HindeSight Investment #107 January 2024 - Newsletter & Podcast - READ HERE
Check out the podcast version of the newsletter this month
CONTENTS
OVERVIEW
INVESTMENT INSIGHTS
PORTFOLIO UPDATE
HINDESIGHT DIVIDEND UK PORTFOLIO
OVERVIEW
Most people know that the spark to the tinderbox that led to the tragedy of World War I was the assassination in June 1914 of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir-presumptive to the throne of Austria-Hungary. But, I believe the road to that war started in 1870 with the Prussian chancellor Otto von Bismarck’s plan to provoke France into declaring war on Prussia in order to unite the four independent southern German states, Baden, Wurttemburg, Bavaria and Hesse-Darmstadt to join the North German Confederation led by Prussia. The Franco-Prussian War, just six months long, (1870-1871) saw a resounding Prussian victory but it led to a series of alliances that created the tinderbox commitments for the next belligerent ‘sides’. The Dual Alliance in 1879 between Germany and Austria-Hungary led to the Triple Alliance in 1882 with Italy joining. The Franco- Russia alliance in 1894 was followed by the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902 and the well-known Entente Cordiale between Great Britain and France in 1904 and the rest is history as they say.
While it’s obviously hard to rate ex-Transport Secretary, ex-Home Secretary, now, UK Defence Secretary, Grant Shapps as much more than a ‘journeyman’ politician, hanging around Westminster, his speech on the 15th January referred to his belief that we were in a pre-war period rather than a postwar period. Of course, there are many countries already at war. But, if he meant a more global war, sadly I agree with him.
The recent 2024 setting of the Atomic ‘Doomsday’ clock was unchanged from 2023, at 90 seconds to midnight, despite the recent war in Gaza but certainly an ongoing concern since his history from 1947.
There has been a plethora of press since the new year, suggesting that European countries and the UK need to consider ‘citizens’ armies and a wake-up mentality to the threat of global war escalation. While mandatory military service still exists in countries, such as Finland and Israel, the days of UK National Service, (1947-1960) are a distant memory, although my young son does like to hear both his grandfathers’ stories of their time serving. But, I imagine most of these news articles will be dismissed as just a bit of scaremongering by the current woke generation in this country with the likelihood of getting volunteers or an actual conscription model enforced as a pie-in-the-sky chance. Even if the theoretical Russians were massing landing craft at Calais, I would imagine the best we could hope for is more protests than normal in central London, God knows what the placards would say then.
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