A combination of factors have workers feeling more confident in looking for better-paying jobs (or at least, less willing to work ones they don’t like for at-or-near minimum wage). While things may seem bleak now between fewer restaurant worker shifts and meme-able signs on fast food drive-thrus, the post-COVID labor recovery in coming years will see a combination of factors restructure how labor and wages work: increased automation of low-end jobs, a move up the value chain of American workers, and the relative scarcity of Gen Z workers compared to Millennials.
If you enjoy our free newsletters, the team at Zeihan on Geopolitics asks you to consider donating to Feeding America.
The economic lockdowns in the wake of COVID-19 left many without jobs and additional tens of millions of people, including children, without reliable food. Feeding America works with food manufacturers and suppliers to provide meals for those in need and provides direct support to America’s food banks.
Food pantries are facing declining donations from grocery stores with stretched supply chains. At the same time, they are doing what they can to quickly scale their operations to meet demand. But they need donations – they need cash – to do so now.
Feeding America is a great way to help in difficult times.
The team at Zeihan on Geopolitics thanks you and hopes you continue to enjoy our work.
The United States has made remarkable progress in vaccinating large swathes of its population since the beginning of the year. Despite near walk-in availability of vaccines across the country, however, a significant portion of the population–nearly 30%–has not receive any dose of available vaccines.
Infection and mortality rates are dropping precipitously and steadily across all vaccinated groups in the United States. This good news belies the fact that COVID remains as pernicious and deadly (if not more so, thanks to these pesky variants) among unvaccinated Americans. Summertime temperatures, and indoor congregating and shared A/C, will likely see a final surge among unvaccinated Americans in the sunbelt states stretching from California through Georgia before the end of the year. If you have not yet received your vaccine, we here at Zeihan at Geopolitics urge you to do so.
If you enjoy our free newsletters, the team at Zeihan on Geopolitics asks you to consider donating to Feeding America.
The economic lockdowns in the wake of COVID-19 left many without jobs and additional tens of millions of people, including children, without reliable food. Feeding America works with food manufacturers and suppliers to provide meals for those in need and provides direct support to America’s food banks.
Food pantries are facing declining donations from grocery stores with stretched supply chains. At the same time, they are doing what they can to quickly scale their operations to meet demand. But they need donations – they need cash – to do so now.
Feeding America is a great way to help in difficult times.
The team at Zeihan on Geopolitics thanks you and hopes you continue to enjoy our work.
I’m going to attempt the impossible with this one: making economics not necessarily fun, but painfully relevant to someone who cannot work an Excel document.
Here goes:
The United States is experiencing the fastest increase in prices since at least the peak of the subprime boom back in 2008 – in April inflation was already up 4.2% from a year earlier – generating waves of criticism for the Biden administration, whose spending plans are credited with artificially spiking demand. (Normally, the government aims to keep annual increases below 2.0%). At first blush, I really don’t see the April data as a big deal. Everyone remember what was going on a year ago? Coronavirus-induced lockdowns cratered demand, which meant that prices were falling quite a bit. This 4.2% increase from a year earlier is really just a reversion to the mean.
But that said, yeah, it is going to get much, much worse over the next year or so.
Arguably the single biggest reason for the price increases is that Americans are getting out. The country is now majority vaccinated and since COVID is a respiratory pathogen, it has more difficulty spreading when people are outdoors. Aside from the most introverted of agoraphobes who have loved COVID lockdowns, everyone is jonesing to get out of their home this summer and to some version of “normal”.
Market tightness will become particularly noticeable in food. Traditionally, half the food consumed (by value) is eaten outside of the home. A year ago when the lockdowns began, there was simply too much steak and cheese and bacon and not enough flour and chicken and milk. Agricultural production and processing systems contorted to make the adjustment. Now everything is going the opposite direction. There isn’t enough steak and cheese and bacon to support rapidly-shifting demand patterns.
Energy is rapidly evolving to match, for reasons typical, atypical, and downright weird. There’s a normal seasonal increase in demand as farmers start planting in March, and as spring breakers hit their “hold my beer” parties. That increase doesn’t typically stop until autumn. So cyclically, we’re on the “normal” early part of the demand ramp up. And it is happening as Americans are starting to get back to their lives and so are driving more. And we have summer car vacation season just around the corner that pretty much everyone is looking forward to. Hell, I am planning a road trip. I hate road trips and yet I. Cannot. Wait!
On top of that we’ve had a few hiccups across the energy sphere. A container ship clogged the Suez Canal for a week, blocking about 10% of global energy flows. Texas had a freak freeze that took some 3 million barrels of crude production – over 20% of US output – offline for a couple weeks, along with all the downstream refining and petrochemical work that actually brings us usable products like plastics and diapers and tires and cosmetics and…face masks. Russian hacker group DarkSide took down the Colonial Pipeline for nearly as long, interrupting gasoline flows to half the Eastern Seaboard. A new, horrific COVID wave in India is threatening port operations, potentially impacting half the country’s oil supply. Individually, each is an event of global significance. Together? Damn.
Nor are Americans staying put. The Boomers, America’s largest-ever generation, are moving to warmer locales as they retire en masse. The Millennials, America’s second-largest-ever generation, are moving away from the major coastal cities to places where they can afford single-family homes so they can raise their new families. No one wants to be in a bus or subway everyday where they might be exposed to COVID. Collectively, mass relocations are adding huge demand pressures to any and all suburban locations, particularly those in the South, Southwest, and Mountain West.
In the world of manufacturing, the pressure is even greater. On the demand side we’ve seen a lot of sloshing around this past year as people in waves decide they all need new computers or phones or home additions or furniture. We’ve not seen this level of erratic consumer behavior in the modern era. The world of global manufactures simply cannot keep up, and retooling to meet demand in one area almost by definition means insufficient supply for another. The issue of the current quarter is surging demand for electronics has meant there are not enough semiconductors available for automobile manufacture.
The broader supply side is a more national issue. American firms, rightly spooked by disruptions physical, political and medical are relocating many of their supply systems to North America to insulate themselves from global disruptions. The shale revolution has made energy costs locally lower than they are globally, while the U.S. workforce’s high productivity has made most manufacturing processes cheaper to operate in North America than East Asia. Of course, the industrial plant first needs to be built, and that absorbs just as many material inputs as expanding the housing stock.
