New World A-Comin''

[Monksdream]

Come touch the things you cannot feel...

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=richie+havens+nothing+but+a+dream&ru=%2fvideos%2fsearch%3fq%3drichie%2bhavens%2bnothing%2bbut%2ba%2bdream%26FORM%3dHDRSC3&view=detail&mid=228B2B8DEF85B29E720D228B2B8DEF85B29E720D&rvsmid=A44931D78FDAC45D532BA44931D78FDAC45D532B&FORM=VDQVAP

[Monksdream]

I created this chat forum in November. The title is derived from a Duke Ellington composition. I thought it was appropriate considering what has taken place since the beginning of the current century. But the New World A-Comin'' could easily have reached back many millennia.
Bloomberg radio Friday morning featured an interview with John Micklethwait and a recent think piece he wrote for Bloomberg. The article included Adrian Woolridge as a co-author. Thanks go out to an Investors Hub member who pasted it.

CashBowski

Friday, March 25, 2022 3:20:21 PM

Re: None

Post#
198003
of 198032
Putin and Xi Exposed the Great Illusion of Capitalism
Unless the U.S. and its allies mobilize to save it, the second great age of globalization is coming to a catastrophic close.

~ If there are any Keynesian economics followers here, this is a long, but good read if you have a few minutes regardless. ~

ByJohn Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge
March 24, 2022, 12:01 AM EDT

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-03-24/ukraine-war-has-russia-s-putin-xi-jinping-exposing-capitalism-s-great-illusion

The former was previously editor in chief of the Economist. The latter also worked for the Economist. Both men now are contributors to Bloomberg tasked with writing think pieces about global affairs. I guess one could describe them as intellectuals who are respected for their knowledge of history and their zeitgeists.

The internet, well, Google, which is the search I use, has a load of archived interviews and lectures and discussions with other big thinkers who attempt to take the world's problems head-on and offer possible solutions.

The best I have to offer on the matter of how the world's 7 billion human inhabitants are to live with and among each other with a relative degree of acceptable harmony is based on a book I've read more than once: Non Zero (Human Logic) as it appears on the hardbound cover by Robert Wright, published in 2000. In my view, a good bit of it is downright flakey. The author is a popular book writer and therefore not necessarily a bona fide scholar.

The book's title is based on game theory and how this particular branch of mathematics has shaped how humankind has managed to evolve in a way that values cooperation over selfishness. Let's supply a definiton.

game theory
[game theory]
NOUN
the branch of mathematics concerned with the analysis of strategies for dealing with competitive situations where the outcome of a participant's choice of action depends critically on the actions of other participants. Game theory has been applied to contexts in war, business, and biology. Compare with decision theory.

At its most basic, the science started out with the premise there are essentially two kinds of games humans play with each that result in four outcomes. Thus, the origin of the famous "prisoner's dilemma" game in which two people accused of committing the same crime have to decide whether it is better to rat on each other and take the chance that one goes free or cooperate and each receives a lighter sentence.

The game, to a certain extent, actually much of it, depends on the abilities of two people to think logically.

The author does a pretty good job explaining to a simpleton like me how humankind has evolved in how it has valued the non zero game, meaning, you may not get everything you want but at least you do get something by cooperating, versus the zero sum game, meaning, the winner takes all.

Game theory, as one would imagine, quickly made its way into the halls of academia and then spread to the corporate, government and military boardrooms where decision makers reside at the highest level and upon whom rest the responsibility of determining what is going to happen, hopefully for the better, to the rest of humankind.

As far as I can surmise from the article authored by the two big thinkers, it seems to me that problems arise, when the decision makers dispense with playing non zero sum games, which is to mean cooperating with each other and instead resort to playing zero sum games with each other. When they resort to the latter, humankind suffers as a consequence.

The best examples I can think of at the moment where cooperation was cast by the wayside in favor of the winner gets it all are the two world wars of the prior century that resulted in millions of needless deaths.

Way back in my childhood (I was born in 1952) I would learn from social environment about this thing called Communism. I was only five when the Soviets launched the Sputnik satellite. Being a relatively bright kid, the Eisenhower administration initiated a policy objective to stress the teaching of science in the public schools. I was among the chosen few, in the fifth and sixth grades, who took time out from the regular classes where we would meet in another classroom for classes taught by what we were told was the "special science teacher."

I would later win ribbons at the science fair shows. Even get to show off my stuff at the regional fairs. I didn't win any ribbons at those fairs. I would later learn, which is also a part of the lesson life has to teach one, that there always smarter people than you in the world.

The lesson now, at age 70, I have learned, that what is important is not so much a matter of how smart you are, but more a matter of what you are. What you are, and what you will be, has a lot to do with what Shakespeare described as the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune."

Robert Sapolsky, the famous Standford University neuroscience professor, takes the view that while it is certainly true our social environment has a role in shaping us and how we behave, it is the DNA within all of us that ultimately determines how we will behave as we grow into adulthood and begin the longer-term journey of negotiating reality. That said, Sapolsky maintains this notion of humans as possessing a "free will" is pretty much a myth.

Maybe he is right. I would contend he isn't. That is left for another topic.

Way back in the radical 1960s, there was psychiatrist Eric Berne. He was only one of a number of psychiatrists in that era who sort of broke away from Sigmund Freund and Karl Jung and developed their own theories about the construction of the human personality and what shapes it.

I suppose, after all this time, even though I was enamored with his book Games People Play, and the Parent, Adult, Child construct he created, maybe it was an over-simplification. But that part of that era? Seeking easy answers to difficult questions.

There is only one sentence from the couple of books he wrote that I remember to this day: "While there may be no hope for humanity there is at least hope for the individuals in it."

Who we are, and how we have been shaped, and will continue to be shaped by the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," as I see it, has just about nothing to do with, as Adam Snith, the father of modern economics, put it, as the "unseen hand" that determines what we must pay for anything we consume at any moment in time, much less that friend in the sky some of us pray to for comfort and guidance, what happens to us as individuals is due to pure, unmitigated chance.

Will the artificial intelligence machines the computer scientists have invented going back to the days of Alan Turing and World War II project to crack the Nazi enigma code eventually result in human dependence on the logic that these creations humankind have invented will be increasingly be relied to save us from ourselves and our conflicts between determining which is better, the non zero sum or the zero sum game.

Humankind can't have both at the same time. Based on that premise, perhaps humankind will give up its free will, or to put it another way, the right of self-determination, in favor of an intelligence that is able to inform it so that the greatest good can be derived for the greatest number.

In the 1998 movie which starred Matthew Broderick and the delightful Ally Sheedy, War Games, the two kids find the computer scientist to come with them in an attempt to save the world by convincing the computer he invented to stop doing what it was doing. He did. The computer simulated all kinds of nuclear war attacks and came to the conclusion such an endeavor proved futile.

There was neither a non zero sum game outcome, nor a zero sum game outcome.

The best way my simpleton mind can describe it is the outcome would be neither of the two outcomes. Since no humankind would remain to determine life as it can be lived in terms of sheer numbers, that is to say, mathematics, there would be no need for numbers of any kind because there would no humankind remaining to count or account, as it were, for anything.

Richard Brautigan was a weirdo, a drunkard, a spouse abuser. The last line says it all...

All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace
I like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.

I like to think
(right now, please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms.

I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.

[Monksdream]

It was either the Bloomberg radio or the TV segment that invited Leon Panetta for an interview. Bloomberg radio has been repeating a sound byte from that interview all day.

Panetta didn't pull any punches. Vladimir Putin is weak on diplomacy. What he understands is power. To beat him, it boils down to these brave Ukrainians killing as many Russians as they can.

[Monksdream]

I panicked at the noise during the MRI this morning and squeezed the alert bulb. The tech will have to sedate me if the urologist orders another one.

[Monksdream]

I am not the most informed person when it comes to the war in Ukraine. I decided to avoid playing wheelchair general. When it gets down to cases, as it has to do with war, I tend to think, were I alive thousands of years ago during all the wars that have occurred since humans became settled, I would be just another grunt, trying the best he could not to get killed while trying the best he could to kill the other man.

