By Pepe Escobar with permission and first posted at Asia Times
St. Isaac’s cathedral, St. Petersburg
It’s impossible to understand the finer points of what’s happening on the ground in Russia and across Eurasia, business-wise, without following the annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).
So let’s cut to the chase, and offer a few choice examples of what is discussed on top panels.
The Russian Far East – Here’s a discussion on the – largely successful – strategies boosting productive investment in industry and infrastructure across the Russian Far East. Manufacturing in Russia grew by 12.2% between 2015 and 2020; in the Far East it was almost double, 23.1%. And from 2018 to 2020, per capita investment in fixed capital was 40% higher than the national average. The next steps center on improving infrastructure; opening global markets to Russian companies; and most of all, finding the necessary funds (China? South Korea?) for advanced tech.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) – As I’ve seen for myself in previous editions of the forum, there’s nothing remotely similar in the West in terms of seriously discussing an organization like the SCO – which has progressively evolved from its initial security focus towards a wide-ranging politico-economic role.
Russia presided the SCO in 2019-2020, when foreign policy got a fresh impetus and the socioeconomic consequences of Covid-19 were seriously addressed. Now the collective emphasis should be on how to turn these member nations – especially the Central Asian “stans” – more attractive for global investors. Panelists include former SCO secretary-general Rashid Alimov, and the current one, Vladimir Norov.
Eurasian partnership – This discussion involves what should be one of the key nodes of the Eurasian Century: the International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC). An important historical precedent apply: the 8th-9th centuries Volga trade route that connected Western Europe to Persia – and could now be extended, in a variation of the Maritime Silk Road, all the way to ports in India. That raises a number of questions, ranging from the development of trade and technology to the harmonic implementation of digital platforms. Here one finds panelists from Russia, India, Iran, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.
The Greater Eurasian partnership – Greater Eurasia is the overarching Russian concept applied to the consolidation of the Eurasian Century. This discussion is largely focused on Big Tech, including full digitalization, automated managing systems and Green growth. The question is how a radical tech transition could work for pan-Eurasia interests.
And that’s where the Russian-led Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) comes in: how the EAEU’s drive for a Greater Eurasian Partnership should work in practice. Panelists include the chairman of the board of the Eurasian Economic Commission, Mikhail Myasnikovich, and a relic from the Yeltsin past: Anatoliy Chubais, who is now Putin’s special representative for “relations with international organizations to achieve sustainable development goals.”
Gotta ditch all those greenbacks
Arguably the most eye-catching panel on SPIEF was on the post-Covid-19 “new normal” (or abnormal), and how economics will be reshaped. An important sub-section is how Russia can possibly capitalize on it, in terms of productive growth. That was a unique opportunity to see IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, Russian Central Bank governor Elvira Nabiullina and Russian Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov debating on the same table.
It was Siluanov who in fact commanded all the SPIEF-related headlines when he announced that Russia will totally ditch the US dollar in the structure of the National Wealth Fund (NWF) – the de facto Russian sovereign wealth fund – as well as reduce the share of the British pound. The NWF will have more euros and yuan, more gold, and the yen’s share remains stable.
This ongoing de-dollarization process has been more than predictable. In May, for the first time, less than 50% of Russian exports were denominated in US dollars.
Siluanov explained that the sales of roughly $119 billion in liquid assets will go through the Russian Central Bank, and not through financial markets. In practice, that will be a simple technical transfer of euros to the NWF. The Central Bank after all has been steadily getting rid of the US dollars for years now.
Sooner or later, China will follow. In parallel, some nations across Eurasia, in an extremely discreet manner, are also bypassing what is de facto the currency of a debt-based economy – to the tune of tens of trillions of dollars, as Michael Hudson has been explaining in detail. Not to mention that transacting US dollars exposes whole nations to an extra-territorial, extortionary judicial machine.
On the all-important Chinese-Russian front, permeating all the discussions at SPIEF, is the fact that a pool of Chinese technical knowhow and Russian energy is more than able to solidify a massive pan-Eurasian market capable of dwarfing the West. History tells us that in 1400, India and China were responsible for half of the world’s GDP.
