The Incredible Year 2019

I don't think I remember such a good year in the bourse. The IMF blog shows 30% profits on USA stocks, and TASE is not far behind, IMF attributes the bonanza to concerted international monetary easing, that is, extra cheap (better than costless) credit. Its effect will be felt throughout 2020, so says the IMF. It is also planning macro counter-cyclical steps, because the world has entered the late phase of the commercial cycle.

In other words, a managed crash is being planned, and I should think to move my 2019 profits to safe assets. But I cannot find any.

There is no safety in our 3D universe. Only fools imagine that there are safe refuges somewhere. I am investing in evermore risky thingies. As the Mancal used to ask: What happens if the worse comes to worst? What can happen to me? 

Are Bats Birds? Are they Kosher?

The Wuhan virus was, before mutating in the Wuhan live animals and fresh meat market, a bat virus. Some Chinese cook, preparing one of those famous Chinese banquets with live monkey brain, swimming turtle soup, thousand years old eggs, and swallow nest soup, happened to buy a live bat and caught the virus. The rest is history.

This could never happen in Israel. Here, among the believers, bats are classified as birds and included in the Bible's list of impure animals that Jews should not eat. "These are the birds you are to regard as unclean and not eat because they are unclean: the eagle, the vulture, the black vulture … and the bat."

In the old fig trees in my street live thousands fruit bats. Old men like me like to watch the street and the birds from the window. For some reason my bats cannot see the walls and in summer nights, they run into them, leaving their bat-shit mark. They are fewer than before as the invading Argentinian green parrots leave them few figs.

Medical Cannabis Farms

The hottest business in Israel today is medical cannabis and I have already completed the planning of two. There must be a hundred farms trying to grow and process the plant. From the engineering point of view, it is very simple, just another crop. I read in the papers that selling medical cannabis or exporting it is yet illegal but soon it will be authorized. Even former Prime Minister Ehud Barak has organized a cannabis company. I work with intermediaries so have no idea who are the owners. And I could not care less. I charge 50% more than my regular fee, because it is possible. 

Necromancy in Buenos Aires

Once again, Argentina is refusing to pay back its loans, and its credit rating has collapsed. Nothing new.

The situation is worsening and street violence has reached Venezuelan levels. Not even the long dead in the Chacarita cemetery are safe (pic). The big stone pyramids erected by the Pharaohs were all robbed dry, but the old aristocratic families of Buenos Aires imagined that their tombs were safe forever. Their bodies were taken with their gold teeth and rings and medals of saints. They were sold for magical necromancy, voodoo or whatever. Times change, Argentina changed. 

Why Wall Street is Not Afraid of the New Corona Virus?

Comparison of SARS and Corona from the day the WHO started tracking them (via /u/thejjbug). Note also that the WHO only started tracking SARS after 4 months, vs. just one month for Corona.

The graph, taken from Karlin's Blog, shows the exponential growth of Corona cases. Eventually, if we are lucky, it will stabilize and fit into a logistic curve. Anyway, it means a serious economic disruption but Wall Street is not afraid and it has not crashed. The Chinese government has been taking most seriously this epidemy from its very beginning, imposing quarantine on Wuhan, an 11 million urban agglomeration, and building in two weeks a brand new Corona virus hospital (the decision was taken when the epidemy had just started).

I think by their aggressive reaction that the Chinese must know something, and that Wall Street, by their indifference, must also know something. Somebody in this lying internet suggests that this may be a fabricated virus that specially loves Chinese people. I have no idea, I do not believe in conspiracies, I do not believe in secrets and don't take me seriously. 

Excess Work

I am not looking for work but work is looking for me. The last week's rains have caused enormous material damages, including the flooding of an Air Force hangar and damages to fighter jets (each costs like 100 million dollars), and the flooding of cities and underground parking. Two unfortunate people got caught in a lift and was killed. I am among the few free-lance water and drainage engineers with publications, and I am getting inundated by urgent orders. Money is no problem, they say. I always had too much work and worked too hard, but this is ridiculous and do less than my potential. The Arena center in Nahariya was about to be sold last week, after its flooding it seems doubtful. In Spanish: Dios le da pan al que no tiene dientes. 

The New Ashkenazim

8000 Ethiopians are immigrating to Israel in the next weeks. They are learning about Judaism and converting according the Halacha. These new Jews will fill the vacuum left by the losses during the Holocaust. They are, some say, the next generation of computer engineers Israel needs.   

