NP - Russian Sanctions

[alice malice]

The sanctions on Russian oligarchs won't cause famine or war. They will
make Putin & Co. suffer enough.   While China will sit this one
put, Germany, not China, is the key. As the Putin propaganda machine is
quite effective in Germany, where, as Thomas suggests, the troubling notion
of supporting ugly and uglier in Ukraine is a serious obstacle, and, German
exports within the EU have been weakened by the depressions, recessions,
etc. in developed Europe; however, German economy is catching tail winds
with exports outside Euroupe, and to non OECD, and the German economy is
improving. China has its internal pivot to consumption and urbanization to
focus on (see yesterday's FT)' and won't want to do anything to push the
dollar or US T down, so Russia's screaming that it will dump us bonds,
while little more than screaming, high pitched, will only give the Chinese
resolve to build an internal consumption engine, a project that will be
funded with dollars and huge collateral in us treasuries. Also, China's oil
use is down and declining. This should giveutin pause; this with the US
threatening to lift its ban on crude exports, finish keystone, biting its
fracking and other energy development technologies into Eurupe.

On Tuesday, March 18, 2014, Joseph Tracy
<brook7 at sover.net<javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','brook7 at sover.net');>>
wrote:

> There are many thugs and killers and greedy bastards in the world and the
> US has as nasty a record as anyone since the death of Stalin. I have never
> liked Putin for all the reasons you state but the idea of isolating " the
> pirates", and that they have no contingencies for this situation or that
> they will " turn on each other" sounds very questionable. Another way to
> look at Putin is that he may have a realistic sense of the needs of Russia
> as a state. Russia was far worse off under the drunkard Yeltsin and the
>  accompanying rise of the criminals and oligarchs according to many
> analysts, and Putin brought those tendencies significantly under control.
>  The majority seem to still support him over any other contender. Now
> majority rule is not IMO all it is cracked up to be but that is sorta what
> we have here, too,... sorta.
>
> Sanctions. There was an article in Harpers last year about sanctions,
> their deadly effects on the weakest members of a society and unforeseen
> consequences.  It starts with sanctions begun in WW1. Here is one passage:
>
> "Not until five months after the armistice did the Allies allow Germany to
> import food -- not out of concern for the ongoing death and suffering, but
> out of fear that desperate Germans would follow the Russians into
> Bolshevism. By the time it was lifted, the peacetime blockade had killed
> about a quarter of a million people, including many children who either
> starved or died from diseases associated with malnutrition."
>
> The US effectively starved half a million Iraqis before the second gulf
> war with sanctions. Sanctions were used in Nicaragua, Cuba, Iran,now Syria.
>  The wars only proliferate. Saddam before his US sponsored attack on Iran
> looks like an age of relative prosperity and even tolerance when most Shias
> and Sunnis intermarried and lived in the same neighborhoods peacefully and
> Iraq had the best educated country in the region. Do people know that under
> British rule 50 Iraqis a year went past the equivalent of High school. Our
> bombs don't bring peace or good government to them or us.
>
> If you look at the long term these methods have only backfired, hurt the
> innocent and created huge mistrust. Nations don't behave like compliant
> children, and the US is not some benign strict father. Will China  agree to
> sanction Russia while they are desperately looking for new export markets?
>  What if they don't?  Where will Ukraine's oil come from for the rest of
> the winter?
>
> Are we really so keen to start a global economic war over the Crimean,
> with over 90% voting yes to the Russian federation?  I don't think it is a
> good idea. I think we are already getting more tentative in our
> pronouncements,  and I think these "punishments" are  largely for show.
>
>
> On Mar 17, 2014, at 5:18 PM, David Morris wrote:
>
> > http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/russia-sanctions-031714
> >
> > The president today took the only action open to him, knowing full well
> that it's not going to be "enough" because nothing is ever "enough," and
> what about Benghazi, anyway?
> >
> > "We have fashioned these sanctions to impose costs on named individuals
> who wield influence in the Russian government and those responsible for the
> deteriorating situation in Ukraine," the White House said in a statement. A
> senior administration official said that the goal of the sanctions was to
> target the individual wealth of the seven people targeted by Monday's
> executive order. But those same officials would not rule out further steps
> against the Russian government going forward.
> > This is something of a shrewd move. If we accept the fact that the
> Russian government is basically an organized cabal of kleptocrats with
> delusions of empire and a nuclear first-strike capability, why not bring
> some economic pain that might make some of the pirates turn on some of the
> others? Putin's power comes basically from being the first among thieves.
> That's how he maintains control over, among other things, the military. If
> some of his cronies hear their bank accounts scream, there's no telling
> what the consequences will be.
> >
>
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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