If the mortgage rate is high, more people would prefer renting apartments instead of buying a house. That drives rent prices up. The problem is that due to the high inflation, the price of a house also rises.

The price for housing also rises when the mortgage rate is low. Then it is much easier to take 30-year long mortgage and get your own housing instead of paying expensive rent and getting nothing at the end of the rent term. Then more people will buy a house with a mortgage. With higher demand comes higher price. So the price for housing rises.

Freddie Mac, 30-Year Fixed Rate Mortgage Average in the United States [MORTGAGE30US], retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MORTGAGE30US, September 13, 2022.

Don’t Quit Your Day Job... dot com

In some countries, government incentivises taking a mortgage. Military servants usually get lower mortgage rates. In UK if a person above 18 buys his first house for less than 500k$, he pays only half of a house price. In Netherlands, government insures mortgages, meaning, if a person is insolvent to pay for a mortgage, government will buy a house from a bank, and return money from mortgage payments to a person. The government will also give a discounted rent for a person (I will check this information, I can be mistaken). Therefore the prices for a condo in Amsterdam tripled (if i don’t mistaken). All of these incentives drive prices for housing up.

Real estate market has a huge problem – it is hard for prices to fall. Not only because of scarcity of land, higher price for materials and labor costs. There are no market mechanisms to make prices fall. In the stock market, it is possible to short stocks – sell the stock that you don’t own, and buy it back when price falls, making the profit in the difference. Short selling works with stocks, because the stocks of one company are identical, their value is always the same.

It is not possible to find 2 exactly the same houses, even Soviet flats have different views, neighbors, and house condition. Therefore, short is not really possible.

To lower the housing price, either the place should loose the attractiveness or the new technologies should make housing cheaper. That what happens in the US market. New housing for the mid-class household became simplier and smaller than before. Remember the housing in Manhattan and Brooklyn of 20th century – the red brick houses with fire stairways on the façade. Compare their quality and design with new housing: the cheap coloured ventilated panels with studio apartments.

How 9/11 affected housing prices

The example of attractiveness loss was on 9/11. Based on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, most of the employees who worked nearby moved to other parts of New York City or New Jersey. The rent prices for an office in Manhattan dropped from 52.5$ to 50.75$ per square foot. By November 2001, 57 million square feet near Trade Center were traded on market just for 41.81$ (Pearson, Macroeconomics, page 54). but that happened with offices. What about the households?

More people started to buy one-family houses near New York. The prices went up 10-15% comparing with previous year. Even thought, the average price of one-family house in the US has fallen.

Mortgage crisis

After looking at the graph, we see that there was only one fall of housing in the Mortgage crisis of 2008-2009. The crisis basically happened, because banks gave too much mortgages to people, who had a huge risk to become insolvent.

Thousands of people couldn’t pay off the debts. Their houses were put for a sale. The supply of houses was so high, that the prices went down. Construction companies stopped building houses, just because there were not too much people who could afford houses and not so much banks would give mortgages. For construction companies it is very bad – they should sell nearly 70% of housing as fast as possible to pay off the debts. Therefore, a lot of companies became bankrupt and ceased the construction of objects.

Such situation lasts till the supply is covered by demand. Meaning that prices fall to a fair price. When it is happened, the construction continues.

I love buying premium products. I buy everything I need and I afford any hobbies I want. But I don’t become poor after purchasing all of this stuff. And most of the time I only pay 20-30% of the item’s price. How can I afford to buy an iPhone for 300€? How do I get money after buying an expensive camera? Let’s learn about depreciation.

When you buy stuff, look at 3 things: a lifetime of a product, It is hard to break, for how much will I be able to sell this stuff in the future?

Buy 1-year-old stuff

I don’t buy new iPhones, Macbooks, cameras, or bikes (i hope soon I will add cars here). Instead, I buy 1-year-old items. For example, I bought iPhone 11 pro 256 GB just for 600€, while the 12th was priced at 1200€. This iPhone was in perfect condition and was just 6 months old. I keep it already for 2 years and I can sell it for 450€ (Sep 2022). However, I broke Face-Id while swimming and now I have to give a discount and sell it for 300€. The total cost of an iPhone usage was 300€, or 150€ per year or 12.5€ per month.

