New World Order.....post China

[flyer61]

Am I the only one expecting a seismic shift away from countries having their manufacturing carried out in China. There appear to be other options available with more 'friendly' regimes. What are your thoughts post this crisis. Will countries increase their own manufacturing base as a strategic importance or will they/we look to diversify away to other countries besides China. Or will the status quo continue on.

[Midsmartin]

I think most customers for general consumer goods will still be looking for the cheapest option. Maybe for critical business/government use, people may be more cautious. But who's to say that a European factory is any less prone to closure than a Chinese one? Though the transport times are of course shorter for a European market.

[Dod101]

There is already some diversification but China seems to me to be a bit like Japan was many years back, the place to go. Any shift towards domestic manufacturing for instance is going to cause a very big increase in price, for why? What is not 'friendly' about China, apart from its political system of course? It is merely flexing its muscles in the same way that the UK did and the USA does today.

I doubt that there will be any seismic shift, because apart from anything else, we will have enough to be worried about without that. There might be an increase in inventories held but even that is going to cause an increase in costs and the need to build more local warehousing.

Dod

[Mike4]

I definitely read/hear a groundswell of opinion where people are saying they are determined not to buy anything made in China in the future. I don't think these people saying this have any concept of how much of the stuff we buy here is manufactured in China however, or how much more expensive locally made equivalents are (when available at all).

This especially applies to spare parts I think. A lot of parts only come from China and strictly adhering to that principle could mean buying say, a new car or washing machine or boiler instead of fixing the old one. I can't see many people making that choice when it means a large capital expense.

I think there will be a general presumption not to buy Chinese (when there is a choice) for many years though, and China will find it difficult to build back up to pre-pandemic levels of export. A lot of people across the world will hold China responsible in the long term for their pandemic-induced diminished wealth and standard of living, once the New World Order is established.

[onthemove]

Am I the only one expecting a seismic shift away from countries having their manufacturing carried out in China.

Why China specifically? I mean, the latest headlines are about PPE for the NHS not getting out of Turkey in time.

There are a lot of comments on the BBC comments section, etc, guardian, etc, all proclaiming shock and horror that the NHS is procuring from abroad, why don't we make these things for ourselves, why are we at the mercy of others, etc.

I also detect a very clear hint of xenophobia in many of the comments - many seem more concerned with falsely vilifying china for the sake of vilifying China - like falsely trying to portray them as dirty and backwards and portray that that's why viruses get created, etc - rather than genuinely concerned by the 'why don't we make it here' aspect. I do suspect that some of these comments are actually originating in Russia, and are an attempt to sow discord within the west, trying to magnify and play on low levels of inherent xenophobia in the population buy trying to magnify them and give them weight, etc. And I get the impression that it's working!

But the stark reality as to why we buy from abroad - not just China - is money. It's cheaper.

It's all very well and good saying buy local (in your supermarket), that the NHS should buy British, and so on.

The stark reality is that most of the people saying it would then be first to moan that their wages are then not enough to achieve an 'acceptable' standard of living, so then they'd demand a huge rise in the minimum wage and wages across the board, which would then push up prices even more.

For me, I feel like a reckoning is due.

In the mind of the public there seems to have developed a complete disconnect between the economy / society / and themselves.

It's shocking how some people think that the 'economy' should be *completely* shut down to 'save lives'. They seem completely oblivious to the reality that the economy *is* the societal mechanism by which we produce food and get it to their plates. Without the economy we'd all starve!

But that fact seems to be completely alien to so many people's ways of thinking now, that it's actually becoming scary.

Once a crowd starts moving in irrational ways, sometimes all you can do is stand aside. You can't reason with a crowd on the move. Particularly one which is being surreptitiously goaded and encouraged on by Russia waging an information offensive to sow discord in the west.

So there may as a result be a huge naïve shift towards bringing things 'home'. But then people won't accept the costs.

Ultimately, I feel that there is a fundamental disconnect between people's own perception of what *they* should have as an acceptable standard of living, and in reality what they'd need to work / produce / consume to achieve it.

And the more we hit problems, the more this disconnect seems to be growing rather than shrinking.

And that's worrying.

More than ever, I'm becoming ever more convinced it's the right move for me to move investments into non-UK companies. The UK gov seems to be oblivious to the level at which social media is being used (by foreign actors) to shift public opinion to undermine the status quo and sow discord. And the consequences of that are going to be huge in the next decade.

