What’s the Price for War in the Ukraine

~ Laura

Babies under the rubble of a bombed out hospital. There’s nothing that makes me madder than a missile at a children’s hospital. I would do pretty much anything to retaliate against Putin for these crimes against humanity. If I could toss home-made bombs at tanks, I would.

I filled up my the gas tank on the Subaru yesterday. $71.98. That’s about $20 more than usual, because of the boycott on Russian oil. AND THAT’S FINE WITH ME. Since I can’t toss a bomb, I’ll make Putin pay in the other ways. Hopefully, we can make the all-powerful oligarchs so pissed off that they deal with Putin in their own way.

There’s some rumbles about people who want to ban Russian books, intellectuals and artists from American colleges and theaters. This, of course, is wrong. However, it’s naive to think that these economic sanctions won’t impact everyday people of Russia. We are going to impoverish an entire nation, rather than put boots on the ground. I don’t really have a problem with those methods, because taking away McDonald’s from Moscovites is a whole lot nicer than bombing children’s hospitals. However, in the long term, if these economic sanctions continue, there will be a lot of hungry Russians. Hopefully, someone will put a bullet in Putin’s head long before that happens.

I’m willing to pay $20 more for gas. But what about $40 more for gas? Are you ready for that?

Between this war and all the covid money floating around, we’ve got inflation. Friends, who own small businesses tell me that their costs are up by 20%, so they are raising prices on their products, too. Since many have had to double their labor costs over the past five years, this is also going to bump up their prices, too.

We need to go down to North Carolina at the beginning of April to check on Steve’s folks. We had to do some serious calculations to figure out the cheapest way to get there.

Are you okay with rising prices at the tanks and the supermarket? Have you cut back on your expenditures this winter?

Published by Laura

26 thoughts on “What’s the Price for War in the Ukraine”

  1. Half the people here seem to have bought giant trucks that don’t fit in city parking spaces, have front grills too high to see pedestrians crossing the street in front of them, and get 12 mpg in the city. I’d pay $20 more for gas to get them out of my way so I walk around again with less fear of death.

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    1. “I’d pay $20 more for gas to get them out of my way so I walk around again with less fear of death.”

      Yes, this. And more and better public transit, please.

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      1. A few months ago, I saw a kid get hit by a Range Rover. The bumper is such that the head is a main point of contact if you are about 5′ 6″. The kid had the light and was in the crosswalk. He recovered, the cops say.

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  2. Reckless government spending and the desires of ESG investors has led to a storm of inflation, which predated Putin’s move on Ukraine. The price of everything has been rising since November 2, 2020. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DCOILWTICO

    Oil is a fungible commodity. Higher gas prices support Putin. China will buy the oil, so higher gas and oil prices increase Russian state income. Apparently, Russia claims the West may face oil prices of $300 a barrel. So, $140 to fill up the car? Will that be ok? Apparently, everyone has enough money saved to keep up with that? I don’t think so. I lived through the 70s. People were not happy about it.

    Inflation at the current level is brutal on people on a fixed income, who have been receiving nothing from their savings.

    The current spin from the White House that it is a patriotic duty to be happy about surging inflation caused by its own actions is…like something from the Babylon Bee.

    The price of fossil fuels has been rising since the Biden administration took office, due to specific actions taken by the administration that make it unprofitable to invest money in fossil fuel extraction.

    Canada could replace the oil–Keystone XL must be approved: https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Canada-Says-Its-Oil-Could-Replace-US-Imports-Of-Russian-Crude.html

    I am bitterly amused that now it’s apparently ok with ESG investors to invest in armaments. I guess they’ll be special, virtuous weapons, which will only be used for good. Of course, ESG apparently can mean whatever you want it to mean, and the prospect of one state conquering another state focuses the mind wonderfully.

    As to the alleged war crimes, there will be time to find out what really happened after the war has ended. I hope Ukraine manages to hold off the Russians. However, there has been so much propaganda spread by both sides, I would be wary of taking anything at face value. A nuclear war is a real possibility. That would be bad. I would use a more emphatic adjective, but really, a nuclear war between NATO and Russia could lead to the end of our civilization. Let’s be careful. Please.

