“What a f’in trainwreck”

The opening salvo from Eric Peters’s excellent wknd notes letter:

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What a f’in train wreck. And like all tragedies, soon after you bury the broken bodies, bloodhounds first unearth incompetence. Then corruption. Kickbacks. Capital misallocation. It shouldn’t take long to pick up a scent. Spain has Earth’s second longest high-speed network; behind China. They got more lines under construction than all of Europe combined. Of course they also have the world’s lowest ratio of passengers per track-mile. Six times less than Germany and France.

Anyhow, America reluctantly delayed delivery of four F-16’s to Egypt. You see, we got rules here bro. For instance, we don’t fund military coups. Unless of course they’re our puppet shows. But this one ain’t. How do I know? It’s easy. We issue our military dictators gold Ray Ban Aviators. And General Abdul “No-one-calls-Sisi-Sissy” al-Sisi wore black Gucci shades while ordering his increasingly suspicious subjects to join mass anti-Islamist demonstrations. What an utter train wreck. Civil War always is.

And speaking of Civil War, Iraqi Shiites and Sunnis celebrated holy Ramadan by slaughtering 550 men, women and children. That’s the highest body count since 2008. Sunni’s blasted their way past Abu Ghraib’s Shiite guards, releasing 500 Al Qaeda prisoners. “Yippee, we’re free!” Train wreck. Syria’s death toll hit 100,000 (1.7mm refugees). The Taliban attacked a Pakistani ISI spy agency stronghold, and slaughtered 43 people at a market. Sorry, I really gotta stop.

Well, just one more.

Tunisia’s brave secular opposition leader got shot 11 times. And oozed like an ageing Arab spring. Anyhow, not much happened in Europe or America. The S&P levitated near all-time highs, while Chinese stocks hovered near 4yr lows. As the world’s fastest moving train decelerates into a tight corkscrew. And confused conductors pulled the brakes while hitting the accelerator. Announcing plans to simultaneously cut excess industrial capacity, while hastening construction of yet more high-speed trains.

Source:

wknd notes by Eric Peters