Based on the limited newsfeeds I get, I tend to think the Ukraine war, from the standpoint of how the Russian military has prosecuted it, is strategically and tactically a botch job.

Blinken, the Secretary of State, is probably right when he said the war will be a prolonged event.

Tomorrow is another day.

[Monksdream]

The future of democracy on Fresh Air with Terry Gross

Marie Yovanovitch is sworn in on Nov. 15, 2019, prior to providing testimony at an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump. "When I looked at the footage that night," she says, "I wasn't wearing a poker face. I had all of the emotions of, you know, surprise, anger and even a little bit of contempt. I actually rolled my eyes. I was really surprised that I couldn't control myself better."
Andrew Harrer/Getty Images
Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, says Russia's invasion represents a "battle of freedom versus tyranny" — with implications that span the globe.

"The kind of world we're going to be living in, when this is all done, is being determined now," she says.

A career diplomat, Yovanovitch is familiar with the players and politics of both Russia and Ukraine. She says she used to view Russian President Vladimir Putin as a "bully." Now, she sees him as a "war criminal" who is intent on reconstituting the Soviet Union. But, she adds, Putin seems to have underestimated the Ukrainian people and their military.

"The Ukrainian people are standing up and saying, 'This is not going to happen,' " she says. "I think [Putin] miscalculated how well his own military would do. And I think he certainly miscalculated the resolve of the West and that we would go to the assistance of Ukraine."

[Monksdream]

They future of farming

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Soybean+Farming&ru=%2fvideos%2fsearch%3fq%3dSoybean%2bFarming%26Form%3dVDRSCL%26%3d0&view=detail&mid=E66377166797B17B8C6BE66377166797B17B8C6B&&FORM=VDRVRV

[Monksdream]

What The Ants Are Saying
dear boss i was talking with an ant
the other day
and he handed me a lot of
gossip which ants the world around
are chewing over among themselves

i pass it on to you
in the hope that you may relay it to other
human beings and hurt their feelings with it
no insect likes human beings
and if you think you can see why
the only reason i tolerate you is because
you seem less human to me than most of them
here is what the ants are saying

it wont be long now it wont be long
man is making deserts of the earth
it wont be long now
before man will have used it up
so that nothing but ants
and centipedes and scorpions
can find a living on it
man has oppressed us for a million years
but he goes on steadily
cutting the ground from under
his own feet making deserts deserts deserts

we ants remember
and have it all recorded
in our tribal lore
when gobi was a paradise
swarming with men and rich
in human prosperity
it is a desert now and the home
of scorpions ants and centipedes

what man calls civilization
always results in deserts
man is never on the square
he uses up the fat and greenery of the earth
each generation wastes a little more
of the future with greed and lust for riches

north africa was once a garden spot
and then came carthage and rome
and despoiled the storehouse
and now you have sahara
sahara ants and centipedes

toltecs and aztecs had a mighty
civilization on this continent
but they robbed the soil and wasted nature
and now you have deserts scorpions ants and centipedes
and the deserts of the near east
followed egypt and babylon and assyria
and persia and rome and the turk
the ant is the inheritor of tamerlane
and the scorpion succeeds the caesars

america was once a paradise
of timberland and stream
but it is dying because of the greed
and money lust of a thousand little kings
who slashed the timber all to hell
and would not be controlled
and changed the climate
and stole the rainfall from posterity
and it wont be long now
it wont be long
till everything is desert
from the alleghenies to the rockies
the deserts are coming
the deserts are spreading
the springs and streams are drying up
one day the mississippi itself
will be a bed of sand
ants and scorpions and centipedes
shall inherit the earth

men talk of money and industry
of hard times and recoveries
of finance and economics
but the ants wait and the scorpions wait
for while men talk they are making deserts all the time
getting the world ready for the conquering ant
drought and erosion and desert
because men cannot learn

rainfall passing off in flood and freshet
and carrying good soil with it
because there are no longer forests
to withhold the water in the
billion meticulations of the roots

it wont be long now It won't be long
till earth is barren as the moon
and sapless as a mumbled bone

dear boss i relay this information
without any fear that humanity
will take warning and reform
archy
© by owner.

[Monksdream]

Ours truly remains The Age of Oil

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/why-oil-can-go-higher/ar-AAUFEi5?ocid=msedgntphdr

[jbsliverer]

Ukrainians are giving Americans two lessons about democracy that we've forgotten

He stands guard today atop a granite pedestal near a riverbank in Concord, Massachusetts -- a stout, handsome farmer clutching a musket while scanning the horizon for the advancing enemy.

He is the iconic "Minute Man" statue, a bronze monument built to commemorate the first battle of the Revolutionary War. That's when patriots fired "the shot heard around the world," taking on the mightiest army of their era to preserve the birth of democracy in America.

Ukrainians are now building their own monuments to democracy, with their blood. For more than a week, the world has been transfixed by their battle to repel the mighty Russian army and preserve the birth of democracy in their homeland.

In recent days stories of Ukrainian courage have also been heard around the world: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky turning down an offer to evacuate him from the country by saying, "The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride"; the besieged defenders of Snake Island who told a Russian warship to "go f**k yourself"; the images of Ukrainian civilians making Molotov cocktails and carrying assault rifles while heading to the front lines.

"Each passing day adds more stories that Ukrainians will tell not only in the dark days ahead, but in the decades and generations to come," the author and historian Yuval Noah Harari said in a recent essay. "This is the stuff nations are built from. In the long run, these stories count more than tanks."

But here's another reason why the Ukraine struggle is so inspiring:

This is also the stuff that built the US.

The war in Ukraine isn't just a geopolitical struggle -- it's a call to remember. The courage of the Ukrainian people is a reminder of what the US used to be -- a "beacon of liberty," where virtually every schoolchild memorized the "Concord Hymn" poem inscribed at the base of the Minute Man statue.

The Ukrainians are teaching Americans two lessons about democracy that many of us have forgotten.

Lesson 1: The most ferocious defenders of democracy are those who have been denied it

Ukrainian's democratic tradition bears little comparison to the US at first glance. The country has been independent for only 31 years.

And it's not clear that everyone opposing Russia is fighting for liberal democracy in Ukraine. There's evidence that ultra-nationalists and far-right groups are part of the armed Ukraine resistance.

Ukraine also borders Russia, an oppressive regime that has installed puppet governments in the country before. The country is familiar with brutal leaders imposing their will on its people. The Russian dictator Joseph Stalin caused the deaths of nearly 4 million Ukrainians in the 1930s by engineering a famine. The German invasion of Ukraine in World War II led to the deaths of an estimated seven million people.

But that history of brutality is partly why so many Ukrainians are willing to fight so hard for democracy.

Freedom tastes sweeter for those who have never had it.
This is the same dynamic that helped make the US.

The most fervent believers in American democracy tend to come from groups that have been denied liberty and equality -- either in the US or from their country of origin.

The first martyr in the fight for American independence was a runaway slave named Crispus Attucks, shot by British redcoats during the Boston Massacre.

The most decorated unit in US military history was a Japanese American regiment that fought during World War II. These "Nisei" soldiers volunteered for combat though they came from families that had their property confiscated and were placed in internment camps by the US government.

The first people who made a genuine democracy a reality in the US were Black civil rights marchers in Selma, Alabama, and other Southern cities. They forced the US to abandon its neo-apartheid political system by pushing Congress to pass the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

You can't talk about exclusion in the US without mentioning immigrants. The country's history is filled with spasms of intolerance and raw racism directed at immigrants. And yet many immigrants outwork, outvote and outfight many native-born Americans.

One in five Medal of Honor winners have been immigrants. Immigrants are nearly twice as likely to start businesses as native-born Americans. Nearly half of all Fortune 500 companies -- including Apple, Google and Amazon -- were founded by immigrants or their children.

Many of these immigrants left countries run by dictators and convulsed by civil wars and political violence because of one American trait: Our democratic ideas.

"Since World War II, that has been the single most important driver of American influence and power," said Marie Yovanovitch, the former US ambassador to Ukraine, in a recent interview. "Yes, we have a big military. Yes, we have a strong economy. But it's our ideas that attract others. Russia under Putin doesn't really have that power of attraction. He only has the power of coercion, and we are seeing that now in Ukraine in a brutal way."

