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They say every crisis is an opportunity. This could be a great opportunity for Russian owned brands to establish themselves and thrive later when the crisis is
by kyriakos 5y ago
They say every crisis is an opportunity. This could be a great opportunity for Russian owned brands to establish themselves and thrive later when the crisis is hopefully resolved.
- thelastknowngod 5y agoAnta is doing exactly this. With major labels refusing to use Xinjiang cotton, Anta has said they have no problem with it and are building an empire based on forced labor.
- drewcon 5y agoSure…but more than likely Russia is about to become thunderdome.
- kyriakos 5y agoI don't like getting into politics, but I believe the current situation is temporary, either will end up with a major political change in Russia or with a new cold war. Whichever the case for the local economy its like hitting the reset button.
- Galanwe 5y ago> either will end up with a major political change in Russia or with a new cold war. Agree for the former, but not with the latter. Though scientific and military advancements by Russia were possible during the cold war, in its current state and with the new sanctions, I don't think Russia will be able to cope with the rest of the world. IMHO it's more like there will be either a regime change or a new North Korea.
- threeseed 5y agoPutin is 69 in a country where average age at death is 73. So the most likely scenario is that the status quo remains until he passes away. At which point there would be an opportunity for a clean reset in relations.
- dainiusse 5y agoI was born in aoviet union and live in baltics. Believe me - there is whole kgb system. Once putin is dead - there will be someone similar.
- deniska 5y agoGorbachev is 91 and still alive.
- dillondoyle 5y agoYeah I think it's a false statistics lens people look through. Because a lot of death occurs young, brining the average down. But if you survive into adult hood you have good shot at living longer. Plus he has way more resources than the average Russian.
- erosenbe0 5y agoJimmy Carter is 97. Kissinger is 98. All three won Nobel Peace Prizes. Is that the key to longevity? Because Putin will not be joining that club.
- JohnBooty 5y agoThat doesn't mean he has a 50% chance of dying in 4 years. That avg expectancy of 73 includes all the people that die young, etc. "Actuarial tables" is the term you're looking for, if you're curious how long a particular person at a particular age might live. https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html In the US a person who is currently 69 years old will live, on average, for another 17.53 years. In Russia the average expectancy is a little shorter, but also Putin is not an average person. By all accounts he seems pretty healthy, and obviously he has unlimited access to the best healthcare money can buy.
- erosenbe0 5y agoHe is a man so it is 15.x years from 69 not 17.x years. But he is a short man which in some studies tends to make up a lot of the difference. Short people live longer.
- laurent92 5y agoI don’t believe the situation is temporary. All major industries are cutting ties with Russia. SWIFT took 100 years to create, even if we allow it back, Russia won’t trust us, ever. It looks to me like our European leaders are escalating in a specific way that ensures we are locked in a feud with Russia for decades to come, in such a way that we can’t renew relationships even if Putin dies and if they pay war damages (which they won’t be able to pay because of their damaged economy - Ow, sweet irony of 1928…). I wonder whether we, European people, have an interest into making a 50-years war with Russia, like our leaders are deciding. Or, in other words, where can I emigrate, from France.
- shawabawa3 5y agoEuropean leaders are largely acting out of public opinion being against Russia I think you're in the minority if you're against sanctions Russia poked and prodded NATO for years (Chechnya, Georgia, Crimea) and watched the European powers stand idly by with maybe some words and small sanctions This caused them to miscalculate and push too far. But the escalation is Russia's fault, nobody made them invade anybody
- Borrible 5y agohttps://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/russia-home-furniture-market- https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/russia-h... By the way, the elimination of Western influence at all levels has been the goal for at least 15 years. It happend much earlier higher up. We're back in 1961. “We cannot negotiate with people who say what's mine is mine and what's yours is negotiable." And frankly said, if the performance of the Russian furniture industry is similar to that of the Russian military, I wouldn' buy a doorstop from them.
- k12sosse 5y ago> And frankly said, if the performance of the Russian furniture industry is similar to that of the Russian military, I wouldn' buy a doorstop from them. Russian military doorstops are a dime a dozen right now in Ukraine.
- Borrible 5y agoOh, my God, that 40 miles convoy. A crawling duck, but sadly no Warthogs in sight. It's a shame.
- jacquesm 5y agoYes, NATO donating some training and a couple of A-10s would be an interesting move. Obviously it is never going to be that simple.
- Borrible 5y agoThe Russians showed the 'tactical nuke' card. So NATO won't get involved with more than a few AT Weapons here and there at max. Lavrov said, they didn't threaten with nukes.That means they did. That creature was bred and selected over decades for such jobs. Actually I just indulge in fantasies of burning bastards.
- jacquesm 5y ago
- threeseed 5y agoProvided they are vertically integrated and own the entire supply chain. Otherwise they will find that planes not flying in/out and container ships not delivering will make it hard to import anything at scale. Not that they could pay for goods anyway. Also I suspect China may use its new found leverage to flood the Russian market with their goods.
- dillondoyle 5y agoThat's a smart take I have not fully thought through. Beyond just economically, perhaps potential big gains politically by using money & leverage to become the controlling mother that Russia is to Belarus, making russia the dependent & ruled child.
