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Government The Almighty Buck

US, UK and Top EU Allies Begin Cutting Russia Out Of International Financial System SWIFT (huffpost.com) 337

Posted by EditorDavid from the SWIFT-vengeance dept.
The Huffington Post reports on "the most drastic financial sanction yet on Russian President Vladimir Putin: The United States and key allies will cut Russian banks out of the global financial messaging system SWIFT and begin to target Russia's central bank, according to a White House statement on Saturday...

The statement said the U.S., top European economies, Britain, and Canada would disconnect selected Russian banks from SWIFT, which will severely hurt their ability to operate internationally, and prevent Russia's central bank from using its foreign currency reserves to evade Western sanctions. The pro-Ukraine countries will also make it harder for wealthy Russians to obtain Western citizenship and launch a task force to freeze the assets of Russian elites — a bid to pressure Putin by hurting his friends....

It represents a significant escalation by America's European partners, many of whom worry about the economic toll their own countries will experience if they cut off ties with Russia.
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US, UK and Top EU Allies Begin Cutting Russia Out Of International Financial System SWIFT More

US, UK and Top EU Allies Begin Cutting Russia Out Of International Financial System SWIFT

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  • economic toll (Score:3)

    by hjf ( 703092 ) on Saturday February 26, 2022 @06:46PM (#62307065) Homepage

    many of whom worry about the economic toll their own countries will experience if they cut off ties with Russia.

    Is this for real? Are these imbeciles in charge not aware of the situation?

    Russia took a piece of Georgia, no one did anything - couldn't risk the economic toll.
    Russia took a piece of Ukraine, no one did aything - couldn't risk the economic toll.
    Russia took UKRAINE BY FORCE, "can't risk the economic toll".

    Putin is walking around waving his dick out saying "I can do whatever the fuck i want to do, because if you even DARE join NATO, I'll kill every single one of you and no one still standing will do anyhting about it".

    And Germany is thinking about the economic toll.

    Fuck Germany. Merkel needs to be put in jail for being in bed with putin and make Germany dependent on russian gas.

    • Re:economic toll (Score:5, Insightful)

      by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Saturday February 26, 2022 @06:54PM (#62307091)

      Right now, European leadership has to deal with the situation it finds itself in now. It’s true that Germany probably shouldn’t have let itself become so dependent on Russia’s fuel exports; but knowing that isn’t going to keep their German people warm this spring once Putin shuts off the taps.

      Cutting Russia off is the right thing to do - and, at this point, it’s obviously the necessary thing to do. But that’s easy for me to say, sitting in my warm living room here in the US.

      • Here is where the free world steps up and provides an effective alternative to Russian gas, even if it takes time and money, which it will. But when it is done they never have to go back should this same shit happen in the future.
      • I'm sympathetic to the German people and the associated costs. However, Germany could quickly become less dependent on Russian gas if they restarted their nuclear program. That's really the right thing to do. And it would likely more than offset the loss of Russian gas in terms of energy prices. It's near the end of winter right now and that gives almost a year for preparation. The idea that Russia will continue to sell Germany gas after Russia conquers Sweden and Finland isn't even guaranteed.

        • However, Germany could quickly become less dependent on Russian gas if they restarted their nuclear program.
          a) Germany is not dependent on Russian gas - and never was - or will be
          b) building a new nuke takes - 20 - gasp - years

          That's really the right thing to do.
          Can't be done. Because if one tries we have a civil war in Germany.

          • Angelo, my good friend.
            I'm a bit confused here, and I'm wondering if you could help me understand.
            Germany is currently the world- the entire world's largest gas importer
            55% of that imported gas is Russian.

            Germany uses 243 million m^3 of gas per day (averaged across the year)
            That's 133 million m^3 per day from Russia.
            That's 48.5 billion m^3 per year. From Russia.

            In what universe is that not dependency?
            Where, precisely, do you propose they come up with an extra 1.7 quadrillion BTUs of heat on the f
        • "Germany could quickly become less dependent on Russian gas if they restarted their nuclear program."

          Because you can go to Reactors-Are-Us and order an off the shelf 400 megawatt power reactor and have it up and running before the summer is over?

          You nuclear fan boys are certifiably insane. For you the answer to any problem is MORE NUKES!!! Traffic light goes out at the mall? Install a micro reactor and no one will ever hit the control box ever again and you won't have a wait when driving to get a burger a

      • What are ya gonna do - We can pretend that everything is hunky dory, but what kind of fools believe that Putin will stop after getting the Ukrain? Next he'll go after all of the countries they lost when the USSR went away.

