I find this really hard to believe. In practical terms, is life getting better or worse for the average Russian, and how does it compare to life for the average European?
Worse. Food have become more expensive although prices rise slowed down. Many clothing brands have left and replaced with brands from Turkey etc.
But we are not starving, have gas, electricity.
Well sounds like many parts of EU then. In Netherlands restaurant prices have gone up 20-30% this year. When visiting Poland I have seen food prices to be as high or even higher than in Netherlands while they earn 3 or 4 times less on average. It used to be cheap to go to Poland but this year quite crazy. I feel bad for them, looks like their government really fucked up, also the sanctions are backfiring badly over there
And that's not even the whole story. As an SDE, after taxes, SS (that I will not ever use), and rent+utils, I am left with 750 euro of disposable income. My effective taxrate is 38%. To have the same taxrate in Denmark you'd have to earn around 650k DKK, so close to 80K euro, not the 36k I am earning.
> To have the same taxrate in Denmark you'd have to earn around 650k DKK, so close to 80K euro, not the 36k I am earning.
Or just start contacting, like many SDEs in Poland do, then your effective tax rate (taxes + health insurance + social security) is around 15-17%. The reality in Poland is that full-time employment (as opposed to self-employment) is for suckers.
Food prices are higher because global agricultural output had a major drop last year[1]. Every major food producing region of the world was hit by covid induced labor and equipment shortages, bad weather, or war, or some combination of them all.
Hard to tell, prices raised unevenly. Real estate have become very expensive. As for day-to-day spendings my unscientific gut feeling tells me that I spend somewhere 25% more. Official figures of inflation something like 12-15%.
Several reasons. It started during COVID times when it was not clear if we are facing new economic crisis. So wealthy people used real estate to protect their savings. Then the government decided to support construction companies by subsidising mortgage for young families and as a result stimulating demand. And now again uncertainty of current situation stimulate people invest their savings in something safe. On the other hand sellers were afraid that ruble will fail significantly and raised prices so high that sells almost stopped. Right now prices to real estate are going down a bit.
Thank you for answer. The same situation is in all economies where government prints money and people are afraid currency will lose value so it it better to keep wealth in real estate.
Agreed. Real estate got really expensive in Berlin, as did rent. Food got more expensive like everywhere else, and now energy costs tripled (I just got the letter from my landlord).
I'm not cheering for anyone to hurt more than us. It's just a crappy situation all around.
The main supporting graph: "percent change on previous month, annualized". So this is like, a relative rate-of-change measure? (of what exactly?) Can we have absolute rate-of-change or absolute values of this thing? (it's not as if some decent range of the economic output is unknown) Also this graph is far too short in timescale especially since it's dealing with the recent past: we know these indicators are very noisy around the now point. wtf this is garbage
It is using some sort of an alternative to GDP, but I don't understand why they made that choice:
"The Current Activity Indicator (CAI) is an alternative summary measure of economic growth constructed from major real activity indicators. The CAI includes both “hard” and “soft” economic indicators, and it puts a relatively high weight on the latter."
Personally, I try soak up nuggets of info from "alt right", libertarian and prepper channels or sources. If you're comfortable wading through things you disagree with, then you will get a ton of info.
There is just something too "sanitized" and "prepared" about mainstream sources that I actively distrust them on any heated topic.
If you are confident about this, then do share the actual content and sources that you think we should read so that we can judge for ourselves how credible they are.
That's like panning for gold in a sewer. Hope you don't get a disease.
The far right has viral memes tailor made for radicalizing slightly paranoid white guys by making them more and more comfortable with the things you're "wading through" right now. If you aren't wary five years from now you'll be a paranoid mess staying up at night reading Culture of Critique and sending pdfs of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion to your buddies. Saw it happen to a "libertarian" friend of my husband. Guy went from relatively normal to belonging on an FBI watch list.
Not the economic situation, but here's a very good and in-depth analysis of the Russo-Ukranian war by a retired indian army general, made 3 months ago - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78KbH3Eb8lc (HN - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33197358 )... In it, he briefly mentions that economic indicators point that sanctions against Russia are also hurting the US too, not just Europe.
