“Genoeg is genoeg.”

This Monday was Black Monday in South Africa. No, it was not about Black Lives. The boers were protesting the killing of a white farmer and the daily danger of their lives in the countryside.

The government condemned the peaceful protest as "Racist".

I am not a Christian and do not get the meaning of their humble praying position. Are they asking for mercy? Does it work?

China bans crypto token trade

The central bank of China banned banks or financial institutions holding crypto\internet tokens. As much as 90 per cent of transactions worldwide still take place in the country, which also generates roughly one in every two new coins created through mining. On the US exchange Bitstamp, bitcoin currently trades at US$6,095, a record high, after surging 49.2 per cent over the past three months.

I think that the explosive growth of internet token trade and the success of many internet only banks like HUOBI (that exchange currencies and allow deposits, and are planning to provide credit and other financial services) has provoked panic among the state bankers. The token growth is too fast and too big. They would like to stop the world and have a break to think.

Why are people so anxious to possess tokens, that are no more than a digital certificate that they paid legal currency to buy them? Are bitcoins the modern version of tulip bulbs?

Global Prosperity Fuels Commodities

Today we entered into winter time regime, the day when winter sadness or depression hits cold-evolved genotypes. I too felt it. Anyway, global markets are starting to be optimistic and, as Koldus predicted, commodity prices are due to rise. (I am not saying that they ARE rising but that I hope...). Which Israeli shares will lead the avalanche? Israel Chemical (potash) should be a good investment. Metals are another field, but we in Israel have no metals. Neither have soybean.  Pic: A field of mature soybean.

I am starting to plan my next holiday in the UK in June/July 2018.

Climate Change in the Middle East

The rivers almost stopped flowing into the Kinneret - our main water reservoir - and the climate has changed: higher temperatures, longer summers, and less rainfall. We are surviving thanks to the five desalination plants built during my work in the Water Authority. To tell the truth, I considered it an hysterical over-reaction to a passing drought, and my boss Dr Yossy Dreizin an idiot, but I was wrong. It happens.

After vacations

A week in London with my daughter was my first vacation in years. Two weeks back in Kever Benjamin I am still dreaming with London. Before the trip, I had been contented and happy with my daily routine of work, teaching, sleep, blogging, investing, etc. but now I feel it most depressing. I love London, its air is cleaner than Kever Benjamin, its people nicer and more civilized, its girls slimmer, its theater more entertaining, its chorizo sausages tastier and cheaper.

HaAretz Channeling the Palestinian Liberation Organization

The newpaper HaAretz acts as if joining enemy campaigns to isolate and weaken Israel they are doing a great service to the world. Today, they publish an article dedicated to justify, to legitimize, to transmit and to amplify the PLO's latest attack on Israel. The PLO strategy is to impress the world that the State of Israel as the creation of the British Government. The British Empire is considered, in the UK most of all, unrivaled evil, and everything related to it is nefarious and sinful and against the laws of Nature.

Gideon Levy, HaAretz's chief columnist, denounces the unheard and unprecedented evil of the Brits promising and delivering a country they did not own to a people that did not exist and did not live there. The PLO line is that Israel is an imperial creation, illegitimate, and they imagine that retracting Balfour's personal note to Rothschild, time will flow backwards and Israel will evaporate as if never existed. That dream is infantile, because apart from "seeing with favor" (from the distance) the gradual in-gathering of the Jews here, Brits did little or nothing to create Israel. On the contrary, they established the Arab Legion with British officers and finance, to fight the Jewish Defense Forces, and negated half of Eretz Israel to Jewish settlement.

During wars and elections it is common practice to make promises to gather support. Politicians (Balfour, above) will promise what they do not possess and do not intend to deliver. Journalist Levy never heard of such thing.The Pope's division of unexplored and unconquered America between Spain and Portugal  in 1494 (pic. "En el nombre de Dios Todopoderoso...") comes to my mind. Should Trump blame the Pope for the creation of Mexico?

