Topic: Sanctions at work:Russia posts its second highest deficit in the post-Soviet era - page 9. (Read 1713 times)

Sanctions on Russia affect its economy.  But over time, the economy adjusts to the reality of sanctions.  Perhaps he may recover soon and be able to find solutions to compensate for the shortage caused by those sanctions.  Do not forget that Iran has been living under harsher sanctions for years.
In addition, Russia is targeting the Ukrainian strategic centers to weaken them internally. The weapons provided by the West are not yet able to make a difference. In a statement to the Ukrainian Minister of Defense, the minister stressed that the Russian lands will not be targeted and that their purpose in the war is mainly defensive.

Yes, hard times make people stronger, but these strong people are angry, aggressive, and incredibly cruel. 

They are not creators, they are destroyers. 

They cannot create good times...

However, they can kill each other (as well as other people) and they will.  When all strong people kill each other, and their corpses are torn to pieces by dogs, enlightenment will come. 

Then the rest (weaker people) will be horrified by the abundance of spilled blood and will swear to each other never to allow wars on Earth again. 

Then the good times will come.

A bit of reality - TODAY, Russia reports the second largest deficit in the post-Soviet era. This is just after 6 months of full-fledged sanctions and just the start of an embargo on some hydrocarbons from a terrorist country.

To understand the power of destruction from sanctions (let me remind you once again - they acted against the USSR for 10 years, against the Russian Federation - objectively for about 6 months), just read these small facts from Russia in early February 2023:
- In many cities, food products on the shelves of supermarkets are beginning to be replaced with dummies. For example, stores in Naberezhnye Chelny replaced the stew with dummies. For real stew, now you need to go to the seller at the checkout. They began to steal food in Russia very strongly. According to Putin, the country richest in resources, with the largest area
- Revenues of the Russian budget from exports collapsed by almost 4 times. Customs reported a 73% drop in export fees.
- In Russia, there was a shortage of casings for sausages and sausages.
It turned out that it was bought in Europe. In Russia, they don’t know how to produce nails, milk bags, paper dye, sour cream starter, aircraft and car parts, sausage casings ...
- 2.4 thousand names of medicines have disappeared from Russian pharmacies. The range shrank by 10% per year, calculated in the DSM Group.
- The Russians will usually pay for the war: The government demanded 200 billion rubles from big business to pay for the war. Which taxes need to be raised for this, the billionaires must decide for themselves Just like that - quickly bring 200 billion rubles to the budget. And then again and again and again. Greatness is gone
- Sberbank lost its subsidiary in the UAE after US claims
All licenses of the Sberbank subsidiary were canceled a week after the visit of US officials to the UAE.
.. and many similar trash FACTS from the life of "great Russia"

Russian youth have options, either stay or run away. Everyone can't run away from their motherland because that's impossible, so, a lot of youth will have to stay. What should they do? When Tiger comes to you but you have no way to escape, will you slacken and let it eat you alive? Or will you stay on your feet and try to beat it?
Yes, this generation is very soft but that is not an excuse. This world is brutal, it's not what we have been told during our childhood and I think everyone acknowledges that weak will always be oppressed.
I want to remind you this perfect quote

In my opinion, the situation with transnational payments has the following features.... 

Russia's problem is not that the ruble is not a convertible currency.  The Soviet ruble was also not a convertible currency. 

Russia's problem is that international sanctions have been imposed on it, including a ban on the use of the international financial system.  And without the possibility of using this system, it is very difficult to make all cross-border payments.  This applies to both exports and imports of goods. 

The Russian government does not need to convert bitcoins into rubles and vice versa. 

It is important for the Russian government that critical goods for Russia are imported.  And for this it is necessary to export raw materials (for example, hydrocarbons).  It is impossible to transfer rubles abroad and back (foreign banks block such transactions).  Russia is disconnected from the SWIFT payment system. 

And payments with bitcoin cannot be blocked, since bitcoin is not subject to censorship.

Since the numbers I've quoted came from Russia itself:
https://tass.com/economy/1572381
double or triple them for the deficit, cut them in half for revenue and you're close to the truth.


Again it seems like you're missing the important point here.
If it's hard for you to buy stuff from people just because of the ruble converting issue, won't be just as hard to buy bitcoins with the same rubles?
It's simple logic, if I don't want to accept litecoin in my shop for coffee no way in hell I'm going to sell you my bitcoins for litecoin, right?


Trading volume is meaningless, you can have a look and compare the daily volume of Forex markets with the actual value of goods traded each day.
Forex does around 8 trillion a day while all global annual trade is 22 trillion, so 1/100.
Besides, those would be on-chain events and for on-chain volume in $ value is still the lowest since 2020.

