I am Happy biscos you are Happy

"I am happy Biscos you are Happy"

..So wrote my 5 year old daughter the other day on a small piece of paper. For the First few days, I didn't pay much attention to this small sentence/phrase.

But after a few days of seeing it on my DP, the impact of this line/sentence started growing in me. Let me elaborate.

In this ever globalizing world, indeed our happiness is more and more dependent on or linked to what happens elsewhere.

Let me give some an example:

When Putin was unhappy with Zelensky's way of doing things (neo-nazism?) and the west trying to woo an ex GF of USSR into NATO more and more, he got angry and he indeed decided to invade Ukraine last year same time!

This act further caused severe pain to a lot of innocent civilians in Ukraine. There are horror stories about how millions of Women/kids were evacuated out of Ukraine in the early days of war and how many of these women and children were forced to take up small jobs- uber-driving or waiting and even prostitution jobs to earn their daily bread and how their young kids went to make-shift evening schools to keep up with their basic schooling. Not to mention the many who got wounded, lost their lives and/or families.

Crude and commodity prices went up, inflation went up across the world, Interest rates started going up to catch up with Inflationary pressures. Countries that had high forex debt had the triple dilemma of their currency losing value as well as servicing higher interest debt burdens as well as forex reserves depleting.

Forex reserves depleted and countries like Bangladesh, SriLanka, Pakistan got affected a lot to run their basic EXIM needs and are now dependent on the IMF bailing them out (or china). SriLanka barely scraped through a massive civil unrest with young men and boys finding fun-resting place in the Rajapaksha's presidential palace and swimming-pool in between their protests.

Grain import from Russia/Ukraine fed a large part of Middle East and Africa, and with this supply falling across black sea, several million children in?sudan, eritrea, Somali land went hungry, also partly due to their own drought.

What about the rich countries? Energy prices led inflation caused massive civil protests in UK, France, Portugal, spain and so on. Liz Truss lost her job after getting a few policy calls wrong, mainly linked to how to handle inflation and salvage the economy. Every other day, something or the other is on strike still in the UK : NHS to railways to transport to teachers. Lakhs of people are on the roads protesting for wage hikes and stability of Jobs. Indeed quite a ripple effect.

Same situation in France. Macron is facing another version of yellow-vest protest that brought Paris to its knees. While UK is in shatters, the Scottish independence/referendum movement has taken more prominence and so is the situation in Ireland.

Did the china get affected? Of course, their GDP contracted partly due to the export-demand let global slow down and their own internal issues linked to zero-covid policy. Their real estate sector crashed, their fin/tech sectors crashed, their BRI debts went bad and Xi Jinping had to loosen up quite a bit to get the grip back.

This very act of Putin escalated the perceived fears of attack/wars among Moldova, Poland, Finland, Sweden, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Germany, France, UK. Many of them have either applied to join NATO or decided to procure more arms/weapons and spruce up their defense capabilities.?The funny this is that those who are already part of NATO realized that US & NATO are quite incapable of doing anything much (as they have too many members and cant act in unison especially when its urgent) and?have started to discuss new alliances - e.g.: France is urging fellow EU members to form a EU defense budget and system.

People across world understood that US Sanctions have pretty no impact nor can they deter autocrats who can get even more angry/destructive due to these sanctions.

Btw Do you know that Russian currency is the one that appreciated the most in last 1 year? INR lost 10%, Yen 15%, Sterling Close to 15-20%.

If at all someone, who gained, Its Only the US gained in this war - why? they don't import Crude, their currency doesn't lose value, they don't have much external debt except their exporter's T-bills parked [which also they can freeze via sanctions]. Whenever they raise interest rates, money flows back to the US from other countries, being perceived as the safest haven for $$. And their arms export surge due to fear of wars.? MFG Companies are near shoring to cater to US markets, thanks to China becoming extremist oflate. Hopefully this highest ever Govt debt of $31 Trillion pulls them down a bit. Why should they alone be happy in an unhappy world? But yes, they are most likely to be the ones who will get pulled into a war first if any escalation happens in the current Russian- NATO or Taiwan equilibrium.

Can we not see how unhappiness of just a handful of people can spread long term un-happiness across countries and regions??

The whole world has now been divided into Four Groups due to this Russia-UKraine war - the West-led so called democracy supporting group who instigates war everywhere, the Russia-China-Iran-NorthKorea bloc who are ready to start a war anytime with a small provocation (Middle east and africa are with them too),?The don't care countries who cant afford a war (India, south amercia and Apac mostly) and Turkey (Erdogan - he's a different animal altogether).

If due to these unrest a massive recession kicks in, so many businesses will get impacted and so will many business owners and employees and their families. If more wars happen (i.e. china taiwan or Russia) then more unhappiness spreads.

As a small entrepreneur, i know how my happiness on a daily basis is linked to our customer's , client's and employee's happiness. If one group is unhappy, it spreads in a ripple effect.

"I am Happy Biscos you are Happy" is such a profound statement. We indeed need everyone to be happy and satisfied so as to lead our simple days and enjoy our simple meals with our families. We are of course taking everything for granted when the fact is that all this peace can go away if one section of people are extremely unhappy somewhere in an unknown corner of the world.

Good day, please share your thoughts too :)