Author: The Board

Gefira 95: The best predictor of the future is the past

What does Warren Buffet do to multiply his fortune? He studies the past. Yes, he studies the past. No, not wars that Alexander the Great or Caesar or Napoleon waged: he regularly takes a close look at the past of big companies in order to assess their potential, their development and whether their value is likely to rise or drop. Only then does Warren Buffet take decisions about either purchasing or selling the assets of particular businesses.

The past is a guide, a teacher, a prophet, one might say. Especially in the case of social and political sciences where experiments are not possible. The past is a huge laboratory of experiments, the past is the place where we should dig and look for events that might match today’s processes. The past is the laboratory with a long inventory of causes and results. That is why the past had better be carefully studied, analyzed and dissected. This postmortem of the by-gone events ought to lead to drawing correct inferences, and those inferences in turn ought to be skilfully applied to the present and the nearest future.

Gefira 96 invites the reader to take a look at two multinational, multi-religious, multiracial and multicultural political entities: Yugoslavia and Russia/the Soviet Union. The historical laboratory offers us an insight into the mechanisms of holding such structures together and of the inevitability of their eventual breakup. Though the proverb says, Good fences make good neighbours, we tend to believe that cultural, religious, racial and national diversity along with a no-borders policy are a recipe for the bright future of humankind. Sadly, the past proves that the opposite is always the case. Though we limit our analysis to Yugoslavia and Russia, the laboratory of the broader past shows that the rules and principles at play in these two regions of the world are timeless and apply around the globe.

 

Gefira Financial Bulletin #95 is available now

  • Yugoslavia and Russia – two sides of the same coin
  • Two similar political systems in succession
  • Warren Buffet as a Person
  • Buffet in the 2007 crisis

Rules for thee but not for me

On June 13 2025, Israel carried out air strikes against targets inside Iran. Tel Aviv has thus arbitrarily administered punishment to Tehran for allegedly developing Iran’s capabilities of constructing a nuclear bomb. A few remarks.

① There are politicians and journalists, political analysts and other pundits who condemn the Russian intervention in Ukraine, which began in 2022, and in the same breath they justify the military action performed by Israel. Both Moscow and Tel Aviv claim they were compelled to carry out strikes against Ukraine and Iran respectively because the said countries posed an existential threat to Russia and Israel respectively. Ukraine wanted to join anti-Russian NATO and possibly acquire nukes, while Iran sought to manufacture nuclear weapons with the intention of wiping Israel out of the surface of the earth.

Why is Israel justified in its action while Russia is not? Notice that Ukraine borders on Russia, while Iran is divided from Israel by Iraq, Syria and Jordan.

② Tel Aviv stands on guard not to let any of the Middle East countries to have nuclear weapons while Israel itself has an arsenal of such weapons.

Why should one country have nuclear weapons while any other be prohibited from possessing them? What is the moral or rational explanation? It might be that those who have weapons of mass destruction are likely to say that they are angelic warriors who are not likely to use them or to use them without justification while the other countries are the bad guys who certainly would use them without justification. Yes, such is the narrative, but then it does not require much stretch of imagination to realize that the so-called bad guys think along precisely the same lines with this difference, however, that they regard themselves as angelic warriors and others as villains.

What if South Korea wanted to acquire nuclear weapons? Reason? Because North Korea has them. Reason enough. We may rest assured the United States would have nothing against, so much so that South Korea might also be employed as an ally against China, allegedly America’s life-threatening rival. Why, the United States might not have anything against Japan acquiring nuclear weapons. Again, Japan might be used against China and – who knows – against Russia.

What if Tehran were rabidly anti-Russian? Would then Iran not be allowed to have nuclear weapons? If the idea of Ukraine possessing such weaponry was seriously considered at a time, then certainly an anti-Russian Iran would be given free rein in this respect.

③ Are American attempts at bringing international peace worth anything? President Donald Trump is helpless in brokering peace both in Ukraine and in the Middle East. The question arises whether the American leader is simply incompetent or… or whether these peace initiatives are only make believe. If the United States is a superpower, why cannot Washington project its political leverage on Ukraine and Israel? If a superpower cannot control much smaller states, then something must be the matter. What? It might be that Washington does not serve American interests. Is such a thought substantiated? Of course, it is. One only needs to look at the European leaders and their entirely anti-European policies whether it is the ethnic replacement or green economy or the anti-moral agenda.

④ What is the credibility of the American president? The Israelis have decapitated some of Iran’s military and civilian management precisely while talks were held between Washington and Tehran. It is obvious President Donald Trump must have known about the preparations for the attack. If by any chance he did not because he would have been against and the American powers that be desperately wanted to hit Iran, then his reliability as an American leader is even worse: why talk to a president who does not control his own country, his own agencies and his own underlings?

