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Maybe someone can enlighten me, but is this not the equivalent of saying "You can't fire me - I quit"? Are there any practical consequences from this besides sy
by kriops 5y ago
Maybe someone can enlighten me, but is this not the equivalent of saying "You can't fire me - I quit"? Are there any practical consequences from this besides symbolism?
- toyg 5y agoIf they extend them to gas, we Euros are fucked hard.
- mrits 5y agoThey can't redirect a gas pipeline. If they sell it to Asia instead they will have a much higher overhead in transportation. Then they'd have to deal with the leverage that Asia has over little competition.
- sdoering 5y agoIf they extend it to fertilizers a lot of people will feel the effect. > Russia produces 50 million tons of fertilizers every year, 13 percent of the world's total. The country is a major exporter of potash, phosphate, and nitrogen-containing fertilizers, all of which are major crop and soil nutrients. Source: https://southeastagnet.com/2022/03/07/russian-ministry-recommends-halting-fertilizer-exports https://southeastagnet.com/2022/03/07/russian-ministry-recom...
- willcipriano 5y agoIf I was him I'd shut it down and use environmental retoric to justify it. "We should leave it in the ground, what about future generations?" sort of stuff. The mental gymnastics would be Olympic level.
- jjoonathan 5y agoThere's a "mental gymnastics doping scandal" joke somewhere in there.
- nomel 5y agoAs has been the case for decades. Here's a paper from 2007: A need to cut EU-dependence on Russian gas > The recent gas price 'confrontations' that Russia engineered with the Ukraine and Belarus have exacerbated European concerns in respect of energy supply security. https://archive.nordregio.se/en/Metameny/About-Nordregio/Journal-of-Nordregio/2007/Journal-of-Nordregio-no-1-2007/A-need-to-cut-EU-dependence-on-Russi/index.html https://archive.nordregio.se/en/Metameny/About-Nordregio/Jou...
- sAbakumoff 5y agohow would they pay for the war if they don't sell gas to us in Europe? Besides, the EU presented the plan to get rid of the RU gas dependency: https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/8/22967244/european-union-russia-clean-energy-transition-gas https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/8/22967244/european-union-ru...
- dalbasal 5y agoAt the moment, they aren't paying for much. Most of what they're using (weapons, vehicles, fuel, ammo) is coming out of storage, reserves, etc. Soldier pay is in rubles. That's not to say russian doesn't need money, but this isn't that kind of war... at this point.
- dragonwriter 5y ago> how would they pay for the war if they don't sell gas to us in Europe? Degraded capacity and suffering of the Russian people, mostly. The consumables they can build they will, everything else will get used up in the hope that the war is won before the capacity to fight it is fully degraded, and that once there is a fair accompli in Ukraine, a sufficient subset of the world will see no point in further sanctions and they’ll be able to use the expanded economic power from their victory to build back. (I don't think it's a good plan, but it's all they have left.)
- raverbashing 5y agoOh they won't Not to mention Russian gas is 30% of EU gas (on average), so it would be a crunch but not a cut-off Unless they would like the Ruble going even lower.
- pmontra 5y agoNews are that we'll have replace 2/3 of Russian gas from somebody else by the end of the year [1]. It's going to be a rougher transition if we have to replace all of it but it's worth it. Same with wheat and oil. Hard times for a while but better than having to bow to Mr Putin. And this is only money, not bombs like in Ukraine. By the way, the countries we'll be buying from are not much nicer than Putin's Russia (some of them maybe even less so) but at least they are smaller and hopefully more manageable. The next one to cut ties with should be China but that's a giant rope to undo. [1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/europe-plans-to-slash-russian-gas-imports-by-66-this-year/ar-AAUMlOM https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/europe-plans-to-slash-r...
- MayeulC 5y agoMaybe not as much as it's made out to be? Only a few european countries rely heavily on russian gas (on the top of my head, germany and italy). It wouldn't be fun, but we can heavily invest in converting heating systems, and turn off some electricity sinks (industrial equipment, etc). Make the grid smarter to turn off equipment when demand is high. Meanwhile, accelerate the deployment of alternative energy sources, storage, and diversify hydrocarbon procurement sources. Basically what should have been done progressively, not that it wasn't called out. Both reducing reliance on Russia and phasing out carbon-intensive energy sources. It's mind-blowing that we made no progress on these, and now it looks like germany is doubling down on it.
- mrits 5y agoYou need a large alignment to have any real effect. Even the things we may need from them we can buy from another country that bought from them. Russia doesn't have the political network to prevent this from happening.
- lambdasquirrel 5y agoThe catch is that a lot of these exports are bulk goods, which are sensitive to transport cost. It's why, for example, Russia exports so much gas to Germany. It's not for nothing that a large swath of the EU became dependent on Russian energy and wheat.
- mrits 5y agoIf this was about Gas to EU it would be a much bigger issue. The article is about what is being sanctioned though.
- KennyBlanken 5y agoRussia and Ukraine generate a quarter of the world's grain, and nearly as much so of corn. Ukraine was pretty much written off for this season, but Russia shutting off grain exports is going to make things worse. However, it's yet another loss of income for them when they've already lost most of their oil/gas export income. My guess is that the grain and corn will go to China. The US pays a lot of farmers to sit on their asses, so there's plenty of capacity; if the federal government acts fast and farmers are smart...
