THE THREE Ds & THE STATE OF THE 'EMPIRE'
Looking back on Putin's big speech today, it could be summed up with three Ds: Defiance, Denial, and Delusion.
Defiance because there was no signs of backing down on Ukraine in the face of Western sanctions and Russia's increasing isolation;
Denial, because there was no mention whatsoever of the falling oil prices that threaten to cripple the Russian economy. Nor was there any plan to avert what the Russian government this week acknowledged was a looming recession.
And delusion? Well, where does one start? The fanciful claim that sanctions will actually help Russia's economy perhaps. Or the bizarre warning to speculators who were causing the ruble's fall. (Those speculators must have been quite busy as Putin spoke. Over that 75 minutes, the Russian currency lost about 1.2 percent of its value.) Or the claim that the West was planning to sanction Russia anyway, and the Crimean annexation was just a pretext. The list goes on and on.
Leonid Bershidsky wrote up a devastating wrap of the speech for Bloomberg that basically nails it.
"'Luck,' wrote the U.S. gonzo-journalist Hunter S. Thompson, 'is a very thin wire between survival and disaster, and not many people can keep their balance on it.' Russian President Vladimir Putin, who today gave the most pitiful state-of-the-nation speech of his extraordinarily lucky career, is falling off the wire."
That sums it up nicely.
Be sure to tune in to the Power Vertical Podcast on December 5, when I will discuss the speech -- and what it portends -- in greater depth with guests Kirill Kobrin and Nina Khrushcheva.
THE MARKET'S VERDICT:
RUBLE AT START OF SPEECH 52.7 TO DOLLAR. AT CLOSE 53.37
PUTIN WRAPPING UP AND RETURNS TO PATRIOTIC THEMES: OUR NEW CHALLENGES GIVE US NEW OPPORTUNITIES, AND WE WILL PREVAIL.
Cut to national anthem, and it's a wrap...
DOZHD TV: THE MARKET EVALUATES PUTIN'S SPEECH, AND THE RUBLE IS FALLING:
PUTIN CHANNELING CHAVEZ?
OR MAYBE CASTRO...
PUTIN PRAISES OLYMPIC ATHLETES AND PARALYMPIC ATHLETES. CALLS FOR NEW PROGRAMS FOR HANDICAPPED
PUTIN ON DEMOGRAPHICS...