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The world was shaken by a flagrant violation of a rule based order by USA, when it decided to attack Venezuela and kidnap its President Maduro.

France, though a NATO member, condemned the US action as having crossed acceptable limits.

India, characteristically, decided to stay silent. Showing concern, but not condemnation.

That is sad.

I understand India’s stand diplomatically. But a stand akin to that of France would have been praiseworthy.

How pathetic is the situation in Venezuela that the president and the noble prize winner both are vying to give the maximum benefit to US companies by ditching the Venezuelan people.

The Noble Prize winner openly says that she will give even sweeter deals to American companies.

Nauseating.

She joins the list of Nobel Peace Prize winners who do not seem deserving, most recent of them Barack Obama.

It seems that there is a free for all in USA.

There was a time when the Pope would sell ‘indulgences’ to all and sundry. And have their sins forgiven. The more egregious the sin, the more the amount to pay to cover up for it. Not much if that can guarantee you a place beyond the pearly gates in heaven.

Now Trump is out to trump that.

He is using the US Presidency as a cookie jar, with an unlimited number of cookies, and selling each cookie to whoever cares to pay his price.

In the above case, he has forgiven the jail sentence of a person who had defrauded thousands of investors, of a total of USD 1.60 billion. That’s a lot of cash. In fact, I reckon it would be enough to pay for a coveted cookie.

A constitution that allows this travesty, is a joke. And people who profess to put constitution over all else, are jokers.

The new labour codes proposed by the government are overall an improvement over the earlier antiquated labour laws.

However, it is retrograde as far as changes proposed for ESIC go.

Earlier, ESIC coverage was limited to notified areas and specific industries. It was not applicable for industries in rural areas which did not have ESIC clinics or hospitals.

Even for companies which were covered by ESIC, the monthly ESIC payment, borne by both the employer and employee, was largely a waste of money. Employees chose to ignore this facility in favour of going for Mediclaim, inspite of having paid for it.

Now, ESIC coverage and benefits are extended Pan-India.

This will shoot up the number of people enrolled manifold. The burden on companies will be in tens of thousands of crores. Without any commensurate benefit. ESIC, relic of the license Raj, will grow fatter still, a burden on industry without providing any commensurate benefits.

Instead, government should make ESIC voluntary and have companies offer either ESIC or similarly priced Mediclaim for all employees regardless of location. That will be real reform and will be of use to the employees.

Also, the new code should have been more flexible on the working hours and requirement for overtime. As far as minimum wages are being adhered to for the slated 48 hours per week, it should allow proportionately increasing hours with increased remuneration.

We saw earlier that USD is falling out of favour with all countries. They are putting their eggs in different baskets. In answer, the US has given a modicum of authenticity and reliability to stable coins provided the coin issuer backs it up with purchases of US bonds. Thus a dollar put in stable crypto coins, is a dollar invested in US treasuries.

What can Europe / China / Japan do about this?

They can play their own masterstroke.

Each can pass its own version of the Genius Act.

Thus each country can have crypto exchanges which issue stable coins based on that country’s currency.

E.g. a stable coin worth a guaranteed one euro, a stable coin worh a guaranteed Renminbi or even a Yen.

So issuers of these stable coins would need to hold bonds of these currencies of the same value for which the stable coins have been issued. The audits would be by the respective country governments.

Wow! So we will have USD stable coins, Euro stable coins, etc.

Now let us see how the US govt stacks up against these other heavy weights.

Already those who are heavily committed to the USD are ruing the fact. Nimble market players including drug cartels, are certain to use the stable coins which are backed by the currency which they feel will remain the strongest bet in retaining its value.

The US is in for some tough shocks.

Countries around the world have realised that the dollar is not such a nice thing to have. Hardly a good store for wealth.

So they have diversied over the past year into a basket of currencies other than USD, into gold, and so on.

This spells trouble for the USA as it has to keep on issuing more bonds every year to finance its free lunch. A country which decides to moderately shift its exposure will drastically drop its fresh purchases of the dollar, even if it refrains from selling the bonds to protect its own investment.

So to whom does the US palm off its snake oil i.e. its greenback currency?

Trump stumbled on an idea. He brought the Genius Bill. This bill focuses on stablecoins, setting up regulatory guidelines for this form of digital currency across the United States. It gives legitimacy to stablecoins and effectively puts them on a perch as a legitimate safe currency to deal in. Provided, there is a provided of course, the stable currency issuer should back it with equal amount of USD or Treasury Bonds purchased. Thus just like earlier USD had a currency backed by gold, now we have a currency (or will have), in the form of stable coins of myriad hues, which are backed by the USD.

Thus as the world moves to stable coin, the US is guaranteed a huge stash of its IOU’s in perpetual dead stock, being used just as a counter weight to the stable coins issued.

Buy prey, who will buy a stable coin, when I can very well buy a USD for the same money? Answer is simple – drug lords, money laundering operations, illicit money generators etc. For the difference between USD and stable coin worth one USD is that the USD can generate interest. The stable coin sits like a dead duck.

 

Trump is going about it all wrong.
He should institute a Donald Trump Prize and award it to Alfred Nobel!

This is pathetic. Give him a tenner, someone…

Trump, in his craziest move yet (and that is saying something), has just imposed a hundred grand per year as ‘staying fees’ for holders of H-1B Visas. 

Granted, the current lottery system was not in the best interests of USA. At the very minimum, it should have been changed to a system which favoured the most sought after people i.e. those with the highest salaries which US companies were willing to pay.

But the new step practically kills the H-1B in one swift stroke.

And as reams are written on how this will affect India, no one is yet saying about those who will be affected the most.

The US Universities.

They are done for.

US University education has itself worked as a lottery system wherein you pay tonnes of cash for a degree just with the hope of somehow slipping into permanent residency for good.

Now all those who bought into that lottery find that the tickets are duds.

And those who were issuing those tickets, the US universities, will find that there are no takers.

And that their bloated costs will not be compensated by the miserly US student. They need fat wallets of overseas students, which are no more.

Many universities will close down.

Many parts ot the economy who catered to them will take a severe hit.

And a source of part time slave labour will be halted.

While US companies shift jobs to GCCs – Global Capability Centres.

Not good times for MAGA.

I saw the video of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. The accuracy with which the sniper delivered, was the stuff which US Navy Seals would aspire to.

Charlie Kirk’s killing greatly saddened me.

But as I think about this event, it is clear to me that whenever such a killing happens, the side which the killer represented, invariably is the winner. Not that the Democratic Party endorsed this.

But the Republicans have a huge hole in their talent pool which will be too difficult to fill up.

One Charlie Kirk, one Elon Musk, one Joe Rogan was the difference between victory and loss for Trump.

Not that I anyway admire Trump. I believe he has let down the world.

But Charlie Kirk was a breath of fresh air in the way in which he went into liberal dens and held open debates with civility and without rancour.

This is a permanent loss for the Conservatives. A very heavy loss. And correspondingly, a huge advantage for the left liberals. For every next competitive play that comes along.

Sad, but true.