There’s also a big risk on the near horizon. If the Biden administration’s signaling bears out, the United States will be boycotting the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. That will turn what is an ongoing trade cold war into a full collapse of economic relations. Every American firm operating in China will need to decamp, either because the Chinese confiscate everything as punishment or because their competitors start slapping them with the label of “sponsors of the Genocide Olympics”. We probably are only seeing the tip of the proverbial iceberg in terms of relocation-driven manufacturing price pressures.
So far, Americans don’t care about the price increases, and they aren’t likely to soon. If you fear the subway, you will pay a premium to not have to use it. If you do not want to shovel snow, you will pay a premium to not have to do it. If your home improvement project is already three-quarters finished, you will pay a premium to complete it. If your new home office has demonstrated to you that you need a better set of headphones and a newer computer, you will pay a premium to get them. If you have not eaten out in a year, that first time out – the first twenty times out – you are going to have yourself a damn steak. Personally, I find myself in four of these five categories. Add in my shiny new snow blower and I’m in four and a half.
In the remainder of 2021 and throughout 2022 the United States will experience the highest levels of inflation since at least the 1970s. And if relations with the Chinese really do tank, the United States will be looking at World War II levels of price increases.
American citizens can afford it. Multiple federal bailout programs by two presidents have put cash in pockets; Americans now have record cash on hand. One often-missed aspect of the most recent COVID mitigation plan is to nearly double the child tax credit, and make half of it pre-paid in monthly installments. Those checks start reaching Americans July 15.
American companies can afford it. Those bailout programs benefit American firms just as much as they benefit the American people. Arguably more in some cases. Without them the airlines would have had to ground over half their fleets, and we wouldn’t be nearly half as far along on retooling our industrial plant. Even small firms like ours have benefited. State support not only helped us maintain the staff we’ve spent 15 years building, but even expand a bit. (Incidentally, we hope to have our disaster assistance loan paid back this calendar year. But regardless, everyone say hi to our new researcher!)
Collectively, this government spending expansion is the largest since World War II, and it is not the story’s end. The Federal Reserve has expanded the money supply to purchase government debt to pay for all the new spending as well as to purchase bonds on private markets to backstop everything from city spending to corporate spending to the mortgage market to student debt to credit cards.
(For those of you who obsess about Fed actions as harbingers of the American Apocalypse or vanguards of the imminent dominance of Bitcoin, curb your enthusiasm. Yes, the Fed has expanded M2 by roughly one-fifth since COVID began to just shy of $20 trillion, and yes that is clearly inflationary. BUT… First, over half that increase was in the first month of COVID. That was over a year ago now, and…no Apocalypse. Second, the U.S. economy is bigger than $20 trillion and the USD is the world’s primary method of exchange and primary store of value, so a moderate monetary expansion just doesn’t get my motor running. Third and most importantly, the Chinese have expanded their money supply to $35 trillion despite their economy being smaller than America’s and very little of the yuan supply being traded internationally. Please obsess about the right thing and adjust your forecasts and plans accordingly.)
Between the breaking of a year-long claustrophobic containment and government actions, Americans are gobbling up a whole lot of everything. Rising prices reflect all this.
This does not mean the price increases don’t matter, and I’m not limiting the things-that-matter to the normal bugaboos of inflation as regards spending capacity, wealth generation, debt levels, income stress, and mid-term economic growth trajectories. The country – the world – is changing, and inflation is hitting us all a bit differently than before.
First, a lot of jobs that existed pre-COVID are simply gone. COVID gave many firms no option but to automate away as many manhours as possible. McDonalds and Pizza Hut have practically turned into Sonic. Now that the recovery is underway, but income support has not stopped, folks who used to earn less than $16 an hour are either waiting for benefits to run out or looking for jobs with better compensation. That’s nudging employers with lower-pay positions to automate more. Most of what few of those jobs might have survived COVID will not survive the recovery.
COVID also encouraged online shopping to a degree and for a duration which suggests most retail locations will simply not recover. The jobs lost in the retail sector are among people on the low-end of the income spectrum, disproportionately impacting women, Blacks and Hispanics. The most impacted individuals are those who have the lowest education levels and the most difficulty adapting to changed circumstances. They are also the people least able to function in a higher-inflation environment. America’s inequality issues are on the cusp of becoming far, far worse. We can look forward to that being reflected in American politics throughout this next political cycle. More Trumps. More Sanders.
Second, the inequality issue isn’t simply within the United States, but between the United States and the rest of the world. The United States will largely be finished with its vaccination program in about a month, enabling it to experience the fastest economic growth of its history. We’re talking in excess of 10% annually. That’s China-doping-statistics sort of growth. The United Kingdom and Israel are finishing their vaccinations on a similar timeframe. Vaccine diplomacyfrom Washington will soon flood Canada and Mexico with more than enough doses to enable them to join the party by the end of August. Europe is unlikely to join in until at least the fourth quarter. More likely year’s end.
And…that’s about it for now. The vaccine formulas that work and that the U.S. will soon have an excess of – Pfizer and Moderna – require two shots and primarily freezer storage, making both broadly unsuitable for the developing world. For most of the world’s population, mass vaccination cannot begin until 2022 and it will be at a much slower rate than what we have seen in America.
The timing of all this is beyond unfortunate. Most of the world’s investment capital comes from people who are on the cusp of retirement. They’re shoving every spare dollar, euro, pound or yen they have into their retirement savings. Once they flip into retirement, they never add to their nest egg again. Collectively the Boomer generation of the world is the largest generation our species has ever generated, and they, on average, retire next year. Capital has never been as easy to access or on cheaper terms as it will be in this calendar year.
America, and a few other lucky countries, are experiencing this capital surge and record growth at the same time. Such a happy confluence of events is the sort of thing that enables firms and governments to lay down development efforts that will last for decades. I may have a boatload of reservations about all the new spending the Biden administration wants to launch, but I have to admit, if it is going to happen, the time is absolutely now.
For the rest of the world, they are missing the last global capital boom of our lives. Most of the global Boomer cadre did not have kids. Which means that as they age they will instead absorb capital from their respective systems in the form of higher health care and pensions costs, while never again paying into those systems. Those costs of capital won’t simply increase by end-2022, they’ll skyrocket. For those of you who don’t understand what “skyrocket” means, increasing the interest rate on your mortgage loan by just 1% means increasing your monthly payment by 20%. Now apply that to everything. Car loans. Credit card debt. Municipal bonds. The federal debt. Everything. By the time the rest of the world emerges from under the pall of coronavirus, it’ll be too late.
