Olympic athletes aren't buying into Cold War politics
Biden's numbers drooping along with Facebook stock
Today’s headlines:
Russia and China tell NATO to stop expansion, Biden's approval rating drops to a new low, and Zuckerberg loses $29 billion
As for the first…While Biden and US diplomats were busy boycotting the Olympic Games, a record number of American athletes showed up and marched in today’s opening ceremonies. The athletes clearly don’t buy into using the games as an arena for Cold War political maneuverings.
Russian President Putin took full advantage of the US boycott and flew to Bejing to attend the ceremonies and meet with China’s President Xi. The meeting produced an agreement between China and Russia to “coordinate” their positions on the Ukraine crisis. Putin praised the "new era" of relations between China and Russia and highlighted the growing economic and energy ties between the two countries.
The agreement is significant in that it reflects the new realities of a multipolar world where the US is not the only superpower.
Xi is also hosting a series of bilateral meetings today and a banquet for dignitaries attending the Winter Games -- including United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
It’s hard to interpret this as anything but a diplomatic defeat for the US. Who could have imagined, given the past 50 years of Sino-Soviet relations, that two countries would become allies in response to Biden’s strategic Cold War “pivot to Asia”?
As for the second…If Biden thought that Cold War politics and his aggressive “strong leader” pose on Ukraine would improve his poll numbers, he obviously miscalculated. Perhaps he should try flexing muscle on voting rights, global warming, and using diplomacy more on global affairs. That might work.
His public approval rating fell to the lowest level of his presidency this week, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll, presenting a danger sign for the Democratic Party which risks losing control of Congress in the Nov. 8 elections.
The good news is that Biden's popularity remains above the lowest levels seen by his predecessor and possible opponent in ‘24, Donald Trump, whose approval rating sank to as low as 33% in December 2017.
But that’s a pretty low bar.
And the third… While you and I might have been worrying about making the rent, paying for meds, or childcare, yesterday Mark Zuckerberg lost more money than most countries make in a year.
He dropped $31 billion in net worth as Meta Platforms' stock marked a record one-day plunge bringing him down to his last $92B in the bank (or in whatever hidden offshore haven he stores it). To put that in perspective, the loss wiped out $230 billion of the company’s value and set the record for the largest single-day trading loss for any U.S. company, ever. — more than the value of McDonald’s, or nearly the GDP of Portugal.
How’d you like to be able to lose $31B in a single day and still be the 11th richest person in the world?
The event just highlights with growing enormous global wealth gap which is the main source of poverty, hunger, and instability in the world today.
One last item for those who can take a bad joke… On Friday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg tried to flip the Ukraine narrative:
“This is fundamentally not about NATO expansion,” he said Friday on MSNBCs Morning Joe. “This is about respecting independent sovereign choices of independent nations, not returning to an age of spheres of influence where big powers decide what small neighbors can do or not do.”
Haha…Please stop. You’re killing me.