Regarding the budget deficit - in my opinion, the information is correct.  During the Covid-19 pandemic, Russia was one of the few countries where the state did not make compensation payments to the population. 

However, time has passed and now money from the budget is being spent very actively.  At the same time, the funds of the National Wealth Fund are actively spent, this is money that was not withdrawn by the oligarchs to offshore, but was accumulated in special funds. 

They were reserved in order to improve the well-being of the next generations and make the transition to a new technological way of the economy of the 21st century. 

Instead, they will be wasted on meaningless and very harmful activities.

I would even go so far as to say that Bitcoin's market cap and trading volume as of today are also indicators that the network is used to cover certain needs like circumventing sanctions. The more political measures like sanctions are imposed, the more attractive will the Bitcoin network become. Authoritarian governments (and others as well of course) will learn the hard way that the ultimate way to transact safely and reliably around the globe in a world of sanctions can only be via a decentralized network like Bitcoin.

The trading volume we currently have is politically relevant. It was in 2017 when we first crossed the billion USD mark. While mostly authoritarian regimes considered banning Bitcoin also back at the time, it wasn't relevant to them anyway as they thought it is not enough volume and liquidity to ever complete huge cross boarder deals anyway. Now it is totally realistic to close a billion dollar deal and agree to transact in Bitcoin. So even these political issues around the world will eventually increase the need for the very network that many of those regimes have or had been trying to ban.

Regarding the deficit posted by the Russian government, I don't have the slightest of an idea how close to reality those numbers are. Is there some halfway reliable option to cross-check that?

In fact, everything is easier....

Bitcoin does not require intermediaries in the form of banks, Satoshi Nakamoto created it as a completely independent and autonomous payment system. 

In a situation where the very ability to make payments in fiat currencies (US dollar, euro, Japanese price, British pound, Swiss franc) fell under sanctions, it is possible to pay for all foreign trade operations with crypto (the most important thing is that trading counterparties agree to this form of payment)  . 

No need to convert anything into fiat money, no need to interact with foreign banks.  All calculations will be made exclusively in the blockchain. 

Rubles, unlike Bitcoin, are not an international freely convertible currency.  Outside the territory of the Russian Federation, they have no value.

Then why use bitcoin in the first place? Why not rubles?
If a bank is accepting your payment in bitcoin as long as you're sanctioned it will obviously accept your payment in rubles also.
If someone is willing to sell you for crypto they will sell you for any kind of currency as long is convertible.
If your currency is not convertible, how do you plan on acquiring bitcoin with it? 


Heard that in '88, the USSR had no debt, a ton of oil and gas, and gold, we know how it ended.
And it was involved in a war in Afghanistan, not Ukraine, at a time when Ukraine was a part of the USSR.


A bit hard to not get their point, it has been like this since Lenin, the west is eating hamsters and burning rat dropping to keep warm while Russians live the best life on this planet. I've said it before, if you would have listened to the radio before the fall of the Union you could have sworn the US is fighting in a civil war and French men are cooking frog legs because they have no wheat or corn or meat left.

Imagine that you have met a tiger or a rhinoceros in the forest.  You managed to escape from this monster.  And then they tell you with condemnation, why did you run away from him?  You should have fought him and won!  Why didn't you break the rhino's horn?  Why didn't you slap the tiger on the ass?  It is so simple! 

I'll tell you a secret - modern Russian youth are not supermen.  This is a very small and physically weak generation.  It is small in number because all these people were born during a period of demographic decline (the so-called dashing gangster 90s of the last century). 

Boys and girls of this generation know how to ride skateboards and electric scooters, surf the Internet, smoke hookah, engage in personal growth and cry when they are depressed. 

They have nothing to oppose to the generation that was formed under the gangster capitalism of Russia in the 90s (for this generation, human life means nothing, neither their own nor someone else's, and they will press the nuclear button without batting an eyelid).

Well, if you visit Russia Today (RT Hoвocти), you will see an article called: Real wages in Germany plummet – data.

This is what they want to keep your attention on:

• Real earnings in Germany decreased by an average of 4.1% in 2022 compared with a year earlier, according to preliminary data from the statistics agency Destatis released on Tuesday.
• Meanwhile, nominal earnings in the country increased by only 3.4% on average in 2022. This figure takes into account the gross monthly earnings of employees including extra payments, Destatis explained.

Do you get the point? They are saying that hey, have a look, this is how the life is going on in Germany, they are fucked, have a look, western countries are fucked, they are in poverty, they can't afford to buy a food, they have to make choice between food and heat and other meaningless words. They are brainwashing people and they want them to believe that life outside of Russia is catastrophe.

Country isn't stolen from Russian youth, do they fight for it? No. So, what's the problem? Russians are used to low standard of living, the problem is Moscow and Saint Petersburg but they will have to accept it.

