US is the big loser in this Ukraine crisis

While we are far away from the war zone, physically at least, we are actually intimately impacted by the war in many ways. Here are some:

"The SWIFT prohibitions on Russian banks are also not a free lunch in terms of putting pressure on Russia," Jim reminds us.

"Every buyer has a seller, and every sender has a receiver. If Russian banks cannot transact on SWIFT, that means Western banks that are counterparties will see non-performance on a large number of contracts and open trades.

"As Western banks scramble to cover those open positions, there will be dumping of collateral and other assets that may disrupt financial markets.

"Unlike a stock market crash, this kind of interbank distress does not happen all at once. It can take days or weeks to play out. Still, those ripple effects or spillovers are coming.

"We're probably in the opening stages of a major global liquidity crisis," Jim concludes. "What happens in Russia doesn't stay in Russia."

The U.S. could alleviate the global energy shortage and
help Europe in the short-run simply by opening its fracking
capacity, authorizing new drilling on Federal lands,
finishing the closed Keystone XL pipeline and authorizing
new drilling in Alaska. None of these policies is likely
to happen. 

Remember, all of the above were functioning well under Great President Trump!

The war will not go on indefinitely. If Russia fails to conquer
Ukraine, we can expect turmoil inside the Kremlin
and possible regime change. If Russia does conquer
Ukraine, it will emerge from the war even stronger while
NATO will be shown to be a dysfunctional alliance of
little real military import.
The U.S. loses either way. The U.S. looks weak for not
being able to stop the war with diplomacy. It looks even
weaker for not being able to assist Ukraine in timely and
effective ways. And it may emerge relatively weaker if
Russia is successful in implementing its regional hegemony.
This will be the legacy of weak leadership by Biden
and of his recent Afghanistan retreat, which left some
Americans dead and others abandoned behind enemy
lines. Putin took notes during the Afghanistan debacle
and acted accordingly in Ukraine.
The most long-term legacies of the War in Ukraine will
be disrupted supply chains, shortages of consumer goods,
and much higher prices. Modern supply chains took
thirty years to build and are being blown up in a matter
of months. They will take years to rebuild. (Jim Rickards)