Putin is trying to coerce firms into doing business or else...

[AmoreJaz]

Let's take McDonalds for example. Say the company decide to leave and then Putin seizes the assets, what is he gonna do with it?

I think that it's not the best example.
MacDonald's works as a franchise business. So the owners of the actual restaurants (hence the assets) are (probably) Russians.
They were paying for the rights and recipes and parts and MacDonald's was actually having all the contracts right so the suppliers keep sending what's needed where's needed.


However, there's nothing for Putin to seize in MacDonald's. Maybe from other businesses. But going on this track he ensures Russia will become a big no for... basically every goods and services that matter (but I'm no longer surprised; I'm curious how long will it take until most Russians get to understand what happens there).

russians themselves are suffering with this move, because those who are also working on these businesses are russians. so after this, a lot of its constituents don't have jobs and are struggling to survive. and you may be right that the owners of these franchises are also russians. because if you happen to visit this country, they don't patronise much the english language, they stick to their local language. and i don't think many westerners are willing to study a new language to live and work in this country.
but what i am thinking is that if in case Putin will fail on Ukraine, he may possibly be ousted...

[Fortify]

Putin's latest crazy idea is to coerce Western and multinational firms into keeping their business open in his dominions. The message here is "you have to keep your doors open or I will take all your assets and property and also send your executives to jail".

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/03/11/russia-mcdonalds-business-seizures/

McDonald’s—which made capitalist history when it opened its first Soviet restaurant in Moscow 32 years ago—is leaving Russia. So are BP, Shell, Ferrari, Ikea, Ford, Mercedes-Benz, Unilever, and a host of other Western companies

Medvedev proposed that Moscow should seize the assets of foreign individuals and companies in Russia. And on March 9, Russia’s governing party said a government commission had begun the process of doing so.

This is a very peculiar understanding of business and the rule of law. I wonder that, if this is effectively implemented, will we ever see a western company investing or doing business in Putin's dominions? Will the jobs for the Russian people created by this companies disappear for decades to come?

At the moment it is simply an empty threat, one which they tried to pedal back from quietly after the headlines were written. This sort of nationalization would make Russia even more uninvestable in future (when they're already off the charts) because it means the government will seize any potential assets, which obviously makes it impossible for foreign buyers to trust that they'll have anything left. It's almost as if Putin has thrown the last 20 years of relative stability out the window in the space of a couple weeks by all these constant mistakes and just shows how totally clueless the government is, instinctively lashing out in whatever small ways they can against the massive sanctions setup due to their unnecessary invasion.

[Argoo]

Putin seems to recognize nothing more than brute force. But in business, such tactics are always doomed to failure. If the business and property of foreign firms are taken away in Russia, they will go to international courts and all over the world there will be confiscation of property belonging to the Russian Federation in order to compensate for the losses caused. Russia will be completely cut off from the whole world. Considering that this is not a high-tech country, its economy will be thrown back many decades. All this is stupid on the part of Putin, like all his recent actions regarding Ukraine. A terminally ill old man with enormous power just went crazy, but ordinary citizens of Russia will pay for this for a long time to come.

[Moneyprism]

This is a very peculiar understanding of business and the rule of law. I wonder that, if this is effectively implemented, will we ever see a western company investing or doing business in Putin's dominions? Will the jobs for the Russian people created by this companies disappear for decades to come?

I think that if Putin's dominance continues in Russia this will be an obstacle for investors to be able to invest in Russia, because for example, Putin is currently seizing the assets of foreign companies, like his own.

...and if this continues, sooner or later Russia will suffer the same fate as North Korea

[Webetcoins]

This guy is really starting to do some crazy stuffs that I least expected him to do. He's trying to turn this into something that is bigger than what it is currently. I was expecting that by now this situation would have been something that is totally over. But, I’m surprised that they are still dragging this issue till now and doesn’t want to put an end to it. And what saddens me the most is that people that suffers the most from this war are the poor innocent civilians.

The rich ones can easily leave the country and relocate to a better place, while the poor will just continue to stay there and desperate. Despite they are innocent, they will still suffer from it, suffering from a poor decision that was made by their leader.

