The Market Hath Spoken

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The news yesterday was that the world’s stock markets are not worried about the Crimea: “Global financial markets on Monday shrugged off an anticipated Russian annexation of Crimea, as stocks rose strongly on Wall Street and in Europe.”

Some are still wringing their hands, but the only tangible reason for concern given in this Telegraph article is that sanctions might make Russia an unsound investment.

So the wise and all-knowing Market, Blessed Be It, hath spoken on the Crimea crisis. And It says, meh.

This is not to say there is no reason to be concerned, but nobody seems to know what that reason is. Especially after Crimeans themselves voted to join Russia, unless someone can document they had a gun to their heads as they voted, I’m not sure why we should try to reverse that. The “cure” might cause more problems than the disease.

John Cole wrote,

There is a very serious disconnect between the public and our news media, and the most immediate example of which is the frothing headlines about Crimea and the opinion leaders need for action as compared to the responses I have gotten around here.

And mind you, I am in West Virginia, where almost half of us it seems are veterans, and the resounding response to the Crimea issue around here is “Who the fuck cares? Are they shooting at us?”

I’m hard pressed to disagree.

Again, I’m not saying there’s no reason to be concerned; I’m saying nobody’s telling us what that reason is. The Right primarily is in a twitch because Barack Obama is President; if a Republican were in the White House doing exactly the same things, they’d be praising him up and down for his prudence and restraint. Now, they seem to be hysterical because Hitler annexed Austria, and nobody did anything, and domino theory, and Florida will be next. Or something.

38 thoughts on “The Market Hath Spoken”

  1. Well, the Russian are MORE than welcome to Florida!!!

    As for the recent vote, it mirrored one from around 20 years ago – only an even HIGHER percentage of people in Crimea voted to go with Russia.
    If I remember correctly, the vote then was just under 94%, and the vote now, was 95%.

    Crimea has historically considered itself more Russian than Ukrainian – or, at least for hundreds of years.

    And the people in Crimea feel that Russia, even with all of its Plutocratic faults, will be better able to help and serve the people there.

    Our Reich-Wingers here just wait until Obama makes a move, and then criticize it.
    There’s no more “stopping at the water’s edge,” like they demanded when “Little Boots” Bush was in charge.
    Now, whatever Obama does, undergoes a “tsunami” of outrage and criticism.

  3. If George Bush was the President now I bet Putin would be hiding in a spider hole trying to evade the wrath of the Decider. I want my country back!
    Our country is going to pot.. I long for the days when evil doers like Vlad the Shirtless lived in fear of the American will.

  5. “unless someone can document they had a gun to their heads as they voted”

    I have read that there was only one choice on the ballot:” yes we want to be Russia” that’s all folks. It’s the GOP dream ballot, they wouldn’t have to prevent the colored folk from voting if they could vote for only them, perfect! My hope is that our president will approach this thing as a NATO problem, lead from within! Oh and yes they can have Florida as long as we can keep the keys!

  6. Especially after Crimeans themselves voted to join Russia, unless someone can document they had a gun to their heads as they voted, I’m not sure why we should try to reverse that.

    This strikes me as a pretty critical point. That’s one of the nice things about being American, we can always fall back on the idea that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.

  7. I too would offer up Florida as a Trojan horse (more trouble than it’s worth) for old Pooty-Poot, except that so many of our commenter friends live there. Hard to believe, I know, but Pooty would be even worse than Gov. Voldemort.

    That said, I’m pretty much “Meh” along with the all-knowing free market. When Ukraine cuts off utility services to Crimea, and Russia doesn’t suddenly triple the value of every Crimean worker’s pension, the whole lot of em will go running back to Kiev. Or try to, until Pooty slams the gate and locks it.

  8. The US is not the world’s policeman and neither is the market. If Russia acts towards the Ukraine like it did under Stalin (it won’t) then we need to act immediately. Genocide or at least the deaths of 20 million people are not an acceptable outcome.

    The Ukraine can prevent this by letting the Crimea depart in peace but letting its weaponry become more widely distributed. Nobody is going to take on 40 million well-armed Ukrainians. Certainly not Russia which learned enough in Afghanistan to avoid that trap.

  11. Hey, if Putin annexing Florida would improve the job situation in this state then I might not be adverse to such an idea. I mean, can it be worse living under the Russian boot than living under the boot of fiscal conservatism?

