SovietMen

Nukes, latent nukes and no nukes

Posted on 1 Day Ago by Nikolai Vladivostok

You may have heard recent news about Israel and the United States bombing Iran, supposedly to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons.

I don’t want to get lost in the weeds on this. I just have one thing I want to clarify:

The reason Iran has been ‘weeks away from developing nuclear weapons’ for decades is because it has a strategic position of latent nuclear capability.

Being on the ‘nuclear threshold’ allows a nation to deter attack without going through all the effort, expense and diplomatic strife of actually developing nuclear weapons and delivery capabilities.

The threat is, ‘If you invade us you’d better be quick, because in a few weeks we might be hurling something really nasty at you.’

Some nations can even do it while sticking to the rules of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, if they are members. Iran is a signatory but appears to have enriched uranium beyond what the treaty allows.

Latent nuclear capability can also be used as a bargaining chip. That is, they can offer to trade away some of their nuclear technology in return for concessions on sanctions and so on. Iran did this back in the Obama years.

At the moment, being a latent nuclear power doesn’t seem to be working out too well for Iran. It got bombed and humiliated.

On the other hand, it avoided invasion all through the War on Terror years, and has also thwarted attempts at colour revolution regime change. So, not a total failure perhaps.

Still, nations with actual nukes that thumbed their noses totally at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (Israel, North Korea, India, Pakistan) have done much better. America leaves them alone.

Word from the Dark Side – understanding the blob, a horse story sob, the groupwork knob and a stand-around job

Posted on 5 Days Ago by Nikolai Vladivostok

Understanding The Blob

Imagine if the Church of Scientology had infiltrated the government. Members got positions in the administrative state and the political system. They then directed money to organizations run by fellow cult members. Those organizations then used some of the money to lobby for more money from the system in the form of government contracts, but also by influence peddling to private actors. They would then organize these resources to control public policy.

That is the nature of the “deep state.” The people in it do not think of themselves as part of the deep state. From their perspective, they are just normal people working in the media, government, politics, and policy. Everyone they know is a normal person working in one of these areas. This is how they know they are normal and the people talking about the deep state are not normal. All the normal people they know agree with them that the deep state is a conspiracy theory.

Vale ZMan, who RamZPaul and John Derbyshire announced died of natural causes this week.

Arthur — the NYC carriage horse who famously crashed into two cars — found happy ending

MysteryShopper.gov

Posted on 8 Days Ago by Nikolai Vladivostok

Back when the mighty northern glaciers were freshly melted, I had a casual job in retail. There were three main parts to my job – register, stocking shelves and moving boxes out the back. This list is in order from my least to most favourite.

I actually enjoyed moving boxes and getting sweaty. On register I was socially awkward, shy of my savage pimples under the glaring fluorescent tube lights, and I made mistakes.

Adding to this pressure was the possibility of receiving a Mystery Shopper. If you haven’t done retail, this is a person paid by the company to act like a shopper in order to ensure they are offered a basket if they are holding two or more items, are addressed by name if they use a credit card, that change is counted back, and of course that they get a big shit-eating grin from the poor spotty register monkey.

I never ended up getting a review from a mystery shopper but it was yet another source of terror for a timid young man.

Nevertheless, if you’ve ever had trouble at a shop or restaurant, you can see how mystery shoppers can be a good thing if properly deployed.

Today’s idea is a DOGE-like concept for mystery shoppers to analyze government services.

Town Hall mystery shopper

Bring the mountain to Mohammed

Posted on 15 Days Ago by Nikolai Vladivostok

Self-driving cars are pretty much ready to be rolled out everywhere.

The main thing lagging isn’t the cars, which are good enough.

Rather, we need to change the roads to fit the cars.

This might sound nuts, but we’ve done it before.

Prior to the motorcar, roads were rough as. Mostly they were mud or compacted earth. When it rained they got muddy and when it didn’t they got dusty. Cobblestones in cities improved this a bit but were rattly.

Above all, roads were variable. There was no standard ‘road’.

People laughed their heads off at these newfangled cars trying to drive on these roads, getting stuck in ridges or bogged in mud that horses could gallop over with ease. Even if the motorcar could maintain forward momentum, horse-drawn carriages would often overtake them.

No doubt very clever personages at posh Edwardian parties proclaimed motorcars a flash in the pan.

Today, a road in Argentina looks a lot like a road in Mongolia. We have set designs, materials and street signs for city streets and main roads, highways and freeways.