This guy has shouldn't have any credibility left even if you couldn't recognize his pro-Russian bias (actually more like awe than bias) from the beginning. Look at his appearances at the beginning of the war. His predictions are consistently wrong. He's been severely overrating Russian power from the beginning, and unlike others in the face of reality hasn't adjusted that take at all.
What has this general said that makes you doubt his credibility? That he admires the Russian army is purely from an military academic perspective because he is a general and studies warfare. And he clearly understands the strength and weakness of the Russian army, and thus is not swayed by propaganda from both the west and the Russians.
What does he actually say? He starts out by outlining Russian tactics that they have used in the past (WW2) and how it has evolved to the present day (as apparent in Syria). He then points out how Russia has deviated from it during their incursion into Ukraine.
He points out how Russian intelligence failure (to gauge the right mood of Ukrainians) resulted in the Russian army's failure to achieve their goals quickly. He points out how the Ukrainian army has successfully resisted the Russian onslaught. He points out how the Ukrainian could have actually been more successful if the west had supplied them with the right arms and ammunition the Ukrainian army has been demanding all along.
He further points out why Russia has been failing - mainly because of the brave resistance of the Ukranian, deviating from their standard tactics and the shortage of men it has committed. He also criticises Putin of micro-managing the war in the early stages. He highlights how a Russian general successfully achieved the military goals he had been ordered to do so because he deviated from orders and used standard Russian tactics. He also points out that Russia will not win this war if Russians don't commit more men to this war and if the Ukranian get the right weapons.
And look at what has happened since he made this analysis - the west has supplied the Ukranians with more weapons (don't know if it is the "right" weapons though) and Russia has ordered draft to commit even more men to this war.
People understandably don't want to accept that Russia, China and India have gone all in with each other, because of the future ramifications, but it is what it is, and we're much better off if we start figuring out how we can get along in that sort of world.
I don't understand why people think Russia, China and India are united. They aren't. China and India are rivals and have skirmishes on their borders. China doesn't want to trade only with Russia at the expense of the rest of the world.
The only thing that can make that alignment happen is a common enemy. And only Russia views America as a true enemy. It's not as simple as the media makes it out.
Another way to think about this, if a WW3 breaks out, its not clear that China will defend Russia. And India and China certainly won't defend each other.
India and China are members of the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) as well as India participated in the Russian led Vostok military drills (China also participated). The relationship between China and India is complicated.
India also joins military drills with US, Japan and Australia. India sells weapons to nations threatened by China. They are truly third world. From the lens of their media, an alliance with China would appear absurd.
China and India are not on the same team. India seems neutral on Russia and is pretty much par for the course for a country that explicitly formed the Non Aligned Movement to stay out of the Cold War.
The politics of diplomacy is never all black or white.
India buys oil from Russia because of discount rate, but has also pivoted away from using hi-tech Russian weaponry in favor of US & Israeli arms. Until 2 decades ago, India's defense & industrial backbone was Soviet. Currently, its mostly American/Allied western sourced. US-India have a much higher dollar value of defense & bilateral trade than India-Russia traditionally had in the past. Also they both are members of Quad alliance with Japan & Australia against China.
The world is becoming slowly multipolar. There are no two sides anymore. There is US-Russia, Sino-Russia, Indo-Chinese, Sino-American conflicts of interests. In addition to US, India & China have considerable impact on geopolitics - both economic & military. India has been acknowledging Russian misadventures as dangerous, with Modi giving a clear rebuke recently. However, I think the polity is cautious going too far in chorus. Relationships are built over decades & fickleness of US political theater doesn't really help making such costly international decisions. Let's assume US decides to screw over India with sanctions over Kashmir. Would they like to come to grinding halt because a sitting US president thought it was a great idea? Because that's what happened in Pakistan slowly after 9/11. They were military ally with US, but publicly shunned in following years because Pakistan was not clearing the bars set by Bush & Obama administration, despite a lot of sincere effort from the government machinery. No one wants the same fate as Pakistan.
