According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on March 4, 80% of Americans support a  US government ban on the importation of Russian oil.

Meanwhile, Americans are also complaining about high gas prices, which reached an average of more than $4 per gallon over the weekend following the poll’s release, in large part due to US and European sanctions on Russia.

While Russian oil constitutes only a tiny portion of US petroleum imports, a complete ban certainly wouldn’t help hold US gas prices down.

It also wouldn’t help with much else.

Believe it or not, Vladimir Putin and his oligarch cronies aren’t missing any meals due to the sanctions.

Yes, ordinary Russians are taking a hit to their per capita income of a whopping US $7,000 or so per year. And most of them probably blame the US, not Putin, for that hit.

Just like Iranians mostly blame the US, not their theocratic regime, for the effects of US sanctions.

And just like Cubans mostly blame the US, not their Communist regime, for the effects of US sanctions.

Sometimes it seems like the only victims of US sanctions who DON’T blame the US government are Americans.

Maybe it’s the differential effect. Abroad, US sanctions can produce real poverty, malnutrition, even starvation or death by preventable disease. Here at home, they’re a minor inconvenience.

Maybe you’re canceling that road trip to Vegas and planning a stay-cation instead, but you’re probably not cutting your meat ration with corn meal to make it go further, looking up the symptoms of rickets, or trying to coax a 68th year out of your 1956 De Soto.

As to who sanctions HELP, well,  cross Ukraine off that list.  Putin’s not going to call his troops back over economic sanctions. Europeans whose livelihoods are hit by being on the sanctioners’ side aren’t going to get any more anti-Russian or pro-Ukrainian. They’re just going to get poorer.

The only people helped by US sanctions on Russian oil are American oil producers. Those sanctions bring them just a little bit closer to monopoly status, allowing them to jack up prices and knock down windfall profits at your expense.

If you want to give up vodka for Lent, or switch from Russian salad dressing to a vinaigrette, in the silly belief that doing so will make a difference for Ukraine, knock yourself out. But don’t demand an increase in the cost of gas and then whine about it.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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As part of the western  response to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, several regimes acted on February 26 to exclude certain Russian banks from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT)  network. As of March 1, Reuters reports, SWIFT says it’s awaiting a list of the sanctioned banks so that it can cut them off.

SWIFT is a messaging service that connects banks worldwide. It’s not a bank itself. It’s not even, strictly speaking, a payment network. It carries instructions for transfers, but the transfers take place via other networks. It’s just one moving part in the world’s complex finance and trade system.

As with most such measures, giving Russian banks the boot from SWIFT  is certain to hurt the sanctioners along with the sanctioned. In this case, the potential victims with the most to lose are  the issuers and holders of US dollars.

Dollars aren’t the only currency that gets moved using SWIFT, but the dollar is the de facto “global reserve currency” and thus the most affected by such moves. Nearly everyone accepts the dollar. Nearly everyone wants to have a fat stack of dollars on hand. In particular, global trade in oil has been powered by the “petrodollar” for nearly 50 years.

If you want to buy a barrel of Brent crude from most sellers, you need to be able to plunk down (as I write this) 105.46 US dollars. Not 395.72 Saudi riyals. Not 7,983.35 Indian rupees. Not 665.78 Chinese yuan. $105.46 or no sale.

What happens when one of the world’s largest oil producers is 1) cut off from SWIFT; 2) doesn’t want US dollars as much as it used to because other sanctions make those dollars  difficult to spend; and 3) has trading partners who are watching these sanctions and fear they could be the next victims? Well, this:

A “rupee-rouble trade arrangement may get a push now that Russia is out of SWIFT,” reports The Times of India.  China will presumably likewise increase its yuan-ruble trade with Russia.

The Times of India article reveals that this isn’t a sudden development: “India had entered into a rupee-rouble trade arrangement with Russia earlier to shield the two nations from unilateral sanctions from the United States.”

What makes the dollar valuable? The same thing that makes anything valuable: People wanting it. Between China and India, more than a quarter of the world’s population are in the process of wanting the dollar less than they used to. That, in turn, makes every dollar in your pocket worth less than it once was.

In the short term, the SWIFT kick and other sanctions may hurt Russia more than they hurt you. But the uncontested reign of the US dollar among global currencies seems to be nearing its end, in part because the US government is driving the world away from it with the constant threat of sanctions.

The smart move for Americans? Hold as few dollars as you can get by on. Trade your dollars for gold, silver, and cryptocurrency while they’re still worth something, to someone, somewhere.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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At this point in my life, I’ve been consistently opposed to war for about twice as long as I spent as a Marine infantryman (with precisely the attitude toward war you would expect). The change was incremental and took a few years, but I consider my decision to march in the streets against the 2003 US invasion of Iraq to have been moral, and my decision to march in formation toward participation in the 1991 Gulf War to have been immoral.

Every international conflict tests that conviction: Will THIS be the one war that makes me reconsider and conclude “hey, THIS war, unlike any other I’ve witnessed, is unavoidable, necessary, and just?”

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is not that war.

Like all other wars in my lifetime (I was born during the US misadventure in Vietnam), this one is a violation of every worthwhile human value, a brawl between overgrown street gangs with delusions of grandeur. It was avoidable, it is unnecessary, and it is unjust.

Where I find myself in disagreement with many who oppose this particular war but have supported others is the notion that there are any  “good guys” to be found among the political decision-makers who brought this conflict upon us.

There’s been quite a bit of harrumphing and table-thumping in UN, EU, and NATO circles over the invasion as a “violation of Ukrainian sovereignty.”

“National sovereignty” is a prettified way of saying “mutual respect between authoritarian gangs’ for each others’ turf claims.” That respect goes right out the window any time one gang wants something and another gang won’t hand it over.

Coming as it does from regimes which have spent the last 25 years militarily violating “Serbian sovereignty,” “Afghan sovereignty,” “Iraqi sovereignty,” “Libyan sovereignty,” “Syrian sovereignty,” etc., the “sovereignty” outrage rings a bit hollow.

Putin’s playing by the same rules they’ve set for themselves. Their problem with him isn’t that he’s breaking the rules. It’s that his goals conflict with their goals. They’re special and entitled, he’s gauche and disreputable. They’ve got a classy country club, and he showed up in spandex shorts and a Slayer t-shirt.

My sympathy, in this conflict as for all others, is reserved for the non-combatants caught up in the gangs’ turf disputes, not for the gangs themselves, or for the gangs’ grandiose “sovereignty” claims.

If you prefer peace and prosperity to war and poverty, none of these people are your friends.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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