I think particularly emerging markets could be good in the medium term - including China - as their populations are generally used to a lower standard of living, and understand the need to work and produce to achieve their standards of living.

I think their populations are more accepting of trade and production, and respect and want investment.

It's scary when I see GSK say that yes they'll work on a vaccine for Covid-19, but of course they will ensure that any profits are always fed into investment and not ever paid out to investors.

Capitalism in the west (particularly UK) has been neutered.

It's now become unacceptable to see investors making a return on their investment.

These are huge problems. If investors aren't allowed to see a return, then why invest?

Why would I invest in GSK, or invest in setting up a new pharmaceutical company, if a the end of the day, all the risk and the money sunk, would at best allow me to not make a return. What's the point?

So I think you may very well be right... up to a point...

Some countries / companies / organisations may pull out of buying from China.

But it will be naïve.

There will be many others still moving forwards, increasing globalisation. They will increase the bilateral trade with China.

In reality, any pull back by the west, will simply further accelerate the wests decline. As we shrink inwards, isolating ourselves ever more with out delusions of past grandeur, etc, developing countries will be getting on with developing.

In 10, 20, 25yrs time, people in the west might suddenly wake up and realise.. yikes … the global economy, the economic superpowers, the action, the activity and the wealth and suddenly all those countries that the west had put out of sight, out of mind, and suddenly they have now leapt past us while we've been wallowing under delusions that we somehow deserve some particularly high standard of living just 'because', and that we don't actually need to produce anything for it!

In the west, I think a lot of people are going to be in for a shock when they find that they've succeeded in killing capitalism, killing the economy, and then all of a sudden they realise, supermarkets have given up investing in their offering, and the shops are becoming dilapidated and uncared for, roads even worse than they are now, and when supply chains collapse because there's no incentive for anyone to invest in them, when the pound drops as a result and imports become more expensive and suddenly food shortages aren't just a quirk of a pandemic, but a stark reality that simply the value of our pound is no longer worth much to anyone outside the UK who has food to sell.

It doesn't help that in reality 75% of companies are actually still operating even under lockdown.

Most people think the economy has mostly stopped.

This is just feeding into the perceived disconnect between the economy and how it not just serves society, but is a fundamental part of society. Most of most people's waking time is taken up by their participation in the economy (via employment, self employment, investment, etc).

Anyway, you get the idea...

[dealtn]

It's scary when I see GSK say that yes they'll work on a vaccine for Covid-19, but of course they will ensure that any profits are always fed into investment and not ever paid out to investors.

Capitalism in the west (particularly UK) has been neutered.

It's now become unacceptable to see investors making a return on their investment.

These are huge problems. If investors aren't allowed to see a return, then why invest?

Why would I invest in GSK, or invest in setting up a new pharmaceutical company, if a the end of the day, all the risk and the money sunk, would at best allow me to not make a return. What's the point?

If the company makes a return then that return belongs to the share holders. It's the same thing. You don't need to have a dividend to "see" that return (and in the case of GSK it is paying a dividend anyway). I think you are confused somewhere.

[onthemove]

It's scary when I see GSK say that yes they'll work on a vaccine for Covid-19, but of course they will ensure that any profits are always fed into investment and not ever paid out to investors.

Capitalism in the west (particularly UK) has been neutered.

It's now become unacceptable to see investors making a return on their investment.

These are huge problems. If investors aren't allowed to see a return, then why invest?

Why would I invest in GSK, or invest in setting up a new pharmaceutical company, if a the end of the day, all the risk and the money sunk, would at best allow me to not make a return. What's the point?

If the company makes a return then that return belongs to the share holders. It's the same thing. You don't need to have a dividend to "see" that return (and in the case of GSK it is paying a dividend anyway). I think you are confused somewhere.

I don't believe there's any confusion...
I'm referring to the comments by the chief of GSK that I saw on the BBC the other day.

"When asked whether it was appropriate for any company to profit from a global emergency [GSK's chief executive] Emma Walmsley promised that the company would not show any net profit from vaccine sales and along with future research investment, GSK would use any profits to subsidise vaccine deliveries to developing countries." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52286217

So nothing left to belong to shareholders from the covid-19 development efforts ... any remaining net profits going to subsidise vaccine deliveries to developing countries.

