Remember the Winter Olympics? Not to imply that you watched them (I'm fairly sure no one watched anything other than curling) but do you remember when they were? Times were simpler back then. So peaceful. Russia even went so far as to poke fun at themselves, intentionally recreating the 5th Olympic ring error from the opening ceremony in the closing ceremony proving that somewhere in their black, vodka-soaked hearts there was some semblance of humor.
Then they got bored. Then they invaded the Ukraine. In the words of Elmer Fudd, "Ooooohhhhhh dat wascally Wussia."
So of course, we Americans got all in a tizzy because Hollywood would like to get away with using Russians as villains again and this seemed as good an excuse as any to re-demonize them. Admittedly, the cameras in the Olympic showers didn't help their case all that much. Honestly, all of America would have rallied behind Putin's invasion if he had simply come out and said that he had "top intelligence" that "WMDs" were being held "there". At that point he could bring down whatever level of carnage he wanted and we wouldn't' have given a rat's ass because, you know, WMDs. Right?
DO YOU SEE HOW STUPID THAT SOUNDS WHEN IT'S SOMEONE OTHER THAN US DOING IT?!?
When you get down to brass tacks, Crimea has really been operated and possessed by Russians pretty much the whole time. Russia docks a huge segment of their Black Sea fleet there. The issue is that this territorial "expansion" (really just an official reacquisition of military assets) violates the Budapest Memorandum which originally helped to denuclearize the Ukraine while providing them border assurances. And we sorta-kinda promised that we'd help maintain the integrity of Ukraine's borders in the event of situations exactly like this one which means Russia violated the treaty.
Of course, when it comes to which country has violated the most treaties, I'm pretty sure the good ol' USA still has a sizable advantage. But still, boooooooo those guys.
So now we're going to hold some diplomatic conference with Putin and John Kerry's all over the news again and sanctions have been levied and blah blah blaaaaaaah stuff that isn't war. Which is good. Because war with Russia would probably suck. But the fun thing is that LAST time we got in a Cold War with these folks, they didn't have a functioning stock market that could feel the impact.
But now they do. Mua ha ha ha HA HA HAAAAAAAAA. CAPITALISM, BEEOTCH! WE GOT YOU BY THE SHORT AND CURLIES!!! So yeah, they're probably not too interested in war either. Regardless, if they prepare for war like they prepare for the Olympics then we've got nothing to worry about.
Also Venezuela is going through a whole crazy revolution kind of scenario, but since that has less of a direct impact on our stock markets we just kinda swept that one under the rug. Just like the tsunami victims once it became out of vogue to donate ten dollars via text message to them.
Arizona in all their sun-stroked logic decided to try and make it okay not to serve gay people because religion and whatnot. That didn't work out so well. Evidently you can't just say "God told me so" and get away with abject bigotry. Who woulda thunk it?
The Oscars happened. That was fun. I guess. Brad Pitt had pizza because that's an unusual thing to do in that kind of environment. Matthew McConaughey thanked God in his acceptance speech and the crowd went silent (but really did you expect them to go "WOOOOO!!!! YEAH GOD!!!! AND THAT GUY FROM DAZED AND CONFUSED WOOOO!!!!!!"?) But most notable was the epic selfie that Ellen snapped (really it was the guy from the Hangover but whatever) of a bunch of famous people that literally crashed Twitter via re-tweets. Really makes you feel like all those actors genuinely like each other.
Until you find out it was an 18 million dollar ad spot for Samsung's dumb new phone that isn't an iPhone! Of all the people in the world I thought I could trust and then Ellen does this to me? I don't know how I can go forward and face reality anymore.
So a Malaysian airplane went completely missing with two Iranians sporting illegal passports on board aaaaaand shockingly enough it doesn't look like they were terrorists. In other news, a building exploded and collapsed in Manhattan aaaaaand shockingly enough it wasn't due to terrorism. Despite stuff still going wrong, the whole terrorism thing seems to not be hitting us quite as often anymore. That's pretty fun.
Go high five someone in the military. They've earned it.
The stronger-than-expected jobs report for February gave the democrats a nice "Oh thank God/god/arbitrary luck/the-will-of-the-greater-cosmos" moment. Since December and January's weak numbers were essentially written off due to the lasting effects of the polar vortex storm, February's numbers came under a noteworthy amount of partisan scrutiny. Coming into the all-too-soon mid-term congressional elections, I'm sure the blue team is breathing a sigh of relief they didn't leave any blood in the water this month.
I really haven't discussed a damn thing surrounding real estate or mortgage rates in this one, have I? Hmm. Well, the whole Russian invasion thing does stand to throw more international money into our bonds. That's probably good for rates. China seems to be falling behind which also helps us. Home prices keep moving upwards, underwriting guidelines are slowly loosening and rates remain at exceptionally low levels.
I mean, do 80% of you even really care? And can't the other 20% just call me and get their in-depth commentary on demand? Why yes, yes you can.
I love you. Never change. Also send me referrals, dammit.
