Rising…and falling

As a caution against arrogance and hubris, ole people say, “What goes up must come down” and “The bigger they are, the harder they fall”!! With the US courts slapping ELEVEN charges on him and his doting daddy – and soon to request their extradition – Sanction Man must be wailing, “Must it be THIS quick??” But he asked for it, didn’t he?? Here it was, his ole man had worked the system for decades to accumulate his ill-gotten billions – and we talking US$ here!! – without raising no alarms.
But HE had to SHOW – indeed FLAUNT – in the face of not only us Guyanese, but the world, that he could live the life of those Middle Eastern sheikhs cavorting in London, Monaco and Paris. The problem was, everybody knew those sheikhs got their money from oil under their desert sands – but what was his source?? His wine, women, song, cars and ostentatious living with dozens of lackeys at his beck and call – in the second poorest country in the Hemisphere – were broadcast over social media that had a global reach and demanded an answer.
And the answer came from the Yanks when Sanction Man and Doting Dad were slapped with sanctions by OFAC last June!! For smuggling billions of dollars of gold from Guyana and not paying taxes!! And it wasn’t just because the Yanks have their embassy listening post here, but because the duo had the chutzpah to run their smuggling operations to markets in the Middle East out of Miami!! Talk about courting danger!! Miami’s Cocaine Cowboys routinely used smuggled gold from Columbia and Venezuela to pay for their supplies – and the law was hip!!!!
Well, the indictments spell out in great detail how Sanction Man ran their operations – and ran afoul of American law, giving the Yanks jurisdiction! They’d pass a crate of gold through Guyana customs – softened up with bribes not to look too closely – to slap on the required seals and revenue declarations.  In Miami, the crate would be received by one of four shipping companies the Duplicitous Duo had registered – and then be shipped to the Middle East by Company 2.
The con started in the Middle East, where the gold was removed by the buyer from the crate without breaking the GRA seal. That empty box would be shipped back to Miami to be received and cleared by Company 3. Company 4 would then ship the empty box with its custom seal back to Guyana, where it would be cleared by the customs officials who were on their payroll!!
And then loaded with a new shipment for Miami!! But the bucket went to the well one time too many – and the bottom fell off!!

…gold prices
The news that the price of gold officially went above US$4000/oz – for the first time in history – is news at so many levels. At the most mundane, if Sanction Man were given to introspection, maybe he’d ruefully concede if he stuck to legitimate gold trading, he’d still be filthy rich – without contemplating twenty years in a filthy cell!! But the more you get, the more you want, no??
At another level, total gold in Governmental reserves is now worth ~$27 TRILLION!! Imagine that!! And the absolute quantity – just not its nominal values – should also rise!! Cause there’s a correlation throughout history with the rise of the price of gold and loss of confidence in the existing monetary and political order!! Meaning, not just ordinary folks are starting to hoard gold under their mattresses, but the smart money in London, NY and elsewhere sees the US dollar as not so strong – and is literally hedging its bets with gold!!
Maybe we should start doing the same??

…British credit
As old Blighty struggles to keep its (economic) head above water, it’s giving us the full-court press to get a piece of our action. Imagine their line of credit has increased from £750 million in 2024 to £3 billion today!!