Tag: trade

2019 Trump’s Economic Strategy: Throwing Punches Blindfolded?

Ever since enacting our existing Constitution in 1787/1788, the US has had issues controlling itself. To pay down the war debt, instead of staying the course with the states deciding on their payback schedule, the general government jumped in for the power grab. It has been rough sledding every since.

So here we are in 2019, while US propaganda spins the latest twists of the expanding trade war with China, one of my favorite bloggers, Moon of Alabama, does a great job of setting the context and teasing the truth out of this current situation.

I can only think that Trump sees his time as short even if it is two terms and he sees this area of US policy as the only place he can “play” with the big boys, and perform his legacy business strength, the “Art of the Deal“.

Other areas like foreign policy are in the hands of the neocons and the domestic games hold little real interest to him (except it gives him plenty of material to Tweet about).

Moon of Alabama is balanced enough to say:

Some aspects of China’s trade behavior can and should be criticized. But overall China sticks to the rules of the game, while the U.S. is now breaking these.

It was not China that moved U.S. factories to its country. U.S. managers did that because the U.S. economic system is based on greed and not on the welfare of its citizens.

There are much better ways to get China to change its trade behavior than by bullying and ever increasing tariffs and sanctions.

Bullies don’t play by the rules, from US/Israel/French nuclear development that the US vetoes the UN on WHILE picking on Iran which has dotted the “I” s and crossed all the “T” s .. to the way the US waged war on itself especially in 1864/1865 with the total war mantra, killing civilians, burning homes, stealing silverware, raping the wives and slave women and wrecking havoc over a large portion of the South, bullies never play fair.

Non-bullies almost have to until the bully is significantly weakened, but having over 5000+ nukes with multiple warheads keeps the US in “business”.

Back to the China tariff “strategy”:

The U.S. started a trade war with China by suddenly putting up high tariffs on Chinese products. China countered with tariffs on U.S. products, but was ready to negotiate a fair deal. The negotiations about an agreement were held in English in the United States. The U.S. provided a written draft.

When that draft reached China and was translated to Chinese the relevant party and government institutions were aghast. The U.S. demanded that China changes several of its domestics laws. It essentially demanded a complete change of China’s trade policies and, most infuriating, was unwilling to go back to the old tariff rates, even if China would comply. It wasn’t Xi who rejected the uneven deal, it was the whole Chinese government.

You see, historically, the US likes to portray an “evil bogeyman” in foreign policy struggles like it likes to paint the “lone gunman” in domestic shootings:

U.S. propaganda is always pointing to one person that solely cases everything and therefore deserves all the hate. It once was Saddam, Saddam , Saddam. Then Ghadaffi, Ghadaffi, Ghadaffi, Assad, Assad, Assad, Putin, Putin, Putin. Now it is Xi, Xi, Xi.

So now what? The “negotiations” that supposedly Trump is so good at (like 4D chess moves, etc) seems to have no real pattern. Maybe that is his genius, random chaos?

As Ambassador Chas Freeman lays out at length:

“There is no longer an orderly policy process in Washington to coordinate, moderate, or control policy formulation or implementation. Instead, a populist president has effectively declared open season on China.”

So what is the end game here? Does he want this to become a war that he can blame the neocons on (since they are itching for another conflict to insure the Military-Industrial Complex is well “fed” with government revenue, up to $1.2T annually IF you count the ten different accounts that make up the “military” budget).

China will response in kind and asymmetrically. It now restarts to buy oil from Iran. Ambassador Freeman sees no way how the U.S. could win the game.

China has long prepared for this conflict. Consider Trump’s recent move against the Chinese manufacturer Huawei:

The White House issued an executive order Wednesday apparently aimed at banning Huawei’s equipment from U.S. telecom networks and information infrastructure. It then announced a more potent and immediate sanction that subjects the Chinese company to strict export controls.

The order took effect Thursday and requires U.S. government approval for all purchases of U.S. microchips, software and other components globally by Huawei and 68 affiliated businesses. Huawei says that amounted to $11 billion in goods last year.

So basically, US chip manufacturers are feeling the same way as soybean farmers .. what did Trump do to our market? Consumers may never know the deal they might have had with solar panels.

Maybe Trump has had enough of the presidency and wants to “kick the can” to the next president to deal with, landmines like rising Walmart prices WILL hit his core base, if they can connect the dots.

Things are going to get even more interesting!

