El Varon de Rabinal

Pic.: A Maya carved jade plaque from Nebaj in Guatemala, depicting a Maya king with a headdress sitting on a throne and paying attention to a little person to the left of the scene, who is shown with crossed arms, the sign of greeting and respect. Late Classic period, c. CE 600-800.

I am reading the Rabinal Achi

British Facts

 As an example of the ridiculous factors behind these misleading Western GDP statistics, he pointed out some of the items that the British had chosen to include in their own GDP:

A side note, I also ran across some less wholesome facts when doing research on the subject. I refer to a Financial Times report just for a laugh. In 2014, UK started to include prostitution and illegal drugs in its GDP reporting to the tune of 10 billion pounds a year. This raised the reported UK GDP by 5% in an effort to help the government raise its debt ceiling.

To derive at this number, the statistics bureau had to make some assumptions: “The ONS breakdown estimates that each of the UK’s estimated 60,879 prostitutes took about 25 clients a week in 2009, at an average rate of £67.16. It also estimates that the UK had 38,000 heroin users, while sales of the drug amounted to £754m with a street price of £37 a gram.”

Thus, Western economists have adopted a bizarre framework in which rising crime levels contribute to the official economic measure of national prosperity.

From Unz. But Unz does not understand, that GDP measures "economic activity" and crime (what crime?) is economic activity par excellence.

Havana Syndrome and How to protect oneself

The former conclusion about Havana syndrome was the assumption that the existence of an energy weapon—a device that could cause the kind of injuries Havana-syndrome victims suffered—was implausible and not supported by evidence. But the officials and victims assembled in the Situation Room considered whether this assumption was really valid. An independent panel of experts, convened by the intelligence community, had suggested that an energy weapon could use “pulsed electromagnetic energy, particularly in the radiofrequency range” to cause these symptoms.

I think I know how to protect myself. 

From the Atlantic. 

Sudan's Gezira Irrigation Scheme

 By NASA 1997

The recapture of the city of Wad Medani, the capital of Gezira province, came more than a year after it fell to the rebellious RSF Rapid Support Force. Wad Medani is the center of the large Gezira cotton-growing project. 

The conflict has killed more than 28,000 people, forced millions to flee their homes, and left some families eating grass in a desperate attempt to survive as famine swept parts of the country. 

Apparently, the civil war is between a faction of the army and the central government. 

The Gezira (Island) irrigation scheme was developed by the British and covers 8.800 Km2 (88.000,000 hectares), which is the largest in the world.   The water naturally runs through the irrigation canals by gravity. The soil has a high clay content which keeps down losses from seepage. It should be a paradise but it is not. 

The smelt sardine is safe

 

It happened that there was no water in the hydrants and the reservoirs were empty. The Palisades' ultra-luxury homes burnt down to the subsoil. They were not insured, since no insurance company wanted to take the risk. 

Historic.

A line in the sand

 

I am re-reading this book by James Barr about British and French adventures in the Middle East. As WWI victors, they had to decide what to do with the collapsed Turkish empire, and the Sykes-Picot map was the only scheme available. Britain was interested in Mosul's recently discovered oil fields and a good port in the Mediterranean. The French got Lebanon and Syria. 

Both soon discovered that late imperialism was expensive and tried to transfer the pacification of the natives to local leadership. Which was not ready.  The British, influenced by Lawrence, tried to impose Faisal and Abdullah as kings, but they could not endure. The Hashemites in Trans-Jordan still rule, but only with British help. 

What will happen with these chaotic "countries" now? They are of little interest to current powers—except maybe Israel. With the Golan, we have enough—for now. 

The next generation may look to Sinai. If Egypt collapses, as it surely will, Sudan is the model. Egypt's population is about 15-20% Sudanese. This is my personal opinion, tendentious because of my love of Sinai. 

TEVA

Stanley Druckenmiller sold the high-profile AI stocks in Duquesne's investment portfolio, he was piling into one of Wall Street's top-performing pharmaceutical stocks of 2024: Teva Pharmaceutical Industries (NYSE: TEVA). Shares of Teva are higher by 112% for the year, with Druckenmiller's fund adding 1,427,950 shares during the September-ended quarter. 

I am also buying TEVA.

Who is Druckenmiller? He received a BA in English and economics from Bowdoin College (where he opened a hot dog stand with Lawrence B. Lindsey, who later became economic policy adviser to President George W. Bush). If he could make money selling hotdogs, he must be smart. 

