This post Political Noise Can’t Drown out Russia’s Potential appeared first on Daily Reckoning.
There’s a great amount of Russia hysteria in the air. You see it in the media, in political discourse and in popular conversation.
Much of this hysteria can be traced either to the unorthodox Trump campaign or its hyperbolic critics. It’s too bad, because Russia is an important country that deserves serious consideration, not the superficial caricature now on display.
Investors have a rare opportunity to make huge profits in Russian markets right now. They key to unlocking this profit opportunity is to ignore the political bombast and focus on the fundamentals.
Your correspondent during a visit to Moscow. The red walls of the Kremlin appear behind me across the Moskva River. Inside the Kremlin is a mixture of traditional Orthodox churches with gilded onion-style domes, 18th- and 19th-century-style European palaces and unattractive modern government buildings.
Before diving in on the more sensitive aspects of U.S.-Russian relations, a reality check is in order.
Here are the facts: Russia is the largest country in the world by size, almost as large as the next two largest, Canada and the U.S., combined. Russia is one of two nuclear weapons superpowers, along with the U.S.
Russia is the world’s second-largest producer of oil and natural gas, ahead of Saudi Arabia. It has the 12th-largest economy in the world and the ninth-largest population. Russia is the third-largest gold producer in the world, at 250 metric tons per year, and has the sixth-largest gold reserves in the world, at 1,460 metric tons.
In short, Russia is too big to be ignored. Whatever politicians and the media may say, Russia is not going away. Russia will inevitably play an important role in geopolitics under any balance-of-power scenario.
The drumbeat of adverse publicity began last summer during the presidential campaign, when a stream of hacked Democratic Party emails was released by WikiLeaks. That computer hacking was traced to Russia by the U.S. Intelligence Community.
In turn, the Democrats blamed the leaks for their loss in the presidential election, on Nov. 8. That’s probably a stretch, but it made a strong talking point for the liberal-progressive wing of the Democratic Party and was picked up by sympathizers in the press.
Meanwhile, Trump had made some positive comments about Russian President Vladimir Putin during the campaign, and indicated he might lift some economic sanctions on Russia if elected. A number of Trump campaign officials, presidential appointees and other associates had business ties to Russia, including Paul Manafort, a Trump campaign manager, and Rex Tillerson, former CEO of Exxon Mobil and the new secretary of state.
Almost out of nowhere, Trump cordiality with Russia and Democratic anger at Russian hacking merged into an out-of-control conspiracy theory that somehow Trump associates had conspired with Russian intelligence to throw the election to Trump. The alleged conspiracy and the media frenzy around it reached a fever pitch.
One Trump official, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, had to resign as national security adviser because of conversations with the Russian …read more
Source:: Daily Reckoning feed
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