When governments speculate: Orange County, British gold and Bitcoin reserves

There can be few fields of human endeavor in which history counts for so little as in the world of finance. Past experience, to the extent that it is part of memory at all, is dismissed as the primitive refuge of those who do not have the insight to appreciate the incredible wonders of the present. Only after the speculative collapse does the truth emerge.

               —John Kenneth Galbraith, A Short History of Financial Euphoria, 1990

All the recent talk about government Bitcoin reserves has gotten me thinking about what happens when governments speculate.

By the time governments decide to take the plunge to make money by speculating, whatever craze they are joining is likely nearing an important and very bad turning point that will lead to regret. This is because in their actions governments are by nature conservative in the ordinary sense of the word and tend to follow rather than lead investment trends after long delays. (Sometimes, as you will see below, the opposite happens: Governments sell assets at the bottom believing low prices signal that such assets are no longer useful or relevant. They thereby miss out on the next bull market proving that their timing is backwards at both market extremes.)

Government employees' conservatism in action comes from being constrained by a web of rules that tell them what to do and when to do it. This is no more the case than in the management of government treasuries. That money is there to be spent on things the elected representatives decide to spend it on. In the meantime, it should be invested in low-risk securities with a very low likelihood of default, and that usually means investing in government securities of short duration. That also means low returns. But accepting such returns is said to be justified by the desire to make sure no money is lost.

Taking a break - no post this week

I am taking a break this week and plan to post again on Sunday, December 22.

U.S.-China trade war: Is the latest battle really tit for tat?

The United States and China moved closer to an all-out trade war as China last week banned export of the key high-tech metals antimony, gallium and germanium to the United States. That was in response to the United States banning exports to China of computer chip-making equipment, software and high-bandwidth memory chips (used for advanced applications).

It should come as no surprise that the three metals listed above are all implicated in the production of high-performance chips of the very type the United States won't send to China. Which leads me to ask: Which is more important for making advanced computer chips, the actual chemical elements needed to make them or the machines required to manufacture them?

More than two years ago I wrote a piece entitled "East vs West, 'Stuff' vs 'Finance'". My premise was that the United States and European countries ("The West") have hollowed out their economies by focusing on the finance, insurance and real estate sectors, the so-called FIRE economy, to the neglect of manufacturing, mining and agriculture.

President of the Titanic

Four years from now Vice President Kamala Harris may be glad she didn't get the promotion she was seeking from the American electorate. In fact, all those vying for high office around the world may find that the going from here on out will be much more difficult. What few of them realize is that global society has not only become a version of the Titanic, but that we're at the place in the story where the Titanic has already hit an iceberg.

Of course, government leaders around the world generally believe that—whatever our current troubles—the technological progress of humanity will continue unabated and our lives will get better. The world system we've created is, well, unsinkable. At least that is what they are conveying to voters; politicians generally know better than to suggest that under their watch people are going to have to make sacrifices. The last politician to do that was U.S. President Jimmy Carter and he was defeated for re-election.

Carter seemed to understand that we live in an age of resource limits and was attempting to prepare us for the necessary transition. But Americans didn't want to turn down the heat and wear sweaters indoors; they preferred gym shorts and T-shirts instead. Thirty-six years after what came to be called Carter's "Malaise Speech" one writer opined that "President Carter made the unforgivable error of treating the American people like adults."

More deglobalization: Russia cuts uranium exports to U.S.

Last week the United States authorized the use of American-made long-range missiles by Ukraine against Russia which the Russian government says risks escalation to a nuclear conflict in the almost three-year-old war. The Russian government reacted by announcing an unnerving shift in nuclear doctrine. It also announced reductions in uranium exports to the United States. By how much and for how long, the government did not say.

In light of what can only be seen as a proxy war in Ukraine between the United States along with its NATO allies and the Russian Federation, it is passing strange that the United States still relies on Russia for 27 percent of its enriched uranium. Oddly, the reaction in the spot market for uranium was a 4 percent slump in prices. Most customers for uranium—primarily nuclear power plants—have stockpiles and long-term contracts, so an immediate effect on spot prices was unlikely. But the price of uranium mining stocks soared in anticipation of greater pressure on mine supply outside Russia, the world's sixth largest producer.

This development highlights a vulnerability among metal importers across the globe. When relations between a large exporter of minerals and a large importer of them goes south, the consequences can be significant. While it's true that the exporter loses some revenue, critical material and energy shortages can have large effects. Inadequate uranium fuel for nuclear power stations could eventually lead to loss of generating capacity.

Falling human fertility can't be reversed by cheerleading for motherhood

Elon Musk told the world three years ago that "civilization is going to crumble" without a reversal in the accelerating decline in human fertility. He believes decisions by couples to have fewer children or no children at all because of environmental harms such as climate change (which is linked, of course, to growing population) are wrongheaded.

In Russia leaders are so concerned about falling fertility rates that health agencies are offering financial incentives for having children and free access to fertility treatment while discouraging abortions (which remain legal). The Russian government even revived the "Soviet-era honour award called Mother Heroine, which recognizes and honours women with 10 or more children."

