So Russia’s de facto annexation of Crimea is now the new normal for Wall Street. The mainstream media have attributed investors’ unseemly enthusiasm to a ‘relaxation’ of tensions between Putin and everyone else. In fact, tension has decreased only because the U.S. and Euroland evidently have decided they’ll just have to live with whatever it is that Putin has in mind. Wall Street surely will, assuming Russian troops are not tasked with putting down bloody riots. And even then, you can bet that stocks would be on the move higher the day after the blood literally stopped flowing.
Meanwhile, it has grown easier for Obama to speak loudly while carrying a small stick because op-end columns have been filled with sensible ideas about how to ‘punish’ Putin — mainly by playing the energy card. It turns out that there are numerous ways to make him say ‘Uncle!’ although most of them would take time to arrange. In the meantime, Putin appears to have stalemated critics by insisting that Russia has a right to protect ethnic Russians living in Ukraine. For U.S. investors, that can only mean one thing: ‘Party on!’