Serfdom enhanced

A few centuries ago it was all visible. A peasant – a serf – was obliged to work, say, three days a week for his landlord, and he was obliged to give away a part of the agricultural produce from his household. The amount of work and the amount of the produce were all visible, palpable. If a landlord wanted to extend the time of work done by his serfs for his benefit or take away from the serfs more than was prescribed, the serfs would have rebelled because it was a matter of survival and the maintenance of the standard of living. A serf needed the three remaining days to work for the upkeep of his family; the serf needed to have the rest of the agricultural produce at his disposal for his family to survive. If a serf had been forced to work four rather than three days and give away more than usual from his produce, he would have had less for himself and his family. In other words, working as much as before, he and his family would have had less. The serf would have known who was to blame for this.

Today it is all for all practical purposes invisible. A government prints more and more money and causes inflation. The government does not need to raise taxes. The amount of the tax that is levied on workers may stay the same. Still, due to inflation, labourers or present-day serfs, although they work as much as before, can buy less and less. Of course, sooner or later the present-day serfs notice that they are worse off, but they notice it belatedly and – what’s worse – there is no one person, known to them by name, who is to blame. Yesterday’s serf could have rebelled against his landlord and oftentimes he did; today’s serf can rebel against… inflation, which means against nobody. Yesterday’s serf could have threaten his landlord with a pitchfork – and sometimes it happened. Today’s serf can cast his vote from time to time, to vote out of office some, and vote into office others and, as a result, receive more of the same in terms of economic policy. None of the politicians that currently hold power can stop inflation, even if he wants to. The purchasing power of the present-day serf is constantly diminished, and though the present-day serf is not referred to as serf but, rather, as a citizen with a batch of human rights, he can do nothing about being robbed of the fruits of his work.

Historical record shows that prices used to be stable over decades. Our day-to-day experience teaches us that generally in a longer perspective prices can only rise. If they level off, then but for a short time, while they never fall if viewed over a longer period.

What a choice!

By a guest author.

Is this supposed to be a leading nation, a torch of democracy, a superpower, the place on earth where millions are flocking to? Good heavens! The debate held between former President Donald Trump and President Incumbent Joe Biden has made a depressive effect. The country – or a nation, as Americans love to say, though a nation they are not, rather a motley of peoples and races and creeds – that claims to have the best economy the best political system, the largest number of Nobel Prize winners, the best scientists and technicians, the best universities, the best this and the best that, that country has put forward two men to run for president, neither of whom is someone I would like to follow even if paid for. Neither appears to be a man under whom I would ever like to serve; neither inspires, neither instills admiration or awe or respect; neither grabs my attention in any positive way. Watching and listening to the debate was a huge waste of time. Bland, uninspiring, predictable guys, with nothing whatsoever to say, with nothing to impress the audiences, with nothing whatsoever to propose.

Not that they are exceptions in the long line of American presidents and presidential candidates. Most of their recent predecessors were as bland, unimaginative and uninspiring as they make them. Be it He-Clinton or She-Clinton, be it Obama or Kamala-the-laughing-Harris… Some have taken credit and continue to take credit for being female or non-white, the first female or the first non-white holding such a high post… as if that were the most important thing about leading the allegedly best country the world has seen. What a shame, what an embarrassment, what a humiliation! Leaders of much, much smaller countries – think of Robert Fico (pronounce: FEE-tsaw) of Slovakia or Victor Orbán of Hungary – are far, far better, smarter, cleverer, more prudent, and better educated. Unfortunately, a Fico or an Orbán with their common sense and education are not at the helm of a superpower but at the helm of the superpower’s vassal states. What a pity! If we could but trade Fico or Orbán for the likes of Biden, Trump, von der Leyen, Macron, Scholz, Stoltenberg… Sadly, that’s not what we can do. Sadly, we are forced to suffer the policies of the loons and morons with their religion of climate change, war on Russia, ever more pandemics, ethnic replacement and their contempt for human biology (like when individuals can decide what sex they are) and sound morals (like when yesterday’s shame is today’s pride and the other way round).

