The Stars From The Universe Are Watching

 April and May 2025 can be emerging as a a transitionary time, when the stars of the Universe are looking at the choices of many groups of Homo Sapiens in their rituals and society behaviours.   Will the course of human civillisation encounter significant changes, or more things will be the same, with just different players forefront on the world stage?

Elections can be just smokescreens to seemingly give the human being on the street a sense of participation.   The powers that truly are can be putting the individuals they control as their continuing agents.

Registered voters head to the booths to mark their ballots in Canada, Singapore and Australia.   

Canada has seen the exit of long time Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whose government has overseen the age of Covid epidemics, changing attitudes towards relentless immigration,  more acknowledgement of past injustices towards her Indigenous peoples, continuing pressure from the government of her nearest neighbour and rising costs of living.

Singapore has a newly minted Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, urgently handling a sweeping change of the landscape in international  trade, finance and economic exchanges as the fall out from the return to power of a controversial person as the POTUS.  That latter person has recently been most effective in creating widespread uncertainty.

The Australian Labor Government seeking re-election on 3 May has at most been under performing under Anthony Albanese, who has been reluctant to differ in several respects from its Opposition,  continue to toe the line and requirements from the USA and been ineffective and mainly bushfire reactive to the rising costs of housing, food, utilities, lack of commercial competition and social issues.

Although restricted to the Conclave, laden with traditional secrecy and religious ritual,  the selection of the next Pope at the Vatican is essentially a political process.    The successful candidate, who emerges on the balcony after white smoke is seen bellowing,  presides over 1.4 billion Catholics, mainly in Africa, South and Central America, the Phillippines, Timor-Leste and Europe.

Nations outside the USA are scrambling to reorganise supply logistics, access to critical minerals and manufacturing ingredients, payment systems, trading arrangements, over reliance on the USA and other impacts on GDP and economic growth.

Military conflict, suffering by the masses as part of socio-political aggression, the enrichment of the arnaments business and an intense propaganda media channeling remain key features of continuing disputes in the part of the world that transverses Sudan, Yemen, Gaza, the West Bank,  Ukraine and bordering parts of Russia.

Will Europe wake up to being more self reliant, more proactive and united in her affairs and strategy?   It can be a time to diversify alliances, partners and arrangements.   So can the disparate nations of South-east Asia, historically caught between the tradewinds and politics of the so called East and West.   Problems can be opportunity,   challenges can be the time to build a new future.

The sanctions, boycotts and cutoffs faced by the Chinese economy in recent years have made China even more determined and passionate to significantly improve their growing advanced technology,  reduce strategic  risks and become more self sufficient.    This is a nation that does not have enough food security,  takes on the massive macro debts of an over spending USA and now beginning to reduce the utilisation of the USD, long seen as a safe vital currency.

So will change be grabbed by the horns of the proverbial bull?    Will voters choose more of the same?   Can political leaders realise that viable preparations for a very different social, political and economic future may be too late?   Will governments continue to bask in the comfort zone of a landscape that has disappeared and not come back?  Will societies continue to be led by individuals who think less of their own nation and follow the wants of another country?   Will cabinets wait for reactive mindsets, instead of being proactive?

#yongkevthoughts

As Autumn Arrives

 As autumn supposedly has arrived in the southern parts of Australia,  flora is decelarating growth from their summer speeds.  I say "supposedly" as it can be still humid and warm on afternoons in New South Wales.   Sunrises and sunsets have not displayed thd intense colours, hues and streaks that I expect in April in the Antipodes.

As leaves begin to discolour and drop, I drag out the old furniture to the garage.   Another step forward in the process of the twice yearly roadside disposal provided by the local Council.   Daylight savings had ended a few weeks ago - and nights look more full as they arrive earlier. 

I have a motley collection of mainly smallish items which I say I want to part with - but never seem to be able to do.   What is it that we are encouraged to do - start small, do it regularly and soon the job is done?

I can be the type who loves to pull out the weeds one by one, instead of procastinating and eventually do  a bombardment of weed killer spray.
Procastination irritates me, but I go through periods practising it.   At times I find that delaying a chore can pay off, but often it is simpler and more rewarding to do it on a timely basis.

