Russian Economy General News: #10

Not only are their air defence systems and other weapons cheaper, but they also generate income from overseas sales... which might increase quite a bit and other countries realise how defenceless they actually are, and want what Syria got... countries like Poland and Hungary... hahahahahahaha

Well, seems after Kudrin was put in his place by Shoigu, he changed his tone:

https://vpk.name/news/328082_kudrin_nazval_rashodyi_na_oboronu_razumnyimi.html

The head of audit chamber considers that efficiency is a further purpose of the spending on defense

MOSCOW, September 23. /TASS/. The head of audit chamber of the Russian Federation Alexey Kudrin noted that the current defense expenditures are at a reasonable level and further mitigation is not required. About the same time Kudrin wrote on his page on Twitter.

"The President has led defense spending to a reasonable value. I said that further reduction is not required for the decision of tasks of defence," - said Kudrin.

Kudrin also believes that efficiency is a further purpose of spending on defense.

The head of audit chamber has expressed this opinion after the Minister of defence of Russia Sergey Shoigu, who considered it a baseless statement Kudrin about the bloated defense budget. "I propose to discuss not flimsy the General thesis and the specific and pressing issues and Affairs. Just to say "defense spending is excessive" - to follow a long-past fashion," - said Shoigu in an interview with the newspaper "Moskovsky Komsomolets".

Seems the slapping around was well needed.

Fighting against these three guys can only end in tears.

miketheterrible wrote:Seems the slapping around was well needed.

One can not speak without arguments. Baseless claims that defense budget is inflated followed by nothing means nothing while insted Shoygu can elaborate from now till the dawn of the mankind

I like this guy (Shoigu). Seems well comited in his duty.

He's done well as Defence Minister. Definately better than his predecessor who had some strange airy-fairy ideas. The only criticism I've heard is that he doesn't say much via the media. This was his first proper interview in 7 years

Interestingly, Shoigu isn't Russian ethnically speaking

Cyberspec wrote:He's done well as Defence Minister. Definately better than his predecessor who had some strange airy-fairy ideas. The only criticism I've heard is that he doesn't say much via the media. This was his first proper interview in 7 years

Interestingly, Shoigu isn't Russian ethnically speaking

Half-Russian, Half-Buraytian.

magnumcromagnon wrote:

Cyberspec wrote:He's done well as Defence Minister. Definately better than his predecessor who had some strange airy-fairy ideas. The only criticism I've heard is that he doesn't say much via the media. This was his first proper interview in 7 years

Interestingly, Shoigu isn't Russian ethnically speaking

Half-Russian, Half-Buraytian.

Half-Russian, Half-Tuvan you mean

he looks like Mr Monopoly Man.

I like him.

“Not everything is so simple and clear with the Russian economy”

https://lenta.ru/articles/2019/09/25/jakobsen/

Funny that the US has singled out Russia and China as being threats to the US and NATO... no real mention of Belgium...

Makes you think that perhaps the economy of a country is not really that important in some aspects and some regards.

It is amusing that the US is considered the worlds best economy but can't print money fast enough to pay their debt.

Funny it works like that because when money makes money faster and easier than real work, with a screwed up model for a system like that it actually makes more sense to borrow money at very low rates and then invest it to earn more money than it costs to borrow the money... money for nothing... but you have to listen to Kenny Rogers in the Gambler... listen to his advice because that is what you are doing... gambling.

GarryB wrote:Funny that the US has singled out Russia and China as being threats to the US and NATO... no real mention of Belgium...

Makes you think that perhaps the economy of a country is not really that important in some aspects and some regards.

It is amusing that the US is considered the worlds best economy but can't print money fast enough to pay their debt.

Funny it works like that because when money makes money faster and easier than real work, with a screwed up model for a system like that it actually makes more sense to borrow money at very low rates and then invest it to earn more money than it costs to borrow the money... money for nothing... but you have to listen to Kenny Rogers in the Gambler... listen to his advice because that is what you are doing... gambling.

