Hi everyone, after the election I felt some fatigue with politics, some relief, and then the holidays were upon us.
Now that things are starting anew, there will be much to address. I'll be releasing episodes per usual beginning this week.
World political matters to predict and discuss:
- Ukraine, obviously. Short answer: they will draw a ceasefire with Russia, which Russia will violate until it achieves it's desire for resources and land. This will be a "win" for peace negotiations in the sense that men will stop dying in WWII numbers.
- Taiwan. By 2027, the CCP has declared it wants a China-centric solution to the tensions over the straight. Currently over 75% of US semiconductors are made on the island.
- The Whitehouse has conceded that China has the ability to shut down US ports and shipping logistics with cyber warfare. Perhaps #2 above is implicated here.
- We have in fact been in a recession since July 2024. I predict that things are going to get pretty rough before they get better. Caveat: if Trump manages to get oil prices down that will enhance our return to a functional economy, bigly. The Biden Adm just signed into law a ban on all federal drilling permits in offshore rigs- an obvious attempt to stall the incoming administration. What a nice guy, ole Joe from Scranton. It's not like Americans will suffer if oil prices down return to normal or anything.
- The democrats are still in a daze from the loss, but at least we're starting to hear sanity from some in that corner and less pretending about Kamala Harris being a great candidate. I think the US is strong when each party has something valuable to offer. The democrats resemble the 1970s Republican party...without a coherent or valued set of ideas; they need to regroup. We will see if the AOCs and Tlaibs are expelled, as they should be, in favor of the Joe Manchins of the world. More striking is how vastly different the US is situated culturally at this point. People are not seeing things in even a remotely similar manner to one another. Much more on this to come.
- People are really hurting right now in this country. It breaks my heart to see the economic state of the nation. This is not a partisan matter and is not a totally red or blue policy determine matter. We have a weird world to content with now. AI writes books and ads that we all read, it will take over trucking and transport. Large numbers of people are consigned to delivering food in bags for a nameless tech corporations (Uber eats, etc), people are scrambling to drive like mad to deliver cheap crap to our doors in silent blue trucks for pennies on the dollar. Our town squares are eroded, meeting spaces are absent, and crosswalks are now places where the occasional meth addict bellows his own delusional prophecy as we drive by trying not to think about the harbinger of our culture just outside our windows.
....#6 is the issue I'll probably be discussing more often these days.
QUESTION: Who do you want me to have on the pod in this coming year?? Comment on the post here. Thanks everyone for being member of Real Clear Podcast.
-Lucas