Yes, Another Economic Analysis Looking At Ruffia
With thanks to Joe Blogs, who does an excellent job of taking complex economic matters and making them comprehensible to us laypeople. Joe has changed his Youtube channel format recently, so you no longer get his cheerful smiling face as he announces an economic apocalypse.
That's the link to his YT channel, if you care to check it out. Art!
BBOJUM! projecting an image of class
Joe's latest vlog involved a systematic breakdown of what the Ruffian economy has in terms of financial reserves, the first such overall analysis I've seen. The critical introduction of his latest was the bookending of two Ruffian oligarchs, Mikhail Fridman and Oleg Deripaska. These are two extremely wealthy oligarchs, who used to be extremely extremely wealthy. Art!
Oleg to port and Mikhail to starboard
You may remember that Peter The Average made a speech about the State Of The Nation in late February, a typical doubling-down rant that insisted that life in Soviet Union 2.0 was better than ever, the economy was fine and in fact sanctions had only made things far rosier than before (he probably had his fingers crossed the whole time, mind).
Welllllll Oleg and Mikhail beg to differ. Oleg's net worth has dwindled to about $1.7 billion, whilst Ol' Misha has only $11.7 billion to his name. Yes, these are enormous sums, yet they are far lower than they used to be. Both men have come out and said that 1) the war - no piffling nonsense about a 'Special Idiotic Operation' - has to stop and 2) Ruffian monetary reserves may run out by the end of 2023. Bear in mind that both men are very close to Putin and have a far better-informed grasp of the economic realities than anyone in the West. They are also both aware that 39 oligarchs have fallen out of windows or drunk polonium tea in the past 6 months, and are well aware of what they risk. But they deem the situation to be so dire that they speak out regardless. Art!
A Bergepanther armoured engineer vehicle
Because I can.
Oleg has stated that the Ruffian government is now trying to 'shake down' oligarchs into giving money to fund the war effort; one example is Gazprom being made to pay a $20 billion 'one-off special tax'. Rosatom, the Ruffian nuclear agency, has $200 billions-worth of orders on it's books, so they, too are going to get a 'one-off special tax' in the near future. Art!
"We have as many as three or even four vacancies!"
Joe then looked at a breakdown of Ruffian monetary reserves. Well, straight away $350 billion in Western banks were immediately frozen once the war broke out. Ooops.
Then there is the National Wealth Fund, a.k.a. 'Putin's Piggybank'. This is now down to $148 as of 01/01/2023 and is being used to both fund the war and bridge the budget deficit, so it is going to be much lower by now, perhaps as low as $120 billion - funding the war was costing $15 billion per month in 2022.
Next came gold. Ruffia has long trusted in gold as a financial reserve, and they currently have 2,300 tons of the stuff in vaults across the country. At present it goes for $1,850 per ounce (don't you love those Imperial metrics!) so they are sitting on $140 billions. Hurrah! shouts Bloaty Gas Tout. Art!
Except market forces come into play here. If Puffy Petrol Pimp drops 100 tons of gold on the market, the value will immediately plummet, so he'll get far less of a return. He can only release small amounts over time. And time is not on his side.
Lastly, there were Foreign Exchange Reserves, usually abbreviated to FOREX. These amount to some $600 billion BUT they are used in day-to-day trading globally and it would be INCREDIBLY UNWISE to mess about with this process to acquire a short-term gain. Medium-term and long-term it would be disastrous.
Where does this leave Ruffia overall? Hmmm, well the US State Department has predicted a shrinking of the Russian economy by 16% for 2023, on top of it's shrinking by at least 5% in 2022. A deep-rooted problem is that Ruffian economists were making predictions for the 2023 budget based on a price of $70 per barrel for their crude oil exports. The real figure is less than $50, so they're only getting 70% of what they budgeted for. The bottom line is that, as Ol' Oleg has warned, Ruffia could run out of funds by the end of 2023. Art!
Not blitzed Ukraine - rural Ruffia
Rah Rah Roel!
Back to matters less weighty, and everyone's favourite ancient and medieval historian, Roel Konijendijk, who is now teaching at Oxford. Here he looks at - Art!
This scene seems to be a horde of orcs attacking a village, which has no natural defences nor fortifications. As Roel points out, if it's your own village you would be well advised NOT to set it alight, but hey the suits want FIRE so that's what they got. Art!
Arthur Brown is happy
The humans defending this village have taken the closest thing to high ground there is there: the rooftops. From there their archers pick off the orcs at ground level, at which point the orcs return fire. Art!
Which is not realistic. The orcs at ground level are handily illuminated by the BLAZING INFERNO they are trapped within, and would, at best, have only the haziest notion of where the arrows turning them into kebabs would be coming from. Art!
Oooh, harsh!
"The Sea Of Sand"
The Doctor is in grave peril, being lashed to an execution pillar with glass thread that will sever his limbs if he tries to struggle, with the bio-vore aristocrat Url reading his sentence.
‘Don’t I get a
chance to put my side?’ interrupted the alien, making that threat gesture
again. ‘The defence, putting it’s case
to the judge and jury.’
Url merely
scowled in annoyance. Mock, alien,
mock. You will be dead within two
minutes. Within three there will be
nothing to show you ever existed.
‘You are being
tried. When sentence is passed, I will
carry it out.’
The small
alien made a noise unpleasantly similar to laughter.
‘Judge, jury
and executioner all in one? Well, I
suppose it cuts the wage bill a little, eh?’
The aristocrat
seethed with indignation. Such
effrontery! Why, the last victim to
suffer formal execution, an Overseer, had stood in stupified silence until
Eviscerated.
‘Property
damage, unauthorised absenting from a cell, wilful damage to the fabric of - ’
Gradually, Url
became aware of a scraping, grinding screeching racket pitched at appalling
volume behind him, rapidly surpassed in volume by the shouts of alarm and fear
from the now-scattering audience.
He almost
turned, before noticing that the small alien was sliding around the sacrificial
pillar, presenting his back to his potential executioner. Was this a bluff, a dare, another tactic of
insolence?
The
thundering, smashing noise rushed at him.
Warned by a shout, Url turned to see what had made such a vast noise and
panic.
Ah, a deus ex machina arrives!
Conrad's Korean Catering Continues
The latest attempt was 'Spicy Chicken And Pepper Skewers', where you make up a marinade and leave the chicken to sit for at least an hour. Conrad left it for three days, just to be on the safe side. Art!
They were tasty and, as you might expect if left to saturate for three days, pretty spicy. Nobody else was willing to try them, the wimps.
I also got an aubergine so the 'Aubergine and Tofu Skewers' are a go.
Finally -
A bit of a grim morning today. It was pretty misty rather than actually raining, which, OF COURSE didn't prevent other dog owners being out walking in the wet. Edna, as per usual, complained vigourously when her muzzle got wiped down. Yes, Edna, call the International Criminal Court!
No comments:
Post a Comment