I am fairly sure the franchise contract has all sorts of multiple “termination clauses” … so, BS, right there
we’d love to stop in russia but we cant, b/c … it would cost us money to do so …
I sincerely hope they get boycotted to a degree where opportunity cost get higher than calling it a day (and suffer from all the reputational risks and backlash)
its called “print to fax” in windows 
which means? 
that is a really, really outdated function, when fax-machines still were a thing. Basically you can define a “virtual” printer/fax machine, and print whatever you want to it and send it to other people with fax machines. Its akin to e-mail, but still with paper in between …
Who cares if these yachts lose 30% of their value? Or 100%? If there are lenders and they care, they will maintain them or repossess if payments aren’t made. If they are owned outright by the oligarchs, let them rust.
The seizure is justified under laws otherwise used to take control of property with “probable cause” to believe that was used in a crime or represents the proceeds of a crime: civil asset forfeiture.
When used in that manner against say alleged drug dealers or alleged gang members, is there any obligation to be a responsible steward of the property while a disposition is being determined?
I know often local departments end up selling the property and pocketing most of the proceeds, even when the alleged criminal is found not guilty. The bar for determination that the property represents proceeds or was used is much lower. As a tool used by the police many consider it legalized theft.
When I was still working as a detective, our seizures were usually, money, jewelry, cars etc. Things that didn’t require much maintaining. If we got a really nice car, we might rent a storage facility to keep it nice for later sale at auction. I never had to deal with a yacht worth hundreds of millions. But U.S. law doesn’t have much to do with the seizure of these mega-yachts. Few are in U.S. waters. Even in poor condition, they are worth a lot to someone.
I don’t want it to look like these yachts were seized for profit or spoils of war. They were seized as punishment. They have pretty much zero practical value as sea vessels other than as ostentatious displays of wealth. I think the best result would to very publicly sink them in places where the wrecks might serve as artificial reefs
I would argue that. Nobody is going to want an ex-oligarch’s yacht for quite a long time. If you are rich enough to want one, you’ll have one built for you. Why dump money into somebody else’s damaged goods? The only way those floating money-dumps are going to be worth anything at all is if the oligarchs poloniumize Putin pretty damn quick and the world is forgiving. Otherwise they’ll make pretty good reefs for future generations of divers.
Even as scrap or a floating boutique hotel they’d have some value. That said, I’m all for sinking them. Maybe raffle off the chance to push the button (like they did with one of Trumps former hotel/casinos in Atlantic City) and give the money to Ukrainians who lost loved ones or homes in this disaster.
This has probably been answered already in the thread, but I’m having trouble concentrating or digging through stuff for the last month or so. If it’s been answered, just give me a post number.
The question is, do we have a feel for how much money Russia is actually losing over the sanctions? I saw something earlier that said Europe has been forced to spend even more on Russian gas and oil, and that’s up to nearly a billion dollars a day (for gas I think I might be misremembering). I’m just wondering how much this is mitigating the effect of the sanctions. If Russia is losing a billion a day to sanctions but is getting a billion a day from higher costs or use, then it would be a wash. If they are losing $10 billion a day to sanctions, and only getting a billion a day in gas revenue then it’s only mitigating it a bit. Just trying to gauge how hard the Russian economy is really getting hammered and how long the Russians can keep this up. None of this speaks to how much this military adventure is costing Putin et al in terms of money (they probably don’t care much about the casualties), so wondering what the combinations of drain are aggregating too right now.
On the scale of national economics, once the number gets high enough, it kind of becomes meaningless. Much like when total bombings are measured in tons of TNT. You really have to look at the results to measure the magnitude of the sanctions. Lines for food and other essentials, airlines shutting down, western companies leaving, citizens migrating to other countries, etc.
Billionaire Russian oligarch sanctioned in UK complains he has to eat at home after credit cards blocked
My heart bleeds for him. Won’t somebody make him a sammich? 
The Independent requires you to register to read the whole article. Here’s a version on Business Insider. According to that article, it’s not just his credit cards that have been blocked, it’s everything – “He cannot access his fortune, as his bank accounts, credit cards, and ATM cards have been blocked.”
He should have been better prepared. Pretty dumb billionaire.
Batmansky would have been.
“Ineffective”, he says. Doesn’t seem so.
Got an unexpected cheque today so went to the bank to deposit it in person, and then was going to stop by Burger King for lunch. What does this have to do with the subject of the thread? Well, I guess everything today is political.
At the bank (I wanted to deposit the cheque directly with the teller, not in an ATM) there was a guy in front of me who got to the next available teller. I didn’t pay much attention until I faintly heard the teller say “from Russia?”. He was apparently either trying to send or receive money to or from a Russian bank. I didn’t hear most of the conversation but eventually I did hear “sorry, there’s nothing I can do”. And he left, with whatever transaction he wanted to make left unmade. I imagine sanctions may well have played a role here.
And at the Burger King drive-through, with the Ukrainian flag flying from my car, one of the employees stuck his head out the window with encouragement for kicking the rest of the Russian asses good and hard. I heartily agreed.
Russians don’t seem to have many friends these days.
Not in a restaurant.