Permitting real estate in Israel

The police destroyed a luxury "villa" (pic) and an unfinished department building in the Arab neighborhood of Ramla. They were built on public lands and had no building permits. 

How were they connected to the municipal infrastructure - water, sewage, streets?  What were the owners of these buildings thinking - maybe they believed they always could pay off the major? 

These actions are very good for the permitting business.

The Indus River Conflict

 The 1960 treaty between India and Pakistan states that aside from certain specific cases, no storage and irrigation systems can be built by India on the western rivers. India is allowed to store 3.60 million-acre feet (MAF) of water from the western rivers, 2.85 MAF for conservation storage and an additional 0.75 MAF for “flood storage.”

India is building the Kishanganga and Ratle hydroelectric power plants in Jammu and Kashmir. The 60 y/o/ Treaty needs adjustments, but the riparian powers are at war. Both possess nuclear weapons. No joke.

Disastrous Impatience

I was hoarding a lot of ICL stock for years. It was my most loved stock, ever since Mr Doyle organized a world cartel and pushed potash prices to heaven.  Ten years or more. But Doyle retired and potash stocks never moved, and their perspectives were not improving, as Canada was opening new mines and Australia, too. I lost faith in potash. 

Last month I sold most of my hoard to help my daughter purchase an apartment in Yokneam. 

I should have waited. Unexpectedly, President Trump imposed high tariffs on potash imports (among other items), causing enormous tension in the USA potash market. Prices on the NASDAQ and TASE are starting to move and climb. 

In all probability, I missed the bonanza. 

 

Viking hoards

As of 2015, more than 1,000 kilograms (2,200 lb) of silver from over 700 caches deposited between the 9th and 12th centuries have been found on Gotland. This includes 168,000 silver coins from the Arab world, North Africa, and Central Asia. Left: A Khazar silver coin.

Genetic research indicates that the Vikings (Danes) derive from Finnish stock from North East Asia. The Mari and the Samoyeds are the Finns who stayed in the place and did not migrate a thousand kilometers west. The Scandinavians beget the Germanic tribes that invaded the Roman Empire after its dissolution. The Russian people originated from the Finns. 

The Vikings produced nothing, built nothing, but sold blond slaves to the Greek and Muslim world. They were basically slavers. The enormous hoards found indicate their worldwide business interests and their wealth. 

Interestingly, the Achaeans from the Iliad were also known as Danae. They were seafaring people who raided maritime settlements and took slaves to be sold. That piratical livelihood was discovered and practiced in different places and eras.

 

Astrud Gilberto

What worries the internets

By the end of this century, whites will be on track to becoming minorities in almost all our historic homelands, even within Europe. The majority of births in the United States are already to non-whites. This shift will have major political, economic, religious, and cultural implications. Whites can expect Zimbabwe at worst, South Africa at the norm, and something like Lebanon in the best case.

The scope of the change paradoxically makes it hard to talk about. It is so massive that to define it makes one sound like a lunatic. 

The above is too pessimistic. Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) was a paradise not long ago. If worse comes to worst,  America will look like Brazil or Mexico, which is not so terrible. Whites live very well in Brazil. I like Brazil. I like Astrud Gilberto. 

The price of salt

 
I have been increasingly skeptical of statistics. Already in my time, Argentina was falsifying its national numbers (until the World Bank publicly rejected them as lies). In China, I was amazed by the brazen fabrication of figures. Now, The Economist concludes that even American statistics are of dubious value and that the economists who base their complicated equations on them must be wrong. Napoleon demanded to be informed about the price of salt in various provinces, probably because it could not be falsified, or none of his own functionaries would be interested in misguiding him. Salt was vital to conserve food, so it must have been linked to the general welfare of the population. Speculators must use only unfalsifiable information, such as night satellite photos of cities. Or other observable market prices: The "Big Mac Index" - which is internationally comparable; basic commodity prices in open markets (salt, rice, etc.), and black market exchange rates versus official rates (the gap itself is informative). BTW,  prices at the Rami Levy supermarket are shocking, indicating the galloping inflation of the sheqel.