So your dividend is not going to be increased from the Covid-19 vaccine development investment.

[dealtn]

It's scary when I see GSK say that yes they'll work on a vaccine for Covid-19, but of course they will ensure that any profits are always fed into investment and not ever paid out to investors.

Capitalism in the west (particularly UK) has been neutered.

It's now become unacceptable to see investors making a return on their investment.

These are huge problems. If investors aren't allowed to see a return, then why invest?

Why would I invest in GSK, or invest in setting up a new pharmaceutical company, if a the end of the day, all the risk and the money sunk, would at best allow me to not make a return. What's the point?

If the company makes a return then that return belongs to the share holders. It's the same thing. You don't need to have a dividend to "see" that return (and in the case of GSK it is paying a dividend anyway). I think you are confused somewhere.

I don't believe there's any confusion...
I'm referring to the comments by the chief of GSK that I saw on the BBC the other day.

"When asked whether it was appropriate for any company to profit from a global emergency [GSK's chief executive] Emma Walmsley promised that the company would not show any net profit from vaccine sales and along with future research investment, GSK would use any profits to subsidise vaccine deliveries to developing countries." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52286217

So nothing left to belong to shareholders from the covid-19 development efforts ... any remaining net profits going to subsidise vaccine deliveries to developing countries.

So your dividend is not going to be increased from the Covid-19 vaccine development investment.

Well that's not what you said, which was

"It's scary when I see GSK say that yes they'll work on a vaccine for Covid-19, but of course they will ensure that any profits are always fed into investment and not ever paid out to investors."

That statement is saying they are making profits and reinvesting it, that's a different thing to

"GSK would use any profits to subsidise vaccine deliveries to developing countries"

in which case there isn't anything for shareholders.

[onthemove]

Well that's not what you said, which was

"It's scary when I see GSK say that yes they'll work on a vaccine for Covid-19, but of course they will ensure that any profits are always fed into investment and not ever paid out to investors."

That statement is saying they are making profits and reinvesting it, that's a different thing to

"GSK would use any profits to subsidise vaccine deliveries to developing countries"

in which case there isn't anything for shareholders.

How so?

The original point I was making was that the UK is becoming anti-investment... that public opinion (and therefore politics) don't want to see investors making a return.

GSK was presented as just an example. I'm supposed to be working at the moment, so I don't have time to do a thorough level of academic research going through each and every company looking at their operations, etc and looking for direct evidence of similar, nor to fully proof read my posts before posting. Inevitably there will be some things that are going to slip through, or not be quite as precise as I would normally like.

I could have chosen the banks being forced to withhold their dividends - and even one BBC journalist suggesting that the withheld dividends should be ringfenced to ensure the banks can't just pay them out at a later date.

Or I could have chosen comments I've seen around how Tesco et al shouldn't be allowed to profit the crisis from the extra food being bought.

Or I could have chosen the comments being banded around - and the likes of Admiral caving - that say anything insurers earn should be fed back to customers. Some comments seemingly gaining traction have the perception that insurers only pay out 5% of the money received in premiums back to cover claims. Again the gap between reality, and the understanding of the crowd driving the politics, is just growing ever bigger.

And going back to my comments on GSK, as far as illustrating the point I was making, I really don't see there's any difference...

The point I was making is that GSK have been pressured into publicly stating that they will not show a net profit from their investment into a Covid19 vaccine.

It sets a precedent. If they feed back the profits into future research, why would it then be OK to then profit from the results of that future research? At what time does it become acceptable for an evil capitalist company to pay out profits to shareholders from the development and sale of drugs, vaccines, treatments, etc, that are there to help society?

The idea that companies shouldn't profit from illness was already gaining traction beforehand - just look at how pharma companies were already subsidising drugs and treatments to 3rd world countries.

This pandemic has just shifted the goal posts again. It's now become normalised to question them making profits from treatments in the west as well.

In reality, the pandemic is not as bad as it feels.

75% of companies are still operating. The NHS is still within capacity. Doctors and nurses are just doing the job they trained for and are paid for. Even before the pandemic they were / are expected to deal with infectious diseases all the time.

The BBC produced a statistic yesterday that this year so far, there have still been approx. 3x more deaths from flu and pneumonia than Covid-19.

Because everyone has stayed at home, the reality is that for those still working, it's largely business as normal.