        Just like the Nasties in world war 2, they won't stop unless they are stopped.

    • Re:economic toll (Score:5, Informative)

      by fazig ( 2909523 ) on Saturday February 26, 2022 @07:05PM (#62307115)
      The name you're looking for is Gerhard Schröder.

      He signed the nuclear phaseout into German law in the early 2000's.
      He's been apologetic of Putin, being infamous for the "lupenreiner Demokrat" phrase.
      He championed for the Nord Stream 2 project, which was controversial from the beginning.
      After he left office he relatively quickly became a chairman for Rosneft.
      He also became chairman of Nord Stream 2.
      And we was to become chairman of Gazprom just about before this started.


      A string of glaring red flags if you ask me, but a lot of my fellow German dumb-assess would rather whatabout the US instead of realizing what has been going on right in-front of their proverbial eyes for decades.
      • Good grief. With luck Germany will find something in all that to arrest the guy on. People like that are way more dangerous than a common criminal.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by ffkom ( 3519199 )
        I am not at all a friend of Gerhard Schröder, who by this time is probably too old and too brain-damaged from his life-time dosing of alcohol to have a clear thought on anything.

        But I think it is fair to assume that many of his social democratic party fellows actually believed that intensifying economic ties to Russia would promote peace in the long run. And honestly, Russia has kept up its contractual obligations with Germany more reliably than the US did - you may remember the time when the US presi

        • I am not at all a friend of Gerhard Schröder, who by this time is probably too old and too brain-damaged from his life-time dosing of alcohol to have a clear thought on anything.

          Oh, you mean this guy:

          Gerhard Schroeder [youtube.com]

          Rough translation:

          "Bring me a bottle of beer . . . otherwise I will strike, and not write any more!"

          Said while signing autographs.

          . . . this clip was sampled and turned into a pop hit in Germany:

          Hol mir mal 'ne Flasche Bier [youtube.com]

      • A German who gets german history wrong?
        Interesting.

        German history that happened during his lifetime?
        Inexcusable.

        For starters: Schroeder got voted into office, actually not him, but his green allies, to stop the German nuclear program.
        Secondly: He joined Gas Prom first, as a chairman. And as far as I can tell: has no relation to Northstream 2 (or 1 if that matters). Norhtstream 2 is not even operational ...

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by fazig ( 2909523 )
          Oh, nitpicking and semantics from angel'o'sphere, how original.

          Gerhard Schröder
          Vorsitzender des Gesellschafterausschusses und ehemaliger Bundeskanzler der Bundesrepublik Deutschland

          Source: https://www.nord-stream.com/de... [nord-stream.com]

          GO FUCK YOURSELF.

    • It is not reasonable to expect Germany to bear the brunt of the economic cost.

      We should share the burden. America needs to produce and export more oil and gas, which will lead to higher prices in America. We should drive less and turn down the heat.

      Of course, I will personally pay no price since I have an EV and solar panels. But the rest of you need to tighten your belts.

      • We’re already exporting almost as much as we can. US LNG facilities are running at near-full capacity already, and building that infrastructure out doesnt happen overnight. Yes, we should step up, but tripling out LNG shipments to Europe would probably take years.

        Read an article about it just today. If Russian gas cuts off, the only way Europe will get more is probably by diverting tankers of the stuff that were already bound for Asia. In other words, a worldwide price spike. It beats letting Put

      • It is not reasonable to expect Germany to bear the brunt of the economic cost.

        If they gave the most loans to people that now turn out to be war criminals, then it would natural for them to have the highest losses from defaults.

        I'm not sure they really need help with that. Are we sure rich German bankers need ex-post-facto profit insurance on that?

        • Loan defaults are only one problem.

          Another is that Germany is most dependent on Russian gas. Of course, that is also mostly their fault.

          One practical step Germany could take is to bring their nukes back online. I don't know if they have the political will to do that, especially with the Greens as part of the governing coalition.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Misagon ( 1135 )

      It looks to me that Putin's dick is what this war is about, metaphorically speaking.

      He sees a free Ukraine as a threat against his manhood.
      Putin's plan original plan had only been to threaten, but they didn't give in, which made Putin feel emasculated.
      And now Russia's poorly prepared forces are losing because he hadn't been man enough to back down.