Notwithstanding the stupidity of the PLO's campaign to pressure post-Brexit Brits to retract - a hundred years later - Balfour's ambiguous note, HaAretz is harming us by joining the initiative. I would like to believe that Levy is sincerely convinced that by taking the enemy side, he is doing his best to help his country, but cannot. Levy is intelligent and writes so well that it is inconceivable that he is also sane and true.    

Energy Loss in Hot Water Pipes

I made a stupid mistake of submitting a proposal for an industrial kitchen without studying first what was about. It happens that it has surface of 1200 sq.m. and there many problems and in addition, they are demanding compressed air and instant hot water in the faucets. My price was for a restaurant. After a week it is still incomplete. I am calculating the energy loss in the 140 meter long hot water re-circulation main line.

The significant variable is the thickness of the pipe isolation. Above 1 inch thickness flexible elastometric (pic), the energy loss stabilizes and it is insignificant. Ali Express (Chinese) offers impressive samples I have never seen before. Like the Japanese that liquidated the Swiss watch and camera industry, the Chinese are leveling the industrial materials market. They are superior and cheaper. 

Alcohol makes you speak German like a Native

Der Spiegel writes about a study: Non-native German speakers that drunk alcohol had better pronunciation than the subjects that had drunk only water. Alcohol improves the pronunciation of foreign languages. The study also demonstrated that alcoholics had the most fun during the experiment. Pic.: Octoberfest.

Child Walking

One surprising sight in London was children being walked on a dog leash. They told me that it was because of children being stolen in the rush hour. Baby stealing in hospitals is quite common, and many precautions are taken. Once, babies were left at the doors of wealthy people to be taken care - there was a surplus. Now they are precious commodity.

William Koldus Thinks

Koldus, my favorite contrarian in Seeking Alpha, thinks. I mean differently. He says the best is yet to come. Copy/Paste from his article:

"Intuitively, we know that this near record-setting bull market has been different, as investors have gravitated towards yield focused investments, including bonds and dividend growth stocks.

Visualizing the outperformance of defensive sectors over their economically sensitive counterparts is eye opening.

These defensive sectors, including bonds, as measured by the iShares 20+Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT), and utilities, as measured by Utilities Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLU), have correlated closely with S&P 500 Index itself, which I argue has become a defensive, safe-haven global liquidity instrument.

(Source: WTK, www.stockcharts.com)

Meanwhile, economically sensitive equities, including energy equities, as measured by the Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLE), and material equities, as measured by the SPDR S&P Metals & Mining ETF (XME), have dramatically underperformed.

Take in the chart listed above for a few minutes, which shows SPY up 101.6% over the last decade, TLT up 96.0% (which is even more remarkable in my opinion), XLU up 87.1% over the past ten years, XLE up only 10.8%, and XME down a remarkable -44.0% over the past ten years.

From looking at the above performance chart, where do you think the undervalued opportunities are today?

Now taking in the information from the decade performance chart, what if I told you that economic growth is accelerating..."

Koldus thesis is in harsh opposition to China's Xi who just said that China is now passing from fast growth to moderate growth energized by innovation alone. What happens if the financial markets and Xi are wrong about their expectations for growth?

As for me, I am fully invested in Israeli shares. I also started to collect Nvidia, for its AI chips. They advised me no, because it is too expensive.

PS.: Koldus is a Hungarian name, it means Beggar. Nomen est...

Hot Water Distribution Problem

A large catering kitchen of the Haredi sector hired me to design the wastewater and water system. I finished the wastewater design but the hot water system requires consideration. In their current facility they have the problem that the hot water stream arrives to the faucet only after a minute or so, and they want instant hot water at a certain temperature and pressure.  And they dont want electric heaters. The kitchen is divided into two separate sections that implement different kashrut rules - I assume, one is more severe than the other, or one is Ashkenazi and the other is Sepharadi. I didnt ask - it is not my business. BTW my origin (Hungarian Jew) impressed them favorably. There is ethnic favoritism among the Haredim.