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    1. Keystone is just a way to make Nebraska farmers (and those in other states) pay for cheaper gas (through eminent domain and uncompensated risk) used by much richer suburbanites who insist on driving to work in a $60,000 Dodge Ram. Run that over someone else’s corn.

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    2. Cranberry wrote, “Higher gas prices support Putin. China will buy the oil, so higher gas and oil prices increase Russian state income.”

      China will put the screws to them with regard to oil (and other natural resource) prices and Chinese goods. China will be able to underpay for Russian natural resources and overcharge for their own manufactured goods…because they can.

      Also, China can’t fill the gap (at least not at this point) left by European and Japanese heavy industrial equipment. Russia needs a lot of equipment to maintain its resource extraction industries that it cannot produce internally and that China cannot currently supply.

      (These points culled from @kamilkazani’s twitter feed.)

      “The current spin from the White House that it is a patriotic duty to be happy about surging inflation caused by its own actions is…like something from the Babylon Bee.”

      I think the sanctions are the right thing to do (because trying to stop the biggest land war in Europe since WWII is worth it) but at the same time, even I find that White House messaging irritating. The focus should not be on the virtue of the sacrifice, but on the fact that we do actually have a good chance of stopping a war and saving lives and that we do not want to be in the position of funding the Russian war machine.

      “As to the alleged war crimes, there will be time to find out what really happened after the war has ended. I hope Ukraine manages to hold off the Russians. However, there has been so much propaganda spread by both sides, I would be wary of taking anything at face value.”

      The Russian official story on the maternity home bombing was (at different times):

      1. It happened because Ukrainian forces had booted mothers and staff out and had a firing position there, so it was a military target.
      2. It didn’t happen at all.

      The Russians also have a thing going where they are still denying that they are hitting civilian targets. The story sold to the Russian public is that it’s Ukrainian Nazis firing on Ukrainian civilian targets.

      “Let’s be careful. Please.”

      I think the US government is being very cautious (case in point the whole Polish MiG discussion). There have been some really bad moments during this conflict, like the repeated episodes involving Russian forces shelling nuclear plant complexes. That’s just so incredibly reckless, even if they aren’t attacking actual nuke plants. What if the staff just flees under fire or panics? Going to bed Thursday night (a week ago) knowing that a major nuclear disaster was possible was an experience I do not wish to repeat.

      My conviction is that if the US’s current actions are going to cause WWIII, WWIII was going to happen anyway.

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      1. Today’s WTH story for me was the head of the Russian space program threatening to strand an American astronaut on the International Space Station.

        “Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russia’s Space Agency and a close ally to Russian President Vladimir Putin, responded to Biden in a series of hostile tweets. On Feb. 26, he posted a video in Russian that threatened to leave Vande Hei behind in space and detach Russia’s segment of the space station altogether.”

        I did not have that on my BINGO card!

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      2. “My conviction is that if the US’s current actions are going to cause WWIII, WWIII was going to happen anyway.”

        That’s my perception, too. And that this particular invasion means that I cannot tell the accommodation that would keep us safe would be.

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  3. For our family, we’re more in the category of “fewer trips” than “we can’t eat.” I am really worried about food security in my area though…at the food bank I volunteer (which is local and tiny) for we’re having a lot of trouble keeping up with demand, and it will only get worse. The good news though is people are aware and being consistently generous. Losing the Ukranian wheat harvest will be devastating though, overseas for sure and potentially with worldwide prices.

    My business will be impacted as the costs of basics rise because some families will cut us from their budget. And our costs, especially bus-related, are up. I continue to sharpen skills for going back to corporate life just in case.

    But it’s hard to disentangle the kind of economic impact from other things that are going on. I just had my first Covid loss of staff members – neither died, but one has had what she fears will be permanent heart damage after Covid, and the other has to become a family caregiver (senior/dialysis patient and toddler watcher) because the family caregiver died of Covid. We’d already increased wages but finding staff is definitely complicated right now, especially in a customer-facing in-person role.

