The SR66 Report

References Used in the Present Post: https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/ditctsce2022d1_en.pdf

It’s been a long time. My last post was on July 31, 2022. I was focusing back then on digital transformation and the impact it was likely to have on inflation. (read it on thesr66report.com)

Almost six months later, I realized that the highlight on inflation was clearly the proper angle to shed some light on what was to come. The break of nearly six months was necessary; that’s how I feel about it deep inside. Mainly because I was not willing to contribute even more to the echo chamber that we are all bathing in with the dramatic events unfolding around us.

So after a few months of reflection, it is getting clear to all of us that what the world needs most currently are wisdom and cultural awareness. While all the news you can hear about has a lot to do with wars and economic turmoil, perhaps we can also talk about all the efforts to reunite people around the planet.

And indeed, let me tell more about the many activities that I was personally involved in the last few months during that break where you did not hear about me.

First, I participated in a festival in Fes, Morocco, the Festival of Sufi Culture, where many brilliant and beautiful minds were gathered. That event alone gave me hope about the world and its future.

Second, I also had a chance to follow the works of UNESCO, which also gathered in Rabat, Morocco, to deepen its efforts in intangible cultural preservation.

I will provide you more details about these efforts in the coming weeks; it’s my promise to you at the start of this new year, 2023, and the year of the Rabbit. New years start every month if you keep track of the many other recent years across all the world's cultures; the Chinese new year of the Rabbit began just a few days ago after the beginning of 2023 on January 1. But there will be many other opportunities to renew that promise and keep track of it. Indeed, in the middle of July 2023, the Muslim world will start the year 1445. Nawruz, the Iranian new year will be in mid-March. Rosh Hashanah is expected sometime in mid-September. And many other recent years that you can check here.

While all the troubling news is trickling down through the news channels at an alarming rate, there are also many other efforts that show how many nations are coming together to preserve the very heritage and wisdom that will prevent us from rolling down the path of madness. You can call me a dreamer, but at least that’s the only path to sanity these days. So let’s cultivate that dream together.

Let’s “Create Peace Together.”

The Euro US$ Chart Click Here

The Japanese Yen US$ Click Here

#82 France: Further Thoughts on the Rubik's Cube of French Politics (Read Further)

FRANCE; AFTER THE FIRST ROUND OF GENERAL ELECTIONS Read Further 

Here we are a few days away from the first round of the general elections in France. As you know, we had presidential elections at the end of April which reelected President Macron for a second 5 year term (read further here).

Now we have to go through general elections which are meant to renew the lower house which is called the National Assembly here in France. This election is especially important because it will allow the newly re-elected President Macron to rely on a majority that will allow him to implement his program.

This election is becoming even more important since the length for the presidential mandate has been reduced from seven years to five years and has started to coincide with presidential elections. Prior to the 5 year mandate, presidents would stay 7 years in power. So the general elections at the National Assembly would not necessarily coincide with the Presidential Elections. Prior to that 5 year mandate, France was used to witnessing a majority that was shaping itself according to the more traditional left/right political streams of influence. This new mandate is shattering that traditional way of political practice.

Moreover, this year’s presidential election revealed a surprising fragmentation of the political pillars of influence. Rather than the traditional left and right pillars both closer to the center, the second round of the presidential election showed three clearly defined forces with a distinct polarization for a radical form of action, to the left and to the right. The third man of the election to the left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, realized that the new context at the National Assembly is offering an opportunity for a left wing coalition to garner the needed 290 seats for an outright majority. The latest polls confirm that the left wing coalition, also known as NUPES, is very close to achieving such a result. This is indeed where we are heading, only one week ahead of the first round of the General Election.

Let me know if you have questions and I look forward to hearing your thoughts. Feel free to comment.

When the causes that the people are behind are more important to them than the system, then the system is in jeopardy

The Shifting Sands of Growth and Inflation Read Further HERE

#66 Supply Chains in Motion ( II ) Read Further here.

#65 Supply Chains in Motion, The Disruptions that are Changing the World, Read further HERE

#64 France: Macron 2 and the Rubik's Cube of French Politics (read further here).

Important link to check: Le Télégramme 

 (PLEASE NOTE THAT AT MINUTE 9:40 I SHOULD HAVE SAID "President of the European Union Council" and not "President of the European Council". )

Let me know if you have questions and I look forward to hearing your thoughts. Feel free to comment and share.

Today is April 14, 2022. And we are 10 days away from the second round of the French Presidential elections (read here).

