');
The Unz Review •�An Alternative Media Selection$
A Collection of Interesting, Important, and Controversial Perspectives Largely Excluded from the American Mainstream Media
RSS
Show by ⇅�
Email This Page to Someone

�Remember My Information



=>
� Earlier Items �
BlogAnatoly Karlin Archive
/
Economy
�BlogAnatoly Karlin Archive
/
Economy

◄►Bookmark◄❌►▲ ▼Toggle AllToC▲▼Add to LibraryRemove from Library •�B
Show CommentNext New CommentNext New ReplyRead More
ReplyAgree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
AgreeDisagreeThanksLOLTroll
These buttons register your public Agreement, Disagreement, Thanks, LOL, or Troll with the selected comment. They are ONLY available to recent, frequent commenters who have saved their Name+Email using the 'Remember My Information' checkbox, and may also ONLY be used three times during any eight hour period.
Ignore Commenter Follow Commenter
Book Review: Arthur K. Kroeber - China's Economy
•�September 8, 2019
•�8,500 Words •�216 Comments
Arthur K. Kroeber - CHINA'S ECONOMY (2016) Rating: 4/5 TLDR: Comprehensive and very readable overview of Chinese economy from a China expert, with especially useful discussions on Chinese SOE's, financial system, and the validity of Chinese economic statistics (spoiler: They're fine). Learned some interesting new things from it, despite having already read a considerable amount... Read More
AI Taxmen
•�August 1, 2019
•�700 Words •�52 Comments
Rather interesting article from the FT on Russia's recent successes in VAT collection, which is soaring thanks to digitization and AI. How was this done? Basically, hiring IT nerds and giving them authority. I wrote about a seemingly similar reshuffle at Rosstat earlier this year, in which an ageing Soviet-era economist was replaced with a... Read More
Volokolamsk 2017
•�July 21, 2019
•�1,200 Words •�117 Comments
Volokolamsk is a small, medieval Russian town about 120 km west of Moscow, where I spent about a couple of years before being taken to the West. As a strategic portage point on the River Lama - the name Volokolamsk literally means "portage on the Lama" (волок на Ламе) - it figured in numerous battles,... Read More
Time for Another Recession?
•�May 29, 2019
•�500 Words •�44 Comments
While predicting recessions might be a fool's errand, a generally reliable rule of thumb is that they come and go once a decade, and unlike in 2016, I do think right about now (next 12 months) is the time. 1. You have the trade war with China, which is going from bad to worse now... Read More
Russia's 13 Plans for 2019-2024
•�February 17, 2019
•�1,300 Words •�41 Comments
Recently, the Russian government published its 25.7 trillion ruble ($390 billion) plan for the years 2019-2024 [pdf] - Putin's fourth Presidential term - for socio-economic development. This is a quick summary on the request of a reader. PS. Numbers are given using one USD = 60 rubles conversion. All end dates, unless otherwise indicates, refer... Read More
It's Time for Ukraine to Pay Up
•�March 30, 2017
•�500 Words •�16 Comments
On March 29, the High Court in London has decided that the sanctity of Eurobond debt trumps Ukraine's special pleading to treat the Russian $3 billion loan to the late Yanukovych regime as odious debt and wave it away on account of Russia's supposed "aggression" against it. This is not the final judgment, which is... Read More
The Russian Aerospace Industry Is Rapidly Recovering
•�September 2, 2013
•�200 Words •�9 Comments
More info against the Department of Russia Only Produces Oil and Vodka: Here are some graphs of Russian aerospace manufacturing courtesy of the Reality vs. Myths blog. (2013 figures are projections). Total helicopter construction has now basically converged with the levels of the late RSFSR. Aircraft construction is only halfway there, but its state is... Read More
Russia Overtakes Germany to Become Europe's Largest Economy
•�July 12, 2013
•�300 Words •�38 Comments
See data. For real, this time. While it is perhaps a big strange to start thinking of Russia as a high-income economy, it's not so surprising when looking at concrete statistics such as vehicle consumption, Internet penetration, etc. - all of which are now at typical South European and advanced East-Central European levels (even if... Read More