Escape from Wuhan

The panic is spreading in Wuhan. The millions quarantined are desperate to escape. Only a few foreigners are able to report about what they personally see around. The government of China is acting forcefully to contain the virus and to isolate the area, but desperate people cannot be stopped. The police is not yet using firearms.  Some speculate that a biolab in Wuhan created the virus and it escaped accidentally. 

Shedding IQ

Athenians considered themselves the most intelligent of all and that was also the opinion of foreigners who came to study there. Fast-forward 2000 years and Athens is a big Palestinian village, so much that many Europeans did not want them in the EU. The Greeks of the Antiquity colonized and settled in Magna Grecia, the southern tip of Italy, and in Ionia, what is now Western Turkey. The people living there today is genetically the same as the original settlers, and there was no replacement by Slavic, Turkish or Italian invasions. Why, then, those Greek settled areas are among the most underdeveloped of Europe?

The only possible answer is that the colonizer populations lost IQ. Meaning that IQ is not a reproductive advantage on the contrary, it is dysgenic. In certain conditions peoples develop high average IQ and then they lose it. Contemporary European peoples are assuredly losing IQ. Danish IQ studies comparing current recruits with former generations show that the Flynn effect has stopped and reversed. In Denmark there is little immigration, but in France it is massive, and the phenomenon must be significative. Stupid peoples cannot manage democracy so their future is some kind of authoritarian regime or pseudo-democracy.  BRAWNDO, 8.5 Fl.Oz. per sip, will sell well. It's got electrolytes. 

No, We Dont Have SARS 2 in Israel - Yet.

It appears that the Wuhan coronavirus (SARS mutation) have not yet arrived in Israel. What we have is a very cold (for Israel) and rainy winter, and plenty of regular "shapa'at" killing old people. I got vaccinated, and it is working. The new SARS (pic.) is of unknown origin, the old one was caught from the Asian civet (pic.). When working in the hill country of Yunnan, the engineers with me stopped the jeep in a roadside minority open market and bought beautiful puppies, that were cooked with rice on open fire in a nearby "kitchen". They invited me but declined and arranged a separate room where I ate only rice. No one got sick, but the driver got drunk and almost killed all of us, proving that Chinese eating habits can be dangerous. Selling live animals is forbidden in Israel, and there is a special police to protect wildlife.

The Wall Street Journal writes that pneumonia deaths in China are not being registered as caused by the new SARS, suggesting that the epidemy is much wider than reported. No kidding, the new coronavirus is more infectious than the one that caused SARS . 

What to Do when Deflation Hits

The European Central Bank decided to continue buying financial assets to stimulate the economy that is in danger of falling into a Japanese style deflationary spiral. The pumping of liquidity into the markets has increased the stock exchange values some 25% in 2019 and 2020 appears to be similar. Can deflation be warded off? If not, when it will start? What to do to defend my savings?

Which Japanese player has survived and prospered in these last twenty years of deflation?

Somebody advised leveraged long real estate. Another said diversify internationally. Any ideas...?

Soros in Heightened Awareness

Working myself through Soros' Alchemy, wonder why journalists mistranslate his name. Soros, in Hungarian, my mother tongue, means "The Next One" i.e. the next in the queue. Victor Niederhoffer calls him the "Palindrome".

His critics accuse him of profiting from the expropriation of Jewish businesses in Budapest under the Nazis, forgetting that he was fourteen years old and living in mortal danger, like all the Jews. No Hungarian Jew ever blamed him of collaborating with the Nazis. We dislike him because he never gave a cent to Jewish causes, yet he gives untold millions to combat European nationalism. He is still fighting Szalasi and his long hanged Fascist Nyilas party. A sick obsession, for sure.

In the book Soros explains in detail how his philosophy allowed him to predict the movement of currencies and stocks. His graphs tell me a different story, he simply bought rising stocks and knew when the trend-chasing herd's sentiment was about to turn around and sold in time. He says he lived focused on his speculations and in a state of heightened awareness. I believe him, he may have been on Benzedrine as most in Wall Street.

I do not know if it is out of self-hate, but he rejects all link to the Jewish people, but that - unfortunately - is unexceptional - Budapest Jews were/are like that. His philanthropic foundation is nothing less that the mythical BuSab (Bureau of Sabotage), it organizes and funds all kind of destructive political movements, including Palestinian anti-Israeli subversion. He has convinced many (like the Malaysian President) that there is a real, evil Jewish conspiracy. In the positive side, he lives a normal family life and has five children, which is exceptional for his class. For me, his idée fixe is wrong and rather pathetic.

