Good evening. The show begins tonight in Los Angeles. Jeff Bliss, Pacific Watch, reporting on the fires of Los Angeles, the fires of Southern California. As I understand that these fires unknown origin but are being driven by winds over the last day to continue. The fires look very much like a fire storm. Also, the results of bombing campaigns.

It reminds me of the fire bombing of Tokyo in 1945. Jeff commented earlier to me that it looked like

after an atomic weapon it swept through the urban area.

That's what's unusual here for me now. We've reported on fires over the years, Jeff and I,

in remote canyons, mountaintops, large tracks of land in northern California and southern California. This is

cutting right through major and very expensive real estate, residence and commercial.

There's more to the show, of course, but the shock of the scale of this. The word unprecedented

is not an exaggeration. We're looking at something that they've never seen before in Los Angeles. There's lots of this. The word unprecedented is not an exaggeration. We're looking at something that they've

never seen before in Los Angeles. There's lots of politics here. I mentioned also that the governor

and the president were on the scene, taking a briefing from the fire department. The president said,

as long as it takes, he'll help rebuild. The governor is shocked.

The president-elect, Mr. Trump, had a remark to say that Mr. Newsom is at fault in some fashion

for there not being enough water for the firefighting.

That requires a lot of detail I do not have.

Also, Moscow, I spoke with Kccatarina Zelotiv of geopolitical

futures. The shoppers, the consumers, the middle class of Moscow are expecting a very hard

2025. Inflation, shortages, unemployment, very hard. They know it's coming. The war Keynesianism they've been

practicing has its limits. Also discuss Russia with Michael Bernstom of the Hoover Institution.

Armenia is turning into a major gold hub. Russia sells gold to Armenia. It resells it to the UAE and other parts of

the globe. This is the way Russia is acquiring dollars. Armenia. Now I think I learned that eight or

nine billion dollars of gold passing through a country of less than 3 million.

PRC, much in the news, always, deeply troubled economy.

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