Did Russia Hack?

There were three separate hacks of various Democrat and Clinton emails. I have actually read almost nothing about the most important of these, the hacking of Hillary Clinton's email account. I find this rather odd. 

The hacking of Podesta's email gets the second amount of press. Anyone whose password is p@ssw0rd, almost deserves to get hacked. There is actually some evidence that Russian nationals were involved. It is not strong, but it does exist. If I was a Russian government hacker, I would not use a Russian IP address. So the much admired Russian government hacking group was incompetent, or it was someone else wanting to implicate Russia. I am open to either argument. 

What recieves the most press is the hacking of the DNC. If you believe Wikileaks, this was not a hack. It was a leak from a disgruntled DNC employee who was a Sanders' supporter. When you read the unclassified portion of the report of this leak, there is no evidence about who did it. Most of the report is about Russian TV—RT, Russia Today. It refers to programs aired several years ago and claims that this is proof of Russian interference in the US election. Most nations have propaganda arms, the US version is the Voice of America. 

If what was being said was along the lines of: The Russians are logical suspects in these hackings, I would have no objections, they are logical suspects. As is China, Israel and a guy living in his parents basement typing away on his computer in his underwear. 

If you want to hear a security expert, whose salary does not depend on what he says, watch this video. 

My Predictions for 2016: Recap

I thought that going over my predictions for 2016 might be fun. 

1. Saxo Bank also does predictions and they expect the Russian Ruble to go up 20%. This is related to their prediction that oil prices will go back up and approach $100. This seems goofy to me. I predict that the Ruble will fall from the current 70 to the dollar to 90, a fall of 30%. On my first trip to Russia in 2001 it was 27 to the dollar. The fall in the Ruble is not so much because Russia is weak, but more that the "powers that be" want Russia to be weak. 

3. Oil will go down to $30 but then back up to $45. Russia is planning on $40 oil for the next 5 years. This will be bad for Russia, but not catastrophic because of the weaker Ruble. It will be bad for Saudi Arabia with its fixed exchange rate. Bonus Prediction: The house of Saud will fall within 5 years if low oil prices continue that long. 

The lowest price for oil in 2016 was $36 per barrel. The highest is right now at $53. Looks like I was close on this one. As for the Ruble, I was wrong. It did reach a high, which from a dollar perspective is a low, of 85 Rubles per dollar, but now it is 60. Saxo was wrong in all its predictions. 

5. Russia's adventure in Syria will not go well, but it won't go badly either. Putin feels he has no choice but to fight in Syria as a large portion of the ISIS fighters are ethnic Chechens from Russia. Russia lost the first Chechen War, but won the second. Putin does not want there to be a third. For an interesting discussion of why Putin is in Syria, click here. 

Russia did do better than I expected, but that is a function of who was elected US President. If Clinton had been elected, as I expected but did not predict, things would have gone much worse. I would rate this prediction as neither a hit nor a miss. Although the recent cease fire might tip the scale to a clear miss. 

7. There will be a settlement in Ukraine because both the West and Russia want one. The Ukrainians would rather kill each other. 

I was too early on this one. I will repeat it for next year as a President Trump will probably get this done. The framework is already in place for a settlement. 

9. The hard money crowd will continue to predict inflation, they will continue to be wrong. The Fed will, as it did on December 16, try to increase interest rates. While the interest rates will technically be higher in that the rate that the Fed will loan money to banks will go up, in reality the strong deflationary pressures will continue and there will be little increase in rates. I doubt the Fed will reduce reserves by the one trillion or so needed to actually increase interest rates. The dollar will continue to be strong.

I got this one correct and the next year will be more of the same. 

Note that my even numbered predictions were not intended to be serious. I will do the same for my predictions for 2017. 

So my scorecard for 2016 was 2 right, one wrong, one neutral, and one I was too early on. I hope to do better for 2017. 

Russian Hacking?

I thought this interview with a former CIA analyst might be of interest.

An Interesting Podcast

No, not mine but John Batchelor's weekly interview with Steven Cohen, professor emeritus at NYU. 

Worth a listen, I listen every week. 

A Personal Rant

I live in a state where marijuana is legal, but plastic bags aren't. Where in order to help the poor, the state raises the price that the poor pay for cigarettes. Where the more roads they build, the worse the traffic gets. Where your salary is not bad, but you spend it all on rent.  Where people who did not bother to vote protest the election they did not participate in by riots. Where big corporation are hated, but yet they control the economy. Where they build mass transit that doesn't go anywhere. A state where everyone hates Walmart, but everyone shops there, riding in carts because they are too fat to walk. A state that prides itself on organic food, but is filled with MacDonalds. A state that is the porn capital of the world, but the issue recently on the ballot was not should you "do it" in films, but should the actors wear condoms when they do. (They don't have to, the measure failed.)

I live in a nation where the best and cheapest way to get gender reassignment surgery is to join the military. A nation where the president agrees to a ceasefire, and the military "accidentally" breaks it. A nation that is happy when its president only drones a few people, and only supports wars that kill hundreds of thousands, but does not directly participate. A nation that subsidizes large corporations while singing the praises of a free enterprise system. I live in the most prosperous and wealthiest nation in the history of the world, but yet it can't pay its bills.

I live in a nation that thinks that a politician can save them from themselves. As the Bible says, you reap what you sow. Get ready for some karma.