I remember about 2007 the Rand came under severe pressure. The Reserve Bank said that the real villain was a german commercial bank.
I had a friend visiting me round about that time. He was running Standard Chartered’s business in an arc from Karachi to Singapore. I told him about this. He said “oh those guys. They do that all the time. They probably are the villains here, but they can only do what they do with territories where the international community is already a bit short of confidence. They would never try it with the US or the UK, even though there are weaknesses there that in theory could be exploited.”
This image came across my feed. Obviously on the older side with Frau Merkel still in the picture, but I can think of several very funny German captions one can put on this.
First Thing: European leaders meet as US and Russia lock them out of Ukraine talks
The meeting, convened by Emmanuel Macron, comes as US officials prepare for talks in Riyadh with their Russian counterparts. Plus, the comprehensive ridiculing of New Zealand’s tourism campaign
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been adamant that Ukraine ‘will never accept deals made behind our backs without our involvement’. Photograph: Nicolas Tucat/Reuters
A meeting is expected as soon as Tuesday between the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio. European leaders fear Russia will use the talks to demand Ukrainian neutrality and to split the country into spheres of influence.
Who will attend the Paris summit? The French president, Emmanuel Macron, who is convening the talks, Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, and the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer.
Stiglitz argues uncertainty over Trump’s policies are likely to slow economic growth while tariffs will drive up inflation. Photograph: Allison Dinner/EPA
“It risks the worst of all possible worlds: a kind of stagflation,” said Stiglitz, a Columbia University professor and former World Bank economist. Stagflation is when high unemployment meets high inflation and stagnant economic demand.
Investment was likely to be deterred by Trump’s contempt for the rule of law, and Trump’s tariffs – and retaliatory measures by other countries – would push up inflation.
How will thisaffect consumers? Expect to see rising prices, Stiglitz said, adding that almost all economists agree with this: it is just a question of magnitude.
What I find quite interesting, is how the S&P 500 seems to be ignoring all of this… granted this is an index following a stock market, but it has a lot of Apple, Microsoft and Tesla in the makeup. I was expecting at least some kind of a dip…
Why are those in the makeup… or why would you buy those? Not sure what the question is. It’s a weighted index fund. Because it is weighted, about a third of everything is Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Google, Facebook and Tesla.
It means people sold dollars to get rands. Although that is complex, because they might have sold dollars to get euros while euros were sold to get Yuan and that in turn was sold to get rand… a thousand times over via various paths. So it could also mean nothing. The rand weakened against the Euro vs its December values (although not greatly so). The Euro also weakened against the dollar since October last year. So… there doesn’t seem to be any clear trends in the currency markets. Which is weird… with the bombshell that is Trump, you’d expect more movement.
I’m a little worried that investors actually like what is happening…
I mean, outside acting like a complete… shower attachment… and abusing an emergency situation, one that was probably manufactured as well to bypass congress… Trump’s real target is reducing the trade deficit in an attempt to bring local manufacturing and employment opportunities back. Doing that in a way that irritates all your allies isn’t the smartest thing to do… but there is method behind all this madness, even if it absolutely is madness.
To me those indices are really about interest in specific companies (in South Africa it would be the JSE top 40), not necessarily in a country. How you measure the worth or financial health of a country is something different.
Investors are always going to be interested in certain companies. My friend who used to run SCB’s Asia division once said to me that if I had the money, I should buy Microsoft. Because you cannot lose. They have lots of IP, of course, but what makes them bullet proof is their cash reserves and the amount of prime real estate they own. It’s very hard to see a situation for Microsoft, at least in the next few decades, where their debts will exceed what they have in the bank and the value of their physical assets. And the stock will be a consistent grower, not fast any more, but it’s a very good long term bet and safe as you can get on financial markets, so attractive to pension funds and the like. So an expert told me.
So for me S&P is not really a measure of what AMERICA is worth or how it’s doing.
Why do we say the UK is not doing well? Interest rates, inflation, what purchases folks are prioritising, how worried people are about retirement (or even getting through winter). Nothing to do with the pound V the euro or any indices linked to the LSE.
