Money that has nowhere to go

Tyler Cowen writes in Bloomberg that "There's a lot of wealth being created and not enough safe places to store it."  There are no enough instruments to transfer wealth from the present to the future. US bonds pay nothing and the dollar devaluates.  Gold keeps is worth, more or less. It is the most primitive safe heaven. So the money goes to American blue chips and real estate in London, New York and Tel Aviv. Can't somebody invent some kind of bank or financial institution better than gold?

Israeli bureaucracy: Invincible

In 2014 the whole Israeli gas industry was about to crash because Nobel wanted to leave the country. The reason was that the regulation and taxing rules were changing all the time. Netaniyahu promised to intervene and moderate and stabilize the regulation, but that did not happen. Last week the Commerce and Industry Chamber had a meeting to protest bureaucracy, and the facts revealed are shocking. Ten percent of the food cost is the cost of compliance with the paperwork required, and examples were given of large foreign companies that went back on their plans to enter the Israel market. It is impossible to open a small shop without violating some of the hundred rules and requirements. I am depressed. My designs get rejected by ignorant young women with dictatorial regulatory powers for capricious reasons, such as the scale is inexact, the lines are too thin and of wrong color, the position of the hot water tank is misplaced a few centimeters, spelling mistakes.

The Endangered Soreq Smelt

California has the Delta smelt (Hypomesus transpacificus) which is a small sardine infesting the freshwater-saltwater mixing zone of the Sacramento river estuary. California is suffering from very severe water scarcity but environmentalists have declared the smelt an endangered species (although it is indistinguishable from billions of other sardines) and forced the water authorities to spill good fresh water into the sea to support the ecosystem of this uneatable pest.

Lately I am hearing that the Soreq river carries less water to the Mediterranean (the drought, remember?) and there is a pressing need to restore the "delta". Our marine biologists are feverishly searching for the Israeli equivalent of the California smelt, so we too can be shamed to spill precious, expensive drinking water to the sea. Hereby I am baptizing this yet undiscovered but essential sardine - "the Soreq smelt". It is possible that by this time it is extinguished, and we need to import the California Delta smelt and acclimatize it, or to resuscitate it recombining ordinary sardine genes.

Growing Drought in Iran

Iran is an arid country and suffering from climate change as we do:  there is a 1.2 millimeters annual decrease of precipitation in Iran during last 20 years. The mean precipitation in Iran during September 23, 2017 to January 27, 2018 has been just 40 millimeters, despite the fact that the average precipitation in long run during the same period is 101 millimeters, said the director for drought and crisis management department of Iran’s Meteorological Organization.

Pic: Lake Urmiah.

Iran will follow Israel's path of seawater desalination and saving efforts; in fact, we are two countries complementing each other. It is a pity we are not friends.

Tension in Ethiopia/Sudan border

The war in Syria has exhausted the people and is slowly winding down. The next conflict is building up between Sudan and Ethiopia, with Egypt as would be mediator. All three countries sharing the big river Nile are nervous, the Renaissance dam will change the river's regime, and no one is sure how. These are big, poor, heavily militarized  countries.

The Next Generation

Sunny winter morning in the Holy City of Binyamin Ben Ya'akov Tomb (we are on Google Map) . Noia in the Neighborhood Communal Garden.  Apparently, they are growing beets.


Right: Family PicNic in the Rosh Ha-Ayin "Forest". Grandson Arbel.



Below: Geffen. 

Which was more advanced: The Roman Empire or the Chinese Empire?

Putting side by side technologies of the two contemporary empires, the Romans appear much more advanced and productive. Lets compare metallurgy: Roman mines produced copper, lead, gold and silver and iron by thousands of tons. Roman aqueducts and lead pressure pipes were unequaled till the 19th Century. And they drank wine like the Mediterraneans they were (Pic.:wine strainer).  In civil engineering, the Romans were the world's first major bridge builders. A list of Roman bridges compiled by the engineer Colin O'Connor features 330 Roman stone bridges for traffic, 34 timber bridges and 54 aqueduct bridges, a substantial part still standing and even used to carry vehicles. Another list by the Italian scholar Galliazzo gives even 931 Roman bridges, the majority of which were arch bridges.

"These bridges were part of the Roman road system. This spanned more than 250,000 miles (400,000 km) of roads, including more than 50,000 miles (80,500 km) of paved roads.^[56][57] When Rome reached the height of her supremacy, no fewer than 29 great military highways radiated from the city.^[58] Hills were cut through and deep ravines filled in.^[58] At one point, the Roman Empire was divided into 113 provinces traversed by 372 great road links.^[58] By comparison, in Han China, there were two known arch bridges, referred to in Han literature,^[59] while a single Han relief sculpture in Sichuan depicts another arch bridge.^[60] The Han road system, mostly unpaved, was 22,000 miles.^[61]"  And Roma had a larger population than China.

Romans, as all White peoples, took decisions by public assemblies, where good speakers became the leaders. In America it was the City Hall meetings, in Israel the kibbutz meetings in the communal dining room. The Chinese had no formal meetings and decisions were taken by strict hierarchy. Even today, Chinese assemblies uniformly vote for the leadership's proposals and applaud for long minutes, while real debate - if there is - is hidden and solved by intrigues of underground factions. The Soviet Union had the same type of governance.  Romans had extensive and public (transparent, codified) legislation, the Chinese had no enforceable laws nor lawyers.

Extrapolating history to the future, I reach the conclusion that the West needs not to fear China, and that co-operation is possible and fruitful. Nixon and Kissinger were right.