There is money, but it’s becoming more and more difficult to hold on ...
Too much money - to spend or increase the "little money"?
Russia is in big trouble again - it has too much money. And as you know, money needs to be spent wisely. With what, as usual, we have big problems ...
It somehow happened that the so-called National Wealth Fund (NWF) by the end of July this year reached a record number of 7,86 trillion rubles, or 7,2% of GDP. It would seem to be happy and happy, but no: our favorite "budget rule" is formulated so that the NWF can be replenished only up to seven percent of GDP. Everything above must be spent. And not just like that, but to invest in the economy, which for our realities even sounds somehow unusual.
The problem is “exacerbated” also by the fact that if in the next 2020 year we need to invest 1,8 trillion rubles, then in 2021 the amount will become (according to forecasts) absolutely cloudy: 4,2 trillion. This, to make it clearer, is about 20 of Crimean bridges, which we need to build in a year. Moreover, this is not on budget money, not on the money of the NWF, but on surpluses that we cannot even add to the said fund!
Did you appreciate the scale of the tragedy?
Elvira Nabiullina was the quickest to orientate herself (it was not for nothing that I praised her!) - and let’s say, we’ll just increase the bar and everything will go on, as in the future. We will save, save, increase wealth, and nothing will need to be done.
The plan, of course, is ingenious, but it’s not very clear what prompted Elvira Sahipzadovna to voice it. Maybe, of course, she, too, was too lazy to mess with the extra money. Or maybe she simply better than us imagines that her colleagues from the government can “invest”, and thus wants to save the money saved. Alas, the second option is very plausible, but for all its reasonableness, one cannot fail to notice that investments in our economy would not even hurt.
Seriously, the problem really has a place to be. And its decision will largely determine whether the Russian economy will begin to recover, or whether the curse of the "budget rule" will continue to hang over it, depriving it of its last chance of development and a way out of the protracted crisis.
Ah, how dizzy! How dizzy!
The options are different. For example, the head of Rosgeology Sergey Gorkov proposes to direct the surplus of funds to the additional exploration of new mineral deposits. And at first glance, there is a certain reason for this: indeed, we need to take care of the resource base, since only it gives us some significant receipts of free funds. Roughly speaking, where they earned, they spent there to continue to earn more.
But this wonderful plan is very much like some distortions of the Soviet economy. Remember how we produced the most tractors in the world? As well as bulldozers, excavators, many mining trucks ... For what? And to mine more iron and coal. And why do we need so much iron and coal? And to produce even more bulldozers, excavators and dump trucks!
That is, it was a kind of vicious circle, the only plus of which was the creation of a sufficiently large number of jobs. But since the production of consumer goods was chronically lagging behind, the whole idea was rather a burden for the economy - when the money earned is nothing to spend, sooner or later it will hit the national currency. That, in general, we once saw ...
So now there are great doubts as to whether we should go along this path. To earn a lot of money in oil production, to extract even more oil, so that our “national treasures” could continue to enrich their owners - a dubious pleasure, frankly speaking.
There is one more nuance: our plans to scout something may go against the availability of the required resources in nature. Yes, in theory they should be, but ... But it can turn out, like with the Taimyr Peninsula, which is geologically similar to Yamal, like two drops of water, and geographically located literally in one step, and there are so far gas in at least some comparable amounts not found. Although everyone was sure that he was there, like a fool wrappers ...
That is, we can confidently say that these are not only dubious in content, but also very risky expenses. The money invested in exploration may pay off a hundredfold, or it may not pay off at all. And hardly in the current situation can we afford to place any emphasis on this ...
Loans, but to whom loans are inexpensive?
Another option for a reasonable, as it seems, spending money is to stimulate Russian exports. And this, in general, looks already much better, but even here there were some pitfalls ...
Yes, credit support for those who want to buy Russian weapons, build a nuclear power plant under our project, or perhaps acquire some technological equipment is a good thing. True, all this is being done now, and it is rather difficult to understand what the difference will be. What, loans will become even more preferential? It will be possible for borrowers not to give them away at all? Or will we begin to pay extra credit to use our money?