Eurasian Integration Is A Liberal Project Opposed By Neocon Bolsheviks
•�July 10, 2013
•�600 Words •�8 Comments
My latest for VoR/US-Russia Experts panel. Hope you like the title. :) The political fragmentation of the Soviet Union was one of the major contributing factors to the "hyper-depression" that afflicted not only Russia but all the other constituent republics in the 1990's. The Soviet economy had been an integrated whole; an aircraft might have... Read More
Russia’s Economic “Stagnation” In Global Perspective: Continued
•�July 3, 2013
•�400 Words •�29 Comments
It is now a staple of "common wisdom" to such an extent that there is little point in digging up specific news items. Bound up in red tape and crushed by the weight of state regulations, the argument goes, the Russian economy is doomed to years of renewed Brezhnevite stagnation - with the government increasing... Read More
Translation: Russia's Growth Rate May Plummet in the Next Decade
•�May 24, 2013
•�1,000 Words
According to several experts, Russia may be facing a period of protracted low growth rates now that its GDP per capita has recently exceeded $16,000. Vedomosti's Olga Kuvshinova has the details. A variety of reasons are brought up to explain the Russian economy's slowdown to 1.6% growth in the first quarter by experts and officials:... Read More
The West Made Its Bed, Now Russia Will Lie In China's
•�April 11, 2013
•�900 Words •�10 Comments
The latest US-Russia.org Experts Panel discussion was about Russia's burgeoning partnership with China. I especially recommend Mercouris' contribution which - although unfortunately titled by VoR's editorial staff)) - is otherwise quite brilliant. My own effort follows below: First of all, let me preface that I’m one of the biggest China bulls around. Its economy in... Read More
Russia Moving Into the Fastlane
•�March 29, 2013
•�400 Words •�1 Comment
One of the most reliable indicators of influence is access to cars. They are the standard symbol of affluence and middle-class status the world over. They are also far more understandable at the everyday level than things like the PPP GDP per capita, or the number of burgers your national McWage will buy. Following on... Read More
Russians Produce 7 Cars for Every 10 They Buy
•�March 28, 2013
•�400 Words •�3 Comments
One common trope about the Russian economy is that it has virtually no manufacturing to speak of and lives off "oil rents" that can collapse any day. Whiles there is a small nugget of truth to this assertion, but by and large it is simply false. It is true that a great chunk of Russian... Read More
The Western Media's War Against Cyprus and Russia
•�March 21, 2013
•�1,700 Words •�42 Comments
If you ever manage to get a troupe as diverse as Latynina, Mark Adomanis, the Cypriot Communist Party, virtually every financial analyst, Prokhorov, and Putin united in condemning your crass stupidity and cack-handedness, it's probably time to stop and ponder. But it's safe to say that's not what the Troika - the European Commission, European... Read More
A Few Myths About Chavez's Venezuela
•�March 9, 2013
•�1,000 Words •�6 Comments
Okay, I promise this will be the last post on the matter. But some of the tropes that come up time and time again in coverage of Chavez's legacy, from neocons and faux-leftists alike, just have to be addressed for me to rest easy. Note that this is NOT meant to be comprehensive; just some... Read More
Russia Now Produces As Many Cars As the USSR Did At Its Peak
•�February 25, 2013
•�100 Words •�14 Comments
As I write the book, I create a lot of graphs. Here is one of them. So in manufacturing terms, as far as cars are concerned, the "deindustrialization" era is decidedly over. Of course it's also important to note that in 1985 they were producing this whereas today they are producing this as well as... Read More
Andrew Ryvkin's Strange Ideas About the Russian Economy
•�January 21, 2013
•�900 Words •�6 Comments