  12. “As for the recent vote, it mirrored one from around 20 years ago – only an even HIGHER percentage of people in Crimea voted to go with Russia.
    If I remember correctly, the vote then was just under 94%, and the vote now, was 95%.”

    I keep seeing this statistic being bandied about, and I would like to know what it actually refers to. When all of Ukraine voted for Independence in 1991, 54% or Crimeans voted along with them. On March 6 of this year polling revealed that 60% of Crimeans preferred to say in Ukraine.

    And of course, any election organized in a week, and done under military occupation is going to be scrupulously honest, which is why no independent outside observers were needed or allowed. And allowing the Crimeans access to any media besides Russian state media would just have confused them, so it was better to cut it all off.

    After all, reunification with Russia is so popular that 123% of the population of Sevastopol voted for it.

    And what do the Tatars matter, anyway? Just because they’ve been previously dispossessed by the Russians, and suffered at least one genocide, doesn’t mean they won’t be perfectly safe this time around. And I’m sure Russia means only the best for them, telling many to vacate their housing, because arrangements will be made.

  13. One last point about the referendum. There was no choice on it to stay in Ukraine, which is why it was heavily boycotted. The choices were “Yes, join Russia now” or “Yes, join Russia after declaring Independence.”

  14. drluba – You are reporting American propaganda. My wife is Russian-American, I found a copy of the actual ballot (BBC, of course) which is printed in Russian and Ukrainian. The first option allows Crimea to join Russia – the second option allows Crimea to stay Ukrainian according to the ’92 Ukrainian constitution, which is the status that the new government wants in Kiev. (That constitution gives more power to the congress and less to the president.) My wife, reading the source document in Russian says the options were clear and offered a real choice.

    Gulag, I include the link to the article and invite you to comment.

    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26514797

    There’s plenty of fault to be found on both sides but I’m real irritated with out-and-out propaganda which US journalists are to lazy to expose. If I’m wrong, so be it but if our resident expert agrees with my spouse, you can take it to the bank, though the lie will continue elsewhere.

  15. They did have a gun to their heads. Hard to feel free to vote when it is being arranged by an occupying force that has disbanded your parliament, put in puppet leaders and is holding your military hostage.

    That said, a hell of a lot of Crimeans simply didn’t vote, either because of disgust or fear or the sense that it wouldn’t make a difference. Crimea is also historically Russian and has been for centuries. It doesn’t surprise me that Crimea is formally Russian now and with little real pushback.

    As for Swami and his wish for more wars…you must not be in the military Swami, or have kids in the military or be willing to join up. I’m always amazed at the eagerness with which so many people in this country want other people’s kids to die for their manhood.

  16. Tom …I think you are misreading me. Evidently my facetiousness isn’t pronounced enough. I am a decorated Vietnam Veteran who has experienced combat up close and personal and know better than most how sickening it is to pack somebody else’s child off to war just to satisfy their own emotions or agenda. I don’t know any other way to voice my disgust for those who are eager to have someone else die for their own cause other then being facetious.
    For the record…I have a son that is career military and a daughter who served 4 years in the Air Force after joining in response to 9/11. And I’m extremely proud of her for answering her country’s call.

  17. So now I have two songs in my head this morning; “dirty laundry” and “political science”. The fox bunnies come on at 5 to tell their viewers what to freak out over, and some people advocate giving my sorta cultivated bamboo jungle to the Russians. As much as I like my friend Joan r, I will defend Florida from the ruskis until they pry it from my cold dead hands. Don’t want to hurt no manatees, but there is a certain ‘gator they are welcome to. Now let’s talk about the paradise in the flyover state known ( but rarely visited except by sand hill cranes) as Nebraska. until there is a great demand for prairie dog pelts and meat, Nebraska will remain the “special cousin”, er, the Igor state. To save floriduh, we need to put a fence around the villages, or perhaps the whole of Marion, Hernando, and citrus countys; and give the “panhandle” ( redneck Riviera) to Alabama.

  18. Tom,
    You’re probably new here, or you’d know out Swami.
    And he ain’t no war-hawk.

  19. Doug,
    Having read that, I feel that it’s a pretty fair ballot.
    Certainly better and easier to choose than the hanging-chad’s one in Florida, back in 2000.