You remember few days ago I had mentioned to you an article from Le Monde, few days only prior to the first round. It was highlighting how a large segment of the voters were ready to choose a candidate who is expressing Euroskeptic views and positions that take some distance from NATO. The author of the article emphasized that it was close to 50% of the voters.

Now that the first round has delivered its results, these assumptions are more than confirmed. If we add Mélenchon and Le Pen only, they both represent 45.1% of the first round. If you add to that Zemmour at 7.1%, you end up at 52.2%. Now you can even add smaller candidates who express what we call “souverainiste” positions. Jean Lassalle with his 3.1% and Nicholas Dupont-Aignan with 2.1% would bring the total share of that specific segment at 57.4%. The “souverainiste” positions promote national sovereignty.

That is not the kind of percentage that you can just simply ignore.

With France holding the presidency of the European Council until the end of the first semester, and given its role as the first military power within the European Union, it is very likely that all other European Union leaders must be watching very carefully.

So it’s worth taking a closer look at what Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon think about the European Union, NATO and other geopolitical issues. Needless to say that, given the current context, the mix of power likely to result from the next 10 weeks in France will probably send shockwaves across Europe.

Macron is very favorable to the idea of a European Union deepening. He is the favorite candidate of the European Union, yet the results of the first round are forcing him also to water down his pro EU stance.

Le Pen is aligned on a very eurosceptic position. She wants a Europe made of nations and is ready to deeply reform the European institutions. Her stance is to put French laws above European laws, a line adopted more recently by Poland. She clearly has watered down her wish to exit the European Union, also know as FREXIT, yet her program is very eurosceptic. Despite that watering down, if you look at her whole economic program, you start to realize that she would not be able to apply it if France wanted to continue to comply with European Union treaties and agreements. So there is a contradiction in her basic posture.

Mélenchon is also a Eurosceptic but his program does not fully shatter the European Union institutions. He acknowledges the EU, its institutions and its treaties but also calls for a direct confrontation and negotiation with France’s partners should his program be challenged by European Union regulations. He calls for shifting the balance of power in favor of France, but within the respect of EU institutions. That’s a clear shift from the position he had few years ago. In the perspective of that second round, Mélenchon is not compelled to explain himself yet, but the results on April 24, will pave the way for the elections in June at the National Assembly.

Clearly, this second round is already in a parliamentary mode.

Let me know if you have questions and I look forward to hearing your thoughts. Feel free to comment.

Today is April 13, 2022. And we are 11 days away from the second round of the French Presidential elections (Read here).

And today, I want to continue to talk about the voters who chose the Left Wing candidate Melenchon. Indeed, it’s crucial to explore the logic of the Melenchon voters, the logic behind their choices. One of the biggest surprises that pollsters noticed since the results of the votes were revealed is that 30% of Melenchon voters are ready to vote in favor of Marine Le Pen. That’s despite Melenchon’s call to not cast a single vote in her favor. It’s worth talking about the logic and psychology behind that choice.

Once again, let me remind you that the Left Wing candidate Melenchon reached 22% of the votes on Sunday, very close to the second spot. Far behind him come the candidates that were expected to have much higher results. The order and ranking of these candidates is not a surprise. Every pollster were seeing Zemmour, Pécresse, Hidalgo, Jadot behind, but not so far behind. Zemmour, the other far right candidate came in fourth with 7%, Pécresse the right wing candidate, gathered less than 5% and Jadot, the ecologist gathered also less than 5%.

So, as I said previously, this is placing Mélenchon in a role that he may not have expected himself. His voters now look like they are the ones who will tilt the balance on one side or the other. As a result, when pollsters discovered that 30% of these voters are ready to vote for Le Pen, it left everyone perplexed. We are talking here about voters from the Left or Far Left, ready to vote for a Far right candidate. That alone deserves further examination. For those of you who are from the US, it would be as if Bernie Sanders’ or AOC’s or Elizabeth Warren’s voters had voted for Trump…

You have to realize that many of Melenchon’s voters are among those who took part to the yellow vests movement, prior to the COVID crisis. Their opposition to Macron is literally visceral, so visceral, that they would rather put Marine Le Pen at the Presidential palace at the Élysée rather than Emmanuel Macron.

But there is even another layer of motivation behind that decision. Indeed, according to some interviews and discussions, the vote for Le Pen, would indeed put her at the Elysee Palace. However, should the Mélenchon movement win the general elections in June and control a large segment of the National Assembly, then the next government from June would be made of ministers directly coming from the left wing La France Insoumise, with a Prime Minister who may even be Mélenchon himself, or a personality within his closest circle.  By doing so, La France Insoumise would then be able to block any initiative undertaken by Le Pen.

