This is mentioned in the article. It was local debt, not foreign.
During Russia’s financial crisis and ruble collapse of 1998, President Boris Yeltsin’s government defaulted on $40 billion of its local debt.
The last time Russia fell into default vis-a-vis its foreign creditors was more than a century ago, when the Bolsheviks under Vladimir Lenin repudiated the nation’s staggering Czarist-era debt load in 1918.
Wikipedia: "On 17 August 1998, the Russian government ... declared a moratorium on repayment of foreign debt."
Unilaterally declaring a moratorium may be considered a default event, but ultimately it depends on what exact definition you're using. Wikipedia doesn't say how the rating agencies treated that event, their collective view is usually seen as authoritative in such situations. If you have a copy of This time is different on sovereign debt crises by Harvard economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff lying around, you could check how they classified this event (my hinge is that they'd count it as one).
I agree, it's a strange to borderline misleading headline, especially if the article fails to discuss the technicalities of this moratorium.
PS: I'd argue that 1998 was in some sense "more" of a default than this, because defaults are usually related to the borrower being unwilling or unable to pay, which was the case in 1998. Forcing a solvent and willing party into missing a payment by closing their bank accounts is really a bit of a different story.
Forcing a solvent and willing party into missing a payment by closing their bank accounts is really a bit of a different story.
Will that distinction make a difference to international investors? I think the West has achieved their objective of making Russia unattractive for investment.
> Will that distinction make a difference to international investors?
It does make a difference because the questions that the investors have to deal with now are completely different to a "normal" default. Normally, there simply is no money, or you have to find a court where you can sue the foreign government.
Now, there is money, and they could actually get paid today (maybe even in dollars) if they are happy to open a Russian bank account (I remember Russia suggesting something along those lines, basically the reverse of what they used to force Europeans to pay in Rubles for their gas). But that raises other questions: would that be breaching any sanctions? How are they going to get the money out? At what rates? The answers will also depend on their jurisdiction, whether they do any business with the US etc (a purely Chinese investor might actually be fine now).
So in that sense it is quite different, but the result is similar (arguably even worse) - Russia is pretty much cut off from international (especially Western) capital markets, that's true.
Other than being a country in a war, which is naturally unattractive for investment, this only achieve making western investment in Russia unattractive, if it's not already unattractive enough as it's in a proxy war of sorts.
China and India can continue to invest because confidence in Russia's continued willingness to service their debt has not eroded. They'll just use something other than the US dollars or the Euro. That would even be nicer for them because its an opportunity for China and India to expand the international usage of their currently very much local currency.
Yes, but through the sanctions, not through the engineered, technical default. It's not like potential creditors will look up Russia's credit score and see that it's low, they will know exactly what happened.
What's interesting is that the Ruble trades 50% higher (in USD) than before Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Why is that?
Shouldn't the value of a currency reflect two things, the strength of a nation's economy and the soundness of the currency?
The strength of the Russian economy surely went down, right?
So it can only be due to the soundness. The market seems to expect Russia will not expand the Ruble supply more than the USA will expand the Dollar supply?
The short answer is an attempt at price fixing by the Russian government. You won't be able to get as many USD, say, as the official exchange rate claims. But if a Russian owes you USD, the Russian government considers the debt paid if they send you rubles at the posted rate.
> Shouldn't Russia sending Rubles instead of Dollars to pay USD denominated debt decrease the value of the Ruble?
No, because the people buying the Rubles aren't buying them on the open market. The people buying the Rubles are the people owed USD that are buying them for the rate the Russian Central Bank dictates with no choice in the matter.
Plus, it provides a price floor. If I owe you $1,000,000 USD, but I can pay you 50,000,000 Rubles instead, I'm incentivized to buy Rubles up until it reaches 50 Rubles : 1 USD.
> Additional supply -> Lower price.
The supply isn't changing at all. The demand, whether natural or forced, is what's exploding.
My understanding is that companies based in Russia now are required to convert their foreign reserves into rubles at a larger rate thanks to a rule change. So from a straightforward perspective you have more companies buying up rubles through... I guess USD -> RUB our EUR -> RUB?
So from a basic perspective there's just more of that going on in one direction, less happening in the other direction, so in the end the value goes up. Though it might be pretty theoretical! If you were given a bunch of rubles today, as a Russian national, how easily would you be able to actually convert those to dollars?
That being said, tight currency controls at borders for a large economy does let you control the value of your currency like this, and the downsides of relatively heavy currency controls feel really theoretical if you are not trying to hide a bunch of money (from an economic perspective at least).
> In late February, following the ruble's initial tumble and four days after the invasion of Ukraine began on Feb 24, Russia more than doubled the country's key interest rate to a whopping 20% from a prior 9.5%. Since then, the currency's value has improved to the point that it's lowered the interest rate three times to reach 11% in late May.
> Russia is the world's largest exporter of gas and the second-largest exporter of oil. Its primary customer? The European Union, which has been buying billions of dollars worth of Russian energy per week while simultaneously trying to punish it with sanctions. That's put the EU in an awkward spot – it has now sent exponentially more money to Russia in oil, gas and coal purchases than it has sent Ukraine in aid, which has helped fill the Kremlin's war chest. And with Brent crude prices 60% higher than they were this time last year, even though many Western countries have curbed their Russian oil buying, Moscow is still making a record profit.
