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Russia’s apparent resilience is being kept up by policy tricks and cash

thetimes.co.uk

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Re: Russia’s apparent resilience is being kept up by policy tricks and cash

#131

Post by dragonwriter »

082349872349872 wrote: post #16
H8crilA wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and consider the effect that it has on the rouble: with lots of sales (of mostly energy) but nowhere to spend that money the rouble is actually likely to appreciate rather than depreciate. I'm referring here to the premature celebration of the "death of the rouble", you may remember this narrative. This is still a bit obfuscated by the ongoing sale of the Russian foreign reserves (the ~50% that wasn't frozen).…

Heh. I sometimes wonder how vulnerable the US would be to a squeeze appreciating USD. You could probably even get large parts of the US political class to go along with it, as (in the short term) they'd be benefiting relative to their countrymen.

> Heh. I sometimes wonder how vulnerable the US would be to a squeeze appreciating USD.

Not very; it faced two (not deliberate) recently and dealt with them through QE; our monetary policy system is tuned to deal with that problem, the main failure mode is overshooting into inflation on the tail end.

Re: Russia’s apparent resilience is being kept up by policy tricks and cash

#132

Post by unmole »

Nifty3929 wrote: post #64
throw903290 wrote: post #48

Call it what you want. Russia is switching from export to internal consumption. Getting something like 30 years mortgage on house, was unheard of until recently. If West can run quantitative easing for 15 years, why not Russia?

Because you cannot eat money, or live in money. A country can QE forever, but this will not put food on the table or shoes on people's feet. If people want those things, they must either be produced or imported. QE doesn't help with either of those. Production is a physical act, not a monetary one. And if you want to import from somewhere, then you need that nation's currency to do so. Which means that in turn you mu…

> Which means that in turn you must have produced something to exchange for that currency.

You mean stuff like oil, wheat, fertilizer or aluminium? Yeah, there's no way Russia will be able to manage that. /s

Re: Russia’s apparent resilience is being kept up by policy tricks and cash

#133

Post by Kukumber »

mannerheim wrote: post #126
Kukumber wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They got their drones from Iran, so no, it doesn't work Worse, they formed a new economic alliance called BRICS

The fact that they have to get their drones from Iran instead of the obvious choice of China says enough on itself. BRICS isn't new and it basically only exists on paper. We're talking about a supposed alliance whose two largest members, India and China, are currently engaged in a conflict over Kashmir. Speaking of India, as much as they're happy to continue buying Russian oil, they already anticipated Russia's inabi…

> The fact that they have to get their drones from Iran instead of the obvious choice of China says enough on itself.

Indeed

Can you please provide a source for your other claims?

Re: Russia’s apparent resilience is being kept up by policy tricks and cash

#134

Post by clnq »

throwayyy479087 wrote: post #93
clnq wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone involved in a war is a loser. It really shows how immature humanity is that we still start new wars.

This is reductionist. The Pax Americana has been maintained by an overwhelming capability for war by the USA. You need to punish in countries that violate international norms. Russia has been truly chucklefucked by this war, and the Norks, Iranians, etc. are going to be significantly more wary of engaging in new wars going forward. That is how peace is actually maintained.

Capacity for war is not the same as starting wars. Pax Americana is a result of defensive capacity for war. The Middle East situation is a result of starting wars. I have a lot more criticism for the latter than the former.

Re: Russia’s apparent resilience is being kept up by policy tricks and cash

#135

Post by jcranmer »

foverzar wrote: post #103
rich_sasha wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will reiterate. Baltic states, Poland, Ukraine, Georgia, are constantly harassed and reminded that Russia doesn't really see them as sovereign states. They fly bombers into their airspaces (oops), deploys military manoeuvres at their borders, rambles about aiming their nukes at the capital cities. It actually invaded Ukraine for the second time in a decade! And even as this is all going on, Russia happily says, "he…

> They fly bombers into their airspaces (oops), deploys military manoeuvres at their borders, rambles about aiming their nukes at the capital cities. Your argument would be valid, if this was something exclusive to Russia, and not a common mutual thing between Russia and NATO. NATO bombers just as well fly into Russian airspace, NATO deploys military manoeuvres at Russian borders, and NATO states politicians are just…

Russia has, in my lifetime, conducted no fewer than five invasions, all of which could be fairly characterized as driven by naked territorial aggression ("this land deserves to be ours"). In the same time, the US has invaded three times, none of which could be characterized as naked territorial aggression, even if you squint at it really, really hard.

