Thread: Economic sanctions

More shit propaganda.

And Ukraine took another Hamlet. I don't think you know the true reality of War snubs.

7 Oct, 2022 17:12 HomeBusiness News

Losses of international firms that exited Russia estimated

Western sanctions have so far cost global corporations up to $240 billion, a study suggests.

"Foreign companies that have cut back operations in Russia or pulled out completely have incurred between $200 billion and $240 billion in losses since the end of February, RBC Daily reported on Friday, citing a report by Moscow’s Center for Strategic Research (CSR).The CSR calculated that of the total, some $70-90 billion was lost by firms that had left altogether. Companies from the US, UK and Germany have reportedly been hit the hardest.

According to the report, as of the beginning of September, 34% of the ‘large’ foreign companies operating in Russia had limited their activities in the country, while 15% decided to exit by transferring their Russia division to a new owner, and 7% announced a complete withdrawal without selling the business.

The CSR classifies foreign companies with revenue of more than 5.7 billion rubles ($91 million) as ‘large’, noting that there were 600 such firms. About 44% of those businesses continue to operate as usual in Russia, it said.

The companies most active in leaving the country were Finland (80% of Finnish businesses decided to withdraw from Russia), followed by Denmark (73%) and the UK (35%). Businesses from Austria, Japan and Switzerland were “more flexible and pragmatic” in their decisions. The report also noted that most Polish businesses have stayed in Russia despite the harsh rhetoric of the country's authorities.
Among the reasons for departure, many companies named “subjective” motives, such as attempts to hedge reputational losses. Others explained it with “objective” circumstances, such as a ban on foreign trade transactions, exchange rate fluctuations, logistical failures, and difficulties with implementing transactions"

Losses of international firms that exited Russia estimated — RT Business News

The amount of money they have foregone is a great measure of their disgust at the scumbag war criminal Putin.

In reality, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states involved with OPEC+ have effectively sided with the Kremlin

In reality, they've sided with their Swiss bank accounts.

The shrinking echo chamber becomes ever more strident, and yet more isolated.

When President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in February, he began two very different wars. One was a military conflict in which the Russian armed forces have suffered repeated defeats, from the failure of the initial invasion to the successes of the Ukrainian counter-offensive.

But the Ukrainian conflict also saw the start of an economic war waged against Russia by the West whose outcome is far more uncertain. The US, UK, EU and their allies have sought to impose a tight economic siege on Russia, focusing primarily on its oil and gas exports, to weaken it and compel it to give up its assault on Ukraine.

This second war, in contrast to the situation on the battlefield, has not been going well and the West suffered a serious setback this week when the Opec+ group, which includes Russia, decided to cut its crude exports by two million barrels a day in order to force up prices. The decision came despite intense lobbying of Saudi Arabia by the US where President Joe Biden is desperate to prevent the price Americans pay for petrol at the pump going up just before the midterm congressional elections in November. Reacting furiously to the news, the White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said that it was “clear” that Opec+ was “aligning with Russia”.

Embarrassing aspect of oil sanctions

The desire among Democrats to keep oil prices low is so intense that they have led to a little-noticed and – from the point of view of the US and many of its Nato allies – embarrassing aspect of oil sanctions on Russia. It is only because the sanctions have largely failed that the price of benchmark Brent crude fell 24 per cent from $123 a barrel in mid-June to $93.50 a barrel earlier this week.

This fall in prices, which is now going into reverse so the price may reach $100 by Christmas, happened in large part because Russia was able to reroute two-thirds of its lost sales to the West to countries such as India and China through which it entered the world oil market. This has been hugely convenient to the US because the slide in the oil price has prevented the rise in the cost of living being even higher.

The link between falling oil prices over the summer and the successful Russian evasion of sanctions on its oil exports should be obvious, but apparently eluded Liz Truss when she met President Joe Biden in New York on the margins of a UN General Assembly meeting last month.

An account of the meeting by my brother Andrew Cockburn, the Washington editor of Harper’s magazine, reveals that Truss asked Biden for two things: a strong effort to bring down world energy prices and a total embargo on Russian oil exports. Biden was surprised that Truss did not understand that her requests contradicted each other, since taking Russian crude off the market would inevitably raise the price of oil. After the meeting, Biden told his aides that he found the new British prime minister to be “really dumb”, and not to be taken seriously.