Friday Finance -100% stocks forever

Posted on 20 Days Ago by Nikolai Vladivostok

**^{Stocks vs bonds, 2000-present. Yellow = bonds, red = stocks and black = stocks including dividends reinvested.}**
**^Source**

It occurred to me that I need to edit the chapter on setting financial goals in my book.

Everyone’s financial goal is to have as much money as possible.

Aside from savings put aside for specific anticipated expenses, everyone just wants lots of money.

You can’t have too much money. An unexpected need might come up, or you can just give it away.

You’ll decide how much you want to work, of course, but there’s no rational reason why you’d invest in something that has a lower return than an alternative (risk-adjusted, of course).

Every so often, a paper comes out showing that actually, you should invest in 100% stocks, 0% bonds throughout your life, even into retirement, because this leads to the optimal likely outcome. It is said to be less likely to eventuate in a wipe-out.

3 sayings about Japan

Posted on 23 Days Ago by Nikolai Vladivostok

Foreigners have certain sayings about Japan that can help you to understand deep parts of the cultural iceberg that are normally hidden.

1. The Japanese would rather lose their way than win any other way.

Tradition and what the boss said to do is valued, at times, more highly than life itself.

This was apparent in the Pacific War.

In Papua New Guinea, the outnumbered, poorly trained and equipped Australians were nearly blown away by the the approaching juggernaut. However, when they adjusted their tactics to prepare for following assaults, they were confused to find that the Japanese forces kept on attacking in exactly the same way again and again and again, thus nullifying their otherwise formidable power and halting their advance.

The Japanese were unable to change right in the middle of things.

In another incident, the Emperor once asked his government why the Americans had been able to fortify captured Pacific islands so quickly compared to the Japanese who had held them for years. The answer was that the Americans immediately shipped machinery to each island for construction. This seemed an alien and scientific way of fighting to the banzai-charge preferring Japanese leadership.

Mediocracy

Posted on 29 Days Ago by Nikolai Vladivostok

To assess governance in developed liberal democracies, you need to ask ‘Compared to what?’

Third World democracies and semi-democracies are comically governed, with politicians rarely stopping to even think about what might benefit the people. They don’t even get up to the point of misunderstanding an outdated economic concept or making a diplomatic blunder based on a cultural difference. They’re just straight-out pinching as much money as they can in order to fund their patronage networks.

In totalitarian states it’s even worse. At least in corrupt countries you can bribe your way around the worst of it. If dictators really believe their own nonsense then life becomes another order of miserable.

Comparing our governments to those of Third World and totalitarian states, we can see that we are ruled by Mediocracy.

Our leaders are mediocre.

They aren’t as evil as Fat Kim or Isaias Afwerki. The death rate is lower and whole populations aren’t trying to flee our countries.

Our politicians aren’t as useless, corrupt and stupid as, say, leaders in Indonesia or Nigeria – the developing world is on another level in this regards. Let’s consider each adjective in turn:

Germans and the Last Man

Posted on May 9 by Nikolai Vladivostok

I always had an image of Germans as hard-working, humourless bot-people, turning only from their toil on rare days off to listen to weird bands or attend pro-refugee rallies.

I now work with a lot of Germans and I’ve been surprised at how much I got them wrong.

Germans are one of the few ethnic groups Australians don’t already know well. There are many people with German ancestry in Australia, but it goes too far back to make much difference aside from celebrating Christmas a day early, making all the other kids jealous as they sleep that extra night waiting for those pressies.

To be fair, some of the stereotypes I saw busted may be recent innovations. Others might be regional – I deal mostly with the south, especially Bavaria. I’m already starting to see Berliners as other Germans do…

First, Germans don’t work long hours. They have some of the chillest labour standards in the world. By law, they are not allowed to work over ten hours per day. Companies will be in serious trouble if they get caught keeping people on longer than that, even if they pay them overtime rates.

Word from the Dark Side – rescued from Mt Fuji twice, the price of vice, school does not suffice, and Hell bum music is very nice

Posted on May 5 by Nikolai Vladivostok

University student rescued from Mount Fuji twice in one week

The 27-year-old student from China living in Japan was found near the 8th station on the Fujinomiya trail, more than 3,000 meters above sea level on the mountain’s Shizuoka Prefecture side.

He was there to recover his items including a mobile phone, which he misplaced after being rescued from the summit by helicopter on Tuesday.