As the West wallows in a self-induced Build Back Better collapse, the Eurasian caravan seems unstoppable. But then, there are those pesky US sanctions.
The Valdai Discussion Club Session dug deeper into the hysteria: sanctions serving a political agenda are threatening vast swathes of the world economic and financial infrastructure. So we’re back once again to the inescapable syndrome of the weaponized US dollar – deployed against India buying Iranian oil and Russian military hardware, or against Chinese tech companies.
Panelists including Russian Deputy Finance Minister Vladimir Kolychev and the UN Special Rapporteur on the “Negative Impact of Unilateral Coercive Measures on the Enjoyment of Human Rights”, Alena Douhan, debated the inevitable new escalation of anti-Russian sanctions.
Another running theme underneath the SPIEF debates is that, whatever happens on the sanctions front, Russia already has an alternative to SWIFT, and so does China. Both systems are compatible with SWIFT in software, so other nations may also be able use it.
No less than 30% of SWIFT’s traffic involves Russia. If that “nuclear “option” would ever come to pass, nations trading with Russia would almost certainly ditch SWIFT. On top of it, Russia, China and Iran – the “threat” trio to the Hegemon – have currency swap agreements, bilaterally and with other nations.
SPIEF this year has taken place only a few days before the G7, NATO and US-EU summits – which will graphically highlight European geopolitical irrelevancy, reduced to the status of a platform for US power projection.
And taking place less than two weeks before the Putin-Biden summit in Geneva, SPIEF most of all performed a public service for those who care to notice, charting some of the most important practical contours of the Eurasian Century.
Underlining the theme of this year’s SPIEF is Russian insistence on dealing with nations as sovereigns.
No groups of nations like EU.
Spotlighting Qatar for this year’s forum is not just about uniting natural gas LNG exporters, but demonstrating that Russia has other investments for the Gulf States and other wealthy nations. Sanctions have limited foreign direct investments into Russia, but for several years Putin has invited Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the Emirates and others to invest in the Arctic, the Far East energy projects and many technology opportunities.
Russian growth is on the cusp of explosive development. If any new military conflicts can be avoided, Russia could be growing at 4-5% GDP easily.
As the economy becomes more state managed and nationalized industries become more streamlined and efficient, while government regulations are eliminated or modernized, investors should reap the acceleration of a digitized economy.
Hope you are right.
But what is the basis for that “4-5%” economic growth?
Inviting investments in fossil fuel industries in a world that is rapidly transiting out into clean energy is hardly a strategy for longer term economic growth.
And your last para is essentially still an aspiration and will remain one if there are no specific strategy, plans and timelines to achieve these.
Simon, if you did some rudimentary research (like read some Russian sources of news about economic development) you wouldn’t be asking the question and raising doubts.
If you could peruse my files on this information you would know I understated the factual basis for my remarks.
It’s like doubting the S-400, S-500 effectiveness when no nation will fly its planes against them because they would lose their planes and pilots.
Russia is building an infrastructure far beyond fossil fuels. But what is wrong with 40 more years of oil and natural gas? They will reap the bounty of revenues for decades more.
And what is the substitute? Wind and Solar? The world will need two more Suns and three more Earth surfaces to produce the wind and solar need to provide the energy for today’s life support.
The fact is Russia is going to produce energy from methane–hydrogen and it will flow through the same pipelines to the same markets, nicely transitioning from blue energy to green energy.
Nuclear Power. Russia is so far out in front in NPP technology that the US has to use sanctions to try to limit Russian penetration of the US marketplace.
I don’t have the time to educate you on more. Just read some economic news from Russia.
I can assure you that Russia, which in April grew at 10% GDP (bouncing back from Covid-induced slowdown), will hit 4-5% in the coming year or so.