It’s more complicated than those blurbs though. Also while the ruble may be artificially strong it doesn’t mean everything is going great in Russia, far from it.
It’s a weird trick. Russia has more money but they can’t import anything so it keeps piling up. Their economy is shrinking +10% yoy because they cannot import the parts necessary to run a modern economy
It’s not just the parts though, it’s the expertise. Boeing has maintenance systems and programs that Russia does not have access to. The parts and schedules and materials are not really pirateable. The package needed is a combination of a part, a trained worker to do a job, a set of custom monitors/tools to do the maintenance (all owned and leased out by the US cos), and the custom parts themself. What Russia is doing right now is canabalizing their planes for used parts, which can only get you so far. Oil services is much more complicated and they’re production is going to decrease say 20% yoy for a long time as the oil services firms like schlumberger have withdrawn. I worked at an startup digitizing industrial maintenance SOPs for aerospace, oil services and manufacturing and have dealt with this extensively.
It's not like the US/EU can just sanction China and India on top of the Russian and Iranian sanctions. All that would do is make those countries more economically connected than ever before, and creating an alternative for smaller sanctioned countries like Syria and Venezuela, making all sanctions useless.
They would risk their biggest market with potential for growth for a tiny market that is shrinking further. Also, China may not like NATO, but they are not great fans of the war in Ukraine either.
If you have a river and block it with a dam water keeps piling up. Assuming there is now more water because there is more coming from the mountain would be ignoring the dam.
The amount of currency depends both on the stuff people buy from you (money flowing down from the mountain) and on the stuff you buy from people (money flowing through the dam).
There are severe restrictions on exchanging or trading rubles, and Russian companies that receive foreign currencies are forced to convert 80% of it to rubles (I assume this is still in effect, I haven't looked for newer information here). So I don't think we know how the ruble would look like if you could freely trade it, right now the price is not determined by a free market.
Falling imports due to sanctions creating a trade deficit. Russia is getting paid in Rubles for natural resources, but sanctions restricting their ability to spend. Or something like that.
I don't keep up on the daily turn of events in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, but I believe that one of the demands Russia made in response to the cratering currency was to demand that "unfriendly" countries make purchases from Russia in rubles rather than dollars.
The main reason is the very smart central bank management from Elwira Nabiullina. She acted extremely fast and now with little import and export which need to be paid in Rubble this strengthened it.
Her problem now is that it starts to be too strong.
> Critical supply chains in Russia have been shattered. Hundreds of Western companies have pulled out of the country. Export sanctions have strangled Russia's access to essential technology and components necessary for entire industrial sectors. Tank factories have shut down. Missile manufacturers are scrambling for critical components and parts. An economy projected to grow in 2022 is now on a path to contract by as much as 15%.
> In rare moments of candor, some Russian officials have provided glimpses into the economic damage taking hold. ¶ Russian Minister of Transport Vitaly Savelyev said in May that the sanctions "have practically broken all the logistics in our country." ¶ Russia is by no means the first country that's been sanctioned by the US. But compared with North Korea, Venezuela or Iran, it is far more integrated into the global economy, which has made this latest round of sanctions all the more destructive. ¶ "I think that's what people are missing -- the fact that Russia has to rip apart 30 years of integration into the global economy," said Elina Ribakova, the deputy chief economist at the Institute of International Finance.
Might have something to do with the ruble being pegged to gold reserves. Something Russia did shortly after the latest Ukraine incident. Also, Russian economy is benefiting from much higher energy prices paid in Rubles from selling energy to many friendly countries. Basically, the sanctions aren’t working.
The rouble is not pegged to gold reserves. That was just a proposal, coming from one of the least relevant members of the State Duma. (Not that the State Duma actually has any relevant members.)
The goal is to cripple Russian economy, not ruble.
Russia is exporting oil and importing most of everything else. We made it very difficult for them to import that everything else especially in industrial quantities.
Whatever was produced in Russia, like tanks, will have issues with production lines.
Cutting of gas and oil imports will hopefully happen in few years perspective. Russia is already helpfully limiting supply of gas. I would want to see them cut it off fully as they did to Poland, Finland or Bulgaria.
Before the invasion you could buy gold coins/bars for RUB from most major banks, but the cut the bank took was of course large. I have no idea how it is now.
This is equivalent of a person going to bank to pay off their debt and bank refusing to take money so said person must declare bankrupcy.
I don't think situation like this ever happened before.
Actually if I think about it it's even worse. It's a person who goes to bank to pay off his debts but bank refuses to take their money and forecloses the house as well as confiscates property.
I know, I know. The Russian government is doing atrocious things but this "forced default" could actually have negative consequences. Who would trust this bank in the future?
Actually, from what I read its a little worse-- they've made the payment to a european bank and that bank hasn't distributed the funds. It's not clear why they haven't but its most likely sanction related. While it was not explicitly stated in what I read, it sounded like the bank was some sort of make-shift stand-up to convert rubles to euros and dollars to work around the sanctions issue.
