So uh, do you guys think Putin will invade Ukraine or what

Is it too little too late to make a difference?

On the other side Trump is saying EU should by more American oil and gas or be hit with tariffs. The moves maybe unrelated but it’s a hell of a coincidence.

Trump saw a chance to claim influence on something that was going to happen anyway.

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The US was pretty successful in replacing the Russian oil and gas to Europe by US exports. That was only possible though because the US in turn imports huge amounts of oil and gas from Canada. Hopefully Trump makes the connection.

If Canada wasn’t so messed up domestically on oil transport the Canadian oil could have been shipped directly to Europe from our East Coast.

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Russian economy showing some troublesome signs.
Their central bank has indicated it will not increase the interest rate from its current 21%, so thats good…sorta. I guess.

Inflation is tracking at 7% to 9% now. moves around a bit. A tad high, imo

and the $ to ruble is at 110, quite the rise from the 75-80 range it traded at before the special operation.

all told, its going to take a lot of belt tightening by the Russian people. Prices rising and no way to borrow.

What the…?
Are there no other banks who think, “I can lend for less”? Or is the risk not worth it?

well…i can make an introduction for you to Jimmy 2 Sticks and Tony the Torch Bonsimino. they have lending terms you might consider. Banks…umm not so much.

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Are the sanctions even working at all? The Ruble is at a 7 year high vs the USD. Idiot Democrats including the President said in March that sanctions were “crushing the Russian economy” and that “the ruble is reduced to rubble.” Tee hee hee, such delicious rhetoric completely wasted by reality.

Blast from the past by CSPAN.

They are working but Russia can slow down the damage by using its spending power (from oil and gas sales) and re-directing production to military needs.

They can only do this for a short period of time (a few years) before debt levels rise, inflation becomes sticky, and they get massive shortages of components in their economy (originally sourced from the west). Some of this (parts shortages) is already happening.

China and India are also helping them a bit on the resources front, which is also slowing down the sanctions.

Getting NK involved was a calculated act from Putin, as it allows him to stall just a bit longer (in terms of personel losses but also munitions - which NK has a stockpile of)

might want to look that up again.
1 Ruble in 2019 bought 0.015 dollars
1 ruble today buys 0.0088 dollars

get about 1/2 the dollars per ruble, yes?

Thats kinda bad if you are Russian consumer. Toss in the casualty toll from the special operation ( monthly estimated at somewhere around 30,000/mo) and controlling the populace is gonna get difficult, imo.

All while, the Ukranians are using $400 drones to destroy $8mil tanks. its not going well. Russia is somehow losing the war of attrition. That old Stalin tactic of crushing the enemy with bodies only works if the USA sends weapons and ammo. Putin is missing a key element of that strategy.

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Interesting analysis from the bbc

Agreed

Trump will want to claim a victory by pressuring the two sides to reach an accord - any accord. Which means each side will want to strengthen their bargaining position. Standard stuff. I expect more bodies.
Whats that old saying? its gonna get a whole lot worse before it gets better.

I think AA was mocking a post by another poster, showing how the change in the ruble’s worth reversed from the time of the post.

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i missed the quote, I guess.
kinda sorta.

Yeah, I looked at the 5 year graph which is less effort than looking at the 7 year graph. I will say that it is exceedingly dumb how they show it.

They say USD/RUB = 113.6003.

This makes it seem to my brain like 1 ruble is worth $113.60. But actually it is the other way around. $1.00 = 113.6003 rubles.

Other than a big but short-lived spike in March 2022, that is an all-time high. (How many rubles you can get for a dollar.) Good for USA, bad for Russia. Euros, Pounds, and Yen all had similar shapes.

Also the confusion reminds me of the days when the Euro and the Dollar were nearly identical and I was working for an international brokerage firm. Our source for the spot exchange rates “helpfully” decided that they would always quote an exchange rate larger than 1. So if the Euro was worth more than the Dollar they’d give us the divisor, but if the Dollar was worth more than the Euro they’d give us the multiplier… and for added fun they wouldn’t tell us which was which.

And it took several days for anyone to notice, causing a crap ton of stuff to have to be rebooked. I wasn’t personally involved, but it was several folks reporting up to my same boss that I sat next to who were dealing with this. There was a lot of swearing and gnashing of teeth. Because when the spot rate is 1.000347 well that could very easily be either the multiplier or the divisor and there’s no easy way to tell without painstakingly looking it up which defeats the whole purpose of paying someone to provide that info.

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I think experts believe Russia is lying about it’s inflation numbers.

@EimonGnome

Seems to be the general idea of what’s being referenced. I also was confused at first.

Fixed that.

Shocker but Trump is no longer claiming he’ll end the war on Day 1.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/massive-reversal-trump-ripped-for-already-backpedaling-on-key-campaign-promise/ar-BB1rlD2o

A lot of people got sold a bridge. A whole Lot!