Collapse of Spanish empire as a cautionary tale for Europe

 Spanish empire was the first one in which the sun never set. But borrowing on future revenues for paying for today expenses ruined commercially.

Also the inbreeding of the Habsburg monarch didn't help. After the death of Carlos 3 without an heir the 7 years war started.

The end of Spanish empire was sealed by the attack of their ally Napoleon Bonaparte, who decided to invade them.

Europe had a period of prosperity which allowed indebtness when times were though.

And times got though, the entrance of China in World trade organization, the wars middle East, COVID, war in Ukraine increased debt. 

The political scene is in read also, for years we see the same faces, in France for example we have Macron,Zenour,Melanchon et LePen. Only recently LePen was replaced with Bardela.

In UK, Starmer,Corbyn, Johnson,Cameron.

Rishi Sunak was a kind of outlier. For me it seemed more competent.

In Germany Schröder and Merkel stayed too much.

Ursula von der Leyen seems to stay forever as head of European commission.

In Romania the power is cycled between PSD and PNL parties, everyone cycling the same people at power.

EU ally, USA is ditching it for Russia. 

Without a reform and new people, EU will be like Spain civil war in 20 century, with a powerful nationalist movement against some radicals supported by Moscow.

Only now the nationalists are supported by Moscow.

AI as a cultural phenomena

There are several technical disappointments. 

One is the cryptocurrency. Heralded as harbinger of financial autonomy, now it is used for money laundering.

The other is AI, the saviour of humanity that could cure cancer and heal the ecological disaster, is making fake photos and it makes conversation.

It seems that the now science is performative. You don't have to discover something to change the world, you must make a nice presentation.

AI now is chatty and more socially skilled.

Maybe that will help some guys with social anxiety.

I think the AI will be the mediocrity and it will force real talented people to stand out 

Like in Renaissance when every nobleman was an amateur artist and you had to be a Michelangelo to impress.

Zohran Mandami is the new Obama?

 I just found out that Zohran Mandamus a democratic socialist, an Indian Muslim born in Uganda was elected ad mayor of New York.

I didn't follow the NY elections, I just read the news, I got the same feeling as the election of Obama: that a person who doesn't fit to the WASP profile of the establishment was elected and everything will be fine for marginalized.

Obama came to white house with Hope and left disappointment.

The bailout of the financial in 2008 subprime crisis, and the protection of wall street crooks who engineered it, was one of the disappointments.

Another one was the Afghanistan, which he couldn't solve it despite billions thrown at the problem.

Ukrainians and by in large European allies were disappointed, when he didn't pushed back in 2014 when Russia took Crieea, dispute the US security guarantees given to Ukraine in 1992.

He disappointed the parents of children shot in schools, when he wept in a sprach instead of doing something, like increase security around schools, paying for mental help, using profiling on children to detect who will be a shooter.

Those are disappointments felt by an European, I imagine that Americans were more disappointed if they voted for Trump

Will Mandami crush the hopes of New Yorkers ?

What I know about NY is from internet and especially from Louis Rossman the activist for rights to repair, so my assessment is not correct.

What I know:

1.The rent in NY is high

2.The metro is dirty and unsafe 

3.The garbage is dumped on back alleys and rats are Godzilla size.

What I know that Mandami promised:

1. Rent control 

2. Free metro

3. He declared that NY is a city of emigrants and for emigrants 

How he tries to solve the rent problem?

Rent is dependent of population density and number of landlords.

You increase population density by accepting emigrants or worse tourists, :) you increase the rent for people who work in the city. 

This is seems on all touristic European cities.

In the city you need a minimum number of essential workers: garbage collectors,policemen,nurses, construction workers etc.

If the rent is high you don't have them or you have to pay them more increasing overall cost for citizens.

You can't reduce number of City dwellers. You can expect that the number will increase.

The number of landlords it is essential because a low number of landlords can artificially increase the rent price.

What the mayor can do ?

1.Negotiate on behalf of the people with land lords

 2.Build more public houses with low rent.

By negotiating he can demand a limit of increase in rent, as it is in Berlin.

I don't know if he has anti monopoly powers to force landlords to divest or to sell a part of their proprieties.

This could be a solution to increase competition.

He might demand to lower the rent, but I don't know if he can force the land lords to do it.

Even if he can force land lords to lower the rent I don't think is a good idea. If the rent is below expenses some landlord will not rent it and the offer will be lower, and it is better to have an expensive rent than no home at all.

Also artificial lowering the prices will disincentive people to rent or build.

He can enforce a sanitation code on land lords so they can't demand 2000$ /month for a storage room. 

If they request 2000$ they should give more amenities like kitchen and bathroom with a minim area 

This might force some land lord to reduce price or improve quality.

After the 1917 coup, the communists took over  the houses of the bourgeoisie and of the noblemen and crowded inside in insalubre conditions members of the proletariat, I don't see this happening in NY no matter how communist the mayor is. 

The communists finally solved the housing problem by building drab,grey commie blocks.

I think this the most realistic solution is number 2: build commie blocks in New York.