So, it's more like you go to the bank on the 25th to make your payment due on the 30th and then the bank just doesn't pay the bill, forecloses the house and confiscates the property-- all the while putting out press releases about how you defaulted.
EDIT:
I just looked it up, the bank in question is Euroclear and isn't something specifically setup for this. It sounds like Russia always paid in Rubles and they paid that to Euroclear who then distributed the payments in whatever currency the bonds and such were held in, but due to sanctions they're no longer doing that. So Russia is paying the bill, the middle man just isn't distributing it due to the sanctions. My understanding of them always having paid in rubles might be incorrect, but it sounds like managing those nuances is what the purpose of the bank is.
I think it’s closer to taking out a loan in gold and offering to pay it back in Schrute Bucks. Lenders want to be repaid in the agreed currency.
(Also, if you don’t have access to the agreed currency because you invaded another country and are committing war atrocities, and no one will do business with you, then sucks to be you.)
the trust would have already been eroded in some parts from financial sanctions of this magnitude.
This is why using financial system as a weapon of politics (or war) is fraught with danger. Sure, for this situation, it might be the best option short of a shooting war, but countries that currently rely on the US financial system would be smart to think of strategies to diversify themselves. This diversification will take away financial prowess from the US, and remove some of that wealth associated with such prowess.
> This is why using financial system as a weapon of politics (or war) is fraught with danger. Sure, for this situation, it might be the best option short of a shooting war, but countries that currently rely on the US financial system would be smart to think of strategies to diversify themselves. This diversification will take away financial prowess from the US, and remove some of that wealth associated with such prowess.
But that diversification was probably going to eventually happen anyway, so it could be foolish to refrain too long from using the "weapon" of financial system sanctions, since eventually they would become useless even if it's never used.
IMHO, the era of globalization is over, so every power is going to pull back (at least a little) and setup defenses where they're dependent on adversaries. For countries like Russia and China, that means creating alternatives to the Western financial system; for the West that means pulling manufacturing back from China. This may be an area where the West is at a disadvantage, due to democracy and stronger ideological commitments to free markets. An Authoritarian can make a decision to protect a longer term goal and tell her population to suck up the short-term consequences (e.g. higher prices), but a Democrat may just get kicked out of power in favor of someone who will ignore the long-term risks to avoid the short-term costs.
> However, none of the underlying bonds have terms that allow for settlement in the local currency.
> This is equivalent of a person going to bank to pay off their debt and bank refusing to take money so said person must declare bankrupcy.
The bank wanted to be payed in BTC but you offered LUNA instead. Even if you had the Dolar amount in LUNA token, for your debt, who would swap theese for BTC?
> This is equivalent of a person going to bank to pay off their debt and bank refusing to take money so said person must declare bankrupcy.
Yeah, I'm no fan of the Russian government or what it's doing, but this is always going to be "Russia defaults* on Foreign Debt" (with an asterisk). There are too many external factors that were deliberately trying to force this outcome through unusual means for it to be an unqualified default.
Technically the West defaulted on Russia's debt by seizing Russian assets and blocking their use of Swift. Russia delivered the obligation of its debt payments to the West and the creditors had their assets stolen by Western governments who continue to withhold the payments.
Freezing/confiscating assets have been done under the judicial system. I understand that within a barbarian hoard there is also a judicial system or a system of values which state that anything goes during a war, but if that's the case, then why doesn't that apply to the 'west'? Putler said this was a war with the 'west', right?
The most interesting part I see in the comments is the amount of disrespect for US following the justice system for seizing assets of a country that US is not in war with officially.
It took many years of hard work of hundres of millions of people (who don't want war) to create foreign reserves. I'm sure Chinese goverment (and other governments with huge foreign reserves) took notice, and plan to dump their positions as quietly as they can.
> Right, and this is a good thing. We can't let them think they can get away with invading Europe just because they can afford their debts. Power doesn't come only in the form of tanks.
By this same logic then we can't let the US get away with invading the rest of the world just because they can afford their debts.
Easy, when you tell them “USA did a bad thing”, their response is: we’re the good guys, we’re exceptional, so we can do whatever we want to do, but you must do what we told you.
> How do you know someone eats up Russian propaganda?
"Rules for thee but not for me". Consider that they might just be trying to understand your code of values and whether you're capable of walking the walk according to the same moral principle that you're so eagerly preaching them with.
Has justice been done to the past victims of the US aggression? Has punishment reached their perpetrators?
So, when the US invades Somalia, they are invading Africa? Or invading Iraq was invading the middle east? Or invading Vietnam or Korea was invading Asia? Don’t you think that is a massive exaggeration?
That is not it at all, this last payment was about $100m and Russia as of the 17th* had $582b in reserves of foreign currency on hand in Russia proper. They chose not to deplete that instead preferring to use accounts outside of Russia or to make the payment in rubles.
Are you keeping a diary of what is going through your mind? I'm not so sure about any of the things you mentioned.
He has gained significant territory in Ukraine in less than half a year which is not slow unless you expected he would concur the largest country in Europe in a week (in which case watch less Hollywood movies). The different NATO invasions all around the world are multi year projects, but Putin is delusional?