Check these officials and the work they are doing:
Belousov
Mishustin
Reshetnikov
Siluanov
I agree with you for the most part – but this…
“The world will need two more Suns and three more Earth surfaces to produce the wind and solar need to provide the energy for today’s life support”
that’s not the problem, we wouldn’t know what to do with it – we’re just too primitive to efficiently ‘mine’ the sun’s energy (and its derivatives) – and we’re still far away from the ‘Type I’ civilization (Kardashev). Don’t blame it on the Sun or the wind, it’s all our ignorance :)
The whole clean energy/ low carbon emissions initiative has mostly been useful to decouple the West from the energy triad of Russia-Iran- China.
Electric cars using lithium batteries are not greener and lithium is not renewable resource.
China in the energy triad? They are the world’s biggest importer of oil and coal.
Exactly. The world’s largest energy importer together with the two top providers (as per proven gas reserves) in a virtous symbiotic cycle, all outside the reach of the US and USD…
And wind power is as environmentally suspect as it is unreliable.
All the more if, according to them, the planet is submitted to an growing warming process, which will eliminate wind from wide swaths of the globe for most part of he year…
And we, Western citizens, are going to pay the bill, as the new taxes on gasoil ( which just equated gasoline in price and most of workers doing about 50km a day own a gasoil car…)and electricity ( which was raised in a 45% this month in countries like Spain…) at the price of becoming poor of solemnity and de facto salves, as the frozen ( from 2008 crisis on ) wages, and the new ones which start equating those of developing countries where labor was outsourced looking for low wage mass production ( which is what they seem to mean by “build back better ) will not reach to pay for even basic services, thus entering your account ot then go out at zero coma seconds, which is what they plan to unleash the “digital wallet ” for, in the first place, since, as soon as people realize they have become salves, a blcak market would necessarily follow and tax evasion would be the norm.
Of course, in the past increasingly irrelevant G7 summit ( if not for crushing taxpayers in an additional twist of the grip..) they only were able to agree on a miserable 15% tax for tech corporations currently making billions a year, when the average worker ,even mileurists, are paying no less than a 20%…
Still, the people are not but pendant to get the Western mRNA only available vaccine ( i.e. Pfizer ) to be able to travel this summer ( probably as a hunch on that they will not travel any more because of the misery provoked by the pandemci measures..), as if there was no tomorrow, and it is that, definitely, there is no…
They want people weak by keeping them far from meat and other basics natural to human nutrition for ages, also by producing iatrogenic illnesses derived from openly allowed manipulations of DNA through experimental pharma products, so that when the people realize the dystopian system that has been established in which they are not but slaves, they are able to rebel for simple lack of energy…
Thanks for the economics references.
I tend to agree with you….. what is wrong with a few more decades of fossil fuel use?
I have to make a confession (being a good Catholic…. to bad the churches are locked up)….. I now actually have doubts about the global warming story, though I was virtually convinced it was a reality.
My doubts go back to doing research on climate change in general and the ice ages; generally each ice age was followed by an interglacial warm period of “about” 12 thousand years and then a new ice age would develop, so I wondered if perhaps the global warming/CO2 story might actually be a blessing in disguise….. after all, how would 7 billion people survive a new ice age on Earth? Probably not very well at all.
We might now actually be scheduled for a new ice age.
Now, there are so many additional reasons involved in climate change, such as the Earth’s orbit changes, sun spot activity/cycles, and much more, that are not being spoken about, that simple CO2 levels are likely just a small part of the story.
Also, now there are many “freak” weather events which involve severe low temperatures, that I wonder if we are in fact heading for an ice age.
Well, I am just “thinking out loud” so feel free to comment on this in any way you like.
Pro or con. I will gladly read any ideas.
an enormous source of immediate economic growth, improved living standards which ripple down through forward time tremendously is the simple massive construction of highways and secondary roads and bridges with all the down stream growth that accompanies any place easy to get to.
russia has a staggering modern highway deficit which is being addressed and will take a few decades minimum to even being it to usa late 1960’s standards of connecting everyone. here in the usa we had enormous benefits out of eisenhowers major highway construction plan. even though it was to move military around it became much more than that.
in fact it will take the next 30 years of road building and railroad building to connect eurasia into a simple semblance of what europe and the usa enjoy today without giving any thought to how their living standards came to be.
easy access!
Isn’t Russia several times bigger than USA? Than Europe?
