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Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

businessinsider.com

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Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#411

Post by AwaAwa »

OrvalWintermute wrote: post #289
laurent92 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t the ITO (International Trade Organization) regulate international contacts with allowed and non allowed sanctions? I think Western states are currently tied to it, they can’t just impose “whatever” sanctions, and if we don’t, it would be legal for Russia to impose sanctions upon us. Currently Russia has no right to sanction us, so anything they do is a further breach of ITO, which further deepens their case.…

I'm concerned about the use of sanctions, and the individual targeting of wealthy individuals as being anathema to the Rule of Law, property rights, and free exchange. The dollar is inflating at the same time the reserve currency status is threatened, and we Americans, via our allies, are appropriating the stuff of foreigners, seizing boats, currency, gold, and property. I think >400B has been seized at this point. H…

Civil forfeiture on an international scale.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#412

Post by yakubin »

petre wrote: post #354
lobochrome wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. And since the RuskiEuro will be backed by a massive amount of commodity it'll be fairly hard currency. Zoltan Poszar has been clear on this[0]. My gut feeling is, that the EU, without any commodities, has a single choice: kick the Russian gas habit immediately, and force Russia to kill their western gas fields. Then pray they collapse in the next few years. If the EU keeps paying - Russia's new Gazprom centr…

President Trump was right about the gas terminal, North Stream 2 and ≥2% GDP for NATO militaries. Of course it was coming from his advisors. But no, the EU leadership decided to live in fantasy land. Only Eastern European states, Poland and the Baltics understood.

Pedantic nit: Poland and Baltic states are a part of Eastern Europe.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#413

Post by ithkuil »

throwaway290 wrote: post #382
ithkuil wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this! Yeah, this argument about the NATO threat is repeated ad nauseam because it superficially sounds like a reasonable justification: "they just had to defend themselves". But even if that was true, Otto von Bismarck said it well: "Preventive war is like committing suicide out of fear of death". Imagine an alternate universe where Ukraine joins EU and NATO and now russia faces a NATO "wall" on the west. In this alt…

> Imagine an alternate universe where Ukraine joins EU and NATO and now russia faces a NATO "wall" on the west. if nato were at russian border then russia would in some ways be china's ukraine. possibly something they preferred to avoid

But NATO is already at russian border. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are NATO members since 2004.

Also, if russia annexes Ukraine (because, remember "Ukraine doesn't exist, they all just russians") then suddenly the number of NATO members that would share the border with Russia will include Poland and Hungary (members since 1999), Slovakia and Romania (members since 2004).

I don't think it works like that; it's not Risk.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#414

Post by someguydave »

riedel wrote: post #394
someguydave wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

heating with electric powered heat pumps would be way more efficient

Actually you do not need nuclear for this. The problem is not nuclear here but to that Germany messed up setting up a fiscal mechanism trying to boost renewables (by introducing the so called EEG Umlage). The problem is that electricity (even green) was more expensive than it needs to be (particularly compared to gas) and the incentives were fading to invest into renewables. Nuclear power is no option in German simpl…

Apparently Germans have no problem with huge quantities of unconfined waste from coal, but tiny quantities of confined waste from nuclear fission(which can be recycled) is the concern? This is not rational.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#415

Post by belorn »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #398
belorn wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Russian budget receives the money in taxes paid by exporters That is incorrect. The oil and gas companies is owned by a few oligarchies with direct ties to Putin and the Russian government. Based on what secret service and other agencies has leaked, there isn't a major difference between what is the Russian government, what is controlled by Putin, and what is owned by the owners of the oligarchies. To a degree they…

>> Russian budget receives the money in taxes paid by exporters >That is incorrect. The oil and gas companies is owned by a few oligarchies with direct ties to Putin and the Russian government… …To a degree they operate just like a banana republic in this aspect. This is just generic description of corruption, but you forgot to explain where I was wrong. Take, for example, Novatek - if you think its profits are fundi…

If you remember the Panama Papers we had multiple major Nordic banks being involved in money laundering with sanctioned Russian oligarchs. The result was multiple CEO's being forced resign, cash flows worth many hundred billions, several employees arrested, some employees that fled their own country to avoid prosecution. After this leak we have multiple bank leaks with similar stories fraud, tax evasion, and evading of international sanctions.