Notable Quote: "Created in an emergency, can survive only in emergencies, creates for itself a constant state of emergency." 

Love of Foreign Conflicts

Erdogan, President of Turkey, has sent expeditionary forces to fight for one of the sides in conflict in Libya. If successful, Turkey will own (or have a dominant influence) Libya, an important energy source of Europe.

Now Erdogan is leading Turkey into another foreign adventure. Somalia offered Turkey an offshore  concession in its presumed territorial waters. Any involvement in the project risks pulling Turkey  into direct conflict with neighboring Horn states such as Kenya, as the oil blocks in question are in the disputed maritime zone — a long-running quarrel which is yet to be resolved in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The disputed area is approximately 100,000 square kilometers and is known  to contain significant deposits of oil and gas.

No Western oil company is willing to return to Somalia because of the conflict and because the country's instability. In 1969 a military regime came to power and adopted Scientific Socialism as its ideology, thus becoming un-accessible. In 1977 Somalia invaded Ethiopia and was defeated. Somalia then entered its darkest era: lawlessness, anarchy and the absence of a central authority.  

George Soros Reflexions

Bought and read the Hungarian Jewish Speculator George Soros book The Alchemy of Finance. (Pic from 1962 on Wall Street). Much philosophical ruminations typical of Budapest coffee houses of the thirties, when people had no money but had much free time. Only when analyzing international finance he speaks about something he knows but it is difficult for me to follow his reasoning because things have changed so much.

Soros describes in detail his "experiments" in financial speculation, trying to discover the reaction of the market and then, if succeeds, to speculate in force. He explains that experiments in natural science work because nature has objective laws, while markets are the result of the wrong (distorted) opinions of the participants. Even after reading it twice I am unable to extract operational advise from his method.

He focuses on the 1987 Crash, which is actual for him, and is impressed by the Japanese reaction. In the middle of the panic, the Japanese government phoned to investment houses and brokers to buy and sustain the stock exchange, and so they escaped the crash. Soros reaches the conclusion that the social stability of Japan, a closed society, is superior to America's open society, and that Japan will supplant America and the yen, the dollar. (*)

Of course that did not happen. Japan entered a phase of deflation and debt, and show no signs of competing with America. A new power emerged, Communist China, a development Soros did not see. China is ten times larger than Japan, and it aims to eject America from Asia and become a world power. Chinese stock exchanges follow the Government orders, and they seem stable. Till now, China seems happy to get rich in the shade of American military superiority. May be war can be avoided in the next decades.

----
(*) Subsequently, Soros created his Open Society Foundation which focuses in liberalizing Eastern Europe. In 2019 Hungary concluded that its activities were harmful and expelled it. Hungary is now trying to strengthen its national identity and increase natality. 

Lurking Danger II

From Europe, the war in Lybia looks different.  The least of their worries is oil and gas. Di Maio, the most active European, Italy's Foreign Minister, says that "Europe stands to lose the most in the Libya conflict. Just think of the 700,000 migrants in the country. If the war escalates, the humanitarian plight will also worsen, and many will come to Europe."

He most fears thousands of Africans sailing to Italy. For some reason, those well-armed Europeans feel impotent against naked beggars. 

What is the purpose of life?

Oy...!

The Spider Movie

Went to the movies. It is a Mossad Operation in Antwerp trying to discover a secret Syrian biowarfare factory. An old agent is in charge, but he is known to have embezzled payola monies. He asks for time and is attached a young assistant to watch him. Improbable romances and emotional father-son complications. There is also the car chase necessary for spy movies. I did not find my car in the parking and was rescued by a Good Samaritan. A real one. 

Lurking Danger

Erdogan (Turkey) is sending an armed expedition to Libya to install a puppet government. Egypt dislikes the Turkish intervention and detained four Turkish journalist in Cairo. We are a de facto ally of Egypt's Al Sissi. It is about the gas pipeline.

Pic. Turkish flotilla. Turkey is militarily active: fights side by side with Russia in Syria and patrols the surrounding waters.

P.S.: Bennet the Defense Minister met with its Greek counterpart. A coalition seems to be forming in the Eastern Mediterranean against Turkey's project to fetter it.

