bump
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Sanctioning ourselves, helping China.
Meanwhile, Germany realizes they don’t have enough gas for winter
GERMAN BUNDESNETZAGENTUR ENERGY REGULATOR CHIEF SAYS LOOKING AT WINTER, FROM TODAY’S PERSPECTIVE WE WOULD HAVE A PROBLEM
and the Russians are looking at burning it for crypto mining instead of selling it to the west if sanctions continue.
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/gazpromneft-partners-with-bitriver-to-mine-bitcoin
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Imagine what oil/gas prices would be if everyone was in fact imposing/following the same sanctions? Dare I suggest that we should be thanking China for helping limit our self-imposed suffering?
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We’re just helping democracy in Ukraine. You know - the kind where your opposition are declared a bunch of domestic extremists and banned from public life, interrogated in show trials, etc.
Ukrainian authorities have banned the country’s main opposition party and seized all its assets, once again undermining the narrative that President Zelensky is presiding over a beacon of democracy.
The ban means that Zelensky’s main political opposition has been eliminated. The OPPL was the second largest party in the country and its popularity surpassed that of Zelensky’s Servant of the People party last year.
Its leader Viktor Medvedchuk, who claims he is merely looking out for the interests of the Ukrainian people by seeking better relations with Russia, was placed under house arrest last month.
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Germany gas woes
GERMANY TO DECLARE PHASE 2 OUT OF THREE (ALARM STAGE) OF EMERGENCY GAS PLAN ON JULY 8 - FAZ NEWSPAPER
Meanwhile, Lithuania escalated things by shutting off an isolated part of Russia from receiving supplies via a railroad that runs through their country. Permanent access to this was promised as part of Lithuania’s EU membership, but the old rules are getting torn up left and right these days.
EU member Lithuania, which serves as a conduit for goods travelling between the Russian mainland to its east and Russia’s Baltic Sea outpost of Kaliningrad to its west has drawn Moscow’s ire by banning rail convoys of goods targeted by EU sanctions.
Moscow has threatened “serious” repercussions.
LITHUANIA PREPARED IF RUSSIA DISCONNECTS IT FROM COMMON POWER GRID, PRESIDENT SAYS IN INTERVIEW WITH REUTERS
LITHUANIA WILL EXPAND LIST OF BLOCKED CARGO AS EU SANCTIONS BROADEN, NAUSEDA SAYS IN INTERVIEW
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Fertilizer - who needs it? EU company shuts down production due to costs.
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wow. Should have bought rubles in March!
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they were corrupt, mismanaged to begin with, like a business. Works ok as long as things are cheap/costs are low. Not anymore.
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Did Russian hackers blow up a Texas LNG pipeline on June 8?
The explosion certainly bolstered Putin and significantly harmed our European friends. It resulted from an undetected overpressure situation in a critical pipeline replete with overpressure sensors. How could this happen?
Well, nobody knows for certain. And if it was Russian hacking, at least a possibility, a variety of American potentates are completely unwilling to admit the security failure.
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Your gold isn’t good here. US to ban imports of “Russian gold”
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US successfully defaults on Russian bond holders
KREMLIN: RUSSIA DOES NOT ACCEPT THAT IT HAS DEFAULTED ON ITS EXTERNAL DEBT
KREMLIN: EUROCLEAR NOT ACCEPTING RUSSIA’S EUROBOND TRANSACTION ‘IS NOT OUR PROBLEM’
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Yeah, that’s quite some spin to claim that Russia defaulted. But, I guess whatever it takes to make it look like these sanctions are having anything close to the desired effect, instead of simply acknowledging that Russia is mostly thriving under the sanctions…
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At the end of the day it doesn’t matter whether the country makes the payment, it only matters whether the investor gets paid. Future investors will have to adjust for this risk, and that’s the point of this exercise – make it more expensive for Russia to borrow now and in the future.
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At the end of the day, most investors are intelligent enough to understand that Russia is standing there with fists full of money, and it’s a third party that is preventing them from being repaid. Sure, it creates a risk that’ll be somewhat factored into future lending (although no one can lend to them right now either), but the immediate effect is making a lot of international investor-types pissed at, well, at us.
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If they’re intelligent enough, they also understand the reasons behind this. And frankly should have accounted for it in the first place (for any loans made in the last 8 years anyway).
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Geopolitical commentary
[russia takes the] ukrainian population and puts them into
two groups
group one are refugees you
never have to worry about them again
and the second one you can treat is
subhuman and either shoot them sell them
into slavery kidnap the kids send them
off to siberia to become russian or
whatever else. that destroys the
existence of either the ukrainian
identity or of ukrainians proper
at present between the internally
displaced people in ukraine and the
refugees that’s already 15 million
people that’s a third of the pre-war population
even if somehow
ukraine manages to win this war
this is still the end of ukraine as a
country within 30 years because they
literally no longer have the people
it was already bad but now there’s a
demographic bomb that’s been set off
The Ukrainians I know that have had to seek refuge for themselves or their family are all very keen to rebuild and repopulate Ukraine, especially if it becomes part of the EU and no longer faces these kinds of existential threats from Russia.
So I don’t think that issue is anywhere near clear-cut.
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He’s big on “demography is destiny”, so that’s where he’s coming from.
Meanwhile, more escalation by the West. We bought off Turkey, full price not disclosed, to support Finland and Norway joining NATO.
-
NATO SECRETARY GENERAL STOLTENBERG SAYS AGREEMENT REACHED WITH TURKEY FOR SWEDEN AND FINLAND TO JOIN NATO
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TURKEY HAS SECURED PLEDGE FOR CONCRETE STEPS OVER THE EXTRADITION OF THOSE CHARGED WITH TERRORISM IN NORDICS NATO DEAL - TURKISH PRESIDENCY
This after Turkey said they wouldn’t even talk about it with our diplomats. You can bet that’s not the full price. I expect selling out the Kurds was also part of it.
Turkey’s currency has seen new deterioration in recent weeks. Erdogan’s regime still tinkering with economic policies, while inflation is now upwards of 75%.
Weak currencies and economies force strongmen to sell themselves like cheap street workers.
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Good summary of the bond situation.
It’s an act of political theatre at bondholders’ expense. Governments usually default when the burden of borrowing is too painful or they suffer a currency crisis. Yet Russia had debt of just 17% of GDP last year and has plentiful revenue from selling oil and gas. Western sanctions, however, mean it cannot ship funds to foreign creditors through western agents. The restrictions also prevent bondholders from dealing with domestic Russian entities.
More details
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