⑤ Iran lashed out, and lashed out successfully. Israel was hailed with missiles and the famed Iron Dome that was supposed to protect the country’s territory proved to be quite penetrable. Now Tel Aviv might request missiles and anti-aircraft systems from the United States to make up for the depleted stocks of their own missiles. What will then remain for Ukraine? Certainly Israel rather than Ukraine is Washington’s priority.

⑥ Will the United States army be drawn into war against Iran? That might mean splitting American military and other resources between the Middle East, Ukraine and China. Is that not too much even for a superpower, especially a superpower with domestic problems caused by – some say – thirty million unregistered aliens who flooded the country during the Biden administration and earlier? A civil war or a wave of terrorist attacks at home, an involvement in Ukraine, a military engagement in the Middle East, and muscle flexing in Washington’s dealings with the Middle Kingdom – is that not a huge overreach?

Whichever way you look at the events, one thing should strike you immediately: one attack is justified while another is not. Rules for thee but not for me. 

The case of Bulgaria or the euro is called dear-euro 

The smiles of Ursula (her surname is von den Liar) and other commissioners are fading again: the impudent Bulgarians don’t want the euro, they took to the streets and fought back in mass protests against the oh-so-wonderful single currency, against the decision of some of their politicians to join the eurozone as soon as possible. Of course, the Brussels rhetoric immediately labelled the protesters as Putin’s stooges, who are said to make up over 50% of Bulgarians (according to the BBC, ZDF and the like). By the way: What power Putin must have over the minds of people throughout Europe! Lumping all opponents into the same box has long since become boring. The Brussels narrative is simply tedious.

Yes, over 50% of Bulgaria’s population is wrong, and this must be corrected by the EU or, as Merkel once said, “reversed”, because anyone who does not accept just one idea, a single idea of the Brussels juggernaut/Sovkhoz, is either far-right or a dishonourable supporter of Putin. The oh-so-wonderful EU values are under threat from Orbán, Fico, Le Pen, and now also – the new “far-right” Polish President Nawrocki, and a growing crowd of people who, like Trump, would all like to end the war in Ukraine. The “values” of the EU are leading us to war, boosting the profits of Rhein Metall and other defence companies. The “values” of the EU only serve the corporations.

But wait: what is the real situation with the euro, which was dubbed the dear-euro after its introduction in Germany because everyone saw how much prices were rising? Well, it’s best to ask Slovaks, Lithuanians and Latvians: How did you fare after the introduction of the dear-euro? They will all answer: Bad, prices rose and we can no longer afford many things.

But here again: In which country was the euro not introduced, which was welcomed by the majority of the population? In Hungary!!! Where the evil Orbán has cut himself off from the migrants! Ay-vay! How that doesn’t fit into the scheme! Hungarians think for themselves and have their opinion on the single currency, even if most of them would be categorized as far-right and pro-Russian by the Western media.

The Bulgarians are resisting the euro, but proud Danes and Swedes said a decisive “no” to it years ago and it was completely unproblematic for Brussels. But if the Poles and Czechs stick to their currency, this is seen by the Commissioners as a kind of immaturity and inadequacy. If an even weaker country like Bulgaria dares to follow the only true path, it is vilified and condemned.

EU bureaucrats do not understand the European nations. Rather, they have infected them with their intellectually and morally wrong thinking construct and cannot see that the majority of Europeans have become immune to it.

The WHO towards dictatorship

While the spotlight of the leading media focuses our attention on the evil Putin, evil Trump, evil far-right, evil climate change, etc., agreements are being concluded that limit the sovereignty of all countries in the world. Agreements in the shadow of the supposedly more important events that will determine our future: the WHO international pandemic agreement. 

Did you or your elected representatives have a say in this? Was there a public debate on this in your country?

This agreement was drawn up on the basis of the experience from the COVID-19 pandemic, when countries were “unable to cope” with the crisis (according to the WHO). The main points of the agreement on the control of the world include, among others:  

  1. the sharing of pathogen samples and genetic data, which gives the WHO access to materials from many countries to enable a “fair” distribution of medicines; 
  2. subordination to WHO regulations – a binding international obligation that imposes absolute obedience to the WHO on individual governments;  
  3. promotion of the development of global certification systems in the healthcare sector – i.e. the introduction of digital health passports.

The agreement is not limited to epidemic situations. The WHO has developed the “One Health” system, which aims to unite the health of animals, humans and the environment. In this way, the World Health Organization is expanding its competencies to include possible climate or agricultural policies

The main sponsors of the WHO are worth mentioning:  

  1. the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation 
  2. Gavi (vaccine alliance)
  3. UNICEF 
  4. EU 
  5. Germany and the USA 

In this way, agreements are created above our heads, agreements that can have a direct impact on our lives in times of crisis. The pandemic agreement leads to the centralization of power and the weakening of national sovereignty. If the WHO sounds the alarm, our lives will be determined by people who have not been chosen in any electoral process. Think about what happened in 2020-2022. Some countries, like Sweden, have managed to break free from the prevailing narrative. Now it’s getting a bit more complicated. There is hope, though: the agreement needs to be ratified by the individual states, and the Trump-led United States may not choose to do so. This would undermine the effectiveness of the whole project. We, therefore, hope that countries that have expressed their concerns about the agreement (like Poland and Italy) will also resist the WHO. 

