The Effects of Sanctions

Darrell Castle talks about sanctions and their effects on Russia, Europe, and the United States. He will also try to share some version of truth and reality in this war even though one side of the struggle has total and complete control of information. Transcription / Notes THE EFFECTS OF SANCTIONS Hello this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 11th day of March 2022. I will be talking about sanctions and their effects on Russia, Europe, and the United States, but also, I will be trying my best to discover some version of truth and reality in this war. Winston Churchill once said that in time of war truth is such a precious commodity that it must be surrounded by a bodyguard of lies. It is hard to discover truth considering that one side in the struggle has total and complete control of information, but I keep trying. How then goes the war? It is hard to tell since much of what we see, hear, and read is nothing but propaganda, but we are here to talk about a tactic today and that tactic is sanctions. Sanction is an aspect of warfare by different means. It is economic warfare, and it is propaganda. The dictionary definition of propaganda is “ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one’s cause or to damage an opposing cause.” It is the noble lie as Plato called it more than a thousand years ago: it may be necessary to inspire people to fling themselves upon distant battlefields to fight some devil. They must, therefore, be convinced that their enemy is the devil. The war dominates the news in the present, but it will eventually cease. The economic sanctions, however, will affect the world for many years to come. We look now at just some of those effects that occur to me. The economic sanctions imposed on Russia by the U.S., the UK, the EU, and other nations are the most severe ever imposed, and they are having a drastic effect on the Russian economy and the Russian people. The U.S. alone announced 15 sanction programs with more on the way as soon as Washington can think of more. Russian banks, stocks, bonds, corporations, shipping companies, even individual Russians with money abroad have been sanctioned economically. Most importantly, the Central Bank of Russia had its accounts frozen, the first time I can ever recall that happening to a Central Bank. Even individual American companies like Microsoft, Exxon Mobil, Shell, major airlines, as well as Google and Apple have stopped doing business in Russia. Shipping companies are refusing to enter Russian ports or offload Russian ships in other ports. Many funds are divesting themselves of Russian stocks and bonds. Russian stocks and bonds are crashing as a result. Who cares, or how would this affect me here in America? There is a good chance that your retirement fund whether public or private is invested in Russian companies. If you receive a retirement pension from anywhere it could be affected. Incidentally, two of the largest companies in Russia, Gazprom, the oil giant, and Russian Railways whose stock is wholly owned by the Russian government, have bonds outstanding which are also crashing. Guess who is buying the bonds of those companies as they fall lower and lower. If you guessed Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan Chase, you are correct. The Russian economy is collapsing if you consider a 20% drop as a collapse. It is like what happened to the U.S. during the Covid lockdowns. The effects on the Russian people have been devastating. Empty supermarket shelves with no food available, jobs lost, with no public assistance available. I’ve seen videos courtesy of Zero Hedge and others of old babushkas wailing in the streets crying how did this happen, we are hated by the whole world, and why did this happen to us. The Russians are also wailing from the boxes containing their sons, husbands, and fathers coming back from Ukraine. That is war folks, war is blood shed on the battlefield and at home.