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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

That assumes there are buyers.

If the prices are right, there's bound to be buyers. If you can get some of BP's stake in Rosneft for kopeks on the ruble, why not throw some cash at it?

Ah but are there buyers if the country has demonstrated not only instability but hostility to everyday business and property rights?

I get that there very well may always be someone on the other side of a financial stake. But a country signaling they won’t respect property rights is a huge red flag that business will flee.

Meh. If I had to opportunity to purchase a Russian energy company for 0.1% of what it was valued a year ago, sure why not throw $100 at it? Still a large gamble, but plenty of eager buyers willing to throw some disposable income at the chance.

Would you invest into, say, Iranian oil industry, given a chance to do it very cheaply?

I'm afraid that political / systemic risks are too high to invest more than a token amount.

>If the prices are right, there's bound to be buyers. If you can get some of BP's stake in Rosneft for kopeks on the ruble, why not throw some cash at it?

You get ownership in something that might not exist in the future? Your money, your risk. Feel free I guess.

If you're expecting putin to be assassinated and the war to come to an end in a few days. Might make sense... but you're better putting all your investment in lottery ticket, it's lower risk.

Don't get me wrong, I definitely wouldn't do it either, for money and ethical reasons. But lot of what we call investing is really just gambling.

There are a lot of funds that specialize in the opposite of ethical investment: tobacco companies, oil companies, weapons manufacturers, etc. More likely in countries where sanctions are unlikely to be imposed.

Just one example, the UAE abstained on the UNSC resolution condemning Russia (after all, they have their own war-criminal invasion of Yemen going on, it would be hypocritical of them to criticize Russia for what they themselves have done, just with two or three orders of magnitude higher civilian casualties). Investing in carbon-intensive industries is not good for diversifying their exposure to oil, however. China is another obvious example.

You overestimate people. If there are buyers for dozens of shitcoins, not so unreasonable to think there would not be buyers for actual tangible assets.

There will always be buyers. But the price might not be what the government wants to see...

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