Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Friday suggested that the country's 2016 budget be slashed and a host of projects be scrapped amid economic downturn.China — Europe
Russian Prime Minister suggests federal budget cut amid economic downturn
Xinhua
5 comments:
Economics is not Putin's strength.
Nor Bernanke's.
Nor Yellen's.
:(
Like Samson and Delilah.
Putin needs to get rid of Medvedev and the rest of the pro-West neo-liberal central bankers. It's not that economics is not his strong point so much that they are his opponents.
The Saker has a pretty good article explaining it. Check out Israel Shamir as well.
@ James
I agree about getting rid of the liberals, but Putin is something of a liberal himself. He wants Russia aligned with Europe and with friendly relations with the US if not actual alignment. He is a believer in liberalism in a broad context. The liberals he needs to get rid of are the neoliberals that hanker for the Yeltsin years and being cut in on the loot.
Putin's broad liberalism is far better than Russian conservatism or communism, both of which are the alternatives to some kind of liberalism.
Putin did a thesis in environmental/ecological economics since the former USSR and now the Russian Federation possesses a vast resource-rich area that needs to be managed. As a result Putin's training is much more in applied economic than theoretical economics, where formal-mathematical models rule.
So I don't think that Putin is a complete neophyte in economics and I also think that he prefers a broadly liberal but managed economy. He has said this on several occasions. He knows that Russia has a problem with statism and corruption and like Xi is working at overcoming the issues that are creating drag without letting a liberal business mafia run away with the store.
All in all, I'd say he is doing a OK job with what he has to work with. People in the West imagine that Putin has a much freer hand than he does. That he is a dictator is just a fantasy. Like all politicians other than tyrants, he has to juggle knives.
We'd like to see him strike a new path, but Bernie Sanders can't seem to get the fire to do if he believes the advice of Stephanie. Or maybe he is also confused on monetary econ, like just about everyone else. Putin has more of an excuse since there is no one like Stephanie among his advisers.
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