Yes, #Elon is still a pretty amazing CEO. Yes, he has single-handedly made welding and other industrial production great again.

That moment, when it finally dawned on you that the whole Venezuela thing was so weird because it was actually a Cuban thing.

GM. It is Monday, the 16th of February, and these are *Your News in Numbers* : * The gold rally has cooled off, after nearly doubling in price (from $2.800 to $5.000), within a year. Silver also more than doubled, from $30 to $75. * Bitcoin went from $98k to $68k, over the same period, trending toward it's predicted bottom of $55k. * The Federal Reserve monetary velocity is continuing its relentless march down the hill, currently at 1.650, with the spectre of the USA joining Europe, Japan, and China in the deflationary debt trap. The Fed total monetary base has slid from $6.400 billion to $5.400 billion, since the last round of stimmy checks, so Trump is now eyeing another round. * The EU is hoping rearmament at home and reconstruction/investment in Ukraine will pull it back out of its own impending recesssion. Germany has returned to the tradition of lending poorer customers money it knows will never be repaid, at its own interest rate (currently 2,75% on the 10Y, in comparison to 4,05% for the USA) * The German credits are mostly being used to purchase large machines Made in Germany and expand the influence of German industrial conglomerates. But it's drones, electrical grid components, and medical equipment, instead of cars, this time around. Rheinmetall shares are up 73% on the year and Siemens Energy is up 155%. * After almost 2 years, Brussels has formed a government. France's government has survived 2 no-confidence votes and passed a budget. * 25 years of negotiations have led to the Mercosur Deal, between the EU and Brasil, Argentine, Uruguay, and Paraguay: a free-trade zone for over 700 million people. This was then immediately dwarfed by a messy, rushed EU-India deal covering 2 billion people and 25% of world trade. * The BRICS currency idea has largely been abandoned, with the member countries either sticking to their own currency or adopting the Chinese yuan. Russia recently issued $3 billion in yuan government bonds. * China remains the largest national trading partner for both Ukraine ($19 billion) and Russia ($228 billion), but the value of that trade is declining in both markets. It has just agreed to increase humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, and has continued to refuse to recognize Crimea or Donbass as Russian terrorities. Chinese firms have been livid about Russia bombing their Ukrainian operations, and the Belt-and-Road Initiative has largely ground to a halt in Europe, while European and American companies take economic ground across Ukraine. China, in turn, is quietly and peacefully taking over Russian borderlands in Siberia, and has even been allowed a Russian transit port, Vladivostok. * But the biggest news of the week has been the Russian ban on Telegram and WhatsApp (over 100 million Russian users). Everyone in Russian territory is to switch to the national Max App, a WeChat clone that lacks E2E encryption. This is unfortunate for the Russian military, which has been relying on Telegram for secure frontline communications. Quite crushing, after their satellite receivers were put on the Starlink blacklist.

😂 Brilliant.

#shorts

#shorts