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  4. I am 100% in favor of higher gas prices. First, I agree with MH about people buying giant gas guzzlers. Like Cranberry, I, too, lived through the 1970s, and that’s why we are a 1-car household of 4 people who go on 8-hour car trips in an economy hatchback. Getting people to drive less also helps everyone’s shared climate, in addition to supporting Ukraine. Finally, I think one key way to help those on fixed incomes or who are struggling is to give them debit cards to help to afford gas and food rather than to buy Russian oil. Besides remembering inflation and the oil crisis, I also remember getting government cheese; help the people who need it make ends meet. I am also okay with my tax dollars going toward this goal.

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  5. Took a picture test of $5.29 gas and one today of $5.39. So I’m shocked enough to take pictures. But I don’t care how much I pay for gas. Looking at the stock market is disturbing, but again, it’s not going to change my politics.

    I’m not being patriotic, though. I am actually worried about the domino effects of democracy falling throughout the world. I had naively absurd hopes for Russia and China and Arab spring, that the end of communism, the opening of those nations, that free speech and the twitter revolutions would bring freedom, democracy, and prosperity across the world. I’ve seen those hopes die one by one and the invasion of a democracy in Europe is a line for me.

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  7. Well, people who operate heavy machinery care about how much they pay for fuel.

    Italian truckers have declared “force majeure,” and will halt deliveries on Monday. https://mishtalk.com/economics/italian-truckers-declare-force-majeure-over-gas-pains-halting-deliveries-starting-monday

    We’ve already seen protest from truckers on other issues on this continent. The gilet jaunes in France were enraged by fuel taxes. Maybe you can pick up groceries from suppliers hundreds of miles away on a bicycle, but I’m sure I can’t.

    48% of the nation’s power generating plants are fueled by petroleum and gas(es). If you add coal to the equation, 67% of the nation’s electricity is generated by fossil fuels. https://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_04_03.html

    Gas-fired plants are quicker to start and stop, meaning the stability of the power grid is supported by fossil fuels.

    European factories started shutting down last fall, due to high power costs caused by a lack of wind. This will only increase that trend.

    As it flows through to everything else in the economy, at a certain point high gas prices will lead to a recession. Given the size of the shocks to the world economy that happened in the last 2 weeks, likely a depression.

    No, I am not ok with that.

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    1. I am willing to consider economic consequences because I fear the alternative will be full scale war, if not today, in five years.

      I think that an acceptance of authoritarian governments (and, note Russia & China are “accepted”, integrated into the flat world and globalization now; they weren’t before the walls fell). If Russia can invade Ukraine and hold it hostage; China can (with even less international legal condemnation — Taiwan is not a member state of the UN, with Chinese agreement, unlike Ukraine) invade Taiwan. And, then, where? China and India have skirmishes at their borders and China wants to control the South China Seas.

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    2. And these measures are to preserve a world in which Italian truckers hold up trucking (regularly, in fact, if you look up Italian trucker blockades, they occur regularly enough that it’s hard to find this one).

      The explanation of the Italian trucker suspension of service is that the companies can’t bear the increased cost of fuel under their current contracts (reminds me a bit of the 2000 California electrical crisis, where rolling blackouts were eventually imposed because the market blew up). The answer is to renegotiate contracts, provide fuel subsides, and, yes, that will increase costs.

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  8. Also, though I am wary of listening to the details of atrocities committed during war (information is too fluid, the propaganda wars real), Russia’s invasion of a sovereign nation without provocation makes every act an atrocity without further amplification. Russians don’t have to catch babies on bayonets to be committing an atrocity; the shooting of Ukranians defneding their nation is sufficient.

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    1. True, but it’s not as if the dreams of bringing Putin to the dock for war crimes will ever happen.

      I am very worried about the back and forth on the question of the use of biological or chemical weapons. (See the BBC for more on the back and forth of accusations at the UN.) It would seem to indicate that Russia is considering crossing further lines by using barbaric weapons on the Ukrainians.

      I am even more worried about the potential for the use of low-yield nuclear weapons on Ukrainian cities drawing in Nato and setting off a nuclear war in which millions would die.

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      1. Cranberry said, “I am even more worried about the potential for the use of low-yield nuclear weapons on Ukrainian cities drawing in Nato and setting off a nuclear war in which millions would die.”

