Some Russian banks will be kicked out of SWIFT. What does it mean for Putin?
This "penalty" is no more than a fleabite. With SOME Russian banks still having access, routing transactions via those banks should be no great problem. And WHY are "some" banks still in the system? Because the West needs Russian, oil, gas, aluminium etc. But to keep that flowing it has to be paid for. So Russian banks are needed for that. What a farce!
Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch an invasion of Ukraine sparked global debate about whether Russia should be expelled from a once obscure part of the global banking system, known as SWIFT.
As Russian forces began their attack, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba, made angry calls for Russia to be banned from SWIFT – but world leaders appeared divided. Now they have agreed to act, with the US, Britain and the European Union announcing that “selected” Russian banks would be removed from SWIFT, as part of a new wave of sanctions.
“We will keep working together to ensure Putin pays the price for his aggression,” said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Those pushing for Russia’s removal from SWIFT have argued it will deal a major economic blow to Russia and its president, Putin. But what exactly is SWIFT, and why is a ban from the network seen as such a serious penalty?
The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) is a vital piece of the plumbing that connects the world’s banks. It is a messaging system that allows banks to move money quickly and securely, supporting trillions of dollars in flows of trade and investment.
Based in Belgium, the company is a co-operative owned by financial institutions from around the world, which was founded in 1973 to replace the telex network (a network of teleprinter machines that sent messages). SWIFT says it connects more than 11,000 banks and other corporations from more than 200 countries.
Normally, payment infrastructure is one of the most unsexy parts of finance. It’s something few of us notice or care about unless it messes up. However, SWIFT is making news because it could be a powerful financial weapon to use against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
It is seen as a particularly tough financial penalty because it sits at the heart of the banking system: restricting Russian banks’ access to global money flows would make it much harder for Russian businesses to export or import, or to finance themselves from overseas.
A spokesman for SWIFT has highlighted its neutrality, saying it was set up for the “collective benefit” of its global community. “Any decision to impose sanctions on countries or individual entities rests solely with the competent government bodies and applicable legislators,” the spokesman said.
What difference does it make to not have SWIFT?
The European Commission says the move is aimed at collectively ensuring the war in Ukraine is a “strategic failure”. “Cutting banks off will stop them from conducting most of their financial transactions worldwide and effectively block Russian exports and imports,” said EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
She said the move was part of a range of sanctions that would “stop Putin from using his war chest”. The ban is not blanket one, though, which would effectively cut Russia out of the global financial system. The list of banks is still being worked out, with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock saying they would be “targeted, functional restrictions of SWIFT”.
In practice, a US lawyer told Reuters, “getting kicked out of SWIFT doesn’t make transactions impossible, it makes them much more difficult”, and it bumps up transaction costs significantly.
“You need a functioning banking system to have a functioning economy,” an analyst explained. “This goes some way toward undermining the Russian economy.”
The targeted approach does mean that Russia can continue to sell some gas to Europe, The New York Times reported.
It also leaves room for further action later. Along with Boris Johnson, Australia’s Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, last week was strongly backing kicking Russia out of the system, saying it is “all about ensuring they get cut off, and that is the price that is paid”.
Why the initial hesitation in taking action?
One reason some European nations are wary is because cutting Russia out of the world banking system may well come at a cost to their own economies. The European Commission says Russia is the EU’s fifth-largest trading partner (the EU’s biggest goods exports to Russia in 2020 were machinery and transport equipment, chemicals, and manufactured goods). The SWIFT ban on some banks could make at least some of this more expensive and difficult.
Italy and Germany had particularly baulked at SWIFT action since it could hit them hard but as this recent move was announced, Germany’s Baerbock said, “after Russia’s shameless attack ... we are working hard on limiting the collateral damage of decoupling (Russia) from SWIFT so that it hits the right people.”
Another fear attached to a total SWIFT ban was that Russia could find ways to get around it, falling back on their own system, which would make it harder for the US to keep tabs on payments. Russia’s central bank has developed its own alternative to SWIFT called the System for Transfer of Financial Messages, but it is nowhere near as large as the SWIFT network – the Bank of Russia’s website says its system is used by about 400 banks.
There are also concerns about the potential role that could be played by cryptocurrencies to get around any sanctions, at a time when Western central banks are already wary about the rise of crypto assets as an alternative to government-backed money.
Has this been done before?
There is a precedent for SWIFT kicking out some banks: in 2012 it expelled Iranian banks sanctioned by the European Union. It reconnected many of the banks in 2016 after the sanctions were lifted.
And allies on both sides of the Atlantic considered the SWIFT option in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea. Russia declared then that kicking it out of SWIFT would be equivalent to a declaration of war. The allies, criticised ever after for responding too weakly to Russia’s 2014 aggression, shelved the idea.