-SF1

Did Israel (France, UK, US) Just Overplay Their Hand in Syria?

17SEP2018 Russian MOD Map – Syrian coastline (Red) Russian IL-20 AWACS Surveillance Plane Route (Blue) Israeli F-16 and French naval ship actions

To understand the chess match (yes, leaders of the “free” world are sociopaths who love this “game” that involves other people’s lives) that is being played out on the world’s stage I will be drawing from various sources for this post:

  • Pat Buchanan’s article from Lew Rockwell
  • Moon of Alabama’s article
  • Robert Bridge article from Strategic Culture share on Lew Rockwell

[NOTE: A good researcher pulls from various sources and also thinks critically about the situation at hand before sharing their own thoughts]

From a high level view a few days later it becomes clear that Putin took a lot of heat from those in Syria as well in his own country in not retaliating against the actions of the west in the Mediterranean Sea near Syria this past week. I think of the mechanical operation of a ratchet, using rather small moves one can over time place a lot of torque on a situation IF one is patient and in the end have the upper hand.

Moon of Alabama, who follows the events in the Middle East so very well (I highly recommend a site visit there and IF you feel inclined, please do considering supporting that site) has a great overview of the political milestones that led up to this moment where a Russian propeller plane is accidentally shot down by a Syrian S-200 missile site that was focused on an Israeli F-16 that was shadowing the Russian IL-20 AWACS-like plane. Less than 24 hours prior to this setup:

Turkey and Russia agreed on a further de-escalation in Idelb province in Syria (see the update here). This agreement takes away the chance of an imminent wider war in which the U.S. and some of its allies would use a fake ‘chemical attack’ as a pretext to launch missiles against a large number of Syrian government targets and military positions.

.. peace was about to break out in Syria. However:

A peaceful solution of the Idleb situation is unsatisfying for Israel. The successful Syrian defeat of the Jihadi enemy inside the country would allow Syria and its allies to concentrate their forces against Israel. Israel wants the Syrian government destroyed and the country in chaos.

On Sunday September 16 Israel tried to hit an Iranian Boeing 747 freight plane at Damascus airport. The plane allegedly carried an Iranian copy of the Russian S-300 long range air defense System for the Syrian army.

Imagine any country in this world that can get away with attacking INSIDE another sovereign country and getting away with it. I can only think of two countries, Israel and the United States of America.

On Monday around 10:00pm local time 4 F-16 jets of the Israeli airforce, coming from the sea, launched missiles against at least three targets on Syria’s coast. The strike came only hours after Israel released satellite images of what it called “strategic targets” in Syria. The integrated Syrian and Russian air-defenses responded.

The Israeli air force had warned the Russian forces in Syria only one minute before the strike. A Russian IL-20 electronic warfare airplane (red line) was preparing to land at the Russian airport near Latakia just as the Israeli attack (blue) happened.

Israel chose to give a 60 second warning that could never be enough time for the IL-20 propeller plane to clear out of an area to a safer zone. Israel knew this but wanted to provoke the “Bear” so as not to loose even more strategic ground in the Middle East for their “defense”. Israel has chosen this path, and there will be blowback.

The IL-20 was hit 35 kilometers off the coast by a S-200 air-defense missile fired by the Syrian military towards the Israeli attack. There were 15 Russian soldiers on board of the plane which were likely all killed.

The Israeli attack came out of the same direction as the Russian IL-20. The large 4 propeller plane creates a much bigger radar reflection than the small F-16s fighter jets. The S-200 missiles have a semi-active radar homing seeker. These are passive detectors of a radar signal which is provided by an external source, in this case the Syrian and Russian radars on the ground. While the missile was aimed at the F-16 its seeker likely mistook the larger radar reflection of IL-20 for the intended target.

At the same time as the Israeli air force attacked, a Russian frigate (red) near the coast detected missile launches from the French Frigate Auvergne (blue) nearby. The French frigate carries air, ship and land attack missiles.

With so many Russian ships in the area plus Russian and Syrian radar sites on the mainland in Syria, there is plenty of evidence untainted by spin by Western powers to twist. Similar to Lincoln’s provocation at Ft. Sumter and FDR’s provocation of the Japanese before Pearl Harbor and even Bush I’s green light to Saddam in Kuwait at the start of Gulf War I, this was a blatant attempt at provoking conflict in the midst of the last two years of Russian accusations (election meddling) and US sanctions.

