> During the Second World War, the US established a trade embargo against Nazi Germany, making the export of Coca-Cola syrup difficult. To circumvent this, Max Keith, the head of Coca-Cola Deutschland (Coca-Cola GmbH), decided to create a new product for the German market, using only ingredients available in Germany at the time, including beet sugar, whey, and apple pomace—the "leftovers of leftovers", as Keith later recalled. The name was the result of a brainstorming session, which started with Keith's exhorting his team to "use their imagination" (Fantasie in German), to which one of his salesmen, Joe Knipp, retorted "Fanta!".
Fanta, the original recipe, is not the modern orange soda, but was rather a soda cobbled together from fruit scraps and whatever else was available in a severely rationed Germany. The original recipe was discontinued in 1945 and the orange soda launched in 1955. I don’t think anyone could find original-recipe Fanta.
You could give that response to almost any product. For example, in response to 'so Windows was invented by Bill Gates?' 'Not the modern version. Just the name'. That doesn't change who invented the original product. So yes, Nazis invented Fanta--or more accurately, Fanta was invented in Nazi-era Germany.
I guess this is as good a time as any to remind readers of the time Pepsi managed to make its cola the most popular soda in the Soviet Union, trading it for Stolichnaya vodka and later their own military fleet:
I find it hilarious that you consider, "companies stopping their Russian operations due to economic sanctions since they started a literal war" and "haha Russia is canceled" are even remotely the same thing.
Like you think in our capitalist hellscape that Coca-Cola virtue signaling "we don't like Russia, amiright?" is worth the billions in revenue they're gonna miss from this?
It doesn't mention anywhere in the press release that Coca Cola was forced to pull out of Russia due to sanctions. This makes it seem like a voluntary action.
It IS virtue signalling. KFC and Pizza Hut have decided to continue their operations in Russia. If it was "because of sanctions", they would have pulled out too.
Alphabet wholly owns Google, it's subsidiary. Yum is no longer a subsidiary of PepsiCo as of 25 years ago. PepsiCo divested their entire stake. They just have a lifelong contract to supply the restaurants with beverages. Yum operates independently and according to it's shareholders, doing what's best for its own business even if it comes at the expense of PepsiCo. They have no other relation for almost 3 decades.
To me, cancel culture is a behavior where individuals, countries or corporations decide to cut ties or refuse to do business with other individuals, countries, or corporations, usually informed by some popular opinion. It's a form of collective action.
The popular opinion doesn't even need to be correct, it just needs strong emotional appeal that motivates people to cancel.
You're probably right that the country "USA" doesn't get "sanctioned" much since they're the super power. Instead they use their power to punish other 'bad' performers. That said, Russia's government is totally worth 'cancelling' right now. Maybe the USA should have gotten some more push back for their failed wars, but Russia sure deserves it for this war; it's even more egregious than Iraq/Afghanistan.
Russia will be greatly hurt overall by all of these sanctions and corporate decisions. Still, it's striking how many of the American companies pulling their products from Russia sell things that weaken and enervate the people who consume them. I personally would probably be better off if I lost access to all Coca-Cola products. Likewise for Netflix, Instagram, etc. It doesn't say anything good for America that so many of its big companies fall into that category.
> It doesn't say anything good for America that so many of its big companies fall into that category.
The big companies of America fall into every category, not just the ones you cherry-picked. You could have easily mentioned GE, Intel, MSFT, Apple, Target, Lowe's, Home Depot, Ford, GM, Kroger, Walgreens, Deere, Oracle, Caterpillar, and a bunch of other as-big companies. Those companies each have higher revenues than Coca-Cola, Instagram, or Netflix.
>many of the American companies pulling their products from Russia sell things that weaken and enervate the people who consume them
As for food products - let's not pretend that off the shelf native alternatives like kvass (or beer) are much better - they're still chock-full of simple carbs that lend themselves to obesity and insulin resistance.
Well yeah, but buying kvas instead of cocacola is better for russian industry, and worse for american industry. USA/EU stopping imports of kvas would probably hurt them more, but they probably don't import any significant quantities of those.
How dare you speak in such disrespectful manner to kvass, you philistine!