‘Eurasia’ could also be referred to as ‘Chissia’…………
People in the West simply cannot shed the meme “Russia is a backward country’. They cannot comprehend the sheer immensity of Russia, what to say about ‘Eurasia’? One of the most surprising things is the almost total unawareness of the existence of the SCO.
Yes, true. I always listening meme RUSSIA BACKWARD COUNTRY.
And what is interesting, people talking about Russia like that, never did one step into Russia and they saw Russia only on the geografic map.
With the same logic, Canada is the 3rd world country.
On the other hand, Russian railway is on par with the USA and China both by length and fright volume.
Then we can look at the ice-breaker fleet where USA is at least 30 years behind Russia.
Anyhow, you can either look at the all possible facts and let them lead you wherever they go, or you can use any subjective criteria to pick some conclusion and then find the facts that will support that conclusion.
We may have had the best highway system back in the 60s and early 70s, but our government has failed to invest in the upkeep of this infrastructure. The US govt builds better roads in war zones than maintaining those roads at home. I do not see where the US currently has an advantage in this area.
“Inviting investments in fossil fuel industries in a world that is rapidly transiting out into clean energy is hardly a strategy for longer term economic growth.”
Like so many others, you have been brainwashed into believing in the “Global Warming”, “Climate Change”, “CO2” hoax. A hoax perpetuated by the very same people who want us to lockdown for an almost trivial virus. People who want us to stop traveling – while they get about on their private jets.
If you check the deaths for England and Wales for 2020, you will find that it is less than in 1990. That despite hospitals being unavailable for routine screening and operations. Despite the UK’s population growing by 17% and the population being 5 years older.
FYI, solar and wind produce an almost negligible proportion of our energy needs. The German “Energiewende” has been a massive failure. Germany imports electricity from all neighbouring countries when there is little wind and no sun. I will not try to explain to you why using natural gas in cars is massively more efficient than generating electricity (often with natural gas) and using it to power electric cars. You simply don’t have the necessary understanding of thermodynamics.
Please check the data and turn off your TV.
Natural gas may be more efficient during operation, but since the motor expires to an early grave for esoteric reasons, the energy used to make the car over again negates the power used by the electric car since its motor would last much longer, its not until the battery needs to be replaced that the energy used to remake that item comes into consideration when comparing the two’s over all energy consumption foot print.
The gas and diesel engine’s are still the most cost effective way to transport people and product over the full life of the vehicle.
Exactamente. Lyndon Larouche (QEPD) lo ha explicado muy bien desde hace mas de diez años…
Translation: Exactly. Lyndon Larouche (QEPD) has explained it very well for more than ten years…
The lectric car is not but another way to make us pay more for an untility with increasing rpogrammed obsolescence.
Even with new diesel cars, you have batteries with a life of no more than four years.
My previous car´s battery was working for almost 10 years, the new one´s I had to change it at the beginning of the 4th year…
Not ot mention that elctric cars are currentlvy only affordable for rich people, at least in certain parts of Europe, since you will need a charge station at home ( which implies you have to live in an unifamiliar home with a garage wide enough, plus having the money to install it and pay the estratospheric bill on electricity…), plus thev fact that electric cars are not find in the market below the threshold of 30.000 euros and up…
This push for the electric car, which no worker will be able to afford itself, is not but a way to make the average people pay for the rich people´s cars, as subsidies fro discounts on charge of the state are announced fro the buyers…
As we are noticing all the time, this is communism for the rich and the elites and sharp neoliberalist shock doctrine for the rest…
There is an obvious contradiction in increasing electricity in a 45% in just a month for the taxpayers and then forcing them to have an electric car or go to work by pedaling in a bike or in the crowded, many times distant to catch, public transport.
That,you can promote it in places with high velocity affordable public transport, not in the conditions the people live in many European countries, especially in the south.
