Where to put Russian money? Why Moscow does not listen to the IMF
Don't teach us to live
This is the second time in recent years that the International Monetary Fund has called on the Russian authorities to invest in the National Wealth Fund (NWF) in “reliable foreign assets”. Thank you for not all at once, but only when this fund reaches the threshold of 7% of GDP. Admittedly, the threshold is not small, it can always help out in the event of another global crisis or another unexpected sanctions.
“Military Review” was by no means silent about the first portion of the IMF recommendations (“National Welfare Fund money. Ask the IMF and dispose in your own way ") Although it would seem that we care about some kind of fund, be it global or international at least three times, to which Russia actually has long really not owed a dime ... No, some old accounts have not yet been settled, but we have been we do not borrow from the IMF. And it seems that the employees, and especially the fund managers, are most annoying.
So they dictate to us from one fund, international, to which Russia is not only not accountable, but, as they say in Odessa, not even the same name as how to spend the funds of our fund, frankly speaking, of hard-earned money. And earned not just because we have so many resources, but because we still have not forgotten how to get them.
It would hardly be worthwhile to devote a separate comment to the IMF's current recommendations if they continued to “teach us how to live” from the old way. Like, "you don’t go there, you go here, otherwise the snow will fall," and there will be no money left to save the economy. Firstly, Russia therefore invests extra money from the NWF in infrastructure projects to make the economy come to life, and secondly, the very same 7%, in any situation, remains a sort of stash for a rainy day.
However, the main thing is not this - much more important are the attempts, uncharacteristic for the IMF, to dictate the rules of the game “inside Russia” to us. Typically, this practice is used in relation to countries that are in crisis situations, and the IMF owed not even hundreds of millions, but tens of billions of dollars (in other currencies, the IMF does not pamper its clients).
In Russia with finances, even according to the IMF itself, today everything is in full openwork, in contrast to social justice. However, the Military Review also reported on how the IMF issued its political recommendations to Russia regarding the risks that threatened it (“Political about the political risks of the Russian economy”) But the fund does not want to calm down. Such are they, multi-workers from finance.
Taxes and quasi-taxes
So, about the "rules of the game" that they are trying to impose on us from the IMF. Let us take a look at the fund’s latest regular report on the situation in the economies of developing countries, including, of course, Russia. It says directly that our financial authorities “should refrain from quasi-tax activity through the National Security Fund (NWF) and continue to invest NWF funds in high-quality foreign assets”.
With the completion of this sentence of IMF experts, everything is clear: where else should we invest, if not in foreign (read: American) assets! They invested in bold zeros, and even as actively - with the filing of Mikhail Kasyanov, the very first Putin prime minister, who, even when he was the Minister of Finance, launched the global settlement mechanism for Russia with the same IMF.
I started it so that at the cost of considerable losses, which are still worth checking and double-checking, our economy nevertheless got off at least with one needle. No, unfortunately, not with oil, but only with debt, primarily from the IMF needle. But then, alas, the global crisis of 2008-2009 happened with soap bubbles “Fanny” and “Freddy”. In them, Russia, which was already almost without debt, just invested in full. So complete that with the ruble it was necessary to repeat something like default, although on a slightly smaller scale.
But with the beginning of the reasoning of the IMF experts, everything is more complicated. Independent financial experts are accustomed to considering various requisitions as quasi-taxes. Like paid parking, the same Platon system, frankly provocative fees for overhaul, and even, albeit indirectly, the notorious pension reform. By the way, a very newfangled feature is also very close here - the recycling fee.
Not only that, all this somehow does not correspond well with the provisions of our constitution, although, as we managed to understand, our great lawyers from the Constitutional Court do not think so. So, if the IMF had in mind all of this, he would have to put up a monument in general, in the place of one of the plaster Ilyichs somewhere in Uryupinsk.
But the IMF, judging by the pathos of the fund’s report, understands quasi-tax activity as something else — an attempt to strip export-oriented industries, primarily raw materials, of excess profits. The attempt, in fact, is completely justified. Yes, through the budget rule, which cuts off and merges into the same SWF all that is received from inflated oil prices, and as a result, gas. Yes, through the manipulation of a mineral extraction tax. Yes, by means of the most severe control over VAT refunds to the same exporters, in order to avoid false export and re-export.
The experts of the fund, international and purely monetary, are convinced that it is investments in foreign assets that will allow Russia to "protect resources for future generations and isolate the economy from oil price volatility." No more, no less. And this is despite the fact that money just in post-Soviet Russia has a strange habit of burning out under the most-most stabilization.
Nevertheless, the esteemed specialists from the IMF have no doubt that only by investing in foreign assets will we be able to "support the diversification and growth of the non-oil economy." Thank you, of course, but just for such a growth we have nowhere to take money from, only from the oil economy.
So we are trying, but they are climbing to us here with different tips and tricks. It would be better to help promote Nord Stream 2, in which Gazprom’s seemingly private (but actually more than half state) funds have been invested, along with billions raised from foreign partners.
Nevertheless, doubting the professionalism of IMF experts is a sin. Indeed, the Russian authorities were also advised from the fund to avoid further changes in the budget rule. And this means that the rights to dispose of free funds still do not rush to deprive us. Although the IMF and worry that the size of consumer lending in Russia began to frankly go off scale.
We will not argue, in search of a good life, the poorer population of Russia is glad at least that the interest rates on loans today are no longer deadly, but just threatening. That gets into debt. From mortgages to short-term ones to payday. Another thing is that corporate clients of banks in Russia are by no means overfed with loans. That would be what the IMF is worried about.
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