Russian Economy General News: #11

Backman wrote:"This means more capital is flowing into the country than going out, caused by an increase in foreign ownership of domestic assets"

Yes. Just like the household example. The US is selling it's assets and its debt to consume. Capital flowing in. Sounds good eh ? It really isn't.

As far as what the US actually produces , it's basically an 8 or 9 trillion GDP economy. The rest is imperial grift. 8 or 9 trillion is something. But it's not the 20 trillion number that everyone trots out.

8-9 trillion is basically Germany and Russia combined

Russia's current GDP is not at the developed stage. So it cannot be lumped with Germany. But it is rapidly getting to the developed stage
in spite of all the disruption both internal and external.

calripson wrote:I simply illustrated that your criticism of Russian education is way off the mark. The reason they run these contests is so talent can be identified by western companies and poached. All those talented Russian programmers will get big fat offers from Silicon Valley. That is why one clever country does not compete - it funnels its talent into its military industrial complex. That country of course is Israel.

Why does Russia not do this?


Hopefully Russian thinking of moving to western countries, rethink their decisions.

https://www.stalkerzone.org/a-message-to-russian-expats-living-in-the-us/

par far wrote:

calripson wrote:I simply illustrated that your criticism of Russian education is way off the mark. The reason they run these contests is so talent can be identified by western companies and poached. All those talented Russian programmers will get big fat offers from Silicon Valley. That is why one clever country does not compete - it funnels its talent into its military industrial complex. That country of course is Israel.

Why does Russia not do this?

I think your question is not really valid. Google and friends may try to poach Russian programmer talent, but that does not mean they succeed.
Clearly Russia retains all the new talent it needs. If the poaching was such a problem, then it would be a topic of discussion. Nobody is
covering anything up. In fact, the liberasts would gloat over it as it would be "proof" of "Putin's fail".

Russian funding of technological upstarts is real and not a gimmick. If there is a problem, is that the CBR clown show makes it
very hard for these startups to mature into SMEs. So the problem is not participation in world contests but in CBR sabotage
of Russia's economy.

The CBR is Putin's fail for real. He should never have allowed Nabiullina and her monetarist gang to take over. A huge amount
of credit goes to the previous regime at the CBR which never drank the inflation threat koolaid. It maintained the prime rate
at about 8% when the official CPI was 13-15% and allowed 50% annual increases in the money supply. This gave Putin a
solid base to revive the economy. If he let some monetarist take over, Russia would have stayed mired in the 1990s. Monetarists
would never allow a 50% annual money supply growth. And this would literally suffocate the economy since it was transitioning
from command economy token "pricing" to real market pricing.

Jeffrey Sachs and his Harvard Boyz shock-therapy witchdoctors may believe that prices equilibrate in under a year, in the real world
there are price transients lasting decades. We see them in the Russian MIC. It is nowhere near market pricing. And market
pricing converges to world levels. That is why the price of food in Russia during the 1990s quickly reach near western
levels even though the wages stayed low. The key detail is that not all goods and services behave the same way in terms of
price equilibration. The food commodity is not a universal template.

A side effect of the different relaxation time-scales for different goods and services is false inflation. False inflation is the
adjustment of prices from command economy meaninglessness to market levels. This is not real inflation since inflation
is only properly defined in equilibrated market regimes. Something monetarists utterly fail to grasp (if they are not being criminals).
So the 50% annual money supply increase allowed the prices to adjust without creating an artificial ruble shortage.
And there was no hyperinflation. A forced currency shortage is not conducive to economic growth. It is a species of
what Nabiullina and her gang are doing now. They are artificially constricting the circulation of money in the Russian
economy supposedly to fight inflation. But that is a lie. The "excess" money is satisfying actual net demand and not
just spuriously sloshing in the economy raising prices. Russia's developing economy actually fully sterilizes it.

The story of Ust Luga the port that has served to divert Russian goods to its own port facilities. It turns out that
there was open sabotage of the building of this port using Greenpeace. Greenpeace engaged in multiple stunts
to stop construction using various pretexts such as "radiation contamination". What radiation contamination
in a natural shore line? There were no nuclear or industrial facilities ever at the site of this port. Look at the
area using Google Earth.