Lesson 2: Ordinary people are the true heroes of democracy

When a CNN crew recently interviewed Ukrainan President Zelensky in a bunker in Kyiv, the country's capital, he said something that was revelatory.

A journalist asked him what it was like to go from being a comic actor to becoming a globally acclaimed wartime leader. But Zelensky was not interested in adding to the Western praise of his charismatic leadership.

"I'm not iconic," he said. "I think Ukraine is iconic."

It's the kind of statement that would have made the "embattled farmers" who fought at Concord during the Revolutionary War nod in recognition. Ordinary people, not charismatic leaders, sustain democracy. This was an abiding belief throughout US history.

There was a time when most young men were expected to join the military or go into government as part of some form of public service. This expectation also applied to the wealthy and the famous. That's part of the reason why former president George H.W. Bush, the grandson of a steel industrialist and scion of a wealthy family, enlisted as a fighter pilot in World War II.

Actor Jimmy Stewart turned down an offer to stay stateside as a flight instructor and volunteered for combat duty as a US Army Air Force pilot. He flew 20 bombing missions in harrowing combat conditions, an experience he rarely talked about after the war.

This attitude, though, wasn't confined to World War II. It was there at the nation's beginning. It was Nathan Hale, an American Revolutionary War officer, who reputedly said, "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."

And it wasn't confined to the military. There's a generation of Americans who entered the Peace Corps because of what President John F. Kennedy declared at his 1960 inaugural address:
"Ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can for your country."

When asked what he learned from studying US history, historian Howard Zinn once said, "Democracy is not what governments do; it's what people do, too."

His message: Don't depend on saviors.

"Don't depend on the founding fathers, on Andrew Jackson, on Theodore Roosevelt, on Lyndon Johnson, on Obama," Zinn said. "Don't depend on our leaders to do what needs to be done, because whenever the government has done anything to bring about change, it's done so only because it's been pushed and prodded by social movements, by ordinary people organizing.

"Lincoln was pushed by the antislavery movement," he added. "Johnson and Kennedy were pushed by the Southern Black movement..."

This power of ordinary people is what Zelensky evoked when he released a taped appeal to the Russian and Ukrainian people before Russia's invasion. He said there was one group that could ultimately prevent war: "Regular people. Regular, normal people."

It's a lesson many contemporary Americans have seem to have forgotten. Our political discourse is driven by searches for a savior: a charismatic leader who will vanquish the other side; a pivotal Supreme Court appointment that will finally "take back" the country, a commentator who will "destroy" opponents on TV.

Many have stopped believing that ordinary people can change anything because of political gridlock.

The spirit of democracy in the US feels like it's under siege

More Americans even now doubt the power of their democratic ideas. One recent poll showed that 64% of Americans believe their democracy is "in crisis and at risk of failing." Another recent poll found 72% of Americans say the US used to be a good model of democracy for other countries to follow but has not been in recent years.

It's not as if the Democratic spirit has been extinguished in the US. The 2020 presidential election was held during a pandemic but saw the highest voter turnout in a century. The nationwide protests after the murder of George Floyd that same year have been described as the largest movement in the country's history. And there was a palpable hope early in 2020 that the pandemic would bring Americans together.

But that burst of civic participation was followed by 19 states passing voter restriction laws. The pandemic became a political wedge issue. And the US still lags behind most developed nations when it comes to voter turnout.

Today it's Ukranians -- not Americans -- who are embodying Kennedy's exhortation: They're asking what they can do for their country, not the other way around.

Ukrainian citizens are blocking Russian tanks with their bodies. Ukrainians are leaving safety and well-paying jobs in Europe to go fight for their homeland. Famous figures like Ukrainian boxer Vasiliy Lomachenko, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, are giving up lucrative paydays to go home and join a defense battalion. Ukrainian tennis star Sergiy Stakhovsky left his wife and their three young children in Hungary to join the fight in his homeland.

And now Americans and other foreign fighters are traveling to Ukraine to defend the country.

These stories don't just inspire, they force people in the West to reexamine our cynicism, Tom McTague wrote in a recent Atlantic essay.

McTague said the US and Western Europe have lost their sense of being a force for moral good and taking on heroic struggles in the cause of freedom. Instead we follow cynical opportunists in shows like "Succession" and "Billions" and pragmatic, cautious leaders who lack any overt idealism, he said.

Ukraine changes that, McTague said. One of the reasons why Zelensky reduced hardened politicians -- and even a translator -- to tears in his appeals to freedom is because "Western countries don't have this type of leadership anymore: unembarrassed, defiant belief in a cause."

In standing up to Putin, McTague wrote, "Ukraine is articulating a certain idea of itself that is righteous and dignified and heroic -- virtues we long ago dismissed as old-fashioned. How tragic it is that Zelensky's idea has to be attacked for us to be reminded of ours."

It would be more tragic if Americans could no longer remember the ideas we stand for at all.

Our country's history is filled with brutality. It is also riddled with hypocrisies. Yet that's why monuments like the Minute Man still stand. They remind us of who we are at our best, that democracy is something worth fighting, and dying for.

Ukrainians know that. We used to know that.

Their story echoes our story.

Let us not forget.

[Monksdream]

How far will Putin go – and how far will America go to stop him?
CBSNews - 49m ago

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19

© Provided by CBS News

Sometimes, in weighing what Russian officials are saying now, or what they may be saying next week, it helps to take a look at what they were saying just a few days ago:



Confronting Putin: What can Americans expect?
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, on January 28: "We want no wars"; and then, on February 25: "Nobody is going to attack the Ukrainian people … There are no strikes on civilian infrastructure";
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, on January 10: "We have no plans, no intentions to attack Ukraine";
Russia's Ambassador to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya, on February 28: "A lot of fake news and a lot of fake factories that produce those news"; and
Russian President Vladimir Putin, on February 15: ''Do we want it, war, or not? Of course, not.''
They lied.

No one can possibly know for sure what's next. But "Sunday Morning" senior contributor Ted Koppel turned to four people whose life experience and accumulated expertise gives their opinions special weight.

Nina Khrushcheva, great-granddaughter of Nikita Khrushchev, defected (that was the term in those days) when Russia was known as the Soviet Union. She's now a professor of international affairs at the New School in New York, but still has close ties to the country where she was born.

Nina Khrushcheva. / Credit: CBS News
© Provided by CBS News
Nina Khrushcheva. / Credit: CBS News
"People are being fired for speaking against the war," she told Koppel. "My niece just got arrested in the center of Moscow. She was just walking. And because she's young, the police assumed that she must be protesting against the war. She would just get arrested."

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Khrushcheva noted that Putin's poll numbers have gone up, from 60% to 71%.

"Now, can we trust those polls?" asked Koppel. "Or does the Kremlin …"

"Oh yes. No, it's not the Kremlin. It's the Levada poll."

"But I suspect when the bodies come back, it'll be in the dark of night, and there won't be anybody there to photograph it?"

"Absolutely," Khrushcheva replied. "And they already, I mean, there are already information that they're burning those bodies. So, it's really quite Stalinesque time right now."

Thousands of protesters arrested in Russia as sanctions take toll on country's economy ("CBS Mornings")
Putin cracks down on media coverage ("CBS Mornings: Saturday")
Keith Alexander was a four-star general when he ran the National Security Agency. Few Americans know more about cyber warfare, or Vladimir Putin, or how he may retaliate, than Alexander does: "He's not getting the movement out of the military in Ukraine. He's not making the progress he thought. I believe he's going to turn to cyber.

Gen. (ret.) Keith Alexander. / Credit: CBS News
© Provided by CBS News
Gen. (ret.) Keith Alexander. / Credit: CBS News
"I believe he's gonna hit Europe and the United States with that cyber. And I believe those attacks will go across the wide spectrum."

Koppel asked, "Can you put it in terms of what the average citizen is going to experience?"

"The average person is gonna look at what's happening to their bank, what's happening to their power company or their credit cards or the distribution of goods, whether it's oil and gas or supplies to their stores," Alexander said. "All of that could be impacted by cyber attacks."

