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President Trump and NATO. President Trump and the trade war with China – Giancarlo Elia Valori

The last Summit of the Atlantic Alliance saw, at least initially, a clear divergence between the United States and NATO’s European allies.

 For President Trump, who is above all a businessman, budgets and investments count, rather than strategic doctrines, about which there was very little talk.

  The US President, who arrived at the Summit with premeditated and carefully-considered delay, polemicized especially with Germany, saying that its low spending for defence makes it “prisoner” of Russia.

  President Trump cannot get over and deal with the NORD STREAM pipeline, headed by Mathias Warnig, former director of STASI in Dresden where, at the time, Vladimir Putin worked for the KGB, the intelligence service that was the “master” of STASI.

 He wants Europeans to buy the North American shale gas and oil – but it is a very difficult goal to reach.

 Europe is disputed by two energy oligopolists. Continue reading “President Trump and NATO. President Trump and the trade war with China – Giancarlo Elia Valori” →

The transformation of the North Korean military and political system – Giancarlo Elia Valori

How is North Korea’s political system currently changing, pending the Great Transformation with the USA and South Korea, wanted and carefully directed by Kim Jong-un?

 In the future the Great Leader wants to have a new ruling class suitable for the economic and strategic changes which will affect North Korea in the coming years.

 Far-reaching military and economic changes, with the support of Iran, the Russian Federation, China and other countries.

 According to Kim Jong-un, without prejudice to the regime’s structure, everything else must change.

 In the framework of this change, the State and the Party must be turned into quick and agile tools in the hands of the Leader and of his partly-renewed inner circle.

 Kim Jong-un’s primary goal is to control the initial phase of North Korea’s economic transformation, as well as to keep the grip on the Armed Forces and the Party, and to finally create a new ruling class for managing denuclearization and the economic transformation. Continue reading “The transformation of the North Korean military and political system – Giancarlo Elia Valori” →

Trade wars, currency wars and geopolitical clashes – Giancarlo Elia Valori

The Chinese yuan has already plummeted to the historic lows of the last seven months as against the dollar and nothing prevents us from thinking that the Chinese government is organizing a real devaluation of the yuan-renmimbi.

 In fact, on June 27 last, the Chinese central bank set the parity as against the dollar at 6.596, by also cutting additional 391 points compared to the levels of the previous day.

 A move that could largely expand the already significant size of China’s foreign trade, as well as avoid further tension with the USA on trade tariffs, and finally increase and differentiate Chinese exports.

 This does not necessarily mean, however, that China really wants to significantly and clearly devalue the yuan. We rather fear that this threat is a sword of Damocles to be placed right on President Trump’s head.

 The problem is, above all, of a geopolitical rather than of a financial nature.

 As early as the 1990s, the US ruling classes have ridden  their project of globalization, which has inevitably been matched by universal financialization. Continue reading “Trade wars, currency wars and geopolitical clashes – Giancarlo Elia Valori” →

Big Data and the new techniques of government political and strategic decision-making – Giancarlo Elia Valori

Some considerations on Big Data.

  As is now well-known, it is a technology which mainly  deals with collecting, processing and selecting a huge quantity of different data.

  As in some Hegel’s works, here Quantity immediately becomes Quality. The mass of data and the link between them change – hence also its meaning and use change.

  A technology or, rather, a series of technologies joined together, which processes many terabytes (2 at the power of 40 bytes, equivalent to 1,048,576 megabytes) at the same time. A huge amount and, above all, simultaneously. Another type of quantity that is immediately turned into quality.

  After the creation of the International Telecommunication Union in Geneva in 2017, still led by the Chinese Houlin Zhao, we have some additional facts to evaluate the extraordinary relevance of the Big Data Science.