Other countries with low birth rates are also offering incentives:

In Tokyo, the rates are so low that the government is launching a dating app to help citizens find love and get married.

The Japanese government has also tried to boost fertility rates by offering up to a year of parental leave and even cash incentives.

In South Korea, the least fertile country in the world, Seoul is offering people money to reverse their vasectomies or untie their tubes.

That's on top of South Korean companies offering employees up to $75,000 to have children, and a government allowance system that gives all parents with newborns $750 a month until their baby turns one.

While demographic experts insist it is primarily decisions by couples worldwide to marry later and have fewer children that are the cause of this surprising decline in fertility, they ignore the more ominous explanation, declining sperm counts caused by toxic chemicals and unhealthy modern diets (which are, of course, laced with toxic chemicals).

Donald Trump and the impossible destination of Globalism (revisited)

Back in 2016 a month before Donald Trump was elected for the first time, I wrote a piece that I'm revisiting here. So much of what I said then still applies that I encourage you to read that piece. My thinking was heavily informed by a lecture by the now late French philosopher Bruno Latour entitled "Why Gaia is not the Globe."

Latour made the case that Trump's perplexing popularity could be traced to his ability to give voice to the anger and fear generated by the effects of Globalism. In fact, Latour noticed that the anger and fear were actually widespread and reflected in Great Britain's exit from European Union and the many right-wing movements in European countries that now are all too familiar eight years later.

I am capitalizing Globalism because it really is an ideology and not the "inevitable" reality that so many of us think it is. In fact, as Latour explains, it is an impossible destination. First, let me lay out a definition of Globalism by quoting from my 2016 piece:

The American food system creates chronic diseases; the medical system 'manages' them

The explosive growth in the use of weight-loss drugs is a supreme irony within a food system that creates the very chronic diseases that lead to obesity and a medical system that "manages" those conditions with no intention of actually curing them. In fact, "manage" is too kind of word for this setup for the truth is, medical treatment of chronic conditions more often than not just perpetuates these conditions and sometimes makes them worse.

I rarely do book reviews, but I believe Metabolical may be the most important contemporary account of the nexus between modern diets, chronic illness and ecological ruin. So, I'm going to give you a taste of what's in it (pun intended).

According to Dr. Robert Lustig, author of Metabolical, thanks to the food and medical industries, the American public has come to believe the following things:

1. Gaining weight (sometimes lots of it) as we age is normal.


2. Developing chronic conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease is inevitable for many people.


3. Once a person has a chronic condition, it cannot be reversed and must be managed primarily through medication and sometimes surgery.


4. Cancer strikes mostly randomly.


5. Exercise can prevent at least some of these conditions or even reverse them.

Bird flu, infected cows and playwright Henrik Ibsen

As I contemplate the rampant spread of bird flu through America's cattle herd, I'm reminded of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen's An Enemy of the People. The lead character, Dr. Thomas Stockmann, is the medical officer for the local baths, what we might call a health spa. The baths are a significant new source of income for the city and its residents.

Stockmann discovers that the water coming into the baths is unsanitary and unsafe. He writes a piece for the local newspaper announcing the problem, but the town's leaders (whom we discover later are heavily invested in the baths) stop publication of the piece and vilify Stockmann publicly, labeling him an "enemy of the people."

The veterinarians who warned about the spread of bird flu in American cattle herds earlier this year are today feeling a lot like Thomas Stockmann. According to Vanity Fair magazine, "The vets who sounded the alarm have been silenced, some even fired, and won’t discuss their experiences on the record for fear of reprisals. And the federal agency that was supposed to help thwart the virus instead has allowed for an unspoken 'don’t test, don’t tell' policy among dairy farmers."

AI + synthetic biology: What could possibly go wrong?

Science fiction films are replete with human space travelers visiting far-away planets that have atmospheres suitable for those humans to breath. Thus, the bother of wearing a space suit or other protective gear is dispensed with, and the encounters with alien races, both hostile and friendly, can proceed without such cumbersome gear mucking up the works.

In addition, these planets often have plants and animals that are strikingly similar to those found on Earth. The problem with this all-too-frequent occurrence in science fiction stories is that even if such planets exist, they would have microorganisms entirely unfamiliar to the human body and thus likely to kill it within days or weeks. Humans would have no immunity and suffer a fate similar to that of the indigenous people of North and South America when Europeans arrived bearing diseases unfamiliar to indigenous immune systems and therefore profoundly deadly. Up to 90 percent of the natives perished.

Enter synthetic biology, that is, the engineering of organisms never before seen on Earth. We've already seen it in the form of genetically engineered crops such as GMO soybeans and corn. But that is a pale forerunner of what is about to happen: the marriage of artificial intelligence (AI) and synthetic biology. For many years already scientists have been able to create novel sequences of DNA, and they've already created dangerous designer viruses for research purposes. I've written previously about the possibility of systemic ruin that can flow from these activities. And I've voiced concerns about the democratization of genetic engineering through do-it-yourself kits: "Anyone with a credit card and a mailing address can now order their own genetic engineering kit."