Ukraine war sanctions could spur Russian cyberattacks on U.S., expert warns
Fiona Hill worked at the Trump White House in the National Security Council, where she served as senior director for Europe and Russia. Her memoir, "There Is Nothing For You Here," is just out.

Fiona Hill. / Credit: CBS News
© Provided by CBS News
Fiona Hill. / Credit: CBS News
Hill said, "In terms of thinking about modern war, it's not just about territorial conquest. It's what we call hybrid war, information war, influence operations, propaganda, cyber, ransomware attacks. It can be the use of criminal groups, for example."

"In a sense, Fiona, you're saying that we are already engaged in World War III?" Koppel asked.

"Exactly. Well, many average American families, particularly in the heartland, have had their sons and daughters in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Syria, and deployed overseas. We're gonna have to think that we're all part of this as well. We can't just think of, it's the families of other people in America who've been deployed overseas and who have been in harm's way. It may be all of us right now."

Inside the mind of Vladimir Putin ("Sunday Morning")
It's hard to think of anyone with more government experience that Leon Panetta: once Chairman of the House Budget Committee, White House Chief of Staff, Secretary of Defense, CIA director, and one of the earliest voices warning of the dangers of cyberwarfare. "The reality is that cyber is today a weapon of war. Without question, it can be used to paralyze another country."

Leon Panetta. / Credit: CBS News
© Provided by CBS News
Leon Panetta. / Credit: CBS News
Koppel asked, "When you hear Vladimir Putin warning about consequences 'the likes of which the world has never seen before,' everybody immediately assumes that he's talking about nuclear warfare. Could he be talking about cyber warfare?"

"I don't think there's any question he could be talking about cyber warfare," Panetta replied. "Cyber as a weapon means that you don't have to deploy your air force or boots on the ground. You can simply sit at a computer and deploy a very sophisticated virus that can take down our electric grid system, take down our financial systems, our government systems, our banking systems."

President Joe Biden has repeatedly emphasized that no U.S. troops will be sent to Ukraine; at the same time, the president has warned Putin against attacking any one of the 30 nations which are part of NATO. In his State of the Union speech, Mr. Biden said, "The United States and our Allies will defend every inch of territory that is NATO territory with the full force of our collective power – every single inch."

Koppel asked, "What's being posited right now, and this is not theoretical, this could be next week or next month, that Vladimir Putin orders Russian troops into one of those Baltic States. Do we risk nuclear war to respond to that?"

"It's a dangerous moment; nobody can deny that," Panetta said. "We're dealing with somebody who might very well resort to some kind of nuclear weapon or worse. We have drawn a line, and I think if we fail to stand by that line, it would deeply undermine our credibility to ourselves and to the world."

Putin's dwindling options and isolation fuel fears about his next moves
Hill said, "[Putin] wants us to think and to believe, because he's been explicit about it, that the nuclear option is on the table. Because he has put his nuclear forces on high alert. And so, he wants us to know that he's thinking about his. Because one of the things about Vladimir Putin, if he has an instrument, no matter how cruel and unusual or terrifying that instrument may be, he wants us to think that he would use it.

"So, we have to address this issue seriously, not be intimidated ('cause that's exactly what he wants), not to be scared and to fall back."

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman says West must not bend to Putin's "nuclear saber-rattling" ("CBS Mornings")
Khrushcheva said, "My fear is that he's prepared to go as far as he needs to go. And that's why I hope it excludes NATO countries. But we really at this point cannot exclude that possibility."

"And that would mean that we are at the brink of nuclear war?" asked Koppel.

"It will mean that we are exactly at that World War III that we've been talking about for the last three months and so eagerly trying to avoid. That's also a sign that he's playing. And I hope he's only playing, but [he's] playing a very, very dangerous game."

Alexander said, "If he uses the nuclear weapons, I think that's the end of his regime. I think he understands that. I believe the alternative he will use is, he'll threaten with nuclear. He will use cyber. And I believe we're gonna push back in both those areas. And we have the ability to do the same thing against him. The difference will be that I believe ours will be more focused to go after him than the Russian people."

Koppel asked, "The Russian people are accustomed to enduring pain. The American people, quite frankly, are not. So, when it comes to those exchanges of cyber attacks, depriving us of what we need for our daily lives, that's what the Russians have been doing forever. We are accustomed to having what we want when we want it."

"Yeah. So, you bring out a great point," Alexander said. "And on the surface what you say makes sense. What happens when that's disturbed? I believe we'll grumble, but it's almost like what happened in World War II. It'll awaken the American people, is my belief, and they'll say, 'This has to stop.' I don't know where that will go. I have tremendous faith and confidence in the will of the American people to push back when the going gets tough."

[Monksdream]

Mrs. Robinson
Simon & Garfunkel, The Lemonheads
And here's to you, Mrs. Robinson
Jesus loves you more than you will know
Wo, wo, wo
God bless you please, Mrs. Robinson
Heaven holds a place for those who pray
Hey hey hey
Hey hey hey

We'd like to know a little bit about you for our files
We'd like to help you to learn to help yourself
Look around you, all you see are sympathetic eyes
Stroll around the grounds until you feel at home

And here's to you, Mrs. Robinson
Jesus loves you more than you will know
Wo, wo, wo
God bless you please, Mrs. Robinson
Heaven holds a place for those who pray
Hey hey hey
Hey hey hey

Hide it in a hiding place where no one ever goes
Put it in your pantry with your cupcakes
It's a little secret, just the Robinsons' affair
Most of all you got to hide it from the kids

Coo, coo, ca-choo, Mrs. Robinson
Jesus loves you more than you will know
Wo, wo, wo
God bless you please, Mrs. Robinson
Heaven holds a place for those who pray
Hey hey hey
Hey hey hey

Sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon
Going to the candidates debate
Laugh about it, shout about it when you got to choose
Every way you look at it you lose

Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio?
Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you
Woo, woo, woo
What's that you say Mrs. Robinson?
Joltin' Joe has left and gone away
Hey hey hey
Hey hey hey

Songwriters: Paul Simon

[Monksdream]

This is pure Orwell, war is peace, freedom is slavery.

[Monksdream]

Rough seas for Putin’s pals… First, Western governments went after Russia’s banks — now they’re targeting its oligarchs. Refresher: oligarchs are wealthy individuals with outsized influence over government. Post-Soviet oligarchs have amassed staggering fortunes during the privatization of Russia’s economy by doing favors for politicians like President Putin. By going after oligarchs, Western countries hope to pressure Putin to end the war in Ukraine:

Seize and freeze: President Biden launched “Task Force KleptoCapture” (real name) to confiscate Russian oligarchs’ yachts, jets, and pricey pads. European authorities have already seized some big boats, like the 280-foot Amore Vero owned by a Putin confidant.
Cut and run: Some oligarchs are sailing for safer harbors, but even formerly friendly destinations like Monaco have adopted sanctions. Others are trying to sell: Roman Abramovich put Chelsea FC up for sale. FYI: He’s one of a handful of oligarchs who’ve broken rank by publicly criticizing the war.
Yacht-onomics… Putin has spent years sanction-proofing Russia for this day. Moscow stockpiled currency, bought Chinese bonds, and ditched Western trade partners to fortify Russia’s economy. Oligarchs did their part: experts say Putin and his cronies have personally stashed at least $250B of dark money outside Russia. But their laundered loot is hidden in plain sight: $1B+ yachts and Manhattan penthouses aren’t exactly subtle.

THE TAKEAWAY
Keep your enemies' friends close… So far, government sanctions and international shaming haven’t stopped Putin from escalating his aggression against Ukrainians. Western leaders hope that going after his influential friends could help turn the screws. Russian oligarchs have already lost $83B because of sanctions — and that’s not counting the yachts. And it’s just beginning: the US is said to be expanding sanctions against oligarchs and the businesses that made them rich.

[Monksdream]

Forgive the pun, but the fact stands: Experts are warning that the escalating war in Ukraine could lead to an energy debacle the likes of which we haven’t seen in decades.

Oil prices have skyrocketed to their highest levels in 10 years over concerns that supply could dry up from Russia, one of the world’s biggest oil exporters.

