The press is fond of citing ‘the oil weapon’ as something Putin may wield against the west if he does not get his way with the Ukraine. Here we discover that the reverse is true. The real ‘oil weapon’ is something that US can exercise against Putin’s Russia.

This report reviews the current vulnerable technical condition of a few critical world markets from the perspective of Vladimir Putin’s recent tactics and larger strategy. I explore the issue of endogenous versus exogenous dynamics in the bursting of a speculative bubble in the light of current events. I also delve into the related issue of why ‘bad things happen in bear markets.’

Since nuclear weapons made wars unfashionable nation-states have been forced to explore over avenues to display their national pride. High on the list of national pride PR ventures are hosting the Olympics and the World Cup. However hosting such an event does not improve national characer traits. It only reveals those traits.

This brief update is a follow up to my 3rd May 2014 Observations report "Vladimir Putin is a Thug."That report traced the timeline of the transformation of Russia under Putin from communism to fascism.

Here we survey the events in the Ukraine from the perspectives of behavioral economics, European and Ukrainian history, and the role of a collective mood of fear and hopelessness as the fountainhead of both acts of aggression and of major bear markets.

In a 16 January 2014 report I explored the law of adverse consequences, or blowback, in the context of the QE program of the Federal Reserve. Just a few weeks later we have been gifted with a perfect example of how QE creates blowback.

The sheer magnitude and unrelenting insistence of the Quantitative Easing program of the Federal Reserve strongly suggests that we should view it as yet another attempt to force the world to improve. History shows us that the more forceful the efforts to make the world a better place, the more dramatic and harmful the blowback. In this report we explore QE from the perspective of the law of adverse consequences.

The Federal Reserve Act passed on 23rd December of 1913. Comparing the stated goals of the Federal Reserve with the actual history it is not too difficult to spot 100 years of failure.

When a truly disruptive technology comes along objective and cool-headed analysis of the pros and cons are often crowded out by deeply emotional reactions and by strident defenses of the status quo. In this analysis of the main categories of Bitcoin critiques I attempt to filter out the unjust judgements from the valid criticisms.

In our tutorial on Fibonacci aspects of consensus we show that polling results typically yield the Fibonacci 62% to 38% result. That is why Fibonacci retracements are common in the markets. The markets are a voting both where you cast your ballots with buy and sell orders. Today I revisit this issue with the daily SportsNation polls.