First Of All, WASH OUT YOUR FILTHY MINDS!
Conrad is all too familiar with how those septic sewers you call imaginations leap to the lowest possible denominator, if you can leap in a downward direction, and no doubt you were thinking of Kate Phillips, a moderately famous British actress, whom, if Art is not mooning over his Angela Lansbury calendar -
Kate
Here she is, with a backdrop of "Peaky Blinders", which is about the dangers of becoming vision-impaired when at height in the Alps. Or something. She also appears in one of those period dramas that go down terribly well in South Canada, and have done ever since "Upstairs, Downstairs", the poor benighted trans-Atlantic beggars, pining for royalty and aristocracy - O sorry, went off at a bit of a tangent. "Downton Abbey" is the series in question. No, you don't get a picture.
Okay, we will now transit wildly to one of my semi-transcripts from that Youtube channel par excellence on deep and meaningful matters, "Silicon Curtain", as hosted by Jonathon Fink, with his guest Professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld. Art!
Jon and Jeff
Jeff, as we shall dub him, is a Prof at Yale School Of Management and an economist by trade. This is to shorten his educational resumé and qualifications to meaningful length or we'd be here an hour later.
So, well into the interview, Jon asked if " - the structural problems of Ruffia's extremely brittle economy don't get nearly as much attention as they deserve?"
Jeff nodded sagely at this and proceeded to disembowel the Ruffian Prez's habits of making shizzle up from whole cloth, though he put it in rather more delicate terms than I. For one thing, Putin simply invents numbers. The next time you hear of the International Monetary Fund quoting data about Ruffia, be aware that they have ZERO visibility of genuine Ruffian numbers. Art!
Zero-X. Close enough.
Director Kristalina Georgieva simply tells her minions to approve whatever information Putin has passed on to them, because she has a fear of both windows and tea. NB This is exactly what Big K. of "Inside Russia", warned of at least 6 months ago, that the IMF does no analysis of, or auditing to, Ruffian data.
Ostensibly, the IMF needs 30 different statistics to calculate a nation's GDP, which it doesn't get from Ruffia, because Putin has Rosstat, the state's official statistical body, make stuff up and give that out.
Case in point: Inflation. Art!
According to Rosstat, Ruffian inflation fell to 8.6% in September 2024. Jeff roundly pooh-poohed this and stated the real figure is three times that. This is confirmed by us going off at a tangent, bringing in "Joe Blogs" and his referral to the "Phillips Curve", an economic model created by Polite Australian Bill Phillips in 1958. Art!
Put in terms so simple Conrad can understand them, there is an inverse relationship between the unemployment rate and inflation. If unemployment is low, inflation ought to be high, as the factors leading to low unemployment will tend to increase inflation.
Enter another Prof, this one Steve Hanke, who has carefully calculated the Ruffian's real inflation rate as based on the Phillip's Curve, using what economic data is available. Art!
This 'dip' in the official figure, when it went from 11% to 2%, is one reason Conrad never trusted the official Ruffian statistics, because there was no reason or explanation for it. What you might call the first blue flag. Look at the extreme starboard of Prof Hanke's graph, because that shows inflation at 27% - backing up Jeff's assertion with data.
Jeff also repeated a fact that Joe has put across repeatedly, that the only reason the Ruffian economy still functions is because it has gone over to a wartime economy, which is great for all the businesses contracted by the state to fulfil military requirements, but considerably less great for non-war economy businesses, which are now being taxed at up to 50%. Art!
The stark choice
Another weakness, as detailed extensively by "Prune60" over on Twitter, is that there is nobody propping up the Ruffian economy, because all recent attempts to sell government bonds have been miserable failures. Jeff pointed out that not even China, Putin's fairweather friend, is willing to buy Ruffian bonds. At a recent meeting he had with ex-pat Ruffian economists and security experts, they looked in detail at all Putin's weapons and weapon systems and concluded that the Ruffian economy will collapse by mid-2025 AT THE VERY LATEST, thanks to the gigantic deficits the economy has created. Art!
"Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown*"
The only way Putin (and Jeff) can see his surviving is by praying for the Orange Land Whale to become Prez next week. Going to be an interesting Bonfire Night!
Asiagone
Yes, back to the Asiago Plateau of December 1917, where Lt. Col Pitt-Taylor (a peculiarly apt surname) and Captain Heywood went a-scouting in the Italian front lines, the better to understand their capacity, and that of the troops.
Here we come to another defect in the Roman army; lack of rotation. In that exemplar of military efficiency, the British army, units in the front line would be rotated back to the support lines, then out of the lines altogether to the rear, for a period of rest before going back into the lines. Art!
Italian trenches on the Asiago plateau
Thanks to the very bad practice of stuffing as many men as possible in the front-line trenches, the Italians did not practice rotation. Thus, Pitt-Taylor and Heywood, with their 'conducting officer', encountered ill-prepared and underclad Italian troops, who had been left in the front lines for months. Not only that, they were holding the front in the depths of winter and at least a trio of them were found frozen to death each morning. Art!
The plateau in winter
Both British and Italians were expecting the Austrians to take advantage of this over-extended front line, which never happened, thanks to that same winter weather. The Austrians were in positions much higher up the mountain slopes and consequently got worse weather, with lower temperatures and more snow. This put the kibosh on any notions of a winter offensive. Art!
Who And What?
Once again, Conrad is convinced that "Strictly Come Dancing" is an elaborate hoax dreamed up by dark and sinister forces (the same ones who keep putting out musicals) to mock and confuse him. Art!
No idea whom either of them are, nor do I care to Google and find out more. Rest assured, both of you, that you will pay dearly when I take over. I shall now go and cogitate on what appropriately dreadful punishment to inflict. "Metal Machine Music" at 120 decibels 24/7 for a month sounds like a good beginning.
Nope, not going to inflict "The War Illustrated" upon you, one item about warfare in the blog is quite enough.
"Our Kind Of Traitor" By John Le Carré
I picked this up months and months ago, along with "Wild Swans", and have recently set-to and begun reading it. Up to Page 80, and it cuts back and forth in time so that you know the protagonists survive whatever Ruffian mafia gang-related outrage is about to happen. Though not if they'll make it to Page 304, which is where it ends. Art!
Well well Kelvin Gosnell ("2000AD" stalwart) it was made into a film in 2016, which I never knew. Conrad will be good and not look up the plot or how it ends, because I can forbear like that. Written in 2004 when Ruffians weren't quite as persona non grata as they are now.
Finally -
Better go eat another quarter of my Blueberry Mug Cake, before it goes mouldy, even it is in the fridge. O, and box up my Sunday Stew, too. Perhaps even taste test it!
* Yes yes yes, it's SHakespeare, sue me if you want.
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