The rise has been sharp and sudden. One week ago, at the dawn of the war, US oil prices were at $92. As of last night, they hovered around $109.
Western leaders have so far treated the energy issue with caution. While they’ve effectively vaporized the Russian economy with a barrage of sanctions, they’ve deliberately spared Russian energy companies from the worst of the penalties—such as booting them from the global messaging service SWIFT.

That’s because Europe’s hands are tied with respect to Russian energy. The EU relies on Russia for 40% of its gas consumption, which is used for critical things like heating homes and powering businesses. And unlike the US, which could replace lost Russian gas with supplies from Mexico and Canada, Europe doesn’t have many fallback plans.

Despite the carve outs, however, Russian energy exports have slowed dramatically since the war began. Because of the sanctions on financial institutions (and the toxic status of Russian companies in general) about 70% of Russian crude oil exports “can’t be touched,” energy analyst Amrita Sen told CNBC. What that could result in, said IHS Markit Vice Chairman Daniel Yergin, is the “worst crisis since the Arab oil embargo and the Iranian revolution in the 1970s.”

It’s never a good sign when your energy situation is compared to the 1970s. That was when OPEC cut off oil exports to the US for helping Israel in the Arab-Israeli war of 1973, which led to soaring prices and stagflation—when inflation soars but economic growth slows.
Looking ahead…despite the consequences to their economies of cracking down on Russian energy, Western governments might decide that funding Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is even worse. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said yesterday that she’s “all for” a ban of Russian oil, and President Biden said “nothing is off the table.” As for Europe, where this Catch-22 hits home the most, leaders are discussing contingency plans if Russian supplies were to dry up completely.

Bottom line: While we don’t know how exactly this crisis will play out, we do know that Europe’s relationship to energy will be forever changed.—NF

[jbsliverer]

There was a whole different attitude then and the ability to have both; freedom and prosperity. Back then, it might of not been thought of that way, but I think in a way, that was what was accomplished.

Today, it might be said that we don't have either. For most, working for individual prosperity is equivalent to just survival with prosperity only in a dream. And an attitude of freedom is a lost thought, desecrated by abuse of what it really means.

[Monksdream]

Freedom or prosperity? For some, the choice is difficult. It wasn't for the Greatest Generation.

[jbsliverer]

They already have. There were some articles and talk the end of last yr projecting $200 this summer. And more and more talk now of that price point.

While the one sided war rages on, shifting players around a bit carries on. Getting close to a deal, but sticky points I guess are Iran wants less inspection of course and guarantees that US just won't back out of deal at some point (guess can't blame them for that). But it's just a oil/energy world where few controls all and I don't think we'll see a change to that.


A surreal footnote to a most surreal week in world affairs.
While hell broke loose in Ukraine , Western and Russian diplomats -- not to mention hard-line emissaries from Tehran -- sat calmly together in Vienna , dotting i's on a prospective reborn Iran nuclear agreement.
"Chances are better than even that the deal will be revived," says Eric Brewer , a senior director at the Nuclear Threat Initiative. "We should know by the middle of this week."
That could bring some respite for oil consumers who have watched crude prices climb more than 20% this year, with sanctions on Russia threatening to push them further. Iran can likely increase production by more than 1 million barrels a day this year if it exits the nuclear sanctions penalty box. That would raise global production by about 1.5%.
Maybe 200,000 more barrels a day could be eked out of another U.S. - sanctioned oil power: Venezuela . President Joe Biden and his administration have quietly eased the so-called maximum pressure campaign that Donald Trump imposed on Nicolas Maduro's regime, allowing more crude to leak out to China and other nondollar buyers. " Venezuela has found ways to adapt to sanctions, and the U.S. has spent less energy enforcing them," says Francisco Rodriguez , a fellow at the Council for Foreign Relations .
When he took office, Biden pledged to revive the multilateral Iran nuclear accord hammered out by Barack Obama and abrogated by Trump. Supporters say the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the formal name for the Iran deal, remains the best mechanism for keeping the Islamic Republic away from a nuclear bomb. "It's impossible to 'solve' the Iran nuclear issue," Brewer says. "JCPOA puts as much time and space as possible between Iran and nuclear weapons."
Biden's plans hit a snag last June when Iranian elections brought Ebrahim Raisi to power as president. He is a purported strict conservative with close ties to the country's religious leaders. Tehran walked away from talks until November. The prospect of selling more oil at eight-year highs nudged them back to the table, however.
The U.S. has its own cause for urgency. Iran is thought to be within a few weeks of having enough enriched uranium for a nuke. A deliverable weapon, mounted on a missile, would take longer, Brewer says. Tehran's progress is focusing minds, nevertheless.
The last sticking point in talks appears to be Iran's push for guarantees that the next U.S. president won't repeat Trump's actions and tear up whatever Biden signs now. The U.S. can't give that assurance: A formal treaty would require two-thirds approval by the Senate , a goal clearly out of reach as far as Iran is concerned.
Chief Iranian negotiator Ali Bagheri flew back to Tehran last week for consultations, leaving his U.S. , European Union , U.K. , Russian, and Chinese counterparts hanging in Vienna . Observers predict Iran will settle for keeping more centrifuges than last time so that their nuclear efforts are easier to pull out of mothballs. "What we hear from well- informed people in Tehran is that we really are close to a deal," says Scott Modell , managing director of Rapidan Energy Group .
An accord could take effect within a month and boost Iran's crude output to 3.6 to 3.8 million barrels a day by late 2022, from about 2,500 now, Modell says. That's not enough to reverse oil's bull run, but it "could be temporarily macro bearish," he predicts.
Venezuela's oil output has suffered no less than Iran's from U.S. sanctions. It dropped from more than 2 million barrels a day when Trump took office in 2017 to about 500,000 in 2020.
A grand political bargain looks still tougher with Caracas than with Tehran . The concession Washington demands from Maduro is existential: new elections that could unseat him. Biden is constrained on his side by a growing Venezuelan émigré voting bloc -- and Cubans who share their anti-socialist grievances -- in the politically key state of Florida . "Being tough on Maduro has paid off electorally," Rodriguez says.
Bumper prices and laxer enforcement has still bumped Venezuelan output to some 750,000 barrels a day starting last summer. The country could squeeze a bit more before needing large investment in depleted fields and infrastructure. " There's still some low-hanging fruit there," Rapidan's Modell says.
Extra volumes from Iran and Venezuela won't offset major disruptions in Russia , which exports more than 3 million barrels of oil a day. But an extra 1 or 1.5 million barrels isn't small change for a market that famously swings on the margins.
Stay tuned.
Write to [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires
02-27-22 1705ET
Copyright (c) 2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

[Monksdream]

Vladimir Putin faces the prospect of thousands of funerals

[Monksdream]

Sometimes it helps to think about the unthinkable.

Predictions of West Texas Intermediate at $150 later this summer

Why not think the unthinkable and move it to $200

[Monksdream]

The Russian people don't much care for Putin''

From an AP correspondent in Moscow

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russians-hold-anti-war-rallies-amid-ominous-threats-by-putin/ar-AAUnmkB?ocid=msedgntp

[Monksdream]

More from the Frontline Putin Files

[Monksdream]

It seems now like it was in another galaxy far, far away

George Kennan's Long Telegram

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_F._Kennan

[Monksdream]

Long interview with Peter Barker, NYT correspondent, from Frontline's Putin Files

[Monksdream]

Final scenes from The Big Short

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=the+big+short&&view=detail&mid=52262FC8AD235290473552262FC8AD2352904735&&FORM=VRDGAR&ru=%2Fvideos%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dthe%2Bbig%2Bshort%26FORM%3DHDRSC3

[Monksdream]

Why the Bosphorus Strait is important

https://www.firstpost.com/world/explained-importance-bosphorus-and-dardanelles-straits-in-russia-ukraine-conflict-and-turkeys-role-10412751.html

[Homebrew]

Maybe they'll add "Hammer & Sickle" to their letterhead.

[jbsliverer]

The New GOP is Trump, and this is what they are and sympathize with. Scary stuff.

Courtesy to blackhawks post
investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=168018775

For reference: Trump spent more than four years undermining Ukraine and promoting Russian interests

When you hear idiots trying to make the "Putin would never have invaded if Trump were president" argument...

