Russian Duma mulling reintroducing the infamous USSR Food Stamps to alleviate poverty

[Will B Good]

2 minutes ago, frank83628 said:

That was a typo,was supposed to say infromation

?

[VBer]

40 minutes ago, Patong2021 said:

Ok then, the Russian economy is doing fantastically well and there is prosperity for all

I haven’t said that. The economy held pretty well against sanctions and colossal war spendings, but now freshly printed money started to leak to financial system,  causing inflation and depreciation of rouble. The impulse is over and there is one way now, down.

However strength of economy and population is pretty strong (especially if keep in mind inability to publicly express own opinion) and even with decline there will enough power to continue the war for years.

[AndreasHG]

3 hours ago, VBer said:

If include it and make it 12 years, 6 years and 3 years (to fully include war times) then the depreciation will look more smooth

 

If I "make it 12 years" the 'Rubble' depreciation is steeper, not smoother. Calculated from December 26, 2012, the Ruble has lost 69% of its value against the USD (see the graphs below).

Twelve years ago, the Ruble was worth a bit more than $0.03 (three cents). Today it is worth only one cent. 

 

It's a typical trend of the currencies of the Sovereign Banana Republics, despite Russia being troubled by a climate so cold that banana harvesting is impossible and Russia pretending to be a player in the big world powers game. As I stated in previous posts, Russia is an economic dwarf trying desperately to punch above its weight.

 

[VBer]

1 hour ago, AndreasHG said:

It's a typical trend of the currencies of the Sovereign Banana Republics

The difference from Banana Republics is that Russia had a lot of reserves, surplus budget and almost no debt. With such resources CB can set any currency level that is comfortable to them. But instead of stable level they preferred  constant depreciation of national currency. The reason of it is unknown to me.

Now situation is other. CB trying their best to stop the depreciation to be uncontrolled. But their recourses are limited and supply of freely printed roubles is too big.

[AndreasHG]

1 hour ago, VBer said:

But instead of stable level they preferred  constant depreciation of national currency

This statement is not correct. Putin came to power for the first time on Decembre 31, 1999. The Ruble went through four distinct phases since then:

• 2000-2008 foreign investments, economic growth, political stability: a strong Ruble progressively appreciated from approximately 28₽ to approximately 20₽ to the US$ in 2008.
  It is the period that Russians remember most favorably.
• 2008-2014 (subprime financial crisis): Consequent oil & gas price collapse (from $145.85 per barrel in 2008 to $39.09 per barrel in 2009) and, understandably, the Ruble with it. Approximately 30₽ to 35₽ were required to buy 1 US$ till 2014.
• 2014-2022 (invasion of Crimea): The EU and the USA introduce the first set of sanctions intended to deter Russia from further aggressive actions. The ruble loses further value and stabilizes between 60₽ and 80₽ per dollar.
• 2022-Today: 2022 invasion of Donbass, Donetsk, Luhansk, etc. The ruble loses further value and heads toward a valuation of 95₽ and 110₽ per USD.

Please, note that the graph below ends in July 2023 and is not updated to the end of this year.

Russia is a Banana Republic for the very reason that its economic fortunes depend greatly upon a limited number of commodities, which are exported. A Banana Republic is "a small nation, especially in Central America, dependent on one crop or the influx of foreign capital".

 

[ericbj]

Is Russia facing an economic crisis?
The global economy is falling apart, and no one can tell where the global crisis will hit hardest.  It could be Russia.  Time will tell.  But there have been umpteen stories over the past couple of years of how Russia was about to fall apart, etc., etc.  So for now I prefer to wait and see.

 

Exchange rates are relevant when it comes to purchase of foreign produced goods, or to locally produced goods heavily dependent upon foreign inputs.  Such as gas or oil.  German and other E.U. consumers will be able to tell you something about that.

 

Russia is largely self-sufficient in its most vital needs.  And many of its requirements for sophisticated manufactured goods can be met by China.  China needs much of what Russia can supply: energy, minerals, and agricultural produce.  So they are mutually self-supporting in trade.

 

Unemployment in Russia is extremely low, and demand for labour is such that wages are rising faster than inflation.  In fact wage rises are fuelling inflation - the opposite of what is happening in, say, the U.K.

 

There are sectors of the Russian population that suffer from inflation.  Such as pensioners.  Their pensions are linked to inflation.  But this is the overall inflation rate whereas the individual person experiences a higher rise in his cost-of-living than that.
[U.K. annual pension increases long ago ceased to be linked to the government's bogus inflation figures, but instead to the lesser figure for the average increase in wages].

 

Russia distorts its statistics?
To my knowledge Britain, France, the U.S. do the same.  And I'm sure there are other countries besides.  GDP was supposed to, and once did, express a country's industrial production.  The U.K. now includes figures (presumably 'guesstimates') for the earnings of crime and prostitution.
Maybe these two industries should be developed further?

 

Finally, I would suggest that a country that can afford to fight poverty is not on its beam ends.

