1/26/2022

JRB,

            I wonder if we should all become monks. It’s clear that we need to change the way we live. Life has gotten far too complicated. There’s way too much energy in the atmosphere which is creating a lot of unstable ions. People are making bad choices, harming one another & wasting their precious lives being angry.

Please forgive that rant, but today’s news leaves me unsettled. It’s not any worse than any other day, so I am not sure why I am being so negative. In fact, some of today’s reporting leaves room for optimism. NPR aired observations of a former Ukraine Defense Minister who said that the Russians won’t be invading his country in the next few weeks. He noted that they haven’t set up any hospital units & do not have enough troops to take over. He thinks they’ll keep up their hybrid attacks but he doesn’t think we’ll see the biggest conflict since WWII starting until after the Olympics. This gives you some time to figure something out.

As you alluded to in your PC last week, VVP may be trying to distract his citizens from the climate disaster happening where the tundra is burning. Thomas Friedman suggested in the NYT today, “Siberia is affected by climate change, (which) will threaten Russia’s stability a lot more than anything that happens in Ukraine.” He thinks we are in the midst of seeing a “new kind of power struggle within and between countries based on who is leading with resistance and who is leading with resilience.” What do you think of that idea?

Have you figured out what to do about the recent “crypto crash?” Please get busy figuring out how to regulate that market so naïve young folk aren’t deceived into buying worthless assets.

Speaking of dicey investments, thanks for issuing the advisory to warn businesses of illicit finance and money laundering risks that could occur in Burma. I would assume most folks would already know about these risks, but now they can’t pretend to be ignorant.

BYBS,