Sanctions on Russia

steelfox98 said:They don't have them because a huge chunk of those contracts expired. The nations actually listened to that brilliant recommendation from the Green Party and the European Union back in 2015—don't sign long-term deals, just pivot to spot markets. Or, in plain English, deal with the middlemen.
Because obviously, renewable energy will solve every single problem we face. 🤣
To top it all off, you see Poles buying "German" gas, Swabians buying "Canadian" gas, and everyone else grabbing American gas and oil. Given recent history and how America resells Russian energy, one has to wonder how "American" they really are.
The icing on the cake? Take the Estonians, for instance. They flip petroleum products despite not owning a single refinery.

Russia is exporting smaller volumes, but at drastically higher prices. Old term contracts were around $250; now we're looking at $3,500. It doesn't take a genius to figure out if they're in the black or the red.

In short, Russia is raking it in, the resellers are doing fine, and politicians along with media outlets like Index—who orchestrated this whole mess—are busy patting themselves on the back for their "firm stance." That leaves one small rhetorical question:

Who's going to foot the bill?

Russian gas exports to the European Union have dropped by 70%. There isn't enough port capacity to move those kinds of massive volumes onto LNG ships just to flip them again, so that whole theory of yours just falls apart. That $3,500 figure is just the spot price for some symbolic, tiny amounts; everything else is tied up in contracts that have a zero at the end compared to that spot price.

Sure, there's plenty of Small-time hustling going on, but that has nothing to do with the Russians—that's just Westerners acting like Westerners within the West.

Adam Lee13 said:Russian gas exports to the European Union have dropped by 70%. There isn't enough port capacity to move those kinds of massive volumes onto LNG ships just to flip them again, so that whole theory of yours just falls apart. That $3,500 figure is just the spot price for some symbolic, tiny amounts; everything else is tied up in contracts that have a zero at the end compared to that spot price.

Sure, there's plenty of Small-time hustling going on, but that has nothing to do with the Russians—that's just Westerners acting like Westerners within the West.

Gas exports actually dropped by 80%, not 70%. And I never claimed they were exporting the same volume—everyone keeps saying the quantities are lower, just at drastically higher prices. We can guess the final math, but looking at energy costs, it's clearly a massive amount of money. Besides, if the Russians were hurting for cash, they would be pumping more. This supply cut has been going on for nearly three months now.
It's not like they're calling emergency summits like the European Union is doing right now.

Most importantly: the European Union fired off every sanction they could at the start, and the Russians haven't blinked. The gas situation is less about trolling and more about Robert Habeck's failures.
If there were a real gas embargo, the Russians would still have oil, food, fertilizer, minerals, and metals on the table... all the stuff that's impossible to replace, the essentials for industrial manufacturing. And living without some of those things isn't exactly easy either.

Speaking of the Green Party's obstructionism regarding gas, we should mention another "brilliant" idea that's finally coming home to roost. Six months ago, we slapped sanctions on coal, which kicked in a month ago. Now, it looks like coal availability is becoming an issue too.

It looks like a freeze on visa waivers for Russians is on the horizon. We'll just have to wait and see where this leads...

urbanotter said:I don't want to derail the conversation since we're drifting off-topic, but I have to wonder if this counts as "Russian propaganda" too.

Keep in mind that nearly 50% of TSMC's production is physically located in China.

https://www.racunalo.com/ovo-su-najv...va-na-svijetu/

China settled the Hong Kong issue using the "one country, two systems" model, which is exactly what they intend to apply to Taiwan.

But let's not wish for that, because once that happens, things are going to get incredibly messy.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/bu...-behind-200143

nimbleviper3 said:It looks like a freeze on visa waivers for Russians is on the horizon. We'll just have to wait and see where this leads...

Exactly. The Russian upper and middle class (Peter and Moscow) really need to feel the fallout from this special operation.

August 26, 2022

Quote : US Corporate Profits Jump 25 % as Sanctions hit Muted net
Net income rose even while the economy shrank and inflation kept climbing
These data are latest Sign of Economy ’ regarding how things are holding up under sanctions

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ions-hit-muted

Someone better call Washington and demand more sanctions

Donna Harris11 said:August 26, 2022

Quote : US Corporate Profits Jump 25 % as Sanctions hit Muted net
Net income rose even while the economy shrank and inflation kept climbing
These data are latest Sign of Economy ’ regarding how things are holding up under sanctions

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ions-hit-muted

Someone better call Washington and demand more sanctions

Those numbers come straight from Russia; take them with a grain of salt if you want.☕

Back in 2023, electricity prices in France and Germany hitting that €1,000/MWh mark was basically the same as seeing crude oil trading at $1,600 a barrel.