Pearl Harbor 2?

The Western European elites along with the American democrats were just overjoyed! Ukrainians carried out Operation Spider’s Web and hit targets deep inside Russia, thousands of kilometers away from Ukraine, by means of drones that were smuggled into the Federation and remotely controlled. Damage was inflicted on industrial objects in places located in the Murmansk and Irkutsk regions. The former is close to the northern parts of Finland, the latter is as far east as Mongolia! Quite an exploit on the part of the Ukrainians. Surely, they will have been aided by the Western intelligence or else they would never ever have been able to precisely locate the targets, some of which were military aircraft.

Though the action is a feat – rumour has it it took one and a half years to prepare it – its political and military impact is questionable. The assault seems to be orchestrated with yet another round of Istanbul talks. Why? Did Kiev want to disrupt the negotiations or merely gain a better position at the negotiating table? The Western journalists and politicians were just beside themselves with joy; some began comparing the event to Pearl Harbor, a Japanese attack on the American navy on 7 December 1941. The comparison shows the general stupidity of the people running the media and being in charge of the Western countries. Their historical knowledge is certainly as small as to be deplorable, but even in this case they should have reflected for a second or so. If they had reflected, they would have immediately remembered that within a few months of Pearl Harbour Americans successfully retaliated at the Battle of Midway, and within a few years of Pearl Harbor Japan was on its knees. Are those journalists and politicians aware of this sequence of events? Is there among them at least one man like Admiral Yamamoto, who after the Pearl Harbour attack said: We have awakened a sleeping giant?

What did the planners of this operation think they could achieve? Did they hope to compel Russia to give in? Did they really? Maybe they thought the Russian nation would be scared out of their wits and beg Putin to put an end to the war and ask for peace terms? If they thought so then, again, they have a very poor knowledge of even recent history. It was during the Second World War that the Americans and the British mercilessly and ruthlessly carpet bombed German cities and… and they only strengthened German resistance and caused the Germans to rally around their leaders. The same is true of Russians, the some has always been and will always be true of any nation.

In this attack, Ukrainians claim to have destroyed a number of bombers. Russians own up they lost a few aircraft. As usual the numbers differ: the attacker overrates, the attacked underrates the hits. Be it as it may, the number is not important. Not only because the number of lost aircraft is not likely to change the course of the hostilities, but first of all because the loss of the airplanes translates into a loss of something far more significant. For why were the Russian bombers successfully hit? Because they stood on tarmac, without any type of cover. Why did they stand on tarmac for all to see from outer space? Was it because the Russians were too self-confident or because they were incompetent? Neither. The aircraft stood on tarmac because it was agreed between the United States of America and the Russian Federation (New START, 2011) that military airplanes capable of carrying nukes are to be visible to the other party of the agreement through satellite monitoring as a kind of reassurance that no surreptitious attack was being prepared or was under way. It seems that the West has compromised this part of the said agreement only to spite Russia. Now, the Russians might as well start concealing their strategic aircraft. How will that benefit the West?

As could be expected, the attacks strengthened the willingness of the Russians to punish Ukrainians and especially to punish the West. President Vladimir Putin is under enormous domestic pressure to retaliate. Russian patriots call for launching an Oreshnik missile at London, as everybody knows that the British are the enablers of the attack. Putin is being compared by the Western media and politicians as being another Hitler, yet, he shows a lot of restraint. Imagine another leader of the Russian Federation and his response to such an attack… If it is true that a few days earlier Ukrainians were close to pulling off a drone attack on a helicopter with the Russian president and if that attack had been successful, then a retaliation for both events might follow, turning the local hostilities into another world war. Who wants such a course of events?

How can Ukraine gain by it? How can Europe gain from it? Imagine a full-scale war in Western Europe. Will all those Moroccans and Afghans, Algerians and Kenyans fight for France and Germany, the United Kingdom and Sweden against Russia? Please… Already, they live in separate societies and regularly go on the rampage in the Western cities. They will never ever identify with their adopted countries. After all, they haven’t come to France and Germany, the United Kingdom and Sweden to experience war and deprivation. To the contrary, as we are told they have escaped from their countries because of war and deprivation. Do the likes of Starmer, Macron and Merz understand it? Fat chance of that!