Some people sell their 1-year-old phones to buy new ones. They sell it for 50%-70% of the price. That means, that to have a new iPhone each year, a person should pay a difference of 600€ between the initial price and selling price, or 50€ per month. But if you wanna have the previous model and keep it for 2 years, the monthly payment is just 12.5€. It is 4 times cheaper to have the previous model. If you keep the old model for a longer time, maybe you can even pay 10€ per month. To clarify, it does not mean that you pay someone € each month, it just shows how much value the phone loses every month.

Depreciation is the value, that an item loses each month or year. It is also treated as the real cost of usage of a good. In theory, you should take the price of a good when you bought it and the selling price after the expected time of usage. Then you subtract these prices and divide them by the number of years or months that you plan to use that stuff. For an iPhone 14, it will be (1200-600)/3 = 200€ per year if we assume that we use a 1200€ iPhone for 3 years and sell it for 600€.

Depreciation can be counted linearly, or more complicated. For easiness, assume that in the first year the item loses the same cost as in the next 2 years combined.

Used items are Inflation-free. That means if the price for new models goes up, the used items will cost the same as before. It is just a rule. For example, in Russia, there is huge inflation in cars. The previous models of a car cost 100k€ 1 year ago, the new model cost 300k€ due to the import restrictions. We could imagine, that if these cars still have the same engine and interior, the price for the one-year-old car should also rise dramatically. However, it is not the case. For example, the used Audi Q7 of 2020 with 50k km costs 70k€, while the new one of 2022 costs 250k€. The only difference between them is the small adjustment in the exterior and interior.

Different countries have different prices. For example, I bought a used camera, Sony a7 II for just 570€. When I came to Russia, it appeared that I can sell it for 1.2k€. So, I can sell it here and get a 600€ profit. It is known as Arbitrage. It is when you profit from the difference in prices without risk.

Buy high quality

Don’t buy low quality. Such items are easy to break, and their lifetime is short. You will not be able to sell it, so you just throw it in the rubbish bin after some time. Keep in mind that cheap low quality items are sometimes made with the child force and in poor worker conditions. And by buying and throwing the bad quality items in the rubbish bin, you are polluting nature.

High-quality items last long, show prestige and are beautiful and comfortable.

Also buy new

Not every item can be bought or used. Don’t buy used headphones, parachutes, or stuff you know nothing about. For example, I want to buy a bike for 2.8k€. It is expensive. I could probably find the one-year-old bike, but I don’t know how to check the bike for quality, or I don’t want to change the details. In such situations, I can either hire a professional or ask a friend for help. Or just buy a new one. The bike, for example, has a lifetime of 7 years on average, and then the depreciation will be 2800/7 = 400€. Of course, a bike can be sold even for 1000€ in 7 years, because we can change details and make repairments each year, but let’s assume that we do nothing. So, the cost of a bike will be 33€ per month. It is not too much for high quality.

What about fashion

Fashion is complicated. The fashion houses know that people want to be trendy, and the style changes each half a year. I don’t know if it is a good idea to buy used clothes, but it is a good idea to buy expensive classical outfits. For men it is easy – just buy suits for 2k€ each and use them for a decade. Buy good shirts, t-shirts, and 8 pairs of shoes for different events. The men’s classics change too slowly. There are also trendy casual outfits that should be changed more often.

For women, it does not work. Fashion for women is much more important. It is a way to show her status and prove to herself that she is the most beautiful. However, some brands like Burberry don’t change their fashion style too often. Gucci can also be worn for a quite long time. I recommend not buying the brand stuff, but quality stuff. Don’t be a crank and don’t buy an item with huge brand logos. Instead, buy something attractive. You will never find a brand on a 5k€ dress and suit.

When buying new clothes, remember how can you combine them with other clothes or whether you already have enough outfits for some occasions. Maybe you just need to buy high-quality t-shirts instead of 20 t-shirts with cheap prints. I have an excel file, where I put all the wardrobe items in my Austrian house. It appeared that I have items, that costs 6000€ in total. But I have only a few things that cost more than 100€. I understood that I have too many cheap clothes up to 25€. And the thing is that I wear such clothes for 1 or 2 years. The expensive items, however, I wear for a much longer time. I also found out that I have 5 suits, and 4 of them cost less than 200€ each.

