Pragmatically Distributed

When looking for a place to both export Gazans and build them new homes on an uninhabited island in or near Indonesia it is oil rich, Iran allied and Hamas financing Qatar that is far better positioned to do both than are Egypt and Jordan.

Egypt and Jordan are rightfully concerned that any Gazans they import would try to overthrow their governments as Palestinian refugees did decades ago when they assassinated Anwar Sadat and tried to overthrow Jordan’s Hashemite dynasty during the disastrous events of Black September.

If Gazan refugees were to make another attempt to overthrow the Egyptian Government the most likely replacement would be the Muslim Brotherhood (which deserves to be relabeled an international terrorist organization by the State Department after pro-Muslim Brotherhood Obama and Biden foreign policy advisors removed their terrorist label).

The collapse of the Egyptian Government by Gazans would jeopardize passage through the strategically import Suez Canal (through which over $1 trillion in cargo traffic navigates every year) and which the Muslim Brotherhood would probably handover to China in exchange for billions in foreign aid from Beijing.

If they were able to, the refugees would also bring down the Jordanian Monarchy and install an anti-Israel terrorist regime.

Qatar, on the other hand, is almost as responsible for the consequences of October 7 as Iran (which Qatar is allied with) since Qatar is one of the biggest allies and and financial supporters of Hamas.

If Qatar were pressured to take in Gazan refugees instead of Egypt and Jordan then there is no risk of a terrorist government taking down an American ally since Qatar is already allied with, and a promoter of, Islamic terrorism.

Qatar can also better finance the relocation of Gazans to an island off of Indonesia since their oil billions make Qatar vastly more wealthy than the economies of Egypt and Jordan combined are.

Trump would benefit from these seven inflation reducing policies –

1) Proceed with tariffs against China, Mexico and Canada, but hold off for a year on everyone else, to test if we can get trade concessions without risking inflation from extra tariffs.

Tariffs are completely justified against China since their trade distortions undermine the Darwinian advantages of free trade.

The trade status quo with China is anti-Darwinian because their extensive subsidization of their own industry means normal market signaling mechanisms (that would otherwise kill weaker companies and leave stronger ones in place) cannot tell if their industry is actually more competitive/”Fit” than American industry, or, if they are competitive only because of Chinese economic distortions.

This results in inherently “unfit” Chinese firms outcompeting American companies.

The tariffs against Mexico are useful as a way to force their Government to accept all of Trump’s immigration policies, and so are the Canadian tariffs because Canada voted for Justin Trudeau.

However, tariffs beyond these three countries would be more effective as threats to test how many economic concessions Trump can extract than they would be if immediately implimiented.

The reason for this is that the US economy has only recently gotten inflation under control, and the US is still very sensitive to any price shocks.

Therefore, a new round of tariffs on nations beyond China, Mexico and Canada carry a significant political risk that they will set off another round of inflation that Democrats would exploit at Trump’s expense.

Instead, Trump could get economic benefits (without the risk of inflation) by threatening tariffs, but not implementing them, for a year in order to see how many economic concessions he can get from them.

In most cases, trade negotiators would give concessions to Trump while the President would avoid the risk of tariffs initiating a new wave of inflation.

2) Have the FDA automatically approve lab grown meat for sale to the public with a goal of having lab grown meat be 10% of the market within 5 years.

Lab grown meat has technologically matured to a point where it is genetically identical to farm animal meat. Being genetically identical means all lab grown meat tastes, cooks, smells and appears exactly the same as farm animal meat because lab grown meat is real meat.

However, the FDA has still not approved more than a handful of lab grown meat products for sale.

Trump could reduce food inflation considerably if the FDA is told to start automatically approving all lab grown meat for sale provided these companies prove and certify that their meat is nature identical to farm animal meat.

After they certify their meat is nature identical, they then only have to satisfy the exact same FDA standards, and other food safety checks, for contaminants and diseases that livestock meat already goes through.

In the near future, it would be reasonable to expect that 10% of all US meat consumption could originate from labs in a few years, and cut the cost of food for all Americans.

