What does “afford” mean?
The Federal Reserve creates from thin air trillions of dollars. This happens whimsically over the past 10+ years. It was to provide dollars to the now $30 trillion in government debt. Government debt is bonds. The process of buying a bond is lending money to the government. The Fed did that, with dollars created from nothing.
Why would you think Russia does not also have a central bank? They can create all the required pieces of paper with ink on them that the Fed does. Whimsical processes are identical.
The only difference is Russia hasn’t accumulated $30T in Ruble equivalent that they will never repay. Their debt to GDP ratio is a mere fraction of the US.
And more important, their GDP is not defined by government spending — or by bytes of movie entertainment. Rather, it is defined by the joules of energy in oil and gas.
Oh for goodness sakes! It’s not about competing finiancial systems.
Do they have the money to spend on a huge factory, workers, equipment and raw materials to produce them?
“Why would you think Russia does not also have a central bank? They can create all the required pieces of paper with ink on them that the Fed does.”
Then why can’t they magic up enough money to even buy their own most advanced tank platform for their own army? They sold them all to India instead and keep using obsolete retrofitted tanks for their own forces.
The fact is, making money out of thin air has consequences, and despite our $30 trillion in debt, the United States is still in a far better position to weather the consequences of money printing and deficit spending than Russia is, which is why they cannot afford to equip their troops with the quality of equipment they need to match what the West is supplying to Ukraine, even if they have the technical ability to produce such equipment.
“And more important, their GDP is not defined by government spending — or by bytes of movie entertainment. Rather, it is defined by the joules of energy in oil and gas.”
And still Russia’s GDP is pathetic compared to the US, so fat lot of good all those resources seem to be doing for them.