| A friend sent me the following information about the effect of sanction on Russia. Not sure if it is true, or just to evoke a chuckle, but certainly worth consideration….
A. Leased Aircrafts
These are interesting side effect of European sanctions on Russia, as per Phil Seymour – President of the association of European Leasing Companies.
All over the word airlines don’t own their own planes, they lease them. The European Union has imposed sanctions on Russia and obliged European leasing companies to take back all leased aircraft from Russia by March 28th. That is a total of 520 aircrafts.
1. The Russians say if you refuse to lease them to us, get them back yourself! How can we get 520 crews to Russia when the airspace in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine is closed? We can’t fly in to take them back. How the hell can the 520 aircrafts can be returned to Europe?
2. Once the handover has taken place in Russian airports, the planes are no longer Russian. But a non-Russian plane is not allowed to fly in Russian airspace – the Russian airspace is blocked! We won’t be able to fly out!
3. The leasing companies are the initiators of the termination of these leases. In the original calculation of the cost of fines in such a case, we will all be bankrupted at once. It’s easier and cheaper to go bankrupt than to take back the planes.
4. February is over and Russia has to pay the lease payments for the month. Russia is willing to pay but cannot pay because it is excluded from SWIFT. We ourselves have to pay fines because of the terminations, but in view of the lack of incoming payments from Russia we have no money for such payments!
5. Even if we take back these planes, what are we going to do with them? We don’t need them, nobody wants them and it’s impossible to sell them!
6. The Boeings of American leasing companies are not affected. If Europe takes the planes away from the Russians, the US will supply Russia with its Boeing planes and become the world’s No. 1 airline, bankrupting both the European leasing company and Airbus.
B. Demise of US$ As The Universal Trading Currency
Vladimir Putin didn’t just invade the Ukraine on 24/02/2022, he officially ended the petrodollar system. How, you ask. Remember, Russians don’t do anything without a plan.
Russia and China have been prepping for this moment for years & are now ready. Russia has stated NATO expansion into Ukraine was a red line.
They knew their invasion of Ukraine would be inevitable and would have strategized that the US/West’s response would be SWIFT $ system exclusions/sanctions.
It is reasonable to expect that Russia’s next step would have been to shut off oil/gas pipelines to Europe, as Russia has built up huge Yuan, gold & commodity reserves.
This will cause massive price and supply disruptions (war level) to the western markets & monetary system.
For years Russia & China have looked for ways to re-monetize gold & exit abuses of SWIFT system as a geo-political tool against them, but how to do it, how to exit, without West declaring it an act of aggression or war against West?
This Ukraine invasion just accomplished that end for them. And the West is doing it themselves.
Now, freed to declare themselves SWIFT system outcasts by the western govt hands, Russia can now say “we will turn oil pipelines back on, but not for dollars.”
Russia then declares that Europe or anyone that wants Russian oil (as 3rd largest global producer) or Russian/Ukrainian wheat (1/4 of worlds production) must pay in gold, or use the ruble-yuan gold backed payment system.
Their leverage as an oil producer (who cuts off supply) will cause almost immediate price shocks to the western world. A good part of the population could immediately be unable to heat their homes.
Almost equal to the oil shock they’d cause is their ability to cause food shortages and price spikes through the disruption of wheat production.
Unmentioned in all this is China. Who has been silent & not condemned Russia. That means silent approval & cooperation.
China will act to soak up Russian production of oil and wheat to soften the blow to their “strategic partner”.
This will again be through the Yuan-Ruble facility and at some point overtly-stated gold backing of that system by Russia and China. – The West will of course declare those last two bullets as acts of global aggression and direct threats to the “world monetary system”.
At this point that there will be a clear fracture of the world’s monetary system into two competing East/West structures, circling back to the initial point that the 50 year global petrodollar system has just officially been ended by Putin.
If the above analysis is indeed correct, then the threat to the petrodollar is no different to the time of Charles De Gaulle or Gaddafi, but on a much larger scale. Americans can’t remove Putin as easy as they did with previous leaders who challenged their petrodollar monetary system.
It seems that they destroyed Gaddafi, and Yemen for nothing, because ultimately, they did it to themselves.
And Some Humor
And here is something that a Malaysian man, married to a Russian wife, shares with us.
Last night before my wife went to sleep, I said to her: “This Russia is such a bad country, If Ukraine wants to join Nato, it is their business and freedom, Russia has no right to intervene, this is just an excuse for Russia to invade Ukarine”
She did not say anything, but quietly went to the kitchen, took out a nasty looking knife and kept it in the middle of our bed. Then she said, “Let’s go to bed”
I looked at her with horror in my eyes “What the heck are you doing, sleeping with such a dangerous knife?!”
“Don’t worry, let’s just go to sleep. Actually, sleeping with a knife is none of your business and it represents my freedom. I can take anything I want to bed with me,” she said quietly.
“How can I sleep when you are sleeping with a knife? There’s this horrible looking knife in the bed between us. What if you accidentally injure me?” I said to her, aghast
And then, she quietly explained to me in a most reasonable voice. “Well, You don’t even trust your own wife, how can you expect Russia to trust Ukraine? Me sleeping with a knife is like Ukraine joining the NATO.”
Point taken. | |
Madhu Sameer 
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