The United States, France and New Zealand are the only exceptions to these patterns in the advanced world. The Boomers in those three countries had kids. They’re the people that we know as the Millennials, the oldest of which are now 42. Their consumption is keeping these three systems ticking on, and in about a decade American, French and Kiwi Millennials will become major savers and investors and they will bit by bit regenerate the capital stock in their respective countries. But there are not appreciable numbers of Millennials in any other advanced nation. Add in that the vast bulk of the developing world has experienced baby busts more traumatic than anything that’s happened in the developing world these past five decades and this is pretty much it for capital supplies globally.
Folks, this is it. Globalization is over. Even if the Americans decided that they wanted to continue to patrol the world, even if the Americans could keep making the world safe for international trade, global demographics and global capital tell us the page has already turned. Global aging meant that global consumption and investment was always going to collapse this decade, and then coronavirus moved the end forward. Most countries will never recover economically to where they were at the beginning of 2020 when the health crisis struck. And now countries must deal with the intertwined nightmares of a collapse in global consumption, rising economic nationalism in the small handful of countries that retain decent demographic structures, and a high inflation environment triggered by the American recovery.
For me, at least, this simplifies the math. My next book project, scheduled to publish in 2022, was originally going to thread the needle of how various economic sectors will function in the transition from a globalized world to a deglobalized world. History, apparently, has other ideas. It has now sped up. We’ve retooled to focus on ‘life after the end of the world’. Which, now that I’m reading it aloud, might make a pretty good title.
If you enjoy our free newsletters, the team at Zeihan on Geopolitics asks you to consider donating to Feeding America.
The economic lockdowns in the wake of COVID-19 left many without jobs and additional tens of millions of people, including children, without reliable food. Feeding America works with food manufacturers and suppliers to provide meals for those in need and provides direct support to America’s food banks.
Food pantries are facing declining donations from grocery stores with stretched supply chains. At the same time, they are doing what they can to quickly scale their operations to meet demand. But they need donations – they need cash – to do so now.
Feeding America is a great way to help in difficult times.
The team at Zeihan on Geopolitics thanks you and hopes you continue to enjoy our work.
Bit by bit we are getting back to normal. Over half of the American adult population is now vaccinated, and vaccines will soon be available in most locations on a walk-in basis. At current rates, I have little doubt all American adults can be vaccinated by June 1.
For me personally, that means I am starting to travel again. But the world really doesn’t care where I am. Events happen and I need to get to work. The big news this week is out of China, and it is NOT good.
If you enjoy our free newsletters, the team at Zeihan on Geopolitics asks you to consider donating to Feeding America.
The economic lockdowns in the wake of COVID-19 left many without jobs and additional tens of millions of people, including children, without reliable food. Feeding America works with food manufacturers and suppliers to provide meals for those in need and provides direct support to America’s food banks.
Food pantries are facing declining donations from grocery stores with stretched supply chains. At the same time, they are doing what they can to quickly scale their operations to meet demand. But they need donations – they need cash – to do so now.
Feeding America is a great way to help in difficult times.
The team at Zeihan on Geopolitics thanks you and hopes you continue to enjoy our work.
On March 2 the Biden administration announced a vaccine manufacturing partnership between two of the largest and most successful drug manufacturers in the United States: Johnson & Johnson and Merck. Less than a week previous the U.S. FDA approved J&J’s vaccine for emergency use in combatting the COVID-19 virus; its formula will now be produced both in J&J and Merck facilities. (At present neither firm has announced expansion schedules or delivery volumes.)
This is big. Of the five proven anti-COVID vaccine formulas that have been approved for use in the First World, only the J&J formula is refrigerator safe and easy to manufacture and a single-dose formula. As such it can be used for inoculations at any facility worldwide that can handle any other vaccine formula. It is this formula that is capable of vaccinating the majority of the world’s population against COVID, and with the Merck tie-up I’ve little doubt the formula will be able to make good on its potential.
Again, this is big. The question now becomes just how big?
Some backstory:
In his early days, the Biden administration activated an option in the Trump administration’s supply contracts with Pfizer and Moderna. Each will now provide the United States with at least 300 million doses by the end of July, providing enough vaccine for 300 million Americans. That alone is enough to cover 90% of the American population, children included. Johnson & Johnson (by itself) will kick in another 100 million by the end of June, and since the J&J formula is single shot, that’s enough for another 100 million people.
Such figures suggest every adult in the United States who wants to get the vaccine will be able to get it by June 1, and that on-demand, walk-in vaccinations will be available by mid-April.
In fact, this is now the worst-case scenario for vaccine availability in the United States. The manufacturers continue to find ways to optimize their manufacturing. For example, Pfizer has increased their rate of production by more than 80% in just January and February and has simplified its distribution by proving its formula can be stored in normal freezers as opposed to the dry-ice-ultra-cold set-ups it initially used. Such advances likely shaved 4-6 weeks off American vaccination schedules.
There are also two other vaccine formulas – AstraZeneca and Novavax – that will likely contribute millions of doses (maybe tens of millions) to the effort, bringing the American schedule ever forward.
Best yet, this new J&J-Merck tie up isn’t included in the above prognostications. Despite what my vaccine optimism might suggest, vaccine manufacture isn’t quick. It requires 2-3 months to grow the vaccine cultures in a vat, and then a few more weeks for testing and bottling. And that assumes the facilities are already ready to go. The primary reason the Pfizer and Moderna formulas are moving along so quickly is that they began production last year before they even applied for FDA approval. The J&J-Merck effort is only beginning now. We shouldn’t expect to see first doses from the collaboration in the hands of medical professionals until June.
Which raises some very interesting geopolitical possibilities. June 1 is when the United States will have tens of millions of surplus doses from its existing production contracts. The J&J-Merck partnership will add at least 100 million doses on top of that, with many more to come throughout the summer as everyone’s efforts continue to expand. While the bulk of the rest of the world will be starved of vaccine, the United States will have a glut. Since the U.S. government is the entity that contracted for the doses, it will be up to the Biden administration to decide where those doses go.
The term you’re looking for is “vaccine diplomacy”.