On a serious note, most of store bought kvass might as well be Coca Cola but the real thing is good for you - it's a Russian kombucha. The sugar gets all used up in the process of fermentation and the bacteria are good for you.
CocaCola will be replaced by local drinks, netflix etc. by piracy, facebook etc. with VK.com, and china will replace the hardware (eg xiaomi/huawei instead of iphones). The disruption will probably be lower than in it was during the peak of supply chain issues during the first covid waves, just with enough toilet paper and yeast, and less of the stuff that isn't really that mandatory for normal day-to-day life.
On the other hand, europe will freeze without russian gas, and oil prices will make everything even more expensive worldwide.
The winner of all of this? China, with cheap russian gas (that russia will be forced to sell them, because they have noone else to sell it to) and more products/gardgets/stuff sold, with eu/usa imports stopped.
Now look at how much fertilizer Russia produces (~23% global supply of ammonia, 14% of urea and 21% of potash). That affects a lot more than just wheat. Food costs are going to soar way beyond what they currently are, world-wide.
> Natural gas is a commonly used as a feedstock to produce two nitrogen-based fertilizers – ammonia and urea – in large quantities.
> In the production of ammonia or urea, natural gas is processed at an upgrading plant together with nitrogen (taken from the air). During the process, 80% of the gas is used as feed¬stock for fertilizer, while the remaining 20% is used for heat and electricity production. The two main end products, ammonium nitrate and urea, are then mixed with other ingredients—mainly phosphorus and potassium—to manufacture a range of synthetic fertilizers for use on farms.
Easy fix is for the west to forbid anyone to sell food to China.
China can drink Russia's cheap oil and eat Russia's scarse, expensive food while the rest of the world has stomachs full of the food that would have gone to China.
Now that Russia is the world's biggest wheat producer, it seems that Russian food will be neither scarce nor expensive. And also seeing that it produces a good proportion of the world's fertiliser, it seems that food grown elsewhere will be scarce and expensive.
Sounds like a great time to promote contraception, abortion, education for women as global values. Africa and West Asia's exponential population growth had to end at some point.
They'll be fine, I expect no prolonged famine, if any. Population growth will continue as expected. Ignoring western sanctions in exchange for food is a good idea if it comes to that.
> The winner of all of this? China, with cheap russian gas (that russia will be forced to sell them, because they have noone else to sell it to) and more products/gardgets/stuff sold, with eu/usa imports stopped.
This is true, and it's why sanctions are dumb. Another example is Belarus. My understanding is for years they played the West against Russia, and their authoritarian government retained some independence as a result. Then the West slapped sanctions on them, which pushed them into the suffocating arms of Putin, and it became a staging area and accomplice to Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
The West probably needs some more realpolitik. Not the fuck your friends and bow down to your enemies kind that seems to be a bit in vogue, but the kind where you admit distasteful allies into your alliances against your stronger adversaries.
> And the loser? Average joe, again.
The real losers are the Ukrainians who are getting their country conquered by invaders.
"Another example is Belarus. My understanding is for years the played Europe against Russia, but their autocratic government retained some independence as a result. Then the West slapped sanctions on them, which pushed them into the suffocating arms of Putin, and it became a staging area and accomplice to Putin's invasion of Ukraine."
Contrast that with Finland and Sweden seriously considering joining NATO, NATO putting more weapons and soldiers in to the Baltic and Eastern European states, Germany and other NATO states increasing military spending, and moving much faster towards energy independence.
These consequences are evidence of a major miscalculation on Putin's part, who certainly would never want to see any of that happen.
Not to mention the world edging ever closer to WW3, in which everyone would be the loser.
Even before the war, in Romania where I'm from, gas prices became so high, that resistive heating became cheaper, when you opt for the national hydroelectric supplier (which anyone can do, they provide more than a third of electricity).
If you used heat pumps, you'd get 5x cheaper (or whatever CoP you get).
The companies pulling out of Russia will lose revenue. That is an objective fact. They are cutting off their nose to spite their face.
On the flip side, this isn’t that bad for Russia. Multinational corporations suck the life out of medium and small businesses. Such a mass exodus of goods and services gives the people of Russia an opportunity to establish their own homegrown businesses, which is empowering.
