Posts by gentlebadger

Brent Crude is sitting at $53.30 per barrel today 🙂

https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/oil

boldotter2 said:North Korea, despite all the sanctions and poverty, is actually doing better now than ever before. It’s tragic, but I guess it’s true. And Russia? They were living much better a year ago than they are today.

Aside from sending the first human and satellite into space during the 20th century, Russia also wiped out their Tsar, his entire family, and his whole army in that same century—so much so that nobody even knows where their graves are anymore. That's something to keep in mind, I suppose.

Between Russia and the rest of the Eastern Bloc under the influence of the USSR, they used to churn out everything from fridges to Lades. Then, their whole social structure just fell apart. Suddenly, they had McDonald's, Levi's, and rock 'n' roll hitting them all at once. That was only one generation ago, maybe.

And of course, there's that old saying: if you had it then, you wouldn't have it now.

If you look at nominal GDP per capita (based on the latest numbers available):

North Korea: USD 1,300
Russia: USD 12,194
China: USD 12,556
United States: USD 17,685
Taiwan: USD 32,811

The numbers pretty much speak for themselves, don't they?

The European Central Bank (ECB) is pushing JP Morgan Chase to exit the Russian market:

https://kyivindependent.com/news-fee...russian-market

There’s a very good reason why so many of Russia's economic indicators have suddenly vanished from the public record. Honestly, the data they *do* choose to release—things like real GDP growth—is almost certainly being cooked to look better than it actually is. Even worse? The proxy variables we used to rely on to make our own educated guesses are no longer publicly available. It’s getting harder to see through the smoke. All those rosy forecasts predicting minimal GDP shrinkage in 2023? Pure fantasy. I mean, think about it—no country could realistically absorb a loss of a million people—between emigration and casualties—and still function normally. Especially when you factor in falling energy prices, heavy sanctions, and the massive exodus of major corporations. It’s all going to come crashing down eventually, and the Russian economy is headed straight back to those chaotic, disastrous days of the 90s.

Russia's budget deficit hit 3.3 trillion RUB back in January 2023.

Source: https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/...t-budget-value

To put things in perspective, Russia's nominal GDP for all of 2022 was sitting at 151.5 trillion RUB.

So, if you do the math and divide that deficit by the GDP, you're looking at a relative shortfall of 2.2% of the 2022 GDP just for the month of January alone.

And get this—if you factor in the February deficit too, that number jumps up to 3.4% of the 2022 GDP for just the first two months of 2023 (which comes out to about 5.1 trillion RUB, or roughly $67.6 billion USD).

The whole plan for the full year of 2023 actually aims to keep the budget deficit at around 2% of the GDP.

They'll likely have to dip into that $148.4 billion USD national reserve fund to cover the gap. Which means... can you believe it? Almost half of that entire sovereign wealth fund could be wiped out just trying to patch up the holes from January and February.

If oil prices drop to $45 a barrel or even lower, making Russian oil production profitable becomes a massive uphill battle. Long-term, we're looking at a inevitable squeeze on their production levels—which, if you look at the numbers, is already starting to happen, seeing a 5% dip back in March 2023. Plus, there's the whole issue of Western tech and specialized energy experts being cut off; without those spare parts and expert hands, their ability to pump fuel is going to tank. Ultimately, we’re going to see this double whammy of lower prices and lower volume hitting their oil and gas sectors, which really limits their capacity to fund an aggressive war in Ukraine. Sanctions don't always hit like a sledgehammer right out of the gate; they work more like a slow burn over time. If you want a real pulse check on whether these sanctions are actually working, just take a close look at the Russian budget revenues versus their spending.

Joshua Myers432 said:This looks like a total nose dive. 😁Are you going to actually show an inflation chart, or are we just going to pretend that isn't part of the equation?☕

So, if you take a look at this chart, what we’re actually seeing here are the real GDP growth rates on a year-over-year basis—which is a fancy way of saying we've already stripped out the impact of inflation. If you wanted to see the nominal growth rates instead, you'd essentially just take these numbers and tack the inflation rate back on—specifically using the GDP deflator, to be precise. Makes much more sense to look at it this way, doesn't it?

placidtiger142 said:So if gas prices are actually lower than they were before the war started, does that mean we’re just getting screwed by paying three times the normal rate right now?

