Batam, Indonesia Family trip last week of 2025

 

2026 is here and it's just business as usual

 [1/5, 08:55] Guna balan: My thoughts exactly and in fact it was what I thought was necessary since 2015. 

We shall see moving forward how the tangential democratic needs of society unbridles the walk softly but carry big stick pogroms of yesteryear.

*Keep the popcorns warm folks! This movie is just starting*

Trump's Maduro raid could set precedent for authoritarian powers across globe https://share.google/JYRATJx9lNJxzlt1v

[1/5, 10:23] Tirath: Somebodies' gotta pay for it, like Libya, Syria, Iraq and now Venezuela paid for USA oil, But who is going to pay?

The high velocity circulating cash on wall street has paid for the idea and startup but the profits?

[1/5, 10:47] Guna balan: Eventually...yes. But America has proven most adept at its ability to kick the can down the street thus far though the whole rigged game should have collapsed in early '97, and again in 2008 and once again in 2017 and 2021.

[1/5, 10:48] Guna balan: Remember, to the BIS & IMF it's just printed guarantees on digital screens

[1/5, 10:49] Guna balan: We the earlier geezers cannot wrap our heads around that concept 😄

[1/5, 10:50] Guna balan: The younger ones today, mark my words, are raised around the concept that billions are chump change. They are the ones who will inherit the world of abundance we cannot fathom

[1/5, 13:24] Tirath: True, however the convertible value of these digital statements continues to be devalued.

So the real beneficiaries are the politicians and financiers, who print the digital currencies and spend it at will because they continue to escalate their % share of the digital currency.

Populations that continue to receive the same (actually deteriorating share) amount of digital currency adjusted nominally but way below the real inflation rate, will pay with their return to slavery, only this time it is valueless debt bandage.

No wonder scammers are rampant as are there willing slave employees who can never leave while breathing.

😁

😁

[1/5, 13:45] Guna balan: Writings based on our interactions with ai on questions above👇🏼

This is an exceptionally rich and perceptive exchange, touching on the core geopolitical, monetary, and social contradictions of our time. Your commentary provides excellent context, particularly the crucial nuance on Venezuela (it's about asset expropriation and arbitration, not a simple bill for oil) and the concrete data on dollar weakness and debt levels.

Building on this, here are some additional layers to consider:

**1. The Nature of the "Payment": Beyond Regime Change**

Tirath's "somebodies gotta pay" thesis is powerful, but the "payment" may be evolving from direct resource extraction to a more financialized form. The modern playbook may be:

*   **Sanctions as the New Gunboat Diplomacy:** Freezing sovereign assets (like Afghanistan's $7B or Russia's $300B) effectively confiscates a nation's "digital guarantees." This weaponization of dollar clearance forces alternative systems, accelerating the very de-dollarization the U.S. seeks to avoid.

*   **Debt-Trap Diplomacy in Reverse?** The U.S., as the world's largest debtor, arguably places creditors (like Japan, China, and pension funds worldwide) in a trap: they must continue financing the deficit to avoid the collapse of their own dollar-denominated assets. *They* are "paying" via the risk of gradual devaluation.

**2. The "Kicking the Can" Mechanism: Financialization vs. Production**

Guna balan is correct about the can-kicking, but the mechanism is critical. The system survives by **financializing the can itself**.

*   Debt is no longer just a liability; it's the primary asset backing vast swaths of the financial system (pensions, insurance, money markets). Collapsing it would be self-immolation.

*   This is why central banks (the BIS "digital screens") must guarantee liquidity. They are backstopping a **system of interconnected promises**, not just an economy. The "digital guarantee" is a promise that one digital IOU can always be swapped for another, not necessarily for tangible goods.

**3. The Generational Divide: Digital Natives in a Fiat World**

Guna balan’s point about the younger generation is profound but has a dark flip side.

*   **Yes, they think in billions:** This normalizes abstraction, making them perfect subjects for a fully digital currency system where value is programmable and transitive.

*   **But they also intuit scarcity differently:** They gravitate toward **verifiably scarce digital assets (Bitcoin)** and **experiential/attention-based economies**, sensing the inherent inflation in fiat. Their "abundance" may be one of digital options and information, juxtaposed with intense scarcity in housing, stable careers, and trust in institutions.

*   They may not inherit "abundance" but a **bifurcated world**: a digitized fiat system for daily survival and taxation, and parallel, hard-asset or crypto systems for storing value outside state control.

**4. The Endgame: Not a Collapse, but a Fraying**

The discussion assumes a binary: system survives or collapses. The more likely path is **fragmentation and tiering**.

*   **A Multi-Tier Currency World:** The dollar remains for global energy and security contracts (the "petrodollar-*security* complex"), a new BRICS unit or gold corridor for intra-bloc trade, and digital stablecoins for cross-border commerce. The U.S. might manage a controlled, gradual devaluation to inflate away debt, sacrificing some external dominance for internal stability.

*   **The "Slavery" Tirath describes** may be less chains and more a **subsistence layer** in a digital panopticon—dependent on Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) for social benefits, with spending rules and expiration dates, creating a "debt bandage" that is also a control mechanism.

**Conclusion: The Great Re-Pricing**

The core issue is a **clash between a financial superstructure of limitless digital claims and a material substratum of limited resources and political consent.** The "payment" will ultimately come in the form of a **global re-pricing event**:

*   Either the **dollar is re-priced down** (managed devaluation, loss of reserve share),

*   Or **hard assets and alternative currencies are re-priced up** (gold, strategic commodities, Bitcoin) to reflect the dilution of fiat claims.

The politicians and financiers who control the issuance tap will indeed benefit in nominal terms, but their real power depends on maintaining the **credible fiction** that their digital screens can command real-world labor and resources. That fiction is now being stress-tested by geopolitics (BRICS), technology (blockchain), and generational shifts in trust.

Your interlocutors have identified the gears of the machine: extraction, can-kicking, digital abstraction, and social cost. The coming decade will be about how loudly those gears can grind before they either seize or are replaced.