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Comment by concinds | Hacker News Reader

> that damages the economy, that is what economic sanctions are designed to do

They're designed to cause regime change, or at least diplomatic changes. That has failed in Venezuela's case (and Cuba's, and North Korea's, and Iran's, and so on).

What's funny (actually, it's very sad) is that any sanctions strong enough to truly harm Russia would destroy the stability of the world's financial system by triggering a global liquidity crisis; we would see a repeat of 2008 (likely worse due to some factors having changed since then). Be careful what you wish for, as those who virtue signal naively today, thinking it'll only affect citizens in faraway lands, may themselves face frozen ATMs, credit cards, and bank transfers in a few months, if the worst-case (i.e. their dream scenario) occurs.

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"any sanctions strong enough to truly harm Russia would destroy the stability of the world's financial system by triggering a global liquidity crisis"

You'd need to back this up with some real evidence for it to be convincing.

As it stands right now the freezing of Russian reserves is in effect and international markets are essentially untouched, what are these additional sanctions you are referring to?

I am not an expert in this area but is seems to me that if Russia disappeared from the financial system, with an annual GDP of 1.4 trillion, nobody would really notice after the initial write-downs. It is one tenth of China, and has been chasing away FDI for over a decade - thus reducing its international impact. But I am open to explanations as to why this is a big deal, let me know!

I think the issue here is that sanctions require usually time to really take effect. The government is already installed by the time they come. The dictators and their cronies are shielded and live lo comfortably.

The population is either brainwashed or brutally repressed when it complains (particularly eliminating leaders).

It’s hard to make a case for sanctions as the solution as there are plenty of counter examples: Cuba has been heavily sanctioned for over half a century and little has changed no matter how dire the situation gets.

I wish they worked for sure, because what other resources you have against a nuclear power?

Edit to add: also, sanctions have exceptions (usually to shielding the sanctioning countries from suffering consequences, as in this case with Russia and the energy related transactions, with the effect of keep that money flowing for Russia).

And these tyrants workaround the sanctions in many cases with the help of other nations.

> I think the issue here is that sanctions require usually time to really take effect. The government is already installed by the time they come. The dictators and their cronies are shielded and live lo comfortably.

> The population is either brainwashed or brutally repressed when it complains (particularly eliminating leaders).

> It’s hard to make a case for sanctions as the solution as there are plenty of counter examples: Cuba has been heavily sanctioned for over half a century and little has changed no matter how dire the situation gets.

> I wish they worked for sure, because what other resources you have against a nuclear power?

> Edit to add: also, sanctions have exceptions (usually to shielding the sanctioning countries from suffering consequences, as in this case with Russia and the energy related transactions, with the effect of keep that money flowing for Russia).

> And these tyrants workaround the sanctions in many cases with the help of other nations.

That didn't answer their question at all.

Your reply doesn't seem to address my point directly. The appeal to "time" doesn't really work given that that Moscow stock exchange has been closed since last Friday and seems unlikely to open this week.

Cuba has changed quite a bit in the last half century, I would look into it if I were you, most resorts in the country are Cuba-FDI joint ventures - it is complicated but sanctions where most of the world actually disagrees with you are a lot more difficult than this situation.

In this particular case it seems that the work-arounds are not generally available. The Russian government was not prepared to have their own reserves frozen.

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