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Ukraine / Russian War


Loki

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13 hours ago, Keith Houchen said:

Correction to my post before yours, two of the proscribed parties seem to be pretty far right so I got that wrong when I said it was left parties, it was mainly left parties. 

Disproportionately? Or are we talking more/smaller left parties and larger/fewer centre/right ones?

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7 minutes ago, Chris B said:

Disproportionately? Or are we talking more/smaller left parties and larger/fewer centre/right ones?

Most were left wing but didn’t hold many seats. The one party who held 44 seats aren’t left wing. 

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13 minutes ago, Merzbow said:

It's not the first time Post-Euromaidan Ukraine has banned leftist parties, in 2015 it banned the Communist Party in Ukraine. I remember seeing Amnesty International up in arms over it at the time.

There’s quite a few on the list. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Banned_political_parties_in_Ukraine

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Just now, King Coconut said:

Yeah, but the 44 seats in parliament thing. That sort of renders it entirely bollocks.

It’s two different tweets. One said how 11 left wing parties were banned (bollocks) another tweet said one of the banned parties held 44 seats (not bollocks)

My initial point was I’m uncomfortable with a government banning a large amount of opposition parties especially when one of them held 10% of parliamentary seats. Hopefully when this is over and martial law is lifted, it’ll return back to how it was. 

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Just had a message from a friend of mine. He has family in the Ukraine and has spent since war broke out trying to get them out and safe. They are now in Poland, and he has met them there. But the process for getting into the UK has been the most difficult paperwork and process he has done, and he is high up in the local council. The family are apparently really, really emotional, understandable considering they have seen their home in rubble actually on TV reports. His neices have been having massive issues sleeping, having nightmares and crying through the night.

I hope they can get here soon and get settled so they can start to feel.some normality at least. 

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Apparently, in an effort to rescue the rouble, Russia has pegged it to the gold standard again:

https://www.riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/modern-day-censorship/opinion-gold-peg-of-the-russian-ruble-and-the-consequences-for-dollar-dominance/

However, an acquaintance has sent me an article to a website that I wouldn't normally bother with (it's fairly crackpot, so I won't link to it), but it goes into a fair bit of detail that I don't know anything about, so if anyone on here with a detailed understanding of currency/Forex could dissect and comment to clarify, that'd be appreciated. I'm fairly sure it's mostly bollocks, but a lot of what these sites do is take a kernel of truth and build around it, so I'd be interested in knowing what the true bit is.

Quote

 

 The Central Bank of Russia has officially announced that, as of March 28, 2022, the Russian Ruble currency is BOUND to Gold.  The rate is 5,000 Rubles per gram of gold bullion.

(NOTE: This story has been corrected to report “TROY” ounces as opposed to dry ounces, and the values recomputed to reflect there are more grams per TROY ounce than in a dry ounce.)

There are 32 grams in each TROY ounce.  32 grams times 5,000 rubles per Gram is 160,000 Rubles.   Ya with me so far?

The conversion rate of Rubles to U.S. Dollars is 100 Rubles, 90 Kopecs, to each US Dollar.

If Rubles are bound to Gold at 5000 Rubles per gram, and there are 32 grams per TROY ounce, meaning one ounce of gold would cost 160,000 Rubles, then converting that to US Dollars means Gold is $1600 per ounce when using Rubles, instead of $1,928 per ounce using Dollars.

Russia just wiped out about thirty percent (30%) of the value of the US Dollar, worldwide, when it comes to Gold Bullion.

Worse, because Russia will only sell its oil and gas in Rubles, and Rubles are now fixed at 5,000 Rubles per gram, anyone wishing to buy Oil or Gas will need to either pay in Rubles or pay in Gold, and they won’t get the US Dollar value for the gold they tender as payment!  

People around the world will be literally THROWING their money at the Ruble and DUMPING Dollars and EUROS to do it.

What Russia just did is the financial equivalent of detonating a nuclear bomb.

 

 

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I'm far from an expert in all that, but I think that's massively overselling it, to say the least. The gold standard does seem to be something of a pet fascination for a certain kind of sovereign citizen-type nutter.

From what I can gather, they're offering a fixed price for gold domestically, while sanctions prevent them from selling gold internationally. That strengthens the Bank of Russia, while insisting that energy payments being in Rubles helps keep the Ruble strong, and fixing it to the value of gold helps it weather the storm of economic sanctions.

It's about trying to stave off worse economic impacts on Russia, little else. Though I'm sure people with far more knowledge in this area can tell me that I've got it all wrong.

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