The bet is placed, there are no more bets ... and it cannot be
About a new rate, either good or nothing
Despite the protests of the business community and all the catastrophic forecasts, the Russian Central Bank went on to tighten the monetary policy again. The tightening is unprecedented in the current environment - the key rate has been raised by one percent at once - up to 6,5% per annum.
The last time we had such a rate was shortly before the pandemic - at the end of 2019. Low rates at a time when Covid-19 was particularly rampant helped save some of the economy, but overall, they did little. Moreover, the Central Bank itself was driven into losses, for which Madame Chairman had to blush both in the Duma and in front of the guarantor.
And what do we have at the exit from the pandemic - we will not wind ourselves up - the light at the end of the tunnel is already visible. A cheap loan is becoming a pipe dream even for a narrow circle of the elite - authorized banks, which have not yet been denied access to the resources of the highest level - the state.
But the real sector now has no right to count on any acceptable credit terms. The same thing, in order to get substantial sums for a long time, approximately like "happy" mortgage holders, now, by all indications, can be forgotten for several years.
Until the world cope with the pandemic at the very least. There are more and more hopes for that every day. We do not know about others, but for the authors - for sure. In any case, the effect of the gathering pace of vaccination on the general public is becoming, hopefully, less and less dubious.
But how can you understand where the overheating of the economy, or rather the consumer sector, has come from in Russia now, if the majority of the population usually has only the wind in their pockets? And why do manufacturers stubbornly put into the price what should have been invested in new production?
These are our “stimulators” of inflation, according to the head of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation Elvira Nabiullina. No, in order to compete with others, even foreign ones ... So they need to shrink so that they do not get money for nothing on credit.
Short-term and neutral
It should be recalled that a month and a half ago, Ms. Nabiullina, recall - Elvira Sakhipzadovna, who is also the head of the Central Bank, noted that it is impossible to exclude the possibility of maintaining the indicator at the current level, "Because in our life, which is much richer than forecasts, various unforeseen circumstances can occur."
The indicator is, as you understand, the key rate of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation. On which we have no one and no one really lends. Although it is quite possible for several authorized banks, they do not take. Preferring other instruments, starting with just dollars and euros and ending with other instruments of the same Central Bank of the Russian Federation.
Both that and another can be attached to someone's management, and speculative circulation can be put into circulation, in short, everything is better than straightforward borrowing on deliberately unacceptable conditions.
At the same time - a month and a half ago, the Central Bank did not exclude an increase in the rate in the range from 0,25 to 1 percent. That is, no one deceived us, although not long ago no one believed in “a whole percent”.
Is it really that bad now?
There are very, very big doubts about that. As they say in Odessa - you can't wait! The real sector, the one that has not yet died and is not swallowed up by the oligarchs directly tied to the authorized banks beloved by the Central Bank, has long been accustomed to surviving regardless of what the Central Bank of the Russian Federation comes up with.
In 2014, after the Crimean spring, everything was about three times worse - the rate was raised at a time by the same 6,5 percent as it is now. Up to 17 percent per annum. And nothing - all or almost all survived.
Today, alas, too many have not survived, but the policy of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation has a very indirect relationship to this. It cannot be ruled out, by the way, that the current tightening of credit conditions is another step towards the extinction of everything in the economy that is truly unsustainable.
And who benefits from it?
Let's recall a word incomprehensible to many target, to put it more simply, is a rigid benchmark, and its significance for the inflation rate in Russia. This means - for the key rate of the Bank of Russia. This is exactly 4 percent. In a year or a year, it is as convenient for anyone.
Meanwhile, thanks to the pandemic, Russia received a little less than a year ago not just zero inflation, but deflation, that is, an excess of commodity supply over money supply. Due to the fact that the population had almost no free money at all.
And production, due to measures of state support, continued to release products, and from abroad the goods came almost without interruption. The situation repeated itself and just a couple of weeks ago - in mid-July, already in 2021, we again had deflation.
But our most central and independent in the world, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, following its "correct" course, was not at all embarrassed. Although many analysts, including the eternal opponent of the Bank of Russia and the Ministry of Finance, Valentin Katasonov, believed that the observed dynamics would keep the Central Bank from "making too harsh a decision."
I could not keep it, as we can see. Most of the experts, on the basis of which the analysts of the same Central Bank of the Russian Federation formed their consensus forecast for the key rate, more reminiscent of a verdict on business, expected its increase to 6,5% per annum.
The Bank of Russia traditionally likes to give completely objective reasons for their sometimes absolutely subjective decisions. The same Elvira Nabiullina immediately said about the summer minimum inflation that she "should not mislead anyone." This is, they say, just a tradition, nothing more.
It is not clear why the Central Bank is unable to support such a good tradition by lowering, not raising rates? It's the same time. But the chairman of the board of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation has a familiar logic - here in Russia it is not only a pandemic, when the public stubbornly does not run to vaccination points.
We are still tall, but in general - frankly “Overstated level of consumer and mortgage lending”. In addition, in Russia one should always "remember about the dynamics of oil prices, about the increase in budget revenues and the upcoming elections."
And we also have "Spending on infrastructure projects is growing at the expense of the NWF"... And this is instead of hiding these funds in euros and dollars, and in eurodollar instruments, as it has been the custom for the Central Bank from time immemorial.
After all, as the head of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation teaches us, all the quotes of which both above and below are carefully taken by us in quotation marks,
"The tightening of monetary policy by the US Federal Reserve increases the risks of capital outflow from emerging markets and, consequently, the weakening of the ruble."
Isn't the Russian ruble nowhere weaker?
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