Russian Economy General News: #12

ALAMO wrote:It is not a question will they buy it or not, but a physical connection to the western grid. Non-existent.
They have some connections with Poland - a PolLit link since 2015 and Finland Estlink since 2006, but too low capacity, and non-synchronized.
The whole system operates as unified with RU/BEL, and Kaliningrad is an end user.
Only in 2018, finally, the EU made a roadmap for offshore cable, and needed infrastructure, in the hope to connect them finally to the EU system BY 2025 34 years after dissolution from the "occupier commies"
That will create a sort of trouble for Russia, as they will be able to disconnect the Kaliningrad easily.
So I believe we will see just another offshore cable, but the Russian one this time, to the enclave.

I heard about that plan, but apparently the EU put the funding for it off for now. Maybe I'm thinking of the railway system instead though

As for Kaliningrad, Russia constructed a series of gas-fired power plants there in the 2010s, and an LNG terminal - it was exactly aware of the Baltic plans for disconnection from BRELL and conducted the according contingency measures, to ensure the energy independence of the region for when/if it will be needed. No need for an offshore cable.

The consolidated budget of the Russian Federation in January-October 2021 was executed with a surplus of 3 trillion 589.0 billion rubles (note - this is approximately $48.7 billion at the current exchange rate)., it follows from the reports on the website of the Federal Treasury.
Consolidated budget revenues as of November 1 amounted to 38 trillion 708.5 billion rubles, expenses - 35 trillion 119.5 billion rubles.
According to the results of January-September 2021, the revenues of the consolidated budget of the Russian Federation amounted to 33 trillion 914.2 billion rubles, expenses - 31 trillion 308.9 billion rubles. Consequently, in October its revenues amounted to 4 trillion 794.3 billion rubles, expenses - 3 trillion 810.6 billion rubles, surplus - 983.7 billion rubles.
According to the results of ten months, the federal budget of the Russian Federation was executed with a surplus of 2 trillion 297.1 billion rubles with revenues of 20 trillion 431.7 billion rubles and expenditures of 18 trillion 134.7 billion rubles.
The surplus of the consolidated budgets of the subjects of the Russian Federation in January-October was at the level of 1 trillion 377.0 billion rubles with revenues of 13 trillion 755.6 billion rubles and expenditures of 12 trillion 378.6 billion rubles.
The budgets of state extra-budgetary funds were executed with a deficit of 174.5 billion rubles (revenues - 11 trillion 261.7 billion rubles, expenditures - 11 trillion 436.2 billion rubles).
The budgets of territorial state extra-budgetary funds were executed with a surplus of 89.4 billion rubles with revenues of 2 trillion 252.3 billion rubles and expenditures of 2 trillion 162.9 billion rubles.

http://www.finmarket.ru/news/5604571

MP: The Central Bank's idea of ​​deposits for the poor is related to basic unconditional income, 20.12.2021.

"The introduction of the 100 thousand bar and the idea of ​​an unconditional income for the poor are partly interrelated, but only partly," State Duma deputy Anatoly Aksakov told the VZGLYAD newspaper. Earlier, the Central Bank offered to open special accounts for the poor, on which guaranteed interest will be charged pegged to the key rate or inflation.

“This issue still requires discussion. We are talking about small deposits. Since these deposits tend to belong to poor citizens, it is important that they are protected from inflation. This is the meaning of this idea, ”explained Anatoly Aksakov, head of the State Duma Committee on the Financial Market. Speaking about the connection of such accounts with a possible unconditional basic income, he said that "the topic of fair income has been, is and will continue to go in parallel, regardless of this topic."

According to Interfax , on Monday the Central Bank offered to create special accounts for the poor. It is planned to accrue income on them, tied either to the key rate of the regulator or to inflation. At the same time, the amount of such a contribution is planned to be limited to the amount of 100 thousand rubles.

Special bank deposits for the poor can become a stage for the introduction of an unconditional basic income (UBI) in Russia, believes Denis Domashchenko, associate professor of the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics. “Individuals who receive an unconditional basic income will have the status of the poor and such deposits will be opened for them. It is not excluded that the basic income will be credited to these accounts, ”he told Izvestia .