I hope, after reading this article, you will buy quality stuff for lower prices and will afford anything you want.

Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) is the most important index of American companies. DJIA index includes 30 companies, chosen by Wall Street Journal editors. These 30 companies are large and the most influential companies. The index includes Apple, Boeing IBM, McDonald’s, Disney, and Walmart.

History

In 1896 Charles H. Dow created the Dow Jones index. He included 12 industrial corporations. General Electric was one of these 12 companies and the only company that remained in the Dow Jones Index for 120 years and was removed in 2018 due to the 55% annual loss. In 1929 the list included 30 companies, such as U.S. Steel, General Motors Corporation, Wright Aeronautical, and Standard Oil.

Charles H. Dow published his index in “Customers’ Afternoon Letter”, now known as the Wall Street Journal.
All of the companies are treated as blue chips (the most expensive chip in poker) – the most trustworthy, influential, and expensive companies, that are traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

Today, Dow Jones Industrial Average includes not only industrial but any sector – Salesforce, Apple, Microsoft, Visa, Mcdonald’s, Goldman Sachs and United Health are all parts of the DJIA. In the previous 10 years, 10 companies replaced the old corporations.

How is Dow Jones index counted

Dow Jones index is harder than the S&P 500, where the market cap of the companies is summed up. DJIA takes the share price of each company, sums
them up, and divides the sum by the Dow Divisor. Initially, the Dow Divisor was equal to the number of companies in an index, but then the problem happened: some companies decided to split shares. The companies split because the price of one share is too high, so that investors can’t afford such shares anymore. The Dow Jones adjusts to such situations to keep the index on the same level after such an operation.

Some people think that points in Dow Jones are equal to the dollar. It is not right. Each point is a dollar divided by the Dow Divisor. Let’s see how we count the points.

As of February 2021, the Dow Divisor was equal to 0.152. Basically, 1 dollar equals 1/0.152 = 6.5 points.

Let’s sum up the share prices of each company, we get 4001$. After dividing it by 0.152 we get 26322 points. This is the Dow Jones Index.

You may ask: why the heck do we need that index if it is so complicated with points? Because it shows well the situation in the country as well as in the stock market. It shows well the times of recession, stagnation, and growth.

How to buy

Dow Jones is just an index, but you can buy exchange-traded funds (ETFs), that copy the Dow Jones Index portfolio.

Learn more about other indexes: S&P 500, Russel 2000, Nasdaq 100, and Wilshire 5000.
Source: Investopedia and “Stock market 101” written by Michele Cagan.

(the prices are being updated as well as information till 15th September) Let’s say, we open a coffee shop on the street, where we sell only espresso. How much should the price be? And what difficulties will we face when opening?

One-time purchase

• Coffee machine – 15000€
• furniture – 5000€
• tools and accessories – 500€
• brand development – 1000€
• card terminal – 50€
• certificate and legal procedures

Monthly purchase

• Rent – 1000€
• Electricity – 1000€
• Employees – 5700€
• cleaning, accountant, lawyer, insurance – 500€

Per-cup purchase

• disposable cup – 0.1€
• coffee beans – 0.4€
• card commission – 2%

Certification

To sell Coffee, you need approval from the state. In Vienna, it is WKO (Wirtschaftskammer Organisation, or economic chamber in English). By the way, you don’t need it if you sell beverages in cans or bottles and if you sell simple food, like sandwiches, but you can only have max of 8 guests inside of a cafe. Not our case.

Rent

We rent a coffee shop on the ground floor of the shopping street. Let’s say we pay 1000€ for 20 m2 and expect to have 15 customers per hour on average. You may also find an already equipped coffee shop and just pay an auflösung (price for the furniture and equipment).

If only one employee works in a coffee shop, you don’t need a toilet by the law. Baristas can work at different time and then they will be treated as one employee in WC questions.

The place should have clean water, a sink, air conditioning, heating, and low humidity. If humidity is high, the beans can become bad. If there will not be air conditioning or heating, the employee will not be able to work in a coffee shop by the law. For example, in the UK when the temperature is less than 16 degrees celsius the employee is not allowed to work. In Austria, I found only the maximal allowed temperature of 32.5 degrees. And we will have to pay the employee even though that the shop is closed.