What the elites in Europe try to do is making life impossible for the masses, no wonder they are in a hurry to unleash the “ID digital wallet”, since the natural outcome from this will be a revolution, unless they rapidly success in crippling people´s brains through DNA manipulation…
“ID digital wallet” or no, the revolution will take place…othrwise human race will become extint from Earth…
As the saying goes, “There is no evil which endures 100 years”
You can convert natural gas (methane) directly to electricity to drive your car using a fuel cell essentially identical to the hydrogen fuel cells which so many condemn because nobody now wants to build the necessary hydrogen refueling stations (or to generate the hydrogen). Such fuel cells would also run on methanol, as if there weren’t enough sources of methane. We wouldn’t have to forcibly schlock our natural gas to Europe, we’d use it all ourselves. Why should providing as many actual “gas” stations as there are existing gasoline stations be any more expensive than building the approximately 300 million electric charging stations to accommodate every car and truck on the road when internal combustion is totally phased out, as promised by the liberals? Moreover, we’d have to construct a massive number of new electric power plants to accommodate all those intensely used recharging stations.
As long as we are doing that, why not just electrify all the major highways, interstates and main arterial city streets, requiring drivers only to tap their lithium batteries driving through residential neighborhoods? The consumption of power, delivered from a conductive strip running down the middle of each traffic lane, could be monitored and instantaneously relayed via a transponder to both the company providing the power and the tax agency in Washington collecting a new road use tax rather than the no longer relevant gasoline tax. With this system, you could go anywhere the roads are electrified without having to wait hours to recharge your battery, which might be monumental power downloads for 18-wheelers hauling heavy freight. The electrified roadway could even recharge those batteries if you had to drive your vehicle off-road out of necessity or pleasure.
This country used to have some electrified railways, including many inter-urban passenger services and cross-country freight service, particularly out West. The Milwaukee Road which plied the Pacific Northwest was one such. The grid, especially if upgraded, can supply all the power needed. What about ice and snow on the roads, you may be thinking. As long as the roads are totally electrified, they can also be heated to melt the ice and snow, which has the added feature of making them safer. With added radar sensors and AI to allow all new vehicles to self drive, an overarching system can keep all traffic evenly spaced and travelling at safe uniform speeds.
Time to start focusing on the roads and not just the cars to revolutionize traffic flow and control across the USA (and into Canada and Mexico). These are amenities our government could afford to provide for us if it would simply forego all the wars and threats of war it prefers to implement as standard policy. Those UFO’s constantly monitoring our behavior as a species must think we are effing nuts in our priorities.
Now the focus is not selling the raw fossil
1) processing of fossils into plastics and all sorts of byproducts besides carburants
2) split all other gases like helium from methane gas
Petro-chemical industry is HUGE business
@ simon chow
”Inviting investments in fossil fuel industries in a world that is rapidly transiting out into clean energy is hardly a strategy for longer term economic growth.” The forced “green” transition is financed by the printing press. It is an orderly process of collapse of the West. Real investors don’t think like woke zombies.
‘Spotlighting Qatar for this year’s forum is not just about uniting natural gas LNG exporters, but demonstrating that Russia has other investments for the Gulf States and other wealthy nations’
Here an instance of Russian leadership appealing to the core interests of the Gulf monarchs. I think this should be especially welcomed insofar as these petro monarchies are the prime economic supporters of the takfiri Islamist militias that have been used against Russia since .. the late 1830s. With America receding from the region in favour of its ‘Pivot’ agenda and the status of the dollar in decline, Putin’s offer to invest in their economic future, in the Arctic and Siberia, sends the right messages to these understandably nervous oil rich autocrats. ‘Don’t worry; we can help, but let’s retire those militant MB operations, or perhaps repurpose them as security contractors for all the connectivity buildouts Pepe is always talking about. America out, Russia in; everything will be just fine.’