I’m being dead serious here.

I get that prices spiked when those pipeline deliveries through the US started getting cut back, but why is it still such a massive hit for families while the actual market price is sitting way down?

See, those aren't the actual spot prices for gas you see on the news; those are the prices set for future delivery. What we're paying right now is based on futures contracts—basically, the price of gas agreed upon several months ago that's just now being delivered today. The prices look shifted because of when that delivery was actually scheduled to happen.

So, if we lock in a gas price today for delivery in the winter of 2026, that contract is going to cost us $33.
Check out more details here: https://www.theice.com/products/2799...5508663&span=2

Mark Carter14 said:The Swiss aren't exactly thrilled about this whole seizure idea.

The Swiss government says seizing Russian assets would be unconstitutional.

...
"Seizing frozen private property isn't in line with our federal constitution or the current legal framework, and frankly, it violates Switzerland's international obligations," the Swiss Ministry of Justice stated on Wednesday.

"Other nations have similar constitutional protections and guarantees."

Swiss banks are pushing back too. "There just isn't a legal basis for confiscation right now," the Swiss Bankers Association noted last month.
...

Even just freezing assets without actually selling them off carries some pretty significant leverage in negotiations—you can't just overlook that.

Nathan Thomas12 said:Russian reserves could be snatched away from them like it’s nothing, whenever the time is right.
When you're dealing with a bully, you've gotta play rough—they don't understand any other language. ☕

That's the truth right there. Honestly, the simplest move would be to officially designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism—in most countries, that alone would be more than enough legal ground to freeze and seize all their assets.

Carl Lee27 said:Russia is cutting its oil production by 5%, which means we're looking at a drop of about 500k barrels a day
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn...cut/index.html

Just another sign of goodwill, isn't it? It really goes to show that those sanctions just aren't doing the trick ☕

Nathan Evans78 said:The Federal Reserve's reserves have officially surged past the $600 billion mark. ☕

That’s great news! Now that half of it is frozen—which basically means that growing half could potentially be used to fund the reconstruction of Ukraine.

gentlestag15 said:Back in January 2022, the Russian government was pulling in about $2,089 billion while spending roughly $1,964 billion
leaving them with a surplus of $125 billion.
Fast forward to January 2023, and things look pretty different: revenues hit $1,356 billion against a massive $3,117 billion in spending.
That’s a deficit of $1,760 billion—basically, their hole is deeper than their entire income.
https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/...t-budget-value

Just waiting on the February numbers now.🍿

Oh, so sanctions don't work? What a joke!

John Ramos45 said:Turkey has moved to impose sanctions on aircraft maintenance services for both Boeing and Boeing.

https://twitter.com/NOELreports/stat...62116541632513

And get this—the sanctions aren't just limited to spare parts and repairs; they actually cover refueling too! Isn't that wild? This is definitely going to be an interesting one to watch closely.

electricsurfer47 said:Look, that’s an ARM processor. It isn't even fully Russian; they have to pay licensing fees because they're using parts of the ARM architecture.
It’s never going to shake up the market because it doesn't offer anything unique compared to the competition, and they aren't making enough profit to actually invest back into their own manufacturing.
Maybe if they took all that cash from ExxonMobil and put it into production instead, things would be different, but clearly, they just didn't want to take the risk.

Russia just wasn't willing to gamble with their economic growth. Honestly? It was probably easier for them to just sink it all into 100-foot superyachts.

Nathan Evans78 said:

Date Volume
12/02/2022 571.3
11/25/2022 567.5
11/18/2022 568.8
11/11/2022 552.1
11/04/2022 541.6
10/28/2022 550.1
10/21/2022 541.0
10/14/2022 544.4
10/07/2022 548.7

https://www.cbr.ru/eng/hd_base/mrrf/mrrf_7d/

These figures are essentially just the result of repricing—and when you look at the actual structure, more than half of that amount (around $300 billion) is still tied up and frozen by Western sanctions.