But you know what? People are still viewing America as the Mecca of the world, as the Promised Land, while Americans (in fact a concoction of nations and races and creeds and – to be up to date with terminology – the many genders) are still envied and somehow regarded as a chosen people. And this chosen people, this exceptional people are now divided over which of the two embarrassments will lead the fifty states towards the abyss. Watching the two guys – Donald and Joe – I just could not help thinking about the many emperors of ancient Rome: those, too, were for the most part disappointing in any respect and by any measure. The empire was big and yet it was inevitably on a crash course with the external and internal forces that were about to smash it, disrupt it, make it into nothing. And still, and despite all that, even long, very long after the Empire had collapsed, the many nations regarded it as a wonder of wonders: the so-called barbarians modelled the administration of their kingdoms that arose on the ruins of ancient Rome on that of the Roman Empire and continued to use Latin – the Roman Empire’s language – for centuries after the demise of the Empire. Among the dead languages Latin used to be the most alive. The same fate waits English, whose vocabulary is – what an omen! – for the most part Latin, including such common words as tent, tender, money, castle, street, city, human, treat, language, animal, apply, delete, record, intelligent, army, suggest, support, sex, gender… – the list is unending.

Consider also how American public and administrative institutions along with some of the most famous symbols are modelled on ancient Rome with the words like capitol, senate, the phrases e pluribus unum (=one [state] from many [states]), or novus ordo seclorum (=a new order of the ages) and annuit coeptis (= he favoured the commencement) that appear on the Great Seal of the United States and the dollar banknote. The United States with its many military bases around the world (more than eight hundred) make one think about the Roman legions also scattered around yesteryear’s world, while the form of the American republic seems to be evolving towards a dictatorship and then… monarchy. You don’t believe it? Rest assured these processes are already under way. You haven’t noticed? Not easy to notice. Such changes take time. They seem to happen quickly only when viewed through the pages of a historical book. There, you turn another page and the political system has changed or a war has been won or lost or a country has been conquered. In reality it all takes time which makes the changes imperceptible to the common man.

Of the 300 million inhabitants, some of whom have graduated from the famed Ivy League, this world’s leading democracy has been able to roll out an octogenarian and almost an octogenarian with little or nothing to say. But then why should we wonder? A Biden or a Pelosi, an Obama or a Clinton have been almost all their adult lives in politics. They are no scholars or scientists, no real entrepreneurs or thinkers. They have been focused on making their careers and – especially – on making money. Accordingly, they are capable of changing their mind as often as required by the circumstances and they only care about their image. The speeches that they make – or rather read – are the usual stuff prepared by other people. They have learnt how to smile and how to wave hands; they have learnt how to play up to the audience by saying sweet little nothings; they have been groomed to be what they are and they have been paid for it. They are prisoners of the system and their ambitions. Just as it was in ancient Rome. All those emperors, dictators, generals and senators with their petty interests and warped psyche, with their conspiracies and civil wars, with making their weight felt at the expense of the smaller countries. And the same populace around them, then and now, demanding bread and Olympic games, or cheap gas and Hollywood-like entertainment. Roman gladiators have been replaced with Super Bowl players while Roman self-pride (we are the best in the world) has been replaced with American self-pride (we are the world’s best).

The world’s leading democracy! Dear me! Just listen to them candidates, to the content of their statements, to the mutual accusations! Glean the information from their speeches and from the media about the several millions of aliens entering the United States and occupying it piece by piece, and confront it with the pathetic declaration of the need to stop Russia because otherwise it will… occupy Europe! What if Russians decided to do it the way those millions of aliens are doing every year, settling in the United States and feeding on it? Would such occupation be palatable?

One can only wish the big United States had a Viktor Orbán or a Robert Fico! The world would be a nice place to live. Just imagine a debate between a Viktor Orbán and a Robert Fico, will you? You’d taste common sense and it would be a pleasure to listen to. Sadly, our choice is between a total globalist and a semi-globalist; between two peace-loving leaders of the best ever democracy who nonetheless cannot extricate the United States from wars and conflicts; our choice is between someone who has already during his term been undermined by his administration and someone who during his term is being controlled by his administration. What a choice!