It comes at a fortuitous time. The United States has backed away from the world. This isn’t a Clinton thing or a W Bush thing or an Obama thing or a Trump thing or a Biden thing, but instead a United States thing. The American people lost interest in playing a constructive role in the world three decades ago, and America’s political leadership has molded itself around that fact. Trump may have been instinctually and publicly hostile to all things international, but Biden is only different in tone. Biden’s Buy-American program is actually more anti-globalization than Trump’s America-First rhetoric as it is an express violation of most of America’s international trade commitments. TeamBiden says it wants to reestablish America’s global leadership…but it plans to do so without any troops or money. Sorry, but that’s not how it works.
Which makes the possibilities for vaccine diplomacy wildly interesting. The United States has no responsibility to provide COVID vaccines to the world. It can – it will – distribute them, but it will want something in return.
Let’s begin with the obvious decisions:
Canada: Like the United States, the Canadian government contracted for more doses than it needed from multiple vaccine developers, working from the wise theory that not all would pan out. Like the United States, several of the firms Canada chose did work out, suggesting a similar vaccine glut. But unlike the United States, no vaccines are manufactured in Canada, so Canadians have had to wait. Not much longer. Whether it is because the United States finishes its vaccination program and so frees up manufacturing capacity for its northern neighbor, or because the Biden administration chooses to apply vaccine diplomacy to its closest friend, Canada will get all the vaccine it needs in June. Considering the Canadian health system is far superior to America’s, mass vaccination in Canada should be completed by July 1.
Mexico: America’s southern neighbor lacks both America’s manufacturing capacity and Canada’s health system. It was never going to be among the first countries to achieve mass vaccination. If left it its own devices, that is. In reality, Mexico will be second in line. Mexico is one of America’s two largest trading partners (based on how you run the math). Mexicans are America’s second- or third-largest ethnic group (depending upon how one defines “Mexican”). The Mexican-American border is the most-crossed (legally) in the world (no matter how you count). Completely ignoring health and ethics and good-neighborliness and focusing purely on self-interest, Mexico is the obvious second choice for American vaccine diplomacy. Vaccination there will take longer than Canada. After all, there are 130 million people in Mexico to Canada’s 35 million, and the health system isn’t nearly as advanced. But I’d be surprised if the Mexican effort wasn’t functionally completed – and with it, the broader North American economy recovered – before August 1.
After that, the choices become less obvious.
The very nature of the vaccines and coronavirus limits the options:
China and Russia are out. In addition to the pair becoming increasingly hostile to all things American, both have their own vaccines and are not interested in any sort of quid pro quo with Washington.
Many of the poor portions of the world are out. In part, its an issue of economics and strategy. Its harsh to say but there is only so much that Bolivia or Niger can offer the United States. But just as important, it is about COVID itself. The people the virus tends to kill are over 65. In the world’s poorer countries, not all that many live that long. That hardly means coronavirus is something they can just take in stride, but the mass casualties we’ve seen in the advanced world just don’t occur within the younger-aged populations of the poorer parts of the developing world. And the niggling logistical issues remain; While the J&J formula can be distributed easily, it is the only one that can be – and even J&J needs a refrigerator cold chain.
India is probably out as well. Not because an Indo-American tie up wouldn’t be a solid idea, but because India has its own vaccine manufacturing capacity. In fact, India has its own vaccine diplomacy program that already stretches from Mongolia to Myanmar (if you have problems with China, you can probably count on New Delhi to help you out with vaccines).
That still leaves us with just under half the global population that are potential American vaccine diplomacy targets. I can’t tell you which countries TeamBiden will pick in which order. That will in part be determined by the new administration’s evolving priorities as well as the broader geopolitical environment in the last half of 2021. What I can do is lay out the options from cleanest to messiest:
The Five Eyes: Back in the 1950s the Americans worked with the Brits, Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders to build a globe-spanning intelligence collection system. We know that today as the Five Eyes. The five Anglo nations aren’t simply friends and allies, they are family, and it would stretch the mind for all not to be included in some degree of vaccine sharing. It was also be eeeeasy. After all, the UK is taking care of itself, and Canada is already first on America’s list. Combined, there are only 30 million Aussies and Kiwis; Supplying sufficient doses would be child’s play.
Japan and South Korea: Allies? Check. First World countries? Check. Major trading partners? Check. Excellent health infrastructure? Check. Wildly insufficient domestic vaccine manufacturing capacity? Check. Both the Japanese and Koreansloathed Donald Trump’s efforts to wring economic and security concessions out of them, but in the end, both had to give in. Biden has indicated zero inclinations to give back anything Trump secured. If anything, the Biden administration will demand more. Vaccine diplomacy is an excellent way to either secure more concessions in specific or salve the relationships in general.
Southeast Asia: There’s a brewing competition between China and the United States for influence throughout the region, making a broadscale vaccination program a useful tool. The problems are complexity and scope. There are some 650 million people in the region. It is also politically and strategically messy. A recent military coup in Myanmar and an aging military coup in Thailand suggest diplomatic complications. Singapore is wildly rich and can take care of itself. Indonesia is huge and poor and lacks basic infrastructure for upwards of one-third of its population. Laos and Cambodia are de facto Chinese satellites. Malaysia is…stuffy. The smartest target might prove to be the Philippines. Manila gets petulant from time to time if the United States doesn’t toss the Philippines sufficient financial bones. Vaccines could well scratch the itch for years to come.
Colombia and Chile: This pair – courtesy of long-time friendly trade and political relations – are the only South American countries to make the list. Vaccine diplomacy would be a cheap and easy way to firm up ties. It would also underline the broader region that there are indeed benefits to being part of America’s Friends & Family Plan.
Taiwan: The Biden administration is doubling down on every anti-China effort the Trump administration started. On the same day of the J&J-Merck announcement, the new U.S. Trade Representative, Katherine Tai, announced a broadscale legal effort to target pretty much everything China does as a matter of course: from genocide in Xinjiang to political repression in Hong Kong to forced labor to unfair state financing. The only thing I can think of that would piss Beijing off more than the United States providing Taiwan with all the vaccine it needs, would be if an American cabinet secretary accompanied the delivery (Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin would be a delightfully inflammatory choice).
The European Union: Phbbbt. The EU’s vaccination effort to this point has been a disaster. In part it is bad luck: Unlike the US or Canada or the UK, most of the formulas the Continental Europeans backed didn’t work out. In part it is a bad approach: the EU started its negotiations with would-be manufacturers late and the Euros made price-haggling their top priority, so Europe is at the back of the line when it comes to deliveries. In part it was bad politics: the European Commission briefly – and extraordinarily stupidly – threatened border and trade relations with countries that had better vaccination planning. But mostly it is simply that Europe didn’t have any health capacity at the EU level and so it is literally making up everything as it goes.