The true face of the west.

I hear the claim that Russia lost 50 billion US dollars from sanctions over the last five years. This is BS. It is clearly
assuming that there are no other adjustments aside from trade losses. Such ceteris paribus inanity is routine for
economists. They do not understand that the economy sits on a multi-variate manifold and varying one parameter
at a time takes you off this manifold. In other words, it is meaningless to evaluate the economy by fixing all other
variables.

Import substitution in Russia easily exceeds a GDP turnover of $10 billion per year. A reduction of $10 billion in annual
imports translates into $20 billion of annual GDP if they are substituted with domestic production. So Russia has
gained since 2014 and not lost.

In regards to the GDP growth rates, they are obscured by massive annual paydowns of foreign debt. Russia paid
down over $200 billion US in the span of a few years after 2014. That amounts to several percent GDP removed
from GDP growth every year.

https://www.rt.com/business/449394-russia-foreign-debt-minumum/

Russia’s external debt has fallen by $64.4 billion or 12.4 percent from the beginning of last year, amounting to $453.7
billion as of January 1, 2019.

In terms of dollars the Russian GDP was $1658 billion in 2018. So we have 3.9% GDP shaved off simply due to debt repayment
in 2018. Russia's GDP growth was recorded as 2.3% for 2018. In reality it was 6.2%. GDP accounting is BS since it
does not account for the actual circulation of money. It assumes that the $64.4 billion spent on debt retirement would
have circulated into wages and purchasing at all levels of the economy. This is a moronic assumption that
all money in the economy is circulating and that even savings are all actually money changing hands all the time. This
is obviously wrong. Money has more than one state in the economy. It can be parked and doing nothing, such as
the rubles in your mattress. It can also be jumping from owner to owner assuming that there is a chain of purchasing.

Such chained money exchange clearly does not go on forever. It gets broken all the time. So there is actually such a
thing as savings and so debt payments are not a zero sum game where they automatically involve someone not getting
paid inside Russia.

kvs wrote:
...

Such chained money exchange clearly does not go on forever.   It gets broken all the time.  So there is actually such a
thing as savings and so debt payments are not a zero sum game where they automatically involve someone not getting
paid inside Russia.

Just for reference: by the end of 2020, the total volume of deposits of individuals in Russian banks was about 32 trillion rubles. This is approximately 217 thousand rubles for each resident of Russia.

Scorpius wrote:

kvs wrote:
...

Such chained money exchange clearly does not go on forever.   It gets broken all the time.  So there is actually such a
thing as savings and so debt payments are not a zero sum game where they automatically involve someone not getting
paid inside Russia.

Just for reference: by the end of 2020, the total volume of deposits of individuals in Russian banks was about 32 trillion rubles. This is approximately 217 thousand rubles for each resident of Russia.

How much was it in 2019?

miketheterrible wrote:

How much was it in 2019?

According to statistics from the Central Bank, as of October 1, 2019, 29.4 trillion rubles of household savings were stored in Russian banks. For comparison, in 2015, this figure was less than 20 trillion rubles, and in 2011 — less than ten trillion, that is, over nine years, deposits tripled, but the main increase occurred in 2011-2015.
Source.

...and in the form of a graph:


UPD: I will also add that: from 2006 to 2019, accumulated inflation in Russia was about 200%. The growth of the population's savings during the same period was 900-1000%.

This is the sort of data that means something. If Russia was in an inflationary toilet, people's incomes and savings would be
decreasing in real terms and not increasing.

Every time you read any economic analysis about Russia from any source always take it with a grain of salt. Enough yapping
voices repeating the same BS create a climate of circle jerk affirmation. So every lemming repeats the same drivel or tries
to filter facts through the same corrupt lens.

kvs wrote:

The story of Ust Luga the port that has served to divert Russian goods to its own port facilities.   It turns out that
there was open sabotage of the building of this port using Greenpeace.   Greenpeace engaged in multiple stunts
to stop construction using various pretexts such as "radiation contamination".   What radiation contamination
in a natural shore line?   There were no nuclear or industrial facilities ever at the site of this port.   Look at the
area using Google Earth.  