Insatiable greed

How did Germany fare between 1933 and 1940? The country was on the rise. It regained its full sovereignty after the humiliating Versailles Treaty, it had a strong economy and even stronger army; it had expanded territorially incorporating Austria and parts of Czechia; it had conquered Poland, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France; it bent to its political will Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Finland; Italy and Spain were its allies; with the Soviet Union it had an agreement that divided the spheres of influence. Germany was on top of the world. Only the United Kingdom challenged it, and this challenge was naturally weak and ineffective. The whole continent was under the German sceptre. What did the Germans do? Did they do their best to solidify their grip on the booty? Did they do their best to guard what they had gained? No. They decided to gamble, to swallow more than they could digest, to put at a risk everything that they had successfully won.

How did the West fare between 1991 and 2022? Just like Germany between 1933 and 1940. The West saw the collapse of the Soviet Union, the West’s rival of long standing; the West saw the enlargement of the sphere of its influence: all the central European former communist countries flocked to the West’s antechambers and begged to be let in. Most if not all of the former Soviet republics did the some. And to top it all, Russia, the direct heir to the Soviet heirloom, bowed and scraped before the West, and badly wanted to be regarded as a partner, a weaker, younger, smaller, but still a partner, a member of the Western club. The West’s companies took possession of the east European and post-Soviet markets; the West’s mass media and Western culture in general supplanted almost anything that was local and peculiar to post Soviet nations; the Western ideas and lifestyle were slavishly copied by Poles and Romanians, by Croats and Ukrainians, by Hungarians and Russians. For years, Russia’s president Putin kept referring to the Western countries as Russia’s partners. Russia wanted to become a NATO member and wanted to join the European project by creating a kind of commonwealth stretching from Lisbon, Portugal, to Vladivostok on the Pacific. All of Europe, Russia and Ukraine included, along with the post-Soviet Asian republics, prostrated themselves to the West, paid homage to the West’s rule, acknowledged the West’s dominance, bowed to Western hegemony. For all practical purposes the International Monetary Fund and other financial institutions, the White House and Brussels set up models of economies, societal organization and what not in the post-Soviet area. It came to pass that one Western author who still is regarded as a scholar wrote the famous sentence about the end of history! What did the West do with all this? Did the West do its best to solidify its grip on the booty? Did the West do its best to guard what it had gained? No. The West decided to gamble, to swallow more than it could digest, to put at a risk everything that it had successfully won.

History really rhymes! The Germans of 1941 – with almost all of Europe – and the Americans along with the European Union of 2022 decided to make a final killing: they both decided to challenge Russia. History really rhymes and history really shows that no one ever learns anything from the past. After a period of military and economic difficulties Soviet Russia ended the conflict by shelling Berlin; today’s Russia, after a period of caving in is perhaps not about to shell Washington or London (although who knows?) but it is about to deal an even more fatal blow: it is about to destroy the American dollar and to lay bare the ineffectiveness of the West’s military; today’s Russia is about to upend the world order that has been so meticulously built by the managers of the world, by the Club of Rome and the Trilateral Commission, by the G7 and the World Economic Forum, by all those Kissingers and Brzezinskis, Albrights and Obamas.

Rather than enjoy consuming almost the whole of the continent as it could prior to 1941, prior to the invasion of the Soviet Union, in 1945 Germany ended up territorially shrunk, politically divided, morally broken and economically destroyed. Similarly, rather than enjoy the fruits of the collapse of the Soviet Union and continue holding a grip on almost the whole post-Soviet area, the West is about to slowly recede and witness its own collapse in terms of economy, society, morals and military. A repeat of the Titanic’s catastrophe: rich conceited people going under, with their big sophisticated project being smashed and crushed by a simple, uncomplicated iceberg. They will soon fight for the seats in the few life-saving boats that are still at their disposal. Something very much similar must have preceded the famous sack of Rome by the barbarians. And mind you, the West already has its barbarians inside, flocking in – day in, day out. When their number exceeds the tipping point, the sack will take place. (We have had smaller sacks in Paris and London, in new York and Los Angeles, rehearsals before the in general and final sack). And you know what? The majority of the populace in the West will continue to live in total denial of reality, just as ancient Romans did, the same Romans who witnessed the sack of their capital city, and just as Germans persisted to believe in their final victory in the months of February and April 1945.