Afghanistan was what, 20 years?
And what about the economic ruin? Who ran out of baby formula? Don't the whole Europe and US had record breaking inflation of forty some years? And we are running to Venezuela, Saudi Arabia (the good guys this month) to get oil, and somehow we (the West) are winning? And may I remind you, "winter is coming" and half of Europe's heating runs normally on Russian gas.
I wish I had your unshakable trust in how good the West is doing in this conflict.
The Russian economy is expected to contract by about 10–15%. For comparison in the 2008 “great recession” the US economy contracted by 4.2% over the course of 1.5 years. The Russian economy contracted by 5.3% in 1998 and it caused an acute political crisis which ultimately brought Putin to power.
This Ukraine war is a calamity for Russia’s economy. While Nabiullina has been doing an impressive job of sticking fingers in the dyke for a few months, pressure continues to build and the crisis doesn’t show signs of ending any time soon. Europe is working full speed on independence from Russian fossil fuels, and US/European officials are continuing to look for more ways to make sanctions hurt.
> And we are running to Venezuela, Saudi Arabia (the good guys this month) to get oil,
Nobody is under any illusions about this. But there’s only so much you can do on the time scale of a few months in a world economy totally dependent on fossil fuels.
a) He has gained significant territory at huge expense. And the gains are almost certainly temporary since unless Russia mobilises their reserves etc. they won't have the manpower to hold such vast swathes of land.
b) Baby formula issue had nothing to do with Russia, was a US only issue and was quickly resolved with Australia companies brought in to backfill supplies.
c) Inflation is partly to do with Ukraine but far more to do with the post-COVID rebound where interest rates were low and central banks were behind the curve and too slow to react.
d) You can't really call this a East versus West situation when countries like Japan have imposed strong measures and both India/China being very opportunistic in buying oil etc but not willing to really stick their neck out to support Russia.
> He has gained significant territory at huge expense. And the gains are almost certainly temporary since unless Russia mobilises their reserves etc. they won't have the manpower to hold such vast swathes of land.
Not sure how you’ve reached this conclusion other than a wild guess. The state of the war and huge progress made by Russia indicates the opposite. Russia is unlikely to give up the land they’ve taken without a fight and so far they are winning the fight and will continue to make progress. Very few if any independent military experts believe otherwise unless the US or NATO decide to intervene, which is not going to happen.
Russia was thought to have the second most powerful army in the world, while Ukraine is the poorest country in Europe.
It was assumed Ukraine will fall in 3 days.
Whether Russia succeeds or not depends on your expectations.
To me, as a Pole, the fact that Ukraine is demilitarizing Russia is a great success of Ukrainians.
Russia will be too spent to even consider attacking Poland yet again, hopefully for at least a decade.
Ukraine looking east to Russia is done. Almost nobody in Ukraine wants to keep relationships with Russia. So there is great hope that now Ukraine will be able to make up its mind and choose Western path to prosperity as did Poland. Mind you, Polish and Ukrainian economies were the same size in 1989-1991 after we pushed Soviet Union to collapse. Before the war in 2021 Ukrainian economy was 3 times smaller than Polish.
Also, the push to transition away from Russian gas has never been greater in EU.
Huge progress? 3 months ago they were at the gates of Kyiv, today they're in no position to threaten Kyiv, and are struggling to nibble away at one small chunk of territory at a time.
Russia does not have time on its side. It's economy is going down the toilet, it's losing the ability to make new munitions, Ukraine on the other hand just needs time to train troops and wait for western deliveries of weapons.
Russia's only chance was a quick win in less than a week, it's failed to do that.
> Are you keeping a diary of what is going through your mind?
I try to note the basics down, but I'm not a megalomaniac so i sure hope he keeps everything down for his legacy.
> He has gained significant territory in Ukraine in less than half a year which is not slow unless you expected he would concur the largest country in Europe in a week (in which case watch less Hollywood movies). The different NATO invasions all around the world are multi year projects, but Putin is delusional? Afghanistan was what, 20 years?
Russia was expecting a victory within a few days. The fact that they've been bogged down and had to give up on 2 of their 3 avenues of advance and the campaign is now approaching half a year, alongside the very heavy losses in men and matériel are indicative of a failure. The facts that they're conscripting en masse from the Donbass, getting museum pieces out of the reserves (like T-62s and Tochkas), have almost no air presence, use unguided munitions, have lost their Black Sea Navy flagship only add to that colossal failure.
Regarding Afghanistan and Iraq, those were multi-year affairs of occupation. The invasions lasted what, weeks-low months? And that's even more indicative of Russia's failure, their army is exhausted and is barely 1/10th of the way to conquering Ukraine, and if they manage to achieve that they'll have to occupy it for which they don't have the resources.
Meanwhile their economy is in shambles, manufacturing and imports of all sorts of stuff has stopped or has to take longer and much more expensive routes.
Yes, Europe will suffer in the coming winter, and yes, we have high inflation. Russia's inflation is worse and their economy is definitely in a worse shape. European decision makers knew full well sanctions on Russia will also heavily impact their countries - that was, to an extent, the whole point of economic cooperation, to make a conflict unthinkable economic suicide. Putin left them no choice, so the Russian economy is going up in flames while European economies are struggling and scrambling to find alternative fossil fuel sources from other dictators.
