Do Not be Distracted Warns Renowned Arabist

Meguerditch Bouldoukian served as deputy governor of the central Bank of Lebanon 1985-1990 and for more than half a century he has been pivotal in balancing Middle East banking imperatives with those of New York, London, and Paris. The Nobel-nominated Armenian banker is a renowned Arabist and acknowledged as a world authority on correspondent banking. In the eye of the storm he talked exclusively to us.....…

Internationally what will be the ripple effects of a Trump victory?

There are two immediate Trump objectives the repercussions of which will be found everywhere.

There is the determination to make the United States the world’s permanent major energy producer. Freedom of production and distribution of oil, gas, and coal will end inflation in the United States and this will “ripple-out” to Europe and also Australasia. This is because the general populace realises how doctrinal, artificial, barriers to production have caused all prices to spiral well beyond just the obvious and immediate ones of transport and energy.

There is also the pledge to restore the $USD as the world’s unchallenged and indeed, unchallengeable reserve currency.

This will be achieved in harmony with the determination to end outsourcing and restore the United States as the global manufacturing nation i.e. making it Great Again.

So in short you will see a future Trump administration stripping away the ideological impediments, obstacles, to this pre-eminence such as access to oil and gas along with what Trump views as the way United States industrial power has been whittled away by an ideological pursuit of globalism.

He sees all these factors as artificial and self-imposed obstacles to restoring this greatness. I urge anyone in banking, trade, politics not to undervalue the importance of this single objective and thus the perils to any entity standing in the way of its accomplishment

The multilaterals, notably United Nations, are hell-bent on globalization. Your view?

I have discerned a reluctance by the politico-media elites to discuss this. But I want to take the opportunity you have provided me to sound one particular warning to a pending and alarming development.

The UN plans globalization of the World Health Organization ’s Pandemic Treaty. In this globalization, the elite will decide the Vaccines for our kids, will decide where you can travel, and where you can congregate. The UN and its WHO subsidiary which is still under critical review after its initial response to Covid is acting as a totalitarian power and wants to impose WHO’s Pandemic Treaty.

This will be a form of enslavement. This treaty threatens to strip you, of your ability to make personal health decisions, placing immense power in the hands of global elites to control your life. It can cripple our economies, and curtail our fundamental freedom. We must act to stop the passing of this treaty.

How do you rate the chances of the Harris-Walz ticket and if elected what will be the global repercussions?

The US is likely finished as an empire unless its public wakes up in the coming elections. Over 1.2 million Covid 19 deaths, over $40 trillion national debt, and corporate/personal debts. The Democrat party has become corrupt in its single objective of attaining power. Over 1.2 million Covid 19 deaths, over $40 trillion national debt, and corporate/personal debts, as well as 2 million citizens behind bars.

This ticket must enunciate and so clearly defined policies such as for example cancelling the electric vehicle mandate and cutting costly and burdensome regulations and so many elitist dictats which so demonstrably and damagingly play out on its vaunted blue collar base..

Similarly this ticket must at least pay lip service to cutting federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, radical gender ideology, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on children.

While we are on the Democrat/Democracy topic there is this other matter that the politico-media elites decline to discuss which is the validity of the process, the procedure, of the federal presidential election process itself.

The election must be seen to be beyond criticism, beyond tampering, and thus must enforce same-day voting, voter identification, paper ballots, and proof of citizenship. This is routinely skated over by the very sectors that should via their declared mission be scrutinising it.

The degree to which the Democrat de facto open border policy ties into this is similarly remarkable for the way in which it is not discussed by these elites.

Do you fear a world recession?

It may surprise you. But here I am optimistic. The world economy has become multipolar in the 21stcentury. The economy of each nation-state in the liberal free enterprise system has created trade zones around the world which has transformed into “recession-less” economies. Technological changes have made countries adapt rapidly to challenging opportunities. Economic cycles exist as explained by such sages as Kondratiev due to permanent evolution of science, research, innovation, and, of course technology.

As long as the international financial system is dominantly sound, in the West and the East, we do not have to fear a world recession. Even if the domination of the US Dollar has competitors such as the Euro and the Chinese Yuan still each country has its industrial production, the capacity utilization and its macroeconomic structures which evolve according to the forces of demand and supply.

What was the real reason in your view for Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine?