- denis1 5y ago> Russia and Ukraine generate a quarter of the world's grain, and nearly as much so of corn. They generate a quarter of the grain export. That's a very important difference. Russia stopping wheat exports would be a very bad thing, but it's not nearly as catastrophic as some present it to be.
- KennyBlanken 5y ago"A quarter of the grain that other countries need just went poof" is pretty catastrophic for all the poorer countries that need to buy that grain. They're going to be highly receptive to Russia's suggestions politically. Look at the countries that have abstained in the UN votes...
- zdragnar 5y agoSome few Russian products are in high demand. Natural gas, as others have said. Russia is the third biggest supplier of nickel, and iirc the biggest supplier of high grade nickel- a key component in many applications, not the least of which is in lithium batteries. London recently had to suspend nickel trading because the price was astronomically high. There will be no getting off of fossil fuels without nickel, and not anytime remotely soon without Russian nickel.
- philipkglass 5y agoLithium iron phosphate batteries are a type of lithium ion battery that does not require nickel or cobalt. They're already used in many electric vehicles including standard-range Tesla vehicles. They're also a preferred choice for grid scale storage because the modestly lower energy density of LFP chemistry doesn't matter for a battery that sits in one place for years.
- outworlder 5y agoHow are they tying up the cells together? That's usually done with Nickel bars.
- bryanlarsen 5y agoNickel plated copper. Doesn't help much, since copper is one of the few things more expensive than nickel...
- philipkglass 5y agoI'm not aware of a time when copper was more expensive than nickel. It wasn't within the last 25 years: https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/copper https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/copper https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/nickel https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/nickel
- sandworm101 5y agoThere is plenty of nickel in Canada (Sudbury Basin). Raise the price a little and there will be plenty of non-Russian nickel available around the world.
- Ambolia 5y agoThe sanctions may be selective, and what Russia bans may be outside of those sanctions and affect many third countries. Not just from the direct effects, it could also increase prices even if you are able to find a replacement for those exports from a different country. Possible problematic exports: - Wheat exports: 17.6% of the global wheat exports are from Russia, 8% are from Ukraine which may fall under Russia control. [1] - Potash exports (fertilizer): Russia and Belarus and #2 and #3 in global exports of potash. [2] - Gas: Russia supplies roughly 40% of the EU's gas [3] [1] https://www.worldstopexports.com/wheat-exports-country/ https://www.worldstopexports.com/wheat-exports-country/ [2] https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/our-natural-resources/minerals-mining/minerals-metals-facts/potash-facts/20521 https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/our-natural-resources/minerals-minin... [3] https://fortune.com/2022/03/08/eu-russian-gas-supply-wean-block-ban-iea/ https://fortune.com/2022/03/08/eu-russian-gas-supply-wean-bl...
- somenameforme 5y agoDuring the Irish Potato Famine, Irish companies continued to export large quantities of food, which some have argued would have been sufficient to have turned the widespread and deadly famine into little more than an economic hiccup. The headline of this article is untrue, evidenced even by the article itself. The one quote they provide from Russia is, "These measures are a logical response to those imposed against Russia and are aimed at ensuring uninterrupted functioning of key sectors of the economy." And look at the industries where exports are being restricted: telecom, medical, auto, agricultural, electrical + tech. Russia is ensuring they have sufficient domestic supplies such that the impact of the sanctions on people's day to day necessities is minimal.
- tomComb 5y agoI highly doubt that these measures will make it so that "the impact of the sanctions on people's day to day necessities is minimal." For one thing, the stuff that they export will often not be a good match for needs, and it will be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Re-organizing their economy to adapt to the sanctions and achieve something like self sufficiency (with the help of Chinese trade) will be an enormous task.
- mrexroad 5y ago“ Exporting telecom, medical, auto, agricultural, electrical and tech equipment, as well as some forestry products, will be banned until the end of 2022.” I’ve purchased Baltic Birch plywood before that turned out to be manufactured in Russia. I’m not sure if that’s included under forestry product ban, but it would further impact pricing of sheet goods. With that said, if Russia were to ban the export of specific metals (e.g. nickel), that would create chaos for auto manufacturers.
- tinus_hn 5y agoNeither Russia nor the West is stopping trade in everything. This action means Russia is taking the initiative so they can choose what trade is banned. Of course that’d be trade in something the West needs.
- udev 5y agoThe way you posed the question implies that the West and Russia are in a employer-employee type relationship, with Russia being the subservient employee, where the boss can fire, replace, demote, etc, and them have little to no control over such events. I think this is a poor analogy. (For context: I despise this aggressive Russian government.)
- dirtyid 5y agoIMO it's just beginning of RU retaliating on "sanctions" that are closer to blockade in reality - an act of war. When RU characterized the sanctions as economic warfare, I think they will treat it as such. This is initial retaliation in kind to highlight mutual economic vulnerabilities before severe methods like cyber attacks. If west wants to reduce RU economy to a grind, expect RU to escalate (dis)proportionally. At end of day RU will lose billions, west will lose trillions. It's still early days, but my feeling is RU has more leverage than people expect because west simply has magnitude more to lose once warfare expands to other domains.