The Old Man’s Views Morals and the Markets

It doesn’t matter how much the markets have moved in our favour. There can be no joy when watching what is happening in Ukraine.

 

I have for some time written about the need to diversify our portfolios to hedge against economic decline and massive inflation, especially into commodities and away from stocks. Still, I never in my wildest nightmare thought it might happen due to a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine by Russia.

 

Like everyone else, we can only pray that this war will end very soon.

 

I am concerned that the pictures we are seeing and the narrative we are being told, will delay the ending of this conflict, but what the future brings is very much out of our control.

 

Hopefully, politicians will realise they have to sit down and talk this out at some point because throwing more guns, rockets and fighter jets into the mix is not helping anyone.

Moreover, sanctions rarely work against a strongman such as Putin, so what we are doing to millions of innocent Russian people might backfire.

 

In my opinion, it should never have come to this, and our politicians have had ample time to do something about the Ukrainian civil war. Still, their actions, or lack of involvement, bring into question who is playing what game.

 

At times of war, I know we have to back our side. But I ask myself if the efforts made to influence Ukraine to join the EU caused this conflict.

 

But, it is what it is.

 

Politicians do what politicians do, act deviously to gain power and wealth.

In America, the only thing they know about Ukraine is that President Biden’s son has earned millions by working with a Ukrainian company. And they tried to impeach Donald Trump, based on a phone call to Ukraine.

I am not going to expand on these things, but obviously, Ukraine is much more important to our political leaders than it is of interest to the general public.

Few of us cared about what happened in Ukraine or Russia before this war broke out. That’s just a fact.

 

In line with western sanctions, I read that 75,000 crypto wallets owned by Russians have been blocked to stop Putin and his oligarchs from moving his billions of dollars.

It sounds like a good move, but will it stop him from moving money via China or India? I doubt it.

 

Moreover, the last I heard was that we have sanctions in place but still buying Russian energy, the profits of which are not going to the innocent Russians who have seen their currency collapse.

 

I don’t know how much damage we have to do to Russian people before they kill or remove Putin, but I suggest this is a massive gamble, which might backfire.

 

The Russian narrative is that 14,000 ethnic Russians have been killed in the east of Ukraine by neo-Nazis, and Putin has gone into Ukraine to protect them.

Russians, like Ukrainians, are very proud people. If the Russian people believe Putin’s narrative, then as far as they will be concerned, the West will own the Russian economic decline, not Putin.

 

I do not know who is right or wrong, but when I see Russian tanks and fleeing women and children, then it’s impossible not to say Putin has gone too far.

 

I have some concerns about how the crypto industry has gotten involved in this war.

It’s great to see people doing what they can to help, i.e., using crypto to raise money to help fleeing refugees.

 

I am concerned about the crypto industries’ involvement because we have not been neutral; we have taken sides. And whilst this can be morally justified, ultimately, it means the industry is not independent, and can be manipulated by politicians and governments.

 

Perhaps we were going in that direction anyway. But with the industry applying sanctions on one particular set of users, the difference between cryptocurrencies and CBDCs are becoming increasingly blurred, which can only be beneficial for governments and central bankers, who do not want to lose control of our financial systems.

 

Right now, there are too many questions and too few answers.

 

All I know is that when this is all over, western economies will be no better off.

More than that. The only people to benefit from this crisis will be the Chinese communist party.

Yes, China. The other country which is famous in America for giving Joe Biden’s son millions of dollars.

 

I think that is enough for me for one week.

 

Keep safe, and please keep praying for an end to this war.