Any former Soviet Republic that is changing its foreign policy against Russia and getting closer to the West and NATO, such as Georgia and Armenia have been punished by the Kremlin. Putin resists expansion of NATO eastward while post-cold war security of Russia is expanding westward. He considers Ukraine is an integral part of Russian national patrimony.

Of course, Kremlin’s ruling elite resent the hostile West through a lens of suspicion and insecurity. The chaotic withdrawal of the US army from Afghanistan gave a sign to Putin to invade Ukraine. I may add here that Trump attributes this debacle to a Biden-encouraged emphasis on a virtuous in-vogue societal priority at the expense of one with accepted military plans and objectives.

The annexation of Crimea in 2014 received a weak reaction from the West. Putin is a calculated risk taker.

You are known to follow gold closely. What do you see now and in the medium term?

The gold price per ounce has gone up from the last century’s $35 per ounce and fluctuates always moving upwards. Since 9/11/2001, my forecast on Nov. 9 2001 that the price per ounce of $277.30 will move upward to around $1,000 per ounce was successful.

In the medium term, the tendency is upwards. There is speculation; however, there is a real demand in this uncertain and unstable world. On December 6, 2023, my forecast for the next 6 months was $2,500 per ounce. It attained that mark and over... today it is $2,627.

Your conclusion?

Should there be a Trump restoration we will witness the advent of hegemony not too dissimilar from the era when monarchs had much more power than they do now. I do accept that there will be a reckoning notably about the causes and effects that led to the Kabul fiasco and also the continuing and current one on the US southern border.

The reverence accorded over the last four years to the global institutions will evaporate, and quickly I am inclined to think also.

In general and in school room scientific terms all policy will be subject to a litmus test: is it going to Make America Great Again?

Lord Scarman direction on critiquing courts is still ignored

Cases centred on pedigree dogs and which ended up in the High Court underline an uncertain focus within the judicial system.

The first case involved dog judging and etiquette at a dog show.

The second and more recent case devolved around the pedigree registration of certain show dogs.

Both these episodes involved the official dog breeder community and its defined rules and regulations.

In both instances the dispute went beyond the established breeder hierarchy and instead wound up in the High Court.

In both separate cases the High Court found itself grappling with the human frailties, rights, wrongs, in addition to the characteristics of exotic pet dog breeds and the required etiquette displayed at show time and also the sale and purchase value of the highly-bred creatures .

How did these two meritless cases which should have been settled at the level of the authorised pet breeder society wind up at the taxpayer expense at the High Court? Note that we are talking here about pet dogs and not the working dog category.

A reason is that there is no screening within the judiciary to eliminate the passage to the court system of such cases involving as they do pastimes which have no bearing on the welfare of the public.

This compares with the judicial system in Scotland in which the procurator fiscal would have intervened and dismissed both cases as trivial and outside any further crown consideration.

With judicial intervention at so many levels now permeating every aspect of daily life many are baffled why relevant authorities as a whole remain paralysed in explaining with any clarity the whys and wherefores of the merit of cases and their subsequent outcomes.

An underpinning reason is a widespread belief at all levels of society that there is a blanket ban on any commentary or conflicting argument to do with anything associated with a judge.

Lord Scarman impatient to the point of being visibly angry was confronted with this issue when the Law Lord toured New Zealand.

“You may criticise the judgement,” he explained.

“But you may not criticise the judge.”

Correctly perceiving that his audience had still not grasped this simple point, Lord Scarman now illustrated it with words to this following effect.

*You may criticise the judgement…

*But you cannot criticise the judge who made it by claiming for example that the judge did so under the influence of drink.

Now much later many who are in a position to comment on judicial activity are struck dumb when requested to do so.

At the time the pet dog trials wended their way through the High Court nobody in any position of authority at all said that the disputes in the public domain were trivial and that they should have been resolved by the individuals involved and the society regulating their hobby.

But everyone held back for fear of offending the bench.

Much of the judiciary is now occupied in delivering verdicts on historical disputes and ancient grievances.

There is the fear of challenging contemporary judgements on these issues and it is exhibited especially by most politicians.

They indicate that having come from the bench the judgement is holy writ.

Two topics now require more than cursory examination.

One is what goes into the court system, especially the High Court.

The other is what comes out in the way of judgements.

For too long those who should ask the questions have become poodles of an expansionary and unchallenged judiciary.