Ukraine

"Amid the wave of bellicose rhetoric that has swelled in Moscow since the start of the conflict in Ukraine, officials as high up as President Vladimir Putin have been making open nuclear threats, a public saber-rattling with weapons of mass destruction largely unseen even in the days of the Cold War."

The swell of anti-Russian propaganda, confrontation and attempted intimidation by NATO has increased, and if it continues to do so it is likely that Moscow will take action, thereby upping the stakes and the danger even more. It is time that NATO’s nations came to terms with the reality that Russia is a major international power with legitimate interests in its own region. Moscow is not going to bow the knee in the face of immature threats by sabre-rattling US generals and their swaggering acolytes. It is time for NATO to forge ties rather than destroy them — and to build bridges rather than glitzy office blocks.

Dmytro Yarosh, leader of ‘Pravyi Sector’ (aka Right Sector) political party, whose ideology has been described as nationalist, ultranationalist, neofascist, right-wing, or far right, was just appointed as Advisor to Chief of General Staff. Yesterday, Colonel General Viktor Muzhenko, Chief of General Staff, and Dmytro Yarosh agreed the format of cooperation between ‘Pravyi Sector’ and the Ukrainian Armed Forces. In other words, the Ukraine army just launched a joint-venture with the local neo-fascist groups.

With 'shocked' OSCE observers noting that the Minsk accord ceasefire is not holding in Ukraine's Shyrokyne, it appears sabre-rattling around the world is picking once again. Military exercises in Russia's Astrakhan region, conducted successful launches of the 'hypersonic' S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems, repelling an "enemy" air assault. This follows another drill invloving ten aircraft including helicopters in simulated attacks by an "enemy" near the Chinese border. Meanwhile, North Korea has test-fired four short-range missiles into the sea off its west coast, in protest at US-South Korean military drills, which are currently ongoing, and a 2nd drill is underway " supervised by Kim Jong-Un."

The appointment of a number of non-Ukrainians to important government posts appears to have been implemented as a move aimed at curbing corruption. This was almost certainly under “orders” of Western powers which are currently financing Ukraine’s government. The IMF wants to get its money back one day, and that won’t be possible unless some things change rather dramatically. However, we believe this also means that the Minsk agreement will not hold forever. In US neo-con circles the idea of Kiev negotiating with the rebels in the East is detested – only unconditional surrender is held to be acceptable.

Russia possesses tremendous opportunity for growth and with no lack of suitors – east or west – Putin is in no hurry to pander to the US or EU hardliners.

When gaming the old score wasn't sufficient to expand the pool of elligible borrowers, creativity was necessary. The result: an entirely new score is born...

The story is the same every time: some nation, due to a confluence of lucky circumstances, becomes powerful—much more powerful than the rest—and, for a time, is dominant. But the lucky circumstances, which often amount to no more than a few advantageous quirks of geology, be it Welsh coal or West Texas oil, in due course come to an end. In the meantime, the erstwhile superpower becomes corrupted by its own power. As the endgame approaches, those still nominally in charge of the collapsing empire resort to all sorts of desperate measures—all except one: they will refuse to ever consider the fact that their imperial superpower is at an end, and that they should change their ways accordingly.

Venezuela, Argentina, and... China? are the 3 best performing stock markets in March in USD terms (with Ukraine close behind). It is the Greeks that have borne the brunt of global derisking through The Ides, Athens Stock Index down over 15% and the worst-performing stock market in the world for March. Year-to-date, Russia joins the 3 amigos at the top of the list (up almost 11% in USD terms) and Ukraine remains the clear laggard, down almost 33% in USD terms. The best performing global stock market in 2015 in local currency terms is... Denmark!?

Did Reuters fabricate a key part of its story about the downing of flight MH-17 in which the media outlet revealed "new evidence on downing of Malaysian plane over Ukraine." According to the main witness Reuters supposedly interviewed, the answer is yes: “When we talked about the Boeing on camera, I explained everything as I saw it. The things that I allegedly said off-camera, all this nonsense, was made up by the journalist himself. It's all lies, because off-camera, we never discussed the Boeing, and just spoke about life, about the current situation, so to speak.”

By taking money from American taxpayers to support economically weak and oftentimes corrupt governments, the IMF distorts the market, enriches corrupt governments, and harms both the American taxpayer and the residents of the counties receiving IMF "aid." It is past time to end the IMF along with all instruments of American interventionist foreign policy.

Despite what may look to be "cheap" valuations, JPM calls the EM contrarian approach “tactically challenging” thanks to leverage, a difficult environment for economic growth and Janet Yellen. "Each of these is a problem, in our view. In combination, they could be a serious problem," the bank notes.

Surely the thinking folk out there must be asking themselves: what is the way out of this Federal Reserve three-card-monte, one-percenter-stuffing, so-called “economy,” and what is the destination of this society when that mendacious model for living fails? There really is no free lunch or get-out-of-jail card. The truth is, when you rig a money system with price interventions, distortions, and perversions, they will eventually express themselves in ways destructive to the system.

Regarding the major problem of the more domestic issue of economic recovery, unless we would agree, which we really shouldn’t, that making a small group of the population richer while the much larger rest is made poorer, is how we define ‘recovery’, we have no recovery. But it is still accepted and proclaimed like a gospel: our economies are in recovery. If you take a step back and watch things from a distance, it’s truly too silly to be true, but endless repetition of the same lines, be they true or not, has them accepted as being cast in stone. It’s like selling detergent. Of course it doesn’t hurt that people very much want to believe a recovery is here. The stories we are bombarded with 24/7 under the quite hilarious misnomer ‘News’ have been prepared, pre-cooked and pre-chewed for our smooth and painless digestion, and as such they contain only tiny little flakes of reality. They are designed to make us feel good, not understand the world around us. And, as Scott Minerd says, the economic future for your entire families will look utterly bleak. Because that recovery they talk about? It’s not for you.

With a no longer “patient” Fed set for “liftoff” sometime this year, some observers are bracing for emerging market turbulence. A new paper from the Center for Global Development attempts to discern which EMs are most vulnerable to an “external shock."