I am planning a gas heater with a recirculating loop with lots of electronic sensors. There is also the problem that it cannot work on the Sabbath. They also forbid me to work on that day. 

 

Did Alex Viznitzer take bribes?

Alex Viznitzer (left) former manager of the National Road Corporation (Netivey Israel), was publicly disgraced because apparently he allowed "transference" of monies to the party whom he owed his post. The affair disappeared from the papers (the party is in the governing coalition) but now the police sent a letter to him and thirty other NRC employees calling them to audience. The new affair is called Affair 618 and Alex stands accused that between 2004 and 2010 asked for and received bribes from suppliers for advancing the payment of the amounts due to them. Alex received the Corporation with enormous debts and mountains of unpaid bills, and sure, he worked like a dog to get them paid. Did he took bribes? Having met him, I doubt it, but who knows? He had been a poorly paid immigrant engineer and has a beautiful, large family.

Another functionary, Igor Wagenfeld, is suspected of receiving bribes for hiring experts and consulting engineers. Apparently, a fixed percentage of the payments was being transferred to his brother's foreign account. He declared that the police is trying to inflate his influence and he was never in a position to hire consultants. Source: Globes.

I think that the police has nothing solid so they are applying pressure a large group in the hope that, trying to save themselves, will complicate each other. It may work.

The Swedes: Defenseless Natives?

pyrrhus left an insightful comment on the West Hunter blog: October 23, 2017 at 12:53 am   As Prof. Greg Clark shows in ‘A Farewell to Alms’, there’s no real question that centuries of executions have reduced violence (and resistance to authority) in the native population in much of the West to very low levels. Unfortunately, as we see in Sweden and the UK, this form of natural selection has also left the natives virtually defenseless against violent foreign invaders and criminally negligent governments…..

Buoyancy of the Jews

Globes (an Israeli business paper) reports that the world's largest fund "Bridgewater" managing 160 Billion dollars has Israelis in its top positions. This is so anomalous that one has to ask itself: What percentage of the world's very high IQ people is Israeli? Of every 10,000 humans, one is an Israeli Jew. Yet you find us everywhere where intelligence is imperative. I shall ask Leone (you know, Tanquam ex ungue leonem) and also make a guess, but just now I am trying to force myself back into the routine of work. It is not easy, after an intense vacation in London.

PS.: Il Leone has calculated Ashkenazi IQ = 112 while Thompson estimates the world's IQ=86.  Ashkenazi are about 8 million while the world 8 billion. IQ has a Gaussian distribution, so about half of the high IQ extreme may be Ashkenazi. Since there are many subgroups in the world, the estimate is wrong; yet we have some very special individuals.  

How to Win in the Stock Market playing against AI machines

AI machines can teach themselves to play go and defeat all human opponents. In fact, AI can defeat humans in every cognitive competition. I am sure this capability has been applied to investing, so a human has zero chances of winning in the investing arena. The effect of the introduction of very high intelligence players must have had several effects, and the immediate one is the death of the day-trader business. Second is the inevitable death of trading programs, as AI discovers them in no time and invents effective strategies and out-games them.

In fact, we may have reached a point where AI machines are playing themselves in the stock market and acquiring increasing intelligence and experience leaving no space for the human investor.  This is the end of all fund managers and strategists. The overall effect of AI machines playing themselves taking over the stock market is increased rationality and intelligence, fewer mistakes and panics (which are consequence of human/animal cognitive failures) and  after a while, greater stability and less volatility. I think that the current bull market is a reflection of AI machines gradually taking over the trading in the markets, and the bull market has at least one or two years to go. In this scenario, the optimal strategy for a human player like me is to hold a diversified, balanced, index-based portfolio and wait with patience that the market rises its worth.

