archive https://archive.ph/KrVPZ
TLDR:
Having invested untold billions into building factories and other infrastructure in Russia, hundreds of companies were forced to leave while selling off their assets at fire-sale prices. Western politicians predicted that it would help strangle the Russian economy and undermine the Kremlin’s war effort. What actually happened that many were simply sold to local management and business continued as usual. The exits of major Western companies turned into a windfall for domestic business and the state itself.
Western companies that have announced departures have declared more than $103 billion in losses since the start of the war, and the exits were subjected to ever-increasing taxes, generating at least $1.25 billion in the past year for Russia’s war chest.
In all, Putin has overseen one of the biggest transfers of wealth within Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union. Huge swaths of industries elevators, tires, industrial coatings and more are now in the hands of increasingly dominant Russian players.
“You screwed up, left it,” he said. “We picked it up inexpensively. Thank you.”
Mr. Putin scoffs at the notion that leaving will hurt. “Did they think everything would collapse here? Well, nothing of the kind happened,” he said this month. “Russian companies took over and moved on.”
The West’s sanctions on Russia since February 2022 have been one of the greatest self-owns in human history.
I just love how the whole thing was premised on chauvinism where they took it for granted that backwards Russians couldn’t figure out how to operate these businesses without the enlightened west. This is what happens when people start getting high on their own supply.
Straight out of the Nazi Germany playbook. Sometimes I wonder whether the ruling class of the west genuinely thinks of the non-west as untermensch.
Literally the only one who better at this besides Russia was the USA, cannibalizing European industry and exporting natural gas at exorbitant prices.
I’m beginning to wonder if that wasn’t the US’s goal with the sanctions all along? They were less concerned about “stopping Russia” and more concerned about making their European vassals more dependent on them.
This is the proof that you can tax wealth. Usually, you say ‘Tax wealth’ and the corporations go, ‘If you raise taxes, we’ll leave.’ To which, my response has always been, 'Off you fuck, then, and good luck taking the land, workers, and consumers with you. Putin has proved that they can’t. This is why he’s dangerous. There’s probably more in this than the war, although it’s hard to compare them. Workers in the west are absolutely not supposed to understand this, hence the state of Western journalism.
Exactly, if companies leave the market they create a niche that will be filled by somebody else. It’s really that simple. And I completely agree that western media works really hard to make workers think that they need the parasite class while they’re the ones who actually produce things.
South American and African nations are absolutely studying how it’s unfolding. The only caveat I see is that the state in question has to be big enough to have a self-sustaining system if they pull the trigger.