> I wish I had your unshakable trust in how good the West is doing in this conflict
This conflict isn't between the "West" and Russia. It's between Russia and Ukraine, and the latter are fighting for their survival, with lots of help from "Western" countries.
Well, you’d have to look at his diary entries going back to at least around 2007, since that is when the modern Ukraine conflict technically begins. Not to mention Russia has been skirmishing with Ukraine since 2014.
You might want to bone up on your history of the Ukraine region. It’s not like Putin woke up one morning in a suddenly delusional state a few months ago and realized that this new country called Ukraine sprung up on the border and the United States and NATO were flexing their interests there.
Winter is coming and Germany doesn't have enough energy to keep people from freezing to death. What does it matter that Russia would collapse in 5 years under sanctions if Europe does so in 6 months?
You can have any plans, but if you have no sources to fill those stockpiles, such plans worth nothing. Qatar refuses to supply without decades long contracts. USA is unable to supply EU. Not to mention, that even filling EU reserves to 100% won’t let you pass the winter, as storage facilities are just helping during high demand months like during winter or hot summer, but if the flow of gas from Russia stops, most EU countries gonna deplete their reserves in a few weeks.
There's a difference, e.g. everyone is to be over 7 foot tall by January 1st. is a law. A plan would involve a series of steps on how we get everyone to grow a foot or more in 6 months.
The Netherlands has started burning more coal, so Germany can have more gas. Drilling more gas from Groningen can be done at a moments notice, and will be done before either Dutch or German houses are without heating
> So far he has managed the situation fantastically
If you don't count the tens of thousands of dead and millions displaced, the destruction of the most modern parts of the Russian army, and all that?
> Rubel stable
When will people stop parroting this propaganda piece? The ruble is stable because it's exchange rate is purely theoretical.
> no unrest at home
Because anyone protesting against the war was beaten up and sent to prison for up to 15 years.
> many friends support him, incl. Russia, India, Brazil, South Africa.
Check out the UN resolution condemning the war. The only "friends" supporting him are the likes of North Korea.
> Inflation explodes in the West
Due to a pandemic and a war, most people understand that. In Europe most people are accepting of that due to the threat that Russia is. Also, inflation in Russia is also huge, in the double digits, and the worst is yet to come ( according to the chief of their central bank, who says next quarter will be worse).
> more death in Ukraine
Ukraine managed to fend off the initial Russian invasion on its own. Seeing the brutality of the Russian occupiers, you can't know how many would have died under Russian occupation. And good for you you've managed to convince yourself Ukrainians don't matter.
> pledge to rebuild the Ukraine while ALL Ukrainians that I am personally helping say that this money will be lost in the corruption swamp
I somehow doubt there are many Ukrainians focusing on corruption after the war. You know, the existential war for Ukraine's existence. The rebuilding of Ukraine will be extremely important and easily verifiable. Some of the money might go into corrupt pockets, but those people would get lynched if found out due to the national trauma involved.
> The ruble is stable because it's exchange rate is purely theoretical.
If you are an oil exporter, yes, but if you're an average Ivan in Moscow/Petersburg, it's not. You can buy USD cash once again, and even though the cash exchange rate spread is huge, it's still much cheaper than before the invasion.
Really? Considering the state of Ukraine at the moment, I'd really think anyone caught stealing in a literally life and death situation would get a fast track sentence. Do you have any sources (Ukrainian is fine, i kind of understand it)?
Ukraine is a state of law. Paradoxically, Ukraine is also ridden with corruption (far from russian levels though). So no fast-track is possible while bailing actually is. So what happens is that the thieves are getting caught sometime and then they are released on a laughable bail. Of course they disappear and later on their case disappear as well.
BTW one of the requirements that Ukraine has to meet before we can even discuss dreaming of joining the EU is a refactoring of judiciary system. Because it surely looks like this is the main factor supporting corruption.
Lynching though is something that doesn't happen in ukrainian society.
Sources: my networking. Not something you will find in any official news sources because it's mostly a background noise for us. You can scroll through https://t.me/insiderUKR (russian) and https://t.me/kyivoperativ (mostly ukrainian) and see what's up.
Just two notes: "public debt" is no debt but just an old classic scam operated by few banksters. I suggest to rediscover for instance how the USA FED born https://www.heritage-history.com/index.php?c=read&author=car... the scam is well described by a scammer letter at the end of the page in a short bullet list.
Before central banks the scam was the same with "notes" (around 1300) but was the same. And people keeps accepting it.
Beside that paying rubles because other central banks do not exchange dollars or euros is not "default" is just the TRAGICOMIC example of the aforementioned scam, that have no practical effect of a sovereign and armed country, but have effect on individual citizens not in that very country but in any country where the same scam is applied.
