soon start asking return of the investments, rather than return on the investments...
Market overview
Gold prices gained on Thursday as the dollar retreated after U.S. economic data fueled expectations the Federal Reserve would cut interest rates in March next year. Data showed U.S. gross domestic product increased at a 4.9% annualized rate last quarter, revised down from the previously reported 5.2% pace, while weekly jobless claims increased slightly. The market expects an 83% chance of a Fed rate cut by March, compared with 79% before the data, according to the CME FedWatch tool.
The Fed's dovish stance has caused markets to price in several rate cuts in 2024. However, some Fed officials have spoken out against imminent rate cuts. The U.S. dollar fell 0.5% and 10-year Treasury yields hovered near a five-month low.
BofA expects rising palladium surpluses under its base case next year, with a possibility of prices falling to a low of $500 per ounce if there are no supply cuts.
October was the second-largest month for sales of US stocks to foreign investors, official institutions are getting rid of Treasuries, and gold reserves are growing. ️For the second month in a row, total net inflows of foreign long-term portfolio investment into the United States were tiny (just $3.3 billion). ️However, the reporting month is not entirely indicative now, since sales reigned in the markets in October, and then a rally began.
Situation with global trade is deteriorating. Baltic dry index jumped for 3% this week, global supply pressure is growing either. FedEx shares plunge 9% after report
In general, problems with logistics companies are a bad signal for the economy. Transportation is a key indicator of economic health. The Dow theory was even built on this.
The US strategy aimed at de-industrializing Europe has begun to bear fruit: investments in the construction of factories in the US have risen sharply. Bloomberg calls this a “construction boom.” However, adjusted for accumulated inflation (29.5% since 2015), the figures do not look so impressive: the volume of investment is approximately consistent with the previous peaks of 2015-2016.
And the growth of investment in factories is not confirmed by statistics on the growth of industrial production. Despite all the numerous advantages of the United States (lower taxes, ultra-cheap energy, incentives for relocations, the largest sales market), industrial production in the United States has been stagnating since April 2022.
The main problem of the US is the shortage of qualified personnel (they are extraordinarily expensive here compared to China, Mexico or even European countries) and demotivation for unskilled labor - huge unemployment benefits are corrupting.
China is draining treasuries, that's a fact. Already almost $125 billion in the 12 months from September 2022:
By the way, this is not the first call from the ex-adviser of the PBoC the famous economist Yu Yongding, to get rid of American debt. Let's add a little context and quotes - Yunding spoke at an international forum in the Chinese city of Sanya:
- “China should undertake an orderly reduction of its US treasury holdings and maintain trade balance with the rest of the world.”
- “The West has blocked the Russian central bank’s access to its foreign exchange reserves, and such moves undermine confidence in the United States.”
- “The attractiveness of American debt for other countries is also decreasing, given the weaponization of the dollar by Washington.”
- "The downgrade of US credit ratings in recent months has also highlighted the risks of worsening countries' debt problems."
- “America's debt levels may continue to rise relative to the size of the US economy. They have accumulated $18 trillion in foreign debt, equivalent to about 70% of their GDP. This figure could rise to 100%.”
Actually, the recent information warm-up on the part of the EU about the confiscation of Russian assets speaks of the same thing. We are on the verge of an active phase of capital market decoupling. Everything that is "bad" will be blocked.
Western countries, including the United States, are exploring the possibility of justifying the seizure of Russian Central Bank assets frozen in the financial system and using them to finance Kiev . However, legal experts warn that this would be a sharp departure from usual practice, fraught with legal and economic risks . In addition, this issue causes a lot of controversy among allies.
️The G7 countries, the EU and Australia froze about 260 billion euros of assets of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation in 2022. Most of these assets - about 210 billion euros - are held in the EU, including cash and government bonds denominated in euros, dollars and other currencies. By comparison, the United States has frozen only a small portion of Russian state assets: about $5 billion euros. Once again EU will take the major part of this political risk.
It means they have given up on the global financial system. Once we confiscate assets, we are starting an irreversible process of disengagement and there will soon be no large Asian capital on Western markets. Second is, Germany and Russia are exchanging assets. On a surface it looks like mutual expropriation of frozen assets, but we suggest that this is agreed procedure. Its just simpler to do by mutual seizing now.
The German Prosecutor General’s Office wants to seize part of Russian assets worth more than €720 million and replenish the state budget with them. As reported by Der Spiegel, a corresponding request has been submitted to the court in Frankfurt am Main. Meantime Russia considers to hold OMV and Wintershall assets.
Next big news, as we think is Russia statement on ignoring of credit ratings by Rating Agencies, IMF and World Bank in decision making on loan providing to other States. It might become turning point and other countries could follow including China that for a long time already dissatisfied with dirt deeds from so-called "international and independent" rating agencies. This is big political move, because now Russia and other countries could finance different projects in Africa (and other poor countries) with acceptable loan rates ignoring external basic rules of capital value that make such investments just impossible.