History as Direct Threat

 

A diplomatic tempest was created following a post published by the Israeli Foreign Ministry, which featured a biblical map, with many in the Arab world viewing it as a direct threat to the sovereignty of Arab countries.

The map, uploaded by the Arabic language account of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, showed the biblical boundaries of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judea, which extended according to Biblical accounts into different areas east of the Jordan river.

“Did you know that the Kingdom of Israel was established 3000 years ago?” Read the first sentence of the post, which then proceeded to portray the biblical accounts of kings Saul, David, and Solomon, as well as the partition of the kingdom to the northern Kingdom of Israel and the southern Kingdom of Judea, and their respective destruction and exile by the Assyrian and Babylonian empires.

“However, the Jewish people in the diaspora continued to look forward to the revival of their powers and capabilities and the rebuilding of their state, which was declared in the State of Israel in 1948 to become the only democracy in the Middle East.”

Bitcoin Won’t Put Food on the Table

 
Bitcoin also won’t put gas in your car or provide medical care for your family. To be clear, I mean this literally. I realize people have made millions and billions speculating in Bitcoin. They can use that money to buy food, gas, and medical care, but the point is that Bitcoin doesn’t actually produce these items or anything else that we directly consume.
That may seem obvious, but this simple point is important to anyone interested in thinking about Bitcoin seriously. If our economy is facing supply constraints, as was the case at times in the recovery from the pandemic recession, Bitcoin will not help address the problem. It does not produce any of the goods and services that people need. 
If Bitcoin, or other crypto currencies, sell for high prices, it means that the people who hold these currencies can command more of a limited supply of goods and services. In other words, high priced crypto is a recipe for inflation, in the same way as would be the case if the government just dropped trillions of dollars from the sky for people to grab on the streets and in their backyards. 

From: Dean Baker (pic)

The crypto cult has insisted that we somehow need crypto. While crypto has proved somewhat useful for paying for drugs and blackmail, no one has yet identified a legal use.

I think Dean Baker is wrong. 

Crypto is a computer program that requires inputs to produce; for some reason, many love and collect it. Ergo, crypto puts food on the table for the miners and producers of its inputs like Nvidia chips, computer hardware, electricity, real estate, maintenance technicians, guards, and personnel of its mining facilities, etc. All that is taxed. Yet cryptocurrencies don't directly cause general price inflation since they operate separately from traditional money supply. However, they can influence prices in specific ways:

1. Energy costs may increase in areas with heavy crypto mining due to high electricity demand
2. Computer hardware prices can rise from increased demand for mining equipment
3. Crypto speculation can affect traditional financial markets through investor behavior and institutional adoption

The primary drivers of inflation remain monetary policy, supply/demand dynamics, and broader economic factors rather than cryptocurrencies. Their market cap and adoption aren't yet large enough to significantly impact general price levels.

Central banks control traditional inflation through the money supply and interest rates—mechanisms that don't directly apply to decentralized cryptocurrencies.

The Secret of HaAretz's Negativity

 Each additional negative word in a news headline drives 2.3% more clicks. (“Negativity drives online news consumption“)

HaAretz is 100% negative. 

Prices are Low

• Fidelity

  

  
  

  The need for a diversified portfolio to spread risk also makes the case for private assets. Going into 2025, with many markets still on the cusp of recovery, prices are low and there are opportunities for investment that could deliver solid returns in the medium to long-term.

Paradox

 

According to the Jan.4th Economist, Israel's bourse is the best globally. It lifted 29% in the year-to-year table, with almost no inflation, while fighting a multifront war. Some 80,000 Israelis emigrated, while the population grew by 1%. Apart from the 4.30 AM syren forcing me to go to the MAMAD, this is the best place to live.

The Yarmouk River is Ours

Israel has taken control of the Yarmouk riverbed and the Al-Wahda Dam. The dam, a joint structure between Syria and Jordan, supplies water to Jordan for drinking and agriculture and hydroelectric electricity to Syria. It stretches 110 meters and has a storage capacity of 115 million cubic meters. The dam provides approximately 30% of Syria’s freshwater and 40% of Jordan's. No kidding! 

We are on our way to becoming the regional hegemon a-la-Mearsheimer. 

The conquest of the Hermon Peak was publicized, but the acquisition of control over the region's water sources was kept silent.