Long story short: we are in a cyclic neoliberalism crisis, where people all over the world mass-protest, strikes are more and more bigger and spread etc, witch happen to be the time neoliberals élite need a war to steal someone else resources and justify with the war any sufferance in between. Of course Russian or China government are not that different, but being not in Russia nor in China it's not my interest, it the interest of their people revolting or keep going. My interest is ANNIHILATING actual oppressive western ruling class in my own country (EU) before they annihilate me. For that a mass general and peaceful strike SUFFICE. If just anyone stock a bit of food, water and stop working for a month anything breaks and oppressors must made an U turn and surrender not to foreign power but to their own people. That's how Democracy works.
Since that's unlikely, most people are obeisant subjects drinking propaganda at a very high rate, my point is that I doubt we can have a Democracy for the next 10-20 years at least, and in that very case I question my own values to other people that allow such obscenity oppression to exists. Or I question myself if a new feudal society it's not "natural" to a certain extent, since many are unable to be Citizen. Of course, a feudal society means a neo-bourgeois society, not ones with very few rulers like WTO, WEF, WB, IMF, WHO etc as background dictators managing proxy-puppet states as they wish, the quantity of people who happen to be Citizen is not that little.
You seriously think that the EU is am oppressive regime?
From previous comments I'm guessing that you're from France, and I cannot comprehend how you got that idea. It's ministry is corrupt as hell and every so often another scandal gets reported on, without any consequences to the politicians in question, so it's not like it doesn't have significant issues...
But that doesn't make it into an oppressive regime.
Where exactly do you think you're getting oppressed? Maybe with the millions of stimulus french farmers get each year?
Or with the suggestions for the regional governments? The sovreignity remains in the hand of each member state.
> You seriously think that the EU is am oppressive regime?
Yes. I think so because EU economy is ruled by some private crooks, the ECB, witch is formed by member states central banks, who are equally private. They equally loan money fully knowing that's mathematically impossible to pay interests and economically a nonsense and a scam since money are not a value, a substrate of anything but a unit of measure of nearly anything. A scam that's very old and well known, you can read for USA well described here: https://www.heritage-history.com/index.php?c=read&author=car...
Such private banksters are also those who steer the EU commission and all decisions basing/justifying most of them out of McKinsey made scenarios. No public consultation happen. No one vote for ALL EU policies.
France is no different: last year the still actual President have got a refuse from the Parliament for covid pass a day. He phone those who vote for to be ready in the night, he send the regular message to re-vote the very same proposal a midnight for 1h30 of the night, obviously almost only those pre-alerted were been there to vote and the no became yes. In Democracy this is a clear coup but no one have arrested him and his co-conspirators. Almost no one protest PRETENDING his arrest.
Long story short: actual France is a formal, not substantial Democracy, in reality a neoliberal dictatorship, the very same who rule others EU countries and USA. The sons of those liberals who have created nazifascism in the past to fight them when they grow too much, in the same way they have create ISIS to destroy their previously created dictatorships when those dictators became too independent, the very same who have created the Ukraine wars, because yes Putin act formally, after 10+ years of nazi-UK-USA ops, formally published just recently by the NYT [1], formally published by RAND [2], formally declared by the EU [3] and so on.
BTW dictatorships does not hold power if they do nothing for their subject, they have to keep them obeisant in some ways, the stick does the job, but the carrot is also need.
I get that you're unhappy, but you still haven't given a single example of oppression.
They're corrupt and love to enrich themselves on taxpayers money, yes. That doesn't make it an oppressive regime.
If you call the EU ministry oppressive then the word loses its meaning, because they're a paper tiger/have no teeth.
The worst they do is inhumane treatment of political refugees around Greece - which is abhorrent but doesn't fall under the definition of oppressive because these people aren't citizen/don't live here.
Enrich themselves, as private citizens/company is not a crime nor a bad thing per se, doing so as civil servant AGAINST their country, people interest is. A criminal state against it's own citizens it's not a Democracy and the alternative to Democracy is named dictatorship...
What's wrong in this consideration?
I agree that the nazi-alike treatments of migrants is not per se domestic oppression, they came from other countries so formally it's not an act against domestic citizens, BUT for instance privatization of the energy sector who push price up to the starts and made a mess we can barely have an operational service now is a crime against their own citizens. Imposing sanctions, formally, against a third party with the result of damaging domestic economy, for instance keeping buying Russian oil but instead of doing so directly a X price per barrel doing the same with the India intermediation or from the USA a X+50% per barrel is a crime and the list is long.
Doing their best to circumvent Constitutional protection of Democracy is a coup and so on.
They are oppressive like China? Not FOR NOW, simply because for now they can't, but they dream and want so and they working toward this direction.
My issue was only with the term oppressive regime to be honest, because its not and describing it as such deprives the word of it's meaning.
That our societies struggle with greed to the detriment of the working class isn't controversial in my opinion ... Nor should it be blamed on the EU, as our sovreign governments, employers and at this point basically everyone is just as bad.
> Enrich themselves, as private citizens/company is not a crime nor a bad thing per se
I disagree there btw, it's inherently destructive to the society. But it's a societal issue, not a legislative one.
Well, we need to allow some to get more than others simply because we are not all keen to work and be productive, without any incentive a certain cohort will do nothing, pretending as human being to be fed, to have a house etc as anyone else and another cohort would isolate them since they consume without producing.