Earlier, Aksakov has already voiced his understanding of a fair basic income. “Basic income should be linked to a scientifically sound consumption standard. I do not believe that an unconditional basic income should be a distribution of money to everyone in a row, this is an ineffective use of funds", he told the FinVersia publication.

https://m.vz.ru/news/2021/12/20/1135205.html

Sounds good on paper but the issue is also Grey economy. If people are paid much more under the table, they may be dipping into something they shouldn't. I have seen this here in Canada and it's disgusting honestly.

So this will need to be thoroughly tracked/monitored.

Russia has done a good job of reducing the poverty rate over the last 20 years. There always going to be a minimum poverty level
due to mostly mental health issues of one form or another. The problem is too much heart bleeding and vapid declarations about
elimination of this poverty. We have seen the US 1960s basically destroy black communities with "welfare". This includes subsidized
apartment blocks that become ghettos and the rise of single parent families. This then gives crime including narcotics infestation.

This problem is way more complex than any collection of politicians and media pundits can hope to grasp. It always degenerates into
a political posturing exercise and in the long run there is more harm than good. BTW, there were pockets of crime-ridden poverty holes
in the USSR as well. You can take a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink. The USSR had to make willful unemployment a crime
to force people to shape up.

What are your predictions for 2022 economy wise?

par far wrote:What are your predictions for 2022 economy wise?

The plandemic effect inside Russia has passed in 2021 and will not come back in 2022. The problem is that global inflation is exploding
thanks to the incompetence of both the US Fed and various countries in terms of transport. Lockdowns and vax mandates
have disrupted port operations and production facilities (not in Russia). Russia's economy will be affected by this inflation
when it produces a global recession, which it will at the current pace.

If the NATzO generated confrontation with Russia amplifies to a critical point, then we will see a shock from sanctions. But it will not
be a problem aside from initially. "Nuclear option" sanctions will help shield Russia from the global economic mess headed our way.
Russia is not an export economy no matter what the haters claim. Since 2014 it has transitioned to substantially less import dependence
in critical sectors such as food and machinery. Economic autonomy creates both protection and growth impetus for the Russian economy.
It is less exposed to global economic conditions and at the same time the need to fend for itself creates demand for production and
grows the internal market.

The globalism chickens are going to come home to roost for the west.

kvs wrote:

par far wrote:What are your predictions for 2022 economy wise?

The plandemic effect inside Russia has passed in 2021 and will not come back in 2022.   The problem is that global inflation is exploding
thanks to the incompetence of both the US Fed and various countries in terms of transport.   Lockdowns and vax mandates
have disrupted port operations and production facilities (not in Russia).   Russia's economy will be affected by this inflation
when it produces a global recession, which it will at the current pace.

If the NATzO generated confrontation with Russia amplifies to a critical point, then we will see a shock from sanctions.   But it will not
be a problem aside from initially.   "Nuclear option" sanctions will help shield Russia from the global economic mess headed our way.  
Russia is not an export economy no matter what the haters claim.   Since 2014 it has transitioned to substantially less import dependence
in critical sectors such as food and machinery.   Economic autonomy creates both protection and growth impetus for the Russian economy.
It is less exposed to global economic conditions and at the same time the need to fend for itself creates demand for production and
grows the internal market.  

The globalism chickens are going to come home to roost for the west.

How accurate do you think these predictions are?:

More wealth moves from West to East.

China considerably closes the gap with the US in economic terms.

With the lockdowns, high gas prices+high energy prices, a shit ton of refuges coming their way and with idiots at the helm, the EU starts it downward spiral.

Russia will grow economically more stronger.

Russia announces major infrastructure projects.

There is a big recession that hits the west hard(especially the US).

The Petro-Dollar loses more value(not collapse).

A deal is singed with Iran, where Iranian funds are given back to Iran(maybe not all of them) and Iran becomes a top 20 economy that is aligned with Russia and China.

A barrel of oil costs $90+.

Russia signs a major gas deal with India.

par far wrote:

How accurate do you think these predictions are?:

More wealth moves from West to East.

That has been happening for the last 50 years and longer.   The non west economies went from 30% around 1970 to
closer to 60% today.    This involves mostly the east and not Latin America and Africa.

China considerably closes the gap with the US in economic terms.

China has already closed the gap and is ahead in real economic terms.   Unlike the USA, China has a real diversified economy.   The
US has offshored its manufacturing and is a bankster and merchant racket economy.   A species of trickle down economy where junk
quality imports are overpriced and absurdly cheap credit is injected to prop up demand.  Such a regime is catabolic and we see the
US middle class shrinking since the 1970s when globalist offshoring started to take off.

