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Comment by jnorthrop | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure who downvoted you. It is a good question. McDonald's and other consumer goods type companies are not sanctioned, so the company can sell its assets. For that matter they could continue to operate as normal in Russia if they choose.

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I'm not sure they really could easily continue to operate as normal. Their business units in Russia get paid by consumers in rubles, but due to the financial sanctions, they can no longer convert rubles to US dollars [1]. From the point of view of their non-Russian shareholders, this effectively means all that money is inaccessible. This would result in complications in reporting the revenue on their income statement. Plausibly (I am not an expert), this would mean they can't even recognize the revenue at all. At minimum, it becomes an open question whether or not the revenue will ever benefit the corporation or if it will be 'trapped' perpetually.

[1] This is my understanding. If someone knows better, please post. One source that goes into some detail about the current situation is: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/how-war-and-s...

You're right, currently you can't get your revenue outside unless you're down to use a scheme involving exchange for trades inside Russia, move them outside and turn back to money. I've diagonally read the article linked and it depicts everything correctly.

Diagonally?

"To read diagonally" is a Russian idiom meaning "to skim-read".

In Russian "to read diagonally" means "to skim" in English. Like, you don't read left to right, top to bottom, but straight from one corner to the other.

In French as well, FWIW.

French is now in bed with russian? Mont dioaux ;)

In 19th century, almost every Russian either spoke French fluently, was a priest or couldn't read.

Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” is about 2% French (~40 pages), the language of the Russian aristocracy at the time

France and Russia have been frenemies for a couple of centuries now :)

Finally a use for Bitcoin?

Only if there is someone who'd like to sell in rubles.

Not sanctions, but Russian regulation. From your link:

>The Bank of Russia more than doubled the benchmark interest rate to 20%, a 19-year high, on Feb. 28 and also imposed capital controls, including a ban on foreigners’ selling of securities. Nabiullina said decisions to suspend some regulatory requirements amounted to a capital boost for banks equivalent to 900 billion rubles ($8.7 billion). Putin banned all Russian residents from transferring foreign currency abroad, hardening capital controls.

Interest rate is already back to 14%[1]. Russian economy recovered super fast. Ruble is already stronger than before war (around 64 RUB for USD). Basically sanctions are a joke made for Biden to shout once before American public attention shifts to Amber Heard trial or some other spectacle of the day.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/russian-central-ban...

If you read your article you'll learn they are cutting the interest rate back because of sanctions (to mitigate the effects), and inflation is still soaring. 20% is not sustainable, analysts have seen this coming as Russia tries to avoid a recession, in fact the drop by 300 bps was larger than predicted.

>Ruble is already stronger than before war

This is completely irrelevant if you can't sell it for USD.

Where do you get this? You can buy USD officially at most banks. Tinkoff for example sells it for 67, which is once again even lower than before war.

It sounds like Russia might get declared a terrorist state soon. I assume that changes things.

> It sounds like Russia might get declared a terrorist state soon.

Lithuania has apparently already done that.

As it should be.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10797707/Russian-br...

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