Unibertsoa eta Joan Miró
No està malament la foto, però Joan Miró ja ho havia vist
Segida:
Federal Reserve Bank researchers openly acknowledge the inevitability of recession
(http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=50121#view_comments)
… we analyse some Russian data which suggests the sanctions are having the opposite effect to that intended. …
(…)
Sanctions against Russia – recent evidence
On July 11, 2022, the Russian Central Bank released its latest – Balance of Payments data – which shows:
… widening of surplus in the balance on goods and services as a result of significant growth in exports driven by favorable market environment and a decline in imports …
The December-quarter 2021 current account surplus was $US41 billion and the June-quarter 2022 estimate is now $US70.1 billion.
A hefty increase.
Between the first-quarter and the second-quarter 2022 there was a small increase in the current account surplus ($US68.4 billion to $US701.1 billion) driven by a fall in exports ($US166.4 billion to $US153.1 billion) being more than offset by a fall in imports ($US88.7 billion to $US72.3 billion).
However, in the 12 months to the June-quarter 2022, the current account surplus rose from $US17.3 billion to $US70.1 – with exports up from $US127.9 billion to $US153.1 billion and imports down from $US93.2 billion to $US72.3 billion.
This chart is taken from their data release.
And here is the exchange rate evolution for 2022 (from January 3 to July 13, 2022).
Prior to the invasion, the exchange rate was steady with 1 USD buying around 75 to 76 roubles.
Then the sanctions hit and the rouble depreciated sharply against the US dollar – but only for 3 weeks or so from early March.
Since then it has appreciated strongly and is now selling at 1 USD for 58 roubles.
No currency collapse going on.
I have not had time to dig further into the micro details of the Russian economy as yet.
But these aggregates tell me that if the sanctions were designed to damage the Russian economy by choking off its external sector and dumping its currency, then the opposite has happened and that could be interpreted as failure.
Iruzkinak:
- Neil Wilson Wednesday, July 13, 2022 at 18:08 The commentary on Russia about the currency situation drives me up the wall. Every single one of them has the ‘truth by repeated assertion’ line in it.
Russia may depend on the proceeds of its fossil fuel exports to fund its brutal war on Ukraine…
As we know, it doesn’t. They use Rubles in Russia.
It is exporting oil and gas to the West to look good elsewhere in the world and to keep the oil wells from gumming up.
- Paulo Rodrigues Wednesday, July 13, 2022 at 19:53 Russia is a behemoth and it’s stupid to belittle its might.
The US continues to look at Putin as another version of Gorbachev, easy to replace with some kind of Yeltsin.
Worst, Biden is speaking in the name of the EU, the UK, Japan and Australia, making their leaders look as fools, which makes people distrustfull of the real value of their elected leaders.
And then Biden reads “Repeat the line”.
Oh boy… Trump never made such lousy impression of himself, even when he said for everyone to drink bleach. - Henry Rech Wednesday, July 13, 2022 at 20:13 Saying the sanctions aren’t hurting the Russians on the basis of the current BOPs data is premature.Exports are up because oil and gas prices have shot up. It remains to be seen how long this sustains.
Declines in imports could be an indicator the Russian economy is under pressure.
- Henry Rech Wednesday, July 13, 2022 at 20:20 Neil,” They use Rubles in Russia. ”
The Russians are looking to replace imports from Europe/US etc with those from the BRICS countries.
I doubt that these countries will always and totally accept roubles for their exports. They might to the extent they can be used to purchase Russian goods. Other wise the Russians will need gold (which they have plenty of) or US$/Euros etc..
- Neil Wilson Wednesday, July 13, 2022 at 22:57 “I doubt that these countries will always and totally accept roubles for their exports.”That’s the Fixed Exchange Rate Foreign reserve myth.
The reality in any floating exchange rate system is that the customer pays with the currency they have and the supplier receives the currency they wish to hold or need to use. And if that doesn’t happen, then there is no deal. The finance industry gets rich greasing the wheels and ensuring everybody pays with what they have and receives what they want to receive – creating and destroying money and money things as required to make that happen.
Russia is looking to internally substitute, is clearly more than capable of operating without most imports, and is running an export surplus. Therefore it isn’t really using money at all to obtain imports. It’s swapping oil gas and other resources for stuff, and somebody else is reordering a few ownership tags on accounting entries.
- Keith Newman Thursday, July 14, 2022 at 3:52 With respect to the current micro effects of the US+ sanctions on Russia, a good place for anecdotal evidence can be found at Gilbert Doctorow’s blog, in particular his May 1 post entitled “The Eagle Has Landed: A voyage to St Petersburg via the far side of the moon” and his June 7 post entitled “Russia today at ground level: further observations”.
Mr. Doctorow is a US-ian living in Brussels who currently comments on Russian affairs. He retired from his job for US and other multinational companies some years ago. His responsibilities were in marketing and general management with a focus on Russia.
- Henry Rech Thursday, July 14, 2022 at 7:02 “With respect to the current micro effects of the US+ sanctions on Russia, a good place for anecdotal evidence can be found at Gilbert Doctorow’s blog…”Doctorow’s blog is interesting but blatantly promoting Russian propaganda and at every turn justifies the Russian invasion of Ukraine and denies any Russian involvement in war crimes. If that’s what you’re looking for, there’s plenty to consume.
- Neil Wilson Thursday, July 14, 2022 at 13:57 “Doctorow’s blog is interesting but blatantly promoting Russian propaganda and at every turn justifies the Russian invasion of Ukraine and denies any Russian involvement in war crimes. If that’s what you’re looking for, there’s plenty to consume.”It balances the constant Ukrainian and Western propaganda, every turn refusing to accept the provocation of Russia and denying any Ukrainian involvement in war crimes.
As well as promoting the continuing and needless deaths of thousands of Ukrainians rather than admitting the diplomatic hubris and failure of the West over the past eight years.
All of which is endlessly pushed on the mainstream media.
The holier-than-thou attitude is great fun as long as it isn’t your nation’s sons, fathers and brothers that are doing the dying.
- Patrick B Thursday, July 14, 2022 at 20:43 @Derek Henry Well done for a second attempt at wildly inaccurate guesses about me. Rather ruins your credibility in commenting about anything else when you try to smear based on prejudice and zero knowledge.
@Neil Wilson May I suggest you read some history of Great and Little Russia to ‘balance’ the western mainstream media. Same applies to Derek Henry. It’s not a ‘holier-than-thou attitude’ to feel that the rather greater responsibility for thousands of deaths in Ukraine, and previously in Chechnya and Georgia lies with the invading imperialist dictator, or monster as my Russian speaking colleague from Kharkov (Kharkiv) refers to Putin, as her (abroad) and her family’s (in Kharkov) lives are destroyed. Not great fun.(…)