We can put some wishful thinking that Novatek is the exception here and has no shell companies, no tax schemes, no avoidance of sanctions, no unaccounted money flow hopping around between banks in order to avoid insight. How likely is it, and how much more likely is it that with the right access to bank records or secret service files, some investigative journalist will have a field day describing just how much money ended up in the hands of the Russian government?

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#416

Post by pphysch »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #380
pphysch wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sadly Russia ruined that impression, it required no work on the part of the United States to do so. The State Department would strongly disagree with you. Victoria Nuland recently gloated that they have spent over $5,000,000,000 supporting anti-Russian movements in Ukraine in the post-Soviet era.

And, impressively, all that money didn't work to stop the project until Russia started the Ukraine offensive in February.

Not even close.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#417

Post by neilwilson »

yywwbbn wrote: post #405
neilwilson wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It’s gonna be most painful for the oligarchs and people in their environment who are used to consuming massive amounts of foreign goods." If 'tax the rich' works and reduces the power of the rich, then hasn't the West just taxed the rich of Russia and reduced their power to remove Putin? Democrats can't have it both ways. They propose a billionaire tax in the USA to reduce the power of the rich to interfere with peo…

Well supposedly over 200,000 left since the start of the war. If true, while it might not seems like a lot in relative terms, this is still a pretty huge deal. These people are likely generally more productive and educated than an average Russian and if this trends continues it does not bode well for the Russian economy. Of course politically this might benefit Putin since those people are very likely opposed to his…

"Also most people would probably prefer to store their savings in USD/CHF/EUR rather than Ruble"

Only globalist anywhere people. Ordinary Russians keep their savings in Roubles for the same reason I keep mine in GBP - because that's where we live and where we intend to continue to live, with everything around us priced in that currency.

I don't even care what the current GBP/USD exchange rate is. Why should I? Same with Russians with Roubles.

"Main categories of goods imported by Russia in 2021 were: ‘Machinery & Equipment’ and ‘Medicine’ and it’s not like Russia can just stop importing these of they want to keep their pump jacks and hospital running."

This idea that Russia is a backwater that can't make its own stuff is very peculiar.

We've just removed the cheaper competition. Russian producers can now expand, massify and gain economies of scale.

Hence they've confiscated a load of planes which they intend to make parts for themselves. Since IP rights have been suspended in Russia for foreign goods, they can make whatever they can physically make with nobody skimming off the top.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#418

Post by petre »

yakubin wrote: post #412
petre wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

President Trump was right about the gas terminal, North Stream 2 and ≥2% GDP for NATO militaries. Of course it was coming from his advisors. But no, the EU leadership decided to live in fantasy land. Only Eastern European states, Poland and the Baltics understood.

Pedantic nit: Poland and Baltic states are a part of Eastern Europe.

Poland is in Central Europe. UTC+2 is EE, so the Baltics. I was talking about SE Europe, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#419

Post by rs999gti »

panick21_ wrote: post #355
type0 wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can thank huge Russia funded "green" movement for that

German were incredibly anti-nuclear long before. Blaming this on Russia is nonsense.

DE doesn't want anything nuclear - they just vetoed to keep their existing nuclear plants online, even with their huge dependence on Russian gas -

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/german-ministries-say-c...

DE wants to instead setup other renewables, such as wind, at Tesla speed.

Comparing DE government bureaucracy to Musk's Tesla is ludicrous.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#420

Post by blub »

someguydave wrote: post #383
blub wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gas is used firstly for heating, then in the chemical industry in Germany.

heating with electric powered heat pumps would be way more efficient

France uses a lot of electricity for heating and it’s not going great it would seem, since a lot of their nuclear power-plants are down for maintenance.
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