I think that the only space left where that strategy may be improves is the complex, special area of mergers, liquidations, bankruptcies, political revolutions, Brexits and wars and so. How to find them, how to discover what is going on and what will be the outcome is very time consuming. I don't have the time to research those special situations. I am getting old and lazier than used to be.

Pushkin, The Black Slave Poet

My daughter and I spent a full day in the Southbank Center's Poetry Event. Colorful poets sung about their dreams, which were what they imagined the London cultured public would want them to dream: Universal Peace, Love, No Borders, etc. After all, they had to thank the Brits that invited them to London all expenses included. Not one original insight, not one arresting image.


There was also a panel of established poets discussing poetry. They were most Politically Correct, longing for a world without gender, race, class (Marxism is in fashion again), borders, Trump. One elderly Jewish poetess talked about underground poets of Russia, all of them White and none a penniless refugee... At some point she grasped the crowd's indifference/dislike, and changed the focus to Pushkin, who - she emphasized - was AN AFRICAN, descendant of an AFRICAN SLAVE, therefore glatt kosher for the Southbank communists present. How come that Pushkin (pic) was a Black Slave poet? His Grandfather had been born somewhere in Africa and became a general in the Czarist army, married into the Russian high aristocracy. She needed a PC poet and the nearest she found was Pushkin. BTW Pushkin owned lands with hundreds of slave mujiks.

Notwithstanding the reigning hypocrisy, Pushkin is a great poet and we enjoyed London very much.

London

Back from a weeklong London tour. On the professional side, I made acquaintance with the bold Tideway sewage project, a 25 km long 80 m deep tunnel under the Thames River. On the other side, explored English culture with my daughter in a Poetry Day in Southbank Center and went twice to Shakespeare's Globe.

The extreme politically correctness reigning in London is more oppressive than Stalin's dictatorship. Take the tour in the wonderful British Museum although the emphasis is on African achievements. For example, the guide stopped in front of this Nubian sphinx and explained it African features. I am biased but to me, the sphinx does not look particularly Black. She parroted the official creed that Egyptian civilization was Black.

"Much ado about nothing" was staged in revolutionary Mexico as a protest against President Trump's separation wall. Half of the actors were Africans and anorectic females assumed male soldier's roles. After the show there was a meeting with three actors, confused young colored things just out of actors school, who seemed most comfortable with the PC imbecilities they were performing. The girls loved wearing over the shoulder bandoleer belts, the boys the fake Spanish skirts. I was about to ask how they felt about the play's so unPC subject matter: marriage cancelled because of a false rumor that the girl had lost her virginity, then she (fake) killing herself. But then an American protested that in the final scene an American flag was trampled over, and the moderator hastened to close the session.  Anyway, Fritz Karinthy the Budapest wit, said that actors have no opinions of their own, they paint themselves and believe they are somebody else.

Femme Fatale

Merav Michaeli is an Israeli parliamentarian dedicated to female rights. In her opinion

...the traditional biological family is the least safe place for children. A man and a woman is a bad combination, generally abusive and harmful to children. Only State-licensed responsible persons should be in charge of children.

Michaeli is the only grand-daughter of Rudolf Kasztner, the head of the Hungarian Zionist Organization during WWII, the organizer of the one successful operation to get Jews out of Nazi area. She has a steady boyfriend but no children, therefore extinguishing her family line.

Laughing in the Yeshiva

How many donors are needed to change a light bulb in a Yeshiva? One, he puts the bulb in place and the world turns around him.

How many soldier-programmers of the Shachar Kachol (Blue Morning) ultra-Orthodox unit are needed to change a bulb? Bad question, they never touch material objects.

In the Breslev yeshive they don't change light bulbs because there are no bulbs like the first one.

In the Hemed yeshive they first investigate if the Chinese bulb manufacturer worked on Saturday.

In the Brisk yeshive the question never arises because they reject innovations like electricity.