Sanctions on financial investments into successful economies like Russia, China, even Iran, seems like an economic benefit to the sanctioned country. Profits should not be exported when there is enough domestic capital because in the long run, domestic-only investment may mean slower development but nearer the end of the period, the country is far more wealthy. I see only two ways sanctions are not beneficial. The more important harm from sanctions is geopolitical. China’s large investments in Iran’s oil and gas industries mean that any attack of any kind on Iran is now also an attack on China. So in hybrid warfare, large investments are a mutual defense pact. The less important harm is that economic development is slower. But none of the sovereignist nations are in dire straits. No one is going hungry, and military development is far enough along, so there is no danger of being a tempting “easy” target, unlike for example, the USSR before WW2. So I hope Russia, China and Iran continue to bootstrap their economies, while, of course, they complain about it. To finish the thought, I am talking only about sanctions which hinder financial investments. But there are truly harmful sanctions of other kinds. Iran is suffering from sanctions on financial transactions generally, and especially on importing medicines and high technology. Those sanctions are economic warfare, pure and simple, and must be condemned as crimes against humanity.
It is hard to understand why Russia cannot achieve GDP growth 5%. Or at least 4%
All precondition exist and they invest huge money into infrastructure projects. Always surplus in trade
But no growth
Russian growth is too weak and gloomy for last 10 years.
Why …it is hard to understand.
I would be more convinced if there are more workshops than talkshops post covid-19 new normal/abnormal.
How about more international expos of Russian-Eurasian high-tech industry, more Russian trade fairs and more trade deals signed all over Eurasia?
Those manufacturing growth rates for the Russian Far East are mediocre. I am sure Russia can do far better than trailing behind its far eastern regions.
And what about the service sector? Is it dead or alive or just non-existent?
And what about Russia’s national GDP growth rates? No point having hundreds of billions if the money is not translated into economic growth for the benefit of the people.
The state can be ‘rich’ but the people can still be poor and getting poorer, if the country’s money and debts are not efficiently translated into goods and services and the wealth distributed equitably.
And what about Russia’s GDP growth rates since 2015?
And if these are low, what are the specific plans to boost economic growth (and jobs)?
Specifics and committed timelines are what counts. Certainly not more talkshops!
And there are not much point debating the IMF and grabbing headlines unless Russia is asking the IMF for loans/bailouts. Other than this, the IMF should be kept at arm’s length.
‘ … a relic from the Yeltsin past: Anatoliy Chubais, who is now Putin’s special representative for “relations with international organizations to achieve sustainable development goals.” I simply don’t believe it. Of all people!
DD.
What Putin has done is put a Liberal enemy in charge of facing the West where his heart and brain are, and telling him, do business with those Liberals you so love. Chubais is thus stuck in the West unable to hurt Russia any further.
Don’t forget, Putin has avoided a real civil war that would have erupted if he merely threw out all the liberals.
Meanwhile, he has made a weak nation back into a world Super Power and is gradually weeding out of power the liberals he once had to deal with.
His change of Prime Minister was the big move among persons in power.
His Constitutional changes are strategic changes that bolster sovereignty against the West.
And of late, he has replaced the older generation of officials all over Russia and within the government with a younger generation that knows Putin’s accomplishments and choose Russia over the West.
Letting Kurdrin and Chubais have “official” roles does not grant them power. They are on a leash and pole. It beats locking them up and making them martyrs.
Sort of like ‘keeping your friends close, and your enemies even closer’ or that famous LBJ quip about ‘p..sing inside the tent, not from outside in.’ Plus, both are subject to performance metrics, as defined by VVP & his circle. Strange, but understandable.
DD,
If you read what VVP said about Chubais in his long interview with Nataliya Gevorkyan, Natalya Timakova, and Andrei Kolesnikov published under the title “First Person” ©2000 (pp 192-193), you would understand that Putin sees Chubais’ as a “very good administrator” with an unsentimental, technocratic approach to solving problems. They both worked in St. Petersburg during Sobchak’s stint as mayor.
Putin said:
However, his credit record with “the West” is (or was) robust, so maybe it makes sense to now bring his technocratic, administrative skills to bear on liaising with international organizations to achieve sustainable development goals for Russia.
If there is one thing we all can say about Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, it’s that he is, himself, an excellent administrator and personnel manager. I’m sure he knows what he’s doing.
“Mapping the Eurasian century”. Just wish to show another link new to me, to show why we need this alternative badly and urgently. https://educate-yourself.org/cn/americanmcinbaghdad29may03.shtml
It’s a real pity that this lecture is only available in Russian.
https://youtu.be/YajV85ML8YA
Kovalchuk is director of Kurchatov Institute.