      • See Sweden and Finland for what happens next.

        • That's a bit of a stretch, but I am biased. Both countries are tactically difficult to attack, and provide little empirical value to Russia (especially Sweden). They want to keep the Baltic on edge, but that is about it.

          • While Sweden and Finland had their sorted border conflicts with Russia, Soviets these countries are less strategic and so far have not voiced desire to join NATO or EU. If Russia got very aggressive both countries have better defense capabilities, distance and terrain. Plus even China might have to acknowledge overreach. Putin seems unhinged but there are no Russians being oppressed in Sweden and Finland to concoct an excuse to invade. Not a zero inconceivable chance but a much lower probability. If escalat
            • I think China's abstention in the UNSC to the vote condemning Russia was pretty much an acknowledgement of overreach. A soft one, but one nonetheless.

        • We already know about Sweden. The whole world is singing, "I Fought the NLAW and the NLAW won" after seeing footage from Ukraine.

      • And now Russia's poorly prepared forces are losing because he hadn't been man enough to back down.

        Or decent enough to be honest, and so the troops were only equipped for training.

        They have a lot of corruption in their supply chain, telling them it is just training might really reduce the amount of supplies that are in each box...

    • Exactly. And Sweden and Finland will be next. After that, why would Russia care if they get cut off? They will acquire significant technology and resources with the conquest of Sweden and Finland. That will offset the economic damages.

    • Many Germans are not quite sure if they live in East Germany, or West Germany.

      They went straight to "Unity" without even really talking about it, so now it turns out some of them still aren't sure. And some of those are bankers.

      However, they got a lot of blowback from the majority who were horrified, which is why they're not supporting sanctions, and even sending weapons.

    • Fuck Germany. Merkel needs to be put in jail for being in bed with putin and make Germany dependent on russian gas.
      Germany is not dependant on russian gas.

      And your Merkel hate makes no sense.

      In a free market people buy from where they get it cheap. Has nothing to do with the ruler. Dumb idiot.

      • I've seen you make this claim several times now, with nothing to back it up.
        It's beginning to look like you're spreading misinformation.
    • So should Trump be put in jail for "being in bed with putin"?

  • Oligarchs (Score:3)

    by fermion ( 181285 ) on Saturday February 26, 2022 @06:50PM (#62307083) Homepage Journal
    This will only hurt the average Russians. The oligarchs have been investing in the US for years to leverage their money. Particularly in Real Estate. Particularly New York and Florida. Look at 432 park avenue. Sure all the units are sold, but how many are actually lived in. The building is falling down, but how many international billionaires just see it as an insured investment.
    • It's also worth noting that removal from SWIFT is a bell that can only be rang once. Once Russia is cut off, banks will adapt into new arrangements that will make things like financial sanctions more difficult to implement in the future.
      • None of the sanctions matter because Russia and China are an axis of evil and anything that Russia can't accomplish with the west, they will just go to Chinese markets.
    • Huh? If the oligarchs have spread their money around the globe, they're about to lose a lot of it. That's what "a task force to freeze the assets of Russian elites " means, and a building in NYC or Florida is hardly out of reach for us.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by _xeno_ ( 155264 )

        Assuming anyone bothers actually doing that. The US is only targeting a select group of Russian oligarchs, and they're not even all that important [npr.org]. Even this article glosses over an important part: Russia isn't being removed from SWIFT. Certain Russian banks are being removed from SWIFT. Not all. (Notice the quote in the summary: "selected Russian banks", that's a direct quote from the White House.)

        The problem is that a lot of the Russian oligarchs own parts of the western economy. Just as we saw during Cri

    • and sold at auction. I"m trying to buy a house having been priced out of my neighborhood by skyrocketing rent following the buyout of every complex within 30 miles by 1 company. But oligarchs the world over are buying up housing in America jacking up the cost.
    • Maybe it's time to hurt the average Russians.
      Maybe that's how we've been fucking up all along. Unless they feel the squeeze, they'll continue to believe that Vladdy is a Bear Riding Nazi-Exterminating Superman.
      Maybe once they feel the squeeze, they'll rise up and give that fucker a Gaddafi group hug.

  • My read on Putin is that he wants to unify the Slavic peoples much like Hitler wanted to unify the German peoples. Russia is a slowly failing society economically stagnated with a declining population. Putin needs something to save it and that is growth through conquest.

