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U.S. announces Sanctions against Russian Officials......

Heya DF :2wave: .....I was wondering what it will cost us in order to do what we offered to do?


Led by the powerhouse lobbying of the American Petroleum Institute, a coalition of Fortune 500 energy companies are using the Ukraine crisis to spur Congress to approve a key policy goal: Easing regulations on the export of U.S. natural gas.

Despite a decade-long boom in U.S. natural gas production, very little of America's vast gas reserves are exported.. That's because strict regulations on the transfer and storage of gas have made it impossible to profitably ship out of the U.S.

Oil and gas companies have paid Washington lobbyists millions in recent years to challenge the strict export rules -- to no avail, until now."


U.S. Push For Natural Gas Exports To Help Ukraine Won't Actually Help Ukraine

I stated once before that the USA wants to fill the Ukraine pipeline from the Atlantic Coast. The low cost gas from Russia is one thing that prevented that. They expect Russia to put the squeeze on the gas to Europe through the Ukraine. It's very fortunate that it has been a mild winter in Europe and Ukraine and there are some reserves. Push comes to shove in the first week of April when the current gss contract between Russia and Ukraine is renewed. Ukraine is $2 Billion behind on payments for gas that they were getting at well below World prices, thanks to Putin's/Russia's generosity. Methinks they had better have $2 Billion in cash to settle current accounts and expect the price to be at World Market prices and also only 30 day contracts because of their poor payment record. Russia has UE and Ukraine by the short hairs in this matter. The only good thing is that Putin has always been good to Ukrainians and he still might have a soft spot in his heart if the Kiev regime can organize the collective will to pull their heads out of their asses.
 
I stated once before that the USA wants to fill the Ukraine pipeline from the Atlantic Coast. The low cost gas from Russia is one thing that prevented that. They expect Russia to put the squeeze on the gas to Europe through the Ukraine. It's very fortunate that it has been a mild winter in Europe and Ukraine and there are some reserves. Push comes to shove in the first week of April when the current gss contract between Russia and Ukraine is renewed. Ukraine is $2 Billion behind on payments for gas that they were getting at well below World prices, thanks to Putin's/Russia's generosity. Methinks they had better have $2 Billion in cash to settle current accounts and expect the price to be at World Market prices and also only 30 day contracts because of their poor payment record. Russia has UE and Ukraine by the short hairs in this matter. The only good thing is that Putin has always been good to Ukrainians and he still might have a soft spot in his heart if the Kiev regime can organize the collective will to pull their heads out of their asses.


Well DF.....looks like Putin just upped the Ante, didn't he? Now he wants the Ukraine as a Federal State.
 
Just a question - why do a bunch of Russian party officials have assets in the US to be frozen in the first place? Wouldn't they keep those in some banking country like the Caymans or Switzerland? And do US "officials" have assets in Russia that can be likewise frozen?

Seems to me it's a pretty meaningless gesture and a ramp up to legitimate calls for war on the Russian's part. There is no UN resolution, so the US is unilaterally freezing accounts of the leaders of a nation that has done it absolutely no wrong.
 
can russia afford the world econemy tanking as a result of our econemy tanking?

Doesn't have to. Just replace the default with the Yuan instead of the dollar. The world goes on just fine, the Ruble will be worth tons more and the US will suck for air.

This is extrordinarily stupid getting involved in this. No good can come of it.
 
Doesn't have to. Just replace the default with the Yuan instead of the dollar. The world goes on just fine, the Ruble will be worth tons more and the US will suck for air.

This is extrordinarily stupid getting involved in this. No good can come of it.

russia and china would feel the pain if our treasury bonds collapsed.
 
Afternoon Lady P
hat.gif
.....Indeed all the BRIC Nations. Plus lets not forget the Saudi and some others in the ME that want the US dollar removed as the Worlds Reserve Currency.

But.....now we have an UPDATE.....As Putin and Russia has responded in return. Now we have trouble if Putin pushes on.



Russia calls on Ukraine to be a federal state......


Russia's foreign ministry is calling on Ukraine to become a federal state and call fresh elections.

