I have seen a fair amount of chatter about currency regime shifts. Although such an event may be happening, there is no particular reason to get too excited about it from the perspective of the developed countries....Bond Economics
Currency Regime Shift Effects Over-Rated
Brian Romanchuk
5 comments:
"Instead, we are on the wrong side of depletion curves for most important commodities. It is not too hard to see this creating some inflationary pressures."
Bingo. Modern agriculture is largely about turning oil into food, from the fertilizers to the fuel used in tractors and trucks to transport it along with the processing that happens after. Unless the US wants to engage in protectionism and starve Europe, we'll feel the pinch here too. There won't be a gas pump in America without a Biden "I did that" picture on it before long.
And we pushed Russia and China closer together. What a senseless strategic blunder by the west, all over what, Ukraine? A broken corrupt country with a declining population and US childish fantasies of dominating Russia. Dozens of high ranking officials have been warning about this for 25 years now. One must wonder if the Russian hand would be stronger had they invaded in October with winter coming instead of in February with winter receding. We should be thankful they didn't.
Hopefully the refugee situation is only temporary (it's up to the US, how long do we want to prolong this?). 2 million Ukrainians will probably wear out their welcome rather quickly in western Europe while life gets more expensive, as the Ukrainians are only "relatively civilized" and "relatively European", but they have "blond hair and blue eyes"(savage racism aired on western tv, disgusting), so they'll fair better than the Syrians or Libyans, who never were welcome. Right wing movements in Europe and the US will capitalize on this.
The status of Crimea isn't really in doubt. It's Russia's. It's basically been Russian territory since 1783, it's people overwhelmingly want to be part of Russia, it has Russia's only warm water port (currently, they have use of a port in Syria too). Russia surely will not give Crimea to Ukraine a 2nd time. The real question is the status of Odessa as that port there is maybe even more important than the Crimean one.
Does anyone know why Crimea wasn't returned to Russia after the dissolution of the USSR? Seems like that would have been the natural thing to do instead of just leasing the base. Was it just to maintain existing borders as much as possible to avoid border conflicts elsewhere?
"One must wonder if the Russian hand would be stronger had they invaded in October with winter coming instead of in February with winter receding. We should be thankful they didn't."
The Russians have experience of fighting wars during Russian winters. It's not pretty. They like to keep it traditional and start warring once spring is on the way.
The Russians met their match with the Finns.
"One must wonder if the Russian hand would be stronger had they invaded in October with winter coming instead of in February with winter receding. We should be thankful they didn't."
It seems a Ukraine offensive against the Donbass was immanent:
http://thesaker.is/the-russian-ministry-of-defen%d1%81e-original-documents-planned-offensive-operation-against-donbass-in-march-of-this-year/
The Europeans are talking about weaning themselves off Russian oil by 2030 (laugh with me now). 2/3 by the end of the year. I'll believe it when I see it.
Or...
Maybe Putin shuts off the whole goddamn thing tomorrow? Who gets hurt more, the side producing the supply or the side needing the supply?
If he had invaded in October, we'd be in the 3rd week of October with winter approaching and 40% of Europe's gas gets shut off. Neutrality of the "relatively European" Ukraine might look pretty good in comparison with a tripling of energy prices.
Zelensky to Europe: "Where's the help you promised?"
Europe: "New phone, who dis?"
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