Think of India as another Saudi Arabia. They are thick buddies with US on many matters, but India wouldn't necessarily toe the line, just like S Arabia won't pump more oil to keep American gas prices stable. What they do is their business
What weapons systems does India import from the US? I cannot think of any off-hand.
But I do know India just bought the S-400 system from Russia, they developed the BrahMos in close coordination with the Russians, the bought naval fighter aircraft from Russia for their aircraft carrier in 2017, they also bought attack helicopters from Russia the same year. They are leasing a nuclear submarine since 2017 from Russia, and as recently as 2011 they were buying tanks from Russia.
I think the general decline in Indian arms imports from Russia since in the 1980s has nothing to do with the US and more to do with India building their own equipment domestically, such as their new rifles, new main battle tanks, naval ships, artillery systems, and even now their own helicopters.
It isn't that Russia, China and India have gone in with each other so much as they have all rejected the unipolar world run by the United States. It is much more within the national interest of China and India to maintain (and expand) their economic relations with resource-rich Russia than it is to punish their own economies at the behest of the United States. Many people, for better or worse, are convinced that continued US global hegemony is not only desirable, but absolutely essential. These are the people who talk solemnly about the importance of the "rules-based, liberal international order". What they mean by that is the ability of the United States to make the rules by which other countries must abide, but which we are exempt. The reality is that the multi-polar world has already arrived. You're absolutely right that we'd be better off figuring out how to best survive (and thrive) in that world instead of flailing around in a desperate, futile attempt to maintain control.
EU put sanctions on itself, effectively forcing rapid de-industralization (so lower exports), loss of currency value (so more costly imports) and high debts which could not be serviced.
Russia on the other hand is debt-free and increased its revenues from natural resources.
This is about comment quality. The comment you posted was low quality, information-free flamebait. That's not what this site is for, so please don't post like that.
Assuming you have a substantive position about an interesting topic, it ought to be possible to comment thoughtfully. If not, the thing to do is not post.
Btw, please stop posting political/ideological/nationalistic battle comments to HN. I saw quite a few of those in your recent feed, and that's also not what HN is for. It's for intellectual curiosity, which is something else entirely.
This has nothing to do with what your views are or who you're for or against. We don't care and we don't track that. The idea that the mods must secretly be in cahoots with the enemy is pretty much what everyone with strong feelings feels when they get a moderation scolding, but it's an illusion. We're just trying to have a specific kind of internet forum and hopefully prevent it from destroying itself.
I’m not the one posting an article full of borderline political propaganda.
Don’t you see you’re blaming the wrong person here?
At what point does staying "neutral" is just cowardice or playing both sides? What does it take for you to take a stance? We’re being flooded with disinformation, and you punish the ones denouncing it.
I’m tired with this cold and fake neutrality. Being neutral wrt an aggression is helping the aggressor. Democracy and western values are under attack, you are only helping the aggressors.
Now is the time to fight back, in the information space, too.
It has nothing to do your views on world affairs and nothing to do with what anybody else did or didn't do (it always feels like the other person started it and did worse). It's just about having an internet forum that doesn't suck. Please don't post like that again.
I acknowledge that my answer wasn’t constructive. BUT. It sucks even more when a forum becomes a place where voluntarily misleading articles make it to the 1st place. I’m loosing interest in HN, because it’s easy to be mislead and no actions are taken against the spread of misinformation.
You don’t moderate the content, just the tone of the comments. It means I could spread disinformation here as long as I fake an intellectual take and a neutral tone.
I beg you, don’t be a portal for dishonest articles and accounts pretending to be impartial but are just always aligned with the Kremlin interests. It’s not paranoia, we have to acknowledge it exists, and great efforts are being made to push it down our throats, more than ever, while little efforts are being made to fight it.
Let us at least answer and make it clear we’re not that easily fooled, and that we’re not obligated to take the bait of a false debate with bad faith arguments and flat out lies.