In a statement posted on Monday the ministry urged Ukraine's parliament to call a constitutional assembly which could draft a new constitution to make the country federal, handing more power to its regions.

Moscow insisted that Ukrainian regions should get broader autonomy and that the country should adopt a "neutral political and military status.".....snip~

Russia calls on Ukraine to be a federal state


Btw Note the Pics of the Pro Russian Celebrations.

My feeling? Putin is putting a long range plan into effect - he isn't just reacting to current events! Clever, but probably not good for us. Anything we do now, by trying to do what we want done, may not work to our benefit. Calling for new elections in the Ukraine makes Putin look generous on the world stage, and doesn't cost him anything. We, on the other hand, plan to give lots of money, maybe a billion dollars, - money we don't have, to "buy" the Ukranian peoples' friendship. It will be interesting to see how this latest twist turns out!
 
russia and china would feel the pain if our treasury bonds collapsed.

Well, China maybe, though they'd own a lot of the US, maybe the whole thing. Not sure how you get to Russia feeling the pain.
 
My feeling? Putin is putting a long range plan into effect - he isn't just reacting to current events! Clever, but probably not good for us. Anything we do now, by trying to do what we want done, may not work to our benefit. Calling for new elections in the Ukraine makes Putin look generous on the world stage, and doesn't cost him anything. We, on the other hand, plan to give lots of money, maybe a billion dollars, - money we don't have, to "buy" the Ukranian peoples' friendship. It will be interesting to see how this latest twist turns out!

Well Obama has already stopped Military to Military talks. I am sure we will have to find another route to pull our stuff out of Afghanistan. I wouldn't count on any Search and Rescue coordination with them.

We have put up Warnings to those inside Russia and a Travel Alert. Now Putin may go after Exxon, Coca Cola, and whoever else is over there. Freezing their assets up and who knows what else.
 
The US and EU have gone ahead with the Sanctions.....also the US is accusing the Russians of Rigging the vote. Team Obama says there is some concrete evidence that some ballots for the referendum arrived pre-marked in many cities and "there are massive anomalies in the vote." Yet they could not bring forth any evidence with the Allegation.

Now we have threatened Putin that if doesn't pull out with his troops we will continue with more Sanctions against him. Now will Putin follow thru with what he has told us? Do you think these sanctions that target people close to Putin. Will stop or persuade Putin to change course?

It sounds like a joke to me. Russia invades a soverign country, and the worlds response is to tell a few bureaucrats they cant travel to the US? This is a bad time to have a partisan Senator in charge of executive power, another one at SecState, and a budget bureaucrat in charge of DoD.
 
It sounds like a joke to me. Russia invades a soverign country, and the worlds response is to tell a few bureaucrats they cant travel to the US?

Afternoon J5. :2wave: Well we did cut off our Military to Military talks. Plus Obama is now threatening economic Sanctions against Russia. Yet they still didn't want to Put Putin on the List.
 
My feeling? Putin is putting a long range plan into effect - he isn't just reacting to current events! Clever, but probably not good for us. Anything we do now, by trying to do what we want done, may not work to our benefit. Calling for new elections in the Ukraine makes Putin look generous on the world stage, and doesn't cost him anything. We, on the other hand, plan to give lots of money, maybe a billion dollars, - money we don't have, to "buy" the Ukranian peoples' friendship. It will be interesting to see how this latest twist turns out!

Putin is selling gas at well below World market prices to Ukraine. For this "cheap/subsidized" gas Ukraine is $2 billion behind on payments to Russia. Putin has given from the Russian pocketbook billions of dollars to help Ukraine, no strings attached. Who is the good guy here. The USA is talking loans, the IMF, reduced pensions, increased Energy prices, devalued currency, and loans with tentacles that could cause Ukraine to lose its' patrimony (collective national assets), Who is the good guy? What's complicated about this?
 
:lamo

That's hilarious! Kill off the EU in order to get back at Russia and for what?

Heya CB. :2wave: Well not to mention China is really fence sitting. First they didn't think Sanctions was the Right way to go. But then someone thought we could woo them into it. They Abstained from the vote.


