Sachs: Ukraine Disaster a 30-Year US Project

Not One Inch Eastward [Morning Reckoning] March 21, 2024 [WEBSITE]( | [UNSUBSCRIBE]( Sachs: Ukraine Disaster a 30-Year US Project Asti, Northern Italy March 21, 2024 [Sean Ring] SEAN RING Good morning Reader, Sometimes, I watch videos on YouTube or X and think, “Thank heavens I listened to the right people about Russia and Ukraine.” Of course, I claim no clairvoyance, and I’m not a “Washington Insider” like my colleague Jim Rickards. I’m just a well-traveled, educated spectator who tries to understand what’s happening and then writes about it. And since my trouble with authority extends to the mainstream media, I didn’t listen to their propaganda from Day 1. I listened to alternative intelligent people like John Mearsheimer, Scott Ritter, Douglas MacGregor, The Duran’s Alexander Mercouris and Alex Christoforou, Glenn Diesen, Tom Luongo, Alex Krainer, and Paradigm’s very own Byron King and Brian Maher. However, Jeffrey Sachs, one of the “Harvard Boys” who allegedly cost Russia billions in the 1990s, is a stunning addition to this roster of fine people. Sachs was a Harvard man from his undergraduate degree to his Ph.D. in Economics. He now plies his trade at Columbia. His shock therapy of privatizing assets quickly in the post-Soviet era is generally considered a disaster. I don’t know Professor Sachs, so I can’t say it’s guilt. But he’s been sticking up for Russia a whole lot lately. In fact, he’s laid the blame for this disaster squarely at the door of the US government. So, with stifled laughter, I watched Professor Sachs politely ignore Piers Morgan’s whining and stupid questions to explain how this whole mess started. Morgan’s entire strategy was to get Sachs to call Putin names. Really. [The "X" Chip]( [Click here to learn more]( This AI microchip is so powerful…. It’s powering NVIDIA’s success… And the future of AI itself… Which will send the current Wealth Window into OVERDRIVE… Positioning one stock for a 10,000% run in the coming years. [Watch this video for the full details.]( [LEARN MORE]( Sachs says (bolds mine): Well, I think he's very smart, very tough, and I think he says what he means. In 2007, he said, “Don't do this,” at the Munich Security Conference. Famously, he said, “Alright, you went violating…” what I know to be true, by the way, which was not an inch eastward for NATO promised by James Baker III and by Hans-Dietrich Genscher to Gorbachev in 1990. I know that's for sure the case. The United States expanded NATO to Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic in the Clinton period, and then to seven more countries in 2004… Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania, and Bulgaria. And then, in 2007, Putin said, “Stop. Alright, stop. No more. Not to Ukraine.” So what does George W do in 2008 in Bucharest? Of course, what does he do? He says, “Guarantee Ukraine and Georgia.” And this is Palmerston's playbook from 1853. So we're going to surround Russia and the Black Sea again, exactly that. Morgan, devastated that Sachs only called Putin smart and tough, asks again: Just to interrupt though. I just asked you what your view of Putin is, and so far you've just said he's smart and tough. Any negatives, professor? Sachs, mildly amused, continues: I believe that the big mistake of both sides is we should talk this out. And now let me say a word about talking it out. In 2008 when Bucharest happened, European leaders called me, because I'm friends with them. They said, “What is your crazy president doing?” By the way, some who are in power right now, I won't name names. “What is your president doing? Why is he destabilizing things? He promised he wasn't going to push Ukraine.” That's what European leaders say in private. They don't say it in public. We avoided the negotiations. Then 2014 came, sadly, Piers. I saw it. I saw some of it firsthand. It was ugly. The United States should not be funding overthrows of governments. We did. I know it. Okay, so I happened to be there soon afterward with the handpicked government handpicked by Victoria Nuland. We didn't talk then. Then came the Minsk agreements, and then the United States said privately, even though the UN Security Council has backed both Minsk One and Minsk Two, you don't have to do this. And so with Porschenko, don't worry about it. Then we heard, of course, Chancellor Merkel say afterward, “Yeah, we weren't taking it too seriously,” even though Germany and France were the guarantors of that. Then on December 15th, 2021, Putin put it down in a draft US Russia security agreement. I read it. I called the White House. I said, “You know what? You can negotiate on this basis. Avoid the war.” “No, no, no. There's going to be no war, Mr. Sachs.” I said, “Just tell them that NATO is not going to enlarge. You'll avoid the war.” “No, we're never going to say that. We have an open door policy.” [Sachs retorted] “So what kind of open door policy? We've had 200 years of the Monroe Doctrine, some open door policy.” “No, no, no, Mr. Sachs.” Then the war broke out. Immediately, Zelinsky says, “Okay, okay. We can be neutral. We can be neutral,” and negotiations start, as you know. Naftali Bennett, informally, is the prime minister of Israel and Turkey, with its very skilled diplomacy. I actually flew