Russia Retreats To Autarky As Poverty Looms

[vt]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/e...rty-looms.html

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Russia Retreats To Autarky As Poverty Looms

Thanks vt.
Great find.

...“GDP was $2.3 trillion at the peak. It is now $1.2 trillion, and I fear we are going back to the level of 1998 when it was $700bn,” he said.This would be smaller than Holland ($850bn) or half the size of Texas ($1.4 trillion), a remarkable state of affairs for a country vying for superpower military status in Europe and the Middle East....

[Woodsman]

Re: Russia Retreats To Autarky As Poverty Looms

A lost industrial base, deteriorating living standards, and pervasive propaganda. Tell me again which country we're talking about?

“This way leads us towards a quasi-Soviet economy detached from the world and, at the same time, proud of its autarky; towards a deteriorating economy which compensates for the drop in living standards with pervasive propaganda,” he wrote.

[lektrode]

Re: Russia Retreats To Autarky As Poverty Looms

A lost industrial base, deteriorating living standards, and pervasive propaganda. Tell me again which country we're talking about?

+1
sounds remarkably like whats happened over here - since the elections of 2006, 2008+12...
(after prince harry, queen nancy and O'whathisname took over.. NOT that team no has done us any favors...)

[gwynedd1]

Re: Russia Retreats To Autarky As Poverty Looms

It might be worth pointing out that a tropical paradise, laden with tropical fruit, abundant sea food and beautiful girls, might see its GDP drop in a foreign nation's currency if the natives decided that they no longer want to do business with anyone else. The problem they might run into is if they want something from someone else.

What is Russia currently buying that they cannot make themselves and what are they buying it with? GDP against the rising dollar means absolutely nothing.

Same with asset prices. A piece of dirt might be worth X amount of dollars because two billionaires from the same place, 5 thousand miles away might be bidding on it. A little change in foreign dirt ownership polices might see a huge drop in the values of "assets". Russian dirt is no longer the proxy it once was to Western finance.

I'll believe it when I observe perestroika conditions reported from real Russians, and I will not be going to the press for that information.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Russia Retreats To Autarky As Poverty Looms

It might be worth pointing out that a tropical paradise, laden with tropical fruit, abundant sea food and beautiful girls, might see its GDP drop in a foreign nation's currency if the natives decided that they no longer want to do business with anyone else. The problem they might run into is if they want something from someone else.

What is Russia currently buying that they cannot make themselves and what are they buying it with? GDP against the rising dollar means absolutely nothing.

My thoughts are somewhat similar.

Rarely has there been there a country so well-positioned to be a 'fortress unto itself' as Russia.

These conditions will only serve to accelerate the institution of a common currency and further integration of the EEU trade regime in the region.

China is directly playing on this with its new silk road (OBOR-one belt one road) proposal, and already threw $40B in to get it going.

Igor Shuvalov has already been tasked by Putin to combine the OBOR and the EEU single market proposals into one reality where China builds the infrastructure and supplies the finished goods, and Moscow supplies the security, supplies the raw materials, and supplies the consumers.

Pretty sure the party bosses in the PRC saw how well export-oriented mercantilism works and have no intention on giving it up yet.

They need more markets for goods now. The US/EU middle class is dead and can't support Chinese growth any more. The foundry hungers for wood, oil, and steel. Russia's got plenty of that.

The Russian Pivot is simply to turn the guns to the West and the trade to the East.

After all, what is it these days you need to trade for that you can't get from China?

And China will blow hundreds of billions or more on getting that trade infrastructure complete, because they have to.

Meanwhile, Moscow has little other choice at this point than to look east.

And there's already a construction and investment boom going through central Asia.

Everything's aligned for this OBOR proposal to work now.

You're not going to get collapse out of this. 5-10 years down the road, you're going to get a much better integrated Central Asian economy.

[vt]

Re: Russia Retreats To Autarky As Poverty Looms

Russia and Japan have terrible demographics, with China not far behind thanks to the one child policy (and abort females).

India is where the future Asia's is, and closer to other demographically favored Africa and the middle east.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Russia Retreats To Autarky As Poverty Looms

Russia and Japan have terrible demographics, with China not far behind thanks to the one child policy (and abort females).

India is where the future Asia's is, and closer to other demographically favored Africa and the middle east.

India's a real democracy with real diversity.

Local peoples' votes matter.

It's not enough of an authoritarian dictatorship for the capitalist class to get their guaranteed investment returns.

