What has Putin done for Russian economy - 10 years in power

10 posts

Theo
I don't know, if per capita metric of exports makes any sense. I mean, there's a certain limit about which its a bit hard to go, due simply to world demand (which is not unlimited) and infrastructure limitations.

Japan's population is 120 million and its exports are 0.5 billion. So what? What does it give us? I don't see anything.

Nah, you misunderstood my point.

I'll restate again. China devaluing its currency is another issue. When you are world's largest debtor in fiat currency, that you yourself print out, than you can print as much of it as you want to devalue your debts and thus con the lenders. The price for that will be the fall of living standards for US citizens, who'll see also their savings devalued, but other than that its not a big deal.

As for your second point, I believe, reserve currencies are of secondary importance - US dollar will remain an important reserve currency, until major oil countries do oil deals in USD. If the latter ends, reserve currencies will not save the USD. That might one of the reasons, why the US is taking agressively oil trade in its own hands and trying to bully the Middle East into submission.
Niccolo and Donkey
Bronze Age Pervert

Jim Rogers keeps saying he's looking for investments in Russia now and that for the first time he's seeing good things in Russia...

Broseph

The chart nic posts is reason enough to spur interest in investment. It's tough finding such a large country with a strong military and stable order that has such a low debt burden. It also wouldn't surprise me if Rogers was a closet fag-hater. He's kind of "worldly" and understands that the US foreign policy is insane. He strikes me as a simple and sensible old man.

Theo

Noone in Russia itself is seriously planning to invest in Russia for three big reasons: Chichvarkin. Durov. Stepanov.

Its quite possible, that you can build up a strong business in Russia. The thing is, nothing will stop the interested parties from just taking it away from you. Chichvarkin's case being the most typical and large example - a multibillion retail network that was stolen overnight.

All with cooperation of legal authorities of course.

President Camacho
Maybe if these particular businessmen weren't a bunch of liberal democrat fags they would have held on to their positions. The Kremlin crushes treasonous entities in the interests of safeguarding stability-- this is a net positive quality from an outside investor's perspective, as Broseph has explained earlier.
Theo

Haha. That's what Chichvarkin thought as well. He never engaged in politics, thought that if you stay out of politics, noone touches you, i.e. he believed that Putin was playing only against Oligarchs. Until he became the next target.

Stepanov had nothing to do with politics either - he was just a head and founder of the most successful shoe-manufacturing business with all facilities and factories in Russia, not abroad.

And these are just two high-visibility cases. There was another case where the dolphinarium in the center of Moscow was basically stolen from previous owner overnight.

Reality proved them all wrong. Its not about politics. Its simply about money. And the situation is abysmal - if under Yeltsin it was something that was done by the thiefs, today its 100% controlled by the same people who run Russia.

Russia is undergoing the same mafia-style process where anything you own can and will be taken away from you, if you grow big enough. And that's why noone's going to invest in long-term projects - because you don't know what will happen to you or your property tomorrow.

PS: Today's news - Stavropol, an attack on entrepreneur's house ended with both of his children dead and wife in hospital. Here's Putin's stability for you, boy. http://www.fontanka.ru/2013/07/28/019/
Slavoj Zizek

To add to what Theo said, Russia has a big problem with Dutch Disease — as the oil price rises, the Ruble appreciates, and that makes Russian manufacturing less competitive. So the oil boom counterintuitively makes some parts of the economy worse off. Putin has done basically nothing to fight that.

Broseph

In terms of the economy, Dutch Disease is a net positive.

The trouble is that Russia is giving away a valuable strategic resource for infinitely-reproducible currencies. A focus on manufacturing shouldn't be primarily for economic gain in Russia's case. It should be for geopolitical advantage. There is an inexhaustible supply of labor but not an inexhaustible supply of oil.

Theo

Not for currencies, for value expressed in currencies. It would have made sense if Russia were investing that value into re-industrialisation.

As the matters stand, its not used for anything and is thus quickly depreciating, making the whole thing indeed meaningless.