 

[AndreasHG]

1 hour ago, ericbj said:

Russia distorts its statistics?
To my knowledge Britain, France, the U.S. do the same. 

 

And wouldn't you mind sharing this knowledge with us? What is your source? Quite often the news printed in Moscow differ from that published on our side of the border?

 

An example is the Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8432: Russia news outlets insist it was caused by "birds".

Exclusive: Preliminary investigation confirms Russian missile caused Azerbaijan Airlines crash | Euronews

 

[ericbj]

12 hours ago, AndreasHG said:

 

And wouldn't you mind sharing this knowledge with us? What is your source? Quite often the news printed in Moscow differ from that published on our side of the border?

 

An example is the Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8432: Russia news outlets insist it was caused by "birds".

Exclusive: Preliminary investigation confirms Russian missile caused Azerbaijan Airlines crash | Euronews

 

 

I suggest doing some research of your own.  But here is to kick you off:

 

https://www.shadowstats.com/
"ShadowStats Newsletter: 'John Williams’ Shadow Government Statistics' is an electronic newsletter service that exposes and analyzes flaws in current U.S. government economic data and reporting, as well as in certain private-sector numbers, and provides an assessment of underlying economic and financial conditions, net of financial-market and political hype."
You will nowadays need a subscription to access it.  However, various financial newsletters refer to shadowstats.com in order to get a clearer view of the economy than that offered by the U.S. Government.

 

More readily available sources include:

 

self-explanatory:
https://intellectualtakeout.org/2018/06/three-common-ways-governments-misuse-statistics-and-what-you-can-do-about-it/

 

Many shades of wrong: what governments do when they manipulate statistics:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09692290.2020.1769704#d1e174

 

When Do Governments Manipulate Official Statistics? An Empirical Analysis:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Papers.cfm?abstract_id=4244682

 

Dealing more with the U.K. economy is the publication 'Fortune & Freedom' by Southbank Investment Research.  See here to subscribe: https://www.facebook.com/southbankinvestmentresearch

 

Details about manipulation of French official statistics I had from the 'Lettre d'Information du Petit Economiste' - https://lepetiteconomiste.com/ - and 'La Lettre Economique d'Olivier Delamarche' - https://www.ultrabourse.com/ - [see 'L'Arnaque du PIB'] to both of which I was subscribed until about five years ago.  At least the French did not, in those days at least, emulate the U.K. practice of including the earnings of crime and prostitution in their GDP figures.

 

[AndreasHG]

5 hours ago, ericbj said:

I suggest doing some research of your own.  But here is to kick you off:

 

Reading BS from notoriously biased websites is not research: it's stupidity.

 

There is a very simple way to assess how much Central Banks believe in the official inflation data related to their currencies. It's a simple, mistake-proof (and idiot-proof) test. I did some research and below are the data.

Do you see anything that stands out?

 

But with regards to economic data, the Russian numbers must be really ugly, so much that Rosstat doesn't even bother to cook them anymore. It just stopped publishing them. Here is a list of the main indexes Russia stopped publishing:

https://www.hhs.se/en/about-us/news/site-publications/2023/russias-data-warfare/

https://carnegieendowment.org/russia-eurasia/politika/2022/07/secret-economy-what-hiding-the-stats-does-for-russia?lang=en

 

Now, since you are a serious researcher, share a link to those indicators and prove that both the Swedish and the Carnegie's publications are mistaken, and that those indicators are still available.

In my opinion you should be up to the task, and I am looking forward to see the result of your research project.

 

[ericbj]

1 hour ago, AndreasHG said:

 

Reading BS from notoriously biased websites is not research: it's stupidity.

 

There is a very simple way to assess how much Central Banks believe in the official inflation data related to their currencies. It's a simple, mistake-proof (and idiot-proof) test. I did some research and below are the data.

Do you see anything that stands out?

 

But with regards to economic data, the Russian numbers must be really ugly, so much that Rosstat doesn't even bother to cook them anymore. It just stopped publishing them. Here is a list of the main indexes Russia stopped publishing:

https://www.hhs.se/en/about-us/news/site-publications/2023/russias-data-warfare/

https://carnegieendowment.org/russia-eurasia/politika/2022/07/secret-economy-what-hiding-the-stats-does-for-russia?lang=en

 

Now, since you are a serious researcher, share a link to those indicators and prove that both the Swedish and the Carnegie's publications are mistaken, and that those indicators are still available.

In my opinion you should be up to the task, and I am looking forward to see the result of your research project.

 

 

Since you dismiss rather than answer the points that I raise I have no intention to waste time and effort in doing research at your behest.

 

You are free to publish the details you consider to support your case.

 

But your bias should be self-evident to those with open eyes and an open mind.

 

For the non-francophones here, I should have mentioned in my previous post that 'L'Arnaque du PIB' translates as The GDP Fraud.

 

The sources I quoted from in that post are concerned with economic realities rather than political or geopolitical propaganda.