I have just returned from three weeks in Russia, Azaerbaijan and Turkey. It was very illuminating and what one hears from Russians tells us a lot about the world events and what we can expect. It affects you in that the entire Syria scenario and the new relationship between Syria and Iran with the nuke deal will impact the whole world, and not in a good way. My black swans are thrilled. There are long range, and possibly short range impacts we will see.

When you go to Russia and really talk to people there you learn that the Russians have lived through over 400 years of Czars, emperors, and ruthless dictators. Under Stalin they lived in fear every day and millions died. In WWII tens of millions died. Under Gorbachov the country literally collapsed and stopped functioning. People were not paid, they had no food, the infrastructure fell apart and survival was difficult. Gorbachov is considered the worst thing other than Stalin to ever have happened and all the plaudits in the west for him are based on totally false notions. The Russian hate him for destroying the nation. When Putin rose to power in 1999, he first took on the Chechen war and defeated a feared group of people. Russians believe Chechens are the best trained and fearless fighters in the world who are taught to kill from childhood. When Putin beat them he did with classic Russian brutality by just killing as many as he could. He then put people back to work, he paved the roads, cleaned and repaired buildings and made the country function again. He restored pride in the people and put food on the table and money in their pockets. Now he has an 86% approval. Ask Russians about the recession and should Putin be replaced and they tell you there is nobody else to run Russia. They fault him for not diversifying the economy, but then they repeat there is nobody else who can run the country. So he has a mandate to do anything he wants and because he protects the oligarchs and gets 10% of everything in return, he has the money and power.