The Germans could have enjoyed their conquests for decades to come and so could the West: both screwed it up. Fools.

It runs in their DNA

It was in the run-up to the Second World War. Czechoslovakia was about to fall apart. It was not only the Sudeten Germans that rebelled and wished to be joined to the Third Reich; it was also Slovaks, one of the two brotherly nations – the other were Czechs – that made up Czechoslovakia. The Slovak and the Czech languages are like two sides of the same coin, i.e. very close to each other. If you master one of the languages – either Czech or Slovak – you will have no difficulties understanding the other while reading or listening. There will even be a specific time drag during which you will not figure out whether you are reading or listening to Czech or Slovak. That’s how close those languages are. And yet, and despite this relatedness of blood and customs, of the DNA and culture, Slovaks, or to be precise, those who happened to be the nation’s leaders, were hell-bent on separating Slovakia from Czechia, cost it what it may. Yes, cost it what the may, because in the process they were willing to cooperate even with Konrad Heinlein’s Sudetendeutsche Partei against Prague, they were ready to look for help from Berlin or even to join Slovakia to Poland, a Slavic nation, whose language, however, is not as closely related to Slovak as Czech is. Let it sink in: Slovak elites preferred to ally themselves with powerful Germany in order to destroy Czechoslovakia and harm Czechia without having a second thought that maybe confronted with the Third Reich on their own they would not be long for this world.

The same was true of the then Polish elites. They, too, saw a chance in the fact that Czechoslovakia was coming apart at the seams with the separatist Sudeten Germans supported by the Third Reich on the one hand, and the separatist Slovaks on the other. Warsaw, too, wanted to have a stake in the unfolding events, grab a chunk of Czechia and, possibly, subordinate Slovakia. The Polish elites naively thought and expected to be viewed by Berlin as partners in carving this part of Europe. Before long they learnt it the hard way that not only were they not regarded as anything remotely to being partners: in a year’s time Poland was invaded by Germany and deleted from the political map within a couple of weeks. A disaster that the Polish elites brought upon themselves or rather upon the nation that they had led into the abyss, because the elites for the most part worked or wormed or bribed their way out of hell into one of the Western countries, with most of them never to return.

Fast forwards, Yugoslavia. Slovenians and Croats loathed Serbs so much that they were willing to associate themselves with Muslim Bosnians and Albanians while going to war against Belgrade; they were even willing to trade their political sovereignty with the Western powers for aid in making the life of Serbs miserable. NATO began bombing Serbia into the Stone Age and carving the former Yugoslavia into ever smaller parts, but never mind that! The most important thing that Croatian elites cared about was to do harm to Serbia. That was about anything that mattered. Just like Slovaks in the run-up to the Second World War they, too, preferred the protection of the European Reich. Were they afraid that from then on they would be confronted with a power incomparably stronger and more sinister than Serbia? Nay. Who would have cared?

How about Czechia and Poland who had joined NATO on the eve of the alliance’s strikes against Belgrade? Did it cross the mind of the elites of those nations that one of these days they, too, might be subjected to sanctions and bombings if only they dared not to walk in lockstep with their overlords? Nay.