Sure the bully (Israel) “apologized” but said “it was not our missile”. Whatever. There is ZERO honor in that and there was no US response that indicated any kind of remorse at all.

The honor (again) came from “Cool Hand” Putin. As Robert Bridge points out:

Russian President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, took admirable efforts to prevent the blame game from reaching the boiling point, telling reporters that the downing of the Russian aircraft was the result of “a chain of tragic circumstances, because the Israeli plane didn’t shoot down our jet.”

Nevertheless, following this extremely tempered and reserved remark, Putin vowed that Russia would take extra precautions to protect its troops in Syria, saying these will be “the steps that everyone will notice.”

Now there is much consternation in Israel that the IDF will soon find its freedom to conduct operations against targets in Syria greatly impaired. That’s because Russia, having just suffered a ‘friendly-fire’ incident from its own antiquated S-200 system, may now be more open to the idea of providing Syria with the more advanced S-300 air-defense system.

.. or even the highly advanced S-400 systems:

The Israeli gamble did NOT pay off. Their reputation as a greedy neighbor who steals and maims others in the ‘hood all the while not adhering to international law that it demands others to follow. (While having 200+ nukes in their back pocket) The Russians know this and are being very patient in protecting a friend that asked for assistance back in 2015.

In summary, Pat Buchanan does a masterful job at giving a grand overview that spans decades of political ebb and flow on a global scale when he states:

By the end of his second term, President Ronald Reagan, who had called the Soviet Union an “evil empire,” was strolling through Red Square with Russians slapping him on the back.

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive. And how have we husbanded the fruits of our Cold War triumph?

This month, China’s leader-for-life Xi Jinping stood beside Vladimir Putin as 3,000 Chinese troops maneuvered with 300,000 Russians, 1,000 planes and 900 tanks in Moscow’s largest military exercise in 40 years.

An uncoded message to the West from the East. Richard Nixon’s great achievement in bringing Peking in from the cold, and Reagan’s great achievement of ending the Cold War, are history.

Squandered. The “shining city on a hill” and “American Exceptionalism” are but a myth. The real DNA of our government along with that of Israel and NATO aligned countries are bent on war. Pat continues:

.. Bolshevism may be dead, but Russian nationalism, awakened by NATO’s quick march to Russia’s ancient frontiers, is alive and well. Russia appears to have given up on the West and accepted that its hopes for better times with President Donald Trump are not to be.

U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley is berating Russia for secretly trading with North Korea in violation of U.N. sanctions, saying, “Lying, cheating, and rogue behavior have become the new norm of the Russian culture.” Cold wars don’t get much colder than defaming another country’s culture as morally debased.

The U.S. has also signaled that it may start supplying naval and anti-aircraft weaponry to Ukraine, as Russia is being warned to cease its inspections of ships passing from the Black Sea through the Kerch Strait into the Sea of Azov. The three-mile-wide strait lies between Crimea and Kerch Peninsula. In Russia’s eyes, both banks of the strait are Russian national territory.

With U.S. backing, Ukraine has decided to build a naval base on the Sea of Azov to “create conditions for rebuffing the aggressive actions of the Russian Federation in this region.”

Kiev has several patrol boats in the Sea of Azov, with a few more to be transferred there in coming months. Russia’s navy could sink those boats and wipe out that base in minutes. Are we going to send our Navy across the Black Sea to protect Ukraine’s naval rights inside a sea that has been as historically Russian as the Chesapeake Bay is historically American? ..

This is the height of American Empire stupidity. It is what Thomas Jefferson feared centuries ago that the United States arrogance may lead to:

Trade is honorable. Political solutions that promote peace is honorable.

The American Empire is not (nor has it been since the end of WWII) honorable. You can’t fix this, you can’t drain the swamp enough BUT you can research for yourself the reality of today’s political world and it does impact you, indirectly maybe, but it will eventually touch you or your kid’s lives. Not unlike the Roman Empire, this empire is entering its last days and only God knows the months or years this will take.

Be prepared

-SF1

North Korea: Another Country Misunderstood? (Do You Still Listen to US Govt/Media?)

I do hope that this is what you picture when you hear “North Korea”. The darkness on the Korean peninsula is in fact the country of North Korea, and we (USA) helped.

You might think “they deserve it”, that they are “evil” (as if you believe George W. Bush when he said):

… but he also said Iraq had WMDs (of course what he didn’t say is that we GAVE Iraq these in the 1980s and expected that they were still there).

