-narrative that the war will cause the Fed to keep feeding crack to the markets.
-narrative that the sanctions were all bluster, US and EU will not do real damage to the rope sellers.
Tidbit I picked up last night, and again tonight.
Have you noticed the map of Ukraine showing the areas Putin wants had changed over the last couple days?
Last night, the translation of comments by one official at Putin’s staged conference said the two regions are to be independent with their original borders. And, tonight, comments that Putin is eyeing all of Donetsk and Luhansk, not just the rebel held part.
Here is an example of the revised map that now shows the Ukrainian government held parts of those regions.
<Last night, the translation of comments by one official at Putin’s staged conference said the two regions are to be independent with their original borders. And, tonight, comments that Putin is eyeing all of Donetsk and Luhansk, not just the rebel held part.>
This is Putin’s way of checkmating Ukraine. He is claiming that Russia has the right to defend all of Donetsk and Luhansk, not just the rebel held part. That gives Russia carte blanche to move their forces (currently unmarked, but probably will do this openly in the coming days) into areas that Ukrainian forces are currently occupying. The Ukrainians have a Hobson’s choice: either fight the oncoming Russians (which will give Russia the pretext it wants to attack all of Ukraine) or back off and abandon a large section of Ukraine the way they abandoned Crimea when the Russians moved in.
Fossil fuel resources make up roughly 8% of a western GDP. Meaning Russia is a bit player economically. Russia needs investments to survive. The well underpaid army is already corrupt. I wont lamely say undisciplined.
The two major banks in Moscow are on life support. Automatically.
As Putin shall advance, the dollar window will be shuttered for all of Russia. If people end up starving in the streets…Putin’s popularity is going to soar…heavy sarcasm.
We will see short term hikes in prices but that invites in more global production. As production globally ramps up it can not ramp down all that quickly later. Russia will see its commodity production displaced longer term. The exception being palladium. But I would not be surprised if a mining expert at the fool weighted in that there were mines elsewhere.
Putin is already making massive mistakes. There is no way of seeing any intelligence that he wont continue to make more major mistakes.
A wise human being can share power. An intelligent human being understand rule of law.
I see nothing in Putin.
I do see my dead ancestors in the history of his actions.