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Fascist Western banks
In state legislatures throughout the country, lawmakers are introducing bills to protect the rights of their constituents concerning freedom of speech and freedom of association. Bank lobbyists are aggressively opposing these consumer protection bills, which raises the question: why? The banks say they do not use ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) metrics, so why oppose these consumer protection bills that merely erect some guardrails to ensure that the rights, freedoms, and choices of citizens are protected?
The banks and others opposing legislation to protect consumers and small businesses from ESG discrimination say the legislation interferes with the free market, that the government is meddling with how a private business operates. However, does a free market in financial services exist today? The aggressiveness of banks' opposition to these ESG bills hints that there may be more to the story.
When the biggest banks in the world partner with large businesses, federal regulators, the United Nations, and entities in Net-Zero 2050 alliances, we are no longer operating under a free market. Crony capitalism, corporatism, or fascism, but not a free market. Individual citizens and independent businesses are seeing their choices and their freedoms slip away.
For those who do not believe that government and banks would ever collude to discriminate against a legal business, look into Operation Choke Point, an early test run of the "public private partnership" to enforce a political ideology. From Forbes, "Newly unsealed documents show top FDIC officials running operation choke point," federal regulators conspired to shut payday lenders and firearms business out of the banking system. Is that how a free market operates?
Some say the ESG movement is just the latest bogeyman, that there is no proof that the movement is impacting individuals and businesses. That is false.
In North Dakota, the director of mineral resources, Lynn Helms, recently returned from an energy conference in Houston and reported that oil companies now see the Bakken in North Dakota as a mature oil play and are shifting capital elsewhere. Among the reasons Helms cited for the about-face: a surge in attention among oil industry operators to their carbon footprints. According to the article, "[w]ith financiers increasingly factoring climate consequences into their investments, achieving a gas capture level near 100% has become 'goal number one' for many oil producers, Helms said, even more than expanding output."
During the 2021 legislative session in North Dakota, representatives of the lignite industry testified that coal operations are seeing increasing insurance premiums and a drop in the number of insurance companies willing to write insurance for any price. This is the ESG movement in action, and it will not stop with oil and coal.
Bank lobbyists say that no one should tell bankers how to run their businesses. The reality is that bankers are already being told how to run their businesses by the federal government, international agencies, and other influencers, whether they admit it or not. And that is bad news for small businesses and individual citizens.
The bank lobbyists who testify in opposition to the ESG consumer protection bills should be asked if any banks they represent have joined the U.N. Net-Zero Banking Alliance. The Alliance website says banks representing more than 40 percent of global banking assets are committed to aligning their lending and investment portfolios with net-zero emissions by 2050. In their own words: "The Alliance will reinforce, accelerate, and support the implementation of decarbonization strategies."
American banks that have signed on to the U.N. Net-Zero Banking Alliance to date include Bank of America, Blue Ridge Bank, Citi, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and Wells Fargo.
The bank lobbyists should be asked how this alliance plans to meet the stated objective of reinforcing, accelerating, and supporting the implementation of "decarbonization strategies." Will the banks alter their business model? Will this alliance drive decisions on providing banking services to certain sectors, businesses, and individuals?
Also, does any of these seven large financial institutions have relationships with local state-chartered banks? If so, will the goals of the U.N. Net-Zero Alliance have an impact on how these large banks work with smaller community banks?
We can ask the same questions of the large insurers. Does any of the insurance companies doing business in your state belong to the Net-Zero Insurance Alliance? If so, what impacts will there be on businesses in the state as the goals of the Net-Zero Insurance Alliance are pursued? A recent Bloomberg article shows that some efforts of the Net-Zero Insurance Alliance had to be scaled back, for now, when attorneys working with the group said certain actions could raise antitrust issues. The solution they are working on with government allies? Simply rewrite the antitrust laws.
Government's role is to protect the rights, freedoms, and liberties of individuals. Lawmakers at the state level should understand what the companies, governments, and other entities signing on to the ESG movement, the Net-Zero 2050 alliances, and the Great Reset intend to do. Read their own words — they are not hiding anything. And take them at their word.
Of course, this is just another conspiracy theory, right? Governments and banks would never join forces to track the social media posts of individuals, their banking activity, their alliances, and occupations to crack down on freedom of speech or freedom of assembly. This isn't the Hunger Games, is it? Just ask the truckers in Canada and their supporters.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/02/why_banks_are_fighting_esg_legislation.html
*************************************************U.S.-Bound Migrants in Southern Mexico Are Counseled on Controversial 'Repressed Memories'
Two United Nations-sponsored groups in southern Mexico are reportedly coaching immigrants arriving there on “repressed memories” that would allow them to gain asylum cards in Mexico for passage northward and then illegal entry into the United States.
Both the Jesuit Society of Refugees and an outfit called Fray Matias de Cordova, based in the Mexican city of Tapachula near the border with Guatemala, are advertising “psychological" help in store windows there, according to Todd Bensman, a security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors greater restrictions on immigration.