China is rising at the same time as the USA is falling.  

With the lockdowns, high gas prices+high energy prices, a shit ton of refuges coming their way and with idiots at the helm, the EU starts it downward spiral.

EU-tardia is similar to the USA and has offshored its economy over the last 50 years.   It is following the same voodoo economics.
But EU-tardia is more special in that it absorbs hordes of migrants.   This is a type of racket which drives GDP "growth" by creating
transient demand.  Canada does the same thing.   This is a moronic policy in the long run since the migrants are not all boosting
the economy into a higher plateau but instead creating social and crime problems.   This is a touchy subject for the PC crowd since
they assume migrants are gold.  Life is more complex.

Russia will grow economically more stronger.

Russia announces major infrastructure projects.

Both are happening already.

There is a big recession that hits the west hard(especially the US).

The inflation surge is guaranteeing a recession.   The US food prices are going through the roof.   Since the credit scam is
saturated, consumer demand can only drop.   So Biden and his handlers will have succeeded in creating a recession because
they assumed that Trump's economic surge was fake.   Or maybe a recession is part of the plandemic agenda.   We will only
know in the rear view mirror.

The Petro-Dollar loses more value(not collapse).

The US is succeeding in this thanks to its Pancho Villa monetary policy.   The oil price surge is due exclusively to the drop in
the value of the dollar.   The incentive to use dollars as assets goes down if those dollars are trash.  

A deal is singed with Iran, where Iranian funds are given back to Iran(maybe not all of them) and Iran becomes a top 20 economy that is aligned with Russia and China.

No deal is coming with Iran.   Instead the braying for war is amplifying.   I am not sure how much damage any military action will
cause.   But Iran has been adjusting to sanctions for a very long time.   So its development must be robust against such sanctions
just like for Russia.   I think the braying for war is driven by the fear of Iran's economic and military development.

A barrel of oil costs $90+.

We already hit above $80.   The question is whether we will see over $200 oil thanks to the US peso printing and within the context
of long term decline in oil field output.   The world has not been replacing oil consumption with new discoveries for over 30 years.
The jig is going to come to an end and rather soon.   The wankers who dismissed peak oil missed the fact that it was true.  The
world hit its peak output of crude oil and condensate around 2010.   Biodiesel and ethanol are not oil.  

Russia signs a major gas deal with India.

A major oil deal was signed during Putin's last meeting with Modi.  There are already gas agreements in place and nothing is stopping
new ones.   I think a gas pipeline to India will be realized at some stage.   Pakistan appears to be more pragmatic these days and not
a mere US stooge state.

kvs wrote:We already hit above $80.   The question is whether we will see over $200 oil thanks to the US peso printing and within the context
of long term decline in oil field output.   The world has not been replacing oil consumption with new discoveries for over 30 years.
The jig is going to come to an end and rather soon.   The wankers who dismissed peak oil missed the fact that it was true.  The
world hit its peak output of crude oil and condensate around 2010.   Biodiesel and ethanol are not oil.

It does not matter if conventional oil runs out. Ships are already moving towards LNG as fuel and most cars and buses will be electric.
As battery costs continue to go down and battery density goes up at the current rate there will be an inflection point in a decade where most people's cars will go electric.
In Europe, China, and Japan there have been investments and policies to make high speed electrified rail replace air travel in short haul routes.

For long haul trucking and air travel demand I think oil will still continue to make sense although you could use LNG there as well it would not be as cost effective.
It is just the nature of the thing since you will have to haul the extra tankage weight with you. Even if oil is extremely expensive it will still make sense there.
For that even if the oil is made from unconventional sources, be it Canadian tar sands, Venezuelan Orinoco sands, or whatever, it does not matter.

lancelot wrote:

kvs wrote:We already hit above $80.   The question is whether we will see over $200 oil thanks to the US peso printing and within the context
of long term decline in oil field output.   The world has not been replacing oil consumption with new discoveries for over 30 years.
The jig is going to come to an end and rather soon.   The wankers who dismissed peak oil missed the fact that it was true.  The
world hit its peak output of crude oil and condensate around 2010.   Biodiesel and ethanol are not oil.

It does not matter if conventional oil runs out. Ships are already moving towards LNG as fuel and most cars and buses will be electric.