A bit more forwards, Ukraine. In 1992 Ukraine emerged as an independent state with a territory that it had never ever had in its history, with over 50 million inhabitants, a well-developed industry, broad access to the Black Sea and large areas of some of the most fertile soil that the world can boast. Consider it for a moment: Ukraine had a huge territory not because it took it from Russia with the sword or at gunpoint. Ukraine had a huge territory because it so pleased the Bolsheviks to create a large Ukrainian republic, and because it later pleased the leader of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev to add to it the Crimean Peninsula. The only thing that the responsible Ukrainian elites were tasked with was to preserve that precious possession. What did they do? They acted in ways that were far worse than what the elites of Slovakia and Croatia did. Why worse? Because Ukrainian elites did not need to fight for their independence from Moscow: it was served them on a platter. Slovaks needed to conspire with Berlin and Warsaw against Prague; Croats needed to conspire with Berlin, Washington and God knows who else against Belgrade. Ukrainian managers did not. That is, they were obviously backed by the West, but there was no fight when the Soviet Union disintegrated. Ukrainians took or received Ukraine as a huge chunk of the heirloom after the deceased Soviet Union, and… they did their best to waste it, to bleed it dry, to turn it into the West’s bridgehead against Moscow. What for?

Why did the Slovaks want so desperately to tear their nation awat from Czechs even at the price of allying themselves with Germans and Poles? Why did the Croats (and Slovenians) so badly want to deal a mortal blow to Serbia, again allying themselves with the West, among others with Germany, the same Germany that had invaded and destroyed Yugoslavia a few decades earlier, in 1941? Why did the Ukrainians need to ally themselves with the West to senselessly ruffle Moscow’s feathers? Why could they not be pleased with what they had at the outset, in the year 1991? An independent Ukraine of that large territorial size and so numerous population as it emerged in the 1990s was a godsend and there is no exaggeration to it! Sadly, Ukrainian elites have been ready to fight their Slavic brothers outside and within their borders asking for help not only Germans whose forefathers used to exterminate Ukrainians by the tens of thousands, but also Poles, with whom Ukraine has had a hard time throughout centuries! What for?

Why is it so easy for the powers that be to put neighboring and ethnically closely related nations – Slovaks and Czechs, Croats and Serbs, Ukrainians and Russians – at loggerheads? What have those nations ever gained or what will those nations ever gain by being at loggerheads with each other? The Slovak state that emerged from the ashes of Czechoslovakia was a puppet state controlled by Berlin. As a reward, it was Berlin – Slovakia’s protector – that forced Slovakia to cede chunks of its southern territories to Hungary! Poland, which supported Slovakia in the latter’s separatist policy, was soon – as mentioned above – attacked by Germany and the German army enjoyed the support of the Slovak troops! True, the contribution of the tiny Slovak units was negligible, but the symbolic meaning of the event is gargantuan! The Polish elites were so hell-bent on destroying Czechoslovakia and elevating Slovakia only to receive a nice thank-you from the latter in a few months’ time!

Today Poland supports Ukraine against Russia, the same Ukraine with which Poland shares a history of mutual massacres and wars, and today Poland has been invaded by Ukrainians with the Polish nation growing more and more impatient with their presence. The first signs of conflicts begin to emerge here and there, recently most notably over Ukrainian agricultural produce that has dumped the Polish market. Whose interests does the Polish commitment in Ukraine serve?

Croatia used to be independent from Serbia as early as in 1941, when Germany destroyed Yugoslavia. Croatia used to be independent for a couple of years in name only. Sure enough, it did the biddings of Berlin. Whose biddings is Zagreb doing at present? If, as Croats claim, it was so hard to by overwhelmed by Serbs, how much harder must it be to be overwhelmed by the big European conglomerate of states?

What good do all the mentioned Slavic nations expect from the fact of fighting each other and doing someone else’s bidding? Their elites either did not pay attention during their history classes or… or they are not acting in the interests of their nations intentionally.

Croatia (or Slovenia, for that matter) and Slovakia did not want to send their deputies to the respective parliaments in Belgrade and Prague where their deputies would have held in between a third and a half of all the seats, but they are more than willing to send their deputies to the European parliament where they hold a tiny, negligible, insignificant number of seats. Where’s the sense?