People disagree vigorously and completely about what counts as true or false. That's how divisive topics work. The more strongly people disagree, the more easily they convince themselves that the others are arguing in bad faith. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't (in my experience, internet users vastly overestimate it), but either way the only thing that can possibly work in the long run is to counter bad information with good information, bad arguments with good arguments, false claims with true claims. Users are responsible for doing that. Moderators are responsible for making sure they do it within the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
Breaking the site guidelines doesn't help counter falsehood—in fact it just discredits the commenter who's doing it, which means discrediting the truth in the case they happen to be right (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). So there's no conflict here. If your concern is helping the truth, it's in your interest to follow the rules.
It’s incredible what money can do. I’m sorry but this article smells Russian money an awful lot. It’s very not subtle, trying to influence us to think Russia is too strong, can’t be stopped, and trying to will hurt us, not them.
I don’t buy it. I think it’s a sign of desperation, their propaganda and their supporters are increasingly obvious.
Not saying sanctions don’t have an effect on western economies, but this article bends reality to the absurd. As usual with alt right and Russian state media.
Are you sure you aren't suffering from a case of confirmation bias here? I have noticed, especially in circles like Twitter or HN that people are very eager to accept and buy into reports that the Russian economy is doing poorly, but if Western sources, media, analysts, companies, think-tanks, and agencies report that Russia might not be doing as poorly as we thought, the amount of suspicion and the level of hard-facts standards suddenly goes through the roof.
This can cause us to reach at rather silly lengths to explain away these reports using whatever reasoning necessary.
On the other hand, maybe you're right, and maybe The Economist, Goldman Sachs, the IMF, and the numerous other sources referenced in the article have all been compromised by the KGB within the past several months and have been turned into Kremlin propaganda pieces.
But note that the KGB doesn't need to fully compromise some trusted medias. It's often just an "opinion" paper, from one guy. You just have to influence a few journalists. And it might not always be money. It might be embarassing intel, like things ready to be "leaked", it might be promises, conflict of interests... And then there are always people doing it for free, because they have come to believe the Russian State Media alternate reality.
You don’t have to buy the whole thing. You can buy 1 guy, and then have a trophy "look even The economist agrees Russia us too strong to be stopped and we should just surrender already".
That's not how the Economist works. And making arguments like this 100% discredits your position. If I were on the fence, I would definitely come down on the opposite side based solely on this silly argument.
You would be surprised what kind of crap articles can get through, for instance at the prestigious BBC. See this instance of transphobic article https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b4buJMMiwcg.
So you’re just plain wrong, but I have to move on apparently.
Are there any details as to how this was accomplished? It kinda just lists everything that went bad for the Russian economy and then claims that it’s not in a recession without showing a mechanism as to how that was accomplished. As far as I can tell it’s also just sourcing Russian claims on their economy while Russia is currently in a massive propaganda campaign?
I could believe they managed to innovate their way out of their problems but it’s an extraordinary claim given the time frame and I’d like to see some evidence for it
This is some sort of horse-race journalism for quarterly and yearly economic indicators. The news are not good for Russia.
The more interesting comment was buried at the end - the IMF have upgraded the GDP growth from -6% to -3%, but that is apparently due to military spending (demand side of the economy). That is still negative. And even the military stimulus ils not something they can do indefinitely. Eventually OPEC+ will lower oil prices and Russia will suffer immensely.
In the long run the supply side is heavily damaged due to sanctions, lack of investment and brain-drain.
75 comments
[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 43.1 ms ] threadOr just start contacting, like many SDEs in Poland do, then your effective tax rate (taxes + health insurance + social security) is around 15-17%. The reality in Poland is that full-time employment (as opposed to self-employment) is for suckers.
[1]https://apps.fas.usda.gov/psdonline/circulars/production.pdf
I'm not cheering for anyone to hurt more than us. It's just a crappy situation all around.
"The Current Activity Indicator (CAI) is an alternative summary measure of economic growth constructed from major real activity indicators. The CAI includes both “hard” and “soft” economic indicators, and it puts a relatively high weight on the latter."
There is just something too "sanitized" and "prepared" about mainstream sources that I actively distrust them on any heated topic.
Orgs that claim to be “Unfiltered” or any spin on that usually actually mean “reporting twisted to support our skewed fringe viewpoint.”