Timothy Nelson5 said:Right now, they're mostly just importers.

If you want to actually export anything meaningful, you need access to Western components... and as long as these sanctions are in place, that's basically a zero percent chance. I guess.

And honestly, I can't imagine who would be lining up to buy Russian hardware after everything that's happened in this war... maybe nobody at all.

I'm right there with you on that one.

Sanctions against Russia are definitely working—it’s just that most casual observers don't quite grasp how economic policy decisions carry a significant time lag. Because of those long-term contracts signed months or even years ago, a lot of economic variables move pretty slowly, usually reacting with a three-to-six-month delay. GDP, which is our main yardstick for economic activity, is notoriously sluggish; we won't really see the first major impact of these sanctions until February 2023, once the initial GDP assessments for Q4 2022 start rolling in. We're likely looking at a real contraction of 7% or more—which, for a single real economic variable, is actually massive.

And when you look at fixed capital investment? Well, the process of American investors pulling out of Russia is going to be felt for decades. It’s going to take a very long time before they can ever hope to win back the trust of the global investment community.

Even if all the sanctions against Russia were lifted this very second, the country would still be feeling the fallout for several more quarters simply because of how slow-moving these real economic variables are.

Anyone trying to comment on the exchange rate of the Russian ruble (m.) really needs to keep in mind that it's being administratively set by the Federal Reserve—not by actual economic conditions or standard market supply and demand mechanics. That strengthening of the ruble is actually partly a side effect of reduced imports due to the sanctions themselves! Even though the goal of the sanctions was to weaken the currency through financial market uncertainty, the SWIFT blockade, and the freezing of foreign reserves, the math works out differently. Plus, given the strict foreign exchange controls on withdrawing cash in Russia, we should probably expect a parallel exchange rate to pop up on the black market.

If we step back and look at this from a balance of payments perspective, you can clearly see a drop in imports caused by diminished purchasing power and rising uncertainty, paired with an export surge driven by high energy prices back in Q2 and Q3. But now that energy prices (like Ural and Dutch TTF) are stabilizing and with that announced price cap on Russian oil, we can expect those early gains from high energy prices to get completely wiped out.

The Russian financial market is essentially totally isolated from global financial flows, and their ability to borrow money through bond issuances is extremely limited.

Honestly, anyone claiming that sanctions aren't working is just plain wrong. They act a bit like a polar bear—slow, heavy, and steady, but absolutely relentless.

Nicole James said:Honestly, keeping the house at 62 degrees is perfectly fine. Anything higher than that is really just a luxury. We aren't going to go broke over it.

Look, these higher energy costs are really just the growing pains of finally breaking our dependence on Russia. In the long run, once we get those new supply routes sorted out and finish building up more LNG terminals here in the States, prices should stabilize.

The very least we can do to support the Ukrainians is to swallow these extra utility bills. They're paying their price in blood, while we're just paying ours in dollars.

George Robinson43 said:Just more disinformation from Western agitators.

The Ruble is stronger than ever, oil is hitting $300, and hydrocarbon export revenues have reached all-time highs.
Meanwhile, over in the UK, three million people are starving and can't even afford basic soap—the West is staring down the barrel of total collapse.

The figures coming out of those institutions are just projections for 2022. We won't see the real impact of the sanctions until we get a look at the GDP reports for Q4 2022 RF. Honestly, a 7-8% drop wouldn't even surprise me. Even the Federal Reserve, which usually plays it pretty safe with conservative estimates, is forecasting a 7.1% decline for Q4 2022. They really need to start planning realistically if they want to make any smart policy calls, right?

That economic slump is going to hit even harder in 2023. Plus, if all this talk about full mobilization keeps up, you're going to see a massive brain drain as workers flee the RF based on nothing but rumors alone. That’ll just turn the economic crisis into a full-blown meltdown—especially if they pivot to a war economy and end up crushing the "civilian" side of things entirely.