The hysteria and fawning for the NHS is just being used by the government to gain mass compliance with the stay at home request.

Why do I say this?

Well, the reality is that actually, - apart from those staying at home, and the 25% of businesses that have had to shut - it isn't all that abnormal at the moment. The likes of GSK that are still operating. The likes of the company I work for are still operating.

For those companies still operating, there isn't actually a rational basis to deny them their operating profits, etc.

There's no real reason why pharma, banks, insurers, supermarkets, etc should feel guilty about making profits for shareholders now compared to any other time.

Yet, just look at the pressure right across the board! It's unbelievable!

That's why I strongly suspect (expect) that a large portion of the anti-investor / anti-investment sentiment in the UK is quite likely to persist even once the pandemic is over.

It doesn't actually have a rational basis during the pandemic.

In fact, one Bloomberg article I saw, summed it up nicely... (though I don't have a link, and this is now from memory, as I do need to get back to work, so you'll probably find some inaccuracies if you're looking to pick at the details)… it pointed out that society is taking completely the wrong view towards big pharma.

It pointed out that if government promised in the region of 100's of billions of $s in sales to the first company that developed a *proven* safe and effective covid19 vaccine that only shortened the length of the pandemic by just 2 weeks, then actually it would be money well spent - it would have paid for itself.

Such a level of potential reward would be one hell of an incentive for investors to invest. And the benefits to society are clear.

Yet, here we have GSK pressured into promising not to show any net profit from their vaccine development. Where's the incentive to invest? To risk capital in attempting development, if at the end of it, the best you can realistically expect is just to cover your costs - and that's only if you succeed. If you don't succeed, then you should the costs entirely.

Compared to what big pharma could do if they really had the incentive, what GSK et al are proposing with Covid19 development, is really just a token gesture to be seen to be doing something - to be seen to be playing their part.

But be under no mistake... if society would permit them to profit from their developments, believe me, the labs, the researchers and investment would be orders of magnitude larger than it is now.

Like I say... my point still stands.... capitalism in the west has been neutered. And it is undermining western society.

I think the likes of China and other developing world / emerging markets, where they understand the value of investment, are likely to be the ones doing better in future … even if there is a blip from western companies bringing things back home in a nationalist sulk.

Anyway, I've largely been trying to stay out of discussions re. coronavirus as there's just too much unknown. My posts on this thread have just put forwards my views, and admittedly I've rushed the posts out as I need to get back to work.

But I'm not going to get any further into a he said, she said pedantry on the exact individual meaning of words. If you think you've spotted a mistake that as a result completely undermines the whole theme of my post, then well done. You win. I'm getting back to work now...

[AleisterCrowley]

I also detect a very clear hint of xenophobia in many of the comments - many seem more concerned with falsely vilifying china for the sake of vilifying China - like falsely trying to portray them as dirty and backwards and portray that that's why viruses get created, etc - rather than genuinely concerned by the 'why don't we make it here' aspect........I do suspect that some of these comments are actually originating in Russia

So you suspect (without evidence ) that 'the Russians' are encouraging people to 'falsely vilify China'? Cognitive dissonance at all?

I personally loathe the Chinese state* and all it stands for: I don't need the Russians to tell me what to think. That's about as xenophobic as hating the Nazi party in the 1930s/40s

*and I mean state, not people

[onthemove]

So you suspect (without evidence ) that 'the Russians' are encouraging people to 'falsely vilify China'? Cognitive dissonance at all?

No, I believe I have seen plenty of evidence over the past 6 or 7 years of Russian (covert) use of social media in the UK to promote various narratives. Starting (at least the evidence I believe that I've seen) from a couple of years prior to the brexit referendum, even before it was even on the cards.

And yes, the evidence that I believe that I have seen points specifically to Russia.

I'd already reached this conclusion myself from the evidence that I'd seen before it was suggested in the media. When I saw the suggestions first start to appear in the media, it felt to me like the media were only just starting to play catch up.

I'm not going to elaborate on the evidence that I believe that I've seen, partly because it's OT and partly because I've no interest in discussing or defending it to others - I've seen enough that convinces me to a reasonable degree that it's certainly gone on, and likely still going on - but I am saying your assumption of "without evidence" is incorrect.

Probably evidence that you wouldn't accept, but that isn't the same as "without evidence".