Unlike Belarus, which is allegedly ruled by a dictator, Ukraine has followed the path of democracy made by Washington D.C. and approved by Brussels E.U. Now, the population of Belarus has remained stable for the last thirty years with barely an appreciable change whereas that of Ukraine has been… halved. A loss that is larger than that suffered during the Second World War. Which country has faired better? How about other factors? How about economy, war and peace? In plain English, given the choice, would you like to live under President Lukashenko or President Zelensky and/or his predecessors? Would you like to live under President Putin or President Zelensky and/or his predecessors? An unpleasant thought, huh? An unfair comparison?

As of now, Ukraine has already been destroyed (partly even long before the ongoing war); Poland, whose leaders wanted to play big and carve Czechoslovakia in 1938, was mercilessly destroyed a mere year later (today’s Polish leaders, too, want to play big); Slovakia, which separated itself from Czechoslovakia, later took part in the German invasion of the Soviet Union (what for?), and consequently was destroyed and subjugated by the Red Army in a few years’ time; Croatia, having murdered Serbs in concentration camps, was subjugated by Tito’s communists at the war’s end. They all – Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Croatia, and Ukraine – have been but playthings at the hands of the powers that be, flexing their muscles and making believe that they want to pursue the policies that they are compelled to pursue, policies like accepting the green agenda or accommodating Third World people or doing away with swaths of their economies or coming to grips with the new normal in morality. The elites of these countries of whatever political persuasion are sure to continue in the footsteps of their predecessors. Croats and Serbs, Slovaks and Czechs, Ukrainians and Russians, Poles and Russians are certainly going to be pitted one against the other also in the nearest and remote future. You just cannot help it. It runs in their DNA.

Gefira 85: The Middle Kingdom and its Peripheries: Europe and Africa

The Middle Kingdom is becoming, well, a middle kingdom, indeed, with Europe’s economic and political clout diminishing, and with the United States being about to commit national suicide. If the Old Continent continues spiralling downwards, if America morphs into another Mexico-cum-Venezuela due to the willed change in its demographic make-up, if China takes Africa under control as it seems capable of, then really all the world is going to become an appendix to the billion or so Chinese, while Beijing is going to become the new centre of the globe, supplanting London and Paris, Washington and New York.

It does not take a genius to see that Africa is not going to develop in the way North Korea or China or Vietnam have. Africa, once finding itself under Europe’s stewardship, having been rather economically unsuccessful on its own for a couple of decades, is now going to look to China for aid and counsel. In one of the latests acts of liberating themselves from the vestiges of the white man’s protectionism, a number of countries of the Dark Continent have recently expelled or are in the process of ousting either French or American troops. What are they planning on instead? Most African countries are willing to cooperate with Beijing. The prospects look great, but it remains to be seen whether China will not become a new colonizer; it remains to be seen how much time will it take Africa to view the Middle Kingdom as a new colonizer. Aid of whatever kind always comes with strings attached. If Eastern European nations could not understand this most basic truth which their leaders should have learnt in their childhood reading or listening to Aesop’s fables (i.e. most elemental human experience encapsulated in very short stories from half a century before Christ) and rushed into the European Union where angels feared to tread, the same is highly likely to happen in the case of the Dark Continent i.e. that African leaders will rush into the Chinese embrace without giving it a second thought. As a result, Africans will increasingly rely on Beijing’s help only to regret it later on.

How about China’s periphery? China’s periphery is wallowing in its putrefaction. Europe for that matter has not only withdrawn from Africa, but it has been demonstrating now and again suicidal tendencies. Europe led by the leftist – Trotskyist – elements shows no willingness to survive, let alone to fight, unless, of course, it is muscle flexing in its dealings with Russia. Otherwise, both Europe and Europe’s historical extension – the United States – are enacting laws on killing babies in mothers’ wombs, on mercy-killing of the old, of the ill-constituted, of the physically and mentally weak, of the terminally ill; Europe and its historical extension are having their indigenous populations replaced with non-Europeans; Europe and the United States are increasingly gravitating towards moral laxity, ugliness in literature, music and the arts, towards planet worship and economic de-growth. The Trotskyists who run the Old Continent with their Antifa storm-troopers seek to bridle free speech and freedom of association, tend to eradicate nations and races, and struggle with nature itself: in their arrogance they want to control biological sex i.e. turn men and women into a myriad of sexual orientations. This 21st century Tower of Babel (the European Parliament building is its one-to-one reflection, see the painting by Pieter Bruegel) is soon to share its fate with its Mesopotamian predecessor. Would to God its collapse did not entail too much tragedy.

