Decision Made: Russia Being Banned from SWIFT, Central Bank Cut Off

So, as predicted, Joe Brandon cracked and we’re doing the SWIFT sanctions against Russia.

RT:

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) announced on Saturday that it was preparing to comply with orders from Western powers to disconnect Russia from its financial system.

In a statement to Reuters, SWIFT said it was “engaging with European authorities to understand the details of the entities that will be subject to the new measures” and was “preparing to comply upon legal instruction.”

The European Commission, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States issued a statement on Saturday announcing that “selected Russian banks” would be “removed from the SWIFT messaging system” in response to Russia’s offensive in Ukraine.

The Western powers also announced that the Russian Central Bank would be prevented “from deploying its international reserves in ways that undermine the impact” of their sanctions.

Well, I don’t think they can prevent China from having those reserves deployed to them.

I guess they can sanction China too. But this is not something that the US is prepared for. At all. Cutting off Russian energy reserves is insane, and Germans are literally not going to be able to use electricity. US gas prices will probably double.

But if you cut off China – like, 80% of our medicine comes from China, for example. Along with about 80% of everything else.

We’re focusing on how this is going to affect the West, as I think it is clear that it will be more damaging to the West than to Russia. But for Russia, this is a declaration of war. Cutting off all ability to trade cannot be framed as anything other than a declaration of war, and Russia has already put it in those terms.

Russia is going to go into extreme austerity.

But they have energy to keep their own lights on.

Probably, the capitalist/democracy system will no longer be viable. They’re going to have to switch to a different economic and political order to manage the situation. This is going to lead to a kind of amalgamation between Russia and China.

But at least we will have defended our values and who we are.