[kaya11]

This is similar to what happened in Venezuela where they seized the private sectors businesses, they go inside establishments and take them, giving it to the people. A very bad wrong move, it gave them income, a profit to the government, created jobs, butd now they are destabilize. I wonder how's the case for NK, where they are deprive of these products and services in the first place, they've manage to lived but I don't call it living with such control.

[merchantofzeny]

Let's take McDonalds for example. Say the company decide to leave and then Putin seizes the assets, what is he gonna do with it?

I think that it's not the best example.
MacDonald's works as a franchise business. So the owners of the actual restaurants (hence the assets) are (probably) Russians.
They were paying for the rights and recipes and parts and MacDonald's was actually having all the contracts right so the suppliers keep sending what's needed where's needed.


However, there's nothing for Putin to seize in MacDonald's. Maybe from other businesses. But going on this track he ensures Russia will become a big no for... basically every goods and services that matter (but I'm no longer surprised; I'm curious how long will it take until most Russians get to understand what happens there).

Just used McDonalds since I don't know what other foreign brands have presence in Russia but I suppose there's still the problem of seizing their assets - how do you liquidate it if no one outside is going to buy it?

As for it deterring business, yes it'll have that effect. He could have just shut his mouth. Maybe there would be still some who might come in and do business. But since he dropped the E word, they might have second thoughts about doing business in such a country.

[paxmao]

Let's take McDonalds for example. Say the company decide to leave and then Putin seizes the assets, what is he gonna do with it?

I think that it's not the best example.
MacDonald's works as a franchise business. So the owners of the actual restaurants (hence the assets) are (probably) Russians.
They were paying for the rights and recipes and parts and MacDonald's was actually having all the contracts right so the suppliers keep sending what's needed where's needed.


However, there's nothing for Putin to seize in MacDonald's. Maybe from other businesses. But going on this track he ensures Russia will become a big no for... basically every goods and services that matter (but I'm no longer surprised; I'm curious how long will it take until most Russians get to understand what happens there).

Just used McDonalds since I don't know what other foreign brands have presence in Russia but I suppose there's still the problem of seizing their assets - how do you liquidate it if no one outside is going to buy it?

...

Judging for Putin's usual modus operandi, he will seize the assets, give them to one of his mafia bosses oligarchs to open a local version (McPutin or Vladpple) and get his cut of the business to buy more flats in London, a larger palace or a couple of islands or archipelagos that he fancies.

He can get very creative and quite persuasive when he wants to take someone else's stuff as you can see right now in Ukraine.

[darkangel11]

This is similar to what happened in Venezuela where they seized the private sectors businesses, they go inside establishments and take them, giving it to the people. A very bad wrong move, it gave them income, a profit to the government, created jobs, butd now they are destabilize. I wonder how's the case for NK, where they are deprive of these products and services in the first place, they've manage to lived but I don't call it living with such control.

Of course, because socialist ideas only work in the heads of the socialists. A chain has its own suppliers and contracts with many companies. It doesn't have a cleaning lady that does the job but there's a contractor that comes at night and cleans everything, it does not have some guy to change the bulbs but a contractor that manages whole electric equipment in the building. It can offer employees certain benefits, gift cards, private healthcare, savings plans. If you take a chain restaurant and give it to some private guy even a very eager and honest person it's not going to work as efficiently and be able to offer food as cheap as the chain did.

Putin probably doesn't want to give anything to the people. He wants the state to own it all like in the Soviet Union which is his idealized world of dreams.

[justdimin]

On the oil extraction business, it is certain that the extraction, processing and even transportation has become a very specialised business. Even large companies depend on a selected group of technologists and know-how companies. This is nothing like we nationalise and next day we just open as usual. And on the financial side, it is pretty much the same, it is not only the huge investments required, it is the ability to manage efficiently those fluxes of money without loosing them to corruption, inexperience and inflated supply-chains.

If the military invasion of Ukraine by Putin's army is an example of how things are managed in his government, I can already tell you there is plenty of GDP to be lost.

Doesn't matter in the slightest that it takes time. There are two things that could be done, first of all you could start right now and it will take a year before you can get the most out of a place and meanwhile let the gas prices be high during that time, or you could use the ones that we already had someone working on and put subsidiaries on it and get them paid a lot more and basically tax payers money would go to lowering the price of gas.

All in all it is sad that it happened after 2+ years of pandemic, so we are reaching to 2+ years of economical chaos around the world. But, it certainly is a better feeling than depending on Russia at all times.

