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A comment on Russia, Belarus squarely in 'default territory' on billions in debt -World Bank. Parent comment

Re:Russia, Belarus squarely in 'default territory' on billio... by vba616 on Thursday March 10, 2022 @11:21PM (#30636138)
Possession is 9/10ths of the law.

Is it any more unfair that Russia can't access those reserves than that foreigners can't access their Russian assets?

As long as things are frozen, they are in the hands of whoever has physical custody. If things remain as they are then the whole world has given their Russian financial assets back to Russia for free, haven't they?

Russia is huge, they should have lots of things within their borders. Plus, those borders are expanding!

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Re:Russia, Belarus squarely in 'default territory' on billio... by chii on Friday March 11, 2022 @01:03AM (#30636818)
Freezing is slightly different to usurping.

Freezing is where your assets are still yours in name, but is unable to spend it. There may be conditions where it is unfrozen.

Usurping is when they no longer belong to you, and there's no recourse. I would be wary of normalising usurping assets by western Govts, rather than merely just freezing.

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Re:Russia, Belarus squarely in 'default territory' on billio... by trasz on Friday March 11, 2022 @06:40AM (#30638690)
Why? It would create a very useful precedent.
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Re:Russia, Belarus squarely in 'default territory' on billio... by adrianmsmith on Friday March 11, 2022 @09:09AM (#30640076)
The precedent would be that it’s ok for the government to usurp your assets if they choose to. I don’t think that’s a good precedent.
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Re:Russia, Belarus squarely in 'default territory' on billio... by trasz on Friday March 11, 2022 @10:07AM (#30640789)
In response to a war or genocide. It’s a good precedent; it’s not that different from the usual economic sanctions.
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Re:Russia, Belarus squarely in 'default territory' on billio... by chii on Friday March 11, 2022 @11:16AM (#30641713)
i would be against usurpment - freezing is the most that should be allowed. Otherwise, it's too easy to justify theft, and next time it might not be some despotic dictator, but citizens.
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Re:Russia, Belarus squarely in 'default territory' on billio... by trasz on Friday March 11, 2022 @04:38PM (#30646340)
So? It’s citizens’ responsibility to get rid of dictators. It’s also their shared responsibility for what their country is doing.
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Re:Russia, Belarus squarely in 'default territory' on billio... by chii on Friday March 11, 2022 @09:33PM (#30648462)
A weapon should not be judged on what the most good it could do, but on what the most evil it could accomplish.
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Re:Russia, Belarus squarely in 'default territory' on billio... by antifa on Friday March 11, 2022 @09:16AM (#30640152)
It might look good on paper to do this to Russia, but I think it's the first domino on a path to widespread international kleptocracy.
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Re:Russia, Belarus squarely in 'default territory' on billio... by vba616 on Friday March 11, 2022 @08:48PM (#30648237)
I want to savor a comment by "antifa" warning that we are on a slippery slope to the breakdown of property rights worldwide.

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You know what ELSE could be the first domino on a path to widespread international kleptocracy? Stealing whole countries with impunity.

Well not the first domino. One of the middle dominoes.

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