    No matter how you shake it, for centuries, most of the people in Crimea have aligned themselves more with Russia, than with Ukraine.
    This goes back, hundreds of years, and there’s a long history behind that.
    I’ll spare you that.

    I’ll leave it at this – a lot of the people there feel, Plutocracy or not, Russia will be better able to help them now, and in the future, than Ukraine.
    Ukraine, after the USSR broke up, had a chance to be one of the former states that could be a real economic powerhouse.
    But Ukraine, like many countries, has all sorts of internal divisions, that hasn’t allowed it to become the economic powerhouse it could have been.
    Yes, part of that is due to the meddling of Russia.
    But that, too, goes back centuries.
    Eastern Ukraine aligns itself more with Russia, and has for a long, long, time.
    Western Ukraine has always aligned itself more with the rest of Europe.
    It’s a long and convoluted history.
    And I’ll spare you that, too.
    Too many things to say, in one comment on one post.

  23. I just signed on to an enlistment in the Jonah Goldberg brigade. Instead of having a unit motto of Follow Me, we’ve adopted the motto of.. I’ll wave you goodbye from my keyboard.

  29. Well, ‘gulag, Phelps hit the brick wall and entered the eternal black hole. Ain’t that a bitch.the lights go out, and there’s an eternity of nothing, a bug on your wind shield.

  30. gulag…Adios to Phelps.. I do wonder what event in his life set him off on a path of such dedicated hatred. I suspect that there’s more to it than just a faithful obedience to the Lord. Maybe he had an uncle Ernie? He will be missed though…He was a beacon for Christianity.

  32. I don’t claim to be any sort of deep thinker but I’m a little confused about this Crimea thing? First before the uprising a couple weeks ago Putin basically controlled the whole Ukrainian economy (165 billion GDP) through his puppet leader Yanukouvch. Now the protesters have run the despot out and now russia has “claimed” Crimea which is a tiny little peneisula (GDP – 4 billion). Somehow our media is reporting this as a win for Putin and a loss for the US and the EU, how can that be? Sounds to me like Putin is the loser in this whole deal?

  33. uncledad,
    Our MSM handles EVERYthing like it’s sports.
    International politics, however, often doesn’t have clear winner and losers for decades, if not centuries.
    Basically, when our MSM isn’t cowardly, compliant, and complicit, it’s stupid and ignorant.

  34. uncledad… Land or money have very little to do with it.. It’s all about projecting power and imagery. Putin is the strong man who does what he wants while Obama is running around like a chicken without a head crying about international law. It’s an equivalent dynamic to the bully in the lunchroom who takes whatever he wants from your lunch tray while knowing there ain’t shit you’re gonna do about. So, viewed in that way, and without anybody to stop him, Putin wins.

    It’s all a joke.. That PR company who marketed Putin running around without his shirt should offer Newt Gingrich a PR campaign for 2016 where they feature Newt without a shirt.. I’m sure it would bring in the females votes. I hear that women melt at the sight of a chiseled male hard body. I guess that’s a crazy idea because I’m sure Callista wouldn’t want a bunch of women ogling her Newt.

  36. Doug, Your wife may have read what the ballot said but doesn’t know what it means. The constitution that the current government has reverted to was the 2004 constitution of Ukraine, which featured a weak president and strong parliament.

    The 1992 constitution that the ballot was referring to was that of Crimea of May 5th, 1992, which declared Crimea to be independent; this was corrected by the constitution of May 6th, in which Crimea remained an autonomous part of Ukraine.

    The ballot was worded this way to confuse foreigners into thinking there was actually being a choice provided. SInce the junta controlling Crimea had already said they would join Russia if the second option was chosen, there was no actual choice.

    So no, there was no actual choice. It was Russia now, or Russia next week.

    Details matter. There was no choice. Many people sat out. And yet 123% of the population voted in Sevastopol. The OSCE and other election monitors ere turned away. And no one was allowed to watch the counting of the ballots.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Crimea

  37. To be honest, I can’t find anyone who is particularly upset that the Russians have annexed Crimea. Even my sister, a Republican, was wondering what the fuss was about. Crimea was part of Russia until Khrushchev, a Ukrainian, assigned it the Ukraine SSR in 1954. Khrushchev may have been an improvement on Stalin, but we don’t owe him on this one. We all knew this was coming. After all, the Russian navy is based in Crimea, so I’m sure the annexation has been on the backburner awaiting some trigger.

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