And so, the rest of the world is pulling ahead. Post-Brexit UK is nearly the best in the world with vaccinations (which is galling enough to the Europeans), but economically devastated and strategically isolated Serbia has already vaccinated 20% of its population. The top-in-class EU country – Denmark – is barely half that far.
As a Europhile, I find it disheartening not only how badly the EU is doing, but how quickly EU members of all wealth levels are losing faith. Hungary, Austria and Denmark have opted to stop waiting for the EU to get its act together and so have entered separate agreements with Russia and Israel. The Netherlands, Sweden, Finland and Poland are likely to follow similar paths.
These disconnects provide a wealth of options for the Biden administration.
It could attempt a straight up vaccines-for-NATO program in an effort to achieve with honey what Trump attempted with vinegar: getting the Europeans to take their security seriously and actually commit financial resources to their own defense.
It could trade hundreds of millions of doses to the EU in exchange for broadscale trade concessions from the entire bloc. Aerospace and agriculture are two particularly sticky logjams that could benefit from vaccine-related lubrication.
It could bypass the EU and NATO completely and instead choose to target specific strategic partners in order to lock down long-term security agreements (Italy and Spain come to mind) to the detriment of any European defense planning.
It could trade vaccines for following the American lead against all things China. Say good-bye to the EU’s recent investment bilateral with Beijing?
It could provide the doses to the United Kingdom to distribute to Europe as London sees fit, an action which would reduce any bad PR to first derivative effects and give the United States a leg up in post-Brexit trade talks with the Brits.
It could toss enough vaccine into Germany’s lap to inoculate the German population but allow Berlin to decide how to distribute the doses. If the doses go to Germans, the EU would politically implode; but if the Germans distribute them to Europe, the German government would fall.
Best yet, the United States is likely to have so many doses by the fourth quarter, it could attempt multiple options.
If you enjoy our free newsletters, the team at Zeihan on Geopolitics asks you to consider donating to Feeding America.
The economic lockdowns in the wake of COVID-19 left many without jobs and additional tens of millions of people, including children, without reliable food. Feeding America works with food manufacturers and suppliers to provide meals for those in need and provides direct support to America’s food banks.
Food pantries are facing declining donations from grocery stores with stretched supply chains. At the same time, they are doing what they can to quickly scale their operations to meet demand. But they need donations – they need cash – to do so now.
Feeding America is a great way to help in difficult times.
The team at Zeihan on Geopolitics thanks you and hopes you continue to enjoy our work.
The United States approved a third COVID-19 vaccine—the latest from Johnson and Johnson—for use, offering up millions of more doses for Americans. As I stated in my video yesterday, vaccines should be available on demand by mid-April. The speed at which vaccines have been developed is nothing short of miraculous, but so too is the high rate of efficacy and safety afforded by all approved vaccine options. In nearly all cases, serious COVID disease—hospital stays, intubation, and death—from COVID are prevented. And there have been no cases found where receiving the vaccine was directly attributable to death. Not. One. This is an astounding track record against the backdrop of a 12-month period when over 500,000 Americans have died because of COVID-19. In just a few short months, much of the US will have turned the corner, even as other countries struggle to secure vaccine supplies to battle against new and emerging viral variants.
If you enjoy our free newsletters, the team at Zeihan on Geopolitics asks you to consider donating to Feeding America.
The economic lockdowns in the wake of COVID-19 left many without jobs and additional tens of millions of people, including children, without reliable food. Feeding America works with food manufacturers and suppliers to provide meals for those in need and provides direct support to America’s food banks.
Food pantries are facing declining donations from grocery stores with stretched supply chains. At the same time, they are doing what they can to quickly scale their operations to meet demand. But they need donations – they need cash – to do so now.
Feeding America is a great way to help in difficult times.
The team at Zeihan on Geopolitics thanks you and hopes you continue to enjoy our work.
Here’s some good news for a change: the US has approved its third vaccine option–Johnson and Johnson’s single-dose shot–even as total daily vaccinations with the two-shot Moderna and Pfizer vaccines continues to rise. With additional supply and the real strides being made in pharmacies and doctors’ offices across the country, most Americans should be able to get a vaccine on demand by mid-April.
For the rest of the world, the story is not nearly as rosy. Supply bottlenecks coupled with new and emerging variants mean that the United States can start easing its lockdowns considerably before summer. In Europe and beyond, the threat of a fourth wave will continue to linger.
If you enjoy our free newsletters, the team at Zeihan on Geopolitics asks you to consider donating to Feeding America.
The economic lockdowns in the wake of COVID-19 left many without jobs and additional tens of millions of people, including children, without reliable food. Feeding America works with food manufacturers and suppliers to provide meals for those in need and provides direct support to America’s food banks.
Food pantries are facing declining donations from grocery stores with stretched supply chains. At the same time, they are doing what they can to quickly scale their operations to meet demand. But they need donations – they need cash – to do so now.
Feeding America is a great way to help in difficult times.
The team at Zeihan on Geopolitics thanks you and hopes you continue to enjoy our work.
In the wee hours of February 26, American military forces in the Middle East carried out a handful of air strikes against Iranian paramilitary forces in Syria. To my knowledge it represents the first such public strike against known Iranian forces in the country in a very long time.
It is exceedingly dangerous to opine at length about any military action carried out by an administration as newborn as TeamBiden. The almost-overwhelming urge is to read-in grand-plan ambitions such as attempting to reset relations with Iran, or shape the Israeli-Saudi dynamic, or presage greater involvement in the region as a whole as a prelude to a broadscale geopolitical rewiring. (Many of Biden’s current national security team were with then-Vice President Biden during the Obama Administration, and watched helplessly and hopelessly as President Obama failed to do jack at a time when forthright American action could have generated positive results. There very well could be some now-that-I’m-in-charge-ism going on.)
The reality is probably much more prosaic, and probably is much closer to what the Biden administration’s official statement claimed: On Feb 15 a local militia carried out rocket attacks against a U.S. facility in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil. That group was a front for Iranian militias in the region. TeamBiden wants to dissuade future attacks while the White House finishes reviewing options for American policy in Iraq.