The FBI now certainly seem to have the same view and have even made arrests of operatives using millions of dollars to provide VPN connections from Russia into the US so that traffic (social media posts, etc) from Russia appear to originate in the US.

There have also been interviews the US press has done with people who have worked in Russia creating some of these false narratives. e.g https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/maga ... gency.html

But just to iterate, I believe that I'd already spotted evidence and reached my own conclusions prior to reading these stories. These stories just happened to align with what I already believe I was seeing.

In the early days there were a few relatively clear signs of what was going on if you did even just a little bit of digging - certain patterns that were quite a bit of a giveaway.

But like I say, I'm not going to elaborate (it's also fairly clear from your tone you aren't interested and will almost certainly just dismiss the evidence, and like I say, I've no need or interest to justify it to anyone else. It's my view, and that's it. You don't agree with it, fine, we'll just agree to disagree, I'm not going to waste time arguing about it).

I personally loathe the Chinese state* and all it stands for: I don't need the Russians to tell me what to think

Ok so you've been to china and seen it for yourself. Fair enough.

But a lot of people who haven't been there,sometimes do form such opinions unwittingly based upon false or misleading narratives created, exaggerated, promoted, or just given disproportionate weight to the actual reality, etc on social media.

[odysseus2000]

The rise of China and the slower rise of India seem to have many parallels to the rise of the UK in the first industrial revolution and the US in the post first world war world, Japan and Germany post 2nd war did similar things although never reaching the scale and power of the US.

In all cases you had countries that became the workshops for the world, selling good and services that folk wanted and in the process creating a rising tide of wealth that lifted the world's prosperity and led to a huge in flow of capital and power into each nation until such times as a new nation with a population that would work for less emerged. There are only so many nations on the planet so at some point this cycle has to end and for now it looks like China and India will dominate the world. Both nations have young and well educated work forces and an ethic of working to improve their lot and the rest of the developed world is an eager consumer of their products.

Europe has entered a phase of secular decline and the UK is struggling to transition to an independent nation with the performance in the c19 outbreak indicative of many UK problems. Russia has severe economic troubles with oil currently so low and the Russian economy has never been a workshop to the world in the way of China or Japan.

The US is an interesting example. In military terms, currently unrivalled and in Trump's tenure attempting to bring wealth generation back to the US, but with a population about 1/3 that of either China and India, it will have to innovate and continue to dominate in new technologies in the way that it has in the internet age and that seems to be faltering in some areas given the lead that China now has e.g. in 5g.

Trying to predict where all of this will go is not likely to lead to accurate results and we now have two huge secular changes underway: the potential that humanity will begin to develop other worlds in the solar system and the rise of Artificial Intelligence. Either of these new endeavours has the potential to change world dynamics in unforeseeable ways. Meanwhile a major war or a serious pandemic could send humanity back by centuries.

Regards,

[dealtn]

Meanwhile a major war or a serious pandemic could send humanity back by centuries.

Seriously! How many centuries, and based on what?

We will "uninvent" scientific discoveries, no longer have computers, satellites will all disappear, penicillin will be unavailable? What exactly are you predicting here?

We will have income levels of the Tudors, or is it the Victorian period?

You really love to "go large" with your hyperbole don't you!

[AleisterCrowley]

I personally loathe the Chinese state* and all it stands for: I don't need the Russians to tell me what to think

Ok so you've been to china and seen it for yourself. Fair enough.

.

No, but the Chinese state has a global impact, to state the obvious....
Then you have the internal stuff, including;
Repression of Uighur Muslims, with massive 're-education' camps
Surveillance and control of the population, with no freedom of speech
Continued occupation of Tibet
Militarisation of the South China Sea

I have just been reading an article about cyber security in the magazine of my professional body - China is a major 'hostile actor'- classified APT41 (Advanced Persistent Threat 41) - heavily involved in industrial and state espionage

[odysseus2000]

Meanwhile a major war or a serious pandemic could send humanity back by centuries.

Seriously! How many centuries, and based on what?

We will "uninvent" scientific discoveries, no longer have computers, satellites will all disappear, penicillin will be unavailable? What exactly are you predicting here?

We will have income levels of the Tudors, or is it the Victorian period?

You really love to "go large" with your hyperbole don't you!