Yeshive exam question: A Jew born with two heads, on which head he has to put on the  phylacteries? 

Motivating Men to Marry

Western governments are worried because people stopped marrying and procreating as before. Old people are entitled to pensions that somebody has to pay through taxes and that somebody seems to have disappeared. Importing young Africans is a poor solution as America is realizing.

The difficulty of getting men to marry was already well known in Greece of the Antiquity. Plutarch describes in The Life of Lycurgus the inducements he established:

"I mean the processions of nude girls, the competitions that young men watched, attracted not of an intellectual interest but a sexual one. In addition, Lycurgos placed civil disabilities on those who did not marry, for they were excluded from the Gymnopediae (*). In winter, they had to parade in circle in the agora and they had to sing a special song about themselves."

Even so, Spartans resisted marriage. Sparta, throughout its history, suffered from severe manpower difficulties. In the Battle of Leukra it could muster no more than a thousand soldiers against Boeotia, with its large and fertile population of subsistence farmers. That was its final show in history, after which Sparta retired to its starting point of four obscure hamlets in a remote valley.

(*)  Gymnopediae, the Naked Boys Festival, a closed competition/show staged by the boys of the agoge schools. May I presume that unmarried adult men were excluded because they were shamed as homosexuals? Greeks, like Brazilians, thought nothing of fucking boys, but hated old faggots.

How to survive a multipolar nuclear world

Any multipolar system is inherently unstable. The more independent players, the more unstable. Since I am not planning to live long in such system, I stopped worrying. 

Ghosts from the History Books Haunting Argentina

In the block I live there is a Latin American immigrants club, where one can take Spanish books and not return them. I took a high school history text that looked familiar - the same I used in the Colegio Nacional Mariano Moreno in Buenos Aires. It neatly describes the "Conquista del Desierto" - the conquest of the pampas in the eighteen sixties - that exterminated the natives and opened up the land. The tribes were ghosts, never existed except as obstacles to progress. I never heard or saw  living Indians in the Province of Buenos Aires.

But they have survived and multiplied and now are claiming the land. The map shows a number of organized Indian groups that are legally claiming lands in the Gran Buenos Aires, in densely populated urban areas of the Capital. Fortunately, no one seems to claim the Barrio Norte where we used to live, but the Tupi Guarani Cuarahji Vera want Ciudadela and the Yecthakay, a qom community, claim the wealthy suburb of Tigre where my cousins still live.

I know about the Tupi Guarani because they ate Solis (the Founder of Buenos Aires). Actually, they were Charrua, but my history book shows barefooted Guarani persecuting nandues, the native ostrich, with boleadores, in what later became the City of Buenos Aires. But who the hell are the qom? Where have been all this time? Are they real or invented? Even google has never heard of them.

I blame the Americans for all the trouble these resuscitated Indians are causing. They started recognizing the tribes as Nations, the legitimate owners of the land. The example is spreading like fire. Here the Hebronites want back the burial cave they sold to our Patriarch Abraham. If the Neanderthals are resuscitated from their DNA, may they have a case to the Carmel hills where they lived? Could they claim Europe?

Ethiopian Jews

I am designing the expansion of large catering business that works around the clock. The production cannot be stopped, so it will be done by stages. Ninety percent of the workers are Africans, probably Ethiopian Jews (pic). They work and earn good money, but complain because of the heat.

Later I went to a project in Northern Lod, the Palestinian neighborhood. It was the first time in Israel that I saw raw sewage flowing in the street. The call of the muezzin from the minaret was deafening: the Government tried to moderate the volume so they increased it in protest. I doubt if the faithful enjoy being ordered at five o'clock in the morning to go to prayer. Arabs I talked to know they are pathetic and "shooting themselves in the foot", but assume their miserable existence with dignity. They are impotent to resist, they are prisoners in their society. Every once in a while a girl is killed by her brothers because she refused to marry the man who paid for her and brought shame on the family.