Ukraine desperately needs to keep its own Army equipped, to keep the country alive, and to pay for the vast amount of reconstruction that will be needed. The IMF estimated in December that the country needs $5bn (£4.2bn) a month just to keep going. At the same time, there needs to be some form of punishment beyond condemnation, and potentially consumer boycotts, for the companies that remain.
The solution? Sanction and seize. If the G20 economies can come up with a global minimum tax, and most major economies can impose windfall taxes, it is hardly impossible to come up with a levy on Russian profits. Estimate the amount that each multinational is making in Russia, double it, and then impose a one-off charge on each one, and donate the proceeds to the government in Kiev.
The likes of Philip Morris and Accor can huff and puff if they want to. They can complain that it is too hard to sell local assets, that there is not enough time, or that they can’t get the right price. They can drag their heels, and come up with spurious reasons for remaining.
But here’s a prediction. If all the money they were making was confiscated, they would start to get a move on – and the scandal of major Western companies remaining in Russia would soon be over.
We’re not even at war. They are, true, but we’re not. And theft might not be the appropriate peacetime answer to anything.
For note what the actual suggestion is. The property – indirectly but still so – of some pensioner in Basingstoke should be stolen from them by fiat. Because.
Or let us try a constructed but close to real example. A buddy invested, 30 years back, in a dental clinic in Almaty. Shipped over all the nice modern equipment, chairs, drills etc (much Soviet dentistry back then was steel teeth along with pedal power drills). Been paying him a dividend ever since.
OK. Almaty isn’t in Russia but just move that clinic into Novosoibirsk or something instead to construct our example.
So, that private property should be confiscated from him because Putin decided to invade Ukraine? Even though we (or the US, he is a US citizen) are not at war with Russia? Really?
That’s what the suggestion is? The private property of a citizen should be confiscated on the grounds of geopolitics?
Quite apart from anything else that might run into the occasional Fifth Amendment difficulty. As well as being theft.