However, it is unlikely lab meat would replace all livestock meat in the medium term because meat laboratories have a number technical challenges that prevent them from scaling up to a level to completely replace farm animals.

For example, meat laboratory vats must be kept unusually sterile because the meat is extremely vulnerable to (literally) being eaten prematurely by bacteria due to their not having an immune system to kill germs, a disadvantage that living farm animals do not have.

Also, this industry has difficulty producing meat that has a complex/inconsistent texture of bone, skin, fat and muscle that exists in cuts of meat such as prime rib or chicken breast.

It has, however, mastered creating meat that is consistent in texture such as any type of ground type meat like ground beef for hamburger, ground pork for sausage, or ground chicken for chicken nuggets.

Fortunately, 50% of all meat sales in the US are ground meat. Therefore, replacing 20% of the ground meat market with lab grown meat would go a long way to cutting food prices, provided the FDA gets out of the way and lets this market start competing on a larger scale.

As lab grown meat replaces ground meat from farm animals it would also reserve more living animals to be used as high-quality cuts of meat like ribeye; which will, in turn, cut prices for even high quality meat dishes.

3) Have the FDA automatically reciprocate pharmaceutical drug approvals with foreign First World nations to cut drug prices.

Currently, one of the biggest contributors to high drug prices is the fact pharmaceutical companies have to spend years and billions of dollars getting the FDA to approve new drugs, and then have to spend similar amounts running the exact same tests to get approved by other First World regulators like the EU, Japan, Britain and others.

Instead of running the same expensive tests, the FDA could enter into reciprocal approval agreements with other global health regulators in the First World (if they share similar testing standards as America).

The agreements would have all of the signing parties agree that if one regulator approves a drug that the other health regulators would perform a quick review (1 year or less) of all the testing and safety data instead of requiring an entirely new, largely identical, testing process that was already done by a foreign medical regulator.

If the regulators are satisfied with the safety and efficacy test data, they would then approve the drug for sale in their jurisdiction. If they were not satisfied, they could order more extensive testing, or reject the drug from being sold in their area.

This should mean the vast majority of drugs will be approved, without needing to spend billions running similar tests in different countries, and cut the price of drugs globally.

4) Reduce the cost of IVF by having the FDA approve importing donor sperm and eggs from Europe from European IVF clinics that meet the highest EU medical standards.

Currently, almost no European IVF clinic is allowed by the FDA to export donor sperm and eggs to the US because it is so complicated for foreign IVF clinics to prove they meet the same medical quality standards that American IVF clinics have.

Instead, we should have the FDA automatically assume that any European IVF clinic that has a high rating by European Union medical regulators has standards that are equal to US IVF clinics.

This would reduce the cost of IVF for Americans by increasing the supply of European sperm and egg donations.

Also, since this is the third inflationary issue being caused by the FDA, perhaps Trump could turn his eminently wise, and uniquely magnanimous gaze towards clearing out the FDA of most of its employees…

5) Test if the market likes the idea of keeping Jerome Powell.

The currency markets are easily scared which makes removing Jerome Powell a risky endeavor since stocks (and inflationary pressures) respond erratically to any unusual uncertainty about the Federal Reserve.

To test if the markets like Powell, in the middle of a slow trading day Trump can say something positive (but noncommittal) about keeping Powell in his position, and see if the markets go up.

If they increase, it indicates the markets would be less unstable and more confident throughout Trump’s second term if Powell is kept in place.

6) Inform insurance companies to reduce paperwork for doctors by at least 75% or be forced to cut paperwork by government regulation.

A major problem in the US medical system is that doctors are being buried under paperwork by insurance companies to justify what they are billing insurers.

Paperwork has become so vast that many doctors are retiring early because they are spending most of their time, well into the night, filling out paperwork instead of assisting patients.

This problem could be alleviated by Trump threatening that if insurance companies do not cut the paperwork they give doctors by 75% he will force them to reduce it by government regulation and/or Congressional legislation.

The tradeoff of this policy is that unscrupulous doctors might excessively bill insurance companies more if they have less paperwork to prove their procedures are needed.

But this tradeoff is preferable to having more doctors drop out of the workforce because of excess paperwork when one considers how expensive and time consuming it is to train new doctors.

