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Sunday, Aug 22, 2021 - 14:38 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

Procrastination, Prognostications

"My mom used to be classmates with K. Kannan. She said he used to make balls out of paper and then juggle it during lessons at the back of the classroom.

Once, a teacher sneered at him saying something along the lines of 'you think you can play for the national team?'.

Well, he did end up playing for Singapore's National Team."

- as seen on r/singapore


It's been a long few weeks; I'd say I was busy, and I was quite, but to be frank, I just wasn't feeling it* - for blogging, that is. There was time, note, to beat Civilization VI on Huge at Deity difficulty for the first time (Bull Moose Teddy, Tourism into Cultural Victory, possibly replicated in real life to a large extent), hit Level 43 in Pokémon GO, and complete another winning S-League season in Hattrick. About that last, I have kept up with updating the other site near-daily, and for nearly twenty years now, so I suppose it's mainly down to ritual and attitude to defeat procrastination, as opposed to banking on emotionally-driven factors like "motivation". I mean, there are productivity methods/crutches such as Zettelkasten (slip-box) and to-do checkbox lists (as I am maintaining), but the trouble is that it's down to oneself in the end - there are a few projects I've put off for over a year (and copied across many fresh lists), such that one figures that the Lindy effect applies here too. Should really get around to those that I owe...

The Premier League has also restarted with fans in attendance, with the old everyman classic chants portending a return to normalcy, one hopes. The United-Leeds clash boasted the traditional spirited pre-match historical re-enactment of the Wars of the Roses, and it was just a relief to witness some homage paid to forebears, in these rootless modern times. United won, of course, 5-1 through a Bruno hat-trick on four Pogbassists, and good times might finally be returning after the seven-year post-Fergie league hat-trick drought has been banished for good. Football news has however unavoidably been dominated by Messi's leaving Barcelona (as suggested) for the Qatari-backed infinitely-moneyed Paris Saint-Germain, after they together with Real Madrid (wisely) rejected an investment deal that would have gotten them an upfront chunk of change, for a cut of the next fifty years' income. Really, there's no honestly keeping up with the oil sheikhs next door these days, which may be why Real's continuing to push the Super League. From all the posturing and financial goofs at Barca, however, even that may not keep them aloft.

The Pope of Soccer moving to France to widespread rapture besides, other recent calls also seem to be coming through; on inflation, Fed chair Powell has just deigned to admit several weeks ago that it could turn out to be higher and more persistent than expected - affirmed by the Treasury secretary - after the official July figures went up to 5.4% (last seen in 2008). Note, these numbers are widely suspected to be underestimates from tooling with the underlying components of goods over the years, and would be far higher were metrics from say 1990 applied, with a JHU economist already eyeing 9% by the end of the year. Who could have imagined that increasing the money supply by over 40% in a couple of years, could cause inflation? Sure, it conceivably might not if the extra cash is mostly channeled to the wealthy and socked away in luxury goods like penthouses, Lamborghinis and Lionel Messis (i.e. accompanied by a low velocity of money, in Fed-speak), as previously explained, but one would have to expect it to eventually trickle down and hit the street.


Not like telling them's gonna prevent it;
the FAKE NEWS is usually superficially more attractive, after all


There's been a crapload of trying to pin the inflation figures as temporary from used cars and timber etc., but as even the general Reddit set and Congress seems to be becoming aware of, this is merely the propaganda shifting to the third phase of "yes, so there is inflation and it's not transitory, but it's actually good for you!", which is clearly of scant consolation as wage growth gets devoured by rising prices and shrinking product sizes. As it stands, the Fed is already making noises about the tapering of bond purchases, perhaps as soon as next month, with the timeline for rate hikes coming down from 2024 to 2022 already. Shouldn't take too long to find out.

I'm somewhat divided over whether it is meaningful to claim Temasek investment losses as a valid subject of prediction, given that such underperformance has been baked in for the past decade or two (did get some good memes out of the leadership, granted, and their stock-picking retardation has brought the prestigious offer of an r/wallstreetbets moderator role, so there's that). The catalyst for the latest scheduled disaster was China's banning of for-profit tutoring and private schools out of the blue, in an effort to level the playing field between those forced to rely on less-motivated public school teachers, and those with access to better-remunerated private ones (sometimes the same person; as to whether it'll work out... not very likely methinks, while the gaokao exists). Well, it seems that Temasek had somehow managed to bet big on the Chinese education and technology sectors right before the collapse, losing over half their stake at last eyeball. One could hardly have timed this so perfectly, if one had tried!