That is some breathtaking ignorance. Cornucopian delusion, in fact. The world economy runs on fossil fuels and transitions
to magical alternatives do not happen on one year timescales. You assume natural gas supply is unbounded. This is BS.
It is limited and will not replace oil and coal. Russian and Iranian reserves cannot carry the world. Russia which is the largest
natural gas reserve country by far only exports 1/3 of the EU demand. US tight gas gets a lot of hype but is clearly not delivering
on the volume expected. The US is not able to displace Russia on the EU market. It is a net importer of natural gas.

Now getting to the electric car BS. Where is the massive transformation of the car fleets around the world to plug-in electric
format vehicles. Where is the infrastructure deployment to charge the batteries of such vehicles? You make it sound like
electric vehicles remove the need for power generation to offset the reduction in gasoline and diesel use.

1) Trucking is not going to transition to battery operation since long range transport and large weight requires enormous batteries.
LNG is is more viable as a fuel for trucks.

2) None of the western countries are deploying new power plants to service electric transport demand. It takes a long time
to deploy such capacity. If you are going to talk up electric transport, then show us the money.

3) The big move to green energy is to replace the existing capacity and it is nowhere near to being out of the boutique
category. See (2) above.

As battery costs continue to go down and battery density goes up at the current rate there will be an inflection point in a decade where most people's cars will go electric.
In Europe, China, and Japan there have been investments and policies to make high speed electrified rail replace air travel in short haul routes.

The critical factor is battery capacity and not cost. In addition to the little detail as to where the electricity to charge those
batteries comes from. There is simply zero indication of any new battery technology that would increase capacity by a factor
5 let alone 10. There is an obvious drive to use rare earth elements for batteries. That is why Musk was backing the coup in
Bolivia. They are called rare earth elements for a reason. If everyone and his dog were to start using lithium batteries
like in any Tesla sedan, then the price would leave the planetary gravitational potential well.

For long haul trucking and air travel demand I think oil will still continue to make sense although you could use LNG there as well it would not be as cost effective.
It is just the nature of the thing since you will have to haul the extra tankage weight with you. Even if oil is extremely expensive it will still make sense there.
For that even if the oil is made from unconventional sources, be it Canadian tar sands, Venezuelan Orinoco sands, or whatever, it does not matter.

Tar sands whether they are called oil sands or whatnot are no form of panacea. You just assume that they have enough capacity to replace
the world oil consumption. There are nowhere near this level of deposits. They require an industrial process to convert into synthetic
crude which makes them much more expensive per barrel to produce. The Canadian regime engages in tax write offs for tar sands producers
that are obscene in their scale. This amounts to a subsidy. The world consumes about 100 million barrels of oil per day and Canadian
tars sands production is 5 million barrels per day. Venezuelan production is under 1 million bpd. The Canadian production has taken 40
years to reach and is not some spigot which can be dialed up and down on a whim. This matters to world economy. Supply shortages
that require decades to rectify amount to no supply and economic crash. Cornucopians routinely ignore this fact.

The story of Shell and it throwing in the towel with in situ conversion of shale kerogens says it all about the grossly overhyped non
conventional sources. Every journalist hack includes the US Green River shale deposits as part of the US oil reserves. This is
transcendental BS. The Green River formation is a big fat zero in terms of oil reserves.

Here we come to the bottom line: economic cost. Cheap fossil fuels have propelled the world economy to its current level. This is
true even if wankers invoke the GDP energy intensity factor decline since the 1970s. Financial sector fluff does not delete the physical
economy. Energy remains the base input to the economy. Everything else depends on it. It drives prices in a cascade through the
rest of the economy and those price rises are not conservative but have a multiplier effect. So it is the worst source of inflation.
Cornucopians keep talking as if demand will drive solution of the energy inputs problem to maintain the status quo. Grow up. There is no
such law of nature. Expensive alternatives will result in economic decline. People will not be driving electrical vehicles like they
drove cheap gasoline cars. They will be forced to do without. The economy will have to adapt and demand will not provide.

Even without adding any new generation capacity you can easily power 30% of the vehicles using existing idle capacity.
You can charge the cars at home in the night time when the power grid would otherwise be running at reduced load.
You say the change won't happen in a year. I told you I expect the inflection point in car sales to happen in a decade.

A Tesla Model S cost like $100k, a Model 3 costs like $50k. They have about the same range. The difference is cost reductions due to mass production.
In a couple years time once Giga Berlin is operating at full tilt Tesla will eventually add a hatchback model which might cost $30k.