We also need to take insurance that covers all the things inside, especially the coffee machine.

Electricity

Based on https://www.statista.com/statistics/1271527/austria-monthly-wholesale-electricity-price/Statista, the price for 1 Megawatt was 359$ on July 2022, while before it was just 30-50€. The high prices for electricity are compensated by lower rent prices as well as governmental help.

Coffee machine

The coffee machine is the most expensive stuff inside of a coffee shop and is as important as beans. There are two main brands – La Cimbali, La Marzocco. both of them cost from 10000€ to 15000€. La Marzocco is more traditional, while La Cimbali tries to implement new technologies in the coffee machine. La Marzocco attracts coffee lovers, and they are ready to pay a premium for coffee made in this machine.

read about the difference between La Marzocco and La Cimbali

Why is it so expensive? This is due to the pressing mechanism. By the way, Espresso got the name from “press”, the process of pressing the ground coffee and water flowing through it. The pressure a coffee machine can do and the boiling process is the most important in coffee brewing. The machines are made out of thick metal, which makes cleaning easy. These machines last for decades (in the museum of Salzburg I have seen the model of the 1950th that can still work well).

Therefore, the price of the used coffee machine is still high. For example, a woman sells La Marzocco Ep for 5900€, that she bought in 2017 while the new costs €11900. Ps., this model is not produced anymore, and I found only one seller. For such a price, you may buy better models of La Marzocco.

To count the price of usage of a coffee machine or depreciation, we subtract the selling price from buying price, for example, 15000€-10000€= 5000€, and divide the years that we use the machine. Let’s say, 5 years. 5000€/5 years = 1000€, or 83€ per month.

additional coffee machines

Some people like Moka, the 50$ pot with 2 separate levels: water and ground coffee on the lower level. The pot is boiling on the stove. The brown liquid goes to the higher level, which is Moka coffee. When the higher level of a pot is full, the coffee is ready to be served in cups. I, personally, don’t like such a coffee due to the lack of foam and too huge amount of water per gram of coffee. Italians love it and drink it every breakfast instead of tea.

Coffee beans

• Price of arabica – 40€ per kilo
• 10g for each portion, or 0.40€

For coffee shops, we use the finest coffee beans. Usually, they are not sold to households, but to coffee shops.
For each espresso, we need 10 grams of ground coffee.

Coffee beans can be kept 4 months after roasting, later they lose their taste.

Tip: Portuguese love espresso that is made of ground coffee that is left after making the first espresso. They think that there is less caffeine inside this coffee. They ask to pour the coffee into the second cup. For the barista, it costs just a second cup (0.10€) and hot water. The used ground coffee will be anyways in the bin. You may either set a small price for such coffee or even give it for free to get loyal customers.

We don’t count sugar and cinnamon, they cost just a cent per cup.

Cups

We don’t have sitting places. We could use the bar table as in Italy, but we have only disposable (1-time use) cups for simplicity. The average price of bio cups is 10 cents. If you want to have your cups, use 10 cents as the price for cleaning, and use of a cup, which includes the price of buying the cup (e. g., porcelain espresso cup for 9€ each), the risk of breaking and stealing.

We expect 1 customer every 4 minutes (15 cups per hour). We are open daily from 8 am to 9 pm (13 hours per day). 13 hours * 30 calendar days = 390 hours, or 5850 cups per month.

Employees

Baristas are paid hourly. They come 30 min before opening and leave 30 min after closing. They clean stuff and count the inventory. It is 15 hours per day. A person can’t work more than 8.5 hours a day in Austria and must not work more than 40 hours per week (I’ll check this information). We need 4 baristas – 2 for work days and 2 for weekends.

Tip: the less a person earns, the less % of taxes are to be paid in Austria. This is due to the progressive taxes.

First, we pay for social contributions, which is nearly 18%. If a person earns 18000€ of earnings, then an employer pays 3500 of social contributions, you pay 21866$ gross. We pay taxes from income – contributions, 18000-3500 = 14500. Then we deduct 11000 of non-taxable amount 14500-11000 = 3500 and take 20% of taxes which is 700€. But taxes are deducted from the income of a person, not from your payments. The real income of a person will be nearly 17300€.

