Natasha Wright
The Collective West on their steep downward civilization trend are doing their best to get their nanny state-addicted, complacent populations slowly used to the new age of a dysfunctional society.
EU (and the USA) have repeatedly tried bulldozing anti-Russia sanctions in the past year but all the attempts at reducing the Russian ruble to rubble have made a Baerbockean 360 degrees twist and turn with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping not even raising an eyebrow.
Those who run the EU either overtly or behind the diplomatic curtains seem to have had one more indecent intention to score yet another more or less meaningless, financially political point, just like all the others they have made to date, in that they will adopt their tenth jubilee set of anti-Russian sanctions. And alas, there lies their ill-fated symbolism which regrettably far too often likens the antics of Mr Bean. The EU and the NATO jackals alike tend to prefer the voodoo symbolism of dates, numbers etc: These were supposed to be voted on and passed on the 24th of February on the one-year anniversary of the beginning of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine. With this utterly empty gesture they wanted to show how much they cared about their 'mutual fight' 'for the greater good' (please, excuse my sarcasm) against Russia. But sadly their decision came one day only too late because they did not manage to agree on all the clauses and exemptions that tenth package was supposed to contain. Even more importantly, they found it hard to agree on what was supposed to be exempt from the sanctions so as to avoid the damage done being far more detrimental than the worth of it all at the end of their bureaucratic Brussels' day for those EU member states strong and powerful enough to relentlessly and shamelessly lobby for 'their cause', such as Belgium for instance in the case of its Russian diamonds.
Though there appear to be somewhat less cynical needs such as those by Hungary and France for Russian nuclear fuel. Conveniently enough, the Brussels bureaucrats resolved the issue by exempting these from the tenth sanctions package. Yet, what is way more relevant than their convenient proclivity to impose sanctions galore, even in the media blackout performed by the Collective West United, there emerges an existential dilemma. Namely, what financial and political grief were they hoping will that said tenth sanctions package give Russia if the previous nine packages have gone completely belly up? And why would any brand new glossed over package be in any way more glorious if it had failed to bring about any new possibly negative trend compared to the nine packages before? Something completely different was supposed to happen in the Brussels algebra lesson. The Collective West in their fit of gambling madness have placed their bets on a completely different outcome. And they have failed miserably.
Lest we forget, the Russian economy has most probably been subjected to the highest number of sanctions ever in the past year. The White House boastfully promised a 15% decrease in the Russian economy which they announced, without fear of contradiction, would obliterate the previous fifteen years of Russian economic growth. The U.S. President, Joe Biden announced that the Russian ruble would be reduced to rubble (note to SCF readers: it must have taken him quite a while to come up with this play on words, given his demented self. Kudos to his presidential speech writing team, more like it). By the same token, Bruno Le Maire, a French politician was not less picturesque in his choice of words, given that he had studied French literature back in the day and surely not finances nor economy, in that he pompously proclaimed that a financial nuke was deployed against Russia, when Russia was banned from the SWIFT global payment system.
However, the French Le Monde now writes that Russia mercifully did not suffer an economic collapse the way it was forecasted a year ago by the very same (incompetent) Bruno Le Maire. It indicates that by the end of January 2023, everybody was taken in by a dishearteningly unpleasant surprise with an IMF diagnosis for the Collective West as much as it was utterly undaunting for Vladimir Putin. In a nutshell, instead of said 15% economic decline, only 2.2 % fall was noted in the past year, with the forecasted growth of 0.3 % in this and 2.1 % in the following year, which is, Le Monde warns with an exclamation mark, more than 1.6 % growth expected in the Eurozone. 'There is no financial coup de grâce against Russia by the Western sanctions' - Associated Press admits in their analytical attempt to draw our attention to the fact that the Russian ruble compared to the U.S. dollar, has levelled off in the same way as it was during the weeks immediately before the war.