A lot of economic analysis is primitive and ignorant. Lack of understanding about purchasing power parity (PPP) and relative development
levels of various economic branches is rampant. I read from anti-Russian western sources essentially a chauvinist masturbation stream
where the supposed lack of a Russian analogues of Bugatti or Lamborghini is proof that Russia is a 3rd world country. There is no
law of nature that requires identical development profiles for 1st world countries. Even if some "economists" (more like MSM shills)
admit to the existence of something like PPP, they resort to absurd proxies for it. One of them is the retarded Big Mac index. The
only thing this index is good for is Big Macs. It is irrelevant for anything else. Russia may have western level prices in some
consumer economy sectors, but it for sure has vastly lower prices in the military-industrial complex. While Russia has very low prices,
due to corruption the USA and NATO have grossly excessive prices in this branch of the economy. So using an economy-wide and skewed
(towards consumer goods and services pricing) PPP to compare Russia with the USA and NATO is simply wrong. A MIC-specific PPP factor
is needed and it is somewhere between 6 and 10 for Russia. So America's trumpeted military GDP size is not even twice the size of
Russia's and don't forget that a lot of US military spending is on maintaining 800 bases around the world.

Big_Gazza wrote:

Austin wrote:“Not everything is so simple and clear with the Russian economy”

https://lenta.ru/articles/2019/09/25/jakobsen/

Bah... Russian economy is smaller than Belgium????  pfftt...  another arrogant fuktard Westerner who doesn't get it...

Huh, smaller than Belgium? I'm curious how many industries, jobs and working people exist in Belgium vs Russia? How bout debt levels?

Useless article by lenta, color me surprised.

miketheterrible wrote:

Big_Gazza wrote:

Austin wrote:“Not everything is so simple and clear with the Russian economy”

https://lenta.ru/articles/2019/09/25/jakobsen/

Bah... Russian economy is smaller than Belgium????  pfftt...  another arrogant fuktard Westerner who doesn't get it...

Huh, smaller than Belgium? I'm curious how many industries, jobs and working people exist in Belgium vs Russia? How bout debt levels?

Useless article by lenta, color me surprised.

The problem is that too many people are utterly unaware of the fact that exchange rates are not a measure of the size and development
level of an economy. They don't even know that the instantaneous exchange rate is not even relevant to the hypothetical case of
buying the whole economy: suppose the "super rich" USA with its inflated dollar decided to buy a GDP several times smaller as
"determined' by the forex rate for the target GDP. The first thing that would happen is that the initial cost of the target GDP
would sky rocket, i.e. the dollar would lose purchasing power. But assorted morons keep on thinking that the forex rate is some
metric of GDP size.

kvs wrote:

miketheterrible wrote:

Big_Gazza wrote:

Austin wrote:“Not everything is so simple and clear with the Russian economy”

https://lenta.ru/articles/2019/09/25/jakobsen/

Bah... Russian economy is smaller than Belgium????  pfftt...  another arrogant fuktard Westerner who doesn't get it...

Huh, smaller than Belgium? I'm curious how many industries, jobs and working people exist in Belgium vs Russia?  How bout debt levels?

Useless article by lenta, color me surprised.

The problem is that too many people are utterly unaware of the fact that exchange rates are not a measure of the size and development
level of an economy.   They don't even know that the instantaneous exchange rate is not even relevant to the hypothetical case of
buying the whole economy: suppose the "super rich" USA with its inflated dollar decided to buy a GDP several times smaller as
"determined' by the forex rate for the target GDP.  The first thing that would happen is that the initial cost of the target GDP
would sky rocket, i.e. the dollar would lose purchasing power.   But assorted morons keep on thinking that the forex rate is some
metric of GDP size.  

Hence why Nominal GDP isn't calculated anymore or at least isnt really used much compared to PPP which matters far more.

But hey, I am no banker from a country who hates Russia.

  Belgium can't even run a functional govt. (Walloonies vs Flems), and is defacto ran by a foreign body of unelected nomenklatura bureaucrats. They run political-economic circles around the Russkies...

This is my first post in a while (I was travelling etc, not that anyone cares)...

Austin, you're a good poster, but this interview was utter nonsense. Why even share it?

First of all, it should be immediately obvious that EVEN in nominal GDP the Belgian economy is several times smaller than Russia's. And in PPP, the Russian economy is almost 8 times larger.

Was that supposed to be a "joke," or something?? You know, the continuation of the "Russian economy is smaller than Italy -> South Korea/Canada/Spain -> California -> Texas -> the State of New York -> the Benelux countries combined (saw this on Reddit, IIRC) -> the Netherlands (in the mid-2000s) -> Sweden (in the early 2000s, no joke)" meme.

Then the usual neoliberal/exceptionalist nonsense about the legal and political systems, combined with the standard blather about Huawei, 5G and financial markets. Zzzzz...

