Posted on 05/31/2022 3:48:09 PM PDT by FarCenter
...
It’s difficult to gauge how much comfort Putin takes in these signs of European distress and disunion. Russia has its own problems. Russian inflation runs at about 18% and consumer spending is expected to drop 13% for this year and 22% in 2023, according to US investment bank Morgan Stanley.
The situation may be worse than the numbers suggest: Russian firms are currently not required to report earnings, leaving investors in the dark.
Nonetheless, Putin appears unfazed. After his talk with Macron and Scholz, the Kremlin released a statement about not sanctions but arms deliveries to Ukraine, which the statement blamed for “further destabilization of the situation.”
What’s evident is that, however much damage the war is doing to Russian and Western economies, those figures pale by comparison with the damage inflicted on Ukraine in terms of economic dislocation and physical damage.
The country’s economy will shrink by 45% according to the World Bank. Prolonged resistance would represent a Pyrrhic moral victory. Damage to structures, public works and other infrastructure already could top $600 billion, according to the Kyiv School of Economics.
Even if Ukraine actually succeeds in driving Russia out of its territory, damage to the world economy could be devastating within a year, according to an analysis by Market Watch.
There is already fear of food shortages in countries that import wheat from Ukraine. Europe faces an economic slowdown as energy supplies become unpredictable.
In short, as the war drags on, the global economic outlook appears grim. “In all cases, the economic damage will be profound not just for Ukraine, but also for the rest of the world,” said Market Watch, which is a publication of Dow Jones & Company.
“Instead of waiting for an outcome to the war, policymakers must urgently explore solutions to the global food crisis, the growing potential for debt crises in the developing world, and the threat of recession in the West.”
Should have stayed out of it from the beginning.
You’re right, but too many corruptos - and their useful idiots, many here on FR.
Just too much money to be made.
“...according to US investment bank Morgan Stanley.”
I don’t remember them advising the West as to what was going to happen if they sanctioned Russia? Didn’t think so, so it’s probably best to treat their predictions as simply the Neocons trying to justify what may well amount to a Depression in Europe and a near-Depression in the US...thanks to their attempts to ‘Punish’ Putin.
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