We’re staring down some massive, brutal decisions now, and honestly, they might just tear the European Union apart. If those energy costs stay where they are, most businesses are toast.

rustywalker82 said:Back in 2023, electricity prices in France and Germany hitting that €1,000/MWh mark was basically the same as seeing crude oil trading at $1,600 a barrel.

We’re staring down some massive, brutal decisions now, and honestly, they might just tear the European Union apart. If those energy costs stay where they are, most businesses are toast.

At that point, we’ll be forced to operate like they do in Pakistan—where every single factory runs its own diesel generators because the grid is too unreliable to count on. In the winter, you’d just lean on cogeneration to scavenge waste heat from those engines to keep buildings warm. That would be the only practical alternative left, because these current energy prices? They aren't grounded in reality.

rustywalker82 said:Back in 2023, electricity prices in France and Germany hitting that €1,000/MWh mark was basically the same as seeing crude oil trading at $1,600 a barrel.

We’re staring down some massive, brutal decisions now, and honestly, they might just tear the European Union apart. If those energy costs stay where they are, most businesses are toast.

I don't see it going down that way; the cap will likely be set at the European Union level. You're already hearing people call for price regulations because the market is totally inefficient—basically just a playground for certain big players on the exchange to rake in massive profits while everyone else suffers.

Nancy Gomez26 said:At that point, we’ll be forced to operate like they do in Pakistan—where every single factory runs its own diesel generators because the grid is too unreliable to count on. In the winter, you’d just lean on cogeneration to scavenge waste heat from those engines to keep buildings warm. That would be the only practical alternative left, because these current energy prices? They aren't grounded in reality.

Look, they spiked out of nowhere, so you can bet they'll crash just as fast.

Europe isn't going to fall apart—that's exactly what Putin is banking on. We might face a rough couple of winters, sure, but once that settles, Russia will find itself completely sidelined from any meaningful European affairs.

Harold Doyle3 said:Sooner or later, we’re going to have to walk away from most fossil fuel energy.
It’s basically just millions of years of stored solar energy that we’re releasing all at once right now, which heats up the planet—not to mention the nasty byproducts of combustion making it even harder for Earth to cool itself down.
The ideal move is tapping into solar power via panels. That way, as a planet, we stay in thermal equilibrium. Whatever low-entropy energy hits the Earth gets emitted back out as high-entropy energy into the rest of the sky, excluding the sun. (Plus, plants store a bit of that energy too.)
If more energy from the sun is hitting the Earth than we actually need, then honestly, just paint your roofs and other accessible surfaces white to reflect it back.
This war in Ukraine is probably going to accelerate our departure from fossil fuels, giving us a fighting chance to avoid boiling ourselves alive through global warming.
If things heat up, you can expect massive populations from countries near the equator and at low altitudes to start migrating toward the poles or higher elevations where temperatures are tolerable and the ground stays dry. (Russia might actually look like a pretty attractive destination for people moving from the south, though they probably won't bother asking permission before showing up.)
We can also expect a surge in technological progress, which usually happens right after a crisis hits.
If we fail to make the jump, then frankly, we’re evolutionary scrap.

Bottom line: if cows don't stop farting, we're screwed.

nimbleviper3 said:Europe isn't going to fall apart—that's exactly what Putin is banking on. We might face a rough couple of winters, sure, but once that settles, Russia will find itself completely sidelined from any meaningful European affairs.

They need to make it clear that playing blackmail only leads to getting screwed over, even in the post-Putin era.
I'm thinking specifically about Germany here.

Noah Martin2 said:Everything feels like Russian propaganda to me when it sounds like I'm reading some low-rent tabloid. People can obsess over my posts all they want; I guess they just find it entertaining.
I didn't even write much, yet you're still attacking me with these made-up arguments.
The link you sent is 👍, which isn't relevant to anything except proving what any grandma already knows.
Maybe you should just flip your position so we can team up like a bunch of amateur day traders—you could play the Bear shouting "sell, sell, sell" at us, while I play the Bull, yelling "buy, buy, buy" against the crowd... actually, I think I'll stick to my guns.