In our example, we pay for 7-hour work for each worker. All of them work for the salary for barista, which is 12€ per hour. It totals 7*12 = 84€ per day or 1680€ per month for work-day baristas and 672€ for weekend baristas.

We pay 2040€ and 816€ to baristas. In total, it is 2040*2 + 816*2 = 5712€ per month.

Count

Fixed costs per month: Rent (2000€) + cost of use of the Coffee machine (83€) + Salaries (5712€) + other costs (600€) = 8400€ approximately per month

For simplicity, we count furniture in rent, tools, accessories, and payment terminals in other costs

Variable costs per cup = beans (0.4€) + cups (0.1€) + terminal use.

We also need to pay VAT if we earn more than 30000€ in profit. The VAT is the tax per selling of an item, which totals 20% of the final price. But we don’t pay so much. We deduct 20% from the goods that we have bought – 20% from beans and cups, or 10 cents. In the EU the majority of the goods produced and sold over EU are tax-deductible, even the coffee machine is tax-deductible, it is 16.6€ per month. The same with the rent, however, if you buy a place, it is an investment, that is not tax deductible.

To get the break-even, 5850cups*(price*(1-terminal commission(2%))-variable cost(0.5€)) – fixed costs(8400€) = 0. To find the price I created an online program:

I found that with the price of 2€ we are break even and even make revenue of 141$.
We pay pay taxes from profit, 23.1%. Our profit is 108€.

open a program. Change the number and find the best prices and amount of cups to be sold

As you have seen, the coffee shop cannot sell espresso for less than 2€. The next time you go to the coffee shop keep it in mind.

To invest in wine, you should learn about the different types of wine. It is simple after reading a book and degustating wine in winery shops. Usually, it is not expensive, and there is even a festival, where you can try wine for free. But first, read the book.

Wine Folly, Essential wine guide.

photos are fairly used, the information is given for describing purposes. Learn more about the fair use

240-pages book with illustrations. it describes how to keep the wine, to open it, how to drink it, what food is suitable for each type of wine, how to taste wine, and how to define the origin, age, and quality of the wine.

The book shows the characteristics of each type of wine, for example Chardonnay, or  Sauvignon Blanc, or Nebbiolo. The Book provides a bit more information.

Wine Folly, The master guide

It is an alternative to the previous book made by the same authors. The book contains more information and describes each country deeply, starting with characteristics of temperatures, a dictionary of wine names, and characteristics of each vine in such region.

WSET collection

Attention. I did not read these books, just looked through them. After careful reading, I will delete this line and write more about the following books.

This is a collection of 7 books that are used to get a diploma in the wine industry. It explains all the processes to create and keep wine. You don’t need to read all of them, but these 2: “Wines: Looking behind the label”, and “Understanding Wines: Explaining Style and Quality”.

wine-searcher.com

Wine searcher explains in a blog the difference between regions, grapes, and aging.

The website has a database of the quality of a wine based on a region and the year produced for different price categories of wine. This is essential information.

If you want to keep your wine safe, I provide a service of keeping wine in the wine fridge, where I manage the temperature, humidity, and the position of a bottle based on the knowledge I have got after reading a book. The fridge is located in Vienna, Austria.

I usually publish lists of books about architecture that I recommend to read. All of them are important to understand the value of a house. This article suggest books, minimally required to understand value of a house.

A Pattern Lnaguage, Kristopher Alexander

read it before investing or buying a house. This book describes how the space affects our way of living: how each type of city should look like, how the houses in the neighborhood should be placed and how it affects the ways people behave with each other. Even how the shadows, floor level, density of people, age difference and green parking affects the living in a house and society.

I read the Russian translated version of the book made by ArtLebedev Studio with great illustrations. If you speak Russian, I insist reading this book. This is my favorite book that I recommend to everyone.

Real estate investing 101, Michele Cagan

A dictionary that explains most of the termins and concepts you should know to master in the real estate.

All other books will be added soon. To learn more about the architecture and real estate, read my blog. Write a keyword by clicking on a search button and find “real estate‘, ‘architecture‘, investment‘ or other tags that you are interested in.