7) Adjust ethanol mandates (at least partially) so that less corn is going to gas stations and more of it is going to feed livestock.

Ethanol mandates contribute to food inflation because they divert corn away from feeding livestock in favor of gas stations (which gas engines don’t need to work, and are actually damaged over time by ethanol).

This policy change would be difficult to implement because previous Congressional attempts to eliminate the ethanol mandate were met by Iowa Representatives and Senators blocking any changes to preserve their ethanol subsidies.

To get it passed, it may be necessary to redirect some of the ethanol subsidies to subsidizing corn used as livestock feed, so that Iowa farmers don’t lose government largesse.

However, experimenting to find some way to at least partially reduce ethanol supply and redirect it to corn for livestock would be beneficial because even a small decrease in ethanol would lead to lower food prices.

At a minimum, it would be worthwhile to send out White House officials to Iowa Representatives and Senators to see if they can adjust ethanol subsidies in exchange for other, lucrative, Congressional incentives for their farmers.

At a minimum, there is a 50-50 chance that the Ayatollahs will fall like Assad did if Iran’s nuclear program and energy export infrastructure is destroyed, and this can be accomplished without the risk of a regional war because Iran already started a regional war on October 7, 2023 which Iran lost decisively to the IDF.

Now, with Iran’s Levant proxies devastated and its economy already teetering before Trump resumes office, Israel has the opportunity to bring down the Ayatollahs: an outcome which would be quite ironic if it occurs within a year of Jimmy Carter’s death.

If Israel destroys Iran’s nuclear program then the Ayatollah’s will lose their last remaining military asset.

And if Israel combines an attack on Iran’s nuclear program with the destruction of Iranian energy export infrastructure the immediate loss of 70% of the Ayatollah’s government revenue would collapse the economy and, as a consequence of this economic crisis, quite possibly lead to the fall of the regime.

Even if the Ayatollahs managed to cling to power their ability to project power across the Middle East would be effectively crippled without a nuclear arsenal, without their Levant proxies and without money and resources to fund their government and rebuild their proxies.

The only risk to Israel is that its military does not move as quickly as possible to capitalize on this historic opportunity to destroy the terrorist regime in Iran before circumstances change.

Israel’s best option for ending the Houthi’s missile attacks and disruption of the greater than $1 trillion in international cargo heading to the Suez Canal through the Red Sea is to landlock and then blockade the Houthis from Iranian supplies by having the IAF act as an air force to support ground offensives to seize all of the Houthi coastline of Yemen.

The ground force the IAF would be supporting would be either the Eastern Yemen Government, which opposes the Houthis, or the Saudi Army.

Unfortunately, the Saudis were told by the idiots in the pro-Iran Biden Administration to halt their offensive operations against the Houthis in part because Jake Sullivan removed the Houthis from a US list of state sponsors of terrorism. As a result, it is unclear if it will be possible to convince the Saudis to resume a new campaign against the Houthis after America told them to stop their attacks.

Possibly, the Saudis could be persuaded to restart the offensive if we agree not to criticize them for any “human rights violations” they commit against Yemeni civilians in Houthi occupied territory, and if we give the Saudi military 100% control to search human aid cargo for weapons and distribute legitimate human aid supplies intended for Houthi controlled territory.

The UN should not have any involvement enforcing this blockade or distributing human aid because the UN is filled with pro-Iran partisans who would probably allow Iranian weapons to be covertly smuggled through the blockade to Houthi forces.

If the Saudis do not participate because Biden confused them about what American policy in Yemen is, the internationally recognized Yemen Government in the East could have its military act as the ground component of this campaign.

Assuming either the Saudis or Yemen provide a land army to complement Israel’s air war, the first phase of this campaign would begin with Israeli air assets punching holes in the Houthi lines so that an Arab ground force could move along and occupy the entire Houthi coastline.

Once the coast is controlled, the Houthis would be landlocked and the Arab force (backed by Israeli air and naval power) would be free to impose a naval and air transport blockade of the Houthis to prevent them from receiving military resupplies from Iranian ships and aircraft.

