The pace of Russia’s economic growth slowed in the second quarter of 2024, official data showed Friday, amid concerns over stubborn inflation and warnings of “overheating.”
Gross domestic product (GDP) dipped from 5.4% in the first quarter to 4% from April to June, the lowest quarterly result since the start of 2023 but still a sign the economy is expanding.
Inflation meanwhile showed no signs of easing, with consumer prices rising 9.13% year-on-year in July — up from 8.59% in June and the highest figure since February 2023, according to data from the Rosstat statistics agency.
The fact they’ve been growing at all for the last few years is absolutely fucking disgusting. The rest of the world failed to respond and we should be ashamed.
Maybe, maybe not. With such a mass of resources it could’ve been hard to take it below zero even with all the sanctions and corruption that eats the economy for decades. But here is the thing: GDP is a favorite metric of Putin (and ВВП == his initials lol) but it’s misguiding, more so for a semi-wartime economy because military equipment that ends up in ukrainian soil counts as a product too, and with a third of a budget dedicated to that waste, they are actually in a pretty depressive state. Positive numbers don’t mean shit if this amount of products is paid and consumed by the government without getting anything back. That’s like if one guy on a minecraft server took everyone’s diamonds to make 64 diamond hoes, or just dropped them into lava. By more sensible calculations, with the unnaturally ballooning MIC, just a 5% uptick means production of everything else is fried and fucked.
Their growth is due to a war economy, but producing a 10M$ tank that will just get blown up is not really useful even if the 10M$ is “in the economy”.
It’s like printing more money, looks goot first but it will crash if the money isn’t used for economic growth (hint: in russia it isn’t).
Also, the wartime economy removes people from economically sound positions and puts them to make weaponry (not for export, to get blown up) which doubles down on the bad idea.
That6s why the inflation is galoping even when the central bank hikes intetest rates like crazy (which stifles good economical growth too!).
The russian economy is so crappy it’s crazy it isn’t already burning.