Isn't the aim of sanctions to hurt Russians? Stopping the sale of poisonous American foods and drink would seemingly only benefit them. If the idea was to actually to adversely impact Russians, Coca-Cola would give out free sodas, McdDonald's would give out free burgers to them, etc...
I think the aim of sanctions is to make Russians unhappy, more than to hurt them. If they're hurt by the sanctions but not bothered by them, it accomplishes nothing.
I might eat my own words in a month but currently the Ruble doesn't look very "collapsed" to me. FX rate rose from 75 to 130 which is still less than what happened after the 2014 sanctions when it went from 35 to 70 and Russia didn't collapse due to this.
Coca Cola don't (usually) bottle/can the drink themselves.
They make a syrup in Atlanta, GA, and distribute that worldwide. A local bottling plant mixes it according to Coca Cola's instructions with sugar (or HFCS in the US), water and CO₂.
Assuming there's still demand for soft drinks in Russia, the bottling plants are going to make alternatives -- either an existing brand, or a new one — from locally made syrups.
I don't agree but a lot of people think Israel's justifications are valid.
There are no decent arguments for Putin's war. It's even less justified than when Saddam invaded Kuwait but Saddam didn't have nukes and couldn't veto the UNSC
It's not a question of the validity of either military action. It's just that for many years people have called for product boycotts in the case it Israel and the common response was based on boycotts having no impact for various reasons.
Your bias is glaringly obvious here. You mention Palestinian munitions, but completely leave out Israeli phosphorous bombs [0], organ harvesting [1], illegally occupying land, etc, etc,
1. Is questionable morally (though, organ donation the default in california now if you die) but also happened quite a long time ago. 0. Doesn't seem to be considered illegal and has also appeared to stopped.
This still side steps the main issue that a large majority people in Palestine won't acknowledge that israel has a right to exist and support a continued war against it. You could see how it's hard to end a war
Source? Ben & Jerry's had 9% sales growth last year, out pacing the rest of the market at 4.5%. They haven't reported this year so I'm wondering where you're reading that, I can't find anything.
> New York’s state pension fund said it would sell its shares in Ben & Jerry’s owner Unilever PLC following a review of the ice-cream brand’s decision to stop retailing its products in Jewish settlements located in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
> State officials said Friday that the New York State Common Retirement Fund, the third-largest public pension fund in the U.S., planned to sell $111 million in Unilever investments, accusing the company of breaking its policy that prohibits the boycott of Israel.
> New York’s decision to divest follows similar moves by New Jersey and Arizona, which have also sold Unilever holdings over the issue. Other states have said they were evaluating whether their funds would need to sell their Unilever investments.
So let me get this straight...because some groups got these BS unconstitutional anti-BDS laws passed in various states, they are now divesting from companies because of Unilever's refusal to sell in the occupied territories?
At what point do you just accept that the whole system is corrupt and rotten from top to bottom?
Europe cares about Ukrainian because it directly attacks a country in Europe and puts other countries like Germany in a weaker position. Germany has decided to grow an army in response.
Claiming racism ignores the real reasons.
Not to mention this is an emotional segway out of the daily covid grind the news has been beating. This support wasn't there in 2014 when they first invaded.
> Racism because we empathize with Ukrainian more than with Arabs ?
I didn't know the European Union bordered Israel directly and Israel threatened to nuke the EU and USA...
As for Palestinians, even neighboring Arab states have long stopped supporting their cause. Are you going to invoke Arab on Arab racism here?
People trying to make the threat of nuclear war a "racism issue" are unhinged.
Russia has explicitly been threatening NATO with Nukes that's why they are getting punished. Russia have created more than 2 millions European refugees, that's why they are getting punished. Many of these companies have a lot of their IT employees located in Ukraine, Russia has been killing their employees or disrupting their operations, that's why Russia is getting punished.
That type of repression isn’t possible in Russia. It requires a cult and people who haven’t heard of the free world for a generation.
It can be as isolated as Iran however, which is pretty remarkable considering how close the now prosperous St Petersburg is to Helsinki and Tallinn. The contrast from today to a year from now will be extreme.
It's difficult to overstate just how big of a turning point this is for the world, especially Europe, because I can't see how Russia returns to anything like normal relations in the foreseeable future. There's no way they leave Ukraine entirely, and therefore the sanctions will remain indefinitely.
Europe is still heavily reliant on Russian oil and gas, but this is clearly untenable. If and when that business dries up, they will be truly isolated from the west.
I think you're half right: China will allow Russia to circumvent trade sanctions, like they do with North Korea. But, like any irreplaceable middleman, China will extract as much as they can from Russia in the process. China loses a powerful ally, gains a loyal vassal state, and Russia loses its political power. All in all, not a terrible outcome for the West.
I don't think China will be quick to help them evade sanctions. There will certainly be some of that, but Chinese banks are already cutting ties with Russian businesses for fear of secondary sanctions.
Yeah, it was a massive, massive disaster. The expenses associated with the new (hopefully) cold war will make europe weak and irrelevant on the global stage. That includes Russia. And what was this all for?
Many thousands of north koreans still work abroad every year. Hard to keep an entire population completely isolated from the world when you have thousands constantly travelling abroad.
Yay! And so has Pepsi and Starbucks and Ima bet that this was coordinated among them.
For the first time in my life I got off my butt and wrote a whole email to their customer service address indicating my disgust and threw in the 'boycott' keywords.
I honestly think that they will 'measure the anger' and that 'every lazy email' counts kind of things.
McDonald's, Disney and Spotify should shut down next.
None of this is important for the Russian economy (a bit but not much) - this is a little signal to the population - you don't get your 'Iron Man' and 'Big Mac' while you invade countries. The nominal idea of isolation is something that will impact a huge portion of the population and they may 'feel' it more than for example inflation, which can be explained away.
There was an interview about a teen girl pissed off because 'she can't upgrade her iPhone' - it seems pedantic in a time of war, but most people are concerned about those things. 'Pissing off teenagers' is a good way to remind them of what's up, even if it might have some negative effects, for the most part, it's constraining.
FYI Google should stay active, they're a possible source of information.
Even Chinese are aware or not when they are making progress.
Xi's #1 fear is that the economy slows down because he can paper over everything so long as people's lives are improving. The moment that stops he's done.
We're not made aware but there are 'protests' of sort all over China all the time. People get pissed off over corruption etc..
People aren't completely dumb, the propaganda only has so much effect.
As people see their lives turning down, they know what's what.
I have no doubt that people are able to see what direction their lives are going, but even in the developed world with a notionally free media they can be trivially mislead about who to blame.
Good point. But if people's lives are being very materially degraded, and there's only 'one guy' then he will be blamed. Even if ironically dear leader may have made the right choices.
We have inequality in the West but our lives are not improved or degraded to the very obvious extent that they are in developing places. They have 8% growth rate - that's almost something you can 'feel'.
First, she is 'pissed off' and that's a separate issue from blame.
Second, while we can't fathom the attribution entirely - Russians are fully aware that these sanctions hit when Putin launched a war/incursion. Irrespective of 'blame' the causality is their own.
Every day Russians are complicit - propaganda or not - and they need to be made aware and isolated from everything except information.
It seems that the press interprets suspending business in Russia as a show of solidarity with Ukraine. But isn't it also just a normal business response to the Ruble's freefall? The cynic in me takes the solidarity angle with a grain of salt.
It’s neither of those - ruble is not in a freefall and you are right to be cynical about solidarity. In reality this is just another manifestation of the cancel-culture, just on a whole other level, country scale.
To be honest:
What does this endless list of sanctions actually achieve in terms of ending the war, now?
Sadly, it does more look like a luxurious decadent virtue-signalling circus from the viewpoint of India, Brazil or China.
... Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Netflix, Facebook ... to the point of rendering this a joke: Oh, actually, how good for them!
The hard problem no one is trying to tackle is having the actual balls to start peace negotiations, like forcing a main player like China to the table:
Look, here are our nukes, now, let us sit and cease fire for the moment: What is that you (Putin) want, again?
Even if Putin is totally mad (unlikely), at least we assume the Chinese, or the Rest of the non-sanctioning World are more or less rational actors? So where is the cold-blooded intellgentia of diplomacy in the West?
Our Eastern counterparts are way ahead of the curve continuously refining their cost-benefit-analysis, game theoretical approach, engineering mindset, being careful not hurting themselves economically in the long-run.
Like for a short-lived higher moral standing (with some "miscalculated" wars on our own meant to be "policing" but appearing imperialistic for a considerable part of the world).
How are you going to do diplomacy when we know what Putin wants and it is unacceptable to all other parties? People keep lamenting why we have wars, well, this is why. Sometimes people are dead-set on taking your stuff by force. If you aren't okay with being abused, then you have to fight back. Sometimes negotiation just isn't possible.
Coca-Cola and McDonald are pulling out, this will give a final blow to the already weakened Russian pension system by considerably extending Russian's lifespan.
> Coca-Cola and McDonald are pulling out, this will give a final blow to the already weakened Russian pension system by considerably extending Russian's lifespan.
Yeah, sure Alcoholism has absolutely nothing to do with the terrible life expectancy in Russia...
Then they'll drink Chernogolovka Baikal instead. Which is OK, I do too. Hope it stays available here, makes a real good pairing with sweet hot beef jerky from Jack Links.
"Okay. I'm gonna get your money for ya. But if you don't get the President of the United States on that phone, you know what's gonna happen to you?"
"What?"
"You're gonna have to answer to the Coca-Cola company."
Couldn't resist posting the quote since its from Dr. Strangelove and that has been topical lately. Clearly Russia doesn't know who they're dealing with now...
115 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 218 ms ] threadhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanta#Origins
> During the Second World War, the US established a trade embargo against Nazi Germany, making the export of Coca-Cola syrup difficult. To circumvent this, Max Keith, the head of Coca-Cola Deutschland (Coca-Cola GmbH), decided to create a new product for the German market, using only ingredients available in Germany at the time, including beet sugar, whey, and apple pomace—the "leftovers of leftovers", as Keith later recalled. The name was the result of a brainstorming session, which started with Keith's exhorting his team to "use their imagination" (Fantasie in German), to which one of his salesmen, Joe Knipp, retorted "Fanta!".
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3PjKrWdZ-E
Fanta, the original recipe, is not the modern orange soda, but was rather a soda cobbled together from fruit scraps and whatever else was available in a severely rationed Germany. The original recipe was discontinued in 1945 and the orange soda launched in 1955. I don’t think anyone could find original-recipe Fanta.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/soviet-union-pepsi-shi...
Like you think in our capitalist hellscape that Coca-Cola virtue signaling "we don't like Russia, amiright?" is worth the billions in revenue they're gonna miss from this?
Yum! Foods, aka Pepsi
Same as those brands are still PepsiCo.
What does "Cancel Culture" mean to you?
The popular opinion doesn't even need to be correct, it just needs strong emotional appeal that motivates people to cancel.
The big companies of America fall into every category, not just the ones you cherry-picked. You could have easily mentioned GE, Intel, MSFT, Apple, Target, Lowe's, Home Depot, Ford, GM, Kroger, Walgreens, Deere, Oracle, Caterpillar, and a bunch of other as-big companies. Those companies each have higher revenues than Coca-Cola, Instagram, or Netflix.
As for food products - let's not pretend that off the shelf native alternatives like kvass (or beer) are much better - they're still chock-full of simple carbs that lend themselves to obesity and insulin resistance.
On a serious note, most of store bought kvass might as well be Coca Cola but the real thing is good for you - it's a Russian kombucha. The sugar gets all used up in the process of fermentation and the bacteria are good for you.
I was asking about kvas.
On the other hand, europe will freeze without russian gas, and oil prices will make everything even more expensive worldwide.
The winner of all of this? China, with cheap russian gas (that russia will be forced to sell them, because they have noone else to sell it to) and more products/gardgets/stuff sold, with eu/usa imports stopped.
And the loser? Average joe, again.
> Natural gas is a commonly used as a feedstock to produce two nitrogen-based fertilizers – ammonia and urea – in large quantities.
> In the production of ammonia or urea, natural gas is processed at an upgrading plant together with nitrogen (taken from the air). During the process, 80% of the gas is used as feed¬stock for fertilizer, while the remaining 20% is used for heat and electricity production. The two main end products, ammonium nitrate and urea, are then mixed with other ingredients—mainly phosphorus and potassium—to manufacture a range of synthetic fertilizers for use on farms.
https://context.capp.ca/articles/2020/pirl-fertilizers/
Now that Russia is the world's biggest wheat producer, it seems that Russian food will be neither scarce nor expensive. And also seeing that it produces a good proportion of the world's fertiliser, it seems that food grown elsewhere will be scarce and expensive.
They'll be fine, I expect no prolonged famine, if any. Population growth will continue as expected. Ignoring western sanctions in exchange for food is a good idea if it comes to that.
This is true, and it's why sanctions are dumb. Another example is Belarus. My understanding is for years they played the West against Russia, and their authoritarian government retained some independence as a result. Then the West slapped sanctions on them, which pushed them into the suffocating arms of Putin, and it became a staging area and accomplice to Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
The West probably needs some more realpolitik. Not the fuck your friends and bow down to your enemies kind that seems to be a bit in vogue, but the kind where you admit distasteful allies into your alliances against your stronger adversaries.
> And the loser? Average joe, again.
The real losers are the Ukrainians who are getting their country conquered by invaders.
Contrast that with Finland and Sweden seriously considering joining NATO, NATO putting more weapons and soldiers in to the Baltic and Eastern European states, Germany and other NATO states increasing military spending, and moving much faster towards energy independence.
These consequences are evidence of a major miscalculation on Putin's part, who certainly would never want to see any of that happen.
Not to mention the world edging ever closer to WW3, in which everyone would be the loser.
If this was some middle eastern country, destroyed by the americans, this would be a "peacekeeping" occupation.. i mean operation.
The prices and the financial losses of individuals around the world would be remembered more.
Sad, but true.
If you used heat pumps, you'd get 5x cheaper (or whatever CoP you get).
On the flip side, this isn’t that bad for Russia. Multinational corporations suck the life out of medium and small businesses. Such a mass exodus of goods and services gives the people of Russia an opportunity to establish their own homegrown businesses, which is empowering.
I think the aim of sanctions is to make Russians unhappy, more than to hurt them. If they're hurt by the sanctions but not bothered by them, it accomplishes nothing.
All Russians working in McDonalds or Coca Cola are probably not much pleased now.
And Kool Aid seems to be really popular in Russia currently.
They make a syrup in Atlanta, GA, and distribute that worldwide. A local bottling plant mixes it according to Coca Cola's instructions with sugar (or HFCS in the US), water and CO₂.
Assuming there's still demand for soft drinks in Russia, the bottling plants are going to make alternatives -- either an existing brand, or a new one — from locally made syrups.
There are no decent arguments for Putin's war. It's even less justified than when Saddam invaded Kuwait but Saddam didn't have nukes and couldn't veto the UNSC
Your bias is glaringly obvious here. You mention Palestinian munitions, but completely leave out Israeli phosphorous bombs [0], organ harvesting [1], illegally occupying land, etc, etc,
0. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-22310544
1. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/dec/21/israeli-pathol...
This still side steps the main issue that a large majority people in Palestine won't acknowledge that israel has a right to exist and support a continued war against it. You could see how it's hard to end a war
Government punishment of free speech and expression is supposed to be forbidden.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-state-to-sell-unilever...
> New York’s state pension fund said it would sell its shares in Ben & Jerry’s owner Unilever PLC following a review of the ice-cream brand’s decision to stop retailing its products in Jewish settlements located in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
> State officials said Friday that the New York State Common Retirement Fund, the third-largest public pension fund in the U.S., planned to sell $111 million in Unilever investments, accusing the company of breaking its policy that prohibits the boycott of Israel.
> New York’s decision to divest follows similar moves by New Jersey and Arizona, which have also sold Unilever holdings over the issue. Other states have said they were evaluating whether their funds would need to sell their Unilever investments.
At what point do you just accept that the whole system is corrupt and rotten from top to bottom?
Claiming racism ignores the real reasons.
Not to mention this is an emotional segway out of the daily covid grind the news has been beating. This support wasn't there in 2014 when they first invaded.
Rest assured most people are disgusted by Israel's actions just as much as by Russia's
I didn't know the European Union bordered Israel directly and Israel threatened to nuke the EU and USA...
