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A quick breakdown of what SWIFT is and why it matters

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Re: A quick breakdown of what SWIFT is and why it matters

#161

Post by dmingod666 »

stickfigure wrote: post #74
sega_sai wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know that technically they have elections (I'm a Russian living abroad), they just count in a 'special way' so they get the result they want. And yes I agree popular uprisings is a possibility. But in the case of Germany in 1930-1940s that didn't quite work.

That's because Hitler kept winning. He militarized the Rhineland in 1936, the allies did nothing. He took over Austria in 1938, the allies did nothing. He occupied Czechoslovakia later the same year, the allies did nothing. With every win, Hitler's popularity increased at home. He's reported to have been quite surprised when the allies finally declared war after Poland. We have a word for this: https://en.wikipedia.o…

Hitler didn't have nukes and super-sonic missiles -- you cant do to Russia what you would want to do to Hitler.. at least not without a very heavy price..

Re: A quick breakdown of what SWIFT is and why it matters

#163

Post by krzyk »

KrishnaShripad wrote: post #67
daenz wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was watching a mainstream news report (I'll try to find it and edit my comment) where the host and the guest were talking about the impact of economic sanctions. They said it's not intended to stop Russia, but to inflict pain on the citizens, so that they citizens will turn against leadership. In that moment, it really clicked for me how much normal people are pawns to be used in much larger games. And there appare…

> They said it's not intended to stop Russia, but to inflict pain on the citizens, so that they citizens will turn against leadership. Which country has it ever worked out on? Cuba? Venezuela? North Korea? None of them have turned on their dictators. Rather, they are living life in misery. What is worse is they have been not just cut off monetarily from the rest of the World, the dictators have made sure to censor al…

Romania, Libya? Tzar Russia?

Re: A quick breakdown of what SWIFT is and why it matters

#165

Post by chiefalchemist »

mupuff1234 wrote: post #29
chiefalchemist wrote: post #18

IDK. In an interconnected global economy my sanction of you hurts you, but it hurts me as well. For example, the higher price of oil is good for Russia and OPEC, but not the rest of us.So where is the pain? Certainly there are things that Russia has that the West needs. In addition, if Russians are generally used to less - and the West isn't - then again where is the pain? After two years of pandemic are most America…

High price of oil is good for Russia only if they have buyers. And yes, in the short term it will hurt us but in the longer term you are disarming the influence of a bad actor with the added benefit of incentivizing cleaner energy and perhaps more efficient means of transportation.

> are disarming the influence of a bad actor

I have to take issue with this assumption. We've used such tactics against a number of previous bad actors, and yet those actors keep coming. The latest round (in this case against Russia) certainly wasn't a surprise about the sanctions, yes?

So again, back to my OP...Exactly how effective can we expect these sanctions to be if Russia knew they were coming and that threat didn't deter them? Who is actually feeling more pain?

The arc of my point is simple...Putin had a plan and we (and The West) led with our chin. What's our solution? "Print" more money? Let's not be naive, there are economic consequences to that here.

Re: A quick breakdown of what SWIFT is and why it matters

#166

Post by orangepurple »

Aunche wrote: post #127
snovv_crash wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bit what if they didn't, and just changed some numbers in their database?

If anyone suspects that, then everyone will try to withdraw their money from their account and they'd soon get exposed of fraud.

Well, it hasn't happened yet and reality is staring at you in the face

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BOGMBASE

Re: A quick breakdown of what SWIFT is and why it matters

#168

Post by waterheater »

snovv_crash wrote: post #90
mohanmcgeek wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Russian bank could just increase that number to whatever they like. Money is an IOU from the bank. So that's what all banks do. But they'll need assets on the right side of their balance sheet.

Bit what if they didn't, and just changed some numbers in their database?

Then you have fraud, likely leading to an economic crisis.

Consider the 2007-2008 financial crisis. Abstractly, investors believed that homes had significant value until, one day, society realized the value didn't exist in reality but only "on paper." We know that investment bankers were hiding the problem until the proverbial lid blew.

You might consider that our current financial paradigm has never been tried before in human history. For thousands of years, currency was based upon various measures of value which attempted to be as objective as possible. Semi-rare materials (e.g. gold and silver) and difficult-to-replicate coinage were some examples. The US dollar was decoupled from the gold standard under the Nixon administration. The end result is, one dollar now holds value relative to the amount of dollars in existence. To increase the relative amount of precious metals into the world is relatively difficult (actual physical labor is required), but to increase the total amount of dollars in existence is as simple as updating a database entry.

If financial controls work exceedingly well, the current economic system is viable. We know, however, that they don't.

Re: A quick breakdown of what SWIFT is and why it matters

#169

Post by morelisp »

I_am_tiberius wrote: post #162

If you are pro SWIFT exclusion of Russia, please like this tweet (or a similar one). https://twitter.com/IchBin_RO/status/1497274721418760193

What good will liking a tweet do?

If you are pro-SWIFT-exclusion-of-Russia and live in Germany please contact your national representatives and let them know you're willing to bear some hardship so others don't have to.

Re: A quick breakdown of what SWIFT is and why it matters

#170

Post by majormajor »

13415 wrote: post #159
majormajor wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is similar to the "why are banks allowed to print money by issuing loans and I'm not?" confusion that sometimes goes around. Your internal balances are only good so long as the rest of the system trusts you. Magic up some fake balances and good luck getting the rest of the world to continue to take you seriously. "You want us to believe you've actually got that 100 Trillion? Show us?" How would this Russian bank…

I'm sure you're right in principle but have to point out that ten million dollars is peanuts, people have loaned more than that and not given back.

You mean that "real" banks have issued loans of 10M+ and not gotten repayed by people/companies who went bankrupt or such? Certainly!

Banks do their due diligence for a reason, but they don't always get it right. And a certain amount of "bad loans" is expected anyway. Part of the fees and interest they charge is to cover that.

But that's very different than simply printing yourself 10 million dollars. Or even just ten dollars.

It's also different from you starting a bank and saying you loan me 10 million dollars. I now have a statement saying I have 10M in your bank. I try to take that to a "real" bank to cash out. It's not gonna work.

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