And the biggest black swans

are the West's bumbling of relations with Russia and the monopolistic acts of Saudi Arabia.


1. Russia at an inflection point.
Russia's foreign minister has warned the West about trying to blackmail Russia by sanctions. The head of Russia's second largest bank had warned the West at the meeting in Davos that denying Russia to use the SWIFT system in banking would lead to an official cold war and the end of diplomatic relations between Russia and the West.


There was a basic agreement between the Soviet Union and NATO that if the Russians withdrew from Central Europe those countries would be allowed/encouraged to remain neutral. Instead, NATO had been expanded to the Russian border. The clumsy attempts to incorporate the Ukraine into the West was the genesis of the current war in the Ukraine. The financing of the overthrow of the Ukrainian President Yanukovits by George Soros and the announcement that Russia's lease on the Sebastopol base in the Crimea would be ended forced Russia to defend its only warm water port. That was the genesis of the annexation of the Crimea by Russia.


The line has been drawn in the sand by Russia. Continue with sanctions, with the attacks on the Ruble and deny Russia the use of the SWIFT system and the cold war will be on officially. Russian pilots have already done practice runs against European and American forces and Russian military doctrines have been changed.


2.The war by the Saudis to destroy American oil companies.
American oil companies can extract huge quantities of oil and gas if the price of oil stays above $70/bbl. So, the Saudis dropped the oil price to destroy America's ability to produce its own oil. The idea that there is an oil glut is just as phony as the "peak oil" scam.


And this is where the two black swans are connected. A consortium of American oil companies led by EXXON has the inside track to develop the oil fields in the Black Sea off the Crimea. The derivatives involved in this deal amount to $250 Billion Dollars. The derivatives in the US oil fields amount to $500 Billion. Most of the new jobs created in the US have happened in Texas, N Dakota and Ohio. Continuation of Saudi efforts then pose a real danger to us as well as to Russia. Expect some mischief to block shipping from Saudi Arabia.