Crimea votes for Russia; World Markets rise. What's going on?
Let's just look under the mattress a bit.
Putin's buddy Yanukovych get's the heave-ho in a coup.
The Markets roiled mostly downward in response to this uncertainty.
Russia (and by Russia, I mean Mr. Putin, old KGB Slyboots that he is) needs to assure its strategic interest in the Black Sea and beyond and maintain its Naval base in Crimea.
The Crimeans have overwhelmingly voted to go with Russia instead of Ukraine. Whether or not this election is entirely honest is another thing but clearly, local sentiment favors Russia. The outcome of this election is that Russia will be asked to annex Crimea. There is no guarantee that Russia will actually do so.
The US and the EU announce coordinated santions against Russia with a number of individuals actually named.
What can we make of this? There seems to be good reason to believe that Yanukovych and his cronies were looting the Ukraine economy. $70 billion has been mentioned. I suspect the others on this list are no bargain either.
Where the people who organized this Ukrainian coup stand is still iffy, but will be revealed in time. The elections in May will hopefully sort this out, especially if they are honest. Hopefully the West will step up to the plate and insure they are honest.
So what does everybody get? Well, because of the sanctions, western banks can tie up the assets of the named indiviuals. They can then write loans to a new Ukrainian government backed by the funds that were stolen from Ukraine, which they already have. Putin loses a bunch crooked assholes and doesn't have Ukraine squeezing him for money. And no matter who ends up getting elected in Ukraine, Russia well have friendly relations with them thanks to their leverage in Crimea.
And Wall Street is smiling today.
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