The U.S. has more at stake in this financial war on Russia than you probably realize
Sanctions don't have a great track record for making political change possible. Just look toward Cuba as an example.
Russia appears to be the ultimate test of the power of sanctions. Never before has total financial war been waged to this degree. Never before has total financial war been waged against such a large nation. A former Treasury Department official described it as, "This is financial nuclear war and the largest sanctions event in history.”
While the sanctions are certain to cause the Russian people to suffer, leaks in those sanctions have already began to show, and that's not a good sign for their success.
Just in the last two weeks Pakistan signed a huge trade deal with Russia.
Pakistan has become the first country to officially sign a huge trade deal with Russia at a time when Moscow has come under severe criticism for invading Ukraine. As part of the agreement, Pakistan will import two million tonnes of wheat and natural gas from Russia.
Will this impact Pakistan's assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF)?
Earlier this week the Philippines agreed to purchase $250 million in Russian military equipment. This is coming from a nation that condemned the invasion of Ukraine, which shows condemning something may only be a symbolic gesture.
The big question is India and it's refusal to make a statement of any kind against Russia.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine two weeks ago — shelling several major cities, hampering efforts to evacuate and causing the deaths of at least 400 civilians so far — India has abstained on every United Nations vote condemning Russia's actions. These include votes at the UN Security Council, the UN General Assembly, the UN Human Rights Council and at the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Since 1991, India has spent $70 billion US on Russian weapons.
For years the U.S. has threatened India with sanctions because of this, but repeatedly backed down. Now things appear to be coming to a head.
The Biden administration is weighing whether to impose sanctions against India over its stockpile of and reliance on Russian military equipment as part of the wide-ranging consequences the West is seeking to impose on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.Donald Lu, the assistant secretary of State for South Asian affairs, on Thursday told lawmakers in a hearing that the administration is weighing how threatening India's historically close military relationship with Russia is to U.S. security.
“It’s a question we’re looking at very closely, as the administration is looking at the broader question over whether to apply sanctions under CAATSA or to waive those sanctions,” Lu said.
This would be a critical step, because if India doesn't back down then sanctioning them would push them further into the Russian orbit. Until now the western media has been focused on 'Russia bad, China bad', while ignoring that India has been making lots of noise about ignoring the sanctions.
India, Russia and China are exploring an alternative to the US-dominated SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) payment mechanism in a bid to smoothen trade with countries facing American sanctions, people aware of the development said.
India has also been exploring a rupee-ruble trade arrangement with Russia.
Having been under the thumb of the British Empire for centuries, it doesn't appear that India has any plans on taking marching orders from the U.S./U.K. alliance.
However, the big question remains China. China and Russia are not natural allies. They only have two things in common: 1) Russia has commodities to sell, while China needs to buy those commodities, and 2) a common enemy - the U.S.
China obviously has reservations about siding with Russia because of the blowback, as explained here.
It doesn’t take a deep thinker to appreciate that China must be alarmed and displeased by the audacity of both Russia’s war and the Western reaction to it. If China were to pursue military action against Taiwan, it, too, could expect to lose much of its access to the global financial system.
This is all true. On the other hand, so is this.
The Chinese Communist Party understands that if the US can take down Putin, they will be next. That’s why the Chinese are unlikely to abandon their strategic partnership with Russia.
As if to emphasize this point, China's state media CGTN bought ads on Facebook, targeting global users with pro-Russian talking points about Russia's invasion of Ukraine. China may regret their alliance with Russia, but it looks like abandoning that alliance is an even worse option.
Sanctions on this level, on a global dollar-based system, is effectively weaponizing the dollar. And just in case you don't believe that, President Biden has signed a decree banning the supply of US dollar notes to Russia.
Russia has been preparing for this economic war for years. While roughly $500 Billion in central bank currency reserves were frozen by the U.S. and EU, Russia has accumulated $120 Billion in gold. The difference between gold and any fiat currency is that there is no debt associated with gold. A debt can be turned off with a flick of a switch. Thus when U.S. senators offered legislation on Tuesday to freeze Russia's gold reserves it only showed that they don't understand how gold works.
Monetary gold held within a state’s own vaults cannot be seized by foreign adversaries, short of a military invasion. Specie can be physically moved around the world, outside of digital financial networks, making it difficult to track.
