I really wish people would stop questioning a democracy just because they don’t like its results.

oh this is far more deep than results.

I don't think it's the democracy part that I'm struggling with. Not sure how to express it, but basically:

This guy orchestrated an attempted coup on January 6 and he is a convicted felon.

In my mind, I don't think a guy like that should be allowed to even run for president.

that's the part where I feel like something isn't working. I don't think it's the democracy itself, maybe the judicial? I'm not sure, tbh

The real issue is that there isn't a law in the US Constitution that clearly states he can't run. I don't really know how you avoid this situation. And with the American people voting him into office, I'm not even sure what the alternative scenarios might have been.

Bottom line, it's not like the American public is uninformed. Sure, some (tiny minority) of them probably are, but the majority that voted for him know.

At that point, what else is there to say?

well, that you love me, for one.

To be clear, if Trump does almost any of the things Democrats have claimed he will do, then yes... absolutely I would be worried about the health of the US Democracy.

I'm not at all questioning that.

For example, if he silences or tries to imprison members of the media... if he imprisons political opponents (without actual crimes... I need to be clear on this, because it wouldn't be just one, but rather many)... if he actually shoots someone in Time Square... etc... ... ...

I’m still waiting

I loves ya buddy

Whelp, Houston has 6 Michelin Star restaurants now, and I’d bet that doubles or better next year (they missed a few obvious ones, like really obvious). Off we go.

In other news, Dallas only got one, lol.

In other, other news, Austin got 7. I’m a bit surprised they were given more than Houston, but not that surprised. Austin has fine dining, the problem with that city was always finding something in the middle ground - not too expensive and not too casual.

Ooo I wanna try them

In one of those bizarre Matrix-like coincidences, I’m listening to my favourite radio show today, Celtic Crush, and it’s their annual trip to Ireland where the host and a bunch of listeners go on a 5 day tour together and he interviews them between songs

One lady is from Houston and she decided years ago to leave Houston and she married an O’Sullivan (same clan as mine), and moved 10-15 years ago to Dingle, Ireland (beautiful area, super small population). She loves it but it took some time to adjust

Anyway I’m listening to this and thinking of DJ and his wife and how they should move to Ireland and then I can visit them

No Michelin starred restos in Dingle lol

Just peace and quiet

you may not be able to enjoy them...Trump has the trifecta so you may be moving.

No matter what happens I’ll still be visiting Houston, sometimes (actually, that’s not entirely true… the things that would trigger us leaving include some things that would trigger never coming back, but I don’t think they are that likely). I have way too many ties here for a clean break.

So talking about skiing, the local ski resort has won for 6th year, the best skiing center award in Chile, apparently making it on the top 25 skiing places worldwide.

Yes but how’s the food?

Not bad... not amazing, they do have this amazing stake with a butter pepper sauce that I have never seen anywhere else... its AMAZING. Sandwiches are pretty damn good too, rest is just medium and hyper expensive.

You could use your snow tires and be the envy of everyone.

PS: SPA center is top notch.

Oh boy I smell a future rendezvous for us. I love skiing


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Skyr Icelandic yogourt tastes as bad as Björk sounds


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more updates on economics going on...

China is likely going to collapse (it's collapsed 26-27 times already), in the next 10-30 years strictly because of demographics.

So China WAS the previous uninvestable part of the world. That's now going to be Europe. People are going to pull their European investments and put them into the US because it's going to become deregulatory which will be great for markets, especially banks and tech. So money will pour into the States, mostly out of Europe.

The globalization started stopping in 2015-2016. It's often accredited to Trump but it was actually Biden that cemented this stuff into policy much more than Trump did. So now countries are going to start to have to do their own things. Grow their own food, have their own military, etc. It's going to be a big big global shift.

In terms of energy, the demands for energy are rising and rising and green isn't going to cut it. So it looks like Natural Gas is going to be a huge thing in the States.

Interested to see how things will fall into place, especially in Europe.

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Japan has gone to 0 11 times by negating all debts. I think lots of countries are going to be on their own and not all will survive. China will likely fall first. Agricultural supply chains are going to breakdown and this is gonna be really bad for China, Middle East and Russia.

And our dependance on oil is gonna be a big problem cuz so much of it comes from middle east. Pirates and terrorists are able to disrupt oil flow with ZERO budget. Once countries start to fall, some of them will get involved in intentionally disrupting oil production. So private security will likely become the norm in terms of major military hardware.

Right now we're on track to getting off of oil permanently for by 2400 or so. The current narratives out there are ridiculous that it's coming any time soon.

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One of the offshoots of this will make the US dollar the ONLY stable currency in the world.


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Also EVs aren't sustainable. There just aren't enough materials to meet demand or anywhere close to it. So the EV thing is actually going to go away at some point.

UNLESS

technology changes

right now the technology doesn't support mass EV production. Right now we're making the problem worse.

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Mexico is gonna come out ahead (as will Vietnam, India and Argentina) BUT Mexico has as much a labour problem as the US does. One of the funny things is Mexican immigration to US has been zero to negative for 15 years. None of those people at the border are mexican.

3% unemployment in the States. if Trump removes the 10 million immigrants, then inflation jumps to 10% right away. it'll be a disaster.

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btw, get your money out of China as soon as you can. Even right now, real estate in China is gonna go for ten cents on the dollar. Later, you won't even be able to sell.


In a world where China and Europe breaks, Canada is gonna be a big target for the States and we're gonna have to pull an Australia. Canada is gonna have to attach itself at the hip to the US if we're gonna make it through this deglobalization fallout. We haven't supported the US from a security standpoint since WWII and it's gonna bite us in the ass soon.

---

one of the funny things is that the US needs China to build out their industrial (cuz they have all the tech now), so the US has gotta do that as fast as possible before China falls. It hasn't been identified as a national security issue but it will.

If Germany breaks before China, it changes things a bit. But if China breaks than manufacturing assembly needs to be sourced somewhere (probably Vietnam and Indonesia?).

The US is really good at energy processing and that'll be a HUGE thing to invest in. Food processing/production too.


---

in the next decade the rise of the blue collar worker will be huge in the next ten years in north america. They will catch up to white collar workers. It is going to be the golden age of the blue collar worker in the US. Huge wealth accumultation for that group and it'll be to scale. Gonna be huge.

Gen X is gonna get so screwed in the US cuz the Boomers are retiring and there isn't enough money to pay for their retirement so taxation changes will impact Gen X really hard since they're the next big capital group that will have to pay for boomer welfare/retirement.

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basically the main issue that de-globalization are causing is depopulation. The demographics are a DISASTER. birthrates are way down. So there's no workforce (that's what China's problem is). China has been lying about their demographics so it's all just going to collapse as money is pulled out.


++

you know what's funny? The UK is gonna also be in huge trouble if they don't drop this BREXIT stuff. Cuz the surviving economies will be the ones that do a mini-globalization together. it'll be all the anglo countries with Taiwan and Japan and Vietnam, hopefully Chile, Argentina as well.

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the isolationist movement in the States will likely last an entire generation. It'll last longer if the US gets hit on the side of the head.


btw, most of this is from Peter Zeihan who i just sat through a huge session with. He wrote The End of the World is Just the Beginning. Our firm brought him in to kick the tires on our economic beliefs and forecasts since the election. This guy has been on Joe Rogan. He's very interesting. 20 years ago he accurately predicted the demographics of today and seems very confident and credible when it comes to what current demographics mean for the near future.

You will also have the ability to switch Nations when the two changes in Age happen. And not all Nations will be available at the beginning, like Mexico. For example, you might start the game as Isabella leader of the Greeks. Then in Exploration Age switch to Spain. You can actually switch to Spain by being Isabella leader of any nation, or by being any leader and starting as Rome or Greece. Then in the third age you can switch to Mexico. I'm thinking you can probably also switch to Mexico if you were Mayan, maybe Inca if Maya isn't in the game.

To BB, about the EV thing. Toyota came up with a 1-6-90 rule which breaks it down nicely. For the rare materials needed to make 1 EV you could make 6 Plug-In Hybrids or 90 Hybrids.

Most of us can own Hybrids or a few of us can own Teslas.

Of course this also cuts into the amount of solar panels we can make.

Sonar panels suck and make a big carbon imprint

But you’re totally right about the hybrids . The EV thing isn’t gonna work until a breakthrough in technology but hybrids are fine

Sure… but Musk makes EVs, so I’m guessing EVs are back on the menu baby!

lol, Jk…

Btw, nobody ever talks about this, but there’s another reason EVs aren’t likely to ever happen. You need to replace, ALMOST, all of the energy we currently consume in the form of gasoline and diesel with new electricity generation. It’s a huge amount, like 200 GWhs per day for Houston (or maybe that’s for all of Texas, I forget, let me double check that).


Edit: I checked, that’s basically just Houston, ballpark. To put that number in perspective, we peak at about 80 GW statewide. To produce 200 GWh in a day you need a bit more than 8 GW. So the city of Houston, on its own, would need an additional 10% added to the current generation of the state. Good **** luck with that. If you want it from green energy sources, forget it.