We’ve all been in this situation before. The neighborhood kids are playing football and then the asshole kid who owns the ball says, “I’m not winning, I’m going home.” And then he kicks you in the shins, punches a few squirts, takes his ball and goes home.
And so many claim it is with Russia, with alcoholic fury thrown in for color. Unable to control Ukraine a petulant Putin has decided to destroy it. Perhaps with nuclear weapons.
But is this really Putin’s game plan? Some Materials Analysts beg to differ. Notes one analyst, “You hear phrases like Jewish-Banderist-Nazi-Right-Sectarian-Deviantionist and immediately think this is political, not economic. But you can never separate the two. Mao kills over 1 million landlords for ideological reasons and changes the rural economy in China for ever. Stalin kills moderate Bukharin and then launches into the Holodomor. Again, a radical economic transformation as well as a crime against humanity.”
So what’s the economic plan? Russia is destroying the infrastructure of the territories its conquering. How does that make any economic sense?
A team of financial analysts at the x bank today came up with a credible alternative explanation backed by a shockingly thorough analysis: Putin and Assad are trying to corner the world’s rubble market.
To make a frothy market cappuccino-ready, only minutes later Syria’s Minster for Economic Development announced the flotation of “Consolidated Slag”, the largest privately held rubble contractor in the world.
But why rubble?
It all ties into break waters and sea walls.
Consider Djakarta, one city of thousands facing existential climate-change crises. Its has a population of 11 million people and will certainly be underwater within our average reader’s lifetime. Its a valuable piece of real estate. So what’s Indonesia going to do?
Build break-waters.
Build sea-walls.
Build dykes.
And what do these things need to be built?
Rubble.
Its a provocative argument: Invade Ukraine to create rubble, while provoking the West into sanctions that increase the price of fossil fuels, giving you the capital to produce fossil fuels you can sell quickly at below market prices PLUS get you enough money to fund your war so you can create more rubble.
And so the virtuous circle continues . Investment-wise, it appears Putin and Assad are winning everywhere.
But are they?
Currency trader and Bit-coin miner Oleg Rurik nods vigorously. “Yes. They’re scoring. This isn’t bad. Its the best. Want to buy a flak jacket? Made by Uighurs in China. That’s why its so cheap. I mean inexpensive.”
Disaster analysts disagree. “Right now there’s not too much long-term thinking in financial markets. I mean beyond the millisecond level. Sure cornering the rubble market looks smart now, but I see this as a Cnute play. All those break-waters and sea-walls. They’re not going to be built. Not more than one or two. Because the first ones will collapse. People will give up and move inland.”
Will Mariupol rubble rival the current rubble gold standard, so-called Aleppo Gold, or will the alliance between Assad and Putin hold and prices skyrocket? Only time, and markets, will tell.
“We haven’t seen a slag squeeze play like this since Verdun!” notes one analyst who took some history classes in college and is a big fan of Dungeons and Dragons.
Disclaimers: This article is news-based satire. Jokes aside, the AR is a fervent supporter of Dungeons and Dragons. We are laughing at ourselves.
