Renaissance Horizon (@renaissancehorizon)

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki says sanctions against Russia are failing "I must say this very clearly: the sanctions we have imposed so far don't work. The best evidence is the ruble exchange rate. The ruble exchange rate, this litmus test, has returned to the level it was before the Russian aggression against Ukraine. What does it mean? It means that all economic, financial, budgetary, and monetary measures have not worked as some leaders wished. It needs to be said very loudly" - Morawiecki Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like Poland was one of the primary countries demanding that everyone else enact harsh sanctions. Japanese Economic Minister Hagiuda Koichi announced yesterday that Japan would continue buying oil and natural gas from Russia. Siegfried Russwurm, the Federation of German Industries (BDI) president, says that a proposed embargo on Russian energy would cause an economic calamity far worse than Covid-19. He stated, "we are talking about a completely different kind of collapse of our industry." India and Pakistan have already agreed to buy more Russian commodities at discounted prices. There are many signs that the level of short-term economic pain for the Russian economy, that world leaders predicted, is failing to materialize. While there will be inevitable medium-term economic pain for Russia, the long-term consequences are totally up in the air. The Russian economy could be stronger than ever five years from now, for all we know. All while Europe experiences roving blackouts trying to produce enough electricity with taxpayer-subsidized windmills. Last week, the Russian stock market finally re-opened, and the Micex rebounded by about 12%. During the lead-up to the war and the enacting of sanctions, the Micex dropped about 29%. Now it is only down about 20%. Keep in mind that markets worldwide were doing poorly when the war started anyway. While US markets went into a surprise rally for the second half of March (which I believe will be short-lived), we had seen a 20%+ decline in US stock market indexes between early November and mid-March. The NASDAQ hit a one-year low. The NYSE hit an 11 month low. The Russell 200 hit a 15 month low. It will take months to learn the true repercussions for world markets. However, the Ruble hit highs of 1.23 cents last week. It was 1.3 cents before the sanctions started. It went back down some on Friday, closing at 1.16. However, this is far from the low of .667 cents on March 7th. Many were celebrating the ruination of the Ruble, only to watch it bounce back in a short amount of time. A realization is setting in that very little planning or foresight was shown when enacting these sanctions.