By the usual standards of Guardian reporting on Russia, this one by GQ Russia editor Andrew Ryvkin is... well, about par for the course. Citing a recent PwC report that Russia will overtake Germany to become Europe's biggest economy in 2030, he asks, "Should we believe them?" Well, the PwC is just repeating predictions made... Read More
Da Russophile's Predictions for 2013
•�January 5, 2013
•�1,500 Words •�33 Comments
I just remembered I'd made some in 2012. It's time to see how they went, plus make predictions for the coming year. Of course I failed to predict the biggest thing of them all: The hacking that made me throw in the towel on Sublime Oblivion (remember that?), but with the silver lining that I... Read More
Blast from the Past: What Jim Rogers Said About Russia In 2003
•�September 21, 2012
•�4,400 Words •�4 Comments
This guy isn't as clear-headed as Eric Kraus, is he? But does have company in the form of Andrew Miller, Jeffrey Tailer, "Streetwise Professor", and Ed Lucas. H/t Mark Adomanis. ----- Original Message ----- From: Dmitry Alimov To: [email�protected] Sent: Friday, September 12, 2003 11:28 PM Subject: Conversation with Jim Rogers - HILARIOUS Jim Rogers,... Read More
ARCS of Progress – the Arctic World In 2050
•�August 20, 2012
•�3,800 Words •�18 Comments
Editorial note: This article was first published at Arctic Progress in February 2011. In the next few weeks I will be reposting the best material from there. The Arctic to become a pole of global economic growth? Image credit – Scenic Reflections. - Northward ho!: An account of the far North and its people. In... Read More
Russia Overtaking USSR, Converging with West, On Food, Housing Consumption
•�August 18, 2012
•�700 Words •�4 Comments
Just to hammer down the myth of Russian impoverishment one more time (with the help of graphs from Sergey Zhuravlev's blog)... In the past few years, in terms of basic necessities (food, clothing, housing) Russia has basically (re)converged to where the Soviet Union left off. Here is a graph of food consumption via Zhuravlev. At... Read More
The World Economy's Orbit
•�August 15, 2012
•�200 Words •�1 Comment
The map below shows the shifting location of the world's economic center of gravity. It was compiled by McKinsey and reproduced by The Economist. All is broadly as one might expect. In pre-industrial times, the world's economic center of gravity was always basically triangulated between India, China, and the Roman Empire (later North-West Europe). By... Read More
The Guardian's Pussy Worship
•�July 29, 2012
•�1,000 Words •�30 Comments
From their latest Editorial / anti-Putin rant, via Mercouris. It is not with the ideological rhetoric that I have an issue with; it's The Guardian, after all. Nor am I especially interested in defending Pussy Riot's prosecution (my own views on the matter jive with Kononenko's). I do however have an issue with the The... Read More
On Defending the Soviet Union
•�July 12, 2012
•�1,100 Words •�197 Comments
Contrary to what some might try to take from my post on the longterm failure of the Soviet economy, I am not an anti-Soviet ideologue. I loathe lies about its achievements and the blanket condemnations directed its way by moralistic poseurs every bit as much or more than I detest reality-challenged attempts to paint it... Read More
The Soviet Economy - Charting Failure
•�June 22, 2012
•�1,600 Words •�143 Comments
Many Communists, leftists, and even patriots (I'm sorry to say) have a pronounced tendency to make out the Soviet economy as not quite the resounding failure it really was - or even to paint it as a success story that was only brought down by perestroika and liberal reforms. The above chart - based on... Read More
Russian Wages Are Fast Converging to Western Levels
•�June 21, 2012
•�900 Words •�22 Comments
Via The Economist, I've come across some fascinating research by Orley Ashenfelter and Stepan Jurajda (Comparing Real Wage Rates, 2012) showing how real wages can be meaningfully compared across different regions by taking notes on prices and wages in McDonald's restaurants. The methodology seems solid. Big Macs are a very standardized product, hence they are... Read More
Actually China Is Probably Already Bigger
•�June 19, 2012
•�200 Words •�2 Comments