to Ankara to discuss with the Turkish diplomats what was going on. The US stopped the agreement. Why? Because they thought, “We'll win. We can bleed Russia, our sanctions, cutting them out of the banking system. We're going to bring them to their knees.” It's a bunch of terrible miscalculations is what it is. It's a game, a terrible game. By now, the clearly frustrated Morgan blurts: What I'm fascinated by though is I've asked you to say what you think of Putin, and so far, like I say, you've only called him tough and smart. This is a guy that kills his political opponents. This is a guy who, who rules his country like a gangster? I'm struggling to understand why you can't find any negatives for the guy. He's a dictator. Sachs, maintaining his composure, says: Because I'm trying to find peace and you don't do it the way that Biden does. Biden said, okay, he's a thug. Biden says he's a crazy SOB. That's real good, Joe. That's really getting us to where we want to go. That's hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians dead. Why don't we move a little bit beyond? After a bit more to-and-fro, Sachs says: I wrote a book about the Cuban Missile Crisis in its aftermath. Kennedy didn't go name-calling Khrushchev. He tried to save the world to stop the war afterward. He didn't insult Khrushchev. What he did was sat down with him and negotiated the partial nuclear test ban treaty. We're not in a game. We're not in name-calling. We're not in a cage brawl. We're trying to actually not have the world spiral into nuclear war. So it's not that game. The game is sit down and negotiate. Wrap Up I’m thrilled to bring you this first because you should hear this kind of learned discourse (against a boorish interviewer). Second, I can say, hand-on-heart, that what we’ve brought to you from Paradigm Press about Russia-Ukraine is finally getting vindicated by people in the know, like Jeffrey Sachs. From Jim Rickards to Brian Maher to Dave Gonigam to Byron King to me and many others at Paradigm Press, we’ve been on this since Day One in 2022. Many haven’t liked it. They wanted us to toe the line. But that’s not how we do things around here. We knew about “not one inch eastward” and wrote about it. We knew the sanctions would backfire and wrote about it. We knew the USG had far too much involvement in Ukraine from 2014 and wrote about it. We knew Russia would come out of this stronger and wrote about it. To watch a mainstream hack whine because a distinguished professor won’t call Putin names is just delicious. But what about the content of the interview? If you’ve been reading our stuff for the past few years, you know all this already. Have a wonderful weekend! All the best, [Sean Ring] Sean Ring Contributing Editor, The Morning Reckoning feedback@dailyreckoning.com X (formerly Twitter): [@seaniechaos]( [Trump, Biden, _______?]( There are three potential outcomes of the 2024 presidential election – and not a single one is good for the American people. In fact, the secret “third candidate” that no one’s talking about poses the biggest threat of all… [His identity revealed here]( . [LEARN MORE]( In Case You Missed It… Feeling Toppy Greg Guenthner, Editor [Greg Guenthner] GREG GUENTHNER Good Morning Reader, Welcome to the year of the speculator. 2024 has been a dream for adventurous investors who managed to catch lightning in a bottle and ride the mega-caps and semiconductors to outrageous heights. But I’m starting to see signs pointing to lower prices in the very near future… No, I’m not tracking the next big market meltdown… But I do expect the upcoming pullback to awaken more than a few hibernating crash callers. Most folks are way too comfortable with the nice, steady ride higher the major averages have posted over the past four-plus months. Even a standard drop of 5% will undoubtedly spook the herd and cause a little panic selling. We’ll get into what I’m seeing in the markets that are prompting me to take this defensive stance. But first, I want to discuss why I’ve been so focused over the past several weeks on prepping for a potential drawdown, in spite of the relatively strong performance of the major averages. First, I believe it's important to mentally prepare for changing market conditions. It’s all too easy to allow routine corrections to sneak up on you if your trading is on autopilot. If you can map out potential scenarios that don’t involve the market simply melting up every single day, you might have a shot at preserving your capital while other folks throw good money after bad. Of course, you’re more than welcome to bury your head in the sand and insist that some of the most overbought names on the market can’t possibly ever go down, let alone string together multiple losing weeks. Just remember… Drawdowns have happened before. They will happen again. This time is no different. Next, it’s always a good idea to keep at least one eye on any emerging trends that could become new leaders if a market shift were to occur. If we do experience a broad pullback heading into the end of the first quarter, where can we pivot to maximize our returns? Which stocks or sectors will be the new outperformers? With these ideas in mind, let’s check in on some of the caution lights I’m seeing that could spark some downside action. Semiconductors