Gold can also be leased out to a friendly nation like China or India, thus facilitating trade without the bother of moving the gold.
Plus if Russia is forced to sell its gold, the most obviously buyer is China, who is right now looking at the real danger of being locked out of the global financial markets like Russia is.
Thus what is at stake in this financial war against Russia is the Hegemony of the U.S. Dollar. If this economic war fails then so will the U.S. Empire.
This is a very bold gamble to make at a time when the U.S. is running record trade deficits and record budget deficits, while the Federal Reserve is engaging in monetary experimentation never before seen in history.
We've essentially no Plan B if Russia doesn't back down.
After US credit card companies blacklisted anything to do with Russia from their systems, Russian banks seamlessly switched much of their payment processing to China UnionPay.UnionPay is China’s alternative global payment processing network.
It works just like Visa, MasterCard, or American Express, except it doesn’t depend on the US government’s good graces. It can operate independently of the US financial system.China UnionPay is growing rapidly worldwide. Merchants and ATMs in over 140 countries accept it. It’s now one of the largest payment processors in the world.
Further, China, India, Iran, and Turkey, among other countries, announced, or already are, doing business with Russia in their local currencies instead of the US dollar. These countries represent a market of over three billion people that no longer need to use the US dollar to trade with one another.
...
By isolating Russia and its trading partners, the US government incentivizes almost half of mankind to find alternatives to the dollar.In other words, they are undermining their own racket and promoting de-dollarization on an unprecedented scale.
Comments
A good indication
of how badly the sanctions against Russia will go is to look at who is staying in Russia. Renault Russia (France) will eat up whatever Mercedes leaves behind. McDonalds is already showing signs of reopening. If they don't, Russia will replace them. American oil companies that have extended contracts with Russia can fulfill their contracts without being in violation of sanctions.
Most Americans have never witnessed the hardship that is likely to come from the fact that the elite in this country don't care about them and never will.
Edit to add: gjohn, you and I will never agree on everything but I greatly appreciate your honest opinion regardless of our difference in opinions. It's becoming a rare event in current times.
Thanks for what you do.
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
Do you mean restaurants like this? LOL
In Russia
chicken eats you.
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
I don't know
I think we agree about the stuff that matters.
You've heard the story of Fanta, haven't you???
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
I don't think that the geniuses (/S) at the State Department and
the Pentagon gave much consideration to what may evolve from their actions.
What I love about this
is that Russia can redistribute the ones they capture.
Then who is to blame if they're used against civilian targets?
All conventions say the country of origin.
I'm looking at you MIC.
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
It's called "investing in the future"
100 years ago, words like "genocide" and "cliocide" did not exist, let alone have international laws against them. I think it's time to add a new word to the Crimes Against Humanity lexicon:
"Belluculture".
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
This is spot on
He talks about how just as Covid emergency powers were done the emergency power for war happened. Also how Biden targeted economic warfare on Russia without any American being killed…I’ve forgotten the rest.
You won’t hear that from msdnc or cnn.
It's a little early
but I'll put money against this:
We lost more than a few spooks on opening night.
I firmly believe that Russia told Bidone what they were going to do and he rolled the gummy bear laxative.
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
The gummy bear laxative?
lol you’re gonna have to explain that to me.
Love the appearance of Biden’s mouthpiece, Jen telling us that it’s Putin’s fault our gas prices are so high. She also says that oil companies are sitting on 9,000 leases so they can start drilling now and prices will come down. It’s not like it takes years for them to get them up and running or anything.
Jen wants us to believe that things would be going swell if only Russia hadn’t done what it did. You know like how swimmingly they were going just before they did.
Type this in your search engine......
Can constipation cause cognitive problems?
In the case of our president that's the least of his worries.
But I'm sure the gummy bears make the mindless old prick feel better.
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
Laxitives are the new mind-expanding drugs.
I should have been able to predict this.
It may turn out that probiotics could be the ultimate solution to Covid-19.
I'm leaning in that direction. After all, our guts tamed the thousands of viruses that currently live inside of all of us — across a million years of human evolution.
Occam's Razor.
Sorry,
but I think I'll stick to LSD and Psilocybin
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
Is it treason to smile?
