In the last few hours, the Geopolitical Gauge has spiked beyond an amber reading. As at Sunday
@JakeSullivan46 said to @jaketapper on Russia: "The way they have built up their forces, the way they have maneuvered things in place makes it a distinct possibility there will be major military action very soon," including "this week."
This follows a steady ratcheting higher of comments which completely whipsawed the markets late Friday and is best evidenced in the price of Gold
Gold Price
The World in the c21st century exhibits viral, wildfire and exponential characteristics and feedback loops but clearly The risk of war in Ukraine is not a Yemen Level expedition.
September 1, 1939 by W. H. Auden comes to mind
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
Just as Auden was describing a World teetering on the edge of World War 11, the narrative coming from the likes of Secretary Blinken and his President appear to be signalling a similar moment. Ultimately, this is about Hard Power,
its about a President Putin who has waited close to three decades for precisely this moment to try expunge the humiliation of the 1990s.
Putin is seeking to stop NATO dead in its tracks, create a sphere of influence and is seizing this moment in the context of a now extinct ''Unipolar'' World and a freshly minted Tripolar World.
It is clear the Russian abrasiveness is in part informed by a fundamentally better understanding of realpolitik and its chagrin that The US might still be reliving its glory days of the 1990s and essentially inviting its own triangulation.
@JoeBiden is in a Pincer with Xi & Vladimir holding the console & ratcheting up the pressure & they own the timing on the Ukraine Taiwan Two Step
The naivete of the US response, the grandstanding smacks of panic and an inability to navigate a new and dynamic landscape.
Russia has rebuilt its FX reserves, its currency is backed big time by Gold, Its Army is retooled and battle hardened and like Surkov said in his book Without Sky
This is the first nonlinear war.
Sure we can keep muttering under our breath that Russia's GDP is the size of Italy but that completely misses the overarching point. Russia is not Iraq, Russia is not Yemen and Russia probably has the highest ROI of any country in the World.
“There are known knowns — there are things we know we know,” Rumsfeld said in February 2002, “We also know there are known unknowns — that is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”
So here we are. What we do know is Putin is not a reckless Gambler [known knowns] and therefore a full scale invasion of Ukraine is pure hyperbole.
However, Donbas and Luhansk are entirely within the scope of an imminent incursion, A Frozen conflict at this new forward boundary is I believe the limit of the scope of this Operation.
The Question remains why the US should be getting ahead of Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy on a continuous basis.
And here I refer you to Fabio Vighi and his two articles
THE CENTRAL BANKERS’ LONG COVID: AN INCURABLE CONDITION FABIO VIGHI
RED PILL OR BLUE PILL? VARIANTS, INFLATION, AND THE CONTROLLED DEMOLITION OF SOCIETY BY FABIO VIGHI
Sure the Narrative around COVID has now largely bust wide open at the seams. Society in so many places from Ottawa to Paris and all points in between is witnessing metastatic level protests, the ''Lockdown'' economy's shelf life has expired. Its morphing into a Tsunami.
Some European Countries have seen the writing on the wall. Its a little counterintuitive because cases remain sky high.
2,644,640 new Global COVID cases grew 405.7M total 0.66%. 5,783,533 total deaths increased by 0.19% with 10,948 new deaths. @jmlukens and the long range fallout of long Covid unfathomable.
These developments led to a seismic shift in the markets before Fridays whipsaw
Deutsche Bank's Jim Reid notes that yesterday's surge in the 2-year US Treasury yield was, by one measure, "the biggest "shock" since October 1979 when Volcker announced his intentions on the world @ReutersJamie
The last time inflation was here, February 1982 - the Fed Funds Rate was 15%. @Convertbond
Dartmouth economist and former Fed adviser Andrew Levin says the Fed needs to get rates to a neutral setting within a year or so, and that the means getting the Fed Funds rates up to 4% or 5%
Its a Wizard of Oz moment
24 JUN 19 :: Wizard of Oz World.
http://bit.ly/2xcErn2This is ‘’Voodoo Economics’’ and just because we have not reached the point when the curtain was lifted in the Wizard of Oz and the Wizard revealed to be ‘’an ordinary conman from Omaha who has been using elaborate magic tricks and props to make himself seem “great and powerful”’’ should not lull us into a false sense of security
The Curtain has been lifted and Mr. Powell has now arrived at his Volcker moment
Friday's action and next immediate sessions might afford us the greatest macro trading opportunity to reset shorts in the US 10 and Ultra Bond.
We can look across all G7 Bonds because this is a Super Bubble that is going to burst big. There is no way out now.
There is no training – classroom or otherwise.. that can prepare for trading the last third of a move, whether it's the end of a bull market or the end of a bear market.
There's typically no logic to it; irrationality reigns supreme, and no class can teach what to do during that brief, volatile reign. Paul Tudor-Jones
Its the End of the Bull market obviously.
The Music has been playing for Eternity and its about to stop
There is no training – classroom or otherwise.. that can prepare for trading the last third of a move, whether it's the end of a bull market or the end of a bear market.
There's typically no logic to it; irrationality reigns supreme, and no class can teach what to do during that brief, volatile reign. Paul Tudor-Jones
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