Trump to Hand Falklands to Milei?

Upset that the United Kingdom has not joined the US war with Iran, it is being reported that Donald Trump may withdraw his support for the UK holding the Falkland Islands, effectively handing the islands to Argentina. Readers may remember that back in the early 1980's, Argentina invaded the Falklands and the UK went to war over it, and won the islands back. 

A bit of history; the Falklands are part of Britain, and Argentina has no rightful claim over the islands. The islands have also played a pivotal role in the Royal Navy's control of the South Atlantic. The British Empire, at one point, controlled all of the main pinch points, the North and South Atlantic, the Mediterranean via Gibraltar, Malta and Cyprus, the Strait of Malacca at Singapore, Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Aden and access to the Red Sea, the Suez Canal, Strait of Hormuz, Cape of Good Hope, and the Tasman Sea through to the Southern Ocean. There was nowhere for an enemy to go, literally nowhere. 

So, the British have some serious soul searching to do. Are they going to grow a spine or shrink to nothingness?

Things we learnt during 2022

What a year 2022 has been. Just think of all we have learnt. Conspiracy theories became conspiracy fact. Makes one wonder what 2023 has in store.

Here's a quick list of what we have learnt:

• Twitter conspires with governments to shut down dissenting political opinion. The great expulsion of Twitter users during January and February 2021 was real; 
• Facebook do the same.
• Twitter hires a lot of former FBI people and Facebook a lot of former CIA people. Are they really former?
• The CIA killed JFK.
• Bill Gates cannot satisfactorily explain why he was hanging out so much with Jeffry Epstein.
• The Ukraine appears so important to the US that they've pretty much written Ukraine a blank cheque;
• Crypto exchange FTX appears to have siphoned funds back from the Ukraine and into the coffers of politicians in the US;
• Sam Bankman-Fried is the fall guy.
• Russia can do fine despite sanctions;
• Western Europe and the rest of the developed world are going to freeze and suffer crippling inflation because they do not understand that Russia can do fine despite sanctions;
• The developed world, but Western Europe in particular, are committing the biggest act of self-harm in human history.
• Covid was a scam;
• Lockdowns killed and are going to kill more people than Covid;
• Some colds are worse than Covid.
• The mRNA jab from Pfizer is killing and injuring millions and no-one is allowed to talk about it;
• The MSM are complicit;
• Excess mortality is a thing, currently running at 15% in New Zealand alone.
• The Queen died and was a nice old lady;
• Her son the new King Charles is a nice chap but appears a bit weak;
• Prince Harry is a plonker.
• The western world is hellbent on introducing central bank digital currencies and social credit systems. The whole Covid scam was a trial run leading up to this;
• Now we have the 15 minute city, where you'll be locked in your zones;
• This all sounds very China;
• China is beginning to fall apart with demonstrations across the country and minorities are being persecuted relentlessly;
• Lockdowns are used to suppress political dissent;
• Xi Jinping could well be mad.
• Elections are rigged everywhere.
• Supply chains are a mess.
• Our own governments hate us;
• Some people remain blind and believe the lies because the truth hurts so much and is so unpalatable.

Did I miss anything? 

Fahrenheit 451 is Now

 Incredible, I'm living Fahrenheit 451.

The dystopian future is here. This is it right now. The key equivalences:

Everyone lives in the here and now, there is no literature, no debate, no thought, just immediate satisfaction, endless masturbation, everyone consumes trivia with glee while being cruel toward anyone stepping out of line. The TV reinforces this by serving up endless drivel of no consequence.

In Fahrenheit 451 books are banned. But today, it's the internet that is censored. We cannot say things that are not approved and licensed - fact checked. Meanwhile books are not encouraged in schools. Schooling is indoctrination, not a place for questioning.

The police now enforce correct behaviours. Crime has become irrelevant and perhaps even encouraged to keep everyone on their toes. People are encouraged to dob anyone in who doesn't behave. Nasty.

I saw the 1966 movie from the novel back in the 60's, but at a relatively young age it went over my head a little. Believe it or not my favourite movies from the period were Le Mans (1971), Zulu (1964), Charge of the Light Brigade (1968), Battle of Britain (1969) and Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965). However on a Lufthansa flight from Munich to Tokyo in January 2019 (remember when travel was allowed?) I saw it again. It contains far more intellectual content than I appreciated back in the day. I suggest taking the time to view it.

Market Report UK

Looking at the UK, a situation I've been well aware of for some time never improves. Depending on your point of view, this is either a problem or an opportunity.

I'm talking about the supply of construction materials, namely sand and gravel supplies; and in the broader context all quarried materials, ready-mix concrete, and other products that consume crushed and processed stone.

The UK has the problem of steadily depleting reserves. The sand and gravel reserve base is most stark, there the replacement rate is a low 61%. What that means is that for every 100 tonne of sand sold, only 61 tonne is replaced. What am I going on about?

If you're extracting and processing sand, an important component in concrete and asphalt particularly, you need to have the stuff in the ground to extract. Imagine all of the UK's reserves being in one place, a huge tract of land (it isn't, actually it's spread out amongst hundreds of sand pits). As you dig, process and sell the sand just below the surface, the hole keeps getting bigger. Then to replace what you sell, you buy some land off the neighbour, but never as much as the volume you sell out of the gate. Do you see? Eventually your reserves run critically low and you go out of business. No construction supplies business for you.

But wait, that's not the first and last word on the subject I hear you say, there are other options which can be explored, and you'd be right. Dredging offshore for sand below the surface of the water. Okay, that's possible and already done. Then there is manufactured sand, never quite as good but you can do that. Okay, that's done too but the hard rock quarry environment is only just managing to increase its reserves from where they are now and not at the pace the natural sand deposits are being depleted. Then you can import sand from somewhere else I hear you say. Fine that too I answer, but sand is high volume low value and barging from other countries is expensive.

So what is going to happen to the UK? The price of sand and gravel must rise, that's what. And rise a lot over the next twenty years. That's because it takes fifteen years just to get a new sand and gravel pit on stream from initial proposal, so even if they went gangbusters right from this day forward they'd still end up sand critical.

This is a lesson in not allowing environmental nut-jobs anywhere near proper planning, real world industry with consequences. But for the investor, this is heaven sent. Investing in existing sand and gravel reserves is money in the bank. That message comes with qualifications though, naturally, as the company that does the work has to be well managed.

What candidates exist to get involved with? The list is; LafargeHolcim (which owns the UK's Aggregate Industries), HeidelbergCement (which owns Hanson), CRH (Tarmac), CEMEX and Breedon. Of these, Breedon is the UK specialist and heavily into rock products, see them here...https://www.google.com/finance?q=LON:BREE

Breedon are small and quite acquisitive, you can see their share price keeps climbing and their price to earnings is quite high at 31., maybe too high. I'll leave it for you to decide if you're comfortable with that.

Then you can also look for private companies to invest in, with focus on sand and gravel. Most of these are tightly held, I'm not saying any of the following are for sale or any share of them, but they're good businesses and this is the type of thing to look for:

http://www.rotherhamsandandgravel.co.uk/about.aspx
http://www.sandandgravel.uk.com
http://www.bromfieldsand-gravel.co.uk/Content.aspx?id=1

Sand and gravel UK.