Once Iran can no longer supply the Houthis by sea or air, the second phase of this operation would have Israel conduct saturation bombing against all Houthi missile launchers, missile and drone storage depots, any domestically produced missile and drone factories, Houthi leadership, and any other key military assets in order to deplete the Houthi arsenal.

Since the Houthi ability to domestically produce missiles and drones is limited, being cutoff from Iranian resupply and having their own weapons manufacturing capability bombed would lead to a rapid decrease in Houthi access to the missiles it needs to shutoff Red Sea shipping and to strike Israel.

Third, a separate series of Israeli attacks to destroy the Iranian nuclear program and Iran’s energy export infrastructure would eliminate the danger of a nuclear Iran and threaten the Iranian economy with total collapse when Iran’s energy export revenue (which is approximately 70% of the Iranian regime’s income) drops to zero.

Finally, an additional campaign could use the Israeli Air Force to provide close air support for Arab ground attacks deeper into Houthi controlled territory instead of just having them occupy the coastline.

As I predicted years ago, Iran was poorly positioned to succeed with a proxy war strategy against the United States, Israel and the Gulf Arabs.

From May 11, 2018 –

For a proxy war strategy to work, whoever is acting as the sponsor must have vast military, economic, and diplomatic resources.  Iran can supply only inadequate resources and they are only now learning their inherent weaknesses after they have gone far out on a limb they will struggle to walk back from.

From May 13, 2019 –

Never fight a Soviet-style proxy war against the United States without Soviet-level resources.

[…]

Any response by Iranian proxies in Lebanon and Syria against Israel, and/or response by proxies in Yemen against Saudi Arabia would be quickly suppressed by militarily superior Israeli and Saudi forces.

The end result would crush Iranian regional strength, although the government itself may cling on for a bit of time.

And so it proved exactly as I said it would: Iran’s proxies in the Levant have been crushed by Israel because the terrorist atrocities of October 7 led to a cascade of events that resulted in Iranian proxies (very foolishly) confronting the IDF in direct combat; combat which Israel easily won.

Hamas has been devastated while Hezbollah (which was, until recently, Iran’s strongest proxy force in the entire Middle East) has been mauled by Israel’s campaign in Lebanon; a campaign from which Hezbollah will have great difficulty rebuilding itself from now that its land supply route with Iran via Syria has been cutoff following the defeat of Assad by anti-Iran rebel forces.

The last remaining Iranian proxy, the Houthis, are over 1,500 km from Israel and their arsenal of missiles and drones that can reach Israel at that distance is limited, and vulnerable to retaliation from Israeli air power.

Assad, for his part, would have easily survived the defeat of Hamas and Hezbollah if the October 7 attacks had occurred before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

However, because Russian military power is almost completely invested on the Ukraine front Putin had no reinforcements to prop up Assad.

Turkey’s Erdogan decided that with the Russian military dedicated exclusively to Ukraine now was the perfect time to mobilize Turkey’s proxy forces to finish off Assad.

Iran’s own military power has also been severely weakened by Israel.

Israeli F-35s easily destroyed all of Iran’s S-300 air defense systems, and at least one secret nuclear site:  The nuclear explosive research center at Parchin.

And because of Russia’s war in Ukraine, Iran cannot hope for Russia to give them additional S-300 and/or S-400 air defense batteries which Moscow desperately needs for its own war effort.

Iran’s dire lack of air defenses is made worse by the fact Israel destroyed Syria’s air defenses after Assad fell, thus leaving the Israeli Air Force with a clear, virtually uncontested, flightpath to bomb Iran’s nuclear program anytime Netanyahu wants.

Iran’s ability to directly retaliate for airstrikes on its nuclear program is also limited considering Iran’s direct missile and drone attacks against Israel have merely resulted in failure/interception rates of over 90%.

Because Iran has very few options to retaliate with either proxies or its own forces in the event its nuclear program is bombed, there is no risk of a war breaking out if Israel and/or the United States destroy the program with airstrikes.