If the official statement holds true, it’d put the U.S. strike very firmly in the Clintonesque bucket. Bill Clinton wasn’t particularly interested by anything that had to with foreign affairs, but he also wasn’t shy about dispensing moderate levels of military force when his advisors so advised. That isn’t meant as either a lauding or condemnation of the Clinton administration’s Middle East policies, but instead simply a recognition that Clinton was willing to use the various levers of American power in ways neither Obama nor Trump ever did. It’s a fairly traditional view of American power.
Now, just because there probably is no grand plan here doesn’t mean that there won’t be many reverberations. After all, it has been 20 years since the United States had a commander in chief that did much of anything against Iranian interests in the region by means of military strikes – W Bush required a degree of Iranian cooperation against al Qaeda and in managing Iraq, Obama was (infamous) for wanting nothing to do with it at all, and Trump opted for a nearly complete hands-off approach with a couple notable exceptions. Intentionally or not this is a signal change that will have consequences.
A few thoughts:
Turkey: The Turks are absolutely thrilled. Any U.S. policy which involves hurling American ordinance into Syria against anyone except Turkish proxies is one that Ankara can set to music. Turkish-American relations under the past three American presidents have gotten steadily worse to the point that today they are somewhere between cold and nonexistent. It isn’t so much that the Turks want the Americans to be in-region in general, but instead the Turks do appreciate it when the Americans shoot up military factions that the Turks oppose but are too gun-shy to directly go after themselves. The Turkish government was furious with the Obama Administration for threatening to go after the Syrian government but then ultimately backing down. In the Turkish mind Biden is no longer synonymous with his old boss. Down the road, that little reclassification will come in handy for both the Turks and Americans.
Israel: The Israeli government loved the Trump Administration’s maximum pressure campaign to isolate Iran, just as much as they hated the Obama Administration’s engagement with Iran. With Biden flinging bombs and looking to enact a far harsher version of Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal, there now exists the tantalizing possibility of the best of all worlds. Military and economic containment of Iran. I’m sure folks in Jerusalem are smiling thoughtfully at the possibilities.
Russia: According to regional press reports the Biden Administration only alerted the Russians of the actions after the munitions were in-flight. America has long opposed the Russian military presence in Syria, but Obama and Trump were simply not invested enough to do anything about it. Anything that raises a hint of Russian military casualties at American hands is something that would make the Russians extraordinary nervous. After all, the Russian deployments to Syria cannot be maintained in the face of Turkish or American military hostility.
Iraq: Baghdad hasn’t had much to be happy about for a good long while, existing as it does in a politically fractured, economically devastated, strategic limbo. They’re not happy with Iranian militias, but they’re equally unhappy with American military actions. That this counterstrike occurred in Syria rather than Iraq deflects attention from the Iraqis. It’s a small favor from TeamBiden, but Baghdad will accurately interpret it as a favor nonetheless.
Iran: Strategically, the Iranians are in a box. Trump’s maximum pressure campaign had gutted Tehran’s ability to sell crude – and those sales pay for everything that makes Iran Iran, from subsidies to keep its own citizens quiet to the paramilitary forces that comprise the bulk of Iran’s broader Middle Eastern strategy. Iran has run out of expendable forces to deploy in Syria and is now digging deep into its formal army officers. I’d be surprised if the Iranians did not lose someone fairly high-up the chain in today’s U.S. strike.
For some time now, Iran has been attempting to generate some leverage to use against the Americans in upcoming talks, but it isn’t going well. Iran hijacked a South Korean products tanker back around New Years, but neither TeamTrump nor TeamBiden has cared enough to do anything (all hail shale-revolution-induced-American-energy-independence!). Iranian proxies in Iraq regularly lob rockets into American green zones. What was different about the Feb 15 attack is they actually killed a civilian contractor (a Philippine national), which led TeamBiden to underline that consequence-free American blam remains just a button-push away.
If you enjoy our free newsletters, the team at Zeihan on Geopolitics asks you to consider donating to Feeding America.
The economic lockdowns in the wake of COVID-19 left many without jobs and additional tens of millions of people, including children, without reliable food. Feeding America works with food manufacturers and suppliers to provide meals for those in need and provides direct support to America’s food banks.
Food pantries are facing declining donations from grocery stores with stretched supply chains. At the same time, they are doing what they can to quickly scale their operations to meet demand. But they need donations – they need cash – to do so now.
Feeding America is a great way to help in difficult times.
The team at Zeihan on Geopolitics thanks you and hopes you continue to enjoy our work.
I moved from Austin to Denver just under two years ago. Austin is a great city. Young, hip, great food, lots of outdoorsy stuff. But most of my free time is in the summer. So, I’d spend the fall, winter and spring flying here and there only getting glimpses of the wonders of Austin. Then when I’d return home for a long stretch – typically mid-June – temperatures would be above 100 degrees and wouldn’t drop back down into something more civilized until it was time for me to head out again in late-September. So, I relocated to Denver where my free time overlapped with weather that is truly glorious.
So, imagine my shock – and the shock of my Austinite friends I left behind – when for the four days beginning February 15 it was warmer at my home near Denver at 7500 feet than it was in Austin. A freak storm front – an Alberta Clipper, a bomb cyclone, a polar vortex, whatever name you choose – crashed down into the middle third of the country, plunging everyone into a once-in-a-decade-or-more deep freeze. In my 20 years in Austin, we cumulatively received less than three inches of snow. This past week Austin got over a foot.
Texas is the country’s energy capital, both in terms of greentech and conventional power. It’s by far the top U.S. state in terms of wind power generation, it is rapidly moving up the ranks for solar power, and everyone understands’ that it reigns supreme in oil and natural gas.
The storm front seized up everything. It coated wind turbines with ice, forcing 7GW—approximately 10% of Texas’s available grid–offline. It turned associated water that often occurs as part of natural gas production to ice, shutting in half of the state’s production. Oil was similarly impacted, stopping some two-thirds of Texas’s output. Between these direct issues and follow-on ones – water coolant at nuclear power plants froze, forcing shutdowns; insufficient natural gas led to fuel shortages shutting down nearly 17GW–approximately 25% of Texas’s available grid; oil and power curtailments necessitated shut-downs of the bulk of Texas’s refineries leading to mass gas station closures – some seven million Texans lost power. Some for days.