Again, it is hard to believe that the export deliveries of our weapons will increase at once at times. And the rest also applies. The mentioned markets are already saturated, so politicized that the growth potential in these areas is very weak, and somewhere near-zero. Again, if we talk about weapons, often there the main criterion is effectiveness, useless junk - even ours, even European, even American - and nobody needs a spirit.
But there is another, deeper, mistake in these arguments. Systematic, so to speak ... Unfortunately, our most ingenious economists naively believe that the owners of world markets will allow us to create a successful export-oriented economy. But both our own experience and some inferences abstracted from the economy allow us to say with confidence that this will never happen.
Dear comrade economists, understand already that Washington will never repeat with Russia the mistake that he made with China. Having once wished to create a kettlebell on the legs of the USSR, the Americans went to rapprochement with Beijing, provided him with the most favored nation status in trade, did not impede the development of its trade with the countries of Western Europe, and as a result received a monster that would soon make America second to the very fact of its existence the dollar is unnecessary, and the American AUGs are obsolete and low-powered.
They cannot afford such a failure even with Russia categorically. Therefore, let us leave all the good discussions about lush Western markets, export of deep processing products and the creation of a global financial center in Moscow to children, HSE graduates and the best Russian bookkeepers in the world.
Everyone who has even a drop of reason needs to understand: Russia can rise only by developing its own, domestic market, the significant demand of its population, and its high level of consumption. Only in this way, having abandoned the doubtful orientation to the markets of “developed countries”, we can make our own state developed. So, the way out of the WTO, protectionism, the development of cooperation with the closest (and often also in very difficult situations) states, such as Belarus and Kazakhstan. Only within the framework of such integration, within the framework of a single market, which jointly refused membership in the WTO and, in the future, assumes joint entry into it under completely new conditions, can we move forward as we need, and not as we are dictated from " Washington Regional Committee. "
This is all the more easy to do, because the lion's share of our exports is, nevertheless, the export of raw materials. And the West, no matter how much he wants it, cannot refuse Russian raw materials (otherwise it would have long ago refused).
Temporary clarifications of consciousness?
By the way, one of the ways of spending "extra" money involves a massive purchase of imported equipment for the development of domestic production. Which, in general, already looks quite reasonable: it is guaranteed not to accelerate inflation, it stimulates the very “import substitution” that we all love so much (and with which it is still very difficult), creates new jobs, expands the tax base, and so on ...
True, there is only one, but very unpleasant nuance: we are unlikely to be able to purchase everything we want. Well, they’re just not selling critical technologies, and that’s it. Neither in electronics, nor in metalworking, nor in communications, nor in a couple of dozen positions. In addition, there is a considerable risk of inefficient investment, such as someone A. Chubais bought, in due time, equipment for the production of microchips using the outdated (even at the time of negotiations!) Technology of 65 nanometers.
And yet it is interesting. Provided that it is not officials and “effective managers” from “state corporations” who will be engaged in this, but a real business that needs loans, even the most favorable ones, to give back sooner or later, the result can be much greater than losses. Moreover, we need to import substitution in many directions, from breeding chicken eggs (did you know, by the way, that all our well-being with providing chicken meat is based on the import of breeding eggs?) To cosmetics and, sorry, personal hygiene products.
Of course, one can’t help but recall that money can be invested in national projects, having, thereby, even more profit from them, but alas, money for them has already been provided for in the budget, and partially allocated. And judging by how those that have already been allocated are being mastered, adding nothing there so far is not necessary - this would be mastered ...
And yet, let's state the following: the fact that some damned control was found on the damned “budget rule”, at least in the form of pre-prescribed restrictions, is already good. Voluntary "self-castration" seems to be over, we have accumulated these funds and now, I hope, money will nevertheless go into the economy.
The main thing here is that they do not listen to my beloved Elvira Sakhipzadovna. And because we know them, many probably will want to take the path of least resistance and simply increase the cutoff line. It was 7%, it will become 10%, for example. Well, what about such and such, some kind of pathetic three percent!
And we together will continue to be proud of such huge reserves of money in a small box. And somewhere in the outback, slicing the last stale loaf, an ordinary Russian woman, an unemployed single mother will remember how much money we have in store for a “rainy day”, and even drop a tear of tender emotion on bread.
Again, salty bread tastes better ...
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