are Losing Momentum I promised myself I wouldn’t gripe about semiconductors this week since I’ve lately mentioned the sector every single week… Apologies in advance, but I’m going to break that promise right now. Don’t worry – I won’t ruin your entire day. Here’s the quick and dirty recap: I’m beginning to see cracks among the streaking semis despite a hot start early Monday morning. NVIDIA Corp. (NVDA) bulls were hard at work propping the stock up in the early morning hours ahead of potential AI news out of the company’s highly anticipated GTC Conference. But the rally failed to break above last week’s highs and the stock dropped back below $900. I know we’ve been talking about the speculator’s paradise among the big tech names for weeks – and I’m certainly not trying to bash anyone who’s made money on the long side of the semiconductor trade. But the trend is clearly getting long in the tooth as we settle into a seasonally weak period for stocks. The fact that NVDA has essentially gone nowhere for the past two weeks is a recipe for more downside action following that ugly bearish engulfing candle we first mentioned earlier this month. To be clear, I’m not calling for a huge semiconductor meltdown. I’m sure you’ve read the countless stories about the incredible growth in the sector. I have no issue with these bigger picture ideas. My main gripe is that stocks don’t move higher in a straight line forever – and I don’t think there’s much to be gained betting on additional upside action right now. Smaller Stocks are Stalling In addition to the semis, we’re also seeing other stocks and sectors find lower prices following some hotter-than-expected inflation data hitting the wire last week. Yes, we still have the Federal Reserve hot on inflation’s trail. We’re set to hear more from Powell & Co. following this week’s meeting. But investors are already betting that we’re not going to get relief in the form of rate cuts early this summer. Case in point: the chances for a June rate cut are sneaking below 50% early this week. If we do hear hawkish comments from the Fed on Wednesday, it’s not difficult to imagine a scenario where speculators back off – or even begin to aggressively take profits. Rising yields are already causing problems with small-cap stocks and growth names. Rates are putting pressure on these potential rotation trades, which have encountered stiff headwinds recently. The small-cap Russell 2000 looked ready to explode higher less than two weeks ago. Now, it’s red for the month and looking to test round-number support. If the rusty Russell can’t bounce soon, it could have much bigger problems. I recently told you about what was at the time a beautiful base breakout – and how the small-cap index was about to clock new two-year highs and erase a major portion of its bear market drawdown. Today, the Russell is officially on false breakout watch. Again, failure here could lead to a sharp move lower. That would be a punch in the gut of this potential catch-up trade in the making as these rate sensitive stocks reset… Can Crypto Keep Up? Much like growth names and smaller stocks, crypto is also finding lower prices across the board. As of this morning’s drop, Bitcoin is now down more than 10% from its all-time highs posted less than a week ago. Volatility is the name of the game in crypto. But we are also seeing a big drawdown materialize just as some of the frothier areas of the stock market are beginning to pull back. During the 2022 bear market, I lumped crypto in with the struggling tech-growth trade. That’s because the two groups attracted similar traders and generally behaved the same (although the magnitude of crypto’s moves was much greater). Now, as we watch the semis, tech-growth, and crypto struggle early this week, it makes me think the speculative money is finally switching to profit-taking mode. This downside action probably isn’t the beginning of a major crash. But it is a great time to reassess your positions, take some profits off the table, and plan your next move while most investors panic as those scary red numbers appear in their accounts. Best, [Greg Guenthner] Greg Guenthner Contributing Editor, Morning Reckoning feedback@dailyreckoning.com Thank you for reading The Morning Reckoning! We greatly value your questions and comments. Please send all feedback to [feedback@dailyreckoning.com.](mailto:dr@dailyreckoning.com) [Sean Ring] [Sean Ring, CAIA, FRM and CMT]( is a former banker and financial educator and is the editor of the Rude Awakening. Sean has trained interns and graduates from Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citi, Bank of America, Standard Chartered Bank, DBS (Singapore), the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), Bank Indonesia (the central bank), HSBC, Barclays, RBS, and BlackRock. He knows the global economy is being corrupted by forces that most people can't understand and has used his unique and worldly experiences to help people navigate the markets. [Paradigm]( ☰ ⊗ [ARCHIVE]( [ABOUT]( [Contact Us]( © 2024 Paradigm Press, LLC. 1001 Cathedral Street, Baltimore, MD 21201. By submitting your email address, you consent to Paradigm Press, LLC. delivering daily email issues and advertisements. 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