Moreover, the former U.S. Secretary of Treasury, Lawrence Summers puts in his two-pence worth that the economic sanctions against Russia have done little damage if any in the long run, referring to another paradox in the IMF forecasts that this year Russian economy will fare better than their German and U.S. counterparts. Deutsche Welle made somewhat of a passing comment in their analyses of failures by the Collective West and also about the Russian successes that they could not help but notice that the Russian economy remains standing and despite all the challenges, it is now in a considerably better shape than expected. Even now it is quite clear that the collapse which was forecasted with proverbial admonishing fingers by many 'aspiring experts' has not come to be. The British Sky TV in a deluge of belated afterthoughts, as if they came to their senses only now, in that they seem to be realising that the peacocking posturing and flamboyant threats by the then British prime minister Boris Johnson did not come to be (yes, yes, we are all painfully aware what Bo Jo and his buffoonish theatrics are like). Blundering Boris said that 1. the Russian economy would be squeezed from the global economy; that 2. the sanctions will hobble the Russian economy' 3. that the sanctions will be tightening the economic ligature around Russia (note to SCF readers: Good grief! there is no end to this hellish cauldron of verbose nonsense by Bo Jo). They are now stating that the Western economists appear to be aghast by the fact that Russia has not suffered any major consequences in that Russia has mercifully managed to push through the first year of 'severe' sanctions.
Joseph Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief, appears to be mumbling again that the anti-Russian "sanctions are a slow-acting poison, like arsenic. It takes time to work, but they do, and they do it in an irreversible way." (note to SCF readers : this awkwardly deviant idiom is so inappropriate but one cannot expect more profound pearls of wisdom from the likes of Borrell (errr, I can only assume that Boring Borrell from Brussels must have read Agatha Christie only too often in his inadequate boyhood.) His gauche statements lack professionalism and diplomacy, which surely communicate his ignorance and blatant lack of expertise, given the aforesaid forecasts by IMF that the worst days for Russia are behind her. Russia has during the decades of severe sanctions brought back her sovereignty, superb military might and economic power. Another apparently high-profile minister, the Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gabrielius Landsbergis mistakenly believes that Russia is only left with the sad chance to find comfort in tastelessly inedible McPutin burgers (note to the SCF readers: this is his pathetically immature reference to the fact that McDonalds left the Russian market earlier due to the sanctions to which most Russians respond with a resounding Russian translation equivalent for 'Good riddance!').
Moreover, the portal Politico reports on all these counts that, bearing all this in mind, a year later and ten 'circles of hell' afterwards, the European governments seem to be re-examining the sorrowful state of the matters, whether all the sanctions had been worth introducing in the first place. Posing this question was of course justifiable because with all the sanctions imposed so far, Russia has, as Laurence Summers did point out they were not joined by those countries with the substantial share in the world GDP such as China, India and Turkey. Bloomberg above all now reports that the remaining flicker of hope cherished by the Collective West is now futile that Russia would be pressurized to sell at the price demanded by the members of the G7. However, it has turned out that Russia is selling its oil at the price 25% higher than the 'EU approved' price and that surprising discovery will, Bloomberg reports, alarm those overly confident governments that said measures have arguably achieved a great success whatsoever.
One should pose a question whether the Russian sanctions are practical at all; Let me illustrate, with such a pseudo-democratic EU regime so far, German export has suffered a two times bigger decrease than expected. Let me illustrate further, the Netherlands industry production has lessened by one fourth. The chemical giant BASF is laying off its 2.600 jobs in the most recent redundancies with the further announcements that they will be moving their production plants elsewhere in the locations where it is more profitable to shelter them in the foreseeable future i.e. in Asia and North America. And to make financial matters much worse, Germany, Sweden and Finland are entering the severe recession stages.
How come Europe has managed to be so blinded and not envisage the adverse effects their vacuous anti-Russia sanctions will cause to themselves boggles the mind. Why are they continuing this farcical performance?
The only rational explanation might be that the Collective West on their steep downward civilization trend are doing their best to get their nanny state-addicted, complacent populations slowly used to the new age of a dysfunctional society.