Hello Maurice,
Dateline May 11th, 2002 Kremlin Armory
My American partner surprises me at times. We just finished with a civic-minded Russian tycoon (oil, media) at his Long Island-isque estate. We had tea and cake. His very pretty wife, perhaps 35 years his junior, was educated in London.
Our host transported us in an armored limo (Russian design based on 1960s Cadillac), followed by a RangeRover carrying four submachine gun toting guards. It was all deliciously melodramatic for a Trinidadian in Russia.
Observation: Our host’s platinum watch is of the same calibre as Jay’s platinum equation of time machine. Difference being our host can buy the watch manufacturer.
The conversation concerned Russian integration with the world, strategy vis-à-vis the Eastern world, and, but of course, business opportunities.
Observation: There are no such tycoons in Greater China ex-Hong Kong/Taiwan, because the natures' goodies still belong to the State and the Party.
The tycoon noted that there are more than 100,000 Chinese illegal immigrants in Moscow, they work hard, keep to themselves, and are obedient. He commented Russia needed more. In his mind, sovereignty and economic development are separate and distinct issues. A government should not care about where the tax revenue comes from, as long as it comes in quantity.
There are about half a million Chinese immigrants in Siberia, making something out of something else, alleviating Municipal tax revenue shortfall, and ameliorating local unemployment.
Observation: Folks may feel differently when the count goes up to 50 million, or approximately what 3 large cities up and down the Yangtze river can spare. Yes, Russia, like Japan, is fast losing population, and a few children of the Caribbean cannot turn the (there is that word again) inevitable tide.
<<listening ... good sound quality ... Irwin Jacobs via cyberspace ... on my couch ... notebook computer ... link mainframe ... links by ADSL to cyberspace ... QUALCOMM's web site>>
I am at the Armory of the Kremlin, a museum choked full of artifacts from the Empire's past, and a place of superb acoustics. I am tapping on my Compaq iPAQ, linked later to my Sony Vaio, and then to you on SI BBR thread via very expensive dial-up phone lines.
There are rooms full of weapons from many cultures and times, intricate metallic and crystal Easter Eggs, fantastic carriages, gaudy thrones, dark religious icons, silver and gold utensils, and clothing belonging to dead rulers.
As one walk past these properties of the empire that was, or the empire that will yet be, one cannot help but imagine the surging proletariat workers and down-trodden peasants rushing through these chambers one night so many years ago, amazed at the opulence around them, taxed from their work, of no particular benefit to them.
Observation: Truly smart folks would most likely avoid becoming emperor, Kaiser, king, czar or godfather, just to avoid that final night of long knives.
Observation: The successive royal families of Russia (I am guessing from what little I know about Russian history) fell mostly through court intrigue, as opposed through peasant uprising. The successive dynasties of China (again I am generalizing from what I know) mostly fell due to internal revolt, as opposed to court intrigue or outside invasion. Then, maybe not; must check on the facts one fine day. All empires at the end had too much currency in circulation, too heavy a group of peripheral obligations to sustain it, and too few practical solutions to too many intractable problems.
The concert has started. Adorable kids (5 years old and on up) play all manner of instruments, some familiar and others not so familiar.
My wife is organizing a series of performances by Russian young musicians in Hong Kong this September, and aims to represent some Russian painters in Greater China. These activities are relevant for increasing peaceful exchanges between peoples, and for maintaining peace between husband and wife.
The music is sometimes dark, other times fun, and still other times, simply powerful.
I look up towards the very high ceiling line, and see blank stares from plaster portraits of presumably important political figures of times past, attired in religious, court or military head gear. The people represented are all no more than dust now. Just blank stares from the walls.
I look left, and see armor and swords of different designs, their values lost to progress.
I look right, and see reflections of light on the gold utensils. Their value now is as they were before, and long after.
I see an antique and frozen clock face flanked by miniature gold angels, trumpeters and warriors. The material of the clock is portable, divisible, fungible and recognized worldwide, along the three physical and one temporal axis, timeless, and forever of value.
Observation: I must have more gold, universal money, acceptable for all times, in all places; not as investment, but as savings.