Re: Russia’s apparent resilience is being kept up by policy tricks and cash

#136

Post by clnq »

yrgulation wrote: post #121
clnq wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone involved in a war is a loser. It really shows how immature humanity is that we still start new wars.

It was precisely the opposite that started this war - the inhumanity of some leaders and the people that support it.

The apeish immaturity of decision-makers in power that really do too much misleading for being called leaders.

Neither Ukraine, nor Russia, nor humanity as a whole benefits from Russia's actions. Even Putin's legacy doesn't. It's truly a loser's race to the bottom.

But you know, this is still regretfully humanity's doing.

Re: Russia’s apparent resilience is being kept up by policy tricks and cash

#137

Post by Nifty3929 »

unmole wrote: post #132
Nifty3929 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you cannot eat money, or live in money. A country can QE forever, but this will not put food on the table or shoes on people's feet. If people want those things, they must either be produced or imported. QE doesn't help with either of those. Production is a physical act, not a monetary one. And if you want to import from somewhere, then you need that nation's currency to do so. Which means that in turn you mu…

> Which means that in turn you must have produced something to exchange for that currency. You mean stuff like oil, wheat, fertilizer or aluminium? Yeah, there's no way Russia will be able to manage that. /s

Russia produces lots of these things as you're saying, and as long as they continue to do so they'll be fundamentally fine. I don't think QE will help though.

Re: Russia’s apparent resilience is being kept up by policy tricks and cash

#138

Post by Nifty3929 »

riku_iki wrote: post #71
Nifty3929 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you cannot eat money, or live in money. A country can QE forever, but this will not put food on the table or shoes on people's feet. If people want those things, they must either be produced or imported. QE doesn't help with either of those. Production is a physical act, not a monetary one. And if you want to import from somewhere, then you need that nation's currency to do so. Which means that in turn you mu…

> Which means that in turn you must have produced something to exchange for that currency. and Russia still perfectly sells oil and gas.

Yes exactly. But I don't think QE will help.

Re: Russia’s apparent resilience is being kept up by policy tricks and cash

#139

Post by klooney »

eloff wrote: post #4
f6v wrote: post #2

> Meanwhile the domestic economy has been hit hard by a collapse in the workforce as millions have either fled or been drafted. Official figures show the workforce shrank by 600,000 in October alone, most likely some of the most qualified. That creates a long-term hit both to the demand and supply side of the economy. While many have been drafted,“millions” is an exaggeration. Yes, Yerevan is full of Russians at the…

It's millions[1] between the number the have been drafted and the number that have fled, and that's taking the Kremlin at their word about how many people they drafted. Also Russia has a brewing demographics collapse, similar to what Japan is experiencing. This is going to royally fuck them for the next 50 years. I think the Ukraine invasion might be the beginning of the end for Russia as we know it, I wouldn't be su…

Something that makes this a little harder to analyze is that there is robust demand for the "Russia will collapse tomorrow" thesis, and pushing back gets coded as pro-Putin stooging. I worry that it makes the public conversation a little unmoored.

Re: Russia’s apparent resilience is being kept up by policy tricks and cash

#140

Post by jcranmer »

bell-cot wrote: post #107
clnq wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone involved in a war is a loser. It really shows how immature humanity is that we still start new wars.

Yes and no. For most of history, conquest of pre-industrial agrarian societies was generally an excellent idea...politically and economically, that is. See any good history of (say) the economics of the Roman Empire. Or the British Empire. That's part of why WWI was so hellishly destructive for Europe - national leaders, military planners, educated elites, etc. really didn't get that modern(-ish) industrialized warfa…

The deadliest war before WW1 was the Napoleonic Wars (which essentially set up the then-existing European system), and before that, the Thirty Years' War and similar wars of religion were incredibly destructive.

When were "the good old days" you were referring to?

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