The  issue of NY metro: it looks bad and under maintained, here I think he should keep the fares, make it more safe more clean, to attract more people, and then when you have enough travellers to offer you a good cash flow you can reduce the ticket price.

Inundating infrastructure with non paying customers will break it.

Regarding the trash, in the past the garbage collection was monopolized by Mafia, if it didn't changed, Mandami will have a difficult time to get rid of rats.

Let's see how many promises Zohran Mandami can keep.

About Netflix movie 'House of dynamite' and I don't care about nuclear war

 I didn't see the movie 'House of dynamite' on Netflix but I heard that it is about of an unknown attack on US soil 

This creates have hysteria. US has satellites that monitor the launch of rockets 24/7. They will know who shot it. Even if it is late. USA is big can survive an attack with 1 missile. They will take the hit and then they will find the culprit and pour fire and brimstone on its country.

I bet if Kim Jong Un makes some stupid thing like this he will be overthrow in 5 min. The bunkers are not big enough for whole NK army.

This fear inducing exercise remembers me of a crime that happened in girls dormitory in am US University Campus.

A psychopath threaten some girls with a toy gun, he intimidate them to tie one another, then he raped them, and kill them.

If one girl oposed the whole bluff could be blown and they would be alive. They were killed by fear.

Putin is doing the same thing with nuclear threat, it forces us to tie ourselves. And Netflix is the most hysterical girl from dormitory.

If we give up to fear, we will be destroyed, if we, NATO fight a nuclear war with Russia they will be destroyed.

To incapacitate Russia you have only to destroy Moscow, the local elites don't have the respect of people, they are appointed by Moscow and sustained by Moscow force. Once this disappears everything will be like in '90 but with a nuclear winter.

In Europe, you have to destroy each capital. In general politicians are elected and even if the politicians are incompetent, we have the Democratic exercise to select new ones.

 The geography is varied and the effect of a nuclear blast are not uniform. 

Spain,UK have a big fishing fleet and can bring not radioactive food.

And for 600 years Europe was connected to the rest of the world, and can bring resources from outside. It has the biggest ports in the world. Will it have the money?

Also Europe is full of emigrants this can tilt public opinion on favor of Europe.

If you bomb Paris,Madrid or Berlin you will kill the relatives of some guys from Africa,Latin America,Middle East. 

And those people can sway their guverment to help Europe not Russia.

The buildings can be rebuilt. People die, and others are born but if the spirit of a population is broken you can't undone it.

Ramblings

 If I have to choose between having a long life and having the wisdom to have a good life.

I prefer the wisdom.

But to be wise you have to live long or to learn from mistakes of others. Especially from mistakes of elders.

Wisdom doesn't serve you much if you don't have power to apply it.

The regimes that cut the wings of youngsters are disheartening.

If the symbol for Nazi Germany was the  train and the gas chamber.

The symbol for Ceaușescu regime should be the orphanage with neglected children.

Too big not to fail

 In general in modern economy you are a cog in a wheel.

For example you are an aeronautical engineer. The only place where you can sell your work is at a plane factory.

The factory take your work in others and transforms it into a miracle: a big plane that flies.

Because it is hard to pull miracles , your company is well paid, it becomes bigger and bigger.

But who is at the helm of the he company?

A man who can make costly mistakes, with big effects, and this single point of failure make the whole thing more fragile.

Of course we can take some of the burden of the CEO, and increase the bureaucracy. More middle management, things will be stable but slower.

A firm will grow till it is no longer manageable, it crumbles and it pulls the whole industry.

The best example is VW decision of management to alter the tests, pulled down VW, its suppliers, and stopped it entering into ev market.

Imagine if VW management decide to enter in hybrid market, instead of continuing diesel. No Dieselgate, no losses, a new market created and dominated by VW.

It was a single point of failure and lack of flexibility.

The same happened to Kodak, to Easy India company and many big companies or empires who are a shadow of the former selves.

About Argentina and Falkland islands

 I just heard that Argentina's president Milei is opening again the Falkland island dispute.

Few years ago I read a book which collected the writings of Romanian Julius Popper who explored Patagonia for  Argentina's government:

Tara de Foc, Iuliu Popper

Deceived by government officials who skimmed expedition budget in Buenos Aires, low on supplies, with only 12 loyal Croat emigrants he held ground to lawless gold diggers who were taking over the Tiers del Fuego region and attacked the locals.

From wilderness he wrote back to Buenos Aires a business plan that could develop Tiers del Fuego:

"British Falkland islands have ports that repair shops who cross the Horn or Magellan straight. British government mandates that all the ships should perform an inspection before and after crossing the straight "

"Despite having lower quality soil as in Tiers de Fuego, Falkland islands have many sheep herds and this brings big revenues. Tiera del Fuego doesn't have any"

I don't know how British empire succeed to make any barren stretch of land profitable and former Spanish  colonies didn't.

Maybe the economy was more decentralized in Britain? And more centralized in Spanish empire?

You could extract more wealth being a bureaucrat in Buenos Aires than going in Tiera de Fuego and raising sheep's ?

Anyway Brits earned their right to own the Falkland islands.

Argentina must fix their internal problems.