67 Comments

It's over for Israel.

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Not quite yet, I think. That refrain has been used for over two millennia.

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China drives BRICS and has good relations/business with Israel as well.

You americans see the world so black and white

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China may soon find their economy and demographics driving their choices, rather than military desires or ideology. Alexander did not solve the problem of the Gordian knot by becoming mesmerized with its intricacies. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Israel is pragmatic, they have to be.

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"...But a good cigar is a smoke." I believe it was the inimitable Groucho Marx who said that.

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Unfortunately that’s not happening.

“All G7 nations need to do is improve and have good stewardship of their positions generations worked to build”

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Correct - the OPPOSITE is happening.

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not part of the G-7 roster, are the other countries well and firmly aligned, namely:

- rest of EU

Korea

Taiwan

Australia

NZ

Israel

I think our two biggest concerns vis-a-vis BRICS are:

- the US debt impacting the dollar as the defacto trading currency

- Chinese IP theft and cyber war

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IMO the countries in your list are all, to use the wiki phrase, "non-enumerated members" of the G7. Except perhaps NZ as they cannot seem to decide exactly what they want to do, or with whom. When the chips are down NZ has been with us.

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Yes, the USA Corporation will be close to 38 Trillion dollars in debt by New Year’s. The only assets that we will have left are Hawaii and Alaska which I am now speculating will go to China and Russia. We are being backed into a corner with our pants down.

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Every single one of these new invitees should be forced to choose which club they want to be a part of with all the military aid, economic markets, trade and sanctions that go with it. No one should be allowed to sit on the fence. Now is a time for choosing.

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Sounds kind of authoritarian of you to force nations to choose...

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That's Western style democracy nowadays...

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"force nations to choose"

Reality can be that way sometimes; and not just for nations.

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"..not import problems or sabotage the economic systems..."

That's the rub, now isn't it? While G7 countries have the edge in terms of PPP/GDP/CPI/UFO and a host of other wonderful sounding economic initialisms, practically every G7 country lacks a viable fertility replacement rate. Over the long-term scale it will not address this issue with national policies, nor cut back on mass immigration-legal or illegal.

With an almost complete lack of a robust assimilation process, civic and political institutions inherent to liberal Western democracies are at a continued decline. At current rates the 'Global South' will inevitably become simply the Globe.

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Also, G7 deals in services but makes less real things.

BRICS has manufacturing and physical resources the world needs.

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That may, indeed, be "all they need to do," but they, particularly the Anglosphere, are working actively - as hard and quickly as they can - to do the opposite and to crush those systems...

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Our government shoots us in the foot at every turn and then we wonder why things aren't going our way. Drill Baby Drill, stop wind and solar insanity, grow corn, beans and wheat, feed the cows and hogs, use amonia cycle for air conditioning (five times more efficent than Freon) and make "Made in America!" a reality again, do not allow LGBT people in the military or important positions, Make America GREAT Again!

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While Ammonia saturation is more efficient, ammonia is also toxic. That is why it never became widely used.

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Ammonia is actually the most widely used refrigerant, if you measure refrigeration capacity. All large commercial and industrial refrigeration, including frozen storage and frozen marine transport, uses ammonia.

One of the best things about ammonia as a refrigerant is that leaks are obvious to refrigeration technicians, and it drives them out of the facility with its odor, as opposed to freon, which silently kills lots of refrigeration techs in enclosed spaces.

The reason we use freon for smaller applications is that ammonia will destroy aluminum and copper very quickly. Ammonia requires steel for piping and heat transfer components.

For residential and light commercial applications, the light weight of aluminum and copper for heat transfer components (condensers, evaporators) and the ease of installation for copper tubing (silver solder connections, and increasingly, mechanical connections) rather than steel pipe (welded connections) makes freon more most cost-effective.

By the way, those old propane-flame-powered RV and off-grid refrigerators (maybe they are still used, I don't know) used ammonia as a refrigerant, because it is so efficient.

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The only ammonia installations I have come across are in RVs and the Biltmore Mansion. If it is widely used, then my Thermodynamics course was wrong.

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Ammonia is the most commonly used refrigerant worldwide for large commercial applications.

https://www.ammonia.com/index.php/ammonia/understanding-ammonia-refrigeration-systems

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Define large. Such systems may be common in very large applications, the sort I rarely encounter. As far as installed base is concerned, I suspect there are not many such systems out in the world in comparison to the total number of refrigeration/air conditioning systems.

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For Gawd’s sake! How many times has Argentina defaulted on its financial obligations ?

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Wonder what happens to the BRICS invitation if the guy who wants Argentina on the dollar wins?

