Comment Re:Style (Score 1) 126
Borders do matter, but not in the way you believe they do. The flight of capital from Russia isn't due to what Putin plans to do or not, but because of the risk of perceived sanctions by the West.
No, that's exactly what I said and meant. *Obviously* the sanctions or threat thereof were the direct cause! That part of your comment doesn't really even make any sense.
There are, however, also some foreign investors, who think this is a buying opportunity.
Uh yeah, that's no different from any other investment. Ever heard of a short sale? But obviously many more investors are bearish here so their economy has plummeted. Again no insight here...
Incidentally, that is why Putin isn't getting a lot in terms of effective sanctions from Western Europe
No, there is ONE big reason Western Europe hasn't come down harder (and they have actually put up a fair amount of sanctions as well, just not enough to make Russia respond in a way that causes a major depression there) - Russian natural gas. The balancing act is to make sanctions mild enough for Russia to continue supplying gas while still causing a noticeable punitive effect on their economy. Right now US & Euoipe is doing a half decent job at that - several of the Russians I know are getting pretty annoyed at Putin because it's affecting their or their family's daily life a lot more than some proxy war in Ukraine.