hard time coming for RU economy
So you are telling me the Russians cut production by 10%? When the oil price has went up by what 20-30%?
They also seem to have cut production by 1 million barrels/day. Exactly the same amount the US is drawing out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. I think Russia is going to teach the US a lesson. The lesson the Soviets could not teach. A lot of people don't remember but the Soviets imploded by trying to continue to produce oil to buy NA wheat to feed cattle while the Saudis were flooding the market with oil. This time it is Russia who controls the wheat market. The US will keep drawing down from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. And when the US needs to fill it back up, near the end of this year, or the beginning of next year. It remains to be seen how the oil price will look like. This will be a long slough fest.
UnionPay is definitely used in western markets, at least definitely in Canada
All the major payment processors here support it, sending promo emails and window stickers to "reach more global customers" etc. etc. Of course this means Chinese customers, lol.
You can look at UnionPay keeping away from Russia as a form of bullying by the US, yes. However, another way to look at it, UnionPay first and foremost is serving Chinese nationals, many of which are overseas. Their interests should be a priority as a matter of practicality.
The Chinese banks should at minimum grant Mir cards access to their own Chinese internal payment network. i.e. basically grant Mir cards access to UnionPay network in China. This will be important for Russian individuals making personal purchases or Russian small businesses trying to make purchases in China. The international network would be nice to have but less essential. I still think China should find some way to segregate its network though. Not all countries are sanctioning Russia. If a Russian customer wants to pay using UnionPay in Indonesia and that country isn't sanctioning his Russian bank, why shouldn't he be able to do it?
If China fails here I am sure that some other market solution will pop up and it will be to China's own detriment as this will decrease the weight of the Chinese financial sector I think. If people cannot rely on the Chinese banking sector to continue to a level above the Western one why even bother with it?
"Mystery".
The US is basically slapping Russia left and right
So, they probably increased industrial production in Russia to the max, because a lot of things can't be imported from Europe anymore, and industrial accidents start to happen? And you think this is the CIA? I think the answer is way more simple than that.