[dezoel]

I think it's counterproductive depending on what company's assets they seize. Let's take McDonalds for example. Say the company decide to leave and then Putin seizes the assets, what is he gonna do with it? Would he be able to just make the stores run like nothing happened, is gonna retain the employees, etc? I think even if he decides to just shut them down and liquidate, who he gonna sell those too? Even if he sell those to his cronies, the money would still be coming from within Russia, no new money comes in.

Yes, I also made a similar comment on one thread that was talking about how Russia will be able to recover after every sanction, and the possibility of it. There isn't any way at all that they will be able to easily recover from the economic crackdown that they are facing right now.

Even if they should try, it is not going to be easy because there is no money that is coming from outside into the country, everything has been blocked and it is now just Russia on its own. Even if there are countries that would patronize them at this time it’s just going to be a few countries. As it stands, a lot of countries around the world has completely turned their back on Russia.

[dunfida]

This is a very peculiar understanding of business and the rule of law. I wonder that, if this is effectively implemented, will we ever see a western company investing or doing business in Putin's dominions? Will the jobs for the Russian people created by this companies disappear for decades to come?

Now that it did happen then pretty much sure that impressions would be lasting forever and would really leave out some scar which would mind off that they shouldnt get involved nor run off a business on this domain
or particular country on which the risk on having that kind of situation would be most likely to happen.Dictatorship kind of act is something really bad to look at and mandating around the domain is something not
that good if businesses would tend out to close its doors.If its been forcefully make them operational then those business firms wouldnt be having no choice considering that they have threats on confiscating everything
plus putting up on jail those executives.

[LUCKMCFLY]

What Putin can do, is what every dictator does based on his criteria, is simply to seize the infrastructure and make it work as if nothing were happening, obviously the international market was closed to Putin, but he has the full support of of the Chinese, not only for aid in the war, they must also have treaties that are economic in style, and China knowing that in some way an entire American hegemony is being attacked, they will not hesitate to support Russia, this is something that everyone understands, is something that China will not miss, especially now that there are high levels of inflation in the US. Putin knows that if he intimidates the companies, they will not leave Russia, and they will even have many benefits in some way, and Putin knows that the economy cannot be stopped, these are the measures that cannot get out of his hands.

[RealMalatesta]

Doesn't matter in the slightest that it takes time. There are two things that could be done, first of all you could start right now and it will take a year before you can get the most out of a place and meanwhile let the gas prices be high during that time, or you could use the ones that we already had someone working on and put subsidiaries on it and get them paid a lot more and basically tax payers money would go to lowering the price of gas.

All in all it is sad that it happened after 2+ years of pandemic, so we are reaching to 2+ years of economical chaos around the world. But, it certainly is a better feeling than depending on Russia at all times.

People do not realize that the price is already going down. It will keep being like this for a long time but oil prices weren't 10$ before this war started neither. Just let the prices go up, and make it expensive and that will promote clean energy a lot better. We all know that clean energy has only 2 problems, aside from that they are much better for everyone both economically and also helps the world.

One of the problems is that storing it is hard, not impossible but hard, and that makes it difficult, but if everyone starts using solar panels on their roofs, then it would be a great start. Secondly it is expensive to start, and this is where oil prices matter. If the oil prices are high, then spending that high money on solar instead could help out a lot.

[Zanab247]

I think it's counterproductive depending on what company's assets they seize. Let's take McDonalds for example. Say the company decide to leave and then Putin seizes the assets, what is he gonna do with it? Would he be able to just make the stores run like nothing happened, is gonna retain the employees, etc? I think even if he decides to just shut them down and liquidate, who he gonna sell those too? Even if he sell those to his cronies, the money would still be coming from within Russia, no new money comes in.

Seized the assets from the company will not make the company to feel bad because the documents of those assets are still with the company which other companies cannot buy those assets from Putin. The taxes Putin imposed to the company will not  help the company to make a good profit and still pay their workers which the Putin was aware but he just wants to distract the company from the country.

[merchantofzeny]

Just used McDonalds since I don't know what other foreign brands have presence in Russia but I suppose there's still the problem of seizing their assets - how do you liquidate it if no one outside is going to buy it?