China to Russia: You're putting us in a tight spot.....


But neither has China condemned Russia’s actions; officials here equivocate when they are invited to join the Western chorus of outrage.

“China is uneasy,” says Bonnie Glaser, an Asia specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “They cannot endorse Russia’s actions but they don’t want more tensions with Moscow, so they are not emphasizing their differences.”

It is easy to see why China is so insistent on the principle of non-interference: the government is worried about foreigners meddling in China’s own border provinces, such as Tibet and Xinjiang, where Beijing is unsure of local peoples’ loyalties.

“China’s foremost priorities, the first things they think about when it comes to interference, are Tibet, Xinjiang, and Taiwan,” adds Ms. Glaser. “The idea of a part of China deciding whether it wanted to be separate is seen as very dangerous.”

“China always looks at these situations through the lens of how they could impact their own security down the road,” she says.

That concern trumps the hard-line anti-Western rhetoric that some Chinese newspapers have adopted. Global Times, a nationalist tabloid owned by the ruling Communist Party, argued in an editorial this week that “backing Russia is in China’s interests” and that “we shouldn’t disappoint Russia when it finds itself in a time of need” because Moscow “has been resisting the eastward trend of western forces in Ukraine.”

“China cannot embrace the Russian position but it doesn’t particularly want to side with the West either,” says Glaser. “So they are sitting on the fence.”.....snip~

China to Russia: You're putting us in a tight spot
 
Gold can lose 40% of its value in a day - so can the dollar - actually the dollar can lose even more. A money / medium of exchange called a "fiat" has repeatedly grown to be worth nothing, but Gold never has been worth nothing. Your delusion of the dollar being "all that" is are just that - delusional.

The proposal for the greenback at the UN had variation of 18 to 33% backing by the US dollar and little tiny countries like China and Russia opposed that - the formula is not static, determined and can change at any moment. Of course its likely the currency would be backed by the dollar at first, but it would also likely change over time; regardless the US would no longer be able to just print up currency for energy and goods it consumes.

The best part of the economic collapse that just happened 08/09 is that the world suffered worse then we did. That doesn't mean the dollar is strong it just does not have a current competitor. Both China and Russia would like to change that - what happens of OPEC decides to change that and no longer takes dollars for oil - your life as you know it just got screwed. Mine would be fine - how will you buy bread?


Dollars are just a medium of exchange. It's also the most accepted currency worldwide. The need dollars because most people selling things to them don't want Rubles. They'll accept something like Euro's but if anything has become evident the dollar has by far been the most stable currency in the world. The Euro which was talked about as a replacement to the dollar has shown some weaknesses. Ignorance is some idea that Russia has chosen to use the dollar for a lot of it's trade for anything other than necessity.


Well that's a dead end. Who wants to deal with a volatile commodity like gold as exchange. It can lose 40% of it's value in the matter of weeks. That's great for someone exporting.


That's a dead end. What exactly would that currency be backed by? The full faith and credit of the United Nations? Bwahaha!


If anything the recent economic collapse has proven that the dollar isn't going anywhere anytime soon...
 
There have been several. Of course our history as a world is only a few hundred years old in terms of global economies. The british pound was the last one before the dollar, and several other currencies still compete for reserve status today including the franc, yuan, yen, and euro.

But please - keep your head in the sand and enjoy the results. I'm sure FEMA will save you.


What world reserve currencies have existed except the dollar! Gold was a commodity used as a currency. Any currency was supposedly based on the gold backing it or further back the actual amount of gold found physically in the currency.

The US dollar is the only major reserve currency to ever exist until the Euro came on the stage.
 
UPDATE: NATO has responded.....as the Ukraine is formally asking for technical assistance.


NATO pledges close cooperation with Ukraine.....


NATO has vowed to intensify cooperation with Ukraine after residents in the Crimea peninsula voted overwhelmingly to secede and try to join Russia.

Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsya visited NATO headquarters Monday with a request list for technical equipment that Ukraine's government needs to deal with the secession of Crimea and the Russian incursion there. It was not immediately clear what equipment Ukraine was asking for.

