T4, I'm always confused by Russians, methinks they like it that way. :) I was just looking at the CIA Factbook and their principle exports are oil, natural gas, wood and metals -- aren't these the very commodities that are most depressed in the open markets? IMHO, this debt ridden country is starved for hard currency, their economic industrial output has been cut by half...which is precisely why they were so quick in signing up for the Kyoto agreement. The emission trading credits is just another conduit for them to receive world currency, and this time they didn't have to sell weapons of mass destruction to receive it.
I wonder how much oil really matters to these guys ... from past experiences, it seems cheaper to produce at a loss than it does to shut down operations and lay-off thousands of workers, and quite possibly turning thousands workers into thousands of angry activists. Nope, they'll keep pumping oil to the West while selling MIGs to the East.
If you think about it, the only thing thing that keeps the oil bear in check is the Iraq equation. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 = peace/love and 10 = nuclear war; how would we rate this situation?
I'm giving it an 8.
Regards
Frank P.
PS -- thanks for all the links you've recently posted. I haven't read the Atlantic Monthly article yet -- it's on my list of things to do. Here's a link for the Factbook:
cia.gov |