What if what you know about North Korea has been mainly a government/media spin that didn’t just start in 2017 when North Korea toyed with intercontinental ballistic missiles. It didn’t start in 2002 either when President Bush lumped them in with Iran and Iran. So what did North Korea do?

Like in my previous post about Iran, we need to go back a few years, a few decades actually to really get a big picture of how North Korea has actually behaved or misbehaved.

One year ago in this Anti-Media article, Darius Shahtahmasebi shared in part:

In the early 1950s, the U.S. bombed North Korea into complete oblivion, destroying over 8,700 factories, 5,000 schools, 1,000 hospitals, 600,000 homes, and eventually killing off perhaps 20 percent of the country’s population. As noted by the Asia Pacific Journal, the U.S. dropped so many bombs that they eventually ran out of targets to hit:

“By the fall of 1952, there were no effective targets left for US planes to hit. Every significant town, city and industrial area in North Korea had already been bombed. In the spring of 1953, the Air Force targeted irrigation dams on the Yalu River, both to destroy the North Korean rice crop and to pressure the Chinese, who would have to supply more food aid to the North. Five reservoirs were hit, flooding thousands of acres of farmland, inundating whole towns and laying waste to the essential food source for millions of North Koreans.”

While “technically” a United Nations action, the US Congress never declared war on North Korea, and yet technically, North Korea is still at war. Once a cease-fire was agreed to, North Korea faded into the “dark” (see picture at the top of this post) not unlike Cuba.

Going back even farther, you will better understand the real tragedy as Eric Margolis points out in this Lew Rockwell article:

In 1950, at the time of the Korean War, North Korea’s economy was larger than that of South Korea thanks to Japan’s colonial industrial policies. Korea’s Communists, like their allies in China, took the lead in fighting Japanese occupation. America suffered heavy casualties fighting North Korean forces.

To many Koreans, particularly young ones, North Korea is the authentic Korea while South Korea remains a well-off but politically powerless American semi-protectorate. The humiliating collapse and impeachment of South Korea’s first female president, scandal-ridden Park Geun-hye, only reinforces the South’s image as a rudderless ship in stormy seas.

Wow, so who is the “grown-up” now? South Korea with all the lights is but an obedient kid to the American Empire while North Korea attempts to almost go it alone. Its 60 warheads (only one-fourth of what Israel has) are its only asset (i.e. gun) in negotiating anything in this world these days.

The US Empire in typical fashion can’t seem to let this chapter go as the US is passionate about proving itself as the world’s policeman. Eric Margolis share from this Lew Rockwell article some tough truth about the US “mismanagement” of past “regimes” that do not want to play “ball” with the American Empire:

After Washington overthrew the rulers of Iraq and Libya, it became painfully apparent that small nations without nuclear weapons were vulnerable to US ‘regime change’ operations. The North Koreans, who are very eccentric but not stupid, rushed to accelerate their nuclear weapons and delivery systems.

Almost equally important, North Korea boasts one of the word’s biggest armies – 1,020,000 men, 88,000 crack special forces, and an trained militia of over 5 million. The North’s weapons are obsolescent; its small air forces and navy will be vaporized by US power but its troops are deeply dug into the mountainous terrain and would be fighting from prepared positions. War against North Korea would be a slow and bloody slog– even a repeat of the bloody, stalemated 1950-52 Korean War in which 39,000 Americans and at least 2.5 million Koreans died. I’ve been in the deep North Korean-dug tunnels under the Demilitarized Zone. A full division can be moved through in only 60 minutes.

Ever since being soundly beaten in Vietnam and fought to a draw in Afghanistan, the US military has preferred to attack small countries like Panama, Grenada, Somalia, Yemen, Iraq and Syria. The Pentagon is not eager to tangle with the tough North Koreans. Estimates of the cost of a US invasion of North Korea have run as high as 250,000 US casualties and tens of billions of dollars.

So now what? Why can’t we leave North and South Korea alone to resolve their differences and maybe capitalize on their similarities? Well how about pure economics, the true source of peaceful relations in the long haul as outlined in this Russia Today article:

The project to unite the Korean Peninsula with a gas pipeline has been discussed for a long time, but official talks started in 2011. The negotiations were frozen after relations between Seoul and Pyongyang deteriorated.