Finally as an interludes to next section, we see that operation "Evergreen 2" is just started. We need to enter a new inflationary circle; it’s time to bring cargo transportation out of its blissful state. But by the way, this hits Eurasia more than America. The Chinese comrades may well respond by causing a sudden accident in the Panama Canal, although there was news that it had already become shallow due to natural reasons.
The transit of ships through the Suez Canal has been mostly stopped. Until November 2023, about 12% of all global cargo traffic passed through the Suez Canal. However, since the beginning of the Gaza war, ships in the Red Sea have come under fire from the Yemeni Houthis, who support Hamas. Since October 2023, 15 ships have already been attacked.
The largest shipping and oil and gas companies, including Moller-Maersk, BP, etc., began to redirect their ships around the Cape of Good Hope. This increases delivery times by 10-14 days. Container shipping companies, which have so far suspended transit through the region, account for 95% of all shipping capacity through the Suez Canal, according to Clarkson Research Services Ltd., a unit of the world's largest ship broker.
There is currently only one container ship in the Red Sea, 67 container ships have headed around the Cape of Good Hope and another 75 are delayed and awaiting instructions on how to proceed, said Ryan Petersen, founder of logistics company Flexport. The EU does not yet know what to do with the Yemeni Houthis and attacks on ships in the Red Sea.
The main thing is not yet clear the volume of economic losses caused by the re-orientation of ship routes from a short route through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea to a longer route around the Cape of Good Hope. But now already there is another problem appears - bad preparation of other African ports for so wide fleet transition and servicing.
The background of all this stuff is worrying as media starts preparation of public opinion for possible campaign against Iran. All these events is another sign of coming global fragmentation. All the events taking place in the world's oceans, when the Houthis fired at some ships in the Red Sea and the straits, and the Iranians, as they say, fired at others in the Indian Ocean, give rise to thoughts about insuring maritime transport.
Strange as it may seem to some, the dominance of naval forces or, let’s say, the projection of power in the world’s oceans is closely related to such insurance. It is not at all a coincidence that since the end of the 19th century, while the British fleet was the strongest, it was the British who ruled the world shipping insurance. In essence, buying insurance meant buying protection from the British from the unfriendly actions of various fleets and criminal gangs. It’s trivial because only the most dumb person wanted to upset gentlemen by causing them losses due to the need for insurance payments.
The current global system is an updated and reborn old one, with a new master in the area/maritime hegemon and a new financial infrastructure on the foundation of the old one. With new mechanisms such as reinsurance, but old pirate-bandit concepts. And the fact that the Houthis and Iranians can afford to sink whatever they want, and the Somali pirates have woken up and do not scare of the American fleet any more, which plies there in large numbers nearby, but no one touches Russian tankers, means that the most the basic risks of physical security of transportation are being realized and, accordingly, the fragmentation of the world based on the fundamentals is proceeding by leaps and bounds.
Do you want to swim in the Red Sea? Buy insurance from the Russians, they will come to an agreement with the Houthis, give them a share and everything will be ok. This is usually called risk reinsurance. If you want to sail a container ship off the coast of Iran, Iran has excellent insurance friends from friendly countries.
The same Iranians can, you see, they can also detain a ship with a fast-moving cargo under the pretext that they are transporting some prohibited substances, and in the meantime the cargo will have time to deteriorate until it becomes clear that they are not there. If only we had insured ourselves with whoever we needed, we wouldn’t have any problems.
Russia already did it in its own "pocket" Seas - national reinsurance company, providing guarantees of the safe navigation in the Black and Azov Seas. This is such fragmentation. As we've said yesterday, the heaviest negative burden will be for EU. They have blasted North Streams, now they totally depends on LNG delivery and other consumer goods from China. All this stuff should become more expensive...
The US desire to take control of the Bab-El-Mandeb Strait is understandable. Even a temporary shutdown, and even under a plausible pretext: let’s restore order in commercial shipping, threatens serious problems for the economies of China, Europe, India and especially Russia. Trade and economic ties are too closely intertwined. The Rotterdam-Singapore trade route through the Cape of Good Hope is 40% longer than through Suez. This is a commensurate increase in costs for insurance, transportation financing, and freight.
If the closure of Bab El Mandeb becomes systematic, this will require a noticeable increase in the world fleet of all types of vessels (tankers, gas carriers, bulk carriers, container ships) currently operating on the Europe-Asia route.
However, troubles here have been a long time coming. The leaders of China, Iran, India and Russia understood that sooner or later, through the efforts of the White House, the straits would be blocked. Hence China’s gigantic investments in the land corridor - the Belt and Road, the Indo-Iranian North-South project, and the Russian Northern Sea Route. Logistics was heavily tied to the narrow corridor. As for the US, it is also the question of prestige to resolve this problem and confirm that the US still a Master of Seas and control the situation of global cargo shipping.