In China they are already selling electric microcars for $9k. These are mostly for city driving with a reduced range but would be good enough for most people.

A lot of the electric cars being sold right now use lithium iron phosphate batteries. Those have no cobalt.
There are other battery chemistries being worked on like lithium sulphur which don't use hard to get materials either.
There is no shortage of lithium. There is a shortage of extraction capacity. And the lithium can be recycled.

EU-tard deciders are openly talking about banning internal combustion vehicles by the 2030s. These are the same clowns who have not
even planned for additional generation capacity for transport. In fact, "dirty" nuclear is being downsized in EU-tardia.
It is not even being fully replaced by wind and solar but by burning more coal. At the same time, the deciders are issuing
decrees to shut down coal plants without resolving any of the variability issues of solar and wind power.

Russian natural gas is not optional for EU-tardia. The whole green scam rests on natural gas power generation. But EU-tards
live up to their name and piss and shit all over Russia and throw war tantrums when Russia does not give them what they demand.
These losers think that if Russia loses the EU market that it will go bankrupt or some other moronic concept that shows not
understanding of macroeconomics or actual conditions in Russia and the rest of the planet.

Big_Gazza wrote:Really? Maybe you can advise us where the feedstock for our chemical and plastics industries will come from when we no longer have access to a cheap supply of diverse complex hydrocarbons?  Oil is not just for use in internal combustion engines, it is the irreplaceable basis of just about all non-metallic synthetic modern materials. We run out of oil, we go back to using wood and paper, cotton and wool. In reality, we won't run out as such, but prices will rise to the exosphere.

The amounts of hydrocarbons required for plastics or medicine are small. Just a couple of percent of total consumption. Even if you did not have shales you could use natural gas, or coal and water to make synthesis gas to create plastics. The fertilizer industry needs hydrogen for ammonia, not hydrocarbons, the hydrocarbons are just a way to get cheap hydrogen. You could use high temperature nuclear reactors to generate hydrogen by splitting water if it came to that. None of those problems are insoluble.

It cannot be expect that adjustment processes exist to maintain the status quo. Rates of availability and the associated price matter.
People think that since wind mills and solar panels generate electricity the solution is in the bag. That is simply false. These people
also believe that demand for energy will rearrange the economy to maintain the status quo. So the lower availability and higher price
will somehow not matter. That is delusional thinking.

Economic development since the stone age has not been limited by energy availability. It was limited by technology. It does not
follow that technology is the only relevant parameter going forward. We are entering the energy availability limited era. Any
gap in cheap energy delivery will impact the economy. Talking about decades from now fusion power or hypothetical wind/solar
generation does not make everything alright. Even if you make the assumption that these technological fixes will arrive (without
any basis), the economy will not wait in stasis for them. It will crash.

The 2021 green energy fail in the EU should be a wake up call, but instead it is Russia's fault. GTFO.

"West has no right to compensation for sanctions – Russia"


"The European Union has “neither moral nor legal right” to claim compensation for losses caused by Russia’s import substitution policy, first the West should compensate Moscow, Senator Sergey Tsekov said on Sunday."

"The EU earlier filed a request to the World Trade Organization (WTO) asking it to appoint a panel of arbitrators to examine the Russian policy, which had been adopted as a response to unilateral sanctions against the country over the Ukraine conflict in 2014. The EU said that in 2019 “the value of published tenders by Russian state-owned enterprises amounted to 23.5 trillion roubles, or approximately EUR 290 billion, which was equivalent to around 20% of Russia's GDP.”

"“The EU does not have neither moral nor legal right to seek damages from Russia. As, within the framework of the sanctions policy, they decided not to supply us with goods, we have all the rights to produce them by ourselves,” Tsekov told RIA Novosti."



https://www.rt.com/russia/544439-tsekov-senator-wto-compensation/


This is from August but it has some background.


https://www.rt.com/business/533201-eu-russia-import-wto/




The EU morons are complete idiots.

ALAMO wrote:So much fantastic news per line, still no answer for my silly question.
Where will the electricity come from?
Bother to explain?

It could come from nuclear. But you would need to build the reactors. It might take two decades to do it.
Assuming they wanted to do it.

And no I'm not talking about fusion. And as for the high temperature reactors for splitting hydrogen from water, China just got their HTR-PM reactor online recently, and it has the required temperature profile to do it.
https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/17/11/cn-247-zhang.pdf
https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Demonstration-HTR-PM-connected-to-grid