Europe is on a crusade. Europe is fighting the Crimean War Number Two (the first one took place between 1853-1856). Europe, seeing the oncoming disaster, is throwing temper tantrums, like a teenager. Let us pull off something to show that we matter! Yet, again, if the journalists and politicians knew just a bit of history they would remember the charge of the Light Brigade – a spectacular debacle of a British unit during the Crimean War. And they might remember the crusade led by Emperor Napoleon and how it ended, or the crusade led by Führer Hitler, and how that one ended. In both cases the invading troops were multinational, in both cases they had initial success and in both cases the crusade was miserably lost.

Operation Barbarossa (attack on the Soviet Union) and Operation Typhoon (Battle of Moscow) would eventually come to a grinding stop, while the counteroffensive blows known as Operation Uranium (encirclement of the German troops at Stalingrad) and Operation Bagration (pushing the Germans back to the Vistula line) broke the back of the invaders. What do Europeans and Ukrainians expect might happen now?

Isn’t it all childish? Ukrainians hit targets as far as Mongolia, and yet they cannot avoid losing 20% of their territory… Ukrainians have destroyed several Russian aircraft, and a bridge and what not, and yet their population has been halved while their infrastructure has been put mostly out of order. It’s like giving your enemy a sting, and receiving a knockout in return. Pities. Pathetic. Fatuous.

VOLVO vs. JAGUAR – blind submission to an ideology is not worthwhile 

Now that the decisive factor for the quality of an advertising campaign has been the inclusion of a “progressive” message in it, it is time for corporate boards to reflect on this. The promotion of gender ideology and the like has had the opposite effect than expected. Companies have realised that their own strategies are hurting them, so they are gradually returning to what really attracts customers. The most recent example of this is the British car brand Jaguar. The company is abandoning its collaboration with advertising agency Spark44, whose adverts have been widely criticised for their departure from the traditional brand image. The campaign, entitled “Delete Ordinary”, no longer featured the famous Jaguar logo, no longer showed cars and focused on LGBTQ aesthetics, bright colours (beautiful British pink) and a variety of questionable models. This was seen by the brand’s customers as inconsistent with Jaguar’s legacy of luxury and sporting character.

In 2024, Jaguar sales have halved compared to 2023. It is therefore not surprising that the company has decided to make a change. 

Volvo, on the other hand, knows how to make good adverts. The company presented the film by Hoyt Van Hoythem, a cameraman who has worked on productions such as Interstellar and Oppenheimer. The material has received a very positive response. It promotes family values and encourages children, which can be seen as a defiance to the prevailing perversities these days. 

Volvo achieved an all-time high in vehicle sales last year, with sales rising by 8%. The figures speak for themselves. 

Trump’s Problems 

Yes, it’s what we first associate with Trump’s policies: Tariffs. Now someone dared to question them and it was the US Court of International Trade (CIT). On 29 May, this court ruled that most of the global tariffs imposed by Trump were illegal because he had overstepped his authority. It said Trump had improperly invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and therefore the court claims that trade deficits are not an emergency that justifies the president’s unilateral actions. Naturally, the administration scoffed at this decision and stated that it will lodge an appeal. This means that the case may ultimately reach the Supreme Court.

However, it appears that the long-term impact of the CIT decision will be limited as the US government has the tools to continue its tariff policy. Trump can apply alternative legal bases and increase pressure on industry tariffs that are not subject to the above-mentioned regulation. Therefore, key tariffs on major trading partners such as the EU, China or Japan are likely to remain in place even if the Supreme Court does not overturn the CIT decision.

What is perhaps even more important in the US is a series of legal changes that have just come into force. It’s “One, Big Beautiful Bill,” a law aimed at cutting taxes, stopping immigration, securing borders, promoting energy policy and cutting spending on certain social programmes. Trump called it “perhaps the most significant legislation in the history of the country.” Not everyone has such a positive attitude towards it. Suffice it to say, this bill was passed by the House of Representatives by a mere one vote (215 to 214).

On the one hand, the US could save USD 1.6 trillion thanks to the law by cancelling a range of expenditure. Spending on the green transition or gender transition, for example, would no longer be sponsored. On the other hand, the law increases the federal debt ceiling, defence spending and requires other new spending. There are also numerous tax benefits, including the elimination of tip and overtime taxes, benefits for cars made in the US and a 15% tax cut for families earning less than $80,000 a year. It is calculated that the law will result in 80% of households paying lower taxes in 2026, which should be an incentive to stimulate the economy. Yes, it’s true, but the national debt of USD 36.2 trillion will increase by around USD 3.8 trillion over the next decade – according to the US Congressional Budget Office.

Elon Musk expressed his disappointment with the law, saying it undermines his efforts to reduce government spending. His ways with Trump parted, Musk had to go and Trump repeated the mistakes of his first term when he too often made “purges” in the staff around him.