The true face of the west.

Reminds me of that classic picture of a greenpeace trashcan being put away by two Russian cops
Jokes aside, Ust Luga is one of those sleeper hits that not too many people know about but has been an absolute success.

"Britain no longer wants to lose money over Crimea sanctions"


https://www.stalkerzone.org/britain-no-longer-wants-to-lose-money-over-crimea-sanctions/

kvs wrote:

Backman wrote:"This means more capital is flowing into the country than going out, caused by an increase in foreign ownership of domestic assets"

Yes. Just like the household example. The US is selling it's assets and its debt to consume. Capital flowing in. Sounds good eh ? It really isn't.

As far as what the US actually produces , it's basically an 8 or 9 trillion GDP economy. The rest is imperial grift. 8 or 9 trillion is something. But it's not the 20 trillion number that everyone trots out.

8-9 trillion is basically Germany and Russia combined

Russia's current GDP is not at the developed stage. So it cannot be lumped with Germany. But it is rapidly getting to the developed stage
in spite of all the disruption both internal and external.

I was just stating Russia's and Germany's combined raw GDP which is around 4 trillion each. Russia is less developed but it has more people and more land. Germany's GDP is of a higher quality of course.

Russia is the only middle economy that is separating itself from the rest of them (Brazil , Turkey+) development wise. The latter have terrible economic technocrats , bad monetary policy , bad reserve strategy ect. Brazil for example , is the 4th largest holder of US Treasury debt.

My post was not meant as an attack. I think GDP size is a misleading metric to compare power when it comes to Russia.
Germany is a US vassal state as is Japan. Russia's military potential is well beyond most of NATzO and really is a match
for the USA. Dick measuring over the number of carriers is pointless but that is the sort of "analysis" that is used to
dismiss Russia as some Upper Volta with nukes.

Russia's nominal GDP is under-counted. The Russian MIC is not tiny but barely shows up on the accounting sheet.
Combine this with the prices in this sector of Russia's economy and the PPP GDP in my opinion is above 6 trillion US.
So it will be claimed that Russia is less than 1/3 the USA. The equilibrium GDP scales with the size of the population.
So Russia will always be under 50% of the USA (based on a snapshot at that is fading into history). Russia does
not have the extra-territorial economic footprint and "financial industry" which accounts for 50% of the US GDP.
But Russia does not need these civilian sector features to deploy a military no worse than that of the USA.
In addition, it will not go bankrupt doing so.

A very good article, very detailed, it talks about what the globalists are planning. It is well worth the read, you have to read the whole article to really understand it in full detail.

https://www.stalkerzone.org/the-great-reset-covid-19-as-a-new-point-of-reference-in-the-evolution-of-earths-civilisation/

The author gives the banksters way too much credit. Trump is a manifestation of the failure of globalism. If globalism was
such a great racket, the "industrialists" would be riding the same gravy train. Instead, a part of the US elites not floating
on delusional flatulence of monetarist idiocy realized that the Titanic is sinking. But the monetarist idiots keep with their
BS ideology and think that removing national boundaries will bring back the good times.

These idiots already had the world in the palm of their hand in the 1990s. Borders meant nothing. But clearly their globalist
utopia did not arrive. They cannot face reality and accept that their ideology is trash. They are doubling down trying to
prove to themselves that it is not. And they will take the world down in flames in the process.

Now why the globalism project has been failing involves the following facts:

1) End of cheap energy. Fracking for oil and gas is not a sign of abundance. It is scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Listening to the fake stream media you would think that it is the greatest discovery ever. But it is not. All the fracking
plays have been known since the 1950s and were just too uneconomical to exploit. Now the conventional oil production
is decreasing (all the key regions are scrambling to bring online every little field they can since the old big fields
have peaked and their global production is falling). Counting ethanol and biodiesel as global oil production is revisionist
BS. The modern global economy is built on oil with coal and gas making up the bulk of the rest. Shipping goods from
the other side of the planet becomes unappealing if the transport cost is too high. The same goes if people spend too
much on transport to go shopping and food delivery is expensive because diesel is not cheap. The impact of the decline
of cheap fossil fuel energy is slow moving but it is key.

