Archive - Mar 20, 2014 - Story

Some 83 aircraft have been declared “missing” since 1948, according to data compiled by the Aviation Safety Network. The list includes planes capable of carrying more than 14 passengers and where no trace — bodies or debris — has ever been found.

While the most vocal mouthpieces of the western world's nations are loudly condemning Vladimir Putin's actions in Crimea - despite Ukraine itself suggesting he can keep it for a price - it appears the rest of the world is less voracious in its condemnation. As Putin noted this morning "we are grateful to all those who understood our actions in Crimea,” Putin said. “We are grateful to the people of China, whose leadership sees the situation in Crimea in all its historical and political integrity. We highly appreciate India’s restraint and objectivity.”

China’s hardly in need of more territorial disputes with neighbors. Yet, it has started a new one with Indonesia.

With the Crimea referendum passed and Russia ready to annex the region, the United States and the European Union have threatened sanctions. The full extent of these sanctions is not yet known, and announcements are pending for the end of March. If these measures are concrete, they will of course be followed inevitably by economic warfare, including a reduction of natural gas exports to the EU and the eventually full dump of the U.S. dollar by Russia and China. As I have discussed in recent articles, the result of these actions will be disastrous. For those of us in the liberty movement, it is now impossible to ignore the potential threat to our economy. No longer can people claim that “perhaps” there will be a crisis someday, that perhaps “five or 10 years” down the road we will have to face the music. No, the threat is here now, and it is very real.

Yellen’s press conference was panned by some as confusing and ambiguous. The press conference was not as “boring” as some have stated, because the FOMC (represented by Yellen) now appears to be struggling between theory and practice.  This marks a significant shift from the majority of members who had almost entirely been relying on models (theory). The one thing that seemed perfectly clear is that the Fed plans to continue to unwind the QE program barring some type of disaster.  After that, we will all have to reassess and see how things unfold...“Theory is when you understand everything, but nothing works.   Practice is when everything works, but nobody understands why. When theory and practice are untied, nothing works and nobody understands why.”

With Ukraine troops being redeployed to other regions on the mainland - as the government appears to have folded on Crimea protection efforts but pledges to "defend our land" - we thought some postcards from the tip of the spear would be useful...

As any long-time reader of this column knows, we routinely draw from historical lessons to highlight that this time is not different. History is full of examples, from ancient Mesopotamia to the Soviet Union, which show that whenever societies reach unsustainable levels of resource consumption and allocation, they collapse. We’ve been writing about this for years, and the idea is now hitting mainstream. A recent research paper funded by NASA highlights this same premise. According to the authors: "Collapses of even advanced civilizations have occurred many times in the past five thousand years, and they were frequently followed by centuries of population and cultural decline and economic regression." The results of their experiments show that some of the very clear trends which exist today– unsustainable resource consumption, and economic stratification that favors the elite – can very easily result in collapse.

"Markets are distorted," was the message Citi's Matt King implored investors to comprehend in his latest missive, and it appears speculators are growing disillusioned with their 'faith' in markets one asset-class at a time. In the interests of simplifying the decision of whether to believe markets are driven by fun-durr-mentals (or not), the following two charts should help clarify your decision to BTFATH...

Earlier today, heavily-armed masked men in military attire, stormed two Ukraine corvettes, Lutsk and Khmelnitsky, in what is now Russian territory at the port of Sevastopol. Perhaps considering Ukraine said it had pulled its troops from Crimea, they should also have pulled their ships, although it is unclear just where they would pull them to. Regardless, this is what the actual storming of the ships looked like.

With senior German officials expecting discussions among leaders at the EU Summit to solely focused on a second round of sanctions against Russia (and warnings that they "must avoid a spiral of sanctions"), we thought it worth drilling down on just how mutually-dependent the two regions are. As Acting-Man's Pater Tenebrarum notes, the following infographics suggest tit-for-tat sanctions could be a really big problem for Europe and why the EU's leaders are probably quietly praying for the crisis to simply go away.

Fact or Fiction...

"...under no circumstance is there ever a justification of the pre-emptive deployment if Hillary Clinton anywhere by any country..."

Each time the Fed has lowered the overnight lending rate, the next set of increases have never exceeded the previous peak.  This is due to the fact, that over the last 35 years, economic growth has been on a continued decline. Increases in interest rates are not kind to the markets either.  Each time the Fed has started increasing the overnight lending rates.  Each time has seen either market stagnation, declines, or crashes.  Furthermore, it is currently implied that the Fed funds rate will increase to 3% in the future, yet the current downtrend suggests that an increase to 2% is likely all that can be withstood. According to Jim Cramer last night, he said the idea of rising interest rates shocked the markets, however, in the long-term it's a positive sign. Rates rise as the economy does better. The assumption he makes is that as the economy "catches fire" and corporate profits increase, then it is natural for interest rates to rise also.  If a growing economy is a function of expanding profitability, then what is wrong with the chart below...

Last week we discovered that Gazprom's Chairman Viktor Zubkov sold his entire stake in the company days before the Crimean invasion (and subsequent sanctions and asset freezes). Today, on the heels of the latest round of US sanctions against Russia's so-called "Putin cronies"; Cyprus-based oil trader Gunvor Group announced that co-founder Gennady Timchenko (estimated wealth $8.5 billion) - who was named on today's sanctions list - sold his entire 44% stake in the company yesterday. The question is - as we show below - did the US Treasury tip Timchenko off to what was coming?

"I think it was wrong for us to get involved and participate in the overthrow of the government," exclaims Ron Paul in this brief clip, adding the US is "stirring up trouble in Crimea." The American people are "tired of it," and "it would be best for us to stay out." The US doesn't need another war - and certainly can't afford it - and "we don't want trade wars." Simply put, he concludes, "it's best we stay out."

Ukraine's honeymoon period with its new rulers may end far sooner that most expect, and it will be certainly accelerated with news such as this. A few hours ago, Interfax reported that Ukraine expects to increase domestic gas prices by 40% once discounted import prices from Russia expire, the country’s Energy Minister Yury Prodan told journalists in the European Parliament on Thursday.