Stuff you won’t read there.

Ukrainians are starting to recognize the new leader is just as corrupt as the last but this one is backed by the West. There prices are all through the roof and cold weather is just 3 -4 months away. It will get messier there but I anticipate the Russians will turn off the gas to Europe in retaliation of the sanctions unless the Russians and Germans work something out.

We don’t get all our gas via Ukraine, we get about 30% from Norway. But it would have an effect nonetheless. I live in the city just outside of the Center of Prague in a newly built (2007) two-floor rooftop in a building constructed in 1907. The chimneys are long since closed up when they stopped heating with coal after the revolution in ’89. So adding a woodstove and living on the 6th floor would not be practical. We intentionally have the means to heat with either gas or electric but we cook with gas so I just bought a hot plate to have stored away so if gas goes through the roof or is shut off we’re fine. But as you know it about planning ahead and if the gas gets shut off even what is now only a $45 German made and efficient hotplate will be hard to get and higher priced.

But sanctions are already taking a bite out of us here. Madeta http://www.madeta.cz/en/home-en has already announced that as Russia retaliates for EU, this company’s products have been rejected and trucks turned back. Another company that rebuilds civilian aircraft engines now cannot work with the Russians. The list goes on and they claim the Czech economy will lose 3 miliard (billion) CZK or about $144,265,448 from our economy which is a country equivalent to the size and population of Ohio or NC. Sadly we just posted the best quarterly economic gain in a few years. So these sanctions will kill any recovery the EU was trying to accomplish. Italy, which is an economic basket case anyway, has announced this week it has slipped back into recession. So we’ll feel the effects from this stuff while the U.S. does not. This is yet another event that will have consequence if / when the U.S. will have problem the rest of the world, with the exception of token gesture, enjoy a collective Schadenfreude. Their view will be a “…reap what you sow”, thing. It’s so simple a caveman could figure this stuff out.

Unless this gets resolved I think Europe will have an interesting winter.MM IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC

Aug 9, 2014