Brahm

Friday Outlook: Commodities, Global Markets

You hit it right this time! Most of the maladies we have been encumbered with can go away with something like the old Glass-Steagle in place again. However, you are also right that this will never happen. We have the best set of politicians (and surprisingly this "people's" administration) and lobbyists on K Street that Wall Street money can corrupt.

Russia's Too Risky - Barron's

To me it looks like Russia is no different than any other major orsuper power or colonialist. Dangerous? Perhaps so; depends on the beholder, or one's appreciation of history. The US did not tolerate even the Sandanistas in Nicaragua, except that the Sandanistas were not so much a Soviet lackey but in fact only local leftists fed up with corruption and authoritarian elites supported by the right wing barons tacitly backed by the US. Ditto in Cuba before Castro was squeezed by the US. What can one say about a small enclave subjected to "liberation" overnight in Granada? Perhaps, leftists and authoritarians of the Left variety, but n o more mendacious than any third world potentate!.

Then there was Vietnam cooked up by the US to be an international Communist conspiracy by Russia and Mao, and posing a threat and take-over of Southeast Asia by international communism. Less than one year after the conclusion of the Vietnam war, China and Vietnam (uncle Ho!) went at each other in a war that lasted a few weeks with before the Chinese withdrew with a bloody nose! There was 1500 years of history between China and Vietnam which was ignored by the conspiracy theorists in the US. This history of conflict and repeated attemtpts to subjugate Vietnam by the Chinese militated overwhelmingly against the conspiracy theoreticians of the USA hawks!
Yet, it did not prevent an American blunder, as bad as Iraq.

There are parallels from British and French colonial history in the Middle East and elsewhere in the the world.

Much of the foregoing prompts me to be skeptical about this drumbeat beating in the West against Russia. Russia is just asserting its interests on its borders. [Just like us with our Monroe Doctrine in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries!] Russia is not going to tolerate hostiler neighbours or influence/threats from distant powers on what it thinks its neighbourhood or sphere of influence. If it can help it! This is classic defence, and the way a major/super power always responds to those who threaten to upset the balances on its borders or perceived sphere of influence!