This utter gambling failure might seem more palatable if one figures that geopolitical considerations had guided their decisions to an extent, which may be a timely reminder of who's the boss in these international dealings; note that our Prime Minister had broadcast a (actually quite rational) public warning to both America and China earlier in the month, which brought uniformly harsh but ultimately realistic assessments by local netizens on the amount of actual influence possessed here. On a more positive note, Temasek Holdings and their charitable foundation have generally been making the right moves against the coronavirus, such as the vitamin distribution mentioned previously. In view of that, perhaps they might consider pivoting to (non-financial) research and the healthcare sector, from how Google Health has just been dismantled (again). From how the global Covid-19 response has been thus far, commercial entities are probably not the best institutions to depend on for practical and sustainable solutions in public health.

The development on the pandemic front will rightly take another blog post of its own, but I think it a fair summary that vaccine efficacy has been on a consistent downtrend, with Pfizer's efficacy against high viral burdens falling from 92% to 78% after just 90 days, for example, retaining just 16% effectiveness against infection - and no clear effect on transmission - after six months. The official narrative has meanwhile shifted from initially requiring about 60% of the population getting vaccinated to attain herd immunity, up to 80% last December, then 90% with Delta and other variants, and now the admissions that herd immunity is probably impossible, and that fully vaccinated individuals becoming severely ill is inevitable. Pretty obvious parallels might be drawn with inflation expectations, on this slow boiling-of-the-frog.


Kabul: the new and deproved Saigon 2.0
[N.B. Can you identify which is 2021, versus 1975?]
(Source: kunstler.com)


The current U.S. administration has kindly taken a lot of the heat off the medical establishment, by somehow managing to outdo them in sheer, unadulterated incompetency. To be clear, getting out of Afghanistan was the correct, inevitable and long-overdue decision, as courageously initiated by the previous POTUS and also recognized by the late, great Lee Kuan Yew. Let's be frank, if you've pissed away US$2.5 trillion over twenty years with no concrete results and next to no hearts won - as evinced by the puppet Afghan army all but giving up immediately, having long hedged their bets - it must be high time to cut losses, like, yesterday or fifteen years ago. The problem was the execution, or complete lack thereof. It shouldn't take any particularly stable genius to arrange for one's people and gear to be expatriated in an orderly manner, what with any deadline being self-imposed, but somehow you've got desperate kids falling off planes, the Taliban capturing thousands of top-line vehicles, aircraft, weapon systems and embarassing personal effects (that last needs confirming), and the Brits having to help evacuate American citizens. This seems chummy enough, until one reads about the US$2,000 fee charged by the U.S. State Department to their nationals for the flight out, only belatedly dropped after it came to light.

I'm not really one to wax lyrical about American decline as seems fashionable nowadays, but watching their army recruitment ads alongside China's and Russia's does leave one with the impression that their military is getting increasingly confused about their main function, at the very least (unless it's chalking up sales for the military-industrial complex, in which case I take back my words). CNN, expectedly, has headscarf-clad reporters professing that the Taliban are chanting "Death to America" in a pretty friendly way (yes, seriously), but this was a bridge too far for the rest of the liberal mainstream media, who appear to have finally turned on the hapless current POTUS. About that, not that many believe he's actually in charge, whether of his supposed administration or his own faculties, with his already-padded approval ratings going underwater. One supposes this only to be expected with both Obama and Osama long in agreement, and if it's any consolation, Hunter has recovered from substance addiction to sell influence paintings to unspecified buyers at up to half a million apiece. Well, popular speaking's clearly not their forte, so congratulations on the sudden emergence of bankable artistic talent.

Afghanistan's not just - or even mostly - about Afghanistan to many, but about America, and from that perspective, it's difficult to imagine a greater humiliation than this botched pullout. The British Parliament, mind, has been upset enough to officially hold Biden in contempt - never before done for any previous POTUS, note - with the French plea for nonexistent "moral responsibility" ignored, and the Czechs questioning NATO's entire legitimacy - probably more over the stench of weakness, than the defeat itself. In contrast, the Taliban appears to be winning plenty of admiration and recognition for outlasting the infidel invaders and banning vaccines (which, to be fair, they have good reason to be suspicious of), including from a component party of the governing coalition of our northern neighbours. Assurances on Taiwan etc. are looking shakier than ever, but let's hope that never needs to get tested.


And, through all this, Taliban spokespeople get to tweet, while asserting that "men aren't women" brings a lifetime ban
(Source: patriots.win)


[*Part of the reason, I realized, was probably that the padding on my folding sofa bed had worn out, to the extent that I've effectively been sleeping across a metal bar. A mattress topper quick fix wasn't all that, and this has perhaps understandably discouraged me from going to bed. Should get resolved soon, though.]



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