Electricity blackouts

Truss is not alone among European leaders in demanding that Russia be treated as an economic pariah, but without taking on board the degree to which the policy has already boomeranged. It may have hurt Russian consumers, but primarily the professional classes in the big cities which bought Western-made goods and took foreign holidays. But the purpose of sanctions is to deny the Russian state the revenues needed to fight the war in Ukraine and in this it has completely failed.
Russia’s economy ministry, as reported by Reuters citing government documents, says that expected Russian energy export revenues will reach $338bn in 2022 which is nearly $100bn or a third more than the $244bn figure for last year. The rise in export earnings will be even higher after the Opec+ production cut. The ministry had expected the Russian economy to contract by as much as 12 per cent, but has revised this down to 4.5 per cent. The Russian military debacle in Ukraine has many causes, but lack of money is not one of them.

If the damage inflicted by sanctions on the regime in Moscow is less than expected, the self-harm to the rest of Europe and to a lesser degree the US, has been far greater. Every country faces a cost of living crisis. Manufacturing industry is buckling, particularly sectors producing metals, fertiliser, paper, glass and anything requiring a high input of gas and electricity. The National Grid in Britain warned this week of the risk of electricity blackouts.

Economic and social disruption is justified publicly by Western governments claiming that this is the necessary price of resistance to Putin in Ukraine. By-and-large, the public has accepted this argument, though sanctions have little to do with Russian failures and Ukrainian successes. Liz Truss and her ministers keep saying that the worldwide cost of living crisis is the result of “Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine”. But it would be truer to say that the economic turmoil is the result of an ill-considered decision to wage economic warfare against Russia which was never likely to work.

Greatest miscalculation in European history

Because of governmental and popular outrage against Putin and Russia, the policy of sanctions has been surprisingly little debated, despite its tremendous impact on the lives of hundreds of millions of people. Critics of sanctions are dismissed as weak-willed in opposing Putin, if not his secret proxies.
The Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán said this summer that “initially, I thought we [the Europeans] had only shot ourselves in the foot, but now it is clear that the European economy has shot itself in the lungs, and it is gasping for air”. But Orbán is widely denounced as a right-wing populist nationalist sympathetic to Putin, whose views can be safely ignored.

Yet an embargo on Russia was always a dubious policy. Sanctions on much smaller countries like Iran, Iraq and Syria have failed to change regimes or behaviour. They had never been tried against a country with a surplus of oil and gas and capable of feeding itself, like Russia. Governments and public opinion prefer economic sanctions to shooting wars as more humane and less risky than an outright military conflict, but they seldom grasp that embargoes usually fail to achieve their objectives.

When this happens, the official explanation is always that the sanctions are not tight enough. This is happening now with Russia. One idea is to deny insurance to tankers carrying Russian crude but this would raise oil prices. Another US-backed plan is for a price cap to be put on Russian oil so it would continue to flow, but at a much reduced profit to the Kremlin. A drawback in this piece of wishful thinking is that it would require Russian co-operation – and the Russians say they will cease to supply anybody trying to implement such a scheme.

Putin made one of the greatest miscalculations in European history by invading Ukraine, but Western leaders were almost equally unwise to opt for economic warfare as one way of stopping him.

FULL- https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/10...a-boomeranged/ (just more stuff on how stupid Liz Truss is)

Patrick Oliver Cockburn (/ˈkoʊbɜːrn/KOH-burn; born 5 March 1950) is a journalist who has been a Middle East correspondent for the Financial Times since 1979 and, from 1990, The Independent.^[1] He has also worked as a correspondent in Moscow and Washington and is a frequent contributor to the London Review of Books.


He has written three books on Iraq's recent history. He won the Martha Gellhorn Prize in 2005, the James Cameron Prize in 2006, the Orwell Prize for Journalism in 2009,^[2] Foreign Commentator of the Year (Editorial Intelligence Comment Awards 2013), Foreign Affairs Journalist of the Year (British Journalism Awards 2014), Foreign Reporter of the Year (The Press Awards For 2014).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Cockburn

I had heard that brevity is the soul of wit, rather than the soul of shit. Mods?

Sanctions are still making Putins loyal staff look harder for solutions, whatever google might tell your confirmation bias.

Well I can only hope the 'loyal staff' of the various European governments are looking harder for solutions to their dire economic outlook too. Whatever their confirmation bias.

Originally Posted by sabang

Well I can only hope the 'loyal staff' of the various European governments are looking harder for solutions to their dire economic outlook too. Whatever their confirmation bias.

I don't know who is hurt more by sanctions.

But Denmark is ..hurting.

Not just the trouble people have paying their energy bills and dealing with the inflation.

Schools are laying off teachers, because of the energy bills etc etc.

House building have crashed due to peaking interest rate and low confidence in the future economy.

