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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

#151

Post by 082349872349872 »

foverzar wrote: post #128
082349872349872 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wouldn't inflation actually be much more harmful for a loan-based economy like the US?

I don't believe so in the long run (but RC_ITR might have something much more accurate to say; thanks very much for the sibling analysis!).

We're a much smaller economy than the US, and have a big problem that whenever there's geopolitical instability, flight to quality appreciates our currency massively (despite negative nominal rates; we've broken pegs before because although they would've been nice to keep, the cost would've been prohibitive), which then hoses our innovative sectors, because they had been counting on being competitive in global exports.

I had been imagining that keeping a currency too elevated for too long would eventually stifle growth, and that would defo be more harmful than inflation. (for a loan-based economy, for example, substantial appreciation might mean that many borrowers would just default, for lack of any other option)

Edit: see the cousin comment: ...it was extremely hard to build a sustainable business in Russia, due to the fact that it was just cheaper to buy something from abroad

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

#152

Post by lordfrito »

Kukumber wrote: post #105
lordfrito wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sanctions only affects the people, not the governments, you just help develop an anti-western sentiment across the affected regions as well as hurting the life of innocent families Bombing also affects people and hurts the life of innocent families. By your logic bombing is a better option than sanctions, as it also affects governments as well. /s

I never said that If Russia is bombing civils then we must end the war asap The fact that we don't and let it linger means other interests prevail My sourced comment got flagged, that's quite telling

Apologies if I misinterpreted the comment I was replying to. Miscommunicating is easy to do around here.

> If Russia is bombing civils then we must end the war asap

Agreed, it's a tragedy.

Navigating geopolitics is tough, it's playground rules, jungle law.

The fact there is some sort of working "rules based international order" that's kept us out of a major world war for 75 years is impressive.

Innocents inevitably get caught up when spheres of influence overlap and major powers collide.

No clean and easy paths forward at this point.

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

#153

Post by mannerheim »

Kukumber wrote: post #133
mannerheim wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

First BRICS summit in 2009: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_BRIC_summit

India-China skirmishes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%932021_China%E2%80%...

Indian purchase of SU-30 and MiG-29s reportedly cancelled: https://scroll.in/latest/1018714/india-cancelled-orders-for-...

However, looks like there hadn't been a formal cancellation, and the deal was awaiting final approval from the Indian defence ministry: https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/no-formal-decision-ye...

I don't see any news about such an approval or a confirmed cancellation, so it's probably on hold at the moment.

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

#154

Post by bell-cot »

jcranmer wrote: post #140
bell-cot wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

For the winners (recall that the ruling classes were rather indifferent to the deaths of large numbers of the less-well-born) many of those wars turned out pretty well. In "let's play Prisoner's Dilemma" terms, the payoff matrix for "Go to War?" was, for the ruling classes, far more favorable back then. (Vs. for modern industrialized warfare.)

Add the Mongol Empire and Russian Empire to my "war & conquest worked out pretty well for 'em" list.

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

#155

Post by throw-ru-938 »

rasz wrote: post #31
IgorPartola wrote: post #10

As a Ukrainian, good! This war should have a long cost to Russia. They are certainly causing long term damage to Ukraine by destroying Ukrainian culture where they can, using rape as a widespread war tactic, and relocating Ukrainian children to Russia “for their own good” (see any recent ISW report for details). Having said that, the real thing that appears to have happened in this war is that Putin is a KGB stooge,…

>they are the only ones who genuinely are pushing for annexing what they call “so called ‘ukraine’” due to their strong nationalist beliefs. Basically they are the most ideologically aligned with Putin but also the most critical of his failures. The only loud protest voices coming out of russia seem to be complaining about loses, poor soldier conditions, not killing Ukrainians fast enough etc. Even so called ru oppos…

> No anti war/regime protests to speak off

There were some in February and March, even though they were not very impressive. But then again, just today a leader of Russian opposition was sentenced to 8 1/2 years in prison for posting a video about Bucha on Youtube.

> plenty anti mobilization ones tho

If there's "plenty" of these, surely you could Google some up very easily?

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

#156

Post by 082349872349872 »

lkrubner wrote: post #76

The simplest version of the story is this: Russia has gained tremendously thanks to the unusually high price of oil. Should the price of oil fall back the average of the last 10 years, then Russia's situation will appear far more precarious.

Looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980s_oil_glut and eyeballing 1980-1990, it seems plausible that the Union had been doing OK with oil at USD 30 but became far more precarious indeed with oil under USD 20?

OPEC+ doesn't seem to be in the mood to replay the 1980s, though.

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

#157

Post by throw-ru-938 »

rasz wrote: post #123
cousin_it wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only loud protest voices coming out of russia seem to be complaining about loses, poor soldier conditions, not killing Ukrainians fast enough etc The loudest protest voices I'm hearing are Navalny and Yashin, both very against Russian aggression, both imprisoned for it. Which voices are you referring to? > Even so called ru opposition turned out to be all in on helping russian soldiers (TV Rain) TV Rain didn't…

All you need to know about Navalny anti war stance is covered by his opinion on Crimea. He was pro 2014 invasion back in 2014, and nothing changed.

> He was pro 2014 invasion back in 2014

https://lenta-ru.translate.goog/news/2014/03/12/navalny/?_x_...

(On the other hand, he did say the infamous "Crimea is not a sandwich" thing later in 2014.)

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

#158

Post by 082349872349872 »

lostmsu wrote: post #149
allisdust wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have more than enough food to eat (except of course things that don't exactly grow there). They have surplus in energy and fertiliser. What they would lack in the short and medium term are high tech products like chips, advanced medicine. Given enough time and drive any energy and food surplus society can reinvent the high tech stuff. Of course it doesn't mean they would, seeing how corrupt the whole ruling clas…

There's also a question of trajectory of the high tech stuff vs the rest of the world. I don't see any reasons for it not to lag more and more behind.

Especially because lagging more and more behind is exactly what happened to the Union.

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

#159

Post by Nifty3929 »

riku_iki wrote: post #143
Nifty3929 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

why do you think Russia is doing any QE and why they would need it?..

I don't know anything about whether or not Russia is doing any QE. I was responding to the question: "If West can run quantitative easing for 15 years, why not Russia?" by explaining why, even if they could do QE forever, it would probably not help.

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

#160

Post by throw-ru-938 »

mannerheim wrote: post #65
vlovich123 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt that countries bordering Russia are keen to have failed chaotic states with economic problems on their borders. The refugee situation that will create is pretty intense.

There's no love for Russians in any of these countries; they'll just deport any refugees.

The Baltics probably would, but Georgia is literally swamped with Russian émigrés right now. By the Georgian official data, more than 100k Russians arrived in 2022 alone, which is 2-3% of the country's population.
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