Since Iran is now close to powerless to protect its nuclear facilities, America’s best option is to offer the Ayatollahs an ultimatum similar to the 1991 Gulf War ultimatum: Iran will either voluntarily agree to immediately and verifiably dismantle and hand over 100% of its nuclear program and all related infrastructure and machinery to the United States (and not the corrupt UN) or the United States will (at a minimum) provide Israel with all of the indirect logistical and diplomatic support it needs to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, and (possibly) the US Air Force might participate directly in the Israeli airstrikes.

Another reason that American negotiators should insist that any stop to fighting in Ukraine be conditioned on Russia withdrawing to the January 2022 lines (and not frozen at current lines) is because freezing the conflict at the current lines would give China a blank check worth over $10 trillion worth in mining rights to Ukrainian rare earth deposits.

Chinese mining companies stand the most to benefit from any ceasefire at the current lines because much of Ukraine’s $10 trillion rare earth deposits are currently located in areas that Russia has occupied since the start of the war in February 2022.

Therefore, if the war is frozen at the current lines the Chinese military industrial complex would immediately gain trillions of dollars when Russia gives China extremely lucrative contracts to extract Ukrainian rare earth metals.

The only reason China hasn’t already gotten multi-trillion dollar contracts from Russia to mine Ukraine’s rare earth metals is because the continuation of the war (obviously) makes it impossible for any Chinese mining company to move heavy equipment and workers to the deposits without having them blown up in combat.

However, any stop to the fighting that leaves Russia in control of Ukrainian rare earth deposits (regardless of whether fighting stops as a result of a tentative ceasefire or because of a complete peace treaty) means China will be able to safely deploy mining machinery to pocket trillions in rare earth for the enrichment of the Chinese military industrial complex; and at the expense of America which Ukraine is willing to give mining contracts to if the US helps Ukraine.

Since $10 trillion of natural resources is at stake in Ukraine, then the relevant historical scenario America would be best off following diplomatically in Ukraine is similar to 1991’s Operation Desert Storm when George HW Bush successfully gave Iraq an ultimatum to voluntarily withdraw from oil rich Kuwait or be thrown out by force: Just as Iraq was given an ultimatum to leave resource-rich Kuwait voluntarily or be forcibly expelled, Russia should be given an ultimatum to withdraw from Ukraine’s rare earth deposits (so American companies can get contracts to extract them, instead of Chinese military-industrial businesses) as part of any halt to the fighting or else America will enable Ukraine with weapons to forcibly remove Russia from control of those rare earth deposits.

Under this type of ultimatum, the main difference between the one given in Desert Storm and Ukraine is that Russia (either voluntarily or forcibly being expelled from control of $10 trillion worth of rare earth metals) is that Ukraine would do all of the fighting and the removal of Russia would be an even greater strategic victory for the United States than the 1991 Gulf War was because, in addition to securing trillions of rare earth deposits for the United States and keeping them out of China’s hands, Russia would be eliminated as a military threat to the United States for decades, something not even Reagan achieved by winning the Cold War.

The reason Republicans have not repealed Obamacare is that they have not yet realized they can repeal Obamacare without (technically) repealing it.

To understand how to get rid of Obamacare the correct way let’s first understand what Obamacare is.

First, realize that Obamacare is not socialized medicine.

In reality, Obamacare is badly managed, government-run health insurance that has created a near monopoly on the sale of individual insurance policies in the private health insurance sector.

Obamacare’s de facto monopoly works by either subsidizing its own government run health insurance option, or, by forcing insurance companies to sell “non-Obamacare” individual plans that are burdened with mandates and regulations that make “non-Obamacare” private plans almost identical to official Obamacare plans.

The mandates on non-Obamacare plans prevents individuals from building their own health plans a la carte with private health insurance companies because almost all non-Obamacare plans still have the same requirements as official Obamacare plans.

For example, prior to Obamacare independent contractors could create their own private plans, tailored to their individual needs (depending on state level mandates).

Independent contractors could purchase a catastrophic insurance plan to cover large, unexpected, medical expenses and then purchase a separate Health Savings Account to cover routine medical procedures.

However, Obamacare has made this impossible by preventing the sale of individual catastrophic plans separately from insurance plans that are more expensive than HSA plans.