Also, in a move that can only be described as tons of ostrich eggs on the face, they fired a bunch of employees at the NNSA, discovered afterwards that, oops, these are the people that maintain our nuclear weapons stash, but since they already locked them out of their email accounts they are now struggling to hire them back.
Vice president Vance then insulted the Europeans, acting like they don’t know how to do democracy, after which the German minister of defence properly took him to task. What was interesting about that speech, is how little clapping there was for Vance, vs the German minister. It’s clear that the EU does not have “eyebrows”, as we say in Afrikaans, for this nonsense.
Same feeling I got last week, this comment I made:
You pointing out re. the markets not reacting as one could have expected … feels like something is different this round, the USA not having such a big impact as in the past as one would have expected?
Someone I know once told me that when negotiating, you never meet in the middle. When you meet in the middle, the man who makes the more outrageous claim will benefit unfairly. You decide what is fair, then you go with that.
What Trump is suggesting – which is sort of understandable, this is his way of making deals, you wear out the other guy until he agrees to 30 cents on the dollar – is to just come up with a deal that splits things in the middle, for some value of middle, and then we get this over with.
It doesn’t work. Because what is fair, is that Russia F’s off out of Crimea (which they took in 2014), then F’s off some more, and when they reach a gate that says “No f-ing off beyond this point”, they live their best life, climb over that gate, and F off some more…
Anyone that is forgetful need only to check out the Maidan Uprising (lots of stuff on YouTube) to remind one that the the Ukranians sent Putin and his sidekick packing after a rigged election…
First Thing: Trump blames Ukraine over war with Russia – ‘you never should have started it’
President ‘disappointed’ with Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s complaint about being excluded from talks. Plus, clean energy contributed 10% to China’s GDP in 2024
‘Should have never started it’: Trump appears to blame Ukraine for war with Russia. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Clea Skopeliti
Good morning.
Donald Trump has blamed Kyiv for Russia’s invasion and said Ukraine could have “made a deal” to avoid war, as he criticized Volodymyr Zelenskyy for demanding to be included in peace talks.
Trump said he was “disappointed” that the Ukrainian president had complained about being excluded from negotiations between the US and Russia over ending the war. Speaking to reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort, he claimed a “half-baked” negotiator could have obtained a deal years ago “without the loss of much land”.
He went on to blame Ukraine for its invasion, saying: “Today I heard ‘oh, well, we weren’t invited’. Well, you’ve been there for three years … You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.” Trump echoed Russia’s demand that Ukraine hold elections, falsely claiming that Zelenskyy’s approval rating was “at 4%” – in fact, 57% of Ukrainians said they trusted the president in a February poll.
When will Trump andVladimir Putin meet? Trump suggested they were likely to do so this month.
What hasZelenskyy said? He has demanded “fair” talks with seats at the table for Ukraine, the European Union and Turkey.
There shouldn’t have been any loss of land at all. That’s what I mean by first asking “what is fair?”.
Of course it is a bit more complex than that. The process of “state forming” is a bit more blunt, but it comes down to this: A group of people decide, these are our borders, these are our laws. According to those laws they then appoint a government, and typically a military and a police force. And everyone sticks to the rules.
In the west, those rules are typically of the democratic variety, so if people in the Donbas wants to be a part of Russia, it can be done through a democratic vote. The same would be true of Greenland: If they want to be part of the US, that can be democratically decided. In that context, what is “fair” is that which plays by the agreed rules.
Therefore, what is fair in the Ukraine is ZERO loss of land. Russia can, as I said earlier, bugger off as hard as they can. There is no saving face. In a perfect world, there would be an apology and a resignation.
But alright, sometimes it doesn’t work like that. Sometimes, you cede some land for peace. But in that case, it is still unfair that such an agreement should be reached between only the US and Russia, as if they are the only adults in the room. The EU has a massive vested interest in this, and have stated that they will not be excluded from any negotiations. Ukraine did the same.
Germany has also indicated, via their minister of defense, that Russia will only understand a position taken from a position of strength. In other words, parking a few big tanks nearby and saying… alright… let’s negotiate.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been adamant that Ukraine ‘will never accept deals made behind our backs without our involvement’. Photograph: Nicolas Tucat/Reuters
