Russian Economy General News: #4

sepheronx wrote:

Project Canada wrote:PM Medvedev to personally head future govt commission on import replacement

http://www.rt.com/politics/311550-pm-medvedev-to-personally-head/

Medvedev was a lousy leader, all Mr.iPhone.  I have little faith in him and his abilities.  It would be better to get someone in the intelligence agency instead.  But I figure he will be nothing more than a figure head.

Karl Haushofer wrote:

sepheronx wrote:
There are others that can replace Putin.  I think it was mentioned that an Ivanov of the intelligence agency or head of FSB (whichever) is a possibility.

Isn't Ivanov about the same age with Putin? I would like to have someone younger. Putin himself was just 47 when he first became the president.

flamming_python wrote:

sepheronx wrote:Innovations? Technologies?  All of this was long before Medvedev.  He wanted to turn Russia into a similar market like China.  He failed to understand though that Russia's market is still quite small compared to the others and that jumping to the whole "iPhones of Russia" cannot happen as they are far too late in the market.  Although, it seems Russian brands have become popular back home simply due to being cheaper and still effective.  Yota devices has the chance to become a major player too.

There are others that can replace Putin.  I think it was mentioned that an Ivanov of the intelligence agency or head of FSB (whichever) is a possibility.

Ivanov? Butthead?

Who the hell has even heard from him, for like - the last 8 years?

Prince Darling wrote:

Neutrality wrote:

Hannibal Barca wrote:Yes but this doesn't hide the fact that Russian economy is laughably dependent on oil revenues. It is even more dependent than most undeveloped countries, Africa producers etc.
Like some forum members yap about in the Syria thread some things seems like never change in Russia. Putin collected the low fruits with ease in the early 2000s but now it's time for bigger steps and I simply don't see them.

Oh please, enough of that low-level bait already. Oil doesn't magically appear out of the ground by itself and then proceeds to put itself on a ship and export to other countries. It requires many highly sophisticated industries. You do understand that oil isn't only used for fuels? Just look into how many chemical products have a basis in oil and gas. As an extra, Russian oil is much harder to obtain than oil in Arab countries where it literally flies out of the ground as soon as its drilled through. So Russia has massive fossil reserves. What's wrong with using them to boost the economy? Can you explain that logic to me? Should we praise the financial sector in the UK as its most "exported" product instead? The largest US corporations delocate their businesses to low level income countries like China, produce nothing at home at all but their government takes their numbers into their GDP simply because their HQ is located somewhere in Washington or NYC. That's highly misleading IMHO. Or is China "laughably dependent" on cheap labour too?  

he isnt saying its wrong to exploit natural resources, the trouble is that exploiting natural resources represents a very big part of russian economy, so when there is a global slowdown, russia will always get hit, by falling oil/gas/metals prices. A huge problem is that obviously investing in oil/gas projects have a nice return (when the price is high), so there isn't enough money available to invest huge sums into modernizing manufactoring industries, and i am not talking just about machines, but investing in people and new ways of working, this is much harder and longterm process.

But this is the curse of more or less every oil producing country, some manage this predicament well like norway, some soo soo like most arab oil producers, and some just flat out fail like Venezuela (lets be honest incompetent Maduro is also a massive factor)

Yes but this doesn't hide the fact that Russian economy is laughably dependent on oil revenues.

Karl Haushofer wrote:

Neutrality wrote:Norway, by the way, also has a massive oil and gas export. Why is no one bitching about them? I guess it's cool and hip to hate on Russia today.

Norway would be a wealthy country even without oil. Oil just makes Norway a filthy rich instead of a wealthy country.

Karl Haushofer wrote:

magnumcromagnon wrote:

Karl Haushofer wrote:

Neutrality wrote:Norway, by the way, also has a massive oil and gas export. Why is no one bitching about them? I guess it's cool and hip to hate on Russia today.

Norway would be a wealthy country even without oil. Oil just makes Norway a filthy rich instead of a wealthy country.

They also have ridiculously high taxes, and a ridiculously high cost of living. Very few people are considered wealthy in Norway, the high wages is basically negated with high taxes, interlocked in a dance called 'zero-sum gain' tango.

They have high taxes because they can afford that. They use the tax money for infrastructure and ridiculously beneficial social benefits.

I have been to Norway. It is a paradise even compared to Finland.