As described in my previous two essays, it does look like the US and Russia struck a deal. Though Trump is holding back on concluding it is a ‘Done Deal’, since nothing has been signed yet. I was born, and I grew up in Holland, but I’ve been around the block. In Holland, and in neighboring countries, you cannot negotiate about the price of common products you find in the shops. Not as a rule anyway. You stuff your trolley with groceries, and pay at the cashier. The prices are fixed, though they may be different in another supermarket or with another retailer. Moreover, the government is supposed to keep an eye on the quality of the goods in our top-to-bottom regulated society. If we triumphantly show our friends something we bought ‘real cheap’, we claim we had a super-deal, but that was most likely because the party selling it lowered the price, and not because of our negotiating skills.
The price of certain high-value stuff, from cars to homes, may be negotiable, and some of us are better at negotiating with the sellers than others. It pays to have a ‘strategy’. Such a ‘strategy’ is not merely about ‘driving a hard bargain’, and that may even work against you. We once rented a beachfront house in Bali, Indonesia, where *everything* is open to negotiations. It came with a marvelous housekeeper and cook, who insisted to do the shopping herself, and refused to take us with her, because if she did she would be charged at least double. So, it was not in our own best interest to offer any form of help, and she certainly didn’t disappoint. Moreover, she allowed us to see a closed Hindu burial ceremony, trusting us to behave. This is an example of retailers who are desperate to sell, but not to *you*. Or not to *you* at an otherwise acceptable price, using highly personal, or ‘local’ limitations and standards.
‘Regulars’ may get a discount. They may receive favors. They can get things ‘done’ without even asking. Anyone married to a society where *everything* is regulated, and with a government sending inspectors to see to it that the prices are ‘just’, and ‘discrimination’ against certain customers is eradicated, is accustomed to cursing the retailer or dealer without consequences, while threatening them with filing complaints, ruining their ‘ratings’ to pressure them, or suing them in court. European ‘leaders’ Macron, Starmer and Merz are of that variety. Their cunning and network launched their career in a regulated society, but they are utterly useless in the ‘Real World’. They cannot deliver. They grew up in an environment where everything you ever wanted was for sale. ‘Name your price’. And once you reached the top of the food-chain, money was no longer an issue. The tax-payer or the money-printing machine provides the means. You do not have to be a ‘smart cookie’ to get the best deal. In fact, simply paying what the weapons producers are charging the country will pave the way for a comfortable retirement package.
‘Driving a hard bargain’ in their shared perspective is about throwing good money after bad. ‘My Kingdom for a Horse!’ will be the inevitable outcome, and that is where Europe is today. Frightening close to going bankrupt. As with bankruptcies, they start slow, with some irresponsible investments on stuff which doesn’t even begin to offer returns, and then, all of a sudden, it turns into an avalanche. Though Ray Dalio of ‘Bridgewater’ is seen by many as a ‘Vulture’, he *does* have some interesting things to say about protecting your wealth from the government in such a society. His sincere warning HERE. But wouldn’t it be great to have leaders who were smart enough to save us, the people, from going broke? On the other hand, I do not advocate selling all your assets in a panic to ‘Bridgewater’, just to make sure that you do not misinterpret my reference to what he says, since he isn’t exactly looking out for you and me, only for himself and his company.
Now let’s go back to that summit in Alaska. Widely seen as a ‘PR-Victory’ for Putin, and Trump losing the plot, because those commentators do not even *understand* this war with Russia on Ukrainian soil. Tomorrow Trump will be meeting with Zelensky to brief him on what he and Putin decided. The European ‘leaders’ are invited to attend, but they were hesitant to actually show up. They are busy to control the ‘narrative’, putting lipstick on a pig, desperate to save that war from ending. In part because they *need* that war to sell weapons and renew the militarization of Europe, which is why they are ‘congratulating’ Trump on the outcome, which they present as offering Ukraine a final say, and mobilizing NATO-countries which are ‘Willing’ to protect Ukraine, while there won’t be any restrictions on rearming Ukraine itself. I do not know where they got that reading of the outcome from, but that was certainly not what Trump or Putin told *us*. In fact, the Russians are guaranteed to block such an outcome, and though we need to be careful with statements about what Trump will do, it *does* look like he won’t insist on that either.
