Since Dubai Issue ...

 ... has surfaced. Well, sand castles do not last, especially selling BS "luxury" to nouveau riches riff-raff and other wannabes. One needs not only money but taste and class. 

Happiness in life is not just the function of money, it is way more complex than that. But then again who of them ever read Chekhov's The Bet. And yes, sometimes the view of the snow-covered mountains and crisp fresh air are worth more than all "luxury" in the world. 

Since It Is Video-Heavy ...

... day today, I'll give you an example of "I told you so" and of the dawning reality on some. 

While morons from Time magazine lament about their cheap plastic mall for nouveau riche riff-raff being exposed as nothing but ... expensive low-taste tinsel town, another guy suddenly (four days ago) decides to make a video:

He is grossly inaccurate drawing parallels to Venice (and people correctly pointed this out to him), but in terms of Dubai--he nailed it. I would also say that his statements about Singapore are also grossly inaccurate, well--he is a financial guy only--but in general this is a good video about people being like this proverbial girl from LZ's Stairway to Heaven for who "all that glitters is gold". So, Dubai part is good and covers a substantial portion of Gulfies' problems well. 

About Dubai Air Show.

As you may understand, the contracts signed on such kinds of shows are not really negotiated there--serious contracts for weapons are prepared usually much in advance, sometimes years after long and tedious negotiations. But here is the deal with modern Russian expositions--they present weapon systems which are unrivaled not only "on paper" but in actual combat performance in the REAL (emphasis on "real") war. 

These are not just combat aircraft, but air defense systems which simply dominate modern air defense field. So, a lot of butthurt, as you might expect, to go around in Western "military expert" (a euphemism for fanboys and gamers) field, while in reality, rumor has it, there is a line now for those who want to see Su-57E flying for their air forces, while Russian-made AD systems simply have no competition. Unless one calls blackmailing and arm-twisting by the West's arms dealers and politicians as such. 

Meanwhile, India has a bit of a tough time facing the fork in the road and caving (at least for now) to the US pressure (blackmail) in energy sector. Unlike China who can and does tell Trump to go suck ... I mean pound sand, India is not a genuine superpower and now India's Foreign Minister is in Russia ...

On November 17, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held talks with Minister of External Affairs of the Republic of India Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, who is in Moscow to attend a meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of Government. The ministers discussed topical aspects of the bilateral and international agenda with an emphasis on preparations for the annual Russian-Indian summit, which will be held on the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration on Strategic Partnership between the two countries. Due attention was paid to practical steps to further develop trade and economic cooperation, including in the energy and financial spheres, as well as issues of military-technical and logistical cooperation.

Russia will accommodate India in whatever situation she will find herself trying to balance her Western and BRICS interests, but at some point of time India will have to choose between the two, not because of the pressure from Russia and China, but because of the logic of the economic and military circumstances in which combined Wests' circling the drain accelerates tremendously. 

The Chair of the China's State Council (Premier) Li Qiang arrived in Moscow today for SCO meeting.

As some observers noted: 

Premier Li’s trip comes at a pivotal moment. As the global landscape continues to undergo transformation marked by geopolitical uncertainty, sluggish economic recovery, and complex security challenges, the SCO stands out as a key platform for dialogue, collaboration, and regional solidarity. China’s participation, rooted in principles of mutual respect, mutual benefit, and win-win cooperation, reinforces its long-standing role as a stabilizer and growth engine across the vast Eurasian region. For example, SCO meetings serve as important confidence-building measures among member countries. Prime Minister Modi’s attendance at the Tianjin Summit this year could positively reshape China–India relations. Thus, member states can use this useful platform for good neighborhood, good understanding and better ties. Li Qiang’s all engagement and meetings with participants in Moscow may establish more good links with neighboring countries.

I cannot emphasize enough (nor can I list all of them) the scale of the developments within BRICS, especially Russia launching major Uranium and Rare Earth extraction projects in Yakutia, with SCO building a fortress of resources critical for future development and, in fact, cutting off EU from these resources. In my today's video I speak about Alexander Novak's statement on October 15th this year which sounded as the death sentence to EU and should have terrified morons who run it. 

This Is Gold))

Wonderful contrast))

And of course he doesn't use the term "use")) He uses a much stronger expression. But this is also the reason why modern Western propaganda doesn't work on overwhelming majority of Russians. Totally different priorities, totally different heroes.

 

Why I Am Not Surprised-2.0.

You gotta love these headlines.

 Stocks up slightly amid dismal economic data

And why shouldn't they be? Greed has no relation to reality, economic or human, for that matter. All this Wall Street gobbledygook was never designed to give clear sharp definitions of real things or processes. Just take a load of this:

That rotation from high-growth tech to value names also came alongside states reopening their economies and helping catalyze an uptick in activity, bringing investors back into a broader basket of equities.

Oh, what a load of pretentious contrived shit which serves only to cover for this data and it is horrifying, because it affects lives of millions of people who are not "into a broader basket of equities". 