Such a scenario is not that far-fetched. Indeed, the nature of the executive power in France and the constitution allow such configuration at the executive level. It has already happened in the past. France already saw many periods of “cohabitation”, with Left Wing President François and Right Wing Prime Minister Jacques Chirac, and then with Right Wing President Jacques Chirac and Left Wing Prime Minister Lionel Jospin. Such situations reduce the president to a purely representative and honorific role.

This may be what Melenchon and his movement are looking for. If that’s the case, then it could also pave the way for his project which is to reform the constitution by installing a 6th republic.

I’ll get back to you with more details in the coming days.

Let me know if you have questions and I look forward to hearing your thoughts. Feel free to comment.

Today is April 12, 2022. And we are 12 days away from the second round of the French Presidential elections (read here).

Given Left Wing Jean Luc Melenchon’s result of 22% on Sunday in a very close third spot, as expected, all the attention is on how his voters are going to behave in 12 days.

The most recent projections reveal an unexpected outcome. Despite the left wing leader’s repeated calls to not cast a single vote to Le Pen, - he repeated it three times in a row during his speech on Sunday night - it appears that 30% of Melenchon’s voters are ready to actually vote for Le Pen.

Of course, this makes the result of the second round even more unpredictable. This is quite clear in the latest projections of 54% Macron / 46% Le Pen in the most favorable scenario for Macron, and 51% Macron / 49% Le Pen in the tightest projection.

In this very open situation, the Melenchon camp will play a crucial role and will likely shift the results until the very last days. We can also expect Melenchon and his camp to leverage that role once the result of the election comes out in 12 days. There are indeed general elections in June that will probably reshuffle the cards in parliament.

Right now, President Macron’s party, La Republique en Marche, represents 268 seats out of the 577 seats at the National Assembly, the lower chamber of Parliament, while the higher chamber, the Senate is distributed according to much more traditional lines of political distribution. Yet a President in France needs to govern with a government and to execute his program, French Presidents need to rely on a government headed by a Prime Minister whose authority emanates from the distribution of seats at the lower chamber, the Assemblée Nationale. And we cannot exclude a situation where the President elected on April 24 may not benefit from a majority that does not come from his or her own camp. In June, the general election may very lead to a majority that do not align with the elected president on April 24.

The 6 to 7 weeks between April 24 and June 12-19, will witnessed incredible positioning between the various political forces coming out these elections.

Given the results of April 10 for the first round of the presidential election, the Left Wing party La France Insoumise founded by Jean Luch Mélenchon appears to be the party that can leverage its position on either side of the political spectrum.

President Macron is already watering down his reform of the pension system as a gesture to that large segment of voters already.

Meanwhile, Le Pen is also making herself more acceptable and respectable by toning down her wishes to exit the Euro and her reform on pensions as well.

Let me know if you have questions and I look forward to hearing your thoughts. Feel free to comment.

So the first round of the French Presidential elections is now revealing a more distinct picture of what really happened yesterday (read here). Once again, let me remind you the results; 28% for President Macron and 23.3% for Marine Le Pen. They both qualify for the second round on April 24.

The first round of the French Presidential elections delivered its verdict (Read here). 28% for President Macron and 23.3% for Marine Le Pen. They both qualify for the second round on April 24. The world was already watching for that first round and will be even more focused on that second round.

Today is the first round of the French Presidential elections (Read here). The second round is on April 24. And you can say that the world was watching. It’s quite interesting to notice that many other countries also hold important elections. For example, India is holding many major elections at a local, legislative and higher levels representation. Yet, global public opinion does not seem to pay much attention.

One of the mechanisms that fuels imported inflation has to do with foreign exchange parities (read further here). The US$ has been over the last few decades the currency of reference for the payment of commodities, especially oil. Over the last decades since the creation of the Bretton Woods system, the name of the game for the greatest majority of countries in the world has been to maintain a sufficient and proper level of currency reserves, which are usually mostly US$.

It’s now becoming very clear that the current conflict in Ukraine and the subsequent sanctions against Russia are starting to have a much more violent impact on prices, and that the effect will be a lot more prolonged and protracted than anticipated (read here)

This war in Ukraine is reminding me how two countries, Russia and Ukraine, belong to rich and extraordinary cultures. They are part of the tapestry of wonderful cultures in humankind in all its diversity and wonderful richness (read further here.). So, this conflict made me even more interested in trying to learn the history of that part of the world. 

German Think Tanks have built a long tradition of credibility and in-depth wisdom in the last few decades. When one of these institutes releases a report with insights regarding our world, everyone pays attention (Red further here).