Blain’s Morning Porridge – July 10, 2020 – The World Shifts
“Carthago delenda est”
Did you feel the world wobble last night?
As Washington imposes sanctions on top level Chinese officals over ethnic abuse in Xinjiang, and waits for Trump to sign “autonomy” action over Hong Kong targeting officials over the new security law, we are now even closer to the inevitable showdown between Rome and Carthage. The implications are going to be enormous… This story is accelerating very quickly… thing are “occurring” faster than we think…
My spidey senses are a-tingle..
Trying to fathom out why markets are so strong, ongoing coronavirus and economic breakdowns, how politics are so ineffective, and how fragile and vulnerable sentiment might be to sudden and swift shifts in the narrative, is somewhat exhausting. While the markets are focused on the earnings season (beginning Monday), the ongoing supply chain problems -like car factories being shuttered because they can’t get parts, and the likelihood of further stimulus.. the news out of Asia makes me suspect the real world has just become massively less stable.
At the tactical level, the outbreak of cold-war hostilities and the threat of sanctions on banks in Hong Kong is yet another nail in the decaying corpse of HSBC. If the former colony is de-dollarised, and banks are stopped from clearing the greenback, it will trigger enormous shifts across Asia. It will raise the prospect of a complete rift between the US and China as banks are forced to make a choice: they can’t serve two masters.. the dollar or Beijing.
At the strategic level.. who knows.. Plus for Europe? After the coronavirus.. a full scale Cold War? Or maybe its going to be a good thing.. a wedge between China and the West driving new innovation and economic growth? Who knows… more on this later…
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