Friday, January 17, 2025

Musk

Much like Musk did in North Carolina, he is providing StarLink to Southern California. This allows the fire fighters to maintain communication with each other. He is also supplying power trucks to give power to homes while awaiting repair of power lines. He is doing this pro bono. He also did the same for Ukraine.

Population

The next time you read about some scientist making long term predictions consider the problem of population. For years the experts said the world was heading toward over population and that in fact it was threat to world stability. Fertility rates show the number of births per woman and 2.1 is necessary to maintain a population. This rate has been declining since 1970 when it was 4.5 and today it is 2.2 and is projected to reach 1.8 by 2050. The experts are now predicting a shortage of people. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that the older people are living longer and there are not enough young people to support them.

Hamas war

Fifteen months ago Hamas made a surprise attack on Israel and killed 1,200 people and took 250 hostages. These prisoners were kept in tunnels and many have died. Following this Hezbollah attacked Isreal from the north and Iran and The Houthis started shooting rockets into Israel. Israel retaliated and Hezbollah has been decapitated, Iran has had their air defense eliminated, Syria, the way Iran sent weapons to Hamas, has been defeated and the Israelis are currently destroying the Houthis. Now Hamas has asked for an end to the war. They will release 33 hostages in return for the return of 110 Palestinians with life sentences and 1,000 Gaza detainees from Oct 7. Isreal will remove its troops and allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Health

There are many articles written discussing the problem of the national debt pointing out that this represents a financial burden being passed on to our children and grand children. While this is true there is another problem of equal concern that receives very little attention and that has to do with health. There are many chemicals in the food supply that are harmful and need to be investigated and hopefully removed. Add to that the many drugs being handed out especially to children and the overall health of the population is in jeopardy. Six in 10 Americans have at least one chronic disease, and 4 in 10 have two or more chronic diseases. Many preventable chronic diseases are caused by a short list of risk behaviors including poor nutrition.

NATO

When Trump was last in office only 6 NATO countries were spending the required 2% of their budgets on defense. After being chided by Trump this rose to 23 of the 32 members which are now spending at least 2%. In Trump's second term this will be an issue and all NATO countries will have to spend more as the US will take a less active role in world defense. Some have suggested that Trump will ask these countries to increase their spending to the 3.5% that the US spends. Even with the large increases in defense spending by NATO countries in the last four years the total by NATO is $1.47 trillion and $1 trillion of that is from the US. When the war in Ukraine ends the European countries will realize they must be more responsible for their own defense and no longer rely so heavily on the US. Under Trump many other world organizations will have to depend more on countries other than the US for support. This includes groups like the UN, WHO, WTO and the world bank.

Thursday, January 16, 2025

AI

Recent reports express concern about the AI race between the US and China but if past is prologue there is no real competition. It has been China's policy to steal intellectural property and not use R&D to develop their own new ideas. America leads the way in innovation in all areas and that is likely to continue in AI. The U.S. has the world’s most robust AI ecosystem and outperforms every other country by significant margins. 

Russian oil

Shortly after the Ukraine War started the West place a price cap on Russian oil of $60 per barrel. The idea was to keep Russian oil flowing to prevent rapid price hikes but still reduce oil revenue to Russia. On January 10 this year Biden increased sanctions on Russia oil which will reduce their exports which will cause the price to rise. In addition the sanctions would effect buyers like China and India by including them in sanctions if they purchase Russian oil. Russia has been exporting about one million barrels per day and that will be curtailed which means higher world prices. This is more added pressure on the US to max out oil exports but if the Saudis don't increase exports it means higher gas prices.