Dateline Moscow.....

[JaneV2.0]

"A corporation pretending to be a country" is certainly apt--you'll get no argument from me on that. It's always about the mythical shareholder. I guess we should consider ourselves lucky there's profit involved in medicine and education here. And so far, we don't have our own version of Putin, though one could argue we came close.

[gimmethesimplelife]

Austria is a fairly negligible force as world powers go, so it is hardly surprising that the Chancellor’s trip would fall into the empty political stunt category.

I don’t think you need to worry about a violent return of the Warsaw Pact anytime soon. The Russians clearly lack the capacity or credibility they enjoyed in the forties and fifties, when there were still plenty of true believers in the Communist project and the Red Army could think of themselves as crusaders for a cause. I think stumbling into the use of theater nuclear forces is a pretty remote possibility, as is a generalized European conventional war.

I do think there will be continuing impacts to the financial markets, as well as disruptions in the energy and agricultural commodities markets for some time to come. But to me, the likeliest outcome will be for Putin to pull back and annex a few more bites of Ukraine, tell the world he has defeated the Nazis, and declare victory, perhaps even gaining enough concessions to effectively Finlandize what’s left. He’s done it before.

Finlandize? I've been jeaious of Finns and their country for years. I should be so lucky to be Finlandized. Rob

[gimmethesimplelife]

Alan - I don't know how the above happened but could you delete it? Thanks. Rob

[LDAHL]

Finlandize? I've been jeaious of Finns and their country for years. I should be so lucky to be Finlandized. Rob

I don’t think that word means what you think it does.