P.S.S.: The Israeli-Egyptian gas pipe should be defended by the Europeans because they are the beneficiaries of the gas supply. Today, Europe depends from Russia for a third of its energy supply, and Europe desperately needs to diversify its sources. Europe is rich in energy - oil, gas, coal, nuclear, etc. but for some mystical craziness it has forbidden for itself to develop those energy sources. It is developing solar energy which is a lost cause in the sunless, misty north, and wind energy, which dies when the wind stops. But Europe has no navy nor expeditionary forces, and no desire to confront the Turks. The young generation is mostly first/second generation immigrants, rootless and unintegrated, and unwilling to fight for their country. 

TEVA starting to breath

TASE at this hour shows a 7% jump in TEVA stock. Its Danish manager is succeeding in resuscitating this lemon.  Eternal optimist, I still have TEVA - and am still losing 80% of its purchase price.

Hope is the thing with feathers (quoted by Woody Allen). 

AI finds its niche: Policing

Having downloaded IBM's online free AI service found no use for it in my work. It appears that AI is, most of all, a perfect policing instrument, able to detect irregular behaviours and predict potentially outliers. China is using it for facial recognition, the NASDAQ is applying it for market surveillance and discover non-pattern, salient trades. Basically, the technology is being used for policing large number of actors. The consequence will be immediate discovery of anomalies (ill.) and the immediate, certain punishment of deviant behaviors and in the end, total uniformity. The Chinese will find it perfectly normal, for us Jews it will be a challenge. 

Ingenious Chinese are finding ways to confound AI by adding two more eyes on the face and using invisible masks, we shall madden AI by creating infinitesimal disturbances at irregular (non random) frequencies in bourse statistics. 

Prosperity in Sight

"Wall Street hits record, boosted by trade and earnings optimism". The Iran clerics are humiliated, China forced to sign a trade accord with America, peace on Earth and rising prosperity. My saving have inflated to meaningless numbers and inexplicably I feel anxious and have difficulty to start working. I received five new projects, I have to reject the Mishor Adumim winery project (but I am postponing it because feel unable to say no). Maybe Chinese chochmes (cleverness) will rise my spirit.

Zhuangzi and Huizi were walking on the bank overlooking the river Hao, when the former said, ‘These fishes come out, and play about at their ease – that is the enjoyment of fishes.’ The other said, ‘You are not a fish; how do you know what is the enjoyment of fishes?’ Zhuangzi rejoined, ‘You are not I. How do you know that I do not know what constitutes the enjoyment of fishes?’

But I don't get the cleverness of the Chinese. 

The chances of Krach

Krach meant in my times and places - Crash, that is, a general stock exchange and commercial bankruptcy. Like in 1929, when cheap credit and inflation of stock prices led to a sudden loss of confidence and collapse. We are having today almost costless credit and very high stock and real estte prices. Should I start thinking on protecting my portfolio?


Japan had its Crash ten years ago and since then they exist in a silent state of deflation and depression. No one is starving. 

Wisconsin, A White Refuge

Wisconsin is one of the last American places with 95% White population. It also hold the record for alcohol consumption. Paradoxically, the antislavery movement and the Republican Party were born there. Throughout the 1850s Wisconsin was a leader in the abolition of slavery. Slaves passed through the Underground Railroad on their way to Canada. In 1854 Wisconsin abolitionists held meetings in a schoolhouse in Ripon, where they recommended forming a new political party called Republican. (Today the Little White Schoolhouse, which is claimed to be the birthplace of the Republican Party, is a museum and national landmark.) That same year the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that the Fugitive Slave Act was unconstitutional. 

Getting me used to the sound of Chinese

While working on my drawings, I hear Ray Coniff on YouTube. Lately, the music is interrupted and a Chinese love song is heard. Or the long play ends and the Chinese song follows. Why is YouTube forcing me to hear Chinese songs? Am I being trained like the Uyghurs that are being re-educated in Chinese language and culture, and are forced to sing Chinese songs? In China it was common to see somebody singing in the street, attracting public. I did not like their high falsetto. But the selection they are making me hear is passable. I wonder if Google is doing this for money, or it is psy war. 

TEVA returning to its roots

I lost a fortune because of TEVA's collapse. This was the only global Israeli company and it went broke because its "poison pill" strategy of assuming  debt to avoid being bought by Mylar, and lately for fines following its distribution of legal opioid drugs in America.

