4 ms·

> The Russian economy peaked in 2013 and has been going down hill since then Do you have anything substantial to back this claim? Cuz to me (actually living i

> The Russian economy peaked in 2013 and has been going down hill since then Do you have anything substantial to back this claim? Cuz to me (actually living in Russia) it seems like exactly the opposite - the economy had been slowly decomposing up until the financial crisis of 2014, when the exchange rates had shifted so that roubles became cheaper. Until then it was extremely hard to build a sustainable business in Russia, due to the fact that it was just cheaper to buy something from abroad and the only reliably sustainable industries were food production and unprocessed resources. After 2014 - in my impression - quite a lot of entrepreneurs seem to have seized the opportunity of cheaper expenses, as I personally saw quite a lot of new businesses rising and blooming. So I'm having a hard time figuring out what exactly had peaked in Russian economy in 2013. Sales of unprocessed resources? This is hardly a success. Also, I don't get why are trying to reduce all the complexities of real world economics to some single number. This just feels kinda blunt. Why specifically GDP? GDP doesn't tell you anything about sustainability and self-sufficiency of some economy. Hell, all it basically tells you is how much money had changed ownership over the observation period. Why not PPP, for example? Cuz GDP number makes Russia look weak, but PPP makes it one of the world leaders, leaving behind GB, France and Italy? :P

xtian 4y ago
The US likes GDP because it lets us report growth based on all sorts of unproductive financial instruments like interest payments on medical debt.
- yucky 4y ago
  You're saying the quiet part aloud!
jcranmer 4y ago
> Why specifically GDP? [...] Why not PPP, for example? PPP is effectively a currency conversion rate, it's not a meaningful metric by itself anymore than $1USD ~= 1000won or ~= 100 yen tells you anything about the South Korean or US or Japanese economies. So I'm assuming you're comparing nominal GDP versus GDP by PPP. To a first approximation, nominal conversion rates give you an idea of how an economy can interact with others on a trade basis, whereas PPP conversion rates give you an idea from the perspective of a domestic consumer. For what you tend to use total economic size for, nominal GDP tends to be a better reflection of the size of the economy, whereas PPP works better for something like GDP per capita.

xtian 4y ago

The US likes GDP because it lets us report growth based on all sorts of unproductive financial instruments like interest payments on medical debt.

yucky 4y ago
You're saying the quiet part aloud!

jcranmer 4y ago

> Why specifically GDP? [...] Why not PPP, for example? PPP is effectively a currency conversion rate, it's not a meaningful metric by itself anymore than $1USD ~= 1000won or ~= 100 yen tells you anything about the South Korean or US or Japanese economies. So I'm assuming you're comparing nominal GDP versus GDP by PPP. To a first approximation, nominal conversion rates give you an idea of how an economy can interact with others on a trade basis, whereas PPP conversion rates give you an idea from the perspective of a domestic consumer. For what you tend to use total economic size for, nominal GDP tends to be a better reflection of the size of the economy, whereas PPP works better for something like GDP per capita.