Posted on 04/20/2022 6:18:16 PM PDT by marcusmaximus
“How the heck are Russians supposed to pay in non-rubles, when their USD reserves have been frozen seized? ”
That is their problem.
They could sell something, but most of the World is scrambling to buy whatever Russia is selling, from anywhere except Russia.
They could borrow to cover their payments, but no one wants to lend to them, and many are legally banned from lending to Russia. Their credit rating is now junk or near junk, so any loans they do get will cost an arm and two legs.
They could try to steal the money, but that is not working out for them either.
The bottom line is that Russia is not going to have enough dollars to service its debt, without sanctions relief. They are going to default, on one bond after another, over the coming months.
Capital and talent are trying to flee, and neither is likely to return, probably for years.
This game is quickly going to spiral out of control if it hasn't already.
Russia is largely immune to the sanctions because Europe won't willingly get meaningfully involved in the war in Ukraine. If Europe does, Russia shuts off the oil spigot and blocks other needed exports like wheat and fertilizer, and Europe freezes and starves before the populace revolts against the technocrats who thought all that was a good idea to turn off the nuke plants in Europe and ultimately rely more on Russian oil and natural gas in the first place.
Meanwhile, the financial pressure combined with the bumbling inept US policies and politicians invites a competitor to US dollars as a world reserve currency.
Russia's bond debt is probably held by multinational organizations like the IMF who are going to then have to write off that debt... and then be compelled to buy more bond debt as a condition for Russia to keep Europe from freezing in the winter. A strong US energy policy could have, and was being prepared to counter that Russian pressure on Europe, but Trump was leading that effort, and of course anything Trump championed has to be treated as evil so that's out. If so many average people wouldn't get caught up in this spiraling chaos it would be funny, but it's not.
“ Russia is largely immune to the sanctions because Europe won’t willingly get meaningfully involved in the war in Ukraine. If Europe does, Russia shuts off the oil spigot and blocks other needed exports like wheat and fertilizer, and Europe freezes and starves before the populace revolts”
Freezes and starves is overstating the case. What it would boil down to is Europe paying a higher price for energy and food.
The bottom line is that it is within Europe’s capability to do without any Russian product, it is only a matter of intent.
The worst case is natural gas, which relies heavily on expensive pipelines for delivery, which take a long time to build. Although it is significantly more expensive to buy LNG at spot prices and truck/train it around, it can physically be done. Italy formerly bought over 40% of its gas from Russia, but has already made arrangements to replace that.
Germany relied on Russia for just a few percentage points more of its natural gas supply (under 50%), but it has been slower to replace that, because of intent. The new Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, is a hard Left former student anti-NATO activist leader, who probably was/is a KGB/FSB asset. Even so, Germany is being dragged along with the EU to transition off of Russian hydrocarbons. They have banned Russian coal, and announced a ban on Russian oil by the end of the year. They have also announced that Russian gas imports would be at least halved by the end of this year, and ended in 2023.
The further East you go in Europe, typically the more dependent they are on Russian gas. Finland about 100%, for example. Nonetheless, the whole EU, except maybe Hungary, is now making preparations to replace Russian gas. The three Baltic Nations have already done it.
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