Therefore, to eliminate Obamacare it is not necessary for Republicans to repeal Obamacare outright.

What would be equally effective is using budget reconciliation to restrict all Obamacare regulations and mandates ONLY to insurance plans sold on Obamacare exchanges (except, possibly, for a few mandates that some moderate Republicans might want to retain such as not allowing insurers to deny coverage to those with preexisting conditions).

By restricting all Obamacare mandates and regulations to apply ONLY to plans sold on the exchanges, the Republicans would allow the return of a greater diversity of insurance plans to be sold OUTSIDE Obamacare exchanges, just as existed prior to the creation of Obamacare.

The key would be for Senate Republicans to find a revenue-related reason to sneak this subtle reform of Obamacare legislation into budget reconciliation (because reconciliation would avoid a Senate filibuster and require only a simple Senate majority to pass).

Possibly, to pass reconciliation in the view of the Senate Parliamentarian (who determines if legislative language is suitable for budget reconciliation) this legislative reform could be connected to some sort of tax cut (even if the tax cut is small) such as giving a tax break to anyone who purchases a non-Obamacare compliant plan on the private market.

It would also be beneficial if the legislation could give customers the power to buy across state lines in order to avoid state-level insurance mandates and, thus, create even more “a la carte” insurance options.

The exact mechanism for how this legislation would be linked to a revenue-related measure in order to survive reconciliation can be worked out by Senate Republicans.

To add pressure to pass this proposal, Trump could force all non-military Federal government employees to use only Obamacare as their insurer because Democrats exempted government workers from using Obamacare. Democrats did this because their Federal worker base has much better private insurance and government workers were strongly opposed to having to use Obamacare for their own health care needs (although they were happy to impose this terrible insurance on the rest of the country, so long as they were exempt).

However Senate Republicans figure out how to add this change to reconciliation, if they can add these reforms then the introduction of new health insurance policies would result in a reduction in the inflation rate of private health insurance and a de facto repeal of Obamacare.

Although the Obamacare exchanges would technically continue to exist, they would no longer drive up inflation by preventing the flourishing of new, diverse, health insurance products being sold in the private sector.

Since Keir Starmer is already off to such a great start at building a strong, friendly, relationship with Trump, the next foreign policy discussion Starmer holds with the US should be a long, painful, discussion that pressures him to reverse Britain’s return of the Chagos islands to Mauritius.

Mauritius is an ally of China and the Chagos islands are near the strategically important British bases at Diego Garcia.

As an ally of China it is highly likely Mauritius will give basing rights to their newly returned section of the islands over to China from which China would be able to station troops that will directly threaten American and UK forces on Diego Garcia.

Trump would do well if he makes clear that Britain must keep the Chagos islands for themselves indefinitely and not hand them over to Mauritius using whatever legal mechanism, and/or obscure technicality to reverse Starmer’s earlier decision to return them.

Japan to offer $3.0 billion for G7 Ukraine loan package

October 29, 2024 – Japan has decided to contribute 471.9 billion yen ($3.0 billion) as part of the Group of Seven nations’ $50 billion loan package to Ukraine utilizing frozen Russian assets, a statement by their leaders showed.

Do you know why the Japanese last week contributed another multi-billion dollar financial package to Ukraine?

Afterall, Japan isn’t giving Ukraine billions of dollars for no reason at all.

It is because the Japanese aren’t stupid like the advisors to Trump proposing to freeze the Ukraine conflict at the current 2024 lines.

Japan (along with South Korea and Taiwan which have also contributed billions to Kyiv) supports Ukraine because they know the outcome of this war in Europe will have a direct impact in Asia on the likelihood of whether China will attempt to invade Taiwan.

In the view of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, Xi is more likely to attack Taiwan if Russia is allowed to keep the current territory he holds because Xi will think that if Putin can get away with holding Ukrainian land then the US will also allow Xi to get away with taking over Taiwan.

Continue reading “An East Asian Perspective on Why the January 2022 Lines Should Be the Starting Point in Ukraine-Russia Negotiations Instead of the Current 2024 Lines”