Cold and damp.\u00a0 Still.\u00a0 And like yesterday.\u00a0\u00a0 Gah.\u00a0 One star, would not recommend.<\/p>\n
Spent yesterday sitting down.\u00a0 Back was right on the edge of being an issue and I didn’t want to push it.\u00a0 Did some light housecleaning.\u00a0 Put some stuff away.\u00a0 Did laundry.\u00a0 Normal domestic bliss.<\/p>\n
Quite the contrast to the people in Ukraine.\u00a0 Sucks to be them right now.\u00a0 Anyone STILL think this isn’t one of those periods in history when everything changes?\u00a0 Show your work…<\/p>\n
There will be some lessons for us if we have eyes to see.\u00a0\u00a0 So far, it’s that when you have an army at your border, it is time to leave the city.\u00a0 In three or four days people are going to be pretty dang hungry.\u00a0 Water, power, and other ‘normal’ stuff is about to be in very short supply.\u00a0 The subways are going to be hellholes in short order if this proceeds.<\/p>\n
I guess this breaks the McDonalds maxim, that no two countries that have McD’s have ever gone to war with each other…<\/p>\n
And longer term, as others online have pointed out, Ukraine’s exports are not going out, now or anytime soon.\u00a0\u00a0 They were a pretty big exporter.\u00a0\u00a0 The whole world is going to be crunched for anything they’re no longer selling.\u00a0 That means more shortages and dislocations coming.<\/p>\n
Probably not too late to add some more to your stacks.\u00a0\u00a0 Food would be, and is, my priority now.\u00a0\u00a0 I don’t think you could have “too much”.<\/p>\n
Putin just acted to secure some good farmland and food that would have been exported.\u00a0 China has been buying up food for the last couple of years.\u00a0\u00a0 There may be\u00a0 a shortage of fertilizer and fuel for our farmers this spring too.\u00a0\u00a0 Add a flood, or a wet spring, and we’re triple F’d.<\/p>\n
Some quick predictions.<\/p>\n
More turmoil in the money markets.\u00a0\u00a0 No one knows how this will play out and the longer it takes, the more conservative people will get, and that won’t be good for speculative markets like the US stock market.\u00a0 Food prices will continue to rise, and shortages will become apparent.\u00a0\u00a0 It will take a while for this specific cause to become effects, but it will.\u00a0\u00a0 Just in time is late now.<\/p>\n
Putin will “finish the job” to whatever degree he has planned.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Slow Joe will try to involve us, as he’s been taking money from Ukraine for a long time and they will want something for their money.\u00a0\u00a0 He’s really caught on the horns of a dilemma with that.\u00a0\u00a0 Our woke and worn out .mil will drag their feet hoping for a fait accompli so they won’t have to engage.\u00a0 There is zero popular support for engaging.\u00a0\u00a0 Putin knows that and will do everything possible to avoid dragging the US into the conflict.\u00a0 We will be involved though, at some level.\u00a0 Be very suspicious of any casus belli.<\/p>\n
China will move on Taiwan.\u00a0\u00a0 There hasn’t been a swift response to Putin, there won’t be one to Xi.\u00a0\u00a0 China will move when they can be fairly sure they control the fabs, so the workers don’t ‘spike the guns.’\u00a0\u00a0 Probably hostages, sleeper agents, and possibly spec ops teams moving in first will all be part of the takeover.\u00a0 China controlling world chip production will be bad.\u00a0 Really bad.\u00a0 Taiwan wiping out the fabs would be worse.\u00a0\u00a0 Really worse.\u00a0 If I was a top guy in a chip fab, I’d be sending my family to Idaho, with armed security.\u00a0 Tough, when you probably won’t see them again, but better than having them used as leverage.\u00a0 That assumes the top guys don’t all flee too.\u00a0 I can totally see that, leaving the slightly lower guys with a higher sense of honor and duty to stick it out.<\/p>\n
I guess we’ll see how it turns out, but I’m going with “bad for Ukraine and Taiwan” until I see some evidence of another path.<\/p>\n
And I’m going to the store today.\u00a0 I’ve got empty buckets.<\/p>\n
Stack all the things.\u00a0\u00a0 Seriously.<\/p>\n
n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cold and damp.\u00a0 Still.\u00a0 And like yesterday.\u00a0\u00a0 Gah.\u00a0 One star, would not recommend.<\/p>\n
Spent yesterday sitting down.\u00a0 Back was right on the edge of being an issue and I didn’t want to push it.\u00a0 Did some light housecleaning.\u00a0 Put some stuff away.\u00a0 Did laundry.\u00a0 Normal domestic bliss.<\/p>\n
Quite the contrast to the people in Ukraine.\u00a0 Sucks to be them right now.\u00a0 Anyone STILL think this isn’t one of those periods in history when everything changes?\u00a0<\/p>\n