**The Russian economy is showing more and more signs that growth is slowing, and economists are beginning to talk more and more about stagflation – a combination of low growth and high inflation. As no-one can openly blame the Ukraine war, the Central Bank highlights “external factors,” while business leaders and government-connected economists blame the Central Bank for imposing record high interest rates. **
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An economic slowdown is a very serious problem during a period of high inflation. And, in modern Russia, it is impossible to treat it using Reaganite methods: slashing spending and reducing regulation to attract foreign investment. Cutting funding for the war and the defense sector is politically inconceivable in Russia at the moment. Even acknowledging that the war and sanctions triggered this cycle of overheating and decline is impossible. That means the Central Bank may well end up being held responsible.
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The Central Bank earlier this month published a report analyzing financial flows. The conclusion was that Russia is on the verge of an economic slowdown. In October, the volume of incoming payments via the Central Bank’s payment system (about half of all payments made in Russia) was down 2.9% compared with the third quarter average. This sort of decline was visible in all industries the Central Bank studied.
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The slowdown is not simply due to declining output in the raw material extraction industries (this has been ongoing for several months amid falling export prices), but also a stuttering manufacturing sector. The only place growth is still noticeable is in sectors linked to the military. Everywhere else in the economy growth is absent, or, at best, anemic.
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All this data has prompted economists to revise downward their projections for Russian GDP growth.
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In a report published Monday, economists from the Institute of Forecasting at Russia’s Academy of Science said that “slowing economic activity and deterioration of financial indicators are becoming increasingly evident in a number of sectors.” And Russia’s Center for Macroeconomic Analysis and Short-term Forecasting (CMASF) spoke openly in a report Wednesday about possible stagflation. The center (run by the brother of Defense Minister Andrei Belousov) flagged the risk of a recession and falling productivity, especially in low-profit sectors and industries with long project implementation timeframes.
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Russian business leaders line up to attack Nabiullina
Executives at big Russian companies who are unhappy with interest rates at 21% have been angrily criticizing the Central Bank and its head, Elvira Nabiullina. Influential lobby group, the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), this week even suggested forcing the Central Bank to coordinate its monetary policy with the government.
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Many people grossly overestimate how many “innocents” there are. If the vast majority of your country supports genocidal imperialism (with majorities still holding across all demographic segments - even ones like those aged 18-29), this is clearly a broader social issue.
Now one might say, “well people are afraid so they say what the government wants to hear”. Preference falsification is indeed a thing, but even on a purely logical basis, the mere existence of preference falsification does not imply it is has a major impact.
Turns out you can estimate preference falsification. It’s estimated at 10% leading to adjusted result of 65% for support of the full scale invasion (75% using regular polling), with the authors stating that their estimate likely underestimates the true level of support due to the specifics of their methodology.
Now you might say “well 35% is still a lot of people”. Well it’s not so simple. There is a poll by Levada about support of annexation of Crimea that is much criticized by russian “liberals”. It shows support for the annexation of Criema at 85% with consistent results between 2014 and 2021. Turns out even with list experiments to account for preference falsification, the support is still at 80%.
I would be curious to see similar research regarding russian attitudes towards the bloodbath in Chechnya in the 90s. I wouldn’t be surprised if even with preference falsification adjustment we see support higher than 80%.
My point being that people often significantly underestimate how near universal the support for genocidal imperialism is in russian society.
Wait, poorly educated peasants doused in decades if not centuries of lies and propaganda, are easy to manipulate?
Noooo waaay. /s
I would not be so categorical.
Under Tsarist russia or even the USSR, sure.
But they did have independent television in the 90s (I lived there at that point, some of the satirical shows about politics and the government made US political comedy look like low effort slop). Youtube wasn’t censored until earlier this summer (still hasn’t been locked down?). Multiple major news sources (BBC, DW, russia’s own TV rain) had russian language YT channels by 2010. Every russian had access to YT in 5 second via their smartphone since the early 2010s.
We shouldn’t infantilize them. It’s the choice the make. They have responsibility for these choices and they have no right to blame history or anything like that.
So did Americans, yet they elected Trump.
Access to information doesn’t help if you’re too lazy to consume it and just buy into whatever happens to passively come in front of your face. Like idk, TV? Newspapers? Radio-shows?
Willful ignorance is the problem, not not having access to actual info. That’s more like a NK issue.