2) Development outside the first world colonial parasites is happening regardless of their efforts to keep humanity
on the plantation. Even if 3rd world countries are not becoming rich fast, they are not easy pickings anymore. Merely
the growing population is diverting more resources away from the colonialists and lack of consumers in those countries
is reducing their colonial value. Russia is the worst thing for the west since it sets an example to the planet that
development is possible without "guidance" from the colonialists and without paying tribute to them. So the west is
in the era of diminishing returns.

3) The globalist project is also failing because the plan to secure developing markets in countries such as China
and India and elsewhere has not worked out. Throwing western consumers under the bus required replacements abroad.
The colonialists assumed that it would be their transnationals running the show. Instead we have Chinese companies
running the China market. That defeats the globalist project completely.

So the globalists may desire for China and Russia and others to surrender their markets and resources to them,
but that is not a viable plan. I just do not see how the clowns backing Bidet will achieve their global colony
utopia. They would have to destroy the economies of China and Russia with war to gain such control. But
that is not only impossible, it is also self-snookering since destroying consumption in those countries destroys
the globalist advance and requires restoration of the consumption they threw under the bus at home.

It's interesting how quickly the oil price recovery was this time around, just checked and it's around 55$ (canadian crude is at 37, RIP albertans), sure people make the argument that suppressed output from Iran and Venezuela are partially responsible for the price, but that has been the case for a few years now and suppressed demand during a crisis should have kept it lower for longer if the press is to be believed. Also RIP to people projecting Russian bankruptcy, we only had to go a few months with the oil price below the break-even point (it's like 42 or so right?).

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/512134-musk-icon-con-artist/
Must read for all Musk fans.

Maximmmm wrote:It's interesting how quickly the oil price recovery was this time around, just checked and it's around 55$ (canadian crude is at 37, RIP albertans), sure people make the argument that suppressed output from Iran and Venezuela are partially responsible for the price, but that has been the case for a few years now and suppressed demand during a crisis should have kept it lower for longer if the press is to be believed. Also RIP to people projecting Russian bankruptcy, we only had to go a few months with the oil price below the break-even point (it's like 42 or so right?).

Depends. Break-even point for Rosneft is $5 bbl (older wells). And newer wells it's about $20~ bbl.

Maximmmm wrote:It's interesting how quickly the oil price recovery was this time around, just checked and it's around 55$ (canadian crude is at 37, RIP albertans), sure people make the argument that suppressed output from Iran and Venezuela are partially responsible for the price, but that has been the case for a few years now and suppressed demand during a crisis should have kept it lower for longer if the press is to be believed. Also RIP to people projecting Russian bankruptcy, we only had to go a few months with the oil price below the break-even point (it's like 42 or so right?).

The tar sands operations are marginal even with $55 oil. I have heard claims that they can be profitable with $35 oil but
I think that is dubious. Tar sands are a giant mining-industrial operation which excavates tar residue from long-decomposed
oil (it has lost all of the lighter chemical constituents that would enable gasoline and diesel cracking) and then hydrogenates
it in upgraders giving synthetic crude. The costs for this in terms of energy and equipment are much greater than boring
wells and having reservoir pressure push real oil out. Russian extraction costs are at most $20 per barrel and they are
one of the few cheapest on the planet. So $35 is nonsense and I would say the real costs are at least twice as expensive
but three times is more likely. So tar sands operators are losing money even if it got $55 for its synthetic crude.

One has to be wary of rosy claims from North American fossil fuel operations. The tight gas (fracking) operators are
swimming in red ink perpetually. So we can have extraction operations even if money is being lost.

Can you imagine the western reaction if Russia would do something like that?

The west breathes, eats and lives hypocrisy.

The Orwellian term "oil sands" is used to describe tar sands. I recall back in the 1980s and before the proper term was used.
But thanks to PR and the fake stream media the BS term "oil sands" is now rampant. There is no actual oil in the
so-called oil sands. There is only bitumen (aka tar) in them.

Sorry guys I meant break-even point of the Russian budget, not oil production itself.

