Europe in turmoil, energy prices through the roof.

0:00 Speaker 1 With us this morning is Marioconomo, who’s with many large money central banks, and I’ve been giving us updates. So what’s going on in Europe? Mario? The European Central Bank increase interest rates again. I personally think it’s a big mistake and it’s going to hurt all the economies. Tell us what’s going on in Europe? What’s going on with

0:24 the economies of Germany, France, Italy? To you tell us?

0:30 Speaker 2 Yes, good morning cats, round table. So yes, you’re right. They did increase the interest rates, and once again they’re trying to fight that beast called inflation. Unfortunately, they’re not having tremendous luck. If you look at the price people are paying at the pump, and if you look at the cost of food in Europe, it remains ridiculously high.

0:50 So they keep increasing these interest rates in hopes that they’re going to actually dampen people’s appetite to go out and spend money. But the reality is when you neat to buy food, you have to buy food. So certain items, no matter what the price goes up to, people will have to pay the money to buy them. So I

1:08 think we have a longer and more difficult problem to tackle here, and that is specifically one of not enough food. I think if they were to actually flood the market with more food, we would actually see the price come down.

1:21 If we were to see, for example, energy costs come down transporting the food costs come down, then we would see energy inflation come down, we would see food inflation come down. Unfortunately, this is not happening. In fact, quite the opposite is happening. We saw the recent announcement once again of Opic’s desire to decrease the number of barrels

1:43 that it produces per day, and we’ve seen what’s going on in the oil markets, and I think realistically the Europeans are very spooked at this point because they have winter looming around the corner and they realize that they’re going to have to once again figure out what natural gas market is going to do and if they’re going

2:02 to be able to afford to heat their homes. I do want to say something which I find very interesting. A couple of the largest importers of Russian LNG are actually in Europe, in the European Union. So, notwithstanding all the sanctions that have been applied to Russia, LNG which continues to be one of the items which is not

2:22 sanctioned by the European Union. Two member countries specifically are the second largest importers of Russian LNG.

2:34 Speaker 1 And what Russia is I said that you have cut production, but nobody really knows what Russia is doing. OPIC says they cut production. Nobody really knows what Opic is doing. And what they’re doing is what I’ve been told is Russian is moving it to Pakistan and India, and then Pakistan and India is sending it to Europe and setting

3:00 it into the United States.

3:01 Speaker 2 What do you hear, Well, actually, Pakistan’s not sending it, they’re actually keeping it for themselves. But India, Yes, India is refining the product, the crude, and it’s actually selling it then subsequently on the markets, and it’s allowed to do that because it’s not part of the whole sanctions policy. Look, these sanctions haven’t worked. It’s ridiculous for everybody to be

3:23 still walking around thinking that they’re actually creating some kind of harm and damage on the Russian economy. People a while several weeks were all excited because they saw inflation in Russia was running it around eleven percent and that the ruble had collapsed once again. And all I have to say to my European brothers and sisters is, you know,

3:42 when inflation in Russia is running at eleven percent and inflation in the Eurozone on food stuffs is running anywhere from ten to twenty percent, you know you should take very little joy in the fact that Russia is enjoying eleven percent inflation because frankly, at the end of the day, whether you’re paid in rubles or in euros, if inflation

4:00 is running ten to twenty percent, it’s running ten to twenty percent, so you’re feeling the pinch. So I’m a little confused why everybody seems to be so excited that the ruble has collapsed and the Russia has some inflation when things in the West are not particularly good.

4:16 Speaker 1 Anybody, how is the economy of France, Italy and Germany? Those are the big three on day in the European community.

4:25 Speaker 2 Yes, well, it looks like Germany is going to dodge the worst of what the predictions were. But having said that, like I said, winners around the corner, energy costs are still although they’re creeping up, they’re still relatively low. Let’s see what will happen in the rest of the year as far as Italy goes. They saw on the island

4:42 of Lampadusa earlier this week, in a twenty four hour period, a huge influx of people of migrants from Libya. The island itself and the facilities are overwhelmed, so much so that the Italian Prime Minister has basically worn Europe that unless Europe gets actively involved in supporting Italy in this, they may actually have to consider more extreme options, including

5:05 shutting down their borders. I do want to mention one other thing. This is important. We haven’t touched on this in a while. President Putin announced that in his new budget he’s actually increasing Russia’s defense spending from fifty four billion this year to one hundred billion next year. That’s a huge increase.

5:26 Speaker 1 I know, well, he’s selling he’s selling oil ten million barrels a day at a billion dollars a day in sales.

5:38 Speaker 2 Yes, he’s making a lot of money on oil, There’s no doubt about that.

5:41 Speaker 1 But the way, you know who’s making them rich America, the United States, Because if President Biden is cutting back on fossil fuels, the price goes up and Russia makes the money.

5:57 Speaker 2 Well, there’s no doubt in what you’re saying. The reality is that if we could see the US open the spigots, there would be a tremendous impact in the marketplace, the global marketplace. But unfortunately the US, for whatever reason, has decided that they’re not going to go down that road.

6:14 At the moment, it’s for you Americans to decide what happens moving forward.

6:19 Speaker 1 Yes, we got an election coming up in thirteen fourteen months, and I pray for our country. Thank you. Let’s just yes, if we have one more thing, go ahead.

6:28 Speaker 2 One one last note. We saw there was a very good visit between President Putin and North Korea’s leader. They had a very good meeting in Russia together. In fact, the North Korean leader has invited the Russian president to come and visit North Korea. I think that’s something the US needs to keep their eye on. I don’t think

6:48 there’s anything the US can do. Sanctioning Russia or Korea even more is not going to have a tremendous impact. But I think that the US does need to keep their eye on that because that is going to be a relationship the two of them will develop, which will grow and blossom into something far greater and dangerous than

7:06 any of us thought could.

7:08 Speaker 1 Mario Konomu, thank you very much for updating the American people. God bless you and God bless America. And we’ll catch up again real soon.

7:16 Speaker 2 Thank you. Enjoying your day cut, thank. You, Mario. All right, safe travels, yes, thank you. Take care,