We have dropped in on Spengler (David Goldman) and Cardinal Richelieu a couple times, links below.
Our boilerplate introduction to the writer:
...The author of this piece, David Goldman, is Deputy Editor (Business) at Asia Times.
Prior to taking that position he was:
- Global head of credit strategy at Credit Suisse
- Global Head of Fixed Income Research for Bank of America
- Global Head of Fixed Income Research at Cantor Fitzgerald
In addition to apparently not being able to hold onto a job I think one of his requirements for moving on was a "Global Head" title. (JK, young Master. G.)
From David Goldman (Spengler), Deputy Editor (Business) at Asia Times, April 2, 2022 i.e. 37 days after Russia invaded Ukraine - alternatively 1192 days ago.
The cardinal’s ghost cites his own ‘grey eminence’ to show that time is the deadliest of weapons
“Ladybird, ladybird fly away home,
Your house is on fire and your children are gone.”
The ghost of Cardinal Richelieu was singing the old children’s rhyme to the tune of “Thank Heaven for Little Girls,” in his Maurice Chevalier accent. The scratchy sound of an old 78-rpm record buzzed through my earbuds as Richelieu’s avatar danced a few steps of soft-shoe to accompany the song.
We stood, or rather hovered, in a Metaverse reconstruction of the Cardinal’s palace on the Place de Vosges. It was creepier than the ossuary of the Carthusians many levels below the sewers of Paris where I had first conjured Richelieu’s ghost.
Still in beta testing, the Metaverse already was infested with ghosts. The Oculus headset that I obtained from a software engineer who wore the habit of the Capuchin monks projected Richelieu’s specter in cheerful 3-D.
“You are aware, Spengler, that the ditty comes from the Thirty Years’ War in Germany,” said the Cardinal’s ghost: “’Maikäfer flieg! Der Vater ist im Krieg. Die Mutter ist in Pommerland, und Pommerland ist abgebrannt.’ Or in your barbarous language: ‘Ladybird, fly! Father’s gone to war. Mother is in Pomerania, and Pomerania is burned to the ground.’
“Eminence,” I stammered, “I know the rhyme, but what does that have to do with Ukraine?”
“That, Spengler, should be obvious to a scribbler who writes so confidently of the extinction of civilizations. Dilettantes like the Americans think of eliminating a regime. Real connoisseurs of power arrange to eliminate entire provinces. I understand Putin; in a way I envy him. When Charles De Gaulle flew to Moscow to meet Stalin in 1944, he wondered what he might have achieved had he commanded a country like Russia rather than the mere nation of France.”
Richelieu gloated: “With half the population ruled by the Austro-Spanish Habsburgs, allied to Catholic Germany, France ruined its enemies during the Thirty Years’ War. Imagine what I could have done with Russia! The Swedes whom I bribed ravaged Pomerania and left it without people. Children still sing of it. Yet three generations later Peter the Great broke the pride of Sweden, in 1709, at Poltava in Ukraine.”
“But Eminence,” I protested, “Russia has done poorly in its war on Ukraine. It is bogged down with high casualties and missed its chance for a quick victory, and it has succeeded only in uniting the whole of the West against it.”
“I expected better from you, Spengler, than to repeat the nonsense one reads in the newspapers,” Richelieu spat back. A glowing blob of ectoplasm stuck to my Oculus visor. “A quick victory, indeed? And what makes you think that Putin ever wanted a quick victory?”
That stumped me. “Pardon my effrontery, Eminence, but if Putin didn’t want a quick victory, what did he want?”
“Time,” said Richelieu, “is the ultimate weapon. I understood this, and Putin has learned his lesson well. Clausewitz was in general correct when he said that war was the continuation of policy by other means, but there are occasions when war itself is the policy. Here is what Aldous Huxley wrote in his book The Grey Eminence, a profile of my chief of intelligence, Father Joseph de Tremblay. Huxley is quite accurate, as well he should be, for he heard the story first-hand from me, in the ossuary of the Carthusians below the sewers of Paris:
In a memorandum on the affairs of Germany, which he wrote in January 1631 for the instruction of the King, Father Joseph insisted that French policy should be directed to the systematic exploitation of time as the deadliest of all weapons in the Bourbons’ armory. To this end, the negotiations which [Father Joseph on behalf of the Cardinal] had begun at Ratisbon were to be continued, unremittingly.
While the imperial Diet was in session, there had poured into Ratisbon, from every corner of Germany, an unending stream of supplicants… Among these supplicants was a group of delegates from Pomerania. Humbly, but nonetheless insistently, they begged the Emperor and the Electors to consider the lamentable state of their province… Very many had died, and those who survived were eating grass and roots — yes, and young children and the sick and even the newly buried dead….
