The fires are coming and they will burn bright and hot. I shed 17bps today in the face of a melt up, due to heavy exposure to oils and some hedges against the market. I am heavily leveraged now at 150% and my bets are geared towards the inevitable specter of war in Europe. Any day now, perhaps a fortnight at best, you will be praising my alacrity in having prepared for his eventuality.
It should be known, I am +3% for the month and have made it a point to not be greedy, since I do believe, rather emphatically, the project of war on Ukraine is a forgone conclusion. You should know, once this happens, stocks will be racked and stacked with losses — investors running in the streets naked with tatters of charred clothing fettering off them as if a kite got caught in a mesh of barbed wire.
Until a peace accord is drafted and signed, Le Fly will remain in his bunker, monitoring the situation and positioning for the fall out.
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I’m going flat in anticipation. It seems people underestimate the situation. Normalcy bias. These sport wars in Afghanistan, Syria never entered Joe Etrade’s cranium.
My guess, it won’t come to this, but if it did, we would find out exactly what real Russian hackers can do. (With help from Chinese, Iranian, N Korean and a long list other sundry enemies who would pile on, bigtime)
Fettering
That table photo with Macron and Putin is so absurd. Ukraine is fucked.
Here’s Ms Nuland discussing who to install in the coup we sponsored in 2014 …her and other checkers players are still running our foreign policy. But there’s unlikely to be war. Happily, Vlad is smarter and less arrogant than Blinken, Nuland and crew. And as for us mixing it up directly with Russia …we only bomb brown people who do not have nukes. https://twitter.com/i/status/1491147783893823488
“And as for us mixing it up directly with Russia …we only bomb brown people who do not have nukes.”
This is unquestionably correct. But just playing devil’s advocate, what happens if both Putin and Xi have figured this out too?
There seems to be 2 main undercurrents happening that are going to cause us much agony:
1) Globalization is super fragile if any shockwaves happen…even if they’re external shocks.
2) Even if war doesn’t happen (and especially if it does), the entire philosophy of globalization in the 21st century just got thrown out a fourth story window. China is repivoting toward ethnic nationalism and Europe is facing its first prospect of a continental war in at least 30 years. I thought free trade was supposed to fix all of this? No? Someone get the art majors at the Brookings Institute on the line.
At this point, reshoring American manufacturing (or at least relocating it to nearby Central American countries that are more in our sphere of influence) is a foregone conclusion. And that shit is going to be very expensive. Inflation isn’t going anywhere for years; it’s a matter of national security now.
Do you think those in charge really care about national security?
Yes definitely, in their own peculiar and deeply contradictory way.
I don’t think Washington will be able to look past China’s power plays in particular.
Look at how little has been done to reverse Trump’s tariffs or the fights going on with delisting companies on exchanges. Look at the Nvidia deal collapsing this week. Below the surface everything is not okay.
Speaking from ignorance …if I were Xi, I’d embrace all those resource-rich countries and peoples that the US has pissed off and I’d thank my lucky stars that, one of them (a resource-rich Russia) has been so fucked with by us that even they can now rationalize taking a second China.
Yes, we’ll have to re-shore because they aren’t going to work for the shit we print when our stupidity finally hits the fan …but you may be being optimistic about our retaining even Central America as our local bitch.
*second to China
Speaking from ignorance …as we all are, chances are decent that within a few weeks we will know how it turns out.
I don’t think Putin and Xi know how it turns out but my impression is this will be a real test for Hunter Biden’s dad’s handlers; not an academic exercise.
Putin isn’t spending all this money and effort to go home emptyhanded. He will take something and see how Hunter Biden’s dad’s handlers react, which is probably just jawboning. Then they and the Chinese will take as much as they can without serious repercussions.
Net effect: no major war, Russia & China gain; Hunter Biden’s dad’s declares victory to follow up his Afghanistan success; dollar is hit
We will find out soon enough.
The fate of the reputation of the US Empire is ultimately at stake here.
while i agree with the Hunter Biden handiers narrative and foreign policy arrogance and myopia,
i would still encourage everyone to watch
Winter on Fire : Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom.
on Netflix – it provides a good understanding of what they went through in the 2014 maidan revolution –
and what’s at stake for the brave Ukrainian everyday people to be caught between Hunters laptop and a Russian T-14 Armata…
Maidan in at least this documentary doesn’t come across as particularly Western-planned in any way – in fact, the “opposition” – played by former heavyweight champion Klitschko – is booed by the protestors- it’s all pretty poignant and made me realize more what’s really at stake for the everyman (above armchair geopolitical machinations)..
don’t get me wrong- you can say the exact same thing tenfold for the syrians or kurds etc…
One last note is the 1994 agreement to turn over Soviet-Ukrainian Nukes to Russia in an exchange for “Ukrainian independence and border security” – seems a little foolhardy now…
Good input!