People with funds will sit on them for now.

My instinct tells me the same, but the wife wants a new car



We are not happy

Just be glad you're not a brit. Things could be worse. Unfortunately though, things seem all set to get worse.

Originally Posted by sabang

Just be glad you're not a brit. Things could be worse.

That is pretty much our parlament's response to the crisis.

"Look at Belgium or Germany."

"they are worse off"

Oldest trick in the book

It’s almost enough to make one consider Maslow’s Theory of needs. Back to basics with shelter and physical security. To secure our physical needs today, now requires the developed world to consider energy and water as well as physical security.
Little wonder that refugees from the war torn third world are looking for an easy mark in the west. Not many of them flocking to China and Russia?

Actually, a shitload flock to Russia from central Asia and east/ south Ukraine. It has the World's 4th largest immigrant population.

PH, you sulky, petulant little boy- why don't you shift your lazy arse, and so some research yourself? Your education, at taxpayer expense, was a shameful waste of money-


Immigration By The Numbers


1. The United States - 46,627,102

The United States is unique for its immigration. All Americans, except for Native Americans, can trace their family's roots to somewhere other than the United States. The top source countries for immigrants to the United States include Mexico, India, China, and the Philippines. However, there are people from virtually all countries around the world represented in the United States. This makes the country one of the world's most multicultural societies.


2. Germany - 12,005,690

After the United States, Germany as the highest immigrant population in the world. Germany attracts many high-skilled immigrants from around the world. This is encouraged by the government to account for stagnant population growth in the country. The top source countries for immigrants to Germany are: Turkey (14.9%), Poland (8.2%), Syria (6.6%) and Italy (6.1%).




3. Russia - 11,643,276

Russia, the world's largest country, is also the world's 9th most populated country with a population of over 100 million. Of that population, 11 million people are immigrants. Immigration is the main source of population growth in Russia, as the country actually has a low birth rate. The majority of immigrants to Russia come from surrounding nations and former USSR members like Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, and Moldova. However, anyone can immigrate to Russia, provided they can prove fluency in Russian and have lived in the country for five years.


4. Saudi Arabia 10,185,945

There are more than 10 million immigrants living in Saudi Arabia. The majority of people come to Saudi Arabia to work in the country's oil industry from source destinations such as India, Syria, Pakistan, and the Philippines.


5. United Kingdom - 8,543,120

More than 8 million people in the United Kingdom are foreign-born. Like many other developed countries, much of the United Kingdom's population growth comes from migration. The largest groups of UK immigrants come from India, Poland, and Pakistan. A large percentage of immigrants in the United Kingdom comes from the European Union.

Countries With the Most Immigrants - WorldAtlas


Yes, Russia actually comes third- not fourth.

October 11, 2022 by M. K. BHADRAKUMAR

A perfect storm in US foreign policy

"The old adage is that a good foreign policy is the reflection of the national policy. A perfect storm is brewing on the foreign policy front in America triggered by the OPEC decision on Thursday to cut oil production by 2 million barrels a day, which will on the one hand drive up the gas price for the domestic consumer and on the other hand expose the Biden Administration’s lop-sided foreign policy priorities. At its most obvious level, the OPEC decision confirms the belief that Washington has lost its leverage with the cartel of oil-producing countries. This is being attributed to the deterioration of the US’ relations with Saudi Arabia during the Biden presidency. But, fundamentally, a contradiction has arisen between the US interests and the interests of the oil producing countries.

Contradictions are nothing new to the geopolitics of oil. The 1970s and 1980s witnessed two major “oil crises.” One was man-made while the other was an interplay of historical forces — the Yom-Kippur War of 1973 and the Iranian Revolution of 1979.

In the downstream of the Yom-Kippur War, the Arab nations weaponised oil and proclaimed an oil embargo on western nations which were perceived to have supported Israel in the war. The result was that the price of oil rose nearly 300% in less than 6 months, crippling the world’s economy.

President Nixon asked petrol stations not to sell gasoline from Saturday night through until Monday morning. The crisis affected industry more than the average consumer.

In 1979, the Iranian Revolution hit oil production rates and the world’s oil supply shrunk by 4%. Panic set in, demand for crude oil shot up and price more than doubled.

The Biden Administration tempted Fate by underestimating the importance of oil in modern economic and political terms and ignoring that oil will remain the dominant energy source across the world for the foreseeable future, powering everything from cars and domestic heating to huge industry titans and manufacturing plants.