And yet here [Father Joseph] was, pursuing, patiently and with consummate skill, a policy which could only increase the sufferings of the poor he had promised to serve. With full knowledge of what had already happened in Pomerania, he continued to advocate a course of action that must positively guarantee the spread of cannibalism to other provinces.
“Your house is on fire, your children are gone!” chirped the ghost of Richelieu triumphantly. “Two-thirds of the people of Pomerania perished. When the war ended the founder of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm I, found himself without a people, so he invited the persecuted Huguenot of France under the Edict of Potsdam, as well as Poles, the Jews of Lithuania, and whomever else he could entice. His great-grandson Frederick the Great built 1,000 villages by draining swamplands and peopled them with 300,000 immigrants. Pomerania had its revenge on France, to be sure, but it took a century to round up enough Pomeranians to make a difference.”
“France suffered during the Thirty Years’ War as well,” Richelieu burbled, “but there is a reason that the cannibal witch of Hansel and Gretel was a German and not a Frenchwoman.”
I stood in the CGI recreation of the palace on the Place des Vosges in stupefied silence. At length, I whispered, “What will happen to Ukraine?”
“Putin will leave Ukraine as he left Chechnya – although Boris Yeltsin deserves a good deal of the credit; he directed the First Chechen War in 1994, when half a million of Chechnya’s 1.3 million people were displaced, perhaps 100,000 civilians were killed, and half the country was ruined. Perhaps another 100,000 civilians died – so many fled it is hard to tell. Russian troops leveled the capital Grozny in 1999, at high cost to themselves. I find it amusing that American commentators hold up Yeltsin as an exemplar of democratic benevolence when he was every bit as brutal as Putin. There is only one way to govern Russia, and it does not involve lace doilies.”....
....MUCH MORE
Previously:
Goldman was also one of the few people who understood the inflation dynamic of the first part of this decade: 2021 -2023. Here's a look back from September, 2022 with some of those links:
Credit Where Credit Is Due: One of the People Who Understood That Inflation Is More Than Just Gasoline Prices
Here's a graphical presentation of headline CPI inflation from Trading Economics (also on blogroll at right):
June 2022's 9.1% headline CPI was the reported top-tick:
Today's 9.1% CPI Print: Analysts React
and as we can see, inflation was indeed transitory.
Of course the Weimar hyper-inflation was also transitory, as are all things that humans do.
Additionally, the hyper part of the German inflation wrapped up much quicker than the American experience during the early years of the current decade.
For our part, we were saying during the inflation run-up: "Sic Transit Gloria Mundi,"
Everything is transitory. Thus passes the glory of the world,
For a couple years. Literally.
In more carefree days-gone-by, we also posted Sic Transit Gloria Monday and Sic Transit Gloria Money.
And just so you know, we were no inflationistas-come-lately, we got lucky in December 2020 because we watch commodities, including food, prices.
December 29, 2020
St. Louis Fed: Food Prices As An Indicator Of Future Inflation
An interesting commentary, especially in light of the generations of Econ profs admonishing against putting much weight on headline inflation, as food and energy prices are volatile and should be stripped out to reveal core CPI and PPI trends.From the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, January 1, 2002:....
We followed up on May 27, 2021:
"St. Louis Fed: Food Prices As An Indicator Of Future Inflation"
We first posted this paper on December 29, 2020 as a test of the thesis. At the time the UN's FAO Food Price Index had printed higher for six consecutive months. The correlation with coming CPI prices apparently held as we saw headline prints of 1.4% in the February report (January data), 1.7% YoY in March, 2.6% YoY in the April 13 report, and 4.2% earlier this month.
The FAO Food Price Index has now risen for eleven consecutive months. The month of May has been bearish for row crops so we will get to see if the correlations hold and/or see what lag/lead times might be. Remember, this is a test. Your mileage may vary. Close cover before striking...
The reference was repeated on September 6, 2021; and March 7 2022, interspersed with a hundred other inflation posts including September 14, 2021's:
CPI Rate of Increase Dips, Cheese Futures Unchanged
As scribblers around the world try to fit this morning's report into their preferred storylines, we're going to go with a kicky fromage fort because for some asinine reason I was looking at CME cheese futures when the Bureau of Labor Statistics made the release:
"CPI for all items rises 0.3% in August; gasoline, food, shelter among indexes rising"
And all I could think of was cheese dip.
You'll need 225g of assorted hard and soft bits of cheese, a clove of garlic, a bottle of white wine (60 ml for the recipe and the rest for you and yours)......Wait, where was I? BLS?....