Major war, means high altitude nuclear explosions and Electromagnetic Pulse to take out electronic infrastructure and in a few heart beats the whole internet is gone as only military electronics is hardened to withstand that kind of electric field strength, then all the smoke from burning cities, triggers a nuclear winter that destroys most agriculture and billions starve.

If you don't believe me then have a peruse of

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter

A pandemic like the black death would collapse the economy and take a very long time to recover from.

You could also add earth impact by comet, asteroid etc as another civilisation destroying event, or runaway greenhouse effect.

Of course there are always the Panglossian types who have never read and studied these kinds of things and have no concept of how fragile life on earth is or why Musk et al wants a second outpost on Mars.

Regards,

[colin]

Meanwhile a major war or a serious pandemic could send humanity back by centuries.

Seriously! How many centuries, and based on what?

We will "uninvent" scientific discoveries, no longer have computers, satellites will all disappear, penicillin will be unavailable? What exactly are you predicting here?

We will have income levels of the Tudors, or is it the Victorian period?

You really love to "go large" with your hyperbole don't you!

Major war, means high altitude nuclear explosions and Electromagnetic Pulse to take out electronic infrastructure and in a few heart beats the whole internet is gone as only military electronics is hardened to withstand that kind of electric field strength, then all the smoke from burning cities, triggers a nuclear winter that destroys most agriculture and billions starve.

If you don't believe me then have a peruse of

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter

A pandemic like the black death would collapse the economy and take a very long time to recover from.

You could also add earth impact by comet, asteroid etc as another civilisation destroying event, or runaway greenhouse effect.

Of course there are always the Panglossian types who have never read and studied these kinds of things and have no concept of how fragile life on earth is or why Musk et al wants a second outpost on Mars.

Regards,

How do you sleep at night?

[dealtn]

Of course there are always the Panglossian types who have never read and studied these kinds of things and have no concept of how fragile life on earth is or why Musk et al wants a second outpost on Mars.

Not me then.

Lived through the Cold War.

Spent many years of trading derivatives where "fat tail theorems" were known pre-Taleb, who made thier existence more widespread. Masters degree from the UK's leading Business School with merit pass in option theory focussed on tail events.

(Sleep very happily at night)

[PeterGray]

Of course there are always the Panglossian types who have never read and studied these kinds of things and have no concept of how fragile life on earth is or why Musk et al wants a second outpost on Mars.

I have to say Musk's nonsense about a second outpost leave me cold. If human life is incapable of organising its survival on their home planet, why on earth is it so important to preserve it? It has no meaning for the 99.9999999....% of the population who will not be involved anyway, and were a Mars colony to exist after a catastrophe the likelihood is that it would suffer much the same fate as Greenland did in the 9th C when they got cut off from trade, for whatever reason, miserable slow decline, illness and starvation. You and Musk can keep it.

What we might just be able to do is work together to save all of us on our own planet. Not as newsworthy as Mars colony fantasies, but far more useful and relevant. And launching vast numbers of rockets into space is going to do nothing to help there!

[odysseus2000]

Of course there are always the Panglossian types who have never read and studied these kinds of things and have no concept of how fragile life on earth is or why Musk et al wants a second outpost on Mars.

I have to say Musk's nonsense about a second outpost leave me cold. If human life is incapable of organising its survival on their home planet, why on earth is it so important to preserve it? It has no meaning for the 99.9999999....% of the population who will not be involved anyway, and were a Mars colony to exist after a catastrophe the likelihood is that it would suffer much the same fate as Greenland did in the 9th C when they got cut off from trade, for whatever reason, miserable slow decline, illness and starvation. You and Musk can keep it.

What we might just be able to do is work together to save all of us on our own planet. Not as newsworthy as Mars colony fantasies, but far more useful and relevant. And launching vast numbers of rockets into space is going to do nothing to help there!

Exactly the same arguments were made about America after it was discovered by accident.

There is an interesting and quaint belief that the Earth is everything and endless safe, but the geology and studies of other worlds tell us this isn't the case.

Humanities manifest destiny is to develop the solar system. If we don't we will die as a species and in developing the solar system we may defuse the geopolitical tensions that are endlessly building and in the nuclear age have the potential to destroy the human species.

Regards,

[odysseus2000]

Colin,
How do you sleep at night?

With things like this constantly in mind not to mention endless investments and trading plays and novels I get tired and sleeping is then very easy and if I have nightmares I don't remember most of them.

Regards,