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Was going to answer "TNTC" like a sick call Corpsman doing lab analysis on smeared glass slides under a microscope after a WestPac port call. But that is old technology, a poor reference in 2023. Is it 9?

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So what you're saying is the G7 need new elites, Commander?

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author

That would help.

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The point here is that the G7 leadership has a very serious WEFFER problem that is counter productive to civil liberty and autonomy. Both teams are hell bent on making the ordinary citizens into slaves.

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We could use, perhaps, any elite, if we could find them. The current batch certainly think they are elite, but succeed only at destroying western civilization.

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Going to tackle this from a different angle. Probably going to get hurt doing it. Here's the deal. BRICS, as it is, has become a recognizable brand. What happens with the addition of these 6 new members? You can't leave it at just BRICS. People will not feel included and valued. We could get BRICSAEEISAUAE. But too cumbersome. Let's anagram it: 'E Brics, I a-sea eau. Nope, it reeks of Brit and Frog front and back and Eye-Talian in the middle. You add some power houses like Nauru, Kiribati, Albania and San Marino...to say nothing of some country run by an insecure, maniacal Karenish Kim you get trouble with a capital T. With every country added so goes the brand because everyone wants the lead on the marquee. It is written in our code and DNA. Nah. BRICS will go the way of any suburban HOA debating over planting Sago Palms or banning yard jockeys, pink flamingos and American flags. BRICS will B.R.A.C. like brick-a-brack.

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As I've said elsewhere - the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for BRICS is getting Israel into the mix. Decoupling from the west, gaining access to that critical geographic fulcrum plus simply the shock to the G7 system would be a true game changer. Understand - that's unlikely playing according to the established rules of the game. That being said - Israel is split into "many" different parties, each of which is in need of support to gain advantage over the others. It'd be an extremely prudent medium term investment to chase a that balloon. Far less expensive from an investment point of view than other options. And fewer negative repercussions.

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Iran is in BRICS, so I think Israel won't be

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The problem is some of the (s) part of the BRIC(s) has the oil. And are in areas where maritime traffic can be interdicted.

The next few years will be interesting.

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Yeah, US finds US influence in Saudi important, or else you wouldn't choose to be close to them.

Now they're politically in BRICS, with Iran.

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China and India are also BRICS while The Hindu Newspaper noted that India has lost over 1200 square miles of territory to China since 2020. India is also part of the Quad with the US, Australia, Vietnam, South Korea, Japan, and New Zealand.

The next few years will be interesting.

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It seems India may become a critical power broker if they keep a foot in each camp and continue to grow economically.

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China will run India over.

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BRICS+ membership does not include any real obligations and no ready benefits. It's not an alliance. It's just another place to talk, a club for those who don't get to sit with the cool kids.

I am looking forward to seeing Mexico overtake Russia in population and GDP. It's not going to take long.

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Correct, but it is symbolic of a world that doesn't want led by US/USD. And that should worry you lol.

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So it's like pretending to meet but really nightclubbing in Soweto instead of Davos?

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We give so much foreign aid to most BRICS countries. Will they still accept dollars, or does the aid have to be in another currency? Not even a joke, the Biden administration will literally give these people free money in any currency they want.

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I think you really need to check your facts here.

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What, we don't give money to South Africa, Brazil, India, etc.? When did we stop giving them money?

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We even give China money...so stupid.

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Pallets of cash to Iran

Oh, wait, that was the Obama administration. Ttally different fromBiden; he was only VP then.

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More to the point, the authority to redistribute American tax dollars to other countries is not among the enumerated powers; it’s just not constitutional.

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Aug 24, 2023·edited Aug 24, 2023

South Africa can't even keep the lights on ...they call it 'power shedding'. Ethiopia!! it's most prominent product is famine? Egypt can't feed its population without US food aid. Much of the international capital that is stampeding out of China is headed to India. China has been clashing with India in re their common border. Why India would ally itself in any manner to an economic and military rival? Brazil continues to disappoint expectations. As De Gaulle once said "Brazil is not a serious country". BRICS is not a serious organization.

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Didnt Texas power shed s=during winter as well? Not sure thats a great criteria for you to use lol.

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Aug 25, 2023·edited Aug 25, 2023

Super job! One was due to pure ineptitude and the other was ineptitude and a massive influx of new residents.

Texas can fix itself. South Africa is slowly sinking into a cesspool that will eventually become an economic colony of China.

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You're right in pointing out that the longstanding India-China feud is going to be a serious, even fatal, obstacle to effectiveness of this grouping. The two countries are the 800-pound gorillas in the cage, both intent on being the alpha male.

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founding

Trying to keep Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Argentina, and Ethiopia from joining by waterboarding them with the all encompassing CLIMATE EMERGENCY!/LGTBQ mantra this administration can't see beyond, is a certain failure...

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