Remember, I can’t explain in a blog the same information that is written in huge books – the books I share are written by professionals and scientists who spent years for each book – they provided as much knowledge as they could in the best way. I can only share their knowledge by sharing the book or by taking the main ideas from it. Some books cost 100$, but after reading such books you will learn everything you should know about this theme.

I love alternative investments – they are inflation-free and are increasing in price due to scarcity and age premium. Alternative investments are more than just looking at different numbers in financial reports, using, and analyzing macroeconomics. It is a hobby.

lifestyle

When you make alternative investments, you invest in the stuff you like or something about that you want to know more about. People invest in art not only because the picture can cost 3 times more in 10 years, but because they learned that this author made a masterpiece. They read books, go to art galleries and exhibitions, and told to people who are also interested in it.

People did not just get value from keeping the picture in the collection, they have got fun. They were traveling, meeting people, who became friends. They became a part of the art society.

Any type of thing can be an alternative investment – people buy rights for the music, gemstones, houses, wine, violins, and cellos (that are rented out, after which the price and the quality of sound get higher), exotic cars, books with signatures or even boots.

How to learn

Get knowledge by reading books, journals, and blogs. I am interested in wine, art, and real estate, and I give tips about them. All of them are interesting differently: wine is the most profitable, art is the most inspiring and risky, residential real estate is the safest, and, commercial real estate is the most expensive, but profitable and slightly riskier than residential real estate.

books to read

• Real estate
• Wine
• Art

Risks

During the recession, fewer people are ready to spend money because they need first all solve problems with business and a family budget. Some people must sell their investments, just because they don’t have enough money to pay for the bills. Therefore, the demand falls, and the amount of people willing to sell grows. Then the price also falls.

Investors say that stable cash is the most expensive stuff at this time because you get less money after selling your investment (image the price of the stocks in a crisis). Fortunately, it does not last long – the government makes huge inflation so that people buy more because later everything will be more expensive. If there is deflation, people keep cash, companies sell much less. Companies become bankrupt, the market fails and the currency gets to 0 due to the printing of cash for the social and governmental sector and payments for the state debts.

The commercial real estate investment in such times may lose the renters because some companies close. Then you should find new renters and give them 2 months for free. These are renting holidays, that are given to make renovations and to find employees. In Russia renting holidays is not obligatory, but it is a common practice. There are ways to lower the risks: For example, my family rents out an office to the municipal administration – they are not subject to bankruptcy and they stay in one place for decades. Therefore, you don’t need to have an administrator, who does HR, PR, and finances, because you have a constant client.

When to invest

The recession is also the best time to invest. If you have enough cash, just buy as much as you want. Usually, alternative investments weigh 5-15% of an investor’s portfolio (excluding real estate). I don’t recommend investing more if you don’t know too much about the sector and the item you invest in.

For example, if you invest in wine, you may be deceived about the quality. You can also spoil wine by keeping it at the wrong temperature and in the sun. If you invest in art, the seller can sell a picture for double a fair price. The author of a picture may become less interesting to the public. That is why you should know the sector by reading books and consulting with professionals. And don’t keep all eggs in one basket – diversify.

If you are interested in art investment, or real estate investment, write me at daniil@koveh.com, and I will help you to make the right decision, buy the art in the EU and help with legal stuff. I will find the best real estate investment in Russia and Austria based on my experience, and the experience of my family, who through 4 generations were constructing real estate all over Russia.

Empire USA, Illegale Kriege, Danielle Ganser

Danielle Ganser is a swiss historian, who analysed NATO expansions and crimes. He wrote 3 main books: “Imperium USA: Die skrupellose Weltmacht”, “Illegale Kriege : Wie die NATO-Länder die UNO sabotieren. Eine Chronik von Kuba bis Syrien”, “Nato-Geheimarmeen in Europa : Inszenierter Terror und verdeckte Kriegsführung”.
The books are available in german and french for now, but they may be translated in the time you read it.

Other books are available in English: “NATO’s Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and terrorism in Western Europe”. Also read some scientific papers. The last one is about Russia and the USA in the Ukrainian conflict

Listen to his lectures, for example, the illegal revolution in Ukraine 2014, or Turkey revolution 1980. They are available in German and Russian.

