Posted on 08/06/2022 8:40:00 PM PDT by devere
These are just some of the facts, regardless of who is reporting them:
- Russia’s financial markets are the worst-performing in the world this year.
- The Kremlin’s foreign reserves are drained. Out of $600 billion prewar, $300 billion is frozen in the West, and $200 billion has already been spent. That includes the money from which pensions are paid (National Wealth Fund).
- The Government budget has suddenly gone into a growing deficit.
- Russian Government bonds have defaulted on the International market for the first time since 1917. They are now effectively cut off from credit.
- The Russian government is printing money excessively. (ruble money supply up over 50% in five months, and accelerating)
- Foreign investment has gone sharply negative - as in an historic withdrawal.
- Foreign imports have collapsed.
- Russian producers and manufacturers are unable to fill the gaps left by the collapse of Western imports.
- The EU is now phasing out Russian energy. Most of the natural gas cannot physically get to markets elsewhere.
- The country is losing its richest and most educated citizens.
- Capital flight is intense.
Not "facts". "Yahoo". It really does matter who is reporting those words as to whether they have any credence (they don't).
I wonder why China won’t be stepping in to supply all the basic consumer goods to Russia. That’s where we get many or even most of them from.
I will answer........ Russians have no money to pay with
The oil belongs to the government and the government is not going to give away oil for consumer goods
Russian industry does well in making steel to manufacture pipes of all sizes for the oil and gas sector. Including very large diameter for gas transmission lines to Europe, China etc. ___ Russia makes automobiles. They will be affected by boycotts. They will be hurting for the components they used to get abroad. Russian industry also means making missiles and other military items. This sector will be impacted.
I saw an article about cars.
All vehicle manufacturing in Russia has ended. They do still turn out some USSR Lada’s but they lack some normal parts on the original Soviet era models.
Regarding steel...... They can’t sell it abroad.
“Not “facts””
Yes, facts.
Not opinions - facts.
What do you assert is different?
Are Russian stock values up? No. In fact they have tanked.
Is Foreign Direct Investment in Russia up? No, the fact is that there is a sudden dramatic withdrawal of investment.
Is Russian total GDP up? No. The fact is that it is imploding. Whole industries are collapsing - manufacturing, airlines, tourism and advertising; as just a few examples.
Natural gas exports have plummeted. They are losing the European market, and won’t be able to bring that product to other markets for years, if ever. Even oil export volumes are down marginally, and prices have passed the war shock peak. Oil is now selling for less than the day before Russia invaded.
The Government’s finances have swung into growing deficit, and they are printing money at a hugely inflationary rate.
You deny these are facts?
Which is untrue?
Russian GDP is contracting sharply and their Government is suddenly going broke. Broke before Christmas at this rate.
Then it is just print money like Zimbabwe, and sell off natural resources and assets to China at fire sale prices (also like Zimbabwe).
Putin has totally destroyed the dreams of the Russian middle class to live a prosperous life, like those in the West. He has trashed the gains of the whole generation since the collapse of soviet communism.
Unemployment and bankruptcies (personal and business) are way up in Russia, and accelerating. Inflation is bad there now, and will likely slide into hyperinflation over the next year or two, if the current trends of ruble printing continue.
The Russians are burdened with useless Vlad Putin. Americans are burdened with useless Joe Biden. Both are “not fit for purpose”, as the British like to say.
“Natural gas exports have plummeted.”
Can their natural gas fields infrastructure degrade due to not having the pressure relieved via exports? Oil wells the same.
“Russian industry does well in making steel... also means making missiles and other military items.”
One aspect not widely discussed, is that a lot of those few strengths that Russian industry did have, were tightly integrated with the Ukraine. The supply chain of those industries often were significantly Ukrainian. Mines, metal refining, component manufacturing, shipyards, etc. - a great percentage of Russian industrial production crossed the Russian/Ukrainian border at some point in it’s life.
