Nikolai Kulbaka on how Russia’s budget deficit is planned to be addressed, whether to trust Russian official statistics and why nominal GDP growth does not mean a healthy national economy.
Summary:
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The Russian government will further cut spending on health care, education and culture.
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More efficient private investment is being replaced by inefficient public spending while consumer spending is falling.
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The opaqueness of Russian statistics is already hurting government policymaking. It is practically impossible for financial sector officials to make the right decisions without good statistics.
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Instead of investing in new, efficient production facilities, the military-industrial complex is spending most of its money on duplicating and repairing long-obsolete defense products. New designs have been shelved. As have long-term infrastructure projects. So, the biggest losses for Russia are still ahead.
To be honest if you posted this 10 years ago it would still be more or less true lol
Probably, yes. Russia is a large country with extensive natural resources. Had the government spent its export revenues for the good of all the Russian people instead of just a few, Russia had a prosperous economy today.
It’s crazy what Russia could have been instead of the cleptocracy it ended up as.
They have been falling for quite a while and they still have quite a bit of height to fall before the average Russian starts protesting. They are not very quick at jumping out of pots of water on low heat.