Posts by rowdybadger22

hollowdriver13 said:It’s not quite as black and white as the headlines make it out to be. There are some pretty wild legal loopholes that could potentially allow them to seize that cash—though personally, I doubt they'll pull the trigger on it, mostly because messing with those assets would start raising some serious questions about how safe capital actually is in the West.

For instance, over in the US, foreign sovereign immunity laws actually leave the door open to seizing assets from entities that have violated international law (like crossing Ukraine's borders). Plus, there's the anti-terrorism legislation that allows for asset seizure if a country gets flagged as a state sponsor of terrorism.

In Europe, though, it all really depends on which specific country holds the assets and whether those local courts lean toward absolute or restrictive immunity when dealing with foreign states.

As it stands, Russian reserves can only truly be seized and redistributed—say, to Ukraine—if a formal state of war is declared against Russia.

What they actually had the opportunity to do at the onset of the conflict was simply refuse to pay for Russian oil and gas directly; instead, they could have diverted those payments into escrow accounts, holding them in limbo until Russia ceases its violations of international law and stops the illegal invasion of Ukraine. But, alas, that path wasn't taken.

The Economist on Russia:

Last year, their GDP shrank by a mere 2.2%, which honestly caught a lot of those economists off guard—especially after all that spring forecasting suggested we might see a massive 10% drop. It’s certainly not a comfortable situation, I suppose, but it’s nowhere near sufficient to actually derail Vladimir Putin’s military operations. Even though wages aren't what they used to be, unemployment hasn't really spiked. We aren't seeing a housing market crash either, just a plateau in prices. While consumer spending is acting as a bit of a drag on the overall economy, it isn't doing catastrophic damage. In fact, the IMF is actually predicting a 0.3% growth for Russia in 2023, which would technically outpace the United States and Germany and sit just a hair behind the Eurozone's performance.

So, looking at it this way, we saw only a 2.2% dip last year, and now it looks like their economy might actually show some growth in 2023.