📝 🏴‍☠️ 🇸🇴 Op-Ed: Somali Pirates Are Back, But a Full-Scale Return is Unlikely

🔶️ "I have my suspicion that this is not so much Somali piracy of the early 2000s, but now a form of Privateers where the Somalis are backed by the Houthi to open another front." - Sal Mercogliano

https://maritime-executive.com/editorials/op-ed-somali-pirates-are-back-but-a-full-scale-return-is-unlikely

An Industrial Plan for (White) America

Americans have been aware for decades that their nation is in the midst of serious industrial decline. This decline, represented by the loss of some 7.5 million jobs between 1980 and 2017, has affected Whites, and particularly men, more than any other group.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has found that for every 10 percentage point drop in regional manufacturing share there is an accompanying 3.7% drop in male employment.

Policymakers must consider the following options if they seek to generate prosperity for Americans:

1. Local content requirements

The surest way to ensure that products purchased by Americans are produced by Americans is to ensure that those products have their component parts sourced in the United States.

American policymakers must institute a 51% local content requirement for any goods which are related to: transportation, technology, energy (production & transmission), national security, food production, and other forms of critical infrastructure.

2. Provide financing for new firms

A 2014 study by MIT found that while venture capital is willing, even eager, to fund the initial stages of development those same VC firms are near universally unwilling to fund the scale-up of manufacturing capacity. This results in firms founded by innovative young Americans to look abroad to scale their manufacturing processes.

3 ...

Read the full piece, and the rest of the policy prescriptions here on our Substack:

🇺🇸 🇯🇵 US Steel bought out by Japan's Nippon, valuing famed American manufacturing company at $15 Billion.

⬛️ Famous American businessmen including JP Morgan, Charles Schwab and Andrew Carnegie formed the company back in 1901

🔶️ The deal marks the latest step in a gradual decline for the iconic 122-year-old company, which was once the largest company on the planet. It was one of the first major conglomerates and a symbol of American industrial might.

🔶️ In the early part of the last century, the company produced the steel that helped the United States become a global economic superpower, providing steel not just for skyscrapers, bridges and dams, but also for autos, appliances and other products craved by American consumers.

🔶️ US Steel was so dominant, in fact, that its competitive prowess helped lead to the creation of the nation's antitrust laws, passed in an attempt to keep the company's strategic and financial might, and that of the Standard Oil's, in check.

https://6abc.com/us-steel-news-today-nippon/14197549/

🇺🇸 🇯🇵 🇨🇳 The news of Nippon Steel moving to acquire US Steel is an opportunity to post this important chart; and to remind ourselves that steel is the backbone of civilization, necessary for industrial production, essential to our daily life, and a sustaining element of military power.

📎 malmesburyman

📢 🇨🇩 🇷🇼 DRC's President Tshisekedi tells voters: Re-elect me and I will declare war on Rwanda

🔶️ This, he said, was because he was tired of Rwanda's role in the instability in the eastern part of the country, where M23 rebels were a menace.

https://www.news24.com/news24/africa/news/drcs-president-tshisekedi-tells-voters-re-elect-me-and-i-will-declare-war-on-rwanda-20231219

https://archive.ph/PsTFC

⚡️🇳🇪 The United Nations has announced that the military junta that took power in Niger after ousting the president is now the real legitimate government of Niger.

The UN Credentials Committee recognized Niger's ruling military junta as the sole representative of the Nigerien authorities to all UN bodies.

@themediterraneanman

🚢 🇹🇼 🇨🇳 Taiwan to seize intruding sand dredgers from mainland China to fight illegal mining and ‘grey zone warfare’

🔶️ In addition to increasing maximum jail terms for the offence to seven years from five, lawmakers also doubled the fine to NT$100 million (US$3.2 million). The revised law also authorises Taiwanese authorities to confiscate the dredgers.

🔶️ Between January and September, the island’s coastguard expelled 652 mainland Chinese fishing boats and confiscated 20 of them for crossing into Taiwanese waters for illegal fishing.

🔶️ “The forays have not only damaged our environmental and fishing resources but they are also intended to exhaust our coastguard,” he said, adding the PLA was increasingly using such tactics to pressure and intimidate the island.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3245500/taiwan-seize-intruding-sand-dredgers-mainland-china-fight-illegal-mining-and-grey-zone-warfare

https://archive.ph/3bMva