Putin starts sanctions against EU/USA

[Zod95]

Captain_Tom said:

LOL Russia's "Sanctions" are preventing his people from getting food?  Oh how we westerners shake in our boots /s

Not quite. Their sanctions are preventing russian consumers from getting food from certain countries in the world. They can get it from anybody else, including Russia itself. Once we live in a capitalist world, where the power is on the capital (in this case, the money), the strongest side is always who has the money rather than the products to be sold and thus this is far worse for those targeted countries (the sellers) than for Russia's population (the buyers). Russians will much easily find another seller than those countries another buyer.

These sanctions are far more intelligent than the USD sanctions applied to Russia, once in the latter the situation is reversed. Russia is the client of USD and if the seller (USA) "increases the prices", the client will just look intensively for other solutions. Of course the USD is still the world's reserve currency so it's kind of a monopoly. But let's not forget it's a fiat currency and therefore the USA has every interest for Russia to use it. USD sanctions put in jeopardy the whole monopoly and could precipitate the end of the USA's financial dominance.