Weekly Weigh In: (A Catch Up)–Russia’s New Experience, South Korean Demise, Bolivia Opening Up, Uruguay is Voting in the Senate, Tether goes Gold while Italy seizes it, Hungary secures fuel
Russia Officially Introduces New Branch of the Armed Forces: Unmanned Systems Forces
This is the way of warfare, and why I remain bullish on the defense industry that has exposure to drones
Overlooking the fact that the South Korean War never reeeeallly ended given the fact that the United States military can act with almost complete immunity on their lands…South Korea is completely headed towards extinction. I always return to the number of by year 2100, 92% of Korean people would have vanished from existence in South Korea (amazingly enough, North Korea is having more children). To put this into context, there hasn’t been a famine that has ever been so destructive, numbers wise.
Since this statistic was released, their fertility rate had only fallen since… but that’s not the latest bit of news. South Korea‘s far-left President Lee Jae-myung tells police that racism, hate speech & misinformation shared online must be considered a “crime that goes beyond the limits of freedom of expression” because it’s “a threat to democracy.”
This reminds me of my post here where I ridiculed this type of thinking… we have to bring on tyranny and totalitarianism…for democratic principles…
East Asia is largely in trouble too. I have my feelings about China, South Korea is disappearing, Japan cannot stomach the slightest increase in interest rates and Taiwan seems to have a cloud over its head.
Bolivia, the place where an increasing European interest is gaining due to its geo-arbitrage in pricing (notwithstanding its fuel and dollar shortages), has taken some excellent steps in effort to compensate for one of their worst economic situations in the last 40 years. Bolivia’s new president, Rodrigo Paz Pereira, has chosen shock therapy as they plan to rewrite the entire 2026 budget. In this, they want to cut public spending by at least 30 percent, the sharpest adjustment proposed in more than a decade, knock gambling and business promotion taxes completely, holding no taxes on financial transfers to the country and abolish the wealth tax (no tax on large fortunes). This is all against the existing territorial tax framework.
The new right-wing administration has been left with a typical left-wing mess…they assumed growth of just 0.9 percent, inflation above 10 percent and a fiscal deficit of 10.3 percent of GDP. At the same time, about 64 percent of planned spending went to salaries and day-to-day running costs, not investment. Paz’s team says that model burned through reserves, fueled conflict and locked Bolivia into dependency on a fixed exchange rate and costly fuel subsidies.
The Uruguayan Senate is voting on some important tax changes that will hit the country, shocking many businesses, construction projects and future-looking expats. They are keen to adopt the same multinational corporation minimum tax as everybody else in Europe, as well as removing some baked in banking privacy laws that they’ve been privileged to have for 100 years. It remains to be seen whether they will also destroy the amazing tax holiday and territorial tax regime.
Tether is now the LARGEST independent GOLD holder globally, surpassed only by central banks.
This is a major step for not only gold markets, but for cryptocurrency markets (since Tether itself is a cryptocurrency). What Tether sees is a world whereby farmland and gold will be valuable propositions moving forward and perhaps they also suspect government intervention to lower interest rates (which has been their bread and butter for earning assets).
On the contrary, we’re now seeing Italy’s government aiming to nationalize the central banks gold holding to head onto the government books amid a collapsing Italian economy with unplayable debt-levels. Lawmakers from Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party added a simple amendment to the 2026 budget, declaring the Bank of Italy’s gold as state property held on behalf of Italians. Senator Lucio Malan explained the step prevents any unauthorized use of the reserves, which the bank views as its own assets under EU rules for supporting the euro. The Bank of Italy keeps most gold in Italy, with some abroad for safety, amid a two-decade debate on debt reduction or spending. Officials plan talks with the bank and ECB to check EU compliance before any final decision.
Hungary has not only did their best to stave off 3rd-world immigration to their borders but they’ve also been diligent in securing energy supplies from Russia while the rest of Europe is hell bent on shooting themselves in the foot and then blaming Russia.
Hungary’s Viktor Orbán has recently left the Kremlin after nearly FOUR hours of talks with President Putin — and Budapest got exactly what it wanted.
– Russian gas & oil will continue flowing smoothly through Druzhba and TurkStream.
– Paks Nuclear Plant construction accelerated — work begins Feb 5, 2026.
– A clear commitment to pushing for peace in Ukraine with talks lasting more than three hours
