01 Sanctions Fail
The United States' sanctions have had a certain impact on the Russian economy, but the impact is far less than what the U.S. had planned.
Currently, Russia's economy is still developing well, and Russia is working hard to expand domestic demand. At the same time, it is also striving to cope with U.S. sanctions and find a better path for development.
After the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian war, as the prices of oil, rare metals, and minerals continued to rise globally in 2022, Russia's profits from exported goods also kept climbing.
Many famous Russian entrepreneurs, in order to avoid economic sanctions imposed by the West on Russian companies, have transferred their assets to their children or spouses through equity and asset transfers. Ironically, due to the rise in commodity prices, their wealth has increased significantly.
The wealth of a Russian tycoon shrank by nearly $10 billion last year, but according to the latest data, this tycoon's assets increased by nearly $10 billion in just one quarter of 2023.
Russia has already shifted its market to countries like India and China. The increase in the wealth of tycoons also indirectly proves that even under Western sanctions against Russia, the situation in Russia is not bad.
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02 Misjudging Allies
On the contrary, U.S. sanctions seem to have had a significant impact on Europe.
Europe's economy has already started to decline, and currently, the inflation rate in many parts of Europe remains high. The main factor causing inflation is the cost of energy.Additionally, Europe has also faced a financial storm, with Credit Suisse declaring bankruptcy. Had it not been for the swift response of some European countries to resolve the crisis, the European economy would have plunged into recession.
For Europe, the only way to combat inflation is to implement a tight monetary policy, but it is still difficult to calculate the economic cost that this would entail.
03, Backfire on the United States
In the current situation, the United States is also finding it hard to remain unscathed.
According to figures released by Société Générale, the United States' tax revenue in April of this year was indeed too low, only 80% of that of the same period last year.
Why is the reduction in tax revenue so severe?
It indicates that the U.S. economy is truly facing serious issues. If it were not due to a sudden change in the tax system, such a drastic fluctuation in tax revenue would not have occurred.
The sudden decrease in U.S. tax revenue almost certainly suggests that the U.S. economy has entered a recession.
The better the U.S. economy performs, the more tax revenue it generates, and the better its technology, military, and culture become, which in turn increases the value of the U.S. dollar.
However, the current situation is entirely the opposite.The issue of the U.S. debt ceiling has not yet been resolved, and the funds of the U.S. government are also nearing depletion. Even if the U.S. can break through the debt limit, the decline in tax revenue, the devaluation of the world's currency, and the collapse of the U.S. debt market will have a significant impact on the issuance of U.S. Treasury bonds.
This severely affects the U.S. government's ability to raise more money. Without money, the U.S. government will have problems protecting itself, let alone using money to create regional contradictions.
Now, the whole world has started to reduce the use of the U.S. dollar, and the proportion of the U.S. dollar in international payments has shrunk to only 40%. If we go back to 2014, this proportion was as high as 52%, greater than the sum of all other currencies, but now it is only a few percentage points ahead of the euro.
Looking at a series of sanctions imposed by the U.S., so far, the U.S. has suffered the greatest losses.