Why is Ural crude trading at $42 barrel and WTI at $53? Why such a huge discount?

calripson wrote:Why is Ural crude trading at $42 barrel and WTI at $53? Why such a huge discount?

In the past it has been due to higher sulfur content in the Urals blend.

But there was disconnect between WTI and Brent before so there is no real global oil price:

https://www.thebalance.com/crude-oil-brent-versus-wti-808872

I suspect politics in the pricing spread in the case of Russia.

https://sdelanounas.ru/blogs/138740/

UEC received funds to launch Russia's first mass production of high-power turbines

PJSC UEC-Saturn (part Of the United engine Corporation of rostec state Corporation) has received a loan from the industrial development Fund (FRF) in the amount of 2 billion rubles at 1% per annum for the launch of Russia's first domestic mass production of gas turbine engines GTD-110M with a capacity of 90 — 130 MW in Rybinsk, Yaroslavl region.

The new project, aimed at launching mass production of high-power turbines by the United engine Corporation, plays an important role in ensuring energy security. To date, the GTD-110M is the only domestic development with a capacity of 90-130 MW, and gas turbines are a key element of combined-cycle plants for generating electricity.

The first stage of the project implementation involves the technical re-equipment of existing mechanical processing buildings. The company will operate on the principle of a full cycle and independently manufacture such high-tech and technologically complex turbine elements as nozzle units, hot working vanes and combustion chambers, in full compliance with the criteria of RF Federal law No. 719. The modernization will make it possible to produce two GTD-110M units per year starting from 2023.

https://sdelanounas.ru/blogs/138720/

99 kilometers of second tracks were put into operation on the Khani — Tynda section on BAM

Bamstroymekhanizatsiya, a member of the 1520 Group of companies, opened traffic on the second tracks on the sections of Olekma-RZD. 1945 km and Yuktali-Taluma, as well as the Medvezhy and Mostovoy sidings on the Khani — Tynda line of the far Eastern highway. These are some of the largest and most complex objects that were built as part of the development of the Eastern polygon.

These facilities were built under the program of modernization of the infrastructure of the Baikal-Amur and TRANS-Siberian railway lines with the development of throughput and carrying capacity.

Thanks to the large-scale modernization of the Khani — Tynda section, the capacity of the BAM increased from 11 to 15 pairs of trains per day in 2020.

https://sdelanounas.ru/blogs/138697/

Electricity and capacity Kochubeevskaya wind farm Rosatom entered the wholesale market

In December 2020, Rosatom commissioned the largest wind farm in Russia in the Stavropol territory. Since January of this year, the kochubeyevskaya wind farm has started supplying electricity and capacity to the OREM (wholesale electricity and capacity market) and has become the second completed project of Novavind JSC (the division of Rosatom responsible for implementing wind power projects), as well as the largest operating wind farm in the country.

Kochubeyevskaya wind farm, located in the Stavropol territory, with an installed capacity of 210 MW consists of 84 wind power plants. The degree of localization of the facility's equipment, confirmed by the Ministry of industry and trade of the Russian Federation, is 65%.

"Our successful experience in the construction and operation of wind farms, the implementation of plans to establish mass production of wind turbine components and components in the Russian Federation, and an efficient supply chain, including with the participation of state Corporation enterprises, allowed us to reach the system level of wind power projects implementation and complete the Kochubeyevskaya wind farm construction project in two years. Stavropol Krai has become our key region. This is largely due to the interest and support of the local authorities of the Stavropol region", — said Alexander Korchagin, General Director of JSC "Novamind".

https://sdelanounas.ru/blogs/138693/

The first transaction in the "green" energy sector was carried out on the Sberbank blockchain platform

The first transaction in Russia has been implemented on the decentralized cloud platform for Renewable Energy Certificates (REC) developed by the Sberbank blockchain laboratory. The transaction was made possible by cooperation with the Bank's key partners-solar systems group and KuibyshevAzot, which became pioneers of the new market through the introduction of Sberbank's blockchain-based technology solution.

The deal on certificates based on the REC platform is a continuation of cooperation between companies in the field of "green" technologies. The planned transaction volume is 4,998 IREC certificates of 1 MWh each.