Trump's campaign manager was a pro-Putin stooge who previously helped the Kremlin install a puppet government in Ukraine.

Trump's former campaign chief worked for an anti-NATO party and a politician who fled the country amid charges of corruption and collusion with Russia.

insert-text-here

Trump stated that Putin was a stronger leader than the U.S. president.

During the forum — where the candidates appeared separately in front of an audience made up largely of veterans — Trump suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin has been a better leader than President Barack Obama.

insert-text-here
Trump had the Republican Party platform changed to water down support for Ukraine.

Diana Denman, a Republican delegate who supported arming U.S. allies in Ukraine, has told people that Trump aide J.D. Gordon said at the Republican Convention in 2016 that Trump directed him to support weakening that position in the official platform.

insert-text-here

Trump attempted to extort President Zelenskyy by refusing to provide assistance to Ukraine.

Trump’s personal goal, however, was to hold Ukraine hostage and risk the lives of its people and soldiers until Zelensky would agree to stand in front of a television camera and lie for the benefit of one Donald J. Trump.

insert-text-here

After Russia was expelled from the G8 for invading Crimea, Trump repeatedly praised Putin on the world stage and publicly stated that he wanted Russia back in the G8.

The UK and Canada have opposed Russia's return to the G7, deepening a rift over US President Donald Trump's wish for the country to rejoin. ... The president said the G7's "outdated group of countries" should be expanded to include others, including Russia.

insert-text-here

Trump publicly stated that he trusted Putin more than he trusted U.S. intelligence agencies.

In a statement issued by his Save America campaign, Mr Trump also said he would trust Russia over "sleezebags" and "lowlifes" [in] the US intelligence agencies.

insert-text-here

Trump repeatedly undermined NATO...

Perhaps the most striking aspect of Trump’s European tour was how much the tone of near-docile respect to Putin, and to Russia, stood in stark contrast to the insults he dished out over the previous six days to the EU, his declared foe, and to Nato, May and Angela Merkel.

insert-text-here

...to the point where he was threatening to completely pull the U.S. out of the treaty, which would have been Putin's dream scenario.

Donald Trump was considering pulling out of Nato and cutting the US’s alliance with South Korea if he won the 2020 election, according to an account of his private meetings with top aides.

insert-text-here

Even now Trump is sitting on the sidelines cheering on Putin as he invades Ukraine.

Less than a day after Putin ordered Russian troops to enter parts of Ukraine he claims are independent, Trump went on a conservative radio show and called the move "genius."

insert-text-here

Putin didn't need to invade Ukraine when Trump was president because Trump was already giving him everything he wanted on a silver platter. If Trump had won re-election, there's a good chance that he would have actually tried to pull the U.S. out of NATO, which would have left Europe completely at Putin's mercy. Why would Putin invade Ukraine when there was a chance that could have happened?

Putin only chose now to invade because after four years of Trump's weak leadership, Biden was rebuilding international support against Russia. Putin's invasion is an act of desperation.

[Monksdream]

Russia sells 4 million barrels a day of crude oil on the world market. The transactions are carried out in either American dollars or Euros. Since crude oil is around, for the sake of a round number, at $100 a barrel, that amounts to $400,000,000 a day being extracted from the world's economies to the Russian economy.

Ours truly remains the Age of Oil

[Monksdream]

Planet Money podcasts have a quirky way of explaining how the world works to its listeners.

https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510289/planet-money

The latest podcast reveals how Vladimir Putin has taken measures to shield Russia against sanctions. It goes back to the Obama administration. Then Donald Trump. Now Joe Biden.

The thing that worries me about Donald Trump is his support and admiration for authoritarian leaders.

[jbsliverer]

Wow. Wish I caught that move. Wasn't even on the radar. Wonder what kind of action it's going to be Mon. if it continues. Still not up to the high of just a couple of months ago and just recently a new low for it. $117 for the height of exuberance yr ago.

[Monksdream]

Renewable Energy Group Inc NASDAQ: REGI
REGI
GoSymbol lookup
Energy : Oil, Gas & Consumable Fuels | Small Cap ValueCompany profile
Renewable Energy Group, Inc. is focused on providing cleaner, lower carbon transportation fuels. The Company is a global producer and supplier of renewable fuels, such as biodiesel and renewable diesel, renewable chemicals and other products. Its segments include Bio-based Diesel, Services and Corporate and other activities. The Bio-based Diesel segment processes waste vegetable oils, animal fats, virgin vegetable oils, and other feedstocks into bio-based diesel. The Bio-based Diesel segment also includes the Company’s purchases and resales of bio-based diesel produced by third parties. The Services segment offers services for managing the construction of bio-based diesel production facilities and managing ongoing operations of third-party and collects fees. The Corporate and Other segment includes trading activities related to petroleum-based heating oil and diesel fuel, including the petroleum portion of sales of biodiesel and renewable diesel blended with petroleum-based diesel.

[Monksdream]

Cybersecurity stocks surge as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine highlights the risks of cyberwar

Modern warfare isn’t confined to the battlefield… Ukrainian banks’ and government websites were hit with cyberattacks this week ahead of Russia’s deadly invasion. Since the US and its allies imposed sanctions on Moscow, Western officials have been on high alert for Russian cyber-retaliation. Shares of cybersecurity companies have spiked:

Network-security stocks Palo Alto Networks, CrowdStrike, Fortinet, and Mandiant all surged at least 10% yesterday, and cybersecurity ETFs also jumped.
It’s scary out there… Even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the cybersecurity industry had been seeing a flood of investment: VC-backed security companies have raised $2.6B so far this month, about 4X more than the same period last year.

Cybercrime is a growing biz: the number of cyberattacks increased 70% last year, and data breaches cost US companies a record $4.2M on average. The global cost of hacks topped $6T last year and is forecast to hit $10.5T by 2025.
Russia’s already a big player: Cybercrime analysts say nearly 75% of money stolen via ransomware attacks last year went to Russia-linked cybercriminals. In recent years, logistics giants FedEx and Maersk have also been targeted by Russian hackers.
THE TAKEAWAY
A new era of state-sponsored cybercrime is dawning… Russia was responsible for an estimated 60% of state-sponsored cybercrime detected by Microsoft last year, and now the FBI is warning US banks and businesses to watch out for Russian ransomware attacks. Biden has asked American tech giants like Google and Microsoft to help beef up cybersecurity, but has struggled to boost the national cybersecurity budget since his Build Back Better bill stalled in Congress.

[Icanslim]

Thank you!

[Monksdream]

Cats are moody, but you don't have to take them for walks. They tend to keep to themselves most of the time. They are creatures of habit. They like affection on their terms. They purr. They express attitudes with their tails. They're curious. They sleep most of the time. They constantly groom themselves.

[Icanslim]

Dream, non trading/investment question:

I've seen you mention your cat in other posts.

We lost our family dog about 2 years ago (she graced our presence for about 15 years).

My wife wants a cat. I'm a dog guy but I do like the independence of a cat.

You tend to shoot straight. What is it you like most about cats, and least about cats?

Thanks, sir!

[Monksdream]

If you walk the streets of Moscow, you will eventually smell the faint odor of gasoline.

I’m a former Moscow correspondent. Don’t let Vladimir Putin fool you: Russia’s war in Ukraine is only about one thing.
© MarketWatch photo illustration/iStockphoto
I’m a former Moscow correspondent. Don’t let Vladimir Putin fool you: Russia’s war in Ukraine is only about one thing.

Video: Putin's 'not going to be punished' for creating a crisis, analyst says (Yahoo! Finance)


It’s as ever-present in the air around Russia’s capital as it is central to the country’s economy, infrastructure and geopolitical posture.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin has spelled out a nationalist rationale for his country’s military incursion into two restive provinces in eastern Ukraine largely controlled by Kremlin-backed separatists, but it is primarily about protecting Moscow’s energy interests.

That was true in 2014, when Russia seized Crimea and I was a Moscow correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, for which I wrote dozens of stories about the insurgency in Donetsk and Luhansk that Russia helped foment. And it remains true now.