Anti-Green voices were quick to condemn the wind turbine issues as proof that greentech will never work. Anti-fossil fuel voices were quick to condemn conventional fossil-fuel thermal-power generation as broken beyond repair. Both are wrong. Deliberately, stupidly, hilariously wrong. What happened is a lot more basic.
Texas doesn’t normally get winter, and so isn’t winterized.
The technologies and equipment required to operate energy systems at temperatures below 20 degrees are not new. They have been used regularly for decades in places as far removed as Ohio, Oregon, West Virginia, Peru, Tajikistan, Chechnya, and Bosnia. They aren’t technically difficult. They aren’t overly expensive. What they are is usually unnecessary in areas that never have winters. You’re just not going to see things like heating elements embedded in the blades of wind turbines or insulation on natural gas pipes in places like Brazil, Sicily, Vietnam…or Texas.
And yet as hot as Texas gets, and as mild as Texas’ winters normally are, it is not a tropical location. Its climate zones span the range of desert, steppe, Mediterranean, and subtropical. Cold and snow can and do happen. Just not often. But apparently, it happens often enough that Texas now needs some basic winterizing. I’ve no doubt that Texas can manage this. Oklahoma, after all, does stuff like this as a matter of course.
First, the entire incident has dented Texas’ reputation as a low-regulation, low-risk and above all else low-cost place to do business. Winterizing isn’t difficult or overly expensive, but it cannot be done overnight, and it is not free. Those costs must be passed on to anyone who uses fuel or electricity, which is, well, everyone. I still believe Texas will be the U.S. state that will do the best in this rapidly deglobalizing world we are entering, but some of the shine has undoubtedly come off.
Second, a post-mortem of the recovery process will make it very obvious which pieces of infrastructure will recover more quickly. Burst pipes must be repaired or replaced. Homes that require natural gas for heating will have to have everything inspected to prevent catastrophic follow-on fires and explosions. Coal piles that have frozen through all the way to the ground will take several days to fully thaw. But wind turbines? A little sun on the blades and they can start spinning again.
We’ve all assumed that the intermittent nature of greentech generation is a negative, necessitating it being backed-up and balanced-out by more reliable conventional electricity sources like natural gas burning power plants. For the most part that remains true, but this coming week Texas will demonstrate that in some circumstances wind is actually more reliable than supposedly rock-solid, non-intermittent, fully-dispatchable fossil-fuel driven power. That unexpected lesson will lodge itself into Texans’ collective subconscious and color infrastructure decisions for years.
Third, that lesson will find itself reinforced by the issue of longer-term costs.
Safeguarding wind turbines so the events of this past week can never happen again only requires some built-in heating elements or a few drone ports to manually de-ice. Once (or maybe twice) and done. But safeguarding more conventional power generation? Insulating every above-ground oil, natural gas, and water pipe in a state that’s bigger than France? Building out internal storage for coal piles at coal plans? Developing natural gas storage depots rather than relying upon just-in-time fuel deliveries? Insulating the country’s largest concentration of petroleum refineries? Each incremental improvement might be easy, but Texas will need to upgrade everything. The cost will easily run into the tens of billions.
Think this is going to be waved away? Think again. I didn’t simply bring up Austin at the beginning of this newsletter because that’s where I lived, it was also the city that faced the biggest electricity disruptions. Hospitals had to be evacuated. Austin is the state capital, which means the bureaucrats who regulate the Texas power structure were the people who got hit hardest. They. Will. Act. So. This. Never. Happens. Again. And they should.
I don’t believe for a second that Texas is going to reduce oil and natural gas production. The fuels are simply too central to modern economic life. Greentech is nowhere close to being able to eclipse them. But that doesn’t mean the balance cannot shift as regards electricity. As wind turbines get taller, they can tap stronger and more reliable wind currents. The newly installed towers already top 500 feet and are getting bigger by the year. That means while the cost of winterizing the towers will increase linearly, the power those larger turbines generate goes up exponentially. That doesn’t happen with a coal plant.
Texas has massive swathes of great wide windy open land practically custom-made for today’s greentech. After this week Texas’ utilities will have a new appreciation for just how quickly wind power can bounce back after a historically devastating series of storms.
Evolving in the direction of a low-to-no-carbon future was never going to be cheap or simple, and for greentech to really catch on it must convince those who require reliable electricity that its output can be trusted. Texas, a place synonymous with oil, is about to turn that cultural corner.
If you enjoy our free newsletters, the team at Zeihan on Geopolitics asks you to consider donating to Feeding America.
The economic lockdowns in the wake of COVID-19 left many without jobs and additional tens of millions of people, including children, without reliable food. Feeding America works with food manufacturers and suppliers to provide meals for those in need and provides direct support to America’s food banks.
Food pantries are facing declining donations from grocery stores with stretched supply chains. At the same time, they are doing what they can to quickly scale their operations to meet demand. But they need donations – they need cash – to do so now.
Feeding America is a great way to help in difficult times.
The team at Zeihan on Geopolitics thanks you and hopes you continue to enjoy our work.
Where others see a rising naval power, I see a trapped coastal fleet incapable of projecting power, much less patrolling its far-flung economic interests.
Where others see the workshop of the world, I see a radically unstable system propped up by Enron-style finance which survives only due to the strategic largesse of increasingly-hostile foreign powers.
Where others see 1.4 billion people, I see one of history’s fastest aging and shrinking demographics in a country that will – in the best-case scenario – see its population shrink by half this century.
Where others see swarms of exports, I see a system faltering from a lack of domestic consumption that could lead to economic ruin at any time, but most certainly this decade.
Where others see the only major economy to grow in 2020, I see a system so broken that most of its “growth” is simply from shoving unsold inventory into warehouses, something I last saw en masse during the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis.
But above all, where others see a malevolent, conniving government leadership scrupulously implementing a century-long master plan for global domination, I see a terrified cadre that broadly sees China as I do, and so is instituting a North Korea-style political and information lockdown in the desperate hope of preventing China’s inevitable return to its historical mean of civil war, civil collapse, and mass famine.
In this newsletter, I’m not going to go down the line of reasons why China is doomed. For those of you familiar with my work, you’re probably getting a bit sick of that. For those of you who are new to my work, the full and detailed hit-list is best addressed in Chapters Two through Four of Disunited Nations, the section that deals with what makes for successful countries and empires.
This series is instead about the issues that will be facing the freshman Biden administration, and I’d be remiss if I left China out.
