Russia/Ukraine

In Biden's State of the Union address, referring to Russia/Ukraine, Biden said that he repeated efforts to mitigate the situation. Then he immediately repeated himself. This mimicked President Reagan repeating himself in a speech, which got everyone to recognize that he was going senile. Nancy Pelosi had a look of awe on her face. Biden immediately sent his Vice President to Europe to fix things, reminiscent of him appointing her as the Border Czar, for her to fix illegal immigration on the Mexican border. He might as well send her to Alaska to learn how to surf.

The symbolism wasn't lost on the Europeans. Within the last few days they have stepped up to the plate, to do the sorts of things they should have done on day one of the Russia/Ukraine war.

Poland has absorbed perhaps a million Ukrainian refugees so far. It is worried about getting attacked by Russia if it does too much to help Ukraine. Ukraine has asked NATO countries for their old Soviet era aircraft, that the Ukrainian air force knows how to fly. Poland just sent what they had (I have no idea of how many - update: 28 planes https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/free-of-charge-poland-gives-ukraine-more-than-two-dozen-mig-fighter-jets?utm_source=browser_push&utm_medium=onesignal&utm_campaign=push_notifications ) to an air force base in Germany run by the Americans, for the Polish to pick up. The Americans don't know what to do with the air craft. Part of this is the fault of the Poles, in that they didn't want to give Biden any quick news that makes him look good.

The US today announced an American embargo of Russian oil, natural gas, and coal. This is small, but meaningful. Russian oil was being transported to Boston harbor. The UK is embargoing Russian oil. The rest of Europe is treading lightly. They are reaping the results of a poorly planned and implemented switch to renewable energy. Even with Russian natural gas flowing, European gas prices are at a record high, and they also import much of their oil from Russia. Europe is dependent upon a mild winter not to freeze, even without an embargo.

On Monday Ukraine's head discussed a willingness to negotiate with Russia. There should have been serious negotiations before Russia invaded.

You've seen the price of gasoline, at or near record highs. Companies, on their own, have been refusing to facilitate the trade in Russian oil. Crude oil has been flirting with setting new record high prices.

Russia produces perhaps 30% of the world's nickel. Other nations, such as Canada, could step up to fill the gap, but this takes years to develop. The price of nickel quickly more than doubled. A Wall Street nickel fund (trying to triple the price action of nickel on the down side) declared itself worthless. The London Metals Exchange has declared a postponement of delivery dates of nickel. The nickel market has collapsed. There's too much craziness right now to guarantee that contracts for nickel will be valid.

Putin has announced he will stop the export of various commodities. He will announce the list of them in two days. This gives the world a chance to prevent all of this craziness.

Within the next day or two, the Russia/Ukraine war will probably get dramatically better, or dramatically worse, not necessarily in the fighting, but in how the world reacts to it.