At these sessions, in which thousands of immigrants have reportedly participated, people are helped to recover memories of alleged trauma they suffered in their home countries, Enrique Vidal of Fray Matias de Cordova told Bensman during a visit to the southern region last month. By claiming they are victims of such abuses, immigrants can qualify for asylum in Mexico even if, as in many cases, their initial application on economic hardship grounds has been rejected.
“With their newfound memories of more eligible claims,” Bensman wrote for his organization’s website, “the immigrants get asylum (a term many use interchangeably with refugee status) and Mexican residency cards, which many then promptly use to pass through Mexico and make illegal entry over the American border.”
The concept of repressed memory and its reliability as evidence has proved controversial in American jurisprudence. In the 1990s, several high profile cases involving day care centers made headlines, with stories of children subjected to bizarre sexual and satanic rites.
In the aftermath, some experts have sought to debunk the validity of “repressed memory” as a source of reliable evidence. While there is widespread agreement that a remembrance of horrific and traumatic experiences may sometimes be buried, such memories can also be created, according to academics who have delved into the psychology.
Bensman asked Vidal of the border aid group if “the people you are helping [have] already made the mistake of not telling the authorities their traumatic experiences that qualify” for asylum or refugee status, meaning on their appeals.
“Yes, that’s how it is,” Vidal replied.
According to excerpts transcribed from the interview, Vidal told Bensman that his group has achieved “a high percentage of success” – more than 90 percent – in helping clients overcome previous Mexican denials and obtain the necessary paperwork for immigrants from the “Northern Triangle” countries of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador; Haiti and other countries to continue traveling northward.
The Jesuit Society of Refugees did not respond to questions it requested in writing from RealClearInvestigations on its activities in Tapachula and, in particular, the psychological counseling sessions.
The United Nations and the Mexican embassy also did not respond to questions. RCI left a phone message for Vidal in English and Spanish but the call was not returned.
Bensman said he had travelled to southern Mexico in January because Mexican authorities were bottling up thousands of immigrants in Chiapas and Tabasco states at the request of the Biden administration, which wants to slow the torrent of people heading to and crossing the U.S. southern border.
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Britain's security services have gone woke
Spies and soldiers should not be promoting identity politics.
We live in an increasingly volatile and unpredictable world. There are many hostile foreign-state actors, eager to infiltrate British public institutions and undermine our democratic structures. And there are myriad terror-related threats, too, especially from Islamic extremists.
Yet while the threats to our national security grow, MI5, MI6 and GCHQ chiefs are reportedly encouraging spies to focus on checking their ‘white privilege’. According to media reports this week, back in December staff were issued with a dossier entitled ‘Mission Critical’, and told to avoid using words such as ‘manpower’, ‘strong’ and ‘grip’ because these words can ‘reinforce dominant cultural patterns’.
Not to be outdone, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has launched its very own woke offensive in the past few days. As Russia plunged Europe into war, the MoD’s blue-tick verified ‘LGBT+ Network’ Twitter account proceeded to explore the meaning of the terms ‘lesbian’, ‘gay’, ‘bisexual’, ‘transgender’, ‘queer’ and, last but not least, ‘questioning’ – which, according to the MoD, is ‘the process of exploring your own sexual orientation and / or gender identity’. The account also celebrated the MoD’s ‘commitment and efforts to be a LGBTQ+ inclusive employer’, which have been recognised with a Stonewall ‘Workplace Index Silver award’.
These institutions are supposed to strengthen British national security, not to raise awareness of the latest progressive causes. The MoD surely has more pressing issues to concern itself with. Like the war that is unfolding in Europe, for instance.
Those who run our security institutions clearly lack seriousness. Their willingness to use these institutions to promote identity politics, even when our national security is threatened, is a sign of serious institutional decadence.
Moreover, the embrace of these woke concerns could actually impede the ability of the security services to perform their key functions. The MI5’s broader terror-related watchlist, for instance, contains 43,000 individuals, the vast majority of whom – as many as 39,000 – are Islamist extremists. Ordering agents to ‘check’ their ‘white privilege’ might actually inhibit their ability to deal with such militants (who tend to be from non-white, Muslim-majority communities). These attempts to make our security services more ‘inclusive’ could get in the way of protecting us.
In recent weeks, concerns have been raised about the influence of critical race theory and trans activism in our healthcare and education systems, and among civil servants. But the creeping influence of wokeness in our defence and security institutions is even more alarming. These institutions should have one priority only – the protection of our national security.
Britain continues to face many threats, both foreign and domestic. When those whose role it is to protect us are distracted by divisive identity politics, we are in deep trouble.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/02/25/the-security-services-have-gone-woke/
****************************************My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair
Bliss: What every woman wants: to feel safe and secure in the arms of her man. Robert Irwin and Rorie Buckey. See 
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