Despite the generally loathsome nature of The Economist, it does have its advantages most of which can be reduced to its Daily Charts blog which focuses on statistics as opposed to rhetoric. According to the chart above, as of 2012 ever more people, especially in the developed world, are starting to believe that the China... Read More
Potemkin Georgia: Exposing the Lies of the Saakashvili PR Machine
•�April 9, 2012
•�2,600 Words •�59 Comments
Despite the unremitting hostility of its Russian neighbor, which crescendoed in a military occupation of a chunk of its territories, plucky Georgia's commitment to reform and democratic values will ensure its rapid development into a "booming Western-style economy." Under its charismatic Western-trained President, Saakashvili, it has rooted out corruption, ushered in untold prosperity and freedoms,... Read More
Moscow Isn't Another Country
•�April 3, 2012
•�500 Words •�11 Comments
There is a certain Russian expression: "Москва — не Россия" (i.e. Moscow, isn't Russia), to denote the idea that while the capital may be rich, at least by Russian standards, the rest of the country languishes in grinding poverty. This is a trope is frequently taken up by the Western media, which at times presents... Read More
Education as the Elixir of Growth III
•�February 25, 2012
•�2,800 Words •�20 Comments
Just in case you thought the correlation between human capital and economic development was an artifice of the post-socialist world, here is a similar graph (R2=0.4273) for all the world's countries that have participated in the Math and Science portions of the PISA or TIMMS (8th grade) international standardized student assessments. The methodology is the... Read More
Are Russians As Rich As Czechs?
•�January 31, 2012
•�300 Words •�20 Comments
In terms of new cars, they now are. According to 2011 statistics, Russians bought 17.6 new automobiles per 1000 people. This indicator is still quite a bit below most of Western Europe, such as Germany's 38.5, France's 33.4, Britain's 31.9, Italy's 30.1, and Spain's 20.0. However, it has already overtaken most of East-Central Europe, whose... Read More
The Race to Collapse
•�November 25, 2011
•�1,900 Words •�79 Comments
As readers of this blog know, I have long regarded the return of economic crisis as an inevitability (because the core energy and no-growth predicament facing the Western world wasn't solved in 2008-9 but merely kicked further down the road by increasing debt and printing money). It looks like 2012 will be the crunch year,... Read More
BRIC's of Stability: Why Occupy Wall Street Isn't Coming to Moscow or Beijing
•�November 7, 2011
•�1,000 Words •�83 Comments
As repeatedly noted by Mark Adomanis, the Russian liberals and the Western media have predicted about 10 of the last zero Russian revolutions. Likewise, the "Jasmine Revolution" in China that was the subject of so much talk about a year ago has fizzled out like a wet firework. Meanwhile, the Arab world remains in the... Read More
The Russophobes Were Right... (About the Wrong Country)
•�September 17, 2011
•�700 Words •�87 Comments
After peaking in 2007 at the height of its oil boom, the Russian economy slid off the rails, with GDP collapsing by 25% from peak to trough. Attempts to stem the decline by arresting pessimistic economists failed. Its image as a tiger economy, heavily promoted by Kremlin ideologues, was revealed to be a sham. Though... Read More
Open Thread: the US Debt Crisis
•�July 30, 2011
•�1,200 Words •�48 Comments
As with the previous such post, this thread will primarily serve as a meeting ground where S/O readers can discuss the impending US fiscal crisis. As usual, I try to provide some context and avenues for discussion: 1. On August 2nd, give or take a few days, the US Treasury will run out of money.... Read More
OPEN DISCUSSION: Russia's Economy In the Next Global Crisis
•�July 16, 2011
•�700 Words •�24 Comments
The response to the last global crisis only consisted of kicking the can further down the road, and the chickens are showing signs of coming home to roost. Of particular note: (1) the recent upwards spike on bond yields for Italy and Spain*; (2) The political paralysis in the US that may (conceivably, if unlikely)... Read More
Russia's Economic "Stagnation" In Global Perspective