I read John Mauldin’s economic insights every week. He has had some outstanding insights, the best of which was his “Fingers of Instability.”
https://www.mauldineconomics.com/frontlinethoughts/fingers-o…
This week’s article is very good. Too many details to excerpt.
https://www.mauldineconomics.com/frontlinethoughts/change-sq…
Wendy
Mauldin points out one fact interesting fact:
President Biden keeps saying the sanctions are designed to not hurt American businesses. I’m sure the administration is doing what it can, but there’s just no way to order such massive, open-ended interventions and not cause collateral damage.
At the same time, some of this is outside US control. A small example: Ukraine produces about 70% of the world’s neon gas exports. While neon signs are now mostly antiques, it is a crucial component in semiconductor production. That kind of neon gas has to be refined to ultra-high purity. Two-thirds of it comes from a single factory in Odesa, Ukraine. Furthermore, the kind of ships that can carry that gas aren’t super common and could become even less so if someone gets trigger-happy in the Black Sea.
If those neon shipments should stop, analysts say global chipmakers probably have about eight weeks’ supply on hand. Then what? The industry is just now starting to recover from COVID-driven disruptions, which in turn affected production at a long list of downstream companies, especially automakers.
Jaak
President Biden keeps saying the sanctions are designed to not hurt American businesses. I’m sure the administration is doing what it can, but there’s just no way to order such massive, open-ended interventions and not cause collateral damage.
I find it heartening that more than a few rope sellers have decided the rope profits aren’t worth closing their eyes to what Putin is doing. I figure if Coke and Mickey D’s can do without a few hundred millions of rope profit, I can pay a bit more for gas.
Steve