We know what’s coming and we are prepared.
Oil and Water
Rabobank Global Strategist Michael Every began a Tuesday note aptly named "Oil and Water" by acknowledging the value of "oil and water (routes)" in an inflationary, multipolar world: "Especially as Yemen’s Houthis have attacked ships carrying cargo via the Red Sea or Arabian Gulf. Welcome to how the world used to work before British, then US, naval supremacy. This is what a multipolar world is going to look like..."
Michael Every laments that it’s only reactive to attacks on shipping, not proactive at the source: "That maintains the risk for more shipping to divert from Suez round the Cape of Good Hope: if so, global carriers would only be able to make 3-4 Asia-Europe roundtrips per year, not 4-5, a massive structural drop in supply capacity. The Financial Times warns , including the drought in Panama cutting passages there and geopolitical risk threatening the Suez."
The Rabobank report appropriately followed an article out of the FT titled ‘Global pre-Christmas trade at risk from twin canal crises’, which warned of a synergistic supply shock from both the Panama drought and, of course, ongoing geopolitical risks near the Suez.
The FT notes that "Switching routes from Panama to Suez adds five days to journeys between New York and Shanghai... If more shipowners avoid the Suez Canal and take the long route around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope for journeys between the same cities, this could add an additional six days to their journey."
At least 167 ships crossed the canal during the first week of December this year, compared with 238 last year. Authorities have for the first time reduced the number of crossings, which by February will be limited to only 18 ships a day.
Multiple shipowners have already applied surcharges of hundreds of dollars per container for exporters sending goods through Panama, as the cost of using the canal increased by up to millions of dollars per ship passage. Hapag-Lloyd announced an upcoming “war risk surcharge” of up to $80 for all shipments to and from Israel.
Yanis Varoufakis (former Greek Minister of Finance) describes AI as a new form of capital that produces not goods, but behavioral modification. This is achieved by engineering perceptions.
The answers provided by ChatGPT, or the images rendered by StableDiffusion — as these increasingly inform our perceptions, they in turn define the reality we experience.
This is what makes AI so powerful — he who controls the AI, defines the reality of tomorrow.
⚡️🇺🇸 Some more things coming out for the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
Under the preliminary drafts of the bill, the USAF is requesting a release of $57,000,000 USD ($57.0 Million) to retire all remaining 162 A-10 Thunderbolt IIs in current service. Apart of the 2023 NDAA, there was a clause for a few million dollars to be released every so often to gradually retire the (then) 250 airframes by 2034; however due to the push by the Dept of Defense to ‘shed’ obsolete or obsolescent airframes that cannot be overhauled or upgraded further without a whole new airframe, it appears the USAF wants to retire all 162 remaining A-10s by the end of 2026.
The USAF plans to fully divest the 340-total remaining A-10s entirely, including those that currently serve in a handful of Air National Guard units in some states; which will be replaced by F-15EX Eagle IIs (like what is already happening with the Michigan State Air National Guard’s A-10s), or F-35A/Bs.
Included ...
My older sister lives in the country in between Velma Oklahoma and Duncan Oklahoma near the Fuqua Lake area, this story was told by a rural mail delivery woman who delivers the mail in the country.
The incident happened while she was on her route, when she came upon to the mailbox a male Chinese nation came out brandishing a, AK-47 rifle being very hostile,
I don't know if he pointed it at her since it is against the law to do so but she was terrified and said she was never going back and that the location that had a guard tower. Was the sheriff department notified, I don't know, did she notify her supervisor, don't know. But word is from the country folk who live in the area they have seen the guard tower at the pot place;
I refuse to call it a farm because it is an insult to farmers.
And yes she was traumatized by that ordeal