As an economist (?), he should know better, ffs. I mean, how is China not catching up in per capita GDP? (Or is that Yandex Translate's fault?) That's happening even in nominal, despite the very strong US dollar after 2014. Of course it is. It's not like the country is experiencing massive population growth. But whatever, as he's wrong anyway; per capita GDP is largely irrelevant when measuring national power.

Then the cliches continue... It's always 2008, and China has a long way to go blah blah blah, even though we're actually living in late 2019, and China's economy is already 25% larger than the US in PPP. But yeah, sure, OK.

And to state that China is somehow still living in the 1950s is extremely misleading as well, to say the least. Sure, in RELATIVE per capita terms China is in a similar position as Japan was in the late 50s/early 60s, compared to the US at that time. But that is the only valid context for such comparisons, and even then it's hugely misleading for the average reader because China's population is over 10 times bigger! In other words, it means absolutely fuck all for the overall national power.

While you and I have not seen eye to eye, its at least nice to see you back. Where did you go?

Thanks, I appreciate that. Actually I think I agree with you most of the time.

Nothing special, visited London and then I was in China for a while (and for the first time).

Although the disagreements are often a little bizarre to me, as I'm very pro-Russian (or as I like to think, I like facts and objectivity) by the standards of today's West/Europe, to the extent it honestly has an impact on my mental wellbeing. Being a dissident isn't particularly fun.

But what can you do, people and the media here have simply lost their minds after 2014, notwithstanding the occasional decent article and the fact that Russia isn't actually faultless, the doping saga and the Skripal case being two examples (not that I think the Western narrative is entirely correct about them either, AT ALL). Without going to into details, let's just say that the rot clearly isn't entirely gone, and that doesn't only include liberals. I'm just not convinced that everything's a "NATO conspiracy," sadly.

Not that any of that really changes my overall views on Russia (or, well, facts). The Western "Dark Lord Putler's personal gas station*" narrative is so fake that it's truly incredible. But it's clear now that after 1991 all of this was inevitable.        

*An excellent summary if I may say so myself

--------------

Oh, and I was going to add this to my previous post, so this isn't totally off-topic:

Also Russia's share of the global economy is actually around 3%, not 2%. And with that 3%, Russia is (almost) the 5th largest economy in the world. (Maybe that was the interviewer's fault, but doesn't matter, the whole article was shit.)

Meanwhile, the share of "the ender* of history"/"global hyperpower"/"master of the universe" has just fallen below 15% (while Zhongguo is about to hit the 20% mark). It's important to keep in mind the real long/medium-term, or even the current overall power and potential of the US. 14% is actually already kind of pathetic in that context, and may come as a surprise to many.

*I don't think that's a real word...

The interview is reflection of West mindset among other things.

Expecting that 2014 Russia will face 1998 like crises the economy will collapse.

Not a great idea Russia is investing in Gold as its not liquid enough etc

I have come to terms with GPD meaning nothing.

What matters is if Russia can get what it needs to be sovereign, it's people have jobs and able to survive.

Now many Russians are constantly complaining that they have it rough. Many of them though tell me that they have one month of vacation after starting a new job. That they own their house (no mortgage) and that they have lots of sick days. This completely Trump's us in Canada where we don't have such luxuries. Dachas are cheap so lots of average people have one cause it costs so little (as cheap as $5K USD near a lake). They get everything else we get plus they seem to always have enough to travel.

Even the liberal morons who bitch the most seem to travel freely, not even work and still somehow have money to protest and do other shit.

Russians don't seem to know the luxuries they got. I saw a video of this American Black woman who is marrying a Russian man explain to people the horrors of the US living standards. And her husband wants to move to US. Lol

https://russia-insider.com/en/russia-and-china-are-why-new-world-order-imploding/ri27589

Read this.

Not a great idea Russia is investing in Gold as its not liquid enough etc

It is investing in something it can hold and touch and has enormous value both decoratively and as a product required for a lot of different things.

It is also investing in food production and a wide range of different areas in new technology.

America has rich people who get richer with smoke and mirrors like hedge funds and all sorts of economic bullshit... but it is all based on the US dollar... and when it loses its position as international currency then they are all in deep shit because their currency will not be worth anything.

German children used to make kites out of million deuchmark notes, because the paper money was cheaper than paper.

Women would carry a wheelbarrow full of money to go to the shop to buy a loaf of bread.

The US has a lot of internal problems and like their international debt, they are ignoring it... that will bite them in the ass because such problems wont go away on their own and when they have to do something about it it might just be too late...

Three percent growth and a strong ruble

How the budget describes Russia's economic future - in 11 graphs

https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/4104291?from=main_1