We need to redistribute richness via taxes to ensure a limited difference between the poorest and the richest, to avoid tearing the society apart, but still allow some who for instance produce more, innovate etc to get something more than one who do nothing.
In that sense getting rich by heritage and personal work is not negative, taxes ensure avoiding a too asymmetric society and that's all. The issue arise when money is not a public unit of measure of a substrate (raw materials, work, know how etc) but a value per se, substrate of anything, administered by a set of private crooks to steer the society. Witch means the issue arise when taxes are governments income NOT a mean to redistribute richness.
EU government do not represent EU people, so they are not Democracy, they have betrayed their people, Constitutions and Republics. So they are oppressive. Of course there are some more oppressive than others. But since we do not have a better terms (at least I do not know any in my limited English) I use that. I can say "soft power oppressors" vs "hard power ones". I can add mild oppressors vs truce one but still unable to find a better terms to describe them, if you know one I'm curious...
Be that as it may, but you're misusing the term oppressive.
And blaming the EU ministry in particular is also quiet misguided, as the local governments do the same and fuck you over much more effectively as they're actually able to significantly impact your life.
Part of the issue is that I'm democratic witch means I'm ready to go to the street, pretending referendums and changes, however equally ready we are few enough thanks to decades of school reforms and propaganda, so the walkout would be like a small trip outside to get a bit of fresh air no one else care of.
And that's an important part: I think we can't have Democracy because we miss the Demos. Actually just around 10-15% of total population can be labeled Demos, the rest can only be labeled "subject", mentally. Given that a cameback to classic aristocratic society is a bit automatic, the modern version for Russia is named "oligarchy" (as aristò happen also to be few-ish and not necessary "the best"), the west prefer "capitalism" and unfortunately the departure of such new model is not nice for a significant slice of the said 10-15% since a very small cancer do not want to divide power with anyone else counting on tech and finance to been able to rule alone.
In that sense I still fail to see something else than "oppressive". AT least in Swiss they vote every two month to approve or reject laws, here protesters have asked for RIC (Citizens demanded referendums) but such request never arrive to the be law and not enough accept to impose such change via a general strike for instance.
That means again, most agree with such governance, and since such governance do not respect the People... How can I call it?
> In that sense I still fail to see something else than "oppressive"
The point was that none of the factors you're mentioning are oppressive.
You can definitely make a good argument that they're undemocratic and that the people in power do their best to sabotage democracies. But that's not what oppressive means. You're just simply misusing the word. I am not aware of any one word to describe what they're doing, but I'm not a native speaker nor particularly fluent in politics. Could be there is a word for it which I just don't know, but often meaning can't be distilled to a single term and it's fine to use sentences to properly convey the issues at hand.
The playground analogy here is like you gave your money to some kid, "Rusty" in the playground to buy a sandwich yesterday. Rusty buys a sandwich, and next day they come to pay you back. They in fact do pay you back by leaving some money on your desk. But then, before you've had a chance to put them in your pocket, some kid "Amanda" who fancies herself the class president (even though no-one voted for her), grabs the money from the desk and says "man, it sucks that Rusty didn't just pay you; what an ass, eh? We'll just put this in the 'class fund' for now". Meanwhile Rusty is like, hey I paid my debt the minute I put your money on your desk, so, sucks to be you I guess.
Yes, I get the part where Rusty was really mean to Ursula this morning, and that Amanda (who had been pretending to be Ursula's friend to get back at Rusty for a while now, and was what prompted Rusty's tantrum in the first place) made this edict about anyone giving Rusty sandwich money should not expect to get it back. And I get the part that it doesn't really matter if I gave the money yesterday, before all this started. Tough luck, I'm involved now.
I also get the part where I'd be reluctant to buy Rusty another sandwich if it meant Amanda would keep grabbing my money (though, in all honesty, I wouldn't trust my money with Amanda now either, given the whole "class fund" shenanigans), but ... seriously, that can't be the whole story, can it? Is the main story here really that we are all schoolchildren in dire need of a headmaster?
I think you're confused because you heard a lot of different goals of the sanctions.
For me, the sanctions aren't about stopping the current war, but about stopping future wars.
In your analogy...
Rusty doesn't know how to make a baseball bat. We supplied rusty with baseball bats because we thought he would use it to play baseball games. Instead he used it to threaten his class mates. We took that supply of baseball bats away from him because we can and don't want him to threaten Suzy like he did with Ursula. It doesn't matter to me what Rusty wants to trade to get those bats.
I don't supply bats or anything that can be traded to bats to Rusty in order to protect Suzy and I'll give Ursula whatever she needs to protect herself.
This is all fine and dandy, and I'm sure everyone means well, but it still doesn't explain why I'm the one left without money, or why I'm expected to be blaming "Rusty" instead of "Amanda" who actually took the money he left me.
It's more like "Dear George, thank you for donating this money to our cause that I'm sure you agree with or else. Sincerely Amanda."
Not sure how I'd feel about that, regardless of how I feel about Ursula, Suzy, Natalie, Faye, Denise, Izzie, Romina, Molly, Trudy, or any of the girls in my class.
