There are too many people talking about financial markets as though everything can be normalised even after a decade+ of ludicrous unmanageable asset bubbles and endless fake economic data, including GDP.

Everything has to return to its mean. Simple maths irrefutably proves this

Another failure of west is its spectacular inability to grasp what we have been saying for yrs.

Geopolitical events thousands of miles from home are shaping future of western economies and their financial sys.

What makes it worse is it is all playing out with total transparency

Simple maths proved in 06 and 07 why a global financial crisis was coming.

Only, a relative few of us understood this whilst our colleagues and peers said we were talking nonsense and were imbeciles.

The rest is history.

It is always about a return to the mean.

It's quite clear there has been thousands of NATO personnel in Ukraine since the war started and a relatively limited presence since 2014.

Oh dear, the cashless society conspiracy theorists will be having an aneurysm. But they will never admit they are wrong.

The right to access cash will soon be enshrined in law.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/01/right-access-cash-will-soon-enshrined-law/

Following depend entirely upon cash for operations

International Terrorism
Narco Trade
Organised Crime
Arms, Human and Organ trafficking
Money laundering

Multitude of other illicit activities

No need for conspiracy theories to demonstrate why cashless society can't exist.

Necessity is the mother of invention:

US decided it could crush China's economic growth via semiconductor sanctions only Huawei is now preparing to start mass production of its own brand 12nm and 14nm chipsets this year.

Burkina Faso's military junta has expelled France's ambassador, authorities said Monday, January 2, amid a surge in anti-French sentiment as the West African country moves to develop closer ties with Russia.

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/01/02/burkina-faso-s-military-regime-expels-french-ambassador_6010079_4.html

The US SPR reserves are now down to 375m barrels of oil or approximately 19 days of reserves left.

All to try and manipulate the price of oil.

Things deemed to be impossible are now becoming a reality via multipolarity.

Tehran:

We are now ready to fully normalise relations with Saudi Arabia.

Principle reason US empire is failing is because in its ludicrously deluded mindset, it believes world is incapable of functioning without its rules based order and $ to weaponise and enforce those rules

Global South now collectively has capacity/capability to challenge hegemony

People ask why we savage elements of the alt media. It is because it has created a cult following of people who clearly have no idea how world operates. They are also incapable of critical thinking or reading beyond a headline intentionally twisted by the clowns they follow.

Banks should be more careful about the risks of fraud, legal uncertainty and misleading disclosures by crypto firms, U.S. regulators warned on Tuesday, just two months after the collapse of crypto exchange FTX stunned the financial world.

https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/banks-should-approach-crypto-with-heightened-caution-us-regulators-say-2023-01-03/

Clown show continues:

So the UK stops buying Russian gas only in reality it doesn't. It now buys Russian gas via India with a very large premium attached.

So it continues:

Ecuador has finalised the terms of a free trade agreement with China.

Win-win cooperation, something the US is totally incapable of adopting in terms of foreign policy initiatives.

Clown show continues:

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has urged companies to increase wages faster than the rate of inflation.

Russian electricity exports to Asia continue growing, even when at war with Ukraine.

Supplies to China and Mongolia have risen by 20% in 2022 with a record 4.5bn KWh of electrical power supplied to China in 2022.

This is ominous:

Today, the BoJ announced that there was no take up of its offer to buy Japanese government bonds across all maturities in a fixed-rate buying operation.

So apparently the US will supply Ukraine a single Patriot unit within the next 12 to 18 months.

History will show that the US decided to wage a proxy war with Russia via Ukraine and in the process spectacularly failed to grasp it was going to destroy its own empire in the process.

To fight a war on that basis is abject stupidity and farcical.