May 12, 2022

• Rejecting the analysis of basically anyone who has a historical view of NATO and thinks avoiding nuclear war is a good idea, Finland has succumb to the current circumstances.
• Finland would more than double the border between Nato and Russia thanks to its 1,340km frontier.
• One bad election in Finland and continued right-wing slide of Russia and the whole world will be forced into a nuclear war.

• The union will have collective bargaining rights on pay and consultation rights on benefits and issues such as health and safety.
• The union will also have the right to represent individual Deliveroo riders who are members in disputes.
• This comes as the UK recently ruled in court that Deliveroo are independent contractor/self-employed.

• High oil prices and declining stock valuations of tech companies has re-established supremacy of "value companies" that fuel industrial production.
• NASDAQ declined another 3% yesterday, now down nearly 30% from its record high.
• Trading houses see more declines in the near future.

• Canadian Stocks Sink Into First Correction Since 2020 Crash as TSX index plunged more than 10% since its record in March.
• TSX down 6.5% vs 17% of the S&P500. Are Canadian companies doing better or is there just a lot of junk on the S&P?

• Bitcoin fell another 7% to $26,250 – the lowest level since December 2020.
• More than $200 billion wiped off cryptocurrency market yesterday.

• Watch for producer price index released today. Producer price index will show where CPI (or profits) will go in the coming month.
• The EU and Mexico are going to raise their central bank interest rates as the seek to catch up with the USA central bank policies.

• Small businesses are taking the largest profitability hit – as they are the most indebted

• Food stocks are doing better than others, but it isn't like they are soaring. Kellogg announced 1-2% profit.

• A way too little and way too late act of political desperation failed to get enough support to enshrine reproductive rights for women in the USA.
• The bill needed 60 votes, but got 49 in the Senate.
• If only there was a party in power that was serious about protecting women (or even their economy) in the USA.

Joe Manchin, the Democratic senator from West Virginia, broke from his party and joined the 50 Republicans in voting against advancing the bill.

Mitch McConnell, the Senate’s top Republican, had vowed ahead of the vote to block the bill, which he deemed an “extreme proposal [that] goes way, way beyond codifying the status quo. It would roll back many existing laws”.

• Abortion is as much a racial justice issue as an issue of women's right, so of course the Republicans have two reasons to voting against it:

Black women get abortions at rates more than three times higher than their white counterparts, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control. There were 23.8 abortions per 1,000 black women in 2019, compared to 6.6 per 1,000 white women.

• The win is through learning lessons from the far-right UK Brexit campaign, the Trump movement, and the ability of state-level actors to leverage social media to spin falsehoods in the population.
• Sophisticated methods developed in the USA, Russia, and China about controlling what people see and believe (for different abusive reasons) have lead to a mass market in political manipulation.
• Unregulated media continues to have negative impacts on understanding and peace throughout the world.
• Whitewashing his father’s dictatorship was the main purpose of the online campaign.
• As with elsewhere, the support of neoliberal policies over the previous 30 years have lead to a rejection of liberal parties.
• The lack of a left wing means the people only have one way to go.
• Do not believe the hand-wringing in the liberal media, the USA is happy with the outcome:

Peter Mumford, south-east Asia analyst with Eurasia Group. “While it’s not the ideal outcome Washington would have wished, both it and Beijing will be broadly happy.”