Sanctions work: in Russia there will soon be no sausages, sausages and other meat products. The problem of shortage of sausage products is connected with EU sanctions: film for meat products was supplied to the Russian Federation from seven European factories at once. Now the Russians are forced to buy raw materials in "friendly" China, which, in turn, set them very tough conditions: prepayment or "parallel imports", while the delivery time from China is about 10 months. Because of this, Russian producers are forced to stock up on sausage films for the year ahead, and the costs of Russians have increased in some places up to 70%. It remains only to calculate how many losses this Russian industry will suffer due to the aggressive war unleashed by Putin, and how long the Russian producers will be able to work on such unfavorable conditions.

Bitcoin does not have to be converted into fiat money. 

You can sell some of your goods for Bitcoin, and use the received coins to purchase the necessary spare parts and other necessary goods.  Russia has a very large demand for imported components and spare parts. 

Of course, if the banks of the United Arab Emirates continue to service Russian payments, then payments will be made through Arab banks.  Probably Arab banks are not afraid to fall under secondary international sanctions? 

However, the situation may change and then you will have to return to the idea of ​​making payments in cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin doesn't have enough liquidity, and given the sanctions, Russians will find it very difficult to convert BTC to fiat. US Dollar is not preferred by any of the Russian exporters at this point, because banking support is close to zero. Here in India, most of the private sector refineries who imported Russian Urals crude during the last few months made the payments in United Arab Emirates Dirham (AED). A few even made payments in Chinese Yuan for crude oil and coal. From what I understand, banks in UAE are still processing payments to Russia.

The situation is bad, but not catastrophic.  The situation is catastrophic for the Russian youth, from whom the country was stolen. 

As for the stability of the Russian economic system, it continues to be stable. 

The existing gold and foreign exchange reserves, funds held in the National Wealth Fund, as well as future proceeds from the hydrocarbon trade will be enough for 5-6 years. 

Over the years, people will get used to a lower standard of living, and the national economy will be completely transferred to a military footing.

And of course, sanctions, oil price caps, changing the supplier of gas, those are not affecting Russia at all, not a bit:

https://www.reuters.com/markets/russias-jan-budget-deficit-widens-energy-revenues-slump-2023-02-06/
https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/5799135


And here goes the so-called dedolarization, and the gold-backed currency!
They are publicly acknowledging they have sold gold from the CB reserve to cover the deficit!


How do you call in economic terms the situation where your revenue goes down by a third, your expenses u by more than a half and the worse part is not even here yet? If I were to quote some economic experts here this is a great achievement, right?
Oh did I mention that the current 3% deficit is for a price per barrel of 70$ while Urals is now trading at 52.62 and is being usually sold directly with discounts of over 10-20$ per barrel?

Yes, it is possible that Russia will use bitcoin and the US dollar in cross-border trading. 

Russia has a lot of goods that it wants to sell to foreign countries (oil, natural gas, timber, wheat, mineral fertilizers, etc.).

At the same time, there are options for receiving payments from abroad in US dollars, euros, Japanese prices, British pound, Swiss  The franc is getting smaller and smaller.  There is also a need to purchase the necessary goods and materials abroad. 

Therefore, the option of using cryptocurrencies in the calculations is likely to be implemented.  This will inevitably lead to higher prices for bitcoins and alternative cryptocurrencies.

The United States dealt another heavy blow to Russian banking and energy. The last major Russian bank was deprived of access to American correspondent accounts, that is, now it will not be able to carry out transactions with US dollars. The Kremlin financial structure will not be able to make cross-border dollar transfers from next Friday, January 27th. The reason is the closure of correspondent accounts of Gazprombank in the American JPMorgan Chase Bank and Bank of New York Mellon.
To trade Russian energy resources, the Kremlin will now have to switch to gray and even criminal schemes. And this means that the budget of the Russian Federation will become even more scarce than previously expected. Well, in Russia there is a good opportunity to switch to cryptocurrencies in their calculations, or at least to stablecoins.

If Russia were prepared for the current sanctions that have already been imposed against it, then they would not place more than $300 billion in foreign banks that were frozen in the first days after the attack on Ukraine and which are more likely to be transferred to Ukraine as a refund the damage caused. Also, Russia was not ready for such almost one-pack support of Ukraine in financial, material and military terms. In addition, Putin clearly did not count on Europe's refusal of Russian energy carriers, and this is hitting Russia's income very hard.
Thanks to the support of Ukraine from other states, Ukrainians have the opportunity to inflict a military defeat on Russia, and the Kremlin did not count on such a decisive rebuff either. It is because of this that the Putin regime is now experiencing an acute shortage of military equipment, ammunition, and even trained soldiers.