The S&P 500 has crossed the 3,000 level again and investors are clearly riding high on hope for a second half economic recovery post the worst of COVID-19. But that doesn’t mean the market is immune to a pullback this summer primarily because the economic data will likely continue to be horrible. Remember bulls, the U.S. economy has been kicked in the face by the pandemic, and a rebound won’t happen overnight simply because states are reopening. Corporate sales and profits remain under severe strain, sending many off to explore bankruptcy or cut thousands of workers even with quarantines being lifted. “We think that the reported unemployment rate may be around as high as 20% in May,” Barclays chief U.S. economist Michael Gapen warned on Yahoo Finance’s The First Trade. The unemployment rate in April increased by 10.3 percentage points to 14.7%. Gapen believes the U.S. economy may contract a whopping 40% annualized in the second quarter, then surprisingly grow by 25% in the third quarter and 8% in the fourth quarter.

Yes, yes, it will "surprisingly" grow, never mind unsurprising 20% unemployment rate. And let's not talk, like absolutely not, about what was going on before the seasonal flu...I mean COVID-19 struck its blow at impressionable universe of social networks' slaves. The question is not about if the recovery is in cards--it is, at some point of time, at least--but about what will the country do once the full (real--I underscore it, real) scale of unemployment hits home. If there ever was a better way to demonstrate how a huge chunk of "white collar" jobs is not only useless but a burden on real economy, the COVID-19 was it.  

A new video, few days ago, caught my attention. Remember this?

I knew from the get go that this whole thing was nothing more than a "sell" for a bunch of uncultured nouveau riche class which spawned on the ponzi scheme of easy virtual money. "Respectable" people with real money usually reside in their castles and mansions in Europe, closer to actual, however degenerate today, culture and landscapes.  Middle Eastern shitholes covered with the glitz of oil money are for plebes, even if with money, virtual ones, that is. This is one of the suites on the "middle" floor of Burj Khalifa--a symbol of human post-modernist imbecility and ambition--during the storm, which are frequent guests in the region. 

Anyone who thinks that this "experience"of satisfying own ego in this building is so great--let them. No normal person, that is the person who has own two feet on the ground and values real things in life, be them emotionally, aesthetically or materially, would ever want to spend a day (or night) in this pretentious tower looking out at the desert, sea and ugly concrete jungles of Dubai, or any other location in the area. If I need to experience a desert (but it is just me), I know how to get to Nevada (driving through some of the most wonderful landscapes in the world), check into decent Holiday Inn or (all right, all right) Bellagio, and still be within easy driving distance to everything I really value in life--wonderful nature's sights, few hours of drive away lake Tahoe, being among (mostly) people of the same culture and good ol' Black Bear Diner or IHOP, for that matter. Excellent experiences and they cost order of magnitude less than any "vacations" in Dubai or whatever other radically un-touristy locations in backward Middle East. But, as I said, it is just me, many still think that if they could (not anymore, evidently) afford some, never materialized, mansion on one of the Dubai's "islands" that would set them apart, I agree. One has to be a complete moron to "invest" into the "real estate" in the place which goes (not will, but IS going) kaboom in the new economic reality where things of real value only matter.

What is this real "value"? Very simple, our families, our loved ones, friends, colleagues, our real skills in building, repairing, growing, harvesting things, maintaining the safety of our communities, leading truly healthy, in every sense of this word, lifestyles (not you, vegans and pot-smokers), reading, listening to good music, contemplating, creating, being human--these are real values. This is the way to contentment, in being satisfied with smaller but important things. Of course jobs matter, of course our houses matter, but normal person doesn't need Bentley or $4,000 a night suite, or $3 million mansion at the sandy isles in the midst of stinky water, in the area which goes bust, as was predicted, to be happy. As I say all the time, the economy is a consumer pattern. Yes, we all got screwed over by moneyed and subservient political class, nothing new here, it happened before (and was predicted), it is happening now and may happen yet again in the future--such is the nature of capital. But while being condescending (justifiably) towards this class' consumerism, much of it drowning in consumption of useless, wealth-signalling, luxuries, which is always a sign of a lack of true culture and real refinment, there is nothing wrong with us taking a look in the mirror at our own selves and asking the question if continuous consumer pattern is sustainable? I don't think so. But what is the normal pattern? How can it be defined, in what material and moral terms? We all will have to answer this question at some point of time. I, personally, do not need Bentley to be content, as long as my air conditioner and stereo in the car work, as long as it is clean and tidy, I should be fine, in material sense. I also can live without single cask Scotch $500 a bottle. 

In fact, even today, when looking at consumer patterns of modern "elites", one cannot fail to notice how much those "luxuries" are kitsch and tasteless in their attempt to emulate glorious antiquity and royal opulence of Renaissance while in reality most of those in the possession of that opulence have nothing more than a psyche of the small shop keepers. They may yet, many of them, experience a rude awakening. In the end, how can we balance out the need and the want, how does this proverbial "enough" in material sense look like? It is a known fact that Marx considered the United States to be the first country where socialist revolution will succeed. Marx may yet turn out to be correct but what we all, without exception, need to prevent is revolution in a sense of an outright physical conflict, however difficult this may seem now. But it is in everyone's interest to see evolution towards maybe, just maybe, more sane economically and, as a consequence, morally future. For everything else there is a new generation of weapons to help keep this all under control for now.