Sent from my M2007J17G using Reddit

I haven't noticed any tabloid gossip, but I have certainly noticed that sugar was around $2.00/lb less than twenty days ago, oil was $3.25/gal two months back, and lactose-free milk dropped from $7.46 yesterday to just $3.25/
. About two months ago, milk jumped from $1.75/gal to $8-$3.00, and bread hit $6.75/loaf.

But hey, maybe that’s just more Russian propaganda or some tabloid nonsense, but that logic doesn't hold up at the checkout counter; you either pay the marked price or you don't buy it at all.
Are only the "little guys" to blame? I don't think so, though they are definitely caught up in this daily struggle.
I'm sure the government will fix everything and bump up Social Security by 6.5%, but I have no idea how the rest of that 40% increase in food prices will be covered—especially since low-income seniors spend their entire available income on groceries, and that's before they even tackle the utility bills. We're all just waiting to see what electricity and heating will cost, especially now that firewood has hit $100 per cubic meter.😉

p.s.
Some retirees will breeze through this, though, because suddenly there's $500 million appearing in their accounts. Good for them, I guess—who cares what flour or chicken costs when the taxpayers are the ones footing the bill for their groceries and utilities anyway?😁

Jerry Clark72 said:Bottom line: if cows don't stop farting, we're screwed.

Dinosaurs were farting way more than that.

feralhawk45 said:Look, I’m no conspiracy theorist. But someone should have forced people to actually think about energy and ecology, rather than just chasing profits off cheap energy from a time when the planet was in a completely different ecological balance. Paris... the City of Light... looks lovely, sure, but the planet is paying the price, and we're staring down a scenario even worse than a nuclear war. People won't start caring about energy (gas, oil, coal) until it starts hitting them right in the wallet.
There are too many shady middlemen making money in the shadows... and they pay taxes on those dirty profits, which eventually flow into alternative energy sources.
The real battle isn't being fought between Russia and Ukraine (the West), it's between the fossil fuel lobby and green tech.
The country (the planet) is heading toward disaster... and I'm not saying that as some green politician.
Where does Russia fit in? They're just a century behind the developed world.

Oh yeah, because having Russia be 100 years behind the rest of the developed world is such a huge win.
Just imagine how things would look on Earth if Russia actually happened to be as advanced as this "developed world" you keep talking about.
Look at what’s happening in Germany right now—they tanked their power production by ditching nuclear, then crippled themselves by relying on gas under the guise of sanctions, and now they're looking at switching back to Coal just so the "developed" world can drive around in electric cars. You call that environmentally friendly????
Is that what we're calling a developed world now?

Jason Roberts2 said:Oh yeah, because having Russia be 100 years behind the rest of the developed world is such a huge win.
Just imagine how things would look on Earth if Russia actually happened to be as advanced as this "developed world" you keep talking about.
Look at what’s happening in Germany right now—they tanked their power production by ditching nuclear, then crippled themselves by relying on gas under the guise of sanctions, and now they're looking at switching back to Coal just so the "developed" world can drive around in electric cars. You call that environmentally friendly????
Is that what we're calling a developed world now?

Get real. Industrial capacity is a whole different ballgame for Russia, and their messy politics is an entirely separate issue.

Christian Torres3 said:Get real. Industrial capacity is a whole different ballgame for Russia, and their messy politics is an entirely separate issue.

Look, I’m just speaking facts here, I'm not interested in rehashing old history or who did what back in the day; I care about where things stand right now and where they're headed tomorrow.
Where is the German industrial powerhouse today?
Most of it has basically fled overseas, especially over to China, and thanks to the pandemic, they finally realized they don't even have control over their own pharmaceutical industry, so much for being some kind of global superpower.

Jason Roberts2 said:Look, I’m just speaking facts here, I'm not interested in rehashing old history or who did what back in the day; I care about where things stand right now and where they're headed tomorrow.
Where is the German industrial powerhouse today?
Most of it has basically fled overseas, especially over to China, and thanks to the pandemic, they finally realized they don't even have control over their own pharmaceutical industry, so much for being some kind of global superpower.

😁
Nice joke.