  Meanwhile, just the everyday processing-collection of huge amounts of news allows – also by comparison only – the discovery of many new data and often even of industrial or state secrets. Continue reading “Big Data and the new techniques of government political and strategic decision-making – Giancarlo Elia Valori” →

North Korea, the United States and the Singapore Summit Agreement – Giancarlo Elia Valori

There are many essential points of the US-North Korean talks which have been treated, albeit briefly, in the Singapore Summit between Kim Jong-Un and US President Donald J. Trump.

 It was certainly not a mere photo-opportunity but, inevitably, it was not an already fully-fledged agreement between the two parties.

 With specific reference to denuclearization, nothing new under the sun, but something very important and new from the political viewpoint, also compared to the opposing rhetoric of the USA and North Korea. Symbols matter in foreign policy and, as far as we know, Trump and Kim Jong-Un liked each other – rational, brutal and frank as they both are.

 Nevertheless, North Korea’s decision-makers have long considered their realistic plans for their country’s military nuclear exit.

 In fact, five years ago Kim Jong-Un decided to implement his byungjin policy line, i.e. the parallel development of North Korea’s nuclear military system and of the civilian economy since he had above all verified that, at the time, it was the only way to make the USA sit at the negotiating table. Continue reading “North Korea, the United States and the Singapore Summit Agreement – Giancarlo Elia Valori” →

Jordan’s future stability – Giancarlo Elia Valori

Thanks to the Russian intervention the long sequence of the so-called “Arab springs” has long been interrupted in Syria, but it keeps on expanding elsewhere, considering the many players in the various national “civil societies” that still act within this strategic framework of the Arab springs, which was put in place mainly by the USA and its allies in the Sunni world.

 This is undoubtedly the case of the revolt which took place in Jordan early June.

 On June 4 last, after the revolt in various cities of the Kingdom and, above all, in Amman, King Abdallah accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Hani al-Mulki.

 Hani Fawzi Mulki, former director of Aqaba’s Special Economic Zone, studied in Egypt and in the USA.

 It is also worth noting that Mulki led the team that ratified the 1994 Peace Treaty between Jordan and Israel. Later,  after holding many important posts, he was appointed Prime Minister on May 29, 2016. Continue reading “Jordan’s future stability – Giancarlo Elia Valori” →

The new frontiers of political and strategic technology: the future technological singularity – Giancarlo Elia Valori

To put it in a generic but understandable way, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a technologically mediated ability (but always present in a digital computer or in a computer-controlled robot)  to carry out activities usually typical of an intelligent being.

In this case, the intelligence is the traditional one of the definitions born in the twentieth century in the framework  of empirical psychology: logical ability, in the sense of abstraction from the characteristics that science considers “secondary” and hence subjective; understanding, that is the thought correctly imitating the future behavior of the human and non-human movements and reactions present in the external world; emotional knowledge; design, in the absence of an image already present in the external world; finally creativity and problem solving.

As the  American pragmatist Charles S. Peirce used to say, understanding or thinking is a form of “talking to oneself” and of symbolically representing – not necessarily reflecting – the inferences that can be found in the external reality.

In Peirce’s mind, all these inferences were probabilistic. Continue reading “The new frontiers of political and strategic technology: the future technological singularity – Giancarlo Elia Valori” →

The Russian Federation in Africa – Giancarlo Elia Valori

 In its relations with Africa, Russia – which operates on global markets especially in the field of oil and non-oil raw materials – does not use the same logic as the Western countries’. The latter have always looked only for materials to be processed and turned into finished products within their factories.

 In fact – according to the most authoritative scholars and experts – in Africa, Russia seeks above all the human capital, i.e. the human capital to be developed, the ruling classes to be educated, as well as the masses to be trained and made productive, always in an integrated vision of development between the great continental Eurasia and Africa.

 The Russian relations with Africa are only synergistic, as they are two large reserves of raw materials and this makes their geo-economic situation in this respect very similar. However, as often reiterated by Russian experts, these are always operations that take long time and have a strong geopolitical and strategic dimension.

