G'day, Durk. I would expect your post to be banned, soon. As when I post truth about Putin it gets banned 'because nothing to do with gold'. You gotta get some gold slant in there.
But, maybe (my theory) hotcopper is pro Russian / Putin, so they will leave your non gold post, because is is pro Putin.
Anyway, I really feel sorry for you (not in a bad way, but a sad way) that you can come to any malformed logic and sentences that can end with 'Putin might actually be the good guy'.
I guess in Germany there were a lot of people who typed 'Hitler is the good guy'.
Let us not have an unwinnable logic debate. Let us agree (each of us) to look at the end result in 10 years or so... then it will become apparent if Putin was 'a good guy' or a 'not so good guy'.
re gold, I stand my ground on it ceasing to be a crisis currency. I think any crisis in the world will not affect gold much. Our world has become crisis immune. And!!!!! it seems to me to have become Ponzi currency immune as well. So, gold will not trade up because of Putin - as evil a guy as he is. And not because of Ponzi currency. My only hope is having gold exposure because it is USD counted. And the USD will be the last currency standing, for sure.