Desperate, the company decided to return to its roots in Israel and absorb local pharm startups. If it succeeds, TEVA's distribution power may cause a revolution in the local biotech startup scene.

I am looking again at Protalix, a local struggling firm. I know a chemical engineer who lost his savings investing in this startup and moved to the medical cannabis area. Protalix announced the exchange of $54.1 million principal amount of the Company’s outstanding 4.50% Senior Convertible Notes due 2018 for $40.2 million principal amount of newly issued 7.50% Senior Secured Convertible Notes due 2021 plus shares. It seems to me a bad omen  to recycle 4.5% with 7.5% which is usurious. I know nothing of other firms, only that six seven years ago I lost some money on them. May be this time. 

Dont give Iran nuclear weapons

An Ukrainian Boeing carrying 176 persons was hit by the Iranian antiair defense. In war, accidents happen, no special evil intention needs to be attached. 

It shows that the world is much safer with Iran having no nuclear weapons.

Japan's Take on Soleimani Liquidation

Japan sees Iran through North Korea:

With the order to kill a top Iranian general last week, U.S. President Donald Trump may have rekindled Kim Jong Un’s worst fears while simultaneously cementing the North Korean leader’s belief that relinquishing his nuclear arsenal would be tantamount to suicide.

Japan is a very productive country where half of the government budget goes to geriatric care so people live to 110. Yet their financial statement is in the black. The private sector has enormous savings and few investment ideas. Some say that Japan is not in decline, it is in a cyclical downturn that will reverse itself. It could be. 

Increasing Political and Ethnic Stress in Israel

The Chief Rabbi of the Oriental Communities Itzhak Joseph has just said in public what most Oriental Jews (Mizrahim, or Sepharadim) murmur among themselves:  the Russian immigrants are not Jewish by descend or religion, in fact, they hate religion. The pic needs explanation: the strange hat and dress is the uniform of a religious officer of the Turkish Empire. The Turks recognized several religions - Jewish, Aramean, Greek Orthodox, etc. and gave to the head of each an honorific title, a dress and a salary. Under the Turks there was no sizeable Ashkenazi community in Jerusalem, so the Chief Sepharadi Rabbi was the head of the Jews. Being so, the Chief Sepharadi calls himself "The First in Zion" and wears the honorary Turkish dress of his official position. The Sultanate was dissolved a hundred years ago and the  uniform it used to grant to religious dignitaries lost all meaning, except for the Sepharadi Chief Rabbi who insists in being called "The First".
                                                                                          He accused the Socialist government of thirty years ago of allowing a large Russian immigration in order to increase its electorate - and to undermine the political power of the religious block. Already Israelis of Russian origin are feeling the hostility and naturally, tend to vote against Shas, the party of the non-European Jews. I would remind him that his father (yes, the post is hereditary), Ovadia (originally Abdallah) Joseph had declared the Ethiopian Falasha as true descendants of the tribe of Dan, a complete fantasy, and caused the Mossad to organize their immigration. To increase the number of "Sepharadim" in Israel. Ironically, Sepharadim means Spanish Jews which the Africans certainly are not. 

I hate this ugly business. 

Trump did what? ... was it an Arab or what?

Latin American papers did not notice that President Trump took a brave decision and attacked Iran and in this instant, millions are crying in the streets of Tehran and demanding vengeance. The Middle East is very far and killings there are no news. Clarin today does not even mention it. The papers report more interesting happenings.

For example, President Maduro of Venezuela surrounded the Parliament in Caracas, and its members could not enter the building and hold session. In the pic, the leader of the opposition tries to force his way in. In practice, this counts as a silent, undeclared self-Coup-d'Etat. Argentina is excited by the possibilities offered by this new, inventive political device.  

Yazidis in the White House

The Iranian paper "Tehran Times" publishes the Leader's reaction to the American ajusticiamiento of Suleimani, who - so he says - was not a person. 

"The American terrorists, who have the blood of millions of people in the world on their hands, assassinated General Soleimani, in the hope of getting rid of their nightmares. They should know that Soleimani was not a person, a culture based on resistance, defending oppressed, and roughly confronting international terrorism.

The culture has originated from the uprising of Imam Hussain (A.S.) on the day of Ashura.  As the nightmares of villainous Yazid did not end by shedding Imam Hussain’s blood and his caliphate was not stabilized, the Yazidis’ nightmare in the White House will not end and will speed up their collapse." 

