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Putin can write a new law which says all personal banks accounts are now nationalized. He can also inflate the currency by orders of magnitude, and make it a cr

Putin can write a new law which says all personal banks accounts are now nationalized. He can also inflate the currency by orders of magnitude, and make it a crime to own USD/EUR cache (it was a crime in USSR). And that's why the broad sanctions. Russian government can always milk population for money, as long as the population has the money. They did it quite a few times in the 20-th century, e.g. rouble was denominated by an order of magnitude in 1961, and by 3 orders of magnitude in 1997. For this reason, focused sanctions not gonna work.

lowkey 5y ago
It seems you are speculating that Putin’s response to Oil & Gas sanctions would be to nationalize all bank accounts and therefore broad sanctions are the only measure that could work. Let’s say that were true. Why then should the west not apply broad sanctions AND include sanctions on Oil & Gas exports as well? It seems to me that this policy would shut down Putin’s war machine faster than either measure alone. I suspect the real reason the west chose to exclude oil & gas from other sanctions is the same reason the sanctions include a carve-out for selling Italian luxury goods to Russian elites. Namely that the west is equally willing to impose pain on the Russian people as it is on Russia’s elites but they are unwilling to take more effective action since it would be politically risky and may impede their chances of re-election - even though it would effectively end the war in Ukraine immediately.
- Const-me 5y ago
  > Why then should the west not apply broad sanctions AND include sanctions on Oil & Gas exports as well? That's exactly what we're doing. If we ban Russian oil & gas overnight, the markets will freak out and the damage to our economy will be too large. The negotiations to re-route oil & gas across the planet take time. I hope they already made some progress with Iran and Venezuela.

lowkey 5y ago

It seems you are speculating that Putin’s response to Oil & Gas sanctions would be to nationalize all bank accounts and therefore broad sanctions are the only measure that could work. Let’s say that were true. Why then should the west not apply broad sanctions AND include sanctions on Oil & Gas exports as well? It seems to me that this policy would shut down Putin’s war machine faster than either measure alone. I suspect the real reason the west chose to exclude oil & gas from other sanctions is the same reason the sanctions include a carve-out for selling Italian luxury goods to Russian elites. Namely that the west is equally willing to impose pain on the Russian people as it is on Russia’s elites but they are unwilling to take more effective action since it would be politically risky and may impede their chances of re-election - even though it would effectively end the war in Ukraine immediately.

Const-me 5y ago
> Why then should the west not apply broad sanctions AND include sanctions on Oil & Gas exports as well? That's exactly what we're doing. If we ban Russian oil & gas overnight, the markets will freak out and the damage to our economy will be too large. The negotiations to re-route oil & gas across the planet take time. I hope they already made some progress with Iran and Venezuela.