Putin Is A Bully And A Thug

      We have seen our retirement funds and other investments drop in value. Even billionaires have seen big market losses. The conventional wisdom is that fear of inflation is depressing financial markets worldwide.

    I have a contrarian view. I call it "The Fear of Vladimir Putin stock market." The Ukraine war has "turned the world on its ear." Energy markets have been disrupted. Food markets have been disrupted. Commodity markets have been disrupted. The New York Times came out with an Op-Ed yesterday pointing out all the awful things that Vladimir Putin can still do as he becomes a cornered wild animal.

    This man is simply a bully and a thug. If people stand up to him, they will stop him. This "superman" has failed miserably in Ukraine with 80,000 men and women killed including a massive number of senior officers in 7 months. All his armed forces have failed. His Air Force cannot carry out serious combat operations because they do not have proper communications systems to keep their planes from being shot down by "friendly fire." His Navy is in hiding and will not come out and fight. We see corruption ad incompetence on a grand scale. There are all sorts of reports on the deterioration of his feared nuclear arsenal. How well will it work? I think not well.

     Let us go back to the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 and 1983. Mid-level Soviet officers (say Lt. Colonel) had their hands right on the keys to fire nuclear warheads. They both realized the enormity of such a move. They refused to fire. If history is any guide, the officers under Putin will not carry out the orders to fire nuclear weapons if Putin issues such orders.

     If Putin does fire nuclear warheads, he will be hit by two US cyber-attacks lasting only nanoseconds. One will take his internet offline permanently. The other will take down his electricity grid for many months. (Imagine being with no electric power for 4-5 months!) Russia will break apart, as the old Soviet Union did.