In a burgeoning contemporary world of more self service and self management,  what I find remarkably irritating are constant App updates to new versions,  regular change of passwords and greater recurrence of cutoffs that never happened before the internet of things.

Is there more choice in entertainment for the family and self?    While payable streaming services increase, there are more ads and less inspiring programmes on free to air screens.   Cinema megaplexes are still around, despite the rise of access to personalised viewing as opposed to shared collective viewing.
Our human eyes strain under the weight of reading, writing and viewing on small but portable devices.

Food we may have taken for granted are increasingly processed, prepacked, programmed and interfered with.  Climate change affects our usual growing sources, politics and logistical barriers challenge distribution and consumers are further distanced from the producers.

We can now bank without physically stepping into one.   We can dine at our own accord without ever knowing the kitchen and staff cooking it.   We  generate work output without meeting our team members.   We  purchase goods and services without having to go to a mall.

We are told we can save our personal time to do other things.   Do we use the freed up opportunity to embrace more of Nature, the vibes beyond the electronic, artificial and virtual world significantly enveloping us?

Do I fully realise its autumn, with her gentle embrace of an ever spinning Earth?

#yongkevthoughts

What I Do Not Miss

 What things I do not miss, not being a customer of the two largest Australian supermarket chains.

1.  Over priced and shrink size inflated items.

2.   Miserable points chalked up on using their reward cards.

3.   Miserably sized fruits that look like they were designed by a factory.

4.    Items over priced but claimed as offered with discounts.

5.  Self service areas that are so lacking in space.

6.   Aisles that are crowded with customers busy socialising and chatting with each other, when they should go to the pub or club.

7.   Apparently fairly priced items on shelves but with a so close expiry date.

8.   Shopping trolleys that remain dirty and stained but waiting for use by new customers.

9.    Processed products that are so full of excessive amounts of ingredients like sugar, fat, preservatives and sodium.

10.   Since Covid, occasional runs of severe shortages of specific items on their supermarket shelves.

True Change

 All things shall pass, for better, worse, more of the same, or nothing at all.

Change is the constant, constancy is change. 

If each of us did not overly attach ourselves to the passing wind, chatter and temporariness of most things in human affairs or Nature, we would not have wasted our limited time, attention and energy on diversionary things. 

Our inner journey continues.  Focus our innate abilities, nourishment and vibes on more useful and longer term matters.

Reflect and we realise the true nature of true and meaningful change.

#yongkevthoughts

Singapore Faces the Usa Tariffs

 Singapore finds itself so vulnerable with the April 2025  Trumpian tariff moves.

Singapore is a society that even has to import basic things like food.  The nation has prospered as a hub of trading, a broker of exchange, a strategic sea, air and technology port and churner of business.

With high tariffs, kicked off by Trump as only a starter of what he really wants, in this current upset in international relations, countries are varying in approaches and reactions to current Usa government moves.  Some retaliate, others take it on the chin, many wake up from this jolt to the assumed benefits from the  use of comparative advantage, niche specialisation  and freer trade of the recent past.

The current shock felt by most economies also is the result from perhaps over relying on the Usa to continue buying from them.  The Usa has long ago given up its own capability to manufacture many things - although it still holds an advantage in making pharmaceuticals, IT related retail products, commercial aircraft, military arnaments  and agricultural produce -  items that Singapore precisely require.

Singapore's pillars of growth, until the cloud of current uncertainty clears, lie exposed if human civilisation  sinks into convulated trade wars.

If nations outside the Usa take this opportunity to increase trading links amongst themselves, Trump can find himself increasingly isolated.   The reality is that the world has generally put its risks and growth parameters overly on the Usa - and the quake has arrived.

I have to remind myself that the Usa economy also requires things from other nations - they are not self sufficent.  The Usa overspends in retail consumption and consistently is in debt, not only in government operations, but also because other national governments and non  Usa imvestors are willng to finance that debt.

What does the Usa need from.Singapore? 

Maybe more in non trading matters - a military base or partner,  a supporter of sea routes that the  Usa utilises for various reasons,  a supplier of high tech components?

#yongkevthoughts