The music now is reaching a crescendo.
I visited with my relations yesterday. My niece, Yolanda Chen, the happy-go-lucky el supreme Russian national sports TV anchor lady, 40 years old (I was wrong about her age before) and looking 25, one time world champion (93-95) for triple jump, picked my wife and I up in her BMW 5 series and drove us to my aunt's country place 40 minutes outside of Moscow.
My aunt, also Yolanda Chen, 88 years old, was married to a Mr. Shelenkov, who was a famous cinematographer. My aunt was a cameraperson. Together they had made the B/W version of War and Peace, Romeo and Juliet, and White Night.
The two Yolandas (Iolanda in Russian) had as much difficulty explaining their presence in Russia as I had explaining my presence in China, for we French Creole Hakka Chinese Trinidadians are only easy to explain in the Caribbean.
I brought along books, photo albums, mementos, and 90 years of oral history.
The afternoon went by quickly. My 68-year old brother had only seen our father twice, and the last time was when my brother was 2 years old. My brother's mother was a Jew from Boston.
The country place is a spread of about 2 acres, with a bunch of buildings built up over the years since 1954, fed by sweet and cold well water from 8 meters deep, and surrounded by foliage, located on the outskirt of a small town centered by a simple train station. All very Russian.
My aunt lives with my brother and sister-in-law, two dogs and a cat. Their life has been a simple but relatively good life. My niece and her her husband (coach of current Russian record holder) spends the weekend with them. Soon there should be little Russian French Creole Hakka Chinese running about, but no longer of the Chen name.
Observation: visually, Moscow is about 1984 Beijing/Shanghai. Differences are Russian (a) know-how seems skewed towards weapons, (b) comparative advantage leans towards natural resources, (c) has relatively less entrepreneurial tradition, (d) but also less state role in economics.
Observation: there was a misallocation of monetary resources in Russia over a long time. There was a defense spending bubble. The bubble is no more, and preciously little is for show. The results are generally some monuments and some military decorations for sale beside the monuments.
Other bubbles leave different mementos: buildings no longer saleable, SUVs requiring fuel no longer cheap, strands of dark glass fiber to remain not lit, nicely printed paper entitling ownership in enterprises no longer supported by the marketplace, and fiat currencies underpinned by less intrinsic value.
<<7 million Koreans swarming all over cyberspace via CDMA can't be wrong>>
No Maurice, Korea will be WAT frontline, unilaterally declared, and CDMA will soon give way to less productive priorities.
WAT, in the Russia variation, is centered on Chechnya. The local consensus seems to be: (a) Putin does not know what to do, (b) the fight, to the Chechens, is forever and until victory, and (c) to the Russians, until out of money and will.
This state of state sounds suspiciously like Vietnam, Israel/Palestine, Afghanistan, ... and Afghanistan once more. Worse, the Chechens, being exiles out of the Caucasus during the age of Stalin, look and sound exactly like the Russians, and cannot be singled out in crowds.
Very odd thing about the down trodden, they do not always and just rollover and keep down and be trodden again and once more; instead, they sometimes make bombs and concoct benzene cocktails, and they tend to increase in numbers and strength over time, in more places.
There is very little Pax in the world now, and in the true analysis, there will be less in the future. You will not hear such talk in the pop media, and so it is just as well that the spin is gradually losing its spun.
Prepare for less Pax, and be prudent, just as you un-leveraged on QCOM earlier. No, do not let the upgrade on QCOM fool you.
Speaking of media spin on great places to invest, the fiat central is now hissing unilateral value. The election campaign is underway, and the global investing electorates will show thumbs up or down, democratically.
Simply put, we collectively must prepare for a time of progressively less Pax, more chaos,
<<... remarkable world ... Trinidad, Hong Kong, Beijing or Moscow ... right ... pixelated on my screen>>
... describing the same collapse script of one familiar state of euphoric equity levitation, using ingredients found everywhere.
I have just been handed a cup of hot chocolate Russian style, and whah! It is good. Basically melted chocolate, and delightfully different from the supermarket varieties. I must sign off now.
Chugs, Jay |
