Slogans are for people who need to be told what to think.
Long (long) time ago, as I started my PhD, I met Chinese PhD student in economics who happened to also be my flatmate. Let us call him Xi.
Every once in a while, Xi would ask me to proofread his assignments, and truth-to-be-told, his English was pretty bad. Hence, I struggled understanding the thought process behind his sentences, paragraphs and overall flow.
However, eventually, I've got a knack for it. You see, while "proofreading" (aka re-writing) Xi's assignments, I realised that entire premise of his argument was "we should rethink using (petro)dollar as world's currency as there is no good real reason for it, and it only benefits Americans".
In short, the world - in particular, Chinese and Russians - have been thinking about de-dollarization for a while. Moreover, they have been writing, discussing and arranging de-dollarization. While the West has been dealing with the "white privilege", the rising powers in the East have been troubled with the "petrodollar privilege". So troubled, that they have been - particularly, Russia - de-dollarizing for a while. And current "all-powerful-sanctions" by the West will probably speed up the process and encourage others to do the same.
In the meantime, Western pseudo-leaders (aka leaders by position, rather than character) have been falling for their own narratives (e.g. Modern Monetary Theory). So, after printing and spending as "drunken billionaires" the wealth we are yet to create and produce, they again decided to "support the current thing", to not let good crisis go to waste for their own self-interests, and to spin their way out of problems that are - the most likely - of their own creation.
I am increasingly worried about these attitudes. What do you think - will the virtue signalling lead to the de-dollarization?
Well, Russians surely think it might (see provided link).
https://rumble.com/vy8itj-anti-russia-sanctions-are-changing-the-world-financial-system.html
This was a very late recording contrasting two news articles about Omicron - so called "Covid super-strain".
I know I haven't been around lately...work...life...However, the 12-years-old clip popped into my feed and I wanted to share it. The reason? This clip provides the great basic understanding into what are the issues with so-called "evidence" related to anthropogenic (human-induced) climate change and the lack of logic when it comes to the interpretation of such evidence. The sad reality is that even after 12 years from this clip, we are still forced to endure nonsensical conclusions that hurricanes hitting Florida are caused by big bad climate change.
The mainstream media is doubling down on the alarmism, and it is not hard to guess why. However, to be fair, consider my little observation an educated guess, an opinion, rather than the fact. Time will show whether I am right.
(1) 'Climate change affects everyone': Europe battles wildfires in intense heat by Reuters (https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/spain-portugal-battle-wildfires-heatwaves-scorch-southern-europe-2022-07-17/)
If you spent time in Southern Europe, Mediterranean, during summer season - July and August in particular - you probably know that heat-induced wildfires are nothing new. In fact, they are quite common and remarkably devastating for the affected communities, and I have witnessed several in person. Most of the time, the wildfires occur due to heat igniting grasses, especially in the areas where there are broken glass or broken bottles. The glass serves as an amplifier for the sun rays, especially, in the vicinity of dry grasses, or even dry pine needles, and as ...