Judging for Putin's usual modus operandi, he will seize the assets, give them to one of his mafia bosses oligarchs to open a local version (McPutin or Vladpple) and get his cut of the business to buy more flats in London, a larger palace or a couple of islands or archipelagos that he fancies.

He can get very creative and quite persuasive when he wants to take someone else's stuff as you can see right now in Ukraine.

That's likely what's going to happen. I live in a country that was under a dictatorship for a time and that's what they usually do after purging privately owned sectors. Still, assuming he cronies can run this place, would the money they'd be able to make from the local market even be enough to still buy assets abroad, considering how low the ruble has dropped, plus these friends are also getting targeted by sanctions?

[stompix]

Judging for Putin's usual modus operandi, he will seize the assets, give them to one of his mafia bosses oligarchs to open a local version (McPutin or Vladpple) and get his cut of the business to buy more flats in London, a larger palace or a couple of islands or archipelagos that he fancies.

That's likely what's going to happen. I live in a country that was under a dictatorship for a time and that's what they usually do after purging privately owned sectors. Still, assuming he cronies can run this place, would the money they'd be able to make from the local market even be enough to still buy assets abroad, considering how low the ruble has dropped, plus these friends are also getting targeted by sanctions?

Making money? Yeah!
The companies themselves don't actually make a real profit like a real company, but because the costs are subsidized by the state, the state cuts their taxes, waives any other tax on work or welfare contribution to the budget, making the cost with the workforce go down, exempting companies from rent and so on and on.

One clear example is PDSVA, the petroleum company of Venezuela, profitable because it has lower running costs, using its money to buy assets outside and using the money to pay a ton of Maduro's cronies. In the case of Russia of course it won't be that simple but it will still not stop them to start a shell company in a country that doesn't sanction them and using it as a mule for both acquiring stuff and laundering money, of course, all of this extra work involved will be paid by the population and every single steps put proportionally more pressure on the economy. Putin as a former KGB knows this too well, all the countries in the Comecon tried to use 3rd world (non-aligned) countries in order to get stuff that they wouldn't normally be able to get.

[paxmao]

On the oil extraction business, it is certain that the extraction, processing and even transportation has become a very specialised business. Even large companies depend on a selected group of technologists and know-how companies. This is nothing like we nationalise and next day we just open as usual. And on the financial side, it is pretty much the same, it is not only the huge investments required, it is the ability to manage efficiently those fluxes of money without loosing them to corruption, inexperience and inflated supply-chains.

If the military invasion of Ukraine by Putin's army is an example of how things are managed in his government, I can already tell you there is plenty of GDP to be lost.

Doesn't matter in the slightest that it takes time. There are two things that could be done, first of all you could start right now and it will take a year before you can get the most out of a place and meanwhile let the gas prices be high during that time, or you could use the ones that we already had someone working on and put subsidiaries on it and get them paid a lot more and basically tax payers money would go to lowering the price of gas.

All in all it is sad that it happened after 2+ years of pandemic, so we are reaching to 2+ years of economical chaos around the world. But, it certainly is a better feeling than depending on Russia at all times.

You are not getting it: if it takes a year, who pays the government salaries in Russia that year? How does the military replenish that year?

But the main problem is that it does NOT take a year, it takes many years of research, investment (which will be lacking in Putin's Russia) and formation. If you are interested, you should learn more about the modern oil industry. The companies that finance that for VP and the companies that know how to undertake the CAPEX and OPEX operations will not be there for him either.

[Gozie51]

I think this is only a retaliatory move by Putin to get back at the EU and US for the sanctions. It is in the news that Biden is looking out for 50 Russian elites and businesses to sanction. So Putin is probably serving back the delicacy given to him back

Biden administration identifies 50 Russian elites as targets for global hunt to seize assets

The Treasury Department on Wednesday gave a new international body a list of 50 Russian elites that the United States views as its top priorities for enacting new sanctions, as global law enforcement steps up its hunt for the assets of oligarchs tied to the Kremlin.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/03/16/russia-oligarchs-sanctions-treasury/

[Erumo]

Current Russia is heading towards 90s, where factories, business, manufactures were nationalized or bought for a promise, bottle of vodka, taken by force or by document forgery. Expect new Berezovsky, Abramovich and other new oligarchs to appear close to 2030. With all that sanctions, the world is doing Russia a favor.