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Comment by chiefalchemist | Hacker News Reader

IDK. In an interconnected global economy my sanction of you hurts you, but it hurts me as well. For example, the higher price of oil is good for Russia and OPEC, but not the rest of us.So where is the pain?

Certainly there are things that Russia has that the West needs. In addition, if Russians are generally used to less - and the West isn't - then again where is the pain? After two years of pandemic are most Americans up for this? Most importantly, how can this not influence the 2024 election?

Finally, I listened to (most of) Biden's speech yesterday and I was stunned by the irony. Per invasion Putin was effectively saying "Russia can't trust The West. They're out to get us" and Biden follows that with "Lookout Vlad...we're gonna put a hurting on Russia." Doesn't this validate Putin's narrative?

I understand...it's complicated. But it's also 2022, not 1952.

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High price of oil is good for Russia only if they have buyers.

And yes, in the short term it will hurt us but in the longer term you are disarming the influence of a bad actor with the added benefit of incentivizing cleaner energy and perhaps more efficient means of transportation.

Countries will almost definitely buy oil from them.

We had Turkey a NATO member buy cheap fuel from ISIS in the past.

They are absolutely not going to have issues selling oil . Note that the US didn't even sanction their oil because a) they need it on the market b) they know they are going to sell it anyway

'Disarming the influence of a bad actor'

Russia is going nowhere. They are not NK. Consequences are never one sided, in a conflict, the other side gets a vote too.

> are disarming the influence of a bad actor

I have to take issue with this assumption. We've used such tactics against a number of previous bad actors, and yet those actors keep coming. The latest round (in this case against Russia) certainly wasn't a surprise about the sanctions, yes?

So again, back to my OP...Exactly how effective can we expect these sanctions to be if Russia knew they were coming and that threat didn't deter them? Who is actually feeling more pain?

The arc of my point is simple...Putin had a plan and we (and The West) led with our chin. What's our solution? "Print" more money? Let's not be naive, there are economic consequences to that here.

Seems like China is fine with taking the oil. And China knows the world won't seriously sanction it...

Yes, but then China can easily squeeze them on the price (being the single big buyer)

True. But it's relative. Even if Russia get 75% of the market price, that's still a solid buck. And since they can control the chaos, they can manipulate price.

So if everyone loses, not just Russia, and relatively The West has more to lose, where is the pain for Russia?

> Per [sic, "pre-"?] invasion Putin was effectively saying "Russia can't trust The West. They're out to get us" ... Biden follows that with "Lookout Vlad...we're gonna put a hurting on Russia."

Between those two (in-effect) statements, first from Putin, second from Biden, was Russia's/Putin's invasion of Ukraine. No irony there, just cause and effect.

You've missed it, just like Biden did. If you leave the US media bubble, you find that the US gov ( not the people per se) have a reputation. So now Putin - and others - can say "See. Told ya so." Because he promised anti-Russia and we delivered it.

To be honest high oil prices would be a godsend.

for who? Is this some kind of environmental argument. If so I think that is very short sighted. Renewables aren't going to magically overcome all of their headwinds because oil get's more expesnive.

All we are going to get is huge inflation and maybe a very marginal increase to the renewables time frame while we get a huge and costly headache in the short term.

I suspect the person suggesting it probably has a large income and only spends a tiny percentage of their income on fuel and food unlike a large portion of the world.

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