In March, Seoul announced that it is ready to resume the project. According to South Korea’s Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha “if the North participates in talks on Northeast Asia energy cooperation, it would serve as a catalyst that helps ease geopolitical tensions in the region.”

It is things like that that give me hope that cooler heads will prevail and that the true free market could improve the lives of some many people all around the globe. Just LEAD US Empire .. or get out of the way!

-SF1

Tariffs, What Are They Good for?

From a Foundation for Economic Freedom (FEE) is an article that discusses not just the initial reaction from a tariff (usually, an increase) but also the downstream consequences that few seem to be able to anticipate.

Five different tariffs are discussed, but for the purpose I have for this post is around an earlier tariff back when the General (now called Federal) government used ONLY tariff revenue for its operations. Yes, even back in the 1840s the government was into income redistribution as tariff revenue derived mainly from the cotton exports in the south would fund northern infrastructure projects, first with canals and then with railroads.

Specifically, the so-called Black Tariff of 1842:

The tariff was passed because of a deadline set 10 years earlier to lower tariffs, and instead did the opposite by raising tariff rates to almost 40 percent—displeasing Southern states and his own party members. The tariff was repealed four years later because of the negative impact it was having on the economy.

The fall-in trade that followed wasn’t the only negative impact of the tariff. The tariff further divided the country, since the South depended on trading cotton with the British. … Given that his tariffs are an explicit prioritization of one group’s economic interests over those of the rest of the country, his duties on steel and aluminum will likely make things worse.

Back in the 1800s the logic used for the railroad and then the steel industry was that these “young/emerging” industries needed out government’s assistance to keep them sustainable and therefore “protected” these industries with tariffs. It is simply amazing that after 150 years the steel and aluminum industries “need protection” on the world’s stage with all the technology we have ESPECIALLY in the US toward sustained innovation that COULD keep the US competitive. Unfortunately, my hunch is that the very hand that wants to help is the same hand that ties these industry’s hands in other ways making them into corporate welfare queens that they have become in 2018.

The ripple effect is that domestic use of steel and aluminum is about to get much more expensive ( “… President Donald Trump announced his plans to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum coming into the United States at 25 percent and 10 percent respectively ..” ) and is counter productive towards allowing free-market capital improvements to proceed in the US economy. The only real outcome of this is for our government to grab yet another revenue stream as it continues to spend money WORSE than a drunken sailor!

FYI, as a former sailor I know 1st hand that drunken sailors stop spending money when they run out of money, unlike our government.

SF1

Don’t Judge the Past Through the Lens of the Present – New Amsterdam to Run Island

Things are not always what they appear .. whether it be history or this world. The movie “Shooter” said it well:

So this is more of a lesson in how we approach both history as well as current events, and how we can relate the two and become wiser. If the goal is to protect your family and property, you might want to seek wisdom and in the long run find yourself becoming more humble.

This article from Medium helped me how to unpack history in the lens of THOSE times, and also helped me connect the dots from something I was aware of:

  1. The British taking New Amsterdam from the Dutch in 1664 (without a shot fired)
  2. Battle of Medway in 1667 (as seen best for visual learners in the movie (English version) “Admiral“, the story of then Lieutenant-Admiral Michiel de Ruyter

It seems that #1 above was not received well back in the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands (Dutch Republic). This action helped to kick off the Second Anglo-Dutch War in 1665 culminating in a decisive British defeat by the Dutch Navy (60 ships) and Marines (1500 men) in June 1667. Basically, the Dutch had this planned the year before but since negotiations for a peace treaty were in process, this might give the Dutch a better position at that table.

Dutch Republic

The Dutch Navy under nominal command of Willem Joseph van Ghent and Lieutenant-Admiral Michiel de Ruyter, over several days bombarded and captured the town of Sheerness, sailed up the Thames estuary to Gravesend, then sailed into the River Medway to Chatham and Gillingham, where they engaged fortifications with cannon fire, burned or captured three capital ships and ten more ships of the line, and captured and towed away the flagship of the English fleet, HMS Royal Charles.

The context is this:

England and the Dutch Republic both wanted to establish dominance over shipping routes between Europe and the rest of the world. The Anglo-Dutch Wars were how they settled this disagreement.

Think of these conflicts as international trade disputes — in which each side had a big navy and wasn’t afraid to use it.

The Second Anglo-Dutch War lasted two years, from 1665 to 1667, with an estimated joint loss of 52 ships. Over 12,000 men lost their lives.