A lot of that is not coming back. Azovstal steel plant, until recently Europe’s largest, has been largely demolished. The skilled workers have been displaced. Blanket embargoes are now in place.
A good chunk of Russia’s industrial supply chain is being physically destroyed by Russian artillery.
Wow. Say, if I want to buy some of these "Rubles" where do I go to do that? And where can I spend them afterwards?
Both oil and gas fields generally will decline from the lack of foreign expertise and components - like they did in Venezuela. Maintenance is not a strong suit in Russia.
My understanding is that unused oil wells are physically at greater risk in Russia, than are gas wells, due to freezing in the Winter.
Who told you they were facts?
Who told you they were not facts?
You are simply and purely imagining them to not be true.
Is this a religious belief on your part? Or simply a psychological tendency to bury your head in the sand and deny what you don’t want to be true?
Facts are facts.
Their factuality doesn’t rely on who reports them.
That fact alone should give pause to those who believe that Russia (and BRIC in general) are putting themselves in position to replace the U.S. as the global economic superpower.
Educated people and wealth just do not flee economies that are on the ascendant. Add on top of that that Russia's demographics are already terrible. They are faced with some of the sharpest population declines in the world over the next few decades and that doesn't even include those that are now bailing out.
Even before the current war, Russia was a dying country. In fact, the very reason for the Ukraine invasion is that they need the resources and the access to open ocean (which is why they will not stop at Ukraine unless they can be stopped). Russia also realizes that it's now or never as their population is rapidly aging and they are running out of younger people that will fight their wars for them.
I say all this not because I am on Ukraine's side of the conflict. I am no fan of the government of Ukraine and understand the massive corruption there (that is tied into the Deep State over here).
The world is in turmoil but over the next few decades at least, it will be North America (including Canada and Mexico) that will continue to be the safe haven where people are going to want to invest their wealth.
Our current government is doing the best they can to screw it up but we may just have too much going for us over here to truly fail long-term. Let's hope in November we start turning things around with our own sorry government.
Many still think it is the USSR and that in certain instances, combined with wishful thinking, that the corporate media is not peddling propaganda for political purpose.
The legacy of Baghdad Bob lives on.
You can get a million rubles for $16,000 USD.
I learned this on account of the Russian trial of that America-hating, heavily-tattooed, basketball-playing drug smuggler that now has nine years of not having to hear our national anthem. She/he also has to come up with a million rubles that fortunately can be obtained over here for the cost of a banged-up Subaru with 100,000 miles on the odometer.
Yahoo's own history of fake news.
Their factuality doesn’t rely on who reports them.
It actually does. You might as well quote an L. Ron Hubbard novel as Yahoo and claim it as "fact".
Is this a religious belief on your part? Or simply a psychological tendency to bury your head in the sand and deny what you don’t want to be true?
Not religion. Quite the opposite. Extreme skepticism of any and all "news" from sources which have demonstrated themselves as purveyors of BS for well over a decade. Is it your tendency to bury your head up the ass of whomever is telling you something that you want to believe and hope is true? Even knowing that the one telling you is a proven chronic liar.
Yahoo...really? After all this time you've learned nothing?
Amazing.
I have posted before —— All Russian oil and gas is extracted from very cold regions. Some with permafrost soil, so they can be worked only some months of the year.
Contrast this with the oil and gas yet to be exploited, just off shore in shallow waters of the Northern Black Sea. Russian conquest of Ukraine is driven by this natural resources smash and grab. The weather is mild there. Also ideally situated, closer to European and other customers like Turkey.
“Their factuality doesn’t rely on who reports them.”
“It actually does.”
No, it does not. That is the classic logical fallacy of ad hominem. Facts have their own independent validity.
If Yahoo or L. Ron Hubbard say the sky is blue, that does not make it some other color. The date does not change, because it is listed on a Yahoo story.
Please pardon me if I don’t respond further. This is not a discussion that I want to spend a lot of time engaging in. Believe what you want.
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