NATO said in a statement the alliance was determined to boost cooperation, including the "increased ties with Ukraine's political and military leadership, strengthening.....snip-~

Yahoo!
 
President Barack Obama on Monday froze the U.S. assets of seven Russian officials, including top advisers to President Vladimir Putin, for their support of Crimea's vote to secede from Ukraine in the most comprehensive sanctions against Russia since the end of the Cold War.

The Treasury Department also is imposing sanctions on four Ukrainians — including former President Viktor Yanukovych, a former top Ukrainian presidential adviser and two Crimea-based separatist leaders — under existing authority under a previous Obama order. Senior administration officials also said they are working to identify what they called "Russian government cronies" to target the assets of those supporting the Crimea unrest, including individuals working in the arms industry.

Obama was to make a statement Monday from the White House.

The administration officials said Putin wasn't sanctioned despite his support of the Crimean referendum because the U.S. doesn't usually begin with heads of state. But the officials, speaking to reporters on a conference call on the condition they not be quoted by name, say those sanctioned are very close to Putin and that the sanctions are "designed to hit close to home."

The U.S. announcement came shortly after the European Union announced travel bans and asset freezes on 21 people they have linked to the unrest in Crimea. Obama administration officials say there is some overlap between the U.S. and European list, which wasn't immediately made public.

"Today's actions also serve as notice to Russia that unless it abides by its international obligations and returns its military forces to their original bases and respects Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, the United States is prepared to take additional steps to impose further political and economic costs," the statement said.....snip~

U.S. announces sanctions against Russian officials
Associated Press – 27 mins ago <<<<< March 17 2014.

The US and EU have gone ahead with the Sanctions.....also the US is accusing the Russians of Rigging the vote. Team Obama says there is some concrete evidence that some ballots for the referendum arrived pre-marked in many cities and "there are massive anomalies in the vote." Yet they could not bring forth any evidence with the Allegation.

Now we have threatened Putin that if doesn't pull out with his troops we will continue with more Sanctions against him. Now will Putin follow thru with what he has told us? Do you think these sanctions that target people close to Putin. Will stop or persuade Putin to change course?



Ohhhhh I'm sure Putin is SO SCARED he's shaking in his little space boots.

What an absolute joke.
 
This can't be all of the sanctions right? I mean there's more to come....... right?
 
Well Obama has already stopped Military to Military talks. I am sure we will have to find another route to pull our stuff out of Afghanistan. I wouldn't count on any Search and Rescue coordination with them.

We have put up Warnings to those inside Russia and a Travel Alert. Now Putin may go after Exxon, Coca Cola, and whoever else is over there. Freezing their assets up and who knows what else.

Putin's planning to "Hit us in the pocketbook?" Businesses are not going to like this, and will doubtless be letting BHO and company know it! How could we counter this move? Interesting that I find myself playing chess here... You're a chess player, MMC - what would you do?:
 


There is no advantage for China to side with Russia on this issue and the Chinese know it.

Why would China jeopardize its North American and European markets for Russia? China knows Russia is weak militarily, economically and demographically and have already moved into Eastern Russia while the Kremlin can do little about it. Whatever China might say publicly is in contradiction to their moves on the Russian borders.

http://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russia/olesya-gerasimenko/life-on-chinese-border-russias-far-east
 
if europe can agree in principle to endure the pain for the common good, then russia will feel the economic pain of being unable to sell its gas.

First, the EU is as stuck as we would be if SA or even Canada decided to turn off their pipe to us. It's just not going to happen. It'd throw them into an economic tailspin. Not to mention the Ukraine would die economically as well. The price of oil worldwide would skyrocket affecting every nation.
 
This can't be all of the sanctions right? I mean there's more to come....... right?

Heya Ockham. :2wave: Yep, Obama was on TV saying so. Plus the Treasury only put the Former Pres and another Ukrainian. Then the two Crimeans on that list.

None against any that brought the coup down on Yanokovich tho. Which by the way the French are saying the Vote goes back to MAY. Which validates Yanokovich.
 
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