See: Putin calls for international recognition of Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimean Peninsula in Ukraine

From the archives (March 2021): G-7 rebukes Russia over annexation of Crimea

To understand the Kremlin’s motivations in regard to its smaller, and relatively impoverished, neighbor, the key fact to know is that Russia supplies 40% of Europe’s heating-fuel supplies — namely, natural gas.

Any crimp on Russia’s ability to access the European market is a threat to its economic security.
To get it there, Russia relies mostly on two aging pipeline networks, one of which runs through Belarus and the other through Ukraine. For this, Russia pays Ukraine around $2 billion a year in transit fees.

Russia is a petrostate and relies on oil and natural-gas sales for about 60% of its export revenue and 40% of its total budget expenditures. Any crimp on Russia’s ability to access the European market is a threat to its economic security.

See: Chancellor Olaf Scholz suspends German certification of Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia

In the Kremlin’s view, a switch of allegiance by Kiev, or Kyiv by Ukrainian preference, to the West — be it an economic association agreement with the European Union like Ukraine was on the verge of signing in 2014, or even the hint of joining NATO — is close to an act of war.

In my three years covering Russia, I watched as the country slowly withdrew into itself after Putin returned to office for what was then his third term as president.

MarketWatch First Take (March 2012): Oil elixir losing its magic for Russia’s Putin

Gone were prior efforts to intertwine Russia’s economy and the global system and encourage foreign investment. As towering skyscrapers rose in Moscow atop a pile of oil cash, Putin’s government became more backward-looking and more isolated.

In Ukraine, meanwhile, many were growing increasingly ill at ease with the impoverished state of their country.
In Ukraine, meanwhile, many were growing increasingly ill at ease with the impoverished state of their country and highly corrupt political system as it languished, locked in a kind of Soviet-era limbo under Russian domination.

As Ukrainians looked to rising living standards in places like Poland and Latvia that had joined NATO and the European Union, many wondered why they couldn’t have the same for themselves.

This is where Putin’s nationalistic impulses kick in. He views the fall of the Soviet Union as the “greatest geopolitical tragedy” of the past century and the rush of former Eastern bloc countries into the embrace of the European Union, and even NATO, as a great humiliation.

He has drawn a line in the sand with countries that border Russia, invading Georgia in 2008 when it hinted at joining NATO, and moving to destabilize Ukraine when it moved to establish closer economic ties with Europe.

Domestically, Putin has sold the incursions into Ukraine on purely nationalistic grounds — even going so far this weekend as to dismiss Ukraine’s history as an independent country as a falsehood.

See: Biden targets Russian banks, sovereign debt in ‘first tranche’ of sanctions over Ukraine invasion

While Ukrainians and Russians share religions and ethnicities, they speak different, albeit similar, languages, even as there are pockets of native Russian speakers in some Ukrainian regions, as there are in other former Soviet republics. And while Russians have seen their quality of life improve awash in petro-rubles in the decades under Putin’s rule, Ukrainians have been mired in poverty and bogged down by misrule.

While it is no wonder many Ukrainians yearn to be unmoored from their bigger, imperialist neighbor, for Putin and his cohort of oligarchs Ukrainian self-determination is not really on the table.

Not when it puts at risk the flow of money that has kept them in power.

Microsoft may earn an Affiliate Commission if you purchase something through recommended links in this article.

[Monksdream]

Be Angry At The Sun
That public men publish falsehoods
Is nothing new. That America must accept
Like the historical republics corruption and empire
Has been known for years.

Be angry at the sun for setting
If these things anger you. Watch the wheel slope and turn,
They are all bound on the wheel, these people, those warriors.
This republic, Europe, Asia.

Observe them gesticulating,
Observe them going down. The gang serves lies, the passionate
Man plays his part; the cold passion for truth
Hunts in no pack.

You are not Catullus, you know,
To lampoon these crude sketches of Caesar. You are far
From Dante's feet, but even farther from his dirty
Political hatreds.

Let boys want pleasure, and men
Struggle for power, and women perhaps for fame,
And the servile to serve a Leader and the dupes to be duped.
Yours is not theirs.

[Monksdream]

As Russia eyes moving troops further into Ukraine, Western leaders are readying economic sanctions to punish Vladimir Putin for his aggression.

Those sanctions will be separate and far more severe than the ones President Biden introduced yesterday. US lawmakers have pledged to unleash the “mother of all sanctions” in the event of a Russian invasion, and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson suggested on Sunday that the sanctions will include cutting off Russian companies from using US dollars and British pounds, hitting them “very, very hard.”

But while the West is swinging back its battering ram, Putin has had time to build fortifications. For the last several years, he’s been bolstering Russia’s economic defenses in anticipation for this exact moment in a strategy some have dubbed “Fortress Russia.”

Building Fortress Russia
If you want to sanction-proof your economy, the first place to start is padding your foreign exchange reserves, which are stockpiles of foreign currencies held by your central bank. Among its other uses, foreign currency can be deployed to preserve liquidity during an economic crisis.

Russia’s recently grown its foreign currency reserves to $631 billion, good for fourth place in the world.
It’s also taken a number of other steps to blunt the impact of sanctions:

Russia’s trimmed expenses to put itself on sturdier financial footing.
It built its own financial messaging system in case it gets blocked from the one used around the world, called SWIFT.
It’s developed homegrown industries to reduce imports from the West, most famously Russian Parmesan cheese (keeping an open mind about this).
Also worth noting is that Russia supplies Europe with 40% of its gas imports. So sanctions hitting Russia’s energy sector could boomerang back to hurt the West and destabilize global energy markets.

Big picture: Despite the sanction-proofing campaign, Putin’s Fortress Russia is not impenetrable. Geopolitical experts say that the types of sanctions being prepared, which could block Russia from importing critical tech materials or cut off Russian banks from accessing the US dollar, will be enough to overcome Putin’s defenses and cause significant and immediate damage to the Russian economy.

And investors are preparing for the worst: Russia’s benchmark stock index closed down 11% yesterday for its biggest single-day drop since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.—NF

[Monksdream]

Another interview with Richard Duncan, dated back to 10/21

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=richard+duncan+economics&&view=detail&mid=B3D4D5A779F6347E7596B3D4D5A779F6347E7596&&FORM=VRDGAR&ru=%2Fvideos%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Drichard%2Bduncan%2Beconomics%26FORM%3DHDRSC3

[Monksdream]

The latest Investors Podcast is with macro economist Richard Duncan.

https://www.theinvestorspodcast.com/episodes/how-to-finance-the-next-american-century-w-richard-duncan/

Instead of limiting government investment in future technologies, Duncan thinks the US should invest up to $10 trillion over the next ten years.

Reason? If the US doesn't invest into new technologies, especially AI, China will become the dominant global economy, and the US will no longer be able to determine its own destiny.

[Monksdream]

The SEC has proposed change, based on public comment, about the settlement date. The current Tplus2 would move to Tplus1. If enacted, it would make frequent traders happy. They would be able to trade more frequently.

The think same day settlement is an eventuality.

Meanwhile, the SEC needs to abolish this silly pattern day trader rule. This is a summary history of how it began.

https://analyzingalpha.com/pattern-day-trader#history-of-the-pdt-rules

[Monksdream]

I have decided to paste in a five year chart for West Texas Intermediate

This is a bust to boom chart.

Ours truly remains the Age of Oil

[Monksdream]

The idealogues like to harp on the failure of capitalism. The chief criticism they employ is capitalism's inability to provide for the greatest good for the greatest number. This amounts, in a roundabout way of describing it, as a zero sum game.

That said, I don't have a crystal ball. I am not an idiot savant, or an oracle living in a cave in Greece inhaling fumes that make me say crazy things about the future.

Way back in 1998 I was writing for a financial website which went out of business. We actually had a bear market that year. It only lasted a mere five months. It was in August that year when Yahoo! stock shot up something like $100. I was watching CNBC daily in those days and I still remember the disgusted look on David Faber's face when he had to report on the explosion in the price.

That was the first boom to bust I've personally experienced.

More have followed.

What will the coming decades be like in the current century? Could we see at least a couple booms to busts followed by another boom every 2 to 3 years?

[Monksdream]

In the after math of the housing bubble which nearly brought down the world's economies, Michael Lewis said of Steve Eisman, one the characters in his book The Big Short, that he changed from being a Republican conservative at the beginning of his Wall Street career to becoming a socialist.