In these lectures, Danielle explained the NATO hierarchy and its expansion. NATO became the largest military alliance that does not care about any agreements between non-allies. For example, the agreement of non-expansion to the east, which was signed at the beginning of 1990-th, was broken.

NATO is the best alliance in world history. This is because of the hierarchy: The pentagon is the center of NATO. Danielle says that the ministry of defense in the USA is more like the ministry of offense. In each country of NATO American soldier is always the decision maker, only he decides what NATO does.

The USA, and therefore NATO, like to make 2 similar nations hate each other. They do it by showing the greatness, and dominance of one nation over another. America makes people think that people from another nation are no one, that they are not even the people so that they don’t have any rights and may be easily killed. It happened in Turkey vs Kurds, Christians vs Muslims, Albanians vs Serbians, North vs South Koreans, Russians vs Ukrainians, and even Republicans vs Democrats.

By doing so, America does not need to start a war themselves and make Americans dead. Instead, they supply one of the nations with weapons (Americans sell the weapons by giving credits, that some countries can’t pay out. Therefore, America dictates a country what to do in exchange for restructuring a credit. That is what will happen with Ukraine if Ukraine does not vanish from maps). In the end, one country loses by giving up territories and being dependent on the winner, and America gets control and loyalty over the winner. (the credit idea was made by me, Danielle was not talking about it).

Danielle said, that the UN cannot force any sanctions against 5 major countries: the USA, Russia, Great Britain, France, and China. These countries have Veto rights, the right to cancel any decisions. Therefore, such countries can do terrorism, and start wars with anyone and the UN can’t do anything against it.

Danielle also argues about the 9/11 event. The government prohibits discussions about the event. Some scientists and architects dispute the way, how the third building fell. this house fell straight down, that may only happen if all metallic walls are blown. The way, that the government does not want to analyze this case and share the data makes people create conspiracy theories.

Moreover, after 9/11, all Muslims seem to Americans as terrorists and Americans demand revenge. It seems like a reason to start a war with Muslim countries. I want to remind, you that Islam is a more peaceful religion than Christianity, but at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, the perception of Muslims changed.

The prisoners of geography, Tim Marshall

The natural landscapes: rivers, mountains, hills, floods, and even waterfalls affect the civilisation. The location decides whether rhe countries have a war with each other of make a trade.

We will analyze 10 regions: Russia, China, the USA, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, India and Pakistan, Korea and Japan, Latin America and Arctic.

The book explains with examples how geography affects the relationships between nations. It also tells about the dilemma between Ukraine and Russia even though that the book was written in 2017.

Why are we polarized, Ezra Klein

The book tells about American society. The split between Republicans and democrats grows bigger. Before the internet time, people chose the side based on the leader of a party and based on the changes, that each party does. The democrat could choose a Republican president.

Today people are polarized. They are so polarized, that republicans hate democrats and otherwise. People are sure about their point of view and don’t want to discuss or take into account the other point of view. People decided, that there is one truth. Because people talk more with people with their point of view, they make the bias, that only their point of view is logical and right. It goes so far, that one family with different points of view on government can just split.

Ezra Klein explains how that happen, that people became polarized.

Austrian Heritage

I traveled around Austria with UNESCO. It was a 15-day trip. We visited Vienna, Graz and Salzburg, and towns nearby. We learned about restoration, world heritage, materials, and culture. Even though I have been living in Austria for 2 years I learned a lot of new things that I want to share with you.

Architecture

We will learn about the architecture of each region

We will learn about the Voralberg region – the western part of Austria. It was the poorest hard accessible region. The citizens Used materials efficiently, and they created some techniques, that we can learn from them.

Materials

We visited the open-air museum of wooden architecture, where I found my loveliest material – shingled wood, 30-50 years lasting tactile material.

You will also learn about the technologies used for sustainable design, such as solar panels in the window.

Restauration

How much does it cost to restore a pucture, what if you spilled a coffee on the cup, and do we need to repair the puctures, that were damaged during a war?

Finance

How to save money during a recession? What happens with startups? Do we need to invest in art and wine? In NFT and crypto? What are swaps? What does the price for futures on gas and wheat mean for us? What happens with Russian, European, American, Chinese and Arab countries now and in the future?