Bus driver who pocketed 1,000 yen [USD 6.93] in fares denied 12 million yen in retirement money

…a bus driver for Kyoto City received a banknote from a passenger for 1,000 yen, and instead of placing it in the fare collection box where it belonged, he slipped it into the pocket of his uniform. Unfortunately for him, the city’s transportation department happened to be doing a routine dashcam check and spotted him in the act of embezzling the fare.

As a result, he was dismissed and also had his taishokukin (retirement bonus) withheld. This is the money that accrues throughout one’s career with an organization and is paid out in a lump sum when they end employment either by retirement, resignation, or even dismissal unless the employee deems the reason too egregious to pay. In the case of the now 58-year-old former driver, that allowance grew to about 12 million yen.

Philippine Statistics Authority study: 19M senior high school grads ‘functional illiterate’

“That means that one out of five of our [high school] graduates cannot comprehend and understand a simple story, and that’s something that we need to address.”

“No one should graduate from our basic education system who is not functional literate,” the senator stressed.

Bali will come to a standstill on this day

Bali will come to a standstill for 24 hours on Saturday, March 29.

Everyone must stay at home and tourists are also required to stay in their accomodation.

Hotel hosts will advise guests what activities are and are not permissible. Some hotels provide a silent buffet for guests and allow limited access to resort facilities, while others require guests to stay in their rooms and deliver food to them, according to The Bali Sun.

The spiritual and cultural celebration is a time for reflection, meditation and self-purification.

The religious and cultural holiday is rooted in Balinese Hinduism where about 87 per cent of Bali identifies as Hindu.

Tourists have also been warned air travel will be halted with the main airport — I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport — closed for the full 24-hour period.

Friday Finance: the 3 best hedges against anything

Posted on May 2 by Nikolai Vladivostok

Recent market ructions have made me think anew about hedging against risk.

All risk. Risk of market downturn, risk of unemployment, risk of sudden giant expenses, risk of Godzilla smashing up the nearest city.

Some advise cash, bonds, gold, crypto, diversification, timber, ammunition or peanuts (really!) as the best hedge against the many risks posed by life.

However, I reckon these three beat all of those.

How white rice conquered Asia

Posted on April 30 by Nikolai Vladivostok

A bowl of white rice! Can any other image so effectively evoke ‘Asia’?

It’s the national staple in Japan, where white rice is so venerated it’s eaten unadorned, just like this. The very word for ‘meal’, gohan, literally means ‘rice’.

In China, ‘healthy food’ means white rice and vegetables.

In the Philippines they say, ‘rice is life’.

You might think that white rice has fueled Asia since the year dot, but that would be incorrect.

Friday Finance – catch every falling knife

Posted on April 25 by Nikolai Vladivostok

In finance bro terminology, to catch a falling knife means to try to buy the dip only to find that the market falls even further, thus cutting your hand.

Dumb, hey? You should only buy right at the bottom.

The trouble is that no one knows where the bottom is.

The best time to invest, mathematically, is when you have the money to do so.

That is, when your consumer debts are sorted, you have an emergency fund saved, and so on.

Got a few thousand in the bank ready to invest and are wondering when to go for it?

Today’s the day.

So was yesterday.

Lost books

Posted on April 24 by Nikolai Vladivostok

No, not your 1994 library fine for losing Pet Sematary.

I’m talking about books lost completely, to everyone. Books we know existed but for which we now have no more hard or digital copies.

Books lost to time.

The truth about tariffs

Posted on April 15 by Nikolai Vladivostok

[A certain type of reader will parse this article for ‘tariff good’ or ‘tariff bad’, and respond from that basis. Please be a superior type of reader]

I’m in a line of work where I get to talk to people from various walks of life.

I find everybody’s occupation interesting. I once met a lady who worked in taps (faucets). I asked her what was going on in the world of taps and actually there were some big things happening with regards to new efficiency standards.

The new US tariffs seem to be affecting everyone I talk to, and I’m hearing some enlightening stories.

Here’s one, which is not directly related to the new tariffs but which is illustrative anyway:

There’s a guy who works in a car factory for a German brand you know well. He was talking about how they deal with existing tariffs in both China and the EU. I’ll fudge a few details here for privacy’s sake.

It goes like this: a car sold to China cops the tariff if it is more than 50% manufactured outside China.

As you can imagine, there are many judgement calls to be made in assessing what ‘50% Chinese-made’ means. For example, what about the engine? How much of a car is that?