This video features Eisman on his soapbox explaining the housing bubble and who created it, while making little jabs at the flaws in the capitalist system.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=michael+lewis&ru=%2fvideos%2fsearch%3fq%3dmichael%2blewis%26FORM%3dHDRSC3&vie

[Monksdream]

The reason I no longer watch CNBC or Bloomberg TV (in fact, I no longer own a TV) lies in the fact the talking heads these two networks employ are nothing more than well paid shills, whose only qualification, in my view, is they're pretty young people.

This segment featuring two pretty young people in discussion with Michael Lewis bears this out.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=michael+lewis&ru=%2fvideos%2fsearch%3fq%3dmichael%2blewis%26FORM%3dHDRSC3&vie

[Monksdream]

A few years ago I saw a quote attributed to John F Kennedy on wall outside the uptown library in Charlotte: "we prepare our children for a world we will never see." The first 21 years plus a month into the current century have seen its fair share of periods crisis, followed, it seems, by periods of stability. It's like we've experienced a succession of glad to sad moments.

In this morning's Morning Brew email there is an excerpt of a longer interview with Michael Lewis. Here is a snippet from that interview.

When Liar’s Poker was originally published, you thought you were capturing excess we’d never see again. What’s it like to see what’s happening now?

Well, it really was true that when I sat down to write the book, I thought: I better get this down, because nothing like this will ever happen again. And it was very personal—it was insane that people were giving me huge sums of money to give financial advice. I knew what it was worth. So I just knew how out of whack the capitalist system had gotten—it was not paying people what they were worth, and I was the prime example.

And so I look around now, and I think we’re getting to a point where it feels like parody. It feels like with cryptocurrency, with NFTs, with memestocks, you have the little people almost performing a satire of what the big people have been doing. It's this arbitrary bestowing of wealth on people for no particular reason. Because, you know, I happened to be given a bitcoin wallet six years ago, or you got into GameStop, or whatever it is. So I do feel like I’ve been watching—not the system ever reform itself—but instead just becoming more and more itself, more and more extreme. And I keep waiting for the moment where people say, “Oh, this whole financialization of our lives and our economy—it's gotten a little out of hand.” It really hasn’t happened. The financial sector has just gotten more and more important, and not just as a percentage of activity in the economy, but also in the imagination of people.

[Monksdream]

The recent growing fear of a Russian invasion of Ukraine got me curious about the price for a barrel of oil. I went to Barchart for a 5 year chart of spot West Texas Intermediate.

[Monksdream]

This is a video podcast with captions from a Motley Fool interview with Christopher Mims, the Wall Street Journal's technology columnist.

https://www.fool.com/investing/2022/01/29/pulling-the-curtain-back-on-just-in-time-delivery/

International trade has been a fact of life going back to the ancient times when the planet's inhabitants created what we call civilization. It began shortly, in relative terms as to how time is measured, after the end of the last Ice Age. Humans produced goods and carried them long distances by foot, later by animal power, thanks to the invention of the wheel, which much later than one would figure. Don't forget boats powered by the wind and men manning oars. The earliest mariners actually did navigate their boats beyond the sight of land.

What we take for granted is how interconnected and interdependent all of humankind is with each other. The supply chain, thanks to incredibly low shipping costs, is an amazing display of social evolution. The supply chain isn't concerned with anyone's skin color, ethnicity, political affiliation, nationality, religiousness, all the social issues that tend to divide us from each other.

[Monksdream]

This is a paste from the daily New York Times summary I receive in my email.

We all remember the Cold War period when the Russians were making scads of nuclear weapons while the US was keeping apace with nuclear weapons of its own. Then the Soviet system collapsed. China was on the ropes as a society thanks to Chairman Mao's puritanical nuttiness during a period in which who knows how many millions of Chinese citizens died of starvation.

Still, this idea of an authoritarian government can still produce the greatest good for the greatest number persists.
Author Headshot
By David Leonhardt

Good morning. China and Russia have formed an “alliance of autocracies.”


Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping in Beijing last week.Pool photo by Alexei Druzhinin
Putin and Xi
The last time Xi Jinping left China was more than two years ago, for a diplomatic trip to Myanmar. Days later, he ordered the lockdown of Wuhan, which began China’s aggressive “zero Covid” policy. By staying home, Xi has reduced his chances of contracting the virus and has sent a message that he is playing by at least some of the same pandemic rules as other Chinese citizens.

Until last week, Xi had also not met with a single other world leader since 2020. He had conducted his diplomacy by phone and videoconference. When he finally broke that streak and met in Beijing on Friday with another head of state, who was it?

Vladimir Putin.

Their meeting led to a joint statement, running more than 5,000 words, that announced a new closeness between China and Russia. It proclaimed a “redistribution of power in the world” and mentioned the U.S. six times, all critically.

The Washington Post called the meeting “a bid to make the world safe for dictatorship.” Kevin Rudd, a former prime minister of Australia, told The Wall Street Journal, “The world should get ready for a further significant deepening of the China-Russia security and economic relationship.”

Today’s newsletter offers a guide to that relationship, with help from Times correspondents around the world.

Ukraine and Taiwan
The current phase of the relationship has its roots in Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine. The European Union and the U.S. responded with economic sanctions on Russia that forced it to trade more with Asia, Anton Troianovski, The Times’s Moscow bureau chief, notes. China stepped in, buying Russian oil, investing in Russian companies and more.

“The conventional wisdom used to be that Putin didn’t want to get too close to China,” Anton said. That’s no longer the case.

Russia returned the favor in recent years, buying equipment from Huawei, a Chinese tech giant, after the Trump administration tried to isolate the company.

In the grandest sense, China and Russia are creating a kind of “alliance of autocracies,” as Steven Lee Myers, The Times’s Beijing bureau chief, puts it. They don’t use that phrase and even claim to be democracies. “Democracy is a universal human value, rather than a privilege of a limited number of states,” their joint statement read. “It is only up to the people of the country to decide whether their state is a democratic one.”

But the message that China and Russia have sent to other countries is clear — and undemocratic. They will not pressure other governments to respect human rights or hold elections. In Xi’s and Putin’s model, an autocratic government can provide enough economic security and nationalistic pride to minimize public opposition — and crush any that arises.

“There are probably more countries than Washington would like to think that are happy to have China and Russia as an alternative model,” Steven told us. “Look how many countries showed up at the opening ceremony of Beijing 2022, despite Biden’s ‘diplomatic boycott.’ They included some — Egypt, Saudi Arabia — that had long been in the American camp.”

Russia’s threat to invade Ukraine has added a layer to the relationship between Moscow and Beijing. The threat reflects Putin’s view — which Xi shares — that a powerful country should be able to impose its will within its declared sphere of influence. The country should even be able to topple a weaker nearby government without the world interfering. Beside Ukraine, of course, another potential example is Taiwan.

For all these common interests, China and Russia do still have major points of tension. For decades, they have competed for influence in Asia. That competition continues today, with China now in the more powerful role, and many Russians, across political ideologies, fear a future of Chinese hegemony.

Even their joint statement — which stopped short of being a formal alliance — had to elide some tensions. It did not mention Ukraine by name, partly because China has economic interests that an invasion would threaten. The two countries are also competing for influence in the melting waters of the Arctic. And China is nervous about Russia’s moves to control Kazakhstan, where many people are descended from modern-day China.

“China and Russia are competing for influence around much of the world — Central Asia, Africa, the Middle East and South America,” Lara Jakes, who covers the State Department from Washington, said. “The two powers have less than more in common, and a deep or enduring relationship that goes beyond transactional strategies seems unlikely.”

As part of its larger effort to check China’s rise — and keep Russia from undermining global stability — the Biden administration is likely to look for ways to exacerbate any tensions between China and Russia, in Kazakhstan and elsewhere.

The bottom line
The “alliance of autocracies” remains informal for now. But it is real, and it extends beyond China and Russia to include other countries — like Hungary, Turkey and Venezuela — that work together to minimize the effect of economic sanctions and diplomatic pressure. The world’s democracies face a growing and interconnected challenge from a very different political model.