Comments on: Some Updates on Russia’s Economy

By: AK

AK — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 19:34:13 +0000

Edited, since you insist. Reason I didn’t put her in the first place is 1) brevity and 2) I had heard of Guriev but not her.

By: Craig Pirrong

Craig Pirrong — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 14:03:26 +0000

AK–Thanks for pairing me with Sergei Guriev, but you do his enormously talented wife, Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, a disservice by not mentioning her as well. She is a co-author of the piece you linked. She is an outstanding economist. And she is also an extremely outspoken critic of the Rosneft Economy (as she characterizes the Russian system).

By: donnyess

donnyess — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 02:51:10 +0000

“it is not clear why spending a lot of money on improving roads at this point in history (of peak oil, climate change, etc) is a great idea.”

A comprehensive intermodal transport study and overall refurbishment of critical infrastructure might have been done. Clean well managed roads and efficient traffic management imparts national self-esteem upon the public. If the economy does fall apart, that lack of national self-esteem will be leverage for political opponents of the establishment.

A study of the power vertical meritocratic democratic free software movement should have been done where abstract problem solving talents are important and applicable to Russia rather than some comparison to an efficient imitator such as South Korea. Incubators for strategic economic areas should have been developed and intellectual property protections disallowed for foreign competitors. This is what will bust a GM/Opel/Sberbank deal. How else do you develop a software industry when Microsoft/IBM has a patent for every abstract idea known to man and will want to use the rule of law to demand enforcement of it?

By: AK

AK — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 20:28:44 +0000

An unfortunate faux pas. They do happen.

By: AK

AK — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 20:27:24 +0000

An import substituting industrial policy, which is basically what the last few years have seen. Russian manufacturing output is now back up to around 90% of the Soviet-era peak, though for obvious reasons (cold landlocked geography, oil’s effects on the ruble) it enjoys little export success.

By: Fedia Kriukov

Fedia Kriukov — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 20:46:28 +0000

How can you make Russia “manufacture things” if East Asian economies can do it cheaper?

By: Elena (Russianize This)

Elena (Russianize This) — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 09:11:51 +0000

They point it out on the news and analytical programs a lot – that Russia needs to manufacture things and not just rely on natural resources to boost the economy. Oil and gas are not always gonna be there…

By: Mr. X

Mr. X — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 05:28:02 +0000

I know this is off topic but – seriously, are Obama’s people trying to deliberately fan the flames of conspiracies that he’s a crypto-Muslim? Or did FOX just make this up?

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/07/05/nasa-chief-frontier-better-relations-muslims/

That’s good news about the Russian economy, but one wonders how much talent fleeing the U.S./EU they can soak up.