The Market Hath Spoken

The news yesterday was that the world’s stock markets are not worried about the Crimea: “Global financial markets on Monday shrugged off an anticipated Russian annexation of Crimea, as stocks rose strongly on Wall Street and in Europe.”

Some are still wringing their hands, but the only tangible reason for concern given in this Telegraph article is that sanctions might make Russia an unsound investment.

So the wise and all-knowing Market, Blessed Be It, hath spoken on the Crimea crisis. And It says, meh.

This is not to say there is no reason to be concerned, but nobody seems to know what that reason is. Especially after Crimeans themselves voted to join Russia, unless someone can document they had a gun to their heads as they voted, I’m not sure why we should try to reverse that. The “cure” might cause more problems than the disease.

John Cole wrote,

There is a very serious disconnect between the public and our news media, and the most immediate example of which is the frothing headlines about Crimea and the opinion leaders need for action as compared to the responses I have gotten around here.

And mind you, I am in West Virginia, where almost half of us it seems are veterans, and the resounding response to the Crimea issue around here is “Who the fuck cares? Are they shooting at us?”

I’m hard pressed to disagree.

Again, I’m not saying there’s no reason to be concerned; I’m saying nobody’s telling us what that reason is. The Right primarily is in a twitch because Barack Obama is President; if a Republican were in the White House doing exactly the same things, they’d be praising him up and down for his prudence and restraint. Now, they seem to be hysterical because Hitler annexed Austria, and nobody did anything, and domino theory, and Florida will be next. Or something.