They can't easily bulldoze a city to throw up a damn or rebuild from scratch.

First world billionaire investment only flows to dictatorships or other one-party "democracies" that provide predictable returns. That means exercising the political will of the billionaire class with no questions asked. This won't happen in India.

But China can invest where it wants, since its not bound to obey the beckon call of the Davos crowd.

I just can't see India ever becoming the next big thing for outside finance. Too democratic. Too much of a melting-pot. Too messy.

[gwynedd1]

Re: Russia Retreats To Autarky As Poverty Looms

My thoughts are somewhat similar.

Rarely has there been there a country so well-positioned to be a 'fortress unto itself' as Russia.

Its really only been 20 years. They are not going to be starved out by denying them from the world market place they have just recently entered. I also see a lot of foolish hopes that Russia can be bankrupted like the Soviets, forgetting that empires are essentially expensive foreign occupations while nations are even cheaper than colonies. The Soviets did not fall apart just because they were socialists. It was as much empire as it was socialist.



I tend to agree with the Russian government on one thing. The biggest threat is the importation of bad ideologies. It would not be the first time either, since that was exactly what the Bolsheviks were. So its the importation of revolutionary thoughts that they need to worry about.

These conditions will only serve to accelerate the institution of a common currency and further integration of the EEU trade regime in the region.

China is directly playing on this with its new silk road (OBOR-one belt one road) proposal, and already threw $40B in to get it going.

Igor Shuvalov has already been tasked by Putin to combine the OBOR and the EEU single market proposals into one reality where China builds the infrastructure and supplies the finished goods, and Moscow supplies the security, supplies the raw materials, and supplies the consumers.

Pretty sure the party bosses in the PRC saw how well export-oriented mercantilism works and have no intention on giving it up yet.

They need more markets for goods now. The US/EU middle class is dead and can't support Chinese growth any more. The foundry hungers for wood, oil, and steel. Russia's got plenty of that.

And what is so disturbing about this is there are two major events that caused the rich to net spend to create this so called middle class. We had WII and the Internet boom. Both of those events allowed the middle class to build equity in real estate and both time the living standards were held up by the middle class selling out the equity in their real estate. So in other words we are never going to win over Russians to our great system until we can give them equity in real estate that they can then sell over a generation or two. The American way of the 20th centry is war and FIRE sector cash flows but who knew? Who to this day knows?

The Russian Pivot is simply to turn the guns to the West and the trade to the East.

After all, what is it these days you need to trade for that you can't get from China?

And China will blow hundreds of billions or more on getting that trade infrastructure complete, because they have to.

Meanwhile, Moscow has little other choice at this point than to look east.

And there's already a construction and investment boom going through central Asia.

Everything's aligned for this OBOR proposal to work now.

You're not going to get collapse out of this. 5-10 years down the road, you're going to get a much better integrated Central Asian economy.

Their fate seems in their hands. China has the civilization and the Russia military industrial complex appears good enough to defend it. The big question is can they cooperate?

[GRG55]

Re: Russia Retreats To Autarky As Poverty Looms

My thoughts are somewhat similar.

Rarely has there been there a country so well-positioned to be a 'fortress unto itself' as Russia.

These conditions will only serve to accelerate the institution of a common currency and further integration of the EEU trade regime in the region.

China is directly playing on this with its new silk road (OBOR-one belt one road) proposal, and already threw $40B in to get it going.

Igor Shuvalov has already been tasked by Putin to combine the OBOR and the EEU single market proposals into one reality where China builds the infrastructure and supplies the finished goods, and Moscow supplies the security, supplies the raw materials, and supplies the consumers.

Pretty sure the party bosses in the PRC saw how well export-oriented mercantilism works and have no intention on giving it up yet.

They need more markets for goods now. The US/EU middle class is dead and can't support Chinese growth any more. The foundry hungers for wood, oil, and steel. Russia's got plenty of that.

The Russian Pivot is simply to turn the guns to the West and the trade to the East.

After all, what is it these days you need to trade for that you can't get from China?

And China will blow hundreds of billions or more on getting that trade infrastructure complete, because they have to.

Meanwhile, Moscow has little other choice at this point than to look east.

And there's already a construction and investment boom going through central Asia.

Everything's aligned for this OBOR proposal to work now.

You're not going to get collapse out of this. 5-10 years down the road, you're going to get a much better integrated Central Asian economy.