As ever, The Question: If the Empire collapses, how will that affect the American 99%?
_____
IN OTHER NEWS: As I mentioned before, I subscribe to YouGov for some reason. In addition to the surveys they send out, once you finish with those they send you to a...hub?...of other ongoing survey questions, including current-events stuff, which they show you the total percentages of answers once you input your own. In this latter segment, I saw an interesting juxtaposition:
Lots of stuff about Ukraine, and the answers were alarmingly jingoistic, insofar as large majorities said "yes" to things like 'should Americans be allowed to enlist in the Ukrainian army', or similar (I don't think THAT was the question to which 71% of respondents gave the most 'green-light' answer to, but it was something I didn't like seeing an overwhelmingly affirmative response to).
ANYWAY, alongside THAT (and presumably from the same pool of respondents) was a question about the origins of COVID-19. A wide-margined plurality answered "It was created in a lab, intentionally".
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
Now, that tidbit about the virus IS interesting.
I sensed people were getting more nuanced about where the virus came from, as opposed to pointing the finger at China like a bunch of brainwashed zombies.
To be intellectually honest, however, it is only fair to point out that the idea that SARS-CoV-2 was created in a lab is also a very extreme position — as opposed to assuming that this SARS virus simply evolved naturally, as all SARS and other viruses have done, historically.
So, I was wrong when I thought American opinions on the virus were becoming nuanced and moderate.
Which leads to a conclusion that surveyed Americans tend to be wack-jobs.
This is reassuring in the current situation. Because I can dismiss all the American (and Anglo) crazy-talk and hysteria that is generated in reaction to the Ukraine/Russia conflict. This is just more distorted thinking and paranoia that results from the invasive mental conditioning that corporate mass media uses on the isolated citizens of Western cultures.
And that is very hopeful for the majority of the world (sans Anglos) where reactions are more measured and thoughtful. It appears that most Homo Sapiens, globally, may be less brain-damaged and more able to recognize and adapt to reality without resorting to mental violence and delusion.
This bodes well for surviving what is coming next.
You owe me a laptop.
This tickled my spit bone:
Thanks for the laugh.
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
Serves you right.
I've been laughing at all your jokes lately.
This scares my cats.
Who knew you were such a funny guy?
Great education on America’s hypocrisy
Too bad mainstream media won’t air this message.
That's a very important concept that he's asking people
...to think about. He seems to believe that no one watching his broadcast has ever noticed their own blatant hypocrisy.
Could he be right? Are we the only Americans who are self-aware? This is going to become a dangerous place for people like us.
Seriously.
We are a dwindling group of people who have escaped
believing the propaganda. Lots of cities are doing anti war protests with a huge Ukraine flag chanting for a no fly zone. Someone is putting lots of effort into getting Americans behind it. Then there is this rewriting of history.
Good lord!
anti-war protests
The US is filled with goof balls.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Here’s the video of his putting his foot in his mouth
Guess Jews didn’t speak German or were born in Germany. Good to know.
About the no fly zone
I have read that the S-xxx anti-aircraft missile system was extremely effective, but never knew if that was just hype. Obama apparently thought enough of the system that he asked the Russians to delay the delivery of the system to Iran back in the day.
If the report is true, looks more like the Russians have set up a no fly zone.
(Looks like ABS Military has been kicked off Twitter.)
True
People were saying that because Russia has control over the air it was why the convoy could sit there for so long. People here kept saying that we should bomb it. Good luck with that.
Now Russia has targeted a base that was receiving weapons and mercenaries from NATO. Blinken is saying that Biden has authorized him to transfer more weapons into Ukraine. Umm dude? That’s one of Putin’s red lines. It’s why he just bombed the other place. But of course there is plenty of money to keep the war going whilst millions of Americans sleep in tents. Not a good look for a super power.
From what my Chinese buddies from college and work tell me...
From what my Chinese buddies from college and work tell me everybody they know through SE Asia and mainland China are very supportive of Russian people. Nothing said about invasion, but they are aware of the xenophobia and are not canceling out individual Russians or businesses. In fact the opposite, they are going out of their way to purchase Russian made goods.
As they should.
As far as commodities, nobody can ever demand what I buy and who I buy from.
And if I wish to barter, I will.
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
This little leak might soon lead to a flood.