Enslave
Profiteer
Rule
Don’t go there!
Perhaps ironically, one of the most famous 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse paintings is by a Russian:
- Pestilence (on a White Horse -> COVID !?)
- War (on a Red Horse -> PUTIN !?)
- Famine (on a Black Horse -> HYPERINFLATION !?)
- Death (on a Pale Horse -> TOO LATE !?)
- Meduza
- DW
- Ahead
In late 2022, Russia established a top-secret unit of elite intelligence agents with a sweeping mandate to carry out assassinations, abductions, and sabotage abroad. But according to a new investigation by The Insider, one officer has exposed the entire group by using Google Translate.
On March 10, the Russian border city of Bryansk suffered its deadliest attack since the start of the full-scale war against Ukraine. Ukrainian forces struck the Kremniy El microelectronics plant, also damaging a nearby technical college and several residential buildings. According to the latest reports, seven residents were killed and 42 people were injured, 29 of whom were hospitalized. To understand how the attack unfolded on the ground, the independent journalists’ cooperative Bereg reviewed Bryansk residents’ social media posts, compiled what’s known about the attack and its victims, and spoke with one resident about her family’s experience that night. Here’s what they uncovered.
The Russian Justice Ministry has designated scholar Nina Khrushcheva a “foreign agent,” according to an update published on Friday. A professor of international affairs at The New School in New York City, Khrushcheva is the great-granddaughter of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.
The United States has temporarily eased sanctions on Russian oil that is currently at sea. The exemptions, issued by the Treasury Department on Thursday, will remain in effect until April 11.
On March 15, the Oscars will be held in Los Angeles. One of the nominees for Best Documentary Feature is “Mr. Nobody Against Putin,” a film about wartime propaganda targeting schoolchildren in the central Russian town of Karabash. The movie has already won a Special Jury Prize at Sundance 2025 and the 2026 BAFTA for Best Documentary. But the more awards the film collects, the more criticism its creators face — none more than Pavel Talankin, its cameraman, narrator, central character, and co-director. Critics on social media have argued that those appearing in it didn’t know Talankin was shooting a documentary, and that showing their faces to the world puts them in danger. Anton Khitrov spoke with the former teacher about how he responds to the criticism, what his collaboration with Borenstein looked like, and how the project changed his life.
2026.03.13
Stagflation is an economic event in which the inflation rate is high, economic growth rate slows, and unemployment remains steadily high. (Corporate Finance Institute)
Commodity prices influence the prices of manufactured goods, whether the end users are consumers, car companies, construction firms, or food suppliers. The monetary policy response is higher interest rates.
Take oil. Past increases in oil prices have been a strong indicator for inflation, given that oil is such a major input in the world economy.
Continue reading The Iran war and stagflation – Richard Mills at Ahead of the Herd.
2026.03.12
A country’s ability to mine minerals and turn them into metals depends on two distinct but connected phases: mining and smelting/ refining.
(To clarify, smelters extract metal from ore or scrap using high heat to create a raw, impure alloy (approx. 80–95% purity). Refineries take this material and use chemical or electrolytic processes to remove remaining impurities, achieving high-purity levels of 99.5% to 99.9% or higher (AI Overview))
We can dig metals out of the ground minerals; what we lack is separating, purifying and refining capabilities.
By Spencer Connolly – ScreenRant
The Far Side has no shortage of bizarre main characters in any given comic, and that’s because creator Gary Larson decided not to commit to a main character. Unlike other world-famous comic strips like Garfield, Calvin and Hobbes, and Peanuts, The Far Side has different characters starring in each comic.
From Financial Review
For the past two decades, Australia’s economy has been tied to the fortunes of one commodity – iron ore.
It makes up the bulk of our export earnings, has underwritten the success of some of our biggest companies, lined the pockets of our most colourful billionaires and brought us ever closer to a troublesome trading partner in China.
Read More
Continue reading BHP’s copper pivot: The end of the iron ore era? at Ahead of the Herd.
By Ernest Hoffman – Kitco News
China continues to ratchet up efforts to leverage Hong Kong to expand its already dominant influence over the global gold market, as the Asian giant is building up market infrastructure to woo foreign investors, while mainland mining companies tap the semiautonomous region’s stock market to fund their own overseas expansion.
According to a recent report from Nikkei Asia, the Hong Kong government has now established Hong Kong Precious Metals Central Clearing, a fully state-owned company that will start operating on a trial basis before the end of 2026.
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Mandela’s Kiss Endures
The 2024 Global Elections Super-Cycle
Stay tuned for continuous updates on elections around the world. Click on a country for the latest elections data and analysis.
- Number of national elections to be held in 2024 18 of 68
- Overall turnout (based on registered voters) 63%
- Total number of ballots cast in 18 elections 467,094,737
Pulled conclusions from pooled data compilations
Using some of the world’s largest companies by market cap & some of the most quoted indices + two most sung alternatives: data for this millennia where available
- At 134x, Apple is the absolute stock price growth winner; with Amazon at 45x and Google at 32x
- Despite the lack of interest or dividends, gold at 6.6x looks good compared to any other stock or index!
- Barrick Gold on the other hand seems to be poorly correlated to anything including the gold metal itself!?
- But Barrick is the only stock producing negative correlations with most of the indices including a relatively high -0.77 with the Euronext100 index
- If one wast trying to get something totally uncorrelated on purpose- it would be hard to beat: gold and the Euronext100 index at -0.03; or Barrick and the Hang Seng index at 0.04; or gold and Merck at 0.16; or BTC and the FTSE index at 0.19
- Correlation against a basket of indices & alternatives is best in Disney and Google (0.81-0.82), albeit at different growth multiples
- If an average historical P/E is somewhere in the 20x range, then the current S&P quoted average which is in high 30s is as warned high, BUT: only Amazon and Visa seem to be widely out of range (justified by growth in online transactions?), with many below current & historical averages
- In the current world of no interest & no inflation, maybe the higher P/E averages are justified..? For how long, that is a different question…
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