- ZeroGravitas 5y agoI feel this is the real selling point of democracy and free media, its hard for a foreign nation to buy an entire electorate. Several nations seem to be setting themselves up for irrelevence by undermining democracy, usually at the behest of powerful groups within the country, but to do so they basically need to pay a bunch of people to tell lies. They've then created a network that external corporations and government actors can take advantage of. If the Russian news suddenly started telling the truth mixed with 30% Chinese propaganda, then to the average Russian that would be noticeably more true than what they are getting now. Would the presenters tell blatant Chinese lies to decieve their people? Well apart from the chinese bit they obviously do, so you basically hope they're all actually insane true-believers, because if theyre just ordinary Russians spreading obvious BS in return for a decent paycheck then thats an obvious weak point for the nation. And Russia knows this is viable, as they do it to other nations.
- erichocean 5y ago> its hard for a foreign nation to buy an entire electorate You sure? According to the US government, a few hundred thousand dollars on Facebook ads was enough to buy a US President (c.f Trump, Donald J).
- george0812 5y agoUnfortunately (and I mean it) there is barely any precedent for a regime like this turning around and the economy improving. In terms of economy, it's probably going to be downhill from here, companies will enter survival mode and innovation will be minimized. I really hope I'm wrong though :( examples: Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, ...
- LAC-Tech 5y agoPutins regime was a massive economic improvement from Yeltsins regime though, which is one reason why he is (was? hard to gauge) so popular. Also counter examples of more authoritarian regimes having economic resurgences - south korea, taiwan, to lesser extents china and vietnam... I'm sure there's more.
- pr0nin 5y agono. it's not. It just happened during the rise in the global oil prices
- LAC-Tech 5y agoRight, I guess there's a lot of debate on why things improved so much economically around that time. But still people will tend to associate it with the administration it happened under - we do it in western countries as well.
- deltaoneseven 5y ago[dead]
- _0w8t 5y agoI talked with friends in Moscow at the beginning of 2020. They said there were simply no good alternatives to IKEA. There were reasonable furniture from Belarus if one looked for things made from whole wood, but then one still may need to hire somebody to fix/adjust it due to quality control issues. Plus there were small Russian companies, but their stuff while good was expensive. Things that were produced by bigger Russian companies that were supposed to give alternative to IKEA, were really of low quality.
- konart 5y agoTo be honest this sounds like a fairytale to me. IKEA has\had good things like lamps and tabletops. But the furniture has terrible quality. I'm still kind of angry at myself for buying their Stockholm cabinet. You _have_ to fix it agains the wall to stop the wiggling (that's what the manual AND their support tells me). Unfortunately we really don't have anything that is mass-production and of good quality at the same time, but IKEA is hardly a ray of light in my opinion.
- mrtksn 5y agoIt could be but they need to be primed for it already. How did the US not selling drones to Turkey made Turkey a drone superpower? Well, Turkey already had a large engineering talent pool and related industries, therefore US not selling drones to Turkey was an opportunity. Does Russia already have a talent base or flourishing industries for all the stuff they are being denied? I find it unlikely, it's a common problem with natural resource blessed countries destroying high skill sectors because a very few things are as profitable and risk free as digging stuff from the ground, sell them and live off from than money. Norway is being smart about it, countries like Dubai and UAE are also trying to be smart about it but AFAIK Russia is not very smart. They used to have huge talent pool of all kinds during the Soviet times but that is no longer the case. They monetised the remains of the Soviets and used the money to buy yachts, palaces and luxury estate abroad. What is the last innovation, art or product that came out of Russia and change the world? Probably there are some but not many. They used to be the ones competing with the west neck to neck, bringing in their flavour and coming up with something ingenious. It's very sad actually, considering what the Russian people have archived in the past.
- Thorrez 5y ago>What is the last innovation, art or product that came out of Russia and change the world? Maybe Telegram? It has 500 million monthly active users.
- mrtksn 5y agoSure, they also have Yandex and VK and some other stuff but even if they are successful almost none of it is groundbreaking or leading whole industries ahead. If TikTok was Russian, I would have said that they significantly improved content discovery and content consumption maybe. However, this does show that if all Meta and Google is banned, they will be fine. Is it going to be the same for other stuff though? Like the IKEA stuff? Like civil aviation?
- neilwilson 5y agonginx was pretty Russian IIRC
- 5y ago
- EugeneOZ 5y agoGo find some thriving furniture brands in North Korea. Nobody will care about the good furniture while the biggest problem is how to buy food.
- EnKopVand 5y agoHow would they do that though? Russian interest rates are through the roof, so even if you could borrow money to start a business you likely couldn’t make it profitable. If you had assets to begin with they better not have been in the stock market, because that has been closed since the invasion began and basically everything you own is now rated 0. If your assets were in savings, then they too have lost basically all value along with the rubbles. Even if you somehow overcome the need for capital, how do you setup the supply chain necessary in a world where you can’t readily trade with anyone but China? Which you may not be able or doing in a month if things turn sour and China also start sanctioning. Sure Russia has a lot of wood, but Russia doesn’t have the industrial material to transform it into furniture, and right now, Russia doesn’t have access to the high tech commodities required to build an efficient lumber industry, let alone factories to process it. You’re right of course, this will open up for opportunities in the very long run, but it’ll be very localised opportunities that can’t take advantage of the global supply chain in a country that had an economy which was around the size of the economy of Italy before this began. If you look at history, then you can’t really build empires in isolation. Even the current “American empire” saw a lot of its economic rise throught things like the Marshall plan, which as an example, lifted my country (Denmark) from what was basically medieval farming methods with lots and lots of manual labour to the average farmer owning tractors in less than a decade. Unless the oligarchs of Russia plan on investing basically all their national profits into building the country’s industry, then I would personally wager that these images are the last chance that a lot of Russian have to but IKEA things for a good while. It won’t stop there either, after a few years of isolation the average Russian won’t be able to buy things like coffee if the sanctions get worse. War is hell.