President Zelensky has called for some of the Russian billions seized by world banks to be sent to rebuild Ukraine.
The G7 group is considering taking only the rise in value and interest due since the assets were frozen in 2020.
But the Ukrainian president told the BBC all of the money should be used. “If the world has $300bn - why not use it?”, he said.
The BBC understands central bankers in Europe have concerns over undermining banks’ safe haven status.
If they seize US assets in China, we seize their assets in the US. Then we default on the $870 billion dollars in debt we owe to them, cut them off from American markets, and watch India become our biggest trading partner.
I don’t know shit about finances or economics or markets, but this seems to make sense. That’s probably why it makes sense to me in the first place.
It seems similar to mutually assured destruction, like the one that a nuclear arsenal poses, acting as a deterrent to all the parties involved. If you harm their market, they harm yours, and in this day and age, it’s more disastrous than ever, perhaps.
The bigger problem is likely spread out across smaller markets, which, combined, net you a solid benefit and profit, but if some of they start using such precedents as an excuse to seize your assets for only their benefit and profit, they might lose less than you do, ultimately proving the concern in @[email protected]’s comment above.
We might as well be discussing it in way more detail than the decision-makers here, as yeah, setting precedents that could (or could not) potentially harm their profits and leviathan wealth is a no-go for them.