Tag Archives: sanctions

Jamie Galbraith presented, at the EPS session at the ASSA Meetings in San Antonio, the paper published by INET. As he said there: "Despite the shock and the costs, the sanctions imposed on the Russian economy were in the nature of a gift." A type of invisible hand effect, by which the unintended effect of the policy that should supposedly benefit US allies (Ukraine) has the unintended effect of helping its alleged enemies (Russia).From the abstract:This essay analyzes a few prominent Western...

Monetary Sovereignty, Sanctions and Russian Economic Policy The central role of economic sanctions in the US/EU strategy against Russia has returned international political economy to the center stage if it had ever left it.  Here are some thoughts occasioned by Adam Tooze’s interesting analysis of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) as perceived by the Russian economic policy apparatus, connected to the role of monetary reform in the anti-colonial...

The Biden administration is relying on the promise of harsh economic penalties to avert a Russian invasion of Ukraine. That’s just one of the instances where it’s wielding those tools. When were modern economic sanctions invented? In the aftermath of World War I, is one answer. Yesterday Adam Tooze reviewed a new history of this tool, The Economic Weapon, by Nicholas Mulder. Fighting was ruinous. But here was a multinational instrument, still painful to wield, but better than most of the...

On Saturday, I watched Ken Loach's 2016 film "I, Daniel Blake" for the first time. The following evening, I watched the second episode in the BBC's adaptation of Victor Hugo's 19th century novel "Les Misérables". And here is my unpopular opinion. I think that as a parable of the U.K. today, particularly the difficulties experienced by single parents, "Les Misérables" beats "I, Daniel Blake" hands down. Why? Because Fantine's story is closer to the experience of single mothers today. True,...

US President Donald Trump is not in control of his own administration, as evidenced by the latest round of sanctions imposed against Russia for the alleged involvement in the poisoning of the Skripals in the UK in March. The sanctions came the same day that US Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., announced on a trip to Moscow that he had handed over a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin from Trump calling for better relations between the two countries.… With even further sanctions against Russia...

Let's see now. US is sanctioning Russia, China, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, and threatening the Philippines, Turkey and India for purchasing non-US weapons, as well as threatening secondary sanctions on everyone, with possible exceptions for allies, for purchasing Iranian oil after sanctions become effective. Oh, and did I mention the trade disputes with Canada and Mexico. Exactly who is isolated here? Talk about painting yourself into a corner. And economic warfare is a form...

Analysis of the implications of oil sanctions, including war.Oil PriceHow The World’s Oil Powers Will Seize The Iran Deal Cyril WiddershovenAlso at Oil Price Untangling Russia’s economy from the U.S. dollar dependence is one of Putin’s goals, local outlet Sputnik reports. “We used to behave naïvely, but now we see that the WTO [the World Trade organization] rules are all too often broken, the restrictions are imposed for political reasons, which they call sanctions. Plus more and more of...

US sanctions on Iran are poised to drastically cut the profit margins of Indian oil companies that have already committed huge future imports. Moreover, India cannot afford to turn its back on its engagements with Iran, considering the recent headway made by China in enhancing ties with the oil-rich country, according to analysts. Sputnik InternationalUS Sanctions on Iran Puts India in Catch-22 Situation

Now it has emerged that, on top of the embargo on exports of chips and hardware, even mobile operating systems – developed by US companies and licensed to ZTE for its smartphone business – may also fall into the sphere of the far-reaching ban as the US Commerce Department has prohibited the Shenzhen-based tech firm from transactions involving any commodity, software or technology to be exported from the US, for a period of seven year… Washington’s punitive order to single out ZTE in an...

Long-time pundit of Chinese politics, Bill Bishop, whose newsletter is well-read among Washington China policy circles, wrote on Tuesday: “The ability of the US government to decimate a major Chinese tech firm by cutting off access to US components is another reminder to China, as the Snowden revelations were, that China cannot ensure information security until it completely de-Americanizes its information technology infrastructure and replaces it with indigenous products.” Asia TimesNew...