The far right has viral memes tailor made for radicalizing slightly paranoid white guys by making them more and more comfortable with the things you're "wading through" right now. If you aren't wary five years from now you'll be a paranoid mess staying up at night reading Culture of Critique and sending pdfs of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion to your buddies. Saw it happen to a "libertarian" friend of my husband. Guy went from relatively normal to belonging on an FBI watch list.
What does he actually say? He starts out by outlining Russian tactics that they have used in the past (WW2) and how it has evolved to the present day (as apparent in Syria). He then points out how Russia has deviated from it during their incursion into Ukraine.
He points out how Russian intelligence failure (to gauge the right mood of Ukrainians) resulted in the Russian army's failure to achieve their goals quickly. He points out how the Ukrainian army has successfully resisted the Russian onslaught. He points out how the Ukrainian could have actually been more successful if the west had supplied them with the right arms and ammunition the Ukrainian army has been demanding all along.
He further points out why Russia has been failing - mainly because of the brave resistance of the Ukranian, deviating from their standard tactics and the shortage of men it has committed. He also criticises Putin of micro-managing the war in the early stages. He highlights how a Russian general successfully achieved the military goals he had been ordered to do so because he deviated from orders and used standard Russian tactics. He also points out that Russia will not win this war if Russians don't commit more men to this war and if the Ukranian get the right weapons.
And look at what has happened since he made this analysis - the west has supplied the Ukranians with more weapons (don't know if it is the "right" weapons though) and Russia has ordered draft to commit even more men to this war.
The only thing that can make that alignment happen is a common enemy. And only Russia views America as a true enemy. It's not as simple as the media makes it out.
Another way to think about this, if a WW3 breaks out, its not clear that China will defend Russia. And India and China certainly won't defend each other.
India buys oil from Russia because of discount rate, but has also pivoted away from using hi-tech Russian weaponry in favor of US & Israeli arms. Until 2 decades ago, India's defense & industrial backbone was Soviet. Currently, its mostly American/Allied western sourced. US-India have a much higher dollar value of defense & bilateral trade than India-Russia traditionally had in the past. Also they both are members of Quad alliance with Japan & Australia against China.
The world is becoming slowly multipolar. There are no two sides anymore. There is US-Russia, Sino-Russia, Indo-Chinese, Sino-American conflicts of interests. In addition to US, India & China have considerable impact on geopolitics - both economic & military. India has been acknowledging Russian misadventures as dangerous, with Modi giving a clear rebuke recently. However, I think the polity is cautious going too far in chorus. Relationships are built over decades & fickleness of US political theater doesn't really help making such costly international decisions. Let's assume US decides to screw over India with sanctions over Kashmir. Would they like to come to grinding halt because a sitting US president thought it was a great idea? Because that's what happened in Pakistan slowly after 9/11. They were military ally with US, but publicly shunned in following years because Pakistan was not clearing the bars set by Bush & Obama administration, despite a lot of sincere effort from the government machinery. No one wants the same fate as Pakistan.
Think of India as another Saudi Arabia. They are thick buddies with US on many matters, but India wouldn't necessarily toe the line, just like S Arabia won't pump more oil to keep American gas prices stable. What they do is their business
But I do know India just bought the S-400 system from Russia, they developed the BrahMos in close coordination with the Russians, the bought naval fighter aircraft from Russia for their aircraft carrier in 2017, they also bought attack helicopters from Russia the same year. They are leasing a nuclear submarine since 2017 from Russia, and as recently as 2011 they were buying tanks from Russia.
I think the general decline in Indian arms imports from Russia since in the 1980s has nothing to do with the US and more to do with India building their own equipment domestically, such as their new rifles, new main battle tanks, naval ships, artillery systems, and even now their own helicopters.
Were they merely clueless, or is this article telling the readers sanctions aren't working that great and we should support peace negotiations?
Especially with yields on debt of one of leading proxy warriors - the UK - entering a dangerous zone...
Do you have a source?
EU put sanctions on itself, effectively forcing rapid de-industralization (so lower exports), loss of currency value (so more costly imports) and high debts which could not be serviced.