A smooth transition to green energy over time is largely dependent on the continued availability of plentiful, cheap fossil fuel. But the Biden Administration ignored that those who have oil reserves wield a huge amount of power over our oil-centred energy systems, and those who buy oil are on the contrary, cripplingly dependent on the market and the diplomatic relations which drive it.

The Western powers are far too naive to think that an energy superpower like Russia can be simply “erased” from the ecosystem. In an “energy war” with Russia, they are doomed to end up as losers.

Historically, Western nations understood the imperative to maintain good diplomatic relations with oil-producing countries. But Biden threw caution into the wind by insulting Saudi Arabia calling it a “Pariah” state. Any improvement in the US-Saudi relations is not to be expected under Biden’s watch. The Saudis distrust American intentions.

The congruence of interests on the part of the OPEC to keep the prices high is essentially because they need the extra income for their expenditure budget and to maintain a healthy investment level in the oil industry. The International Monetary Fund in April projected Saudi Arabia’s breakeven oil price — the oil price at which it would balance its budget — at $79.20 a barrel.

The Saudi government does not disclose its assumed breakeven oil price. But a Reuters report suggested that a preferred price level would be around $90 to $100 a barrel for Brent crude — at which level, it won’t have a huge impact on the global economy. Of course, over $100 will be a windfall.

Meanwhile, a “systemic” crisis is brewing. It is only natural that the OPEC views with scepticism the recent moves by the US and the EU to push back Russia’s oil exports. The West rationalises these moves as aimed at drastically reducing Russia’s income from oil exports (which translates as its resilience to fight the war in Ukraine.) The latest G7 move to put a cap on the prices at which Russia can sell its oil is taking matters to an extreme.

The OPEC regards it as a paradigm shift, as it implicitly challenges the cartel’s assumed prerogative to ensure that global oil supply matches demand, where one of the key measures of supply-demand balance is price. Arguably, the West is de facto setting up a rival cartel of oil-consuming countries to regulate the oil market.

No doubt, the West’s move is precedent-setting — namely, to prescribe for geopolitical reasons the price at which an oil-producing country is entitled to export its oil. If it is Russia today, it can as well be Saudi Arabia or Iraq tomorrow. The G7 decision, if it gets implemented, will erode OPEC’s key role regulating the global oil market.

Therefore, the OPEC is proactively pushing back. Its decision to cut down oil production by 2 million barrels per day and keep the oil price above $90 per barrel makes a mockery of the G7 decision. The OPEC estimates that Washington’s options to counter OPEC+ are limited. Unlike in the past energy history, the US does not have a single ally today inside the OPEC+ group.

Due to rising domestic demands for oil and gas, it is entirely conceivable that the US exports of both items may be curtailed. If that happens, Europe will be the worst sufferer. In an interview with FT last week, Belgium’s prime minister Alexander De Croo has warned that as winter approaches, if energy prices are not brought down, “we are risking a massive deindustrialisation of the European continent and the long-term consequences of that might actually be very deep.”

He added these chilling words: “Our populations are getting invoices which are completely insane. At some point, it will snap. I understand that people are angry . . . people don’t have the means to pay it.” De Croo was warning about the likelihood of social unrest and political turmoil in European countries.

Without doubt, this is a tectonic shift in geopolitics which may probably turn out to be more important than the conflict in Ukraine in the making of the multipolar world order.

This perfect storm in Biden’s foreign policy can also impact the midterms in November and deliver a Republican majority in the Senate, which could set the tempo for the 2024 US presidential election.

The Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said that by turning away from Russian energy, Europe has become a captive market for the US oil companies which are now making “crazy money,” but the high cost of it is draining away the competitiveness of the European economy.

“Production is collapsing. Deindustrialization is coming. All this will have very, very deplorable consequences for the European continent over probably, at least, the next 10-20 years,” Peskov said.

Russia could be the biggest “gainer” of OPEC+cuts. The expert opinion is that oil prices will move higher from current levels through year-end and next year. That is to say, Russia will not cut any output while the price of oil is set to rise in the coming months! As oil price rises, Russia will not have to cut even a barrel of its production so long as it has a big enough market after December to sell the crude now going to Europe.

Again, Russia, for its part, reiterates that it will not supply oil to countries that would join the G7 price cap. It is matching the Biden Administration’s non-market instruments."

https://www.indianpunchline.com/a-pe...oreign-policy/

A perfect flop in US foreign policy.

Originally Posted by OhOh

11 Oct, 2022 10:29

HomeBusiness News

US taking advantage of EU energy crisis – Paris

Washington is selling gas to the EU for four times what it charges at home, the French finance minister says.

It's not like Amazon Prime you idiot.