        I’m worried, too (I keep hearing that Russian military doctrine allows for the use of tactical nukes), but I’m not sure there’s anything we can do about that.

        We’ve already armed Ukraine, so it’s not like we easily can take all those anti-tank devices back. Also, it’s not just the US–quite a number of European countries and the UK are arming Ukraine.

        I suppose we could drop sanctions, but–again–it’s not just the US. There are many sanctions by other countries and and various corporations.

        The most worrying thing is that Putin is not making rational decisions and/or he may not be getting good information. Even if Putin has got all his marbles, he may be so surrounded by people who want to keep the boss happy or who are terrified by the boss that he’s living in a fantasy world, which may explain some of the oddities in the Russian government’s negotiating demands (denazification?). Russia is also insisting that Ukraine not join the EU, which is a very unfair demand to make on a smaller, poorer country that could gain so much from EU membership.

        It’s been very sad and frustrating to see how little progress the repeated rounds of Russian-Ukrainian peace talks have made and to see how unwilling the Russians have been to do real ceasefires or to allow safe passage to evacuating civilians.

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    2. bj said, “Also, though I am wary of listening to the details of atrocities committed during war (information is too fluid, the propaganda wars real), Russia’s invasion of a sovereign nation without provocation makes every act an atrocity without further amplification.”

      Yes.

      Also, we can see the enormous flows of refugees, and we can see which direction they are escaping to, and how far they are willing to travel west to avoid going to Russia or Belarus.

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  9. https://mobile.twitter.com/jeffjarvis/status/1501705303980912642

    Sorry, not caught up, but I wanted to share this.

    Jeff Jarvis tweeted (link to WSJ story): “Russia’s biggest car brand Lada halts production as Western sanctions bite.”

    Lada is really iconic as being “the” Russian-made car, so this has got to be a major blow to the idea that Putin sanction-proofed the Russian economy. If Lada can’t keep going in the face of sanctions, who can?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lada

    I haven’t read the WSJ story, but this story does back up some of the claims I have read that Russia may be especially vulnerable to foreign sanctions because of their dependence on foreign machinery, parts, maintenance, and expertise.

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  10. The Russian government’s behavior has been so weird for the past several weeks, so detached from normal reality, that it’s genuinely difficult to figure out what would be an effective way of dealing with them.

    Some of it is fantasy (Russian-speakers will welcome us! We’re fighting Nazis!) and some of it is lies, but it’s hard to figure out where the self-delusion stops and the lies begin, especially for Putin himself.

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    1. Had you heard of this?

      Google’s top executive in Moscow reportedly found Russian agents knocking at her door in September, threatening her with prison if an app that angered Russian President Vladimir Putin wasn’t removed within 24 hours.

      When the company moved her to a hotel and checked her in under a fake name, the agents weren’t fooled. Within hours, the app, which was designed to help Russians register protest votes against Putin, was no longer available on Google or Apple, whose main representative in Moscow was similarly threatened, the Washington Post reported.

      The threats were part of a larger effort by Putin to limit opposition within Russia, a move now helping him hold onto power as ordinary Russians are blacked out from outside information.

      The plan also included limiting — and ultimately blocking — Facebook and Twitter and imposing fines totaling $120 million on technology companies accused of defying Kremlin censors.

      It also included ordering 13 of the world’s largest tech companies to keep employees in Russia, where they were exposed to potential arrest or worse, a measure the Post said US executives refer to as the “hostage law.”https://nypost.com/2022/03/12/russia-ukraine-news-live-updates-and-coverage/

      It looks as if Russia had planned this for some time.

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      2. No, I hadn’t heard that one. Had you heard this one from a few years ago?

        https://abcnews.go.com/International/lions-mouth-american-gaylen-grandstaff-finally-russia-years/story?id=70650666

        There was a time 10+ years ago where I was planning to go back to Russia for a visit, but then I got busy with having a new kid, and then things kept getting weirder and weirder, and now I don’t think I’ll go until there’s a new government.

        My last friend that I’m in touch with in Russia is trying to get out right now with her family. I’m hoping to hear in a few days that they’ve gotten out, but man, there are a lot of things that could go wrong.

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