LONG READ EXPLAINS EVERYTHING
Every self-confident "analyst", discussing the "global strategy of the Anglo-Saxons 'neo-colonization policy", begins with a description of their power on sea transport corridors; their US 6th fleet in the Mediterranean to control the flow of oil and liquefied gas; their oil companies controlling oil — " the blood of the world's industrial potential". Immediately they will name familiar words and combinations of letters-Exxon Mobil; Shell; TotalEnergies; BP ; Chevron Corporation, then the names of Rockefeller, Rothschild, Morgan will be mentioned.… Then they'll start talking about their power and who rules the world. And why they got mad at Russia, China, Xi and Putin... — well, let's figure it out.
To begin with, the vast majority of people - about 98% - see the world as they were allowed to see it; as it was painted for them. People live by myths, especially in politics: Anglo-Saxons still believe that Churchill was one of the greatest rulers of Great Britain, although he was particularly the person who really handed over the "great lady of the seas" to the Americans. It was after his actions and purposeful decisions that the UK rolled and still rolls into the society of ordinary regional powers with hordes of migrants and a bunch of frightened indigenous citizens.
But let's return to the oil magnates and their influence "on world politics, on the direction of the development of human civilization."
Everyone thinks that oil is almost the main source of wealth and earnings, let's count other people's money. In mid-November 2023, the World Energy Agency reported that it was producing 102 million barrels per day. Accordingly, we multiply by 365 days — this will be 37 billion barrels per year. What is the average annual price per barrel? Take, for example, $ 70-it doesn't matter if it's Brent or Urals. It turns out about 2.6 trillion dollars (the American estimate is 2.9 trillion). This is huge money, colossal-for and for the sake of such money, nations and states are destroyed, they shake test tubes with white powder at the UN, they fight in Syria and hold Middle Eastern monarchies by the throat. For the right to dispose of such revenues, the USSR was destroyed.
And if you compare it?! Are there any markets that are comparable in terms of the amount of live money available there? There are: the pharmaceutical market ($1.45 trillion) and the Cargo Shipping Market (last year its volume was $ 2.35 trillion).
In 6 years, by 2030, this market (freight transportation) will grow to 4 trillion dollars — at least. The oil and gas market will not grow like this, and with the growing wealth of citizens in China, India, Russia, Southeast Asia and Africa, the growth of revenues in the freight transport market will accelerate even more.
Also, the profitability of transportation is much higher than the profitability of oil production, because costs, especially overhead costs, are about a third lower.
You see, dear reader, tens of millions of Chinese cars, hundreds of millions of tons of their electronics, billions of tons of Russian wheat, ore, metals, gas and oil, hundreds of millions of tons of Turkish jeans and leather, billions of tons of their tomatoes, etc., etc. need to be delivered to about 3 billion people in Africa, Europe, Russia, China, India, and Southeast Asia. We don't even think about the 300 million inhabitants of the United States...
And what do such names as Gianluigi Aponte, Rodolphe Saade, and Vincent Bollore say to the general public today? Nothing at all. And such abbreviations as MSC, SCAC, CMA-CGM? Yes, also nothing. And why should those who hold in their teeth a share of the trillion-dollar pie of container transportation shine?
Yes, dear reader, we have revealed to you the names of some transport companies and the names of their owners — they manage trillions of freight traffic turnover. Their cargo transportation is insured, as a rule, by insurance financial monsters from the UK-the Anglo-Saxons, sea transportation is their fiefdom.
95% of the transportation is carried out by these firms by sea — they have seized everything: containers and barrels, container ships and tankers, ports and service points, educational institutions and tens of millions of personnel. And banks, exchanges - are monsters. This is the world empire that the "Mistress of the Seas — England" has grown up. This is the Anglo-Saxon empire, which tenaciously holds the whole world, and nothing could be done without it permission.
Russia and China took a swing at this particular monster-at transport flows, at the entire transport business in principle: they have decided to oppose the Anglo — Saxon maritime transport infrastructure with their own-land. They have decided to destroy the main business of the Anglo-Saxons, to take away their main financial income. Well, after the paper dollar-everything is already clear with it.
The world's most violent interests have collided, and these interests are shared by trillions of vehicles. And this is not a battle of ordinary bulldogs under the carpet — it is a battle between "sea kraken" and "land bears and dragons".
Everyone has heard about the Chinese initiative "One Belt, One Road", about the Russian" Northern Sea Route "and the transport corridor" North-South", about BAM. For the "sea Kraken", these plans are like a knife near the throat, because the revenue of many container sea carriers is hundreds of billions of dollars a year, and together-trillions! For them, the loss of cargo transportation is death, because the Anglo-Saxons simply have nothing else to earn.
Continued below...