Watched a bit… pretty amazing; teaching kids to think rationally and logically! If only something like that were available to US kids. But then – the empire does not need logically thinking population. On the contrary, the less people know, the easier it is to control them.
I am not able to understand Russian, but I guess he is pushing for their empowerment as human beings so that they are able to dream of a better, promising future.
In harsh contrast, the young people in the West, at least in certain parts of the EU, are showed with only two possibilities, become a slave for the elites ( that is, go to work exhausting labor days for an increasingly meager wage which hardly allows you to live a decent life, to then come back to a home shared with other people to do houskeeping at wee hours, as was suggested by some government, so that you can pay the astronomic electricity bill…to then, after sleeping just three hours in the best case, wake up still at wee hours to catch the public transport distant half an hour from your shared crowded home, since you can not afford with suchwage an expensive electric car, less be able to charge it, and all this do it with a poor diet lacking basic nutrients because of the estratospheric prices all food is getting as the taxes on all, roads, gasoil, meat production, increase,…) or, if you are not able to cop with it, just suicide yourself a leave place for more “adapted” ( i.e. submitted..), “collaborative” people, as the rising in suicides amongst young people during the pandemic so clearly shows is the case..
Thanks Pepe again !
We are facing discovery of New World – New World that is very Old One .
New continent – Euro-Asia ! Big piece of the Planet . Big future !
I think Pepe is right to focus as much as he does on the economic developments of Eurasia. They don’t excite and thrill as much as high flown rhetoric or military action but in terms of achieving strategic goals the gradual development of this enormous interconnected socio-economic market is absolutely decisive in determining the political future of everybody. This is more important than the tit for tat theatre of the West and the Rest. The West is in decline; that is terribly obvious. Nobody can save it actually. The ship is sinking. The best that passengers can hope for concerns lifeboats. Otherwise the emergent Eurasian world is the one and only alternative for civilisation in this world. The present commitment of the leadership of both Russia and China to the further development of domestic society and economy is exactly in accordance with medium and long term aims. It is an expression of great clarity and confidence.
”The West is in decline; that is terribly obvious. Nobody can save it actually. The ship is sinking.”
Very true indeed. One only has to look at its Russian ”assets” — Navalny, Sobchak, ’Pussy Riot’ — to understand it’s game over. To cut to the chase, it very much boils down to the fact that George Soros tried to subvert the country and got booted out by the patriots in the Russian Government. Then this great philanthropist decided to stir up colour revolution mayhem at home, in which he has been tremendously more successful. The contributions by China (BRI) and Turkey (refugee bargain with the EU) are also considerable. The West’s ”Elites” are at a loss as they believe their own propaganda. Short of all-out global conflagration, the West will have been vanquished for good in 20 years’ time — at most. It’s already going down the toilet as we speak.
Average wage growth in Russian Federation in March reached 55 208 Rubles from previous 51 229 Rubles in February.
Not bad … not bad.
Real wage growth for the same month was 1.8% from previous 2% in February … I expected bit more but everything in positive zone is OK. Probably inflation had certain impact.
To have really good life standard, average wages in Russia should be 100 000 Rubles under these economic condition.
Maybe they can reach this somewhere in 2030. Maybe even more.
This economic strategy of so called STATE CAPITALISM seem OK.
Massive building of infrastructure, industry modernization and import substitution.
West does everything possible to stop or slow down russian development.
Last 10 years russian growth and development has NOT been good enough. Maybe now Putin, Mishustin, Belousov and company have good strategy prepared.
We will see…
Chubais, President Putin? The guy responsible for dismembering the Soviets´ three generations´ wealth?
Meanwhile for any who follow financial markets closely would notice the U.S dollar has been whip sawing around 90 on the dollar index.
We are so close to a major leg down in the dollar, the Russian central bank has headed for the exit first, before it becomes a rush out of the dollar by other central banks.
The U.S is so screwed it’s beyond comprehension, a dollar crash followed by a sovereign debt crisis where everyone sells their bonds and just want out at any price.