As for Palestinians, even neighboring Arab states have long stopped supporting their cause. Are you going to invoke Arab on Arab racism here?
People trying to make the threat of nuclear war a "racism issue" are unhinged.
Russia has explicitly been threatening NATO with Nukes that's why they are getting punished. Russia have created more than 2 millions European refugees, that's why they are getting punished. Many of these companies have a lot of their IT employees located in Ukraine, Russia has been killing their employees or disrupting their operations, that's why Russia is getting punished.
The US likes Israel and it hates Russia. You don't need to look deeper than that.
"Coke can't get paid so suspending business in Russia"
It can be as isolated as Iran however, which is pretty remarkable considering how close the now prosperous St Petersburg is to Helsinki and Tallinn. The contrast from today to a year from now will be extreme.
Europe is still heavily reliant on Russian oil and gas, but this is clearly untenable. If and when that business dries up, they will be truly isolated from the west.
Or they will simply use China as a middleman for whatever products they want from the West (that China doesn't already make).
It's extremely difficult to actually harm Russia in the long term thanks to China.
Of course not, NK is an open air prison for its nationals.
For the first time in my life I got off my butt and wrote a whole email to their customer service address indicating my disgust and threw in the 'boycott' keywords.
I honestly think that they will 'measure the anger' and that 'every lazy email' counts kind of things.
McDonald's, Disney and Spotify should shut down next.
None of this is important for the Russian economy (a bit but not much) - this is a little signal to the population - you don't get your 'Iron Man' and 'Big Mac' while you invade countries. The nominal idea of isolation is something that will impact a huge portion of the population and they may 'feel' it more than for example inflation, which can be explained away.
There was an interview about a teen girl pissed off because 'she can't upgrade her iPhone' - it seems pedantic in a time of war, but most people are concerned about those things. 'Pissing off teenagers' is a good way to remind them of what's up, even if it might have some negative effects, for the most part, it's constraining.
FYI Google should stay active, they're a possible source of information.
She was pissed off because "evil Americans started a war and now she can't upgrade her iPhone"
There's a big difference.
Xi's #1 fear is that the economy slows down because he can paper over everything so long as people's lives are improving. The moment that stops he's done.
We're not made aware but there are 'protests' of sort all over China all the time. People get pissed off over corruption etc..
People aren't completely dumb, the propaganda only has so much effect.
As people see their lives turning down, they know what's what.
We have inequality in the West but our lives are not improved or degraded to the very obvious extent that they are in developing places. They have 8% growth rate - that's almost something you can 'feel'.
First, she is 'pissed off' and that's a separate issue from blame.
Second, while we can't fathom the attribution entirely - Russians are fully aware that these sanctions hit when Putin launched a war/incursion. Irrespective of 'blame' the causality is their own.
Every day Russians are complicit - propaganda or not - and they need to be made aware and isolated from everything except information.
Sadly, it does more look like a luxurious decadent virtue-signalling circus from the viewpoint of India, Brazil or China. ... Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Netflix, Facebook ... to the point of rendering this a joke: Oh, actually, how good for them!
The hard problem no one is trying to tackle is having the actual balls to start peace negotiations, like forcing a main player like China to the table: Look, here are our nukes, now, let us sit and cease fire for the moment: What is that you (Putin) want, again?
Even if Putin is totally mad (unlikely), at least we assume the Chinese, or the Rest of the non-sanctioning World are more or less rational actors? So where is the cold-blooded intellgentia of diplomacy in the West? Our Eastern counterparts are way ahead of the curve continuously refining their cost-benefit-analysis, game theoretical approach, engineering mindset, being careful not hurting themselves economically in the long-run. Like for a short-lived higher moral standing (with some "miscalculated" wars on our own meant to be "policing" but appearing imperialistic for a considerable part of the world).
Coca-Cola sanctions ain't it.
Yeah, sure Alcoholism has absolutely nothing to do with the terrible life expectancy in Russia...
"What?"
"You're gonna have to answer to the Coca-Cola company."
Couldn't resist posting the quote since its from Dr. Strangelove and that has been topical lately. Clearly Russia doesn't know who they're dealing with now...