    • My read on Putin is that he wants to unify the Slavic peoples much like Hitler wanted to unify the German peoples.

      Probably just like that, except Ukrainians everywhere remember the Holodomor [wikipedia.org] exactly the same way Jews remember the Holocaust.

      Putin is a washed up petty dictator pining for the days of Stalin's USSR, which committed a historic genocide against the Ukrainian people. I'm just not feeling the whole unification thing.

  • Good (Score:2)

    by DrXym ( 126579 )
    Putin's invasion is a total clusterfuck and hopefully sanctions will impress that upon the people in Russia. They or one of his inner circle might voice their objections by perforating his skull which would be awfully tragic as I'm sure we can all agree. I reckon even his army would be glad to have him dead for this debacle.

  • Belarus is aiding the invasion and the cost to the west of sanctions against Belarus would be much less. It would also send a message to other states that might want to help Putin's expansionist ambitions.

  • If Putin had simply taken a page from the playbook of the USA, prior to the invasion he could have simply claimed there were weapons of mass destruction in Ukraine.

    • I mean as far as flimsy pretexts for war Putin is in the same ballpark. The real difference though is to take out dictatorships with no real allies.

      What the US did in Iraq was terrible but it was easy for other countries to look the other way since Saddam had already been in a war (Iraq/Iran) invaded another country, killed his own people and was a general nuisance on the world stage. Did any of that give the US just cause to invade? Fuck no but it explains why It was a war we could "get away with". Ukrai

      • Let's also not forget that Iraq's WMDs were at least plausible in that they *had* pursued a WMD program. It seems like they had abandoned it but for lack of success not lack of ambition!
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Bert64 ( 520050 )

      Only Ukraine did have such weapons, and voluntarily handed them back to russia. If they still had them, russia would not have dared invade.

    • He did. Only he called them neo-nazis.

  • How will he get all that Russian mafia money to prop up his failing businesses [forensicnews.net] or launder money [newyorker.com]?

    With the largest Russian banks now cut off from doing business with the world, one can only imagine the con artist is sweating bullets. Especially since he has hundreds of millions of loan payments [forbes.com] coming due over the next few years. If people thought Lying Rudy looked bad [the-sun.com], imagine what the con artist's face will look like as it oozes off him.

  • Some perspective (Score:4, Interesting)

    by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Saturday February 26, 2022 @08:29PM (#62307347)

    Prof. John Mearsheimer, Chicago University, gave this talk about NATO, Russia & Ukraine 7 years ago in the aftermath of the previous military & political interventions in Ukraine. We can argue about interpretations but he lays out the facts pretty clearly (opinions & interpretations are debatable but the facts aren't). Western media's current characterisations of the conflict between Russia, Ukraine, the USA, the EU, & NATO don't reflect the facts. They're a-historical & misleading. I recommend watching this to get some perspective:

    UnCommon Core: The Causes and Consequences of the Ukraine Crisis

    John J. Mearsheimer, the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor in Political Science and Co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago, assesses the causes of the present Ukraine crisis, the best way to end it, and its consequences for all of the main actors. A key assumption is that in order to come up with the optimum plan for ending the crisis, it is essential to know what caused the crisis. Regarding the all-important question of causes, the key issue is whether Russia or the West bears primary responsibility. Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • This is all just for appearances. Unless there's a co-ordinated and universal approach to blocking Russia the funds will just be funnelled through a bank which isn't blocking them.

    And this is by design. Europe remains highly dependent on Russia for energy. They aren't going to suddenly not pay the bill, they don't really have a lot of power in this regard (pun definitely intended)

    • Zelensky could challenge Putin to a duel. Putin a trained servicemen , did Judo. Would be wild PR. Unlikely but given the fake news machines this might surface. Get more clicks then the almost useless condemnation speeches. Just condemn and be concise. The Snake Island clip getting attention but hard to verify.
  • Great. $700 Million per DAY of physical gold bars can move from Germany to Russia. This should really push up physical gold demand and physical deliveries. Meanwhile bond turnover will fall, as will luxury purchases. Bitcoin and the ilk should also fall, as cashing out will be harder. (Yes Virginia, the authorities can see which banks are washing transactions). Printing forex traded paper 'notes' will not work either. Plenty of countries will supply physical currency, although most Russians have all the Eur

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