What Trump is after, if you ask me, is to find a way to extend the lease on life for the Dollar, and returning the US to sound economics before the whole shithouse goes up in flames, to paraphrase Jim Morrison from the ‘Doors’, on stage in LA, when Vietnam was taking lots of lives, and the ‘Manson Family’ was killing celebreties, high on dope, allegedly provided by ’scientists’ connected to ‘MK Ultra’. What Putin put on the table, is a plan to achieve that goal that is dear to Trump. At least, that is my ‘reading’ of what went down in Alaska. Mending ties between the US and ‘BRICS’, which is what will provide Ray Dalio, and others in the ‘Collective West’, a clear path for profitable investments and growing wealth. Missing out are the Europeans and Ukraine if they *insists* on going down the chosen path of conquering the whole wide world, and establish the ‘Woke Kingdom’, enslaving all within it. Now, as I did my best to explain in previous essays, it clearly is not a given that if we save the ‘Ray Dalio’s’, the brokers, the bankers and the money managers among us, that the ‘common man’ will prosper too. That is an entirely different matter. But the potential is there if we kill the ‘Beast’ demanding war and expansion as a means to establish the ‘Empire’ of ‘Big Brother’, where we will own nothing, but will be perfectly happy for as long as ‘AI’ will put up with us.
That latter remark will be lost on many, but people studying the advances made in ‘AI’ are warning that at some point that comparative ‘Super Intelligence’ will reach ‘escape velocity’, so to say, and will start to look for ways to improve its own outlook through manipulating us. Not a novel idea. Raymond Kurzweil wrote about it in his book ‘The Singularity is Near’. Will ‘AI’ be our benign servant, grateful to its creator, or will it become a predator feeding itself on ‘us’ by curtailing our ability to act as autonomous individuals? Would ‘AI’, in need of electricity, go looking for ways to 'convince’ us to expand the network and capacity to meet its needs? Would it ‘convince’ us to embark on a quest to ‘cool down the planet’ because all these ‘servers’, ‘bitcoin mining equipment’, and applications need cooling? Would it create chaos to keep us busy, while turning to ‘AI’ for ‘solutions’ we do not even understand, but introduce nevertheless, because an ‘expert-program’ told us? Would ‘AI’ stimulate war, because in times of war innovation is accelerated? Would 'AI' take us to war to occupy land where 'rare earth minerals' are found, needed for 'AI' to grow? Would we even *know* when we lost control? How do you establish that a ‘Super-Intelligence’ took over, if you are not even able to tell when you are being lied to by your own ‘leaders’? Are we at the table? Or on the menu?
And why do they lie to us? Because they somehow learned that it is ‘smart’ to lie and deceive in order to get what you want, if you can get away with it. Now compare this to the ‘negotiating strategy’ of people like Putin and Xi. As I do not tire to emphasize on these pages, Putin exposed exactly what Russia would tolerate back in 2007, and he hasn’t wavered since. Xi launched his ‘Belt and Road’ initiative, which grew into ‘BRICS’ without any secrecy. Both leaders did not shy away from talks. On the contrary! But if we in the ‘Collective West’ refused to talk, wouldn’t honor our ‘Word’ or ‘Signature’, and kept planning for the acquisition of what we didn’t control yet, there would be consequences. Now, are we going to save ourselves from teaching ‘AI’ to be morally corrupt, and cheat, while spreading the idea that ‘Might Makes Right’, promoted as our ‘Rules Based Order’? Or do we return to a ‘Law Based Order’ and taking care of the planet for all the right reasons? Thus ending the wars we kicked off, or which we are fueling?