As someone who has lived and worked in a Central Asia Republic, I will suggest a good dollop of caution in that forecast. 70 years of Soviet influence did considerable harm to its Central Asian satellite states. One family rule (unless ousted by another family in a coup, a la Kyrgyzstan), pervasive corruption imbedded in the national DNA, structurally hopeless economies where reforms are impossible as they threaten the entrenched crony interests, absent work ethic, a complete lack of trust in government agencies including the police are but a few of my observations from my time there.

Comparisons with the USA in this respect are facile. People in China, Russia and the Central Asian Republics are trying to get out. To get to the UK or the USA is the highest hope for many. Finding a job in the Persian Gulf is the alternative for many others, especially young professionals. I don't see too many trying to migrate the other direction.

If indeed your 5-10 year forecast is correct it will mean the most privileged in China, the most privileged in Russia and the Ruling Families in the Central Asian Republics have carved up the pie. Sort of like how they cut up the cash in one of those Edward G. Robinson gangster movies. And the mass of citizens are even more wretchedly impoverished than they are today. Unless they get out.

[Raz]

Re: Russia Retreats To Autarky As Poverty Looms

... I also see a lot of foolish hopes that Russia can be bankrupted like the Soviets, forgetting that empires are essentially expensive foreign occupations while nations are even cheaper than colonies. The Soviets did not fall apart just because they were socialists. It was as much empire as it was socialist.

When empires become expensive they are usually ditched. The British brought stability to India while exploiting the natural resources so it wasn't always an "expensive occupation". Ditto for Kenya and most assuredly South Africa.

The Soviet Union fell apart because communism is based upon faulty economic theorems and a ridiculous view of human nature. Add to that the fact that everyone in power lied about the true state of affairs. (Sounds like our political elites of today, doesn't it?)

Get a copy of Age of Delirium by David Satter. He lived there six years in the late 1970s and early 1980s and knew what life was like in the Soviet State. It's an eye-opener to the insanity of the economic system that liars like Walter Duranty saw as leading to a glorious future.

I tend to agree with the Russian government on one thing. The biggest threat is the importation of bad ideologies. It would not be the first time either, since that was exactly what the Bolsheviks were. So its the importation of revolutionary thoughts that they need to worry about.

It is indeed. And Russia has enough problems carried over from their glorious socialist past, a near non-existent work ethic for one. (And I wonder how long before we'll be in a similar boat thanks to the rape of the Middle Class by banksters and the government they own, handing out unemployment checks instead of facilitating growth in real employment through structural change.)

[vt]

Re: Russia Retreats To Autarky As Poverty Looms

+1

[lektrode]

Re: Russia Retreats To Autarky As Poverty Looms

meanwhile, over here in 'the promised land' ?

Confusion, Delusions, & Illusions

Things Are Getting Scary: Global Police, Precrime, & The War On Domestic "Extremists"

like 'these people' ?

With Just $10 "You're Wealthier Than 25% Of Americans"

[Woodsman]

Re: Russia Retreats To Autarky As Poverty Looms

meanwhile, over here in 'the promised land'?

You said it.

A few of my observations from my time here note our own version one family rule, only it's a family based not on blood but on mutual interests. It's similar to how other families organize themselves; like the Gambino family or the Bonnano and Genovese families. Like them, our ruling families appoint "street bosses" only we call them presidents and senators and such.

As for corruption embedded in DNA, our system is rife with abuses of power, conflicts of interest, and paybacks to the rich and well-connected through sole-source contracts, tax preferences or beneficial regulations. These "pay-to-play" schemes are endemic to corruption, making it hard for me to understand how our elites are more virtuous. Of course, our corruption is formalized, legalized and systematized so maybe it's this that gives it a clean shine.

I've heard more than my share of comfortable burghers lament the lack of work ethic in their reserve army of labor, excoriate the classes beneath them as lazy reprobates, addicted to the dole and the handout. I'm told the addiction of elites to government largess is of an entirely different character, but lacking the cognitive mojo it all looks the same to this working stiff.

And how much trust are our agencies and bureaus worthy of? I don't know, how many lies have they been caught in this week?

How many "bad apples" can a tree produce before one starts to wonder just what kind of fruit tree this is?

My observations, anecdotal as they are, seem to suggest the difference is more in degree than in kind.

[jk]

Re: Russia Retreats To Autarky As Poverty Looms

i tend to agree with your critique. otoh the places that appear to be doing better in these matters are both significantly smaller and significantly more homogeneous. on the third hand, i think the u.s. has done better during periods of time in its own past history.