Russia on the other hand is debt-free and increased its revenues from natural resources.
MacroVoices #345 Daniel Lacalle: The Situation in Europe is Worse Than You Think - https://www.macrovoices.com/1122-macrovoices-345-daniel-laca...
We've had to ask you about this once already.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
If this site is now a portal for Russian trolls, then please, ban me. We’ll see what HN stand for.
Assuming you have a substantive position about an interesting topic, it ought to be possible to comment thoughtfully. If not, the thing to do is not post.
Btw, please stop posting political/ideological/nationalistic battle comments to HN. I saw quite a few of those in your recent feed, and that's also not what HN is for. It's for intellectual curiosity, which is something else entirely.
This has nothing to do with what your views are or who you're for or against. We don't care and we don't track that. The idea that the mods must secretly be in cahoots with the enemy is pretty much what everyone with strong feelings feels when they get a moderation scolding, but it's an illusion. We're just trying to have a specific kind of internet forum and hopefully prevent it from destroying itself.
Don’t you see you’re blaming the wrong person here?
At what point does staying "neutral" is just cowardice or playing both sides? What does it take for you to take a stance? We’re being flooded with disinformation, and you punish the ones denouncing it.
I’m tired with this cold and fake neutrality. Being neutral wrt an aggression is helping the aggressor. Democracy and western values are under attack, you are only helping the aggressors.
Now is the time to fight back, in the information space, too.
Inb4 the paranoia accusations…
It has nothing to do your views on world affairs and nothing to do with what anybody else did or didn't do (it always feels like the other person started it and did worse). It's just about having an internet forum that doesn't suck. Please don't post like that again.
You don’t moderate the content, just the tone of the comments. It means I could spread disinformation here as long as I fake an intellectual take and a neutral tone.
I beg you, don’t be a portal for dishonest articles and accounts pretending to be impartial but are just always aligned with the Kremlin interests. It’s not paranoia, we have to acknowledge it exists, and great efforts are being made to push it down our throats, more than ever, while little efforts are being made to fight it.
Let us at least answer and make it clear we’re not that easily fooled, and that we’re not obligated to take the bait of a false debate with bad faith arguments and flat out lies.
Breaking the site guidelines doesn't help counter falsehood—in fact it just discredits the commenter who's doing it, which means discrediting the truth in the case they happen to be right (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). So there's no conflict here. If your concern is helping the truth, it's in your interest to follow the rules.
I don’t buy it. I think it’s a sign of desperation, their propaganda and their supporters are increasingly obvious.
Not saying sanctions don’t have an effect on western economies, but this article bends reality to the absurd. As usual with alt right and Russian state media.
This can cause us to reach at rather silly lengths to explain away these reports using whatever reasoning necessary.
On the other hand, maybe you're right, and maybe The Economist, Goldman Sachs, the IMF, and the numerous other sources referenced in the article have all been compromised by the KGB within the past several months and have been turned into Kremlin propaganda pieces.
But note that the KGB doesn't need to fully compromise some trusted medias. It's often just an "opinion" paper, from one guy. You just have to influence a few journalists. And it might not always be money. It might be embarassing intel, like things ready to be "leaked", it might be promises, conflict of interests... And then there are always people doing it for free, because they have come to believe the Russian State Media alternate reality.
Just move on, you're not helping yourself.
So you’re just plain wrong, but I have to move on apparently.
But a downvote is fine too, I guess.
I could believe they managed to innovate their way out of their problems but it’s an extraordinary claim given the time frame and I’d like to see some evidence for it
The more interesting comment was buried at the end - the IMF have upgraded the GDP growth from -6% to -3%, but that is apparently due to military spending (demand side of the economy). That is still negative. And even the military stimulus ils not something they can do indefinitely. Eventually OPEC+ will lower oil prices and Russia will suffer immensely.
In the long run the supply side is heavily damaged due to sanctions, lack of investment and brain-drain.
"Spring is here, if there is no water just go to the spring."
Edit: We've had to ask you this kind of thing several times in the past, including just recently (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32922335). Please don't keep doing it.