Opus on opaque Ostpolitik...

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Not looking good. John [The Slog] in outstanding form on 'Germany and the Russian Debt Bomb'. THIS is Part 2. 

The 'appetiser': "you probably failed to notice this, but Russia paid its due debt installment in full last Friday. You probably didn’t see that, because the MSM blanked it." [sic]

The entrée: "In a nutshell, driving Russia into default risks a nuclear chain reaction that is impossible to predict….and anyone telling you otherwise (eg the Pentagon) is lying." 

The conclusion: "...there is one depressing certainty in 21st century life: our economic system, US democracy, EU fiscal stability, media investigation, bureaucratic rules, banking credibility, corporate governance, NATO information, health science, civil policing, military intelligence and financial sectors are all irreparably compromised by greed, mendacity and unachievable globalist megalomania." 

I am presuming too that you have all noticed that China, India (and very early on Pakistan, "so much excitement") and now the Emirates are all overtly not-quite-cosying-up to Russia but certainly not turning them away and making gains while the EU and the UK are failing and going backwards at every level, even propaganda. 

And off topic but really very much on topic, you know what hasn't gone away:

"The choice is ours. We can either go back to sleep and follow the shiny baubles of the latest breaking news on the MSM news feeds or we can continue to focus on the creation of the biosecurity state..."

Oakus opportunities...

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...of the US Oak! :-)



Interesting chart on the Visual Capitalist of milestones for US companies, prompted by Apple's recent trillion USD market valuation, "through a period of over 200 years of U.S. market history. It was inspired by this interesting post by Global Financial Data, which is worth reading in its own right."



Interesting indeed, for example, there I learnt that before 1900, the London & Northwestern Railway was the largest railroad and the largest company in the world (before that the Bank of England held the honour).



The Visual Capitalist post also mentions that Apple is not in fact the first company globally to ever hit the one trillion USD landmark: the "feat was achieved momentarily by PetroChina in 2007, after a successful debut on the Shanghai Stock Exchange that same year." Momentarily because after the one-day tripling of stock value it subsequently collapsed by nearly 80%.



What I find more interesting is the drop by more than a third in the number of companies: from 7912 in 1995 down to 5186 this year. In fact the total number of companies peaked at 9,850 in 1999;  so a drop of very nearly 50% in the first 18 years of this century.

Oakus opportunities...

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...of the US Oak! :-)

Interesting chart on the Visual Capitalist of milestones for US companies, prompted by Apple's recent trillion USD market valuation, "through a period of over 200 years of U.S. market history. It was inspired by this interesting post by Global Financial Data, which is worth reading in its own right."

Interesting indeed, for example, there I learnt that before 1900, the London & Northwestern Railway was the largest railroad and the largest company in the world (before that the Bank of England held the honour).

The Visual Capitalist post also mentions that Apple is not in fact the first company globally to ever hit the one trillion USD landmark: the "feat was achieved momentarily by PetroChina in 2007, after a successful debut on the Shanghai Stock Exchange that same year." Momentarily because after the one-day tripling of stock value it subsequently collapsed by nearly 80%.

What I find more interesting is the drop by more than a third in the number of companies: from 7912 in 1995 down to 5186 this year. In fact the total number of companies peaked at 9,850 in 1999;  so a drop of very nearly 50% in the first 18 years of this century.

Owning Oliver's overpriced offerings...

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Well said JD WETHERSP00N (Twitter PARODY!) who has responded to Jamie Oliver (or more specifically Oliver's 'Italian' range CEO Simon Blagden said: "As every restaurant owner knows, this is a tough market and, post-Brexit, the pressures and unknowns have made it even harder" [BBC]. Of course had they not blamed Brexit I doubt the BBC would have been interested.

This has nothing to do with Brexit, it's because his food is no better than ours but four times the price! https://t.co/8KnCZMhw2v

— JD WETHERSP00N (@WetherspoonsUK) 6 January 2017

Hi @jamieoliver these restaurants you are closing because of 'Brexit' we will take them because we know how to run a successful business!? 👍

— JD WETHERSP00N (@WetherspoonsUK) 6 January 2017

Trouble is, it just reflects exactly what Jamie Oliver's company did in 2015 and 2014, clearly a company strategy, open up several 'new idea' restaurants to fanfare, suck up the mugs money for a year or so then close the least profitable and start with the next idea (quite a few in the pipeline I imagine, 'Barbecoa' on the rise...to be whittled down in a year or two for the next whizz).



The main point is, that it is NOTHING to do with Brexit so stop fucking lying.



"WTF, Jamie Oliver?", to quote the Spanish response to him massacring paella last year.

Hat-tip: Order-Order

Owning Oliver's overpriced offerings...

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Well said JD WETHERSP00N (Twitter PARODY!) who has responded to Jamie Oliver (or more specifically Oliver's 'Italian' range CEO Simon Blagden said: "As every restaurant owner knows, this is a tough market and, post-Brexit, the pressures and unknowns have made it even harder" [BBC]. Of course had they not blamed Brexit I doubt the BBC would have been interested.

This has nothing to do with Brexit, it's because his food is no better than ours but four times the price! https://t.co/8KnCZMhw2v

— JD WETHERSP00N (@WetherspoonsUK) 6 January 2017

Hi @jamieoliver these restaurants you are closing because of 'Brexit' we will take them because we know how to run a successful business!? 👍

— JD WETHERSP00N (@WetherspoonsUK) 6 January 2017

Trouble is, it just reflects exactly what Jamie Oliver's company did in 2015 and 2014, clearly a company strategy, open up several 'new idea' restaurants to fanfare, suck up the mugs money for a year or so then close the least profitable and start with the next idea (quite a few in the pipeline I imagine, 'Barbecoa' on the rise...to be whittled down in a year or two for the next whizz).

The main point is, that it is NOTHING to do with Brexit so stop fucking lying.

"WTF, Jamie Oliver?", to quote the Spanish response to him massacring paella last year. Hat-tip: Order-Order

OMG IV...

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This is just so wrong: what do the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Congo, Chad and the Central African Republic have in common? All African countries best to avoid? Good guess but not the answer. What about Gabon, Benin, Niger, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea and Guinea-Bissau? Same! In fact most of them are neighbours in West Africa. Not Eritrea though, that's East Africa. OK, let's add a neighbour for that to the list too: Djibouti. Still no idea? Add Angola and Zimbabwe. Come on, it has to be something to do with Africa, right? No, add Haiti. Well I'll tell you: all 15 of the above mentioned countries are in the bottom 16 of the 10th edition of the World Bank's annual report Doing Business (a publication that now covers 11 indicator sets and 185 economies [full report] (PDF). The common factor of the five countries I first mentioned are the only ones that were below Venezuela. OK, the image gave it away! But VENEZUELA (!!) the country with the world's largest estimated oil reserves, so great in fact that they are nearly 25% of OPEC's entire world crude oil reserves (yes, really!).



The Doing Business report "analyzes regulations that apply to an economy’s businesses during their life cycle, including start-up and operations, trading across borders, paying taxes, and protecting investors. The aggregate ease of doing business rankings are based on 10 indicators and cover 185 economies. Doing Business does not measure all aspects of the business environment that matter to firms and investors." Attribution: World Bank. 2013. Doing Business 2013: Smarter Regulations for Small and Medium-Size Enterprises. Washington, DC: World Bank Group. DOI: 10.1596/978-0-8213-9615-5.

OMG IV...

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This is just so wrong: what do the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Congo, Chad and the Central African Republic have in common? All African countries best to avoid? Good guess but not the answer. What about Gabon, Benin, Niger, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea and Guinea-Bissau? Same! In fact most of them are neighbours in West Africa. Not Eritrea though, that's East Africa. OK, let's add a neighbour for that to the list too: Djibouti. Still no idea? Add Angola and Zimbabwe. Come on, it has to be something to do with Africa, right? No, add Haiti. Well I'll tell you: all 15 of the above mentioned countries are in the bottom 16 of the 10th edition of the World Bank's annual report Doing Business (a publication that now covers 11 indicator sets and 185 economies [full report] (PDF). The common factor of the five countries I first mentioned are the only ones that were below Venezuela. OK, the image gave it away! But VENEZUELA (!!) the country with the world's largest estimated oil reserves, so great in fact that they are nearly 25% of OPEC's entire world crude oil reserves (yes, really!).

The Doing Business report "analyzes regulations that apply to an economy’s businesses during their life cycle, including start-up and operations, trading across borders, paying taxes, and protecting investors. The aggregate ease of doing business rankings are based on 10 indicators and cover 185 economies. Doing Business does not measure all aspects of the business environment that matter to firms and investors." Attribution: World Bank. 2013. Doing Business 2013: Smarter Regulations for Small and Medium-Size Enterprises. Washington, DC: World Bank Group. DOI: 10.1596/978-0-8213-9615-5.