If you're talking about inflation, we had a multi-year pandemic in which the western governments gave aid to struggling businesses, inoculated their population for free, supply chains were severaly disrupted, etc...
The war in Ukraine didn't cause the inflation (I think), although I admit it probably made it worse. I think it was the other way around. The prospect of inflation caused the war in Ukraine. Russia thought with all the challenges we would face, we wouldn't react to an invasion in Ukraine.
I'm not an expert in macro economics, so do you think there wouldn't be an inflation if Russia didn't invade Ukraine?
Hold on, let us be more precise than the Western propaganda wants it to be.
1) Russians have money
2) Russians signaled that they want to pay
3) Again, Western sanctions are hitting against the own people, Russia cannot pay because the West excluded them from the payment mechanism
4) Russia has set up its own payment mechanism and is ready to fulfill the payment obligation fully in Rubels
5) The risk for all Western people is now to claim that money as financial trades with/in Russia are illegal now and they will face punishment by the West
Just a sad story. My wood pallets supplier here in Germany went bancrupt a few days ago as the product was coming from Russia and is sanctioned now. The house (with 35 units) is already 6 days without hot water. The company that manages the building got an alternative: delivery in 2 weeks, price +200%.
This is not my war, I oppose those sanctions. I have the feeling that the G7 reaction is wrong and I disagree with it. I am SO CLOSE before going on the street for the first time in my life. I FULLY disagree with all the current Western anti-Russian politics.
First think ever to happen that make you mad enough to protest is sanctions on nation that violently attack their neighbor?
I very much hope you will feel same pain as people of Ukraine do right now, because people like you never understand anything they did not feel themselves.
You and the fellow below calling parent a “cretin” because they are complaining about their bills will be in for a rude awakening if the prices and inflation explode.
Heating, food, housing are among the most basic needs of a human. If they’re in danger, you bet that the pain of people that they’ve never met, thousands of kilometers away will be less important.
This kind of moral absolutism is out of touch with reality.
So Russia should be able to invade anyone they want without repercussions? We obviously don't want a direct war between Russia and NATO/EU countries, so economic sanctions are pretty much the only tool left.
The US has set a high standard, nothing like napalming Vietnamese villages in case some guerilla fighters happen to be hiding there. (Or what about airstriking a busy highway and then releasing a "non-ideological" videogame blaming them CCCP/Russian Federation for it)
Russia started the invasion in the past, so starting the war is off limits now, right? Are you also saying that killing people is ok only when the attacker does not want to take territory? It’s more justified when there are fewer reasons to attack?
Typical whataboutism. Somehow you people manage to discover the USA as a counter argument to everything bad that is going on in the world. If you want to compare apples to apples, then go ahead and tell what has Ukraine invaded so that it deserved being invaded back by Russia? Don't make up your own rules and then play by them.
Typical response to a clear indication of a hypocritical behaviour devoid of any common standards and equalising principles.
> If you want to compare apples to apples, then go ahead and tell what has Ukraine invaded so that it deserved being invaded back by Russia? Don't make up your own rules and then play by them. <
Ukraine wholly supported the US in their invasion of Iraq in 2003, and did send its 5th and 6th mechanised brigades to aid their ally in a war started under a false pretense [1][2].
So, you are saying putin is somehow selflessly taking revenge for Iraq 20 years later? I'm curious because to the rest of the world it looks like just another attempt at occupying a sovereign nation.
no, that's not my point. I'm saying let's not pretend that there are no double-standards around the current situation, the current victim wasn't that much concerned about their moral stance not so long ago, as long as it was beneficial to them to aid their military ally in a similar oppression of a weaker state. And no one dared to sanction them.
Ukraine was turned into a hostile nation to Russia after a second USA sponsored revolution in 10 years. The first time it just resulted in gas wars, but the second coup government really started a war there.
I'm not from US. My country is also sanctioning Russia. My country was not part of any invasion - actually was occupied before by Russia before.
Where is your god now?
The only sanctions that matter come from the US, Germany, Italy, France, UK, etc.
Eastern Europe and the Baltics are just following the lead of the big boys, similar to how a well-behaved child looks to their parent for approval before doing something.
The US was planning these sanctions end of 2021. One can assume that they were planning them with the countries which have something to sanction. i.e. Germany, etc.
If the US and Germany wouldn’t be in, the rest of the sanctions would be worth nothing.
You cannot be serious. Gas is a fossil fuel that emits CO2, huge amounts of it. Germany's overreliance on gas is among the reasons why their CO2/KWh is multiple times that of neighbouring countries (bar Poland who are still on coal).
And a fully renewable grid will be too unstable without significant storage. Are there plans in Germany for that?
Germany was Russia’s biggest customer, why would they even dream of attacking them?
Of course, now that the EU have firmly positioned themselves, Russia may have revised its relationship to Germany. It’s not excluded that they’d completely cut off gas, sending Germany and the EU into a deep recession.
But on the positive side, I think Mr. Scholz, Mr. Macron and their peers will not have issues with heating or putting food on the table. We have to stay positive and remember that this is all for a good cause though and supporting good causes is what the EU exists for.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Russian_financial_crisis