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.
These are not signs of a recession, but rather signs of a special economic operation.
-Message from the Russian Government
They have a nuclear arsenal, meaning “Godspeed to that crumbling rogue state” is a suboptimal position to take on Russia.
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.
Even if Putin dies and gets replaced by someone who immediately stops the war and brings Russia back into a mindset of international trade and cooperation, Russia’s economy will still be fucked for well over a century by the absolute disaster that is its demographics. They were already experiencing very bad “echoes” in their demographics from a entire generations being destroyed by their meat wave tactics of WW2. Now the problem is even worse.
Putin might have completely ruined Russia for centuries.
This country has an obvious but untold tradition of same-sex families: of mom and grandma. A lot of my classmates grew up like that after either a divorce or a death of a father, and remarriage is rare for those who have kids. Besides the country itself is usually compared to a miserable old woman, one of the most typical punchline to national anecdotes is how one argues with wife’s mom, тёща, and a bunch of tabloid papers and toponims are named after her verbally poisonous tongue. I wonder how that affects the mass psyche and contributes to sociopolitical events.
Russia’s economy will still be fucked for well over a century
I don’t think it’ll be a century.
Look at Czechia, they’re booming after being stuck under the thumb of the Nazis who destroyed most of their non-war industrial output, then the Soviets who destroyed the rest. Since 1992, they’ve put in the hard yards, kick started their economy and industry and fully rejoined the west as a good friend.
It’ll be another ~25 years after they finally decide to join us before they’re back in a good position, but that’s within the lifetimes of the people who could make that choice. They could not only choose, but see the positive outcome of those choices if they started today.
I’m following the Kursk Oblast incursion and I have to say it’s wonderful news.
Fake news! The Russian economy is booming!
This is not a sign of recession coming! It’s just a special economy operation!
