Green Light - For Two Days?

The market came roaring back today after Putin pulled his troops out of the Crimea.

But did Putin really pull out? What is Putin's next step as he undresses Obama in front of the world? Where on Earth is the next US humiliation going to come from?  Equally as important, what surprise will Friday's unemployment numbers bring to us? And just What flock of real Black Swans are out there? Will this 3rd S&P 500 Breakout hold & is the next leg up finally in place? Or is this just another fake out?

Lets start with Obama, Putin and Foreign policy. This Ukraine game is by no means over. Will Putin use force to grab the north east? Putin holds all the cards and we lost. The only questions in my mind are the Ukraine end game and what is the next international surprise. Here are the facts as I see them:

1 - USA Weakness and Non International Strategy. Our adversaries smell blood. 

Obama is the inexperienced poster boy for "The Peter Principle." He has been promoted to his level of incompetency.

There is just no getting around it. He has no clue about international geopolitical politics. We can't win a fight without having a strategy in place. And we have no strategy other than to retreat and give out rewards to people who behave badly. There is a dangerous power vacuum in the world that will cost lives and economic treasure. I don't have enough time or space to list all of Obama's international blundering, but it is all going down hill for the USA. Here are some blunders:

- The inane Nobel Prize for doing nothing but saying that we will be nice to every one obviously went to his already swelled head.

- "Resetting" our relationship with Russia and giving up our missile defense in Poland has empowered Putin and alienated our former Soviet Satellite country allies. Bravo Hillary!

- The lack of a comprehensive long sighted Middle East policy has left the area up for grabs and lost us any credibility with our allies. It has also left us without any strategic presence in Iraq or Afghanistan. Maybe both wars were a disaster, but to give up any semblance of US military presence in the aftermath has handed Iraq over to Iran. He is also handing Egypt over to Putin who quietly is giving them military aid. And he has lost credibility with the Saudis and Israel.

- The flip flopping and not keeping our word with Syria has left a power void for Putin to fill and all to see.

- The announcement to the world that Obama is cutting back on our military budget has given Putin, China, North Korea, et. al. the green light to push us as hard as they can.

- The fiasco and lies about Benghazi in order to dupe the American public that Obama had everything under control during an election campaign under the ruse that Osama is dead and terrorism is defeated is unforgivable.

The list can go on and on. But Obama is undoing everything that Reagan set up. The entire world order has had the rug pulled out from under it. And the American public is falling for it. Maybe Americans will wake up now. I think that Obama should be impeached for not defending our nation and spinning lies about it. Compare to Obama, Nixon was an amateur in the lies and cover up department.

 
2 - Russian Aggression

- Putin is a Stalinist and will get away with whatever he can. He knows how to play the "real politic" - Putin's Russo - Centric philosophical reading list was elaborated upon in The New York Times today by David Brooks:

Berdyaev’s “The Philosophy of Inequality,” Solovyov’s “Justification of the Good” and Ilyin’s “Our Tasks.”  are Putin's bibles

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/04/opinion/brooks-putin-cant-stop.html?hp&rref=opinion&gwh=D759494D2D24DBFCAE2269857D78CA1F&gwt=pay

 - Putin wants to at least get the old Soviet ring of satellite nations back in place. I would not feel to comfortable if I was a Czech or a Pole.

- The only things stopping Putin from going further are the weak Russian Economy and currency, the two way street symbiotic interdependence that Russia has with Europe, plus the fear by Putin's "Oligarch" (read looters) backers that their money will be frozen in banks all over the world. Garry Kasparov, former World Chess Champion, is a great Source for the real skinny on Putin. Here is one of his tweets from Tuesday:

‏@Kasparov63       

CNN talking about "sanctioning Russia"?! Sanction damn 150 oligarchs who'd dump Putin in the trash if he can't protect their assets abroad!

 

 - I think that after lots of Yakking, Ukraine is Putin's toy to play with. He gets his warm water strategic naval port and a bigger seat at the table. Putin is playing international chess and knows the game cold. This is a long term cold war type of battle that flies in the face of an ever interlinked world.

 

 

3- China The Long Term Student  

 

- China thinks in terms of decades or more. They are obviously tied up with the USA, but we have several problems to deal with them over

 

- The immediate issues are the disputed islands with Japan and Taiwan. Recently the escalation of war like incidents have grown and both sides are very vocal. I would not be surprised if China made a real attempt to take over some of the islands. Taiwan is longer term, but they are all the way over there and we are here. We have defenses pact with Japan and Taiwan and a nuclear Japan is possible. China has to be emboldened by Putin.

 

4 - North Korea. Crazy, Nuclear and an exporter of arms, say to Syria again or Venezuela or terrorists. The little punk knows the score.

 

 

5 - Iran is getting its way and everything in the Middle East from Israel to Saudi Arabia is in flux. Plus Iran's war ships are heading our way. 

 

 

All of the above can only cause more trouble for the USA. Where is our Ronald Reagan? Things happen too fast for three more years of an incompetent president. It is sad to say, but Obama is not up to the task

Another Economic Test: The Unemployment Report: How long will it take for a consensus to develop as to whether our economy is getting stronger or petering out?

And while all of the above is going on, our easy money stock market levitates from one crises to the next. Now we have another unemployment report dues this Friday. The last two reports stunk and are based upon phony archaic numbers anyway. Are we that stupid as a nation to not change the statistics to distinguish between real discouraged workers verses long term chronically unemployed workers?

Some Non-extended chart set ups: Set your price alerts at the highs. I would play fast

BABY

BAC

CORT

HAR

HIMX

LFUS

LOGI

RDN

 

SIMO

 

BIG Capital Advisors and Seaview Partners are not responsible for your investment decisions. We believe very strongly in our opinions, but you must perform your own due diligence in making your investment decisions.