REUTERS/Gleb Garanich
An anti-government protester attaches Ukrainian and EU flags on a barricade that faces a cordon of riot police in Kiev February 2, 2014.
Nobody saw it coming.
Nobody, that is, in the group of global leaders, thinkers, media, business-people, etc., who consider themselves on top of all of the world's key issues, chatter about important matters on TV every night, and attend events like January's annual World Economic Forum in Davos.
At this year's World Economic Forum, which took place about five weeks ago, there was talk out the ying-yang about the Japan-China conflict, the Iran problem, and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict - three tensions that many of the assembled thinkers and leaders considered the most pressing on the global agenda.
Meanwhile, no one mentioned Ukraine.
Even as late as last week, when everyone delighted in looking at pictures of ousted Ukrainian President Yanukovych's polished mansion and private zoo, few pundits were predicting that the Ukrainian situation could suddenly lead to a Russian invasion and a tense 90-minute telephone call between the President of the United States and the King president of Russia, as well as the escalating crisis that we're all now obsessed with.
Which is good reminder of a maxim that is useful when it comes to evaluating the never-ending predictions about world events, market moves, and other items of supposed consequence that we all hear every day:
Nobody knows nothing.