I feel like we have the upper hand(West/EU) quite a bit vs Russia with consumerism

[Godzuki]

1.McDonald's: Russian officials and regulators have been cracking down on the restaurant chain. Officials shut a handful of popular McDonald's (MCD) restaurants in Moscow this week, and state media report that Russia's consumer watchdog will be conducting checks on outlets as part of a food standards investigation.

Meanwhile, Wendy's (WEN) was recently forced to exit Russia due to what it said was a change in management at its local partner Wenrus. Wendy's had been in Russia since 2011.

2. Coca-Cola: The drinks giant said this week that quarterly sales declined by about 5% in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Coca-Cola (KO) blamed "economic instability in the region," but global sales increased by 3%.

3. Carlsberg: The Danish brewer warned this week its annual results will be weaker than expected, as Russian demand dries up. Carlsberg (CABGY) estimated that industry-wide Russian beer sales fell by as much as 7% in the first six months of 2014 due an uncertain economic environment, leading it to also lose market share. Carlsberg beer is the most popular beer in Russia by a wide margin. The company's stock has fallen 15% since the start of the year.

4. Adidas: In late July, the German sportswear company announced it was shutting stores and scaling back expansion plans in Russia. It said that "tensions in the region" had hurt consumer spending, and that the decline in the Russian ruble hurt profitability. Adidas (ADDYY) slashed its 2014 earnings forecast by 20% to 30%, partly because of Russia. Shares have plunged 37% since the start of 2014.

5. Volkswagen: The German automaker blamed an 8% drop in its Russia car sales during the first six months of the year on political tensions, and it said it believes i sales industry wide fell about 25% in July. Volkswagen (VLKAY) shares are down 13% since the start of the year.

6. Ford: A weakening ruble and slower sales in Russia have hurt Ford's (F) bottom line.

7. Renault: The French car maker has warned investors about a sharp slowdown in Russia and other emerging markets. Russia is Renault's (RNSDF) third largest market in terms of sales.

8. BP: The British oil giant BP (BP) owns a large stake in Rosneft, Russia's biggest oil company, and warned that unit will suffer from tougher U.S. sanctions. Investors are also worried about other energy companies, including Total (TOT) and Exxon Mobil (XOM), which have significant ties with Russia.

9. Societe Generale: Profits at the French bank's Russian unit fell 36% in the second quarter.

10. Danone: The French food multinational said first-half results were hurt by a decline in the ruble, and that it was forced to hike prices for some products in Russia due to strong inflation.


judge for yourself

i mean if Putin wants to play the sanctions game of him vs the West, Russian people are going to miss out on a lot of options they seem to enjoy. say what u want about McDonalds being bad for u but options to eat junk food instead of gruul every day, much less a mexican food truck, is pretty nice. losing Russia as consumers isn't going to really hurt anyone in the EU or US much....

and i swear we'll find a way around using them for oil and natural gas. so many untapped reserves, i'd think we can get around that if we hit back some on the green movement and pushed pipelines to funnel it.

http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2014...osed.cnnmoney/

watch this too, pretty funny how excited they were over McDonalds opening up and how much they seemed to love it. then again u never hear any reknown chef making russian food like its so great. yeah i know Emory is russian but he makes a lot of non russian cuisines.

wathc that clip at least until the ISIS stuff, real funny how crazy the world can be. a billion dollars a year dealing oil.....dumb ass Obama/Hagel waiting so long just to get Sunni representation blackballing....what a complete fail call

[cuad]

You copy all this shit from reddit, don't you?

[Godzuki]

You copy all this shit from reddit, don't you?

lol look at the link fool

even tho i hate CNN's slants these days and their editorials are horrible, they have the best site layout and update of news sites. a lot of online news sites are surprisingly horrible tbh.

[Brizzly]

So is there anything you would like to discuss?

[Godzuki]

So is there anything you would like to discuss?

lol i guess not. just throwing my shit out there i guess

[9erempiree]

Actually if you look back in history, we had won the Cold War due to consumerism.

Just google Silly Putty and how it helped us beat the Russians.

[eliteballer]

We have the upper hand in everything.

Economy/Diversification of Economy
Military Tech/Quantity/Logistics/Training
Population(Russia's is declining)
Society/Institutions(Russia is one of the most corrupt states in the world).
Soft Power/Influence.

Russia isn't the Soviet Union. The EU alone shits on them in every category listed.