foreign affairs

fascinating

wildly interesting boom economy in Russia right now despite all of the sanctions imposed by the west “But as usual, in Moscow, things looked very different. ‘They are even richer,’ a friend in Moscow texted when I asked him how the residents of the chic Patriarch Ponds neighborhood are living through these uncertain times. ‘It is amazing. Never seen so many Lambos and Rolls as last year.’ What about the ruble crisis, I asked? “Don’t care,” he texted. ‘They live in Russia, taking salaries in rubles and spend their money in Russia.’ A friend of his is an interior designer who has been freed by the war of competition. Her problem, she now says, is being able to finish all the jobs that have fallen in her lap, not getting new customers. Another friend, who works for a Russian oligarch, told my friend, ‘You have no idea how much money there is in Russia right now.’ Said ‘Only a fool wouldn’t be able to earn money right now.’” apparently if you're remotely good at making money, you're making a *fuck ton* of money in Russia right now, and so long as you're transacting solely in Rubles, it doesn't really matter that the currency is collapsing long term, however, it's gotta mean terrible things for their economy and the Ruble being weak can't be good for long apparently there is tons of money flowing to the poorest regions of Russia for signing bonuses for soldiers, and they're even helping soldiers out with their mortgages as a way to encourage them to join the fight in essence, there's a massive wealth redistribution going on in Russia, and it's all just coming from the country's budget and (as would make Keynes proud), trickling down throughout the entire country which, if you think about the goals of the sanctions, is not in the West's favor, at least in the short-term the point of the sanctions ideally would have been to create a slowdown in Russia that caused the public to lose support for the war, but if the economy is booming.......don't count on it