Posted on 08/07/2014 8:57:23 AM PDT by tcrlaf
Sounds akin to the current Israeli vs. anti-Jew Terrorist dialog. When the aggressor/bully finally gets theirs, it’s: “Wah, they hit BACK”
The hypocrisy in Europe is a bit much on this. “What? Russia’s responding to our sanctions with sanctions? But... but... that’s not fair!”.
And as Europe says this its citizens look forward to more to eat at lower prices.
Ohhh Brer Bear, please don’t throw me into that briar patch.
LOL
They’ll need to be lower, because some of these smaller countries are looking at as much as a 10% drop in GDP, because of this.
Tyler Durden would sacrifice a virgin if he thought it would cause a market crash since he’s been predicting one every article since 2010 . . .
I’m just bemused by seeing how Durden goes from “The European Union regrets,” to “Europe ‘furious’”, and how many FReepers are falling for it.
Also, I totally don’t get this move on the part of Russia. What’s the logic here? “We’re so ticked off that you’re blocking our people from buying the products that they want to buy from you, that we’re going to retaliate... by blocking them from buying more of the products they want to buy from you!”
Imports are the goal. Products and services are what people want to acquire - money (aka, exports) are just the means to acquire them. Having a bunch of money on hand is a pointless endeavour if you can’t use it to buy what you want / need.
There’s nothing stopping me from going out and growing all the food I need rather than buying from manufacturers. I could make my own clothes, I could build my own car, and on and on. But I don’t, why? Because other people can do it a lot cheaper/easier/better for me, I can work my job (”exports”) that I can do cheaper/easier/better than they could, and then with that money I can buy things (”imports”).
To bring it down a bit: If I was the local electric utility and I was in a conflict with a local food processing plant whose products I loved, and I wanted to punish them, would it make any sense in the world for me to punish them by stopping buying their products? No, that would be an absurdity. What would make sense would be to *stop selling them electricity*.
The real world is of course more complicated than that, as there’s so many different players out there. But the basic point is, you want to hit them where you hurt them most and hurt yourself least. And for Russia, is there anyone who actually thinks that the place where they have the most leverage is *agricultural product imports* rather than energy exports?
Not really - Putin is shooting his foot over this.
“totally don’t get this move on the part of Russia. What’s the logic here?”
Chess....
These sanctions hit the small Euro countries the hardest, and they will be the easiest to peel away from the EU sanctions regime.
Finland could be looking at as much as a 10% drop in GDP this year alone.
Europe’s economy is already hanging by a thread, despite the huge printing of money by Draghi, and some countries, like Italy, are sliding into recession.
In this situation, it doesn’t take much to create a real shock, as all of these economies are now so interconnected.
A ban on AG imports puts pressure on weaker members of the EU like Poland, potentially causing a break in EU unity.
Also: Russia's gas card can be used in many ways. For instance rather than banning exports, Russia can accept payment for gas in any currency (and so drive a nail into the petrodollar).
Russia can certainly afford to wait until Winter is in the air. They don't get so much bang for the buck if they cut the gas off in Summer.
Zerohedge is selling doom and gloom. Also gold. It has some following as gold used to perform well relative to stocks some time ago, but not any more. During the past 2 years gold is down 20% while Dow Jones is up 25%. For the past 5 years Dow is up ~75% and gold is up 35%.
“Appears how? I don’t see anything in the article suggesting this is so.”
The part about going to the WTO because Russia won’t buy their stuff, because they went along with other sanctions against Russia, pretty much says it all.
Every cause has an effect.
Poland? Finland? These are some of the countries that have been pushing the *hardest* against Russia, why would anyone think they’re going to peel off? Poland in particular, they’re the only country in Europe where a plurality actually wants to deploy troops to Ukraine.
And again, the logic makes no sense, they’re hurting their own consumers way more than they’re hurting their targets. Even if you ignore the fact that the impact of their sanctions on the export side are spread out over countries with over a dozen times their GDP, while they have to eat the full impact on the import side.
“Finland could be looking at as much as a 10% drop in GDP this year alone”
Finland sells $25bn of food products to Russia? Really? Are you sure you’re not just bigging things up?
Why does going to the WTO indicate shock? Going to the WTO is the way to get a legal ruling against Russia which will give them a legal grounds to retaliate in whatever manner favors them best.
$1B is ~0.04% of US exports. Lets not go into such small digits and round it to 0.0%
Is Zerohedge selling gold, too?
Solution,Euro weenies,activate your military and March on Moscow!Start sending tanks and aircraft to the Ukraine instead of wetting your pants and waiting for the black Muslim to help you,it ain’t gonna happen
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