Gefira Financial Bulletin #85 is available now

Africa in the hands of China
Faces of Europe, Faces of the West
Biden is an enemy of OPEC+
Semiconductors

Turkey, a NATO member, to join BRICS!

The leftist West is getting a blow back!

– The elections to the European Parliament elevated parties that are maliciously referred to as far-right;

– the war in Ukraine is going badly for the collective West;

– in the United States Donald Trump, maliciously labelled as populist is about to win the presidential election;

– France and the United States are being pushed out of Africa;

– de-dollarization is in progress;

– Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico has survived the assassination (how the EU commissioners would have wished he had died!);

– Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is openly against the European Union’s policy of confrontation with Russia; and now – to top it all

– Turkey – has announced its willingness to join BRICS!

What a mess! Turkey, which boasts the second largest army in NATO, is about to seriously partner among others with… Russia, a country against which the same NATO is waging war!

The West is getting blow after blow after another blow. How ungrateful the world is! The collective West has been meaning to

– save the planet from the man-made climate change;

– extend the human rights by bringing to the forefront homosexuals and lesbians;

– eradicate racism by coercing races and nationalities to share the same ares, towns and villages, schools and factories,

and it turned out that the world has remained blind and deaf to all those advances… Goodness me!

All of which might suggest one serious suspicion: out of impotence and a thirst for vengeance the collective West might be thinking about retaliatory steps. What are these going to be? The leftist West needs to disrupt BRICS, to keep Russia at bay, to stop the march of the “far-right” through the institutions (a historical irony, indeed), to thwart Donald Trump from winning the elections, to preserve the dollar as the instrument of global exploitation and dominance, and so on, and so forth. What are they going to do? A wounded and hitherto domineering animal can be terribly dangerous.

So much alike and so much different: Singapore and the Baltic States

One small state in Asia – Singapore – and three small states in Europe: Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. They have an interesting story to tell in terms of economic, political and social success. The sheer numbers speak volumes. We have selected for comparison purposes the population, area, GDP (general and per capita), PPP (general and per capita), and the ethnic make-up. Have a closer look at the table below.

In Singapore, a much MUCH smaller area is home to a far FAR larger number of inhabitants as compared to the Baltic States. Neither in Singapore nor in the Baltic States do we have natural resources worthy of mentioning. The share of the majority ethnic group is comparable across the analyzed countries. The Baltic States are members of the European Union – which was supposed to be a blessing for them – and members of NATO – which was supposed to guarantee them security. As it is, Singapore, which does not belong to the European Union, has a highly developed economy. Singapore is a magnet for foreigners, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are not.

As for demographics. Since the decade 1990-2000 the population of Singapore has risen from approximately 1 (one) million to today’s 6 (six) – six times. Within the same period Lithuania’s population fell from 3.7 million down to 2.9 million i.e. Lithuania – now a part of the European Union – has by almost a million people fewer than it had during the last years of it being a part of the Soviet Union. Latvia’s 2.7 million in 1990 dropped to 1.9 million in 2024: again almost a million less. Estonia’s 1.6 million in 1990 has been reduced to today’s 1.4. The population losses suffered by Lithuania and Latvia are comparable to losses suffered during a prolonged war or medieval epidemics. Such was the blessing of the membership of those countries in the European Union.

Singapore has one of the world’s busiest ports, it is highly popular with tourists, it has robust business environment, a world-class infrastructure, and an integrated transport network. The Baltic States are known for being the Baltic States.