The first and perhaps most important takeaway is that the United States public – regardless of political persuasion – has turned broadly sharply anti-Chinese on issues political, economic and strategic. This isn’t a Trump thing or a Biden thing, but instead a broadscale cultural transformation intertwined with a mix of populist and geopolitical factors that have been unfolding for well over a decade.
Biden is many things, but first and foremost his personal ideologies tack with the winds. In my personal opinion this doesn’t make him leadership material, but for the Chinese it means that the power of the American executive will lean towards doing what the American political mood demands: confrontation.
In Biden’s early days that means not simply leaving in place, but publicly and unapologetically reaffirming, several long-standing Trump-era China policies. Trump’s trade war is now bipartisan. Trump’s anti-China tariffs remain firmly in place. Trump’s anti-China sanctions – most notably ones that include Huawei and the Chinese equivalent of Chevron – aren’t going anywhere. Trump’s ever-tightening sanctions on Iran, once a leading Chinese oil supplier, have been confirmed as the new norm.
Even some of Trump’s on-the-way-out-the-door policy grenades have been openly embraced as founding principles of the new administration.
In Trump’s last month the administration changed policies to enable any federal government official to visit Taiwan at any time in their official capacity as full representatives of the U.S. government. That’s only a baby step away from full diplomatic recognition of Taiwan as an independent nation (because, well, Taiwan is an independent nation). Biden confirmed his agreement with the shift on his first day.
Similarly, in its last days the Trump administration formally recognized the Chinese genocide of Uighurs in the far western Chinese province as an actual genocide (because, well, it is a genocide). Biden put his personal stamp on that recognition as well, also on his first day.
What I found to be one of the late-Trump administration’s more notable inactions was when Iran seized a South Korean vessel in the Persian Gulf, ostensibly for the Koreans abiding by American sanctions against Iran. The Persian Gulf is the source of half of the world’s internationally traded oil. As recently as a decade ago such state piracy in the world’s most strategic waterway would have warranted direct and prolonged American presidential and military attention. Trump did nothing. Biden has done nothing. The Americans no longer give any number of pieces of excrement about global oil market stability. And as the world’s largest oil importer and sporting a navy that cannot project power to the Persian Gulf, the Chinese are and should be exceedingly concerned.
Biden, of course, has come up with a few thoughts of his own. Crackdowns in Hong Kong and human rights in Tibet, two issues that Trump largely ignored, are back in fashion in Washington. So far TeamBiden has only offered rhetoric on the topics, but state policy is likely to be updated up to and including some degree of sanctions within a few weeks.
Trump also tended to play down territorial disputes, particularly as regards the South China Sea – a shallow waterway that Beijing hilariously (and under international law, illegally) claims in its entirety despite nearly all of it being closer to Vietnam, the Philippines or Malaysia than to the Chinese mainland. In his first week Biden ordered nothing less than two aircraft carrier battle groups to sail nice-and-slow through the entire area in mocking defiance of Chinese claims.
But perhaps the bit that has me most interested in the weeks to come is Biden’s new trade negotiator: Katherine Tai. The U.S. Trade Representative typically has few friends. It is his or her job to both enforce and negotiate all trade deals the United States is a party to. Trump’s USTR, Robert Lighthizer, successfully completed deals with the Koreans and Japanese as well as an updating of the NAFTA accords. He is an old trade hand seeped in the fractious world of international negotiations.
Tai is…not. She has never managed a large staff. She has never participated in a meaningful large-scale international negotiation, much less led one. She did work for the USTR’s office under the Obama administration, although doing nothing that would be confused with a leadership role. Until a few weeks ago she was simply a high-ranking Congressional staffer. Knowledgeable about the issues? Absolutely and undeniably. Heavily seasoned in the world of international diplomacy? Absolutely and undeniably not.
What Tai is is America-focused. Until now her job has been to fine-tune Lighthizer’s deals so that when they are brought to the Congressional floors they enjoy as broad and as bipartisan support as is humanly possible. She successfully rode point on NAFTA2’s ratification with House Ways & Means (by far Congress’ most powerful committee). Unlike Lighthizer who had a reputation for intentionally abrasive and supremely dislikable hypercompetence, everyone in Congress apparently loves Katherine Tai. To my knowledge she is the only person in human history that both Elizabeth Warren and Rand Paul have said (obliquely) kind things about. Heady stuff.
Tai is not a negotiator, but instead a trade lawyer. And that tells me everything I need to know about Biden’s developing trade agenda. There isn’t one in the traditional sense. Biden hasn’t been shy about noting that he has no interest in signing any trade deals until the coronavirus crisis is firmly in the rear-view mirror. In the United States, accelerated vaccine development suggests the second half of the year is looking up. But the rest of the advanced world isn’t going to achieve mass vaccination until very close to year’s end, and the developing world will take (at minimum) a year more. Aside from a deal with a post-Brexit and increasingly economically desperate United Kingdom, there aren’t likely to be any meaningful deals negotiated during the Biden administration at all.
But, again, Tai is a trade lawyer. She wasn’t brought on to negotiate new deals. She was brought on to sue any country violating the letter or the spirit of U.S. trade law…which is pretty much everyone. If I lived in Europe, I’d be very worried about this (a trade war is imminent), but the foreign power Tai has the most direct experience with is China itself; During Tai’s stint with the USTR, she spent some time as chief council for China trade enforcement. That’s a fancy way of saying she knows how to sue Beijing.
Oh yeah, and one more thing: while Tai is a full-blooded American (born in Connecticut), ethnically, she is Taiwanese. It doesn’t really matter whether Biden meant for his new USTR’s background to matter. It will. The Chinese Communist Party perceives the collective actions and omissions out of the new administration as a full-court press against the interests of the CCP. They aren’t wrong.
And they’ll be looking for ways to push back.
If you enjoy our free newsletters, the team at Zeihan on Geopolitics asks you to consider donating to Feeding America.
The economic lockdowns in the wake of COVID-19 left many without jobs and additional tens of millions of people, including children, without reliable food. Feeding America works with food manufacturers and suppliers to provide meals for those in need and provides direct support to America’s food banks.
Food pantries are facing declining donations from grocery stores with stretched supply chains. At the same time, they are doing what they can to quickly scale their operations to meet demand. But they need donations – they need cash – to do so now.
Feeding America is a great way to help in difficult times.
The team at Zeihan on Geopolitics thanks you and hopes you continue to enjoy our work.