2022 is going to a very bad year for the United States of nothingness.
But…while we are all day pendant on what Putin says at every economic summit taking place in the Eastern block, our liberties system is being wiped out in front of our eyes while we do not move a finger…
https://www.rt.com/news/525576-eu-launches-digital-id-wallet/
Putin will not come to save us, we will have to do it by ourselves..and preferably soon, before the window of opportunity still remains slightly opened, the circle closes in full and you then risk being wiped out from society, by digital means…
Btw, the future of Europe…according to The Economist…
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E3ID8AIXMAA7UL_?format=jpg&name=large
Bárbaro! Obrigado Sr PEPE ESCOBAR, pela dedicação contínua e incansável, pelo menos por enquanto, de nos trazer essas informações das mudanças em curso referentes ao panorama mundial. Boas notícias! Muito obrigado!
Mod.Translation: Barbarian! Thank you Mr PEPE ESCOBAR, for your continuous and tireless dedication, at least for the time being, to bring us this information of the ongoing changes regarding the world panorama. Good news! Thank you very much!
“The change to the make-up of the NWF doesn’t mean that billions of dollars will be dumped on the open market. The Ministry of Finance confirmed later the same day that it had sold the money to the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) and so the change is little more than an accounting change, with the CBR increasing the number of dollars counted as the central bank’s hard currency reserves while the MinFin reduces the share of dollars counted in the NWF.
“The de-dollarisation is unlikely to involve any open market transactions. With the NWF essentially being an FX deposit with the central bank, the entire deal can be covered by the central bank’s international reserves, which are larger and more diversified than the NWF’s. In order to reach the targeted FX structure, the Ministry of Finance has to sell $40bn and GBP4bn, exchanging them for $23bn equivalent of gold, $18bn equivalent of CNY and $5bn equivalent of euros. As of the end of 3Q20 (latest available disclosure date) the Central Bank of Russia had €143bn, $71bn equivalent of CNY and $137bn equivalent of gold,” Dmitry Dolgin, chief economist, Russia, at ING, said in a note.
“We do not believe that MinFin’s move to ditch the dollar (apparently done in order to reduce exposure to foreign policy risks) will necessarily trigger de-dollarisation of CBR reserves (which would require external open market transaction). As of the latest available disclosure date, the CBR had $127bn in USD, or 22% of the total. First, according to international agreements, central banks are less exposed to sanction risks than governments, lowering the urgency to fully de-dollarise. Second, compared to other macro parameters, the share of dollars in the Russian central bank’s international assets already appears low vs. around 60% in Russian exports, 40% in Russian imports, 60% in Russian foreign debt, 45-65% in Russian international private assets, and 60% in global international reserves,” Dolgin added.”
https://www.intellinews.com/russia-to-reduce-its-dollar-holdings-in-its-nwf-rainy-day-fund-to-zero-212263/?source=russia
Debunking German “Greens”( and all the “greens” for that matter, including Greta Thunberg who says nothing about this, in spite of meddlingv in everything, like in that people could fly, in the best case, once a year for holidays, this paying the due astronomic taxes, and this in small numbers, which is not but a way to justify increasingly worse wages for the corporations…)….V.V.P at SPIEF…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rdmuUOhKbU
My hunch is that there will be no “Eurasian Century”. Russia will likely make a Faustian pact with the USA during the coming Biden-Putin summit.
The outcome of the summit is that Russia will distance itself from China. The US and NATO will then have a free hand to pressure China in the western Pacific and cross the Taiwan red-line. The QUAD, using India will also pressure China in the Himalayas.
The result will be that China will face an existential challenge from forces led by the USA.
If China is defeated, China will lose Xinjiang, Tibet and Taiwan. China’s economic expansion will cease and be relegated to an occupied country of the US. Russia will get rid of a possible long-term threat from China.
Of course, after this the US and its allies will turn their attention to deal with Russia. But Russia is likely betting that its superb nuclear arsenal will make it untouchable and undefeatable.
But if China defeats the US…..,!
Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen.