World View: Wall Street Goes Parabolic on Russian Troop Pullback

This morning’s key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Wall Street goes parabolic on Russian troop pullback
• While gaining in Ukraine, Putin now goes after Moldova
• Russia Today anchor Abby Martin criticizes Russia in Ukraine
• Spam of the Day – from Ukraine, with Love and Care

Wall Street goes parabolic on Russian troop pullback

Early on Tuesday morning (ET), Russian troops along the border withUkraine were recalled to barracks. That set Wall Street stock futuresrising. Then, a few hours later, Russia’s president Vladimir Putingave a news conference saying that Russia had no intention of invadingUkraine. That sent stocks parabolic, with a 228 point surge in theDow Jones Industrial Average. According to Friday’s Wall Street Journal, the S&P 500 Price/Earnings index (stockvaluations) on Friday (March 4) morning was 17.87, which isastronomically high by historical standards.

Here are some things that bubble-happy investors presumably didn’t payattention to:

• Russian troops continue to mobilize in Crimea.
• In his press conference, Putin shook his finger and said that Russia reserves the right to use military force at any time to protect Russians.
• Many people believe Putin’s conquest of Crimea is a fait accompli, in that Crimea is now completely under control of Russia.
• Russian troops in Crimea fired warning shots at Ukrainian troops during a shouting match.
• In an apparently show of power, Russia’s military test-fired an intercontinental missile in Central Asia, near the border with Kazakhstan.

Putin said that there were no Russian troops in Crimea, whichis absurd.

The rest of the day was filled with tough talk from Westernleaders, including President Barack Obama and Secretary ofState John Kerry.

Very little has changed since yesterday. Nobody has fired a shot yet,but even an accidental “incident” could occur at any time and spiralinto a military conflict. FxStreet and BBC

While gaining in Ukraine, Putin now goes after Moldova

Russia’s president Vladimir Putin used the 2008 invasion to preventGeorgia from joining Nato, and with the recent invasion of Crimea,Putin has prevented Ukraine from signing an Association Agreement withthe European Union. Now Putin is trying to prevent one more formerSoviet republic from signing an Association Agreement with theEuropean Union — Moldova.

Moldova is a small country on the western boundary of Ukraine, whileRussia is along the eastern boundary. The Moldovan government hasbeen pro-European since 2009, and they’re prepared to sign anAssociation Agreement with the EU in August. Putin has been usingmoney and persuasion, funding anti-Europe referendums, pointing outthe hardships borne by countries in the European Union. Putin hasconvinced Moldova’s population to begin to turn against integrationwith Europe, with only 44% now favoring it.

Russia is particularly focusing on the breakaway republic ofTransnistria, a region in the form of a strip of land along the borderof Ukraine, which strongly favors Russia, and has a similar role tothat of Crimea. Transnistria separated from Moldova in 1992 in acivil war, and Russia has been subsidizing the region with $30 millionper year. Spiegel

Russia Today anchor Abby Martin criticizes Russia in Ukraine

At the end of her Monday tv broadcast on Russia Today’s programRT’s “misinformation” on the Ukraine crisis, and made an editorialcomment criticizing Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine:

“Just because I work here, for RT, doesn’t mean Idon’t have editorial independence and I can’t stress enough howstrongly I am against any military intervention in sovereignnations’ affairs. What Russia did is wrong.

I will not sit here and apologize or defend military aggression.Furthermore, the coverage I’ve seen of Ukraine has been trulydisappointing from all sides of the media spectrum, and ripe withdisinformation.

All we can do now is hope for a peaceful outcome for a terriblesituation, and prevent another full-blown cold war betweenmultiple superpowers. Until then, I’ll keep telling the truth as Isee it. …

I don’t know as much as I should about Ukraine’s history or thecultural dynamics of the region, but what I do know is thatmilitary intervention is never the answer.”

As far as we know, Martin still has her job, and has not been sent toa hard labor camp in Siberia. RT issued a statement that Martin isfree to express her own opinion, but not on the air. The statementsaid there will be no reprimand, but she’ll be sent to Crimea “to giveher an opportunity to make up her own mind from the epicenter of thestory.” Mashable

Spam of the Day – from Ukraine, with Love and Care

Here’s a spam message that I received last week:

Good antibiotics made with love and care. In ouronline storehttp://iucxuvwabzjyp.[redacted].ua

The “.ua” suffix means that the web address is from Ukraine. I wonderwhether the “love and care” is being done by Russians or Ukrainians?

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