The war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Breda, leaving Manhattan under English rule. In exchange, England conceded to the Dutch the South Pacific Island of Run.

That is it. The Dutch had the upper hand after England was humiliated, at it took the ISLAND of Run (instead of the harbor that would become New York City) located  on the western side of the Banda Islands which is a part of the Maluku Islands now part of Indonesia.

I take it that didn’t help. I too needed a visual aid:

In this view, you don’t see the island OR the chain of islands it is a part of. So the Dutch got a deal? Well … as a matter of fact, yes they did. Again, you need to get in the lens of 1667 .. not 2018 to get this one. Our default follows:

Humans are amazing at making snap decisions, at extrapolating the broad view from the briefest glimpse. Humans see a pattern emerge that reminds them of something else, and — bam — they know exactly what’s going on. And all without a single conscious thought.

It’s a talent that’s served us well in the past. With a single glance, we can draw innumerable conclusions about our environment. What a lovely day. Such a warm smile. Oh crap, a tiger!

It’s this same talent that allows us to look at the terms of the Treaty of Breda and say, Something’s fishy here. The Netherlands got a raw deal.

Yup, we might call them stupid. Knowing what I know, I don’t think is was them. You need to understand the context. There are a few facts you need to know with this story:

First, spice was the 17th Century’s driver for worldwide trade:

Today, we take spices for granted. Every kitchen has a spice rack, or a well-stocked pantry. … But spice prices weren’t so reasonable in the 17th century. In fact, there’s an old French saying that goes something like this: You can buy a serf’s freedom for a pound of pepper.

Let that sink in for a minute. You could buy a person’s way out of a lifetime of indentured servitude with an item we can grab at the supermarket for $12.98.

Spices typically grow best in warm, non-European locales, which means that a lot of time and effort was spent just getting spices to Europe — thereby driving up the price. Case in point: Marco Polo’s first overland journey to Asia took 24 years. Sure, sailing cut that time down considerably. But then you had to factor in problems like scurvy. If it took 50 men to crew ship properly, you’d hire 75. Chances were you’d lose a third of your crew to sickness and death along the way.

Second, Europe’s naval power’s primary interest in the Americas was not settlement and not the fur trade. The English and the Dutch was trying to figure out how to get around America. The possibility of a short route up a river and getting to the “Spice Islands” drove these explorers. The Dutch had lost interest in New Amsterdam as it had little value to them.

Third, the spice that grew on Run best was nutmeg .. and the value of nutmeg in 1667 when the treaty was signed was similar to the price of gold:

The economics of nutmeg

The third fact to know is that of all the high-demand, low-supply, overpriced spices, nutmeg was king. It was the most precious spice on earth from kingdom to kitchen.

I’m not knocking it. It’s the secret ingredient in my homemade pancakes. It does a stand-up job dusted over eggnog. I wouldn’t want to imagine pumpkin pie without it. In the 1660s, though, nutmeg ruled the world.

It was literally worth its weight in gold. Incidentally, I looked up the price of gold, and, at the time of this writing, it’s trading over $1,250 an ounce. That would make the average quarter-ounce nutmeg seed worth over $300

So the decision was made and so did the Dutch cash in on their choice? (Do note that the British only held on to New York City for about 100 years)

Holland went into the war already controlling most of the Banda Islands. All but Run, to be precise. By the end of the hostilities, the Dutch had an exclusive monopoly over the most expensive spice on the planet. A nutmeg-opoly, if you will. And they held onto it until 1810. (At which time, the British used the Napoleonic Wars as an opportunity to capture Run’s neighbor, Banda Neira. They then shipped nutmeg trees to tropical parts of the British Empire, such as modern day Sri Lanka, effectively killing the Dutch nutmeg-opoly.)

That’s 143 years of nutmeg domination.

Or, 34 years longer than England held onto New England. Not a great bargain for the English after all.

So there you have it. In context you know know more about the big deals of the 17th century BUT you also can look at history and research for yourself how to get into THEIR shoes and try to SEE what they saw BEFORE you pass judgement on THEIR decisions.

Does this help? Can you follow the process to unpack history for your advantage which helps you, your family and your friends start to figure out current affairs in your country as well as in the world. It is my hope that when you read of situations in other parts of the globe that you would take time to research their world, their context and their culture before you quickly come to a snap judgement based only on your own lens.

SF1