 Hence, again according to Russian analysts, the logic underlying the relations between Russia and Africa is the union of their best practices so as to create a synergy that, in the future, will have a global geopolitical and economic impact. Continue reading “The Russian Federation in Africa – Giancarlo Elia Valori” →

The petroyuan – Giancarlo Elia Valori

Many oil futures denominated in yuan were launched on the Shanghai market at the end of March 2018 and quickly traded for 62,500 contracts – hence for a notional value of 27 billion yuan, equivalent to 4 billion US dollars.

The financial process of the new petroyuan, however, had already begun as early as 2016.

 Hence there was obviously the danger of an internal financial bubble in China, but linked to the crude oil price –  yet the Chinese government had decided that the fluctuation allowed for those contracts had to be only 5%, with a maximum 10% fluctuation only for the first day of trading.

 Furthermore considering the average level of oil transactions in China, we can see that oil and gas imports could back financial operations totalling over 200 billion yuan.

  According to industry analysts, the level of Chinese oil  imports is expected to increase by approximately 2.1 million barrels per day from 2017 until 2023, which implies that the Chinese market will change the future level of oil barrel prices – be they denominated in dollars or in another currency.
Continue reading “The petroyuan – Giancarlo Elia Valori” →

Elections in the Lebanon – Giancarlo Elia Valori

The general elections in the Lebanon were held on May 6 last.

  They had originally been scheduled for 2013 but, due to the repeated failure of Parliament to elect a new President from April 23, 2014 to October 31, 2016 because no candidate had succeeded in obtaining the required two-thirds majority, the Parliamentary term had been extended at first until 2017 and then until 2018.

 A new electoral law had been adopted in 2017, providing a proportional representation system for the first time in the history of the country.

The maximum proportional representation system in elections coincides with the maximum destabilization of a country.

 Finally, Michel Aoun was elected President on October 31, 2016 at the 46th electoral session of the Lebanese Parliament, breaking a 29-month deadlock. Continue reading “Elections in the Lebanon – Giancarlo Elia Valori” →

The Google Tax – Giancarlo Elia Valori

The European Treasury, individually as member States or collectively as Union, has so far reached – with a race to the bottom – as many as 72 agreements with large global companies.

 Tax competition is still very strong and active. Just think of the US corporate tax that – following the latest reforms – has  decreased to a maximum 26% rate, more than one third less than the previous rate, with a US average corporate tax rate which is now below all OECD and G7 levels. Similar approaches, however, are developing in Argentina, Colombia, Luxembourg, Canada and even Japan.

 Conversely corporate taxes have increased in Turkey, Portugal and Taiwan, with further increases – albeit slight – also in India. They are selective increases to favour some foreign or national companies compared to others.

 At world level we now have as many as eleven jurisdictions – which account for 27% of the total corporate taxes in the world – that are currently increasing corporate  taxes, while all the other small and large countries will keep on competing fiercely at tax level with their neighbouring countries.

 In short, technology has made all the old tax strategies obsolete. Continue reading “The Google Tax – Giancarlo Elia Valori” →

President Trump’s tariffs and duties and the transformation of the world economy – Giancarlo Elia Valori

  The 45th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, keeps on repeating he wants to make America “great again”.

  Hence, first and foremost, he wants to reindustrialize his country which, in fact, is currently the world champion in  the loss of productive, manufacturing or industrial companies.

 The birth of a country that now consumes without producing much, namely the USA, materialized initially under Reagan’s Presidency, but continued rapidly with the successive Presidents.

 For example, at the end of the 1960s, the US industrial labour force was at least 35% of the total number of people employed, while currently this labour force is only 20%.

 Since 2001 over 70,500 companies with more than 500 employees have been closed down definitively.

 The Gospel of Matthew (4:1-11) perfectly clarifies the situation of the post-productive post-economy – if we can use this expression. Continue reading “President Trump’s tariffs and duties and the transformation of the world economy – Giancarlo Elia Valori” →

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