The Ayatollah does not see the American action as such but as part of an inter-Mohammedan struggle. In the pic. we see Yazid, his evil nature demonstrated by his love of dogs, an impure animal, and his friendship with djinns, those powerful spirits. He identifies President Trump with the villainous Yazid, who was a Beduoin tribesman involved in the succession dispute of the Prophet. It appears that the Iranian leadership is - mentally - stuck in the Seventh Century. 

The Ayatollahs are Trembling

Leader vows harsh revenge for US assassination of Gen. Soleimani

I copy-pasted the main item of the official Iran Daily web paper. The Leader in question is so afraid that the paper does not dare to mention him by name. Good job, President Trump!  

Jewish Soldiers out in the Cold Rain

Shabbat morning and it is cold and raining in Israel. The Army is on alert because of the ajusticiamiento of the Irani general. The word in Spanish means to make justice to a criminal, execution. I remember my own soldiering times in the Northern front line, wet and freezing in the mountains, like this morning. 

Revolution coming for Central America

The corridor stretching from Southern Mexico to Panama is in its tenth year of drought. The Panama Canal, the chocking point of the world's maritime trade, is drying up and is becoming unserviceable for large vessels.  Pic. 

Millions of people in the dry corridor needed food aid due to drought between 2014 and mid-2016, which resulted in losses of the corn crop. Drought impact has been especially severe in Honduras^[ and Guatemala. 

This explains the sudden pressure of illegal migrants on America's Southern border and Trump's building the border wall. 4 million (would be) climate change migrants from Central America and Mexico are projected according to a World Bank report. The misery will cause serious political disturbances. 

Paranoia

I bought a disk-on-key and paid with a credit card. Ten minutes later appeared on my computer monitor an ad for a disk-on-key, the first time ever. This thing happens all the time. Conclusion: "They" have access to my credit card account, or the seller's computer/printer, and want to sell me a disk-on-key. If so, why are they offering me after I already bought one? I welcome surveillance when they offer me things I may need. No one "out there" ever hurt me but the idea that they are watching and studying me all the time is unsettling. 

Israel: Silent Member of Regional Alliance

The vision of Israel integrated into the regional political structure is becoming a reality. Shimon Peres and many others thought that water supply would be the vehicle leading to this situation, but now we are watching natural gas causing this integration. 

Yesterday, Egypt condemned in the “strongest terms” the Turkish parliament’s decision to authorize the government to deploy troops to Libya. "Such interference will negatively affect stability in the Mediterranean, and Turkey will fully bear this responsibility.” Any Turkish military “interference in Libya threatens Arab national security, in general, and Egyptian national security, in particular,” the statement said. Israel has not been mentioned, but we are implied in Egypt's statement. 

Now I want to hear from Italy that we are its Eastern Mediterranean ally.  Italy is not a martial power like France, but it is part of Europe. All in all, the geopolitical situation of Israel is slowly improving. 

Tension between Hellas and Ionia

The geopolitics of the Antiquity has a way of not going away. Israel (Judea) and Greece (Hellas) and Italy (Rome) are coalescing in a block to build a long submarine pipe line to sell gas to Europe.  The Ionian settlements on the Asian seaboard, once Persian satrapies and now Turkey, aspire to become the energy hub of the region and want to control the sea. The conflicting projects caused Turkey to ally with the GNA faction in Lybia and to send a  military expedition to sustain the alliance. The GNA is in danger of being defeated by the forces of General Khalifa Haftar. In the pic Fuat Aktay pasha, a high officer in the court of Sultan Erdogan. No natural light, everything dark brown, a 19th Century desktop penholder with its ink bottle and a large official stamp holder. On the wall, a classic 150 years old print of Ataturk. Behind, an ornate mahogany cabinet with gilded bronze mounts and handles. The office suggests a man living in the 18th Century. 

The (non-Racist) Elephant Dung Gin from South Africa

The Economist reports that there is new gin in the market in South Africa, at 45 dollars a bottle, distilled with or from pure, natural, organic, non-GMO elephant dung. The gin has a je ne sais quoi reminding one of ... elephant dung or the smell of the veldt; this gin embodies the spirit of Africa. The Economist, always topical, comments that even Africans can now enjoy the new gin (if they have money) because, under the apartheid regime, they were unfree to get drunk on White alcoholic delicacies and had to do with inferior stuff. I doubt Africans with 45 dollars in the hand were refused a bottle of gin, and anyway, what is the point of mentioning that in a note about elephant dung gin?