Word from the Dark Side – Suspicious Minds, democracy binds, on the war grinds and economy unwinds

Posted on April 14 by Nikolai Vladivostok

German journalist sentenced to seven months of probation for a Twitter meme poking fun at the Interior Minister’s lack of commitment to free speech

It shows German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser holding a sign that has been manipulated to read “I hate freedom of speech!”1 Bendels posted the image to satirise Faeser’s disturbing plans to restrict the speech, travel and economic activity of political dissidents in Germany, which she had announced at a press conference a few weeks earlier.

Faeser personally filed criminal charges against Bendels for defamation after Bamberg police brought the meme to her attention. Last November, the Bamberg District Court summarily ordered Bendels to pay an enormous fine for this speech crime “against a person in political life.” This is yet another prosecution that proceeds from our lèse-majesté statute, or section 188 of the German Criminal Code, which provides stiffened penalties for those who slander or insult politicians, because politicians are special people and more important than the rest of us.

Outrage after German intelligence chief says Ukraine war should keep going for another 5 years

Friday Finance: robots, fools and corpses

Posted on April 11 by Nikolai Vladivostok

The three best types of investors are robots, fools and corpses.

Trading bots follow their algorithmic instructions coldly and without emotion. So long as the instructions are sound, they will come out ahead of any human.

Fools can be successful so long as they are foolish enough.

Wildly trading and thinking you can win? Foolish, but not foolish enough.

Not even paying attention to the finance news, ignorant of the fact that you have an investment somewhere, not even sure what that means if you do hear about it? This is the ideal level of foolishness.

If you’re too dumb to even conceive the future or keep track of anything, any automatic investments made on your behalf like superannuation will be safe from your fumbling fingers.

And then there are corpses.

An apocryphal Wall Street legend is that a mutual fund manager investigated who were the most successful retail investors, and realized that most of them were dead and their next-of-kin had not yet notified the firm. These investors invested for a very long time without chopping and changing with market conditions.

So if you want to be a good investor, pretend to be a robot, a fool, or dead.

Today, given current market kabobulations, let’s imagine that we’re robots. Here are few simple instructions given to you as an AI system. Please follow these rules mindlessly, ignoring all other signals. They are based on long-term data and mathematically most likely to maximize returns over the long run:

Word from the Dark Side – All That She Wants, tiny island daunts, Australian jaunts and poly flauts

Posted on April 4 by Nikolai Vladivostok

^{I heard this song suggested as the theme song to the next British civil war (???) and it made me listen to it for the first time in 30-odd years}

‘Nowhere on Earth is safe’: Trump imposes tariffs on uninhabited islands near Antarctica

A group of barren, uninhabited volcanic islands near Antarctica, covered in glaciers and home to penguins, has been swept up in Donald Trump’s trade war, as the US president hit them with a 10% tariff on goods.
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Who weeps for the sober-hearted?

Posted on April 3 by Nikolai Vladivostok

I’m off the piss.

There’s no big reason, only a few small reasons: my blood pressure’s a bit high, gf doesn’t drink, I see blokes around me who do nothing but drink and are horrifically out of shape, plus it makes me sleepy and prevents me from doing anything else.

For me, this was not a major decision. ‘Shall I go from three beers a week to zero? Sure, why not.’

Creeping post-scarcity

Posted on March 20 by Nikolai Vladivostok

In an ancient episode of Star Trek, a cryogenically frozen man finds himself reanimated 300 years later aboard the starship.

He calculates that he must be rich by now because of compounding interest on his account, but is informed by bemused crew that money no longer exists as replicators can make anything you want.

He’s disappointed, even though materially he’s better off than he could have ever imagined.

The idea of post-scarcity is that mass production makes some goods so cheap that the old economics of scarcity makes less sense. More and more products become like salt water or air – you can have as much of it as you want.

It only seems like a whacky sci-fi idea if you focus on those items that are not yet post-scarcity.

Word from the Dark Side – Kiss Me, why Taiwan’s nuclear free, a Marcos deportee and Canada’s trade barrier spree

Posted on March 17 by Nikolai Vladivostok

^{I’ve been pretending for 28 years that I don’t like this song but now I’m mature enough to admit that, saccharine pop or not, it’s a banger}

How a CIA informant stopped Taiwan from developing nuclear weapons

Chang exposed Taiwan’s secret nuclear program to the United States, its closest ally, passing intelligence that ultimately led the US to pressure Taiwan into shutting down the program – which proliferation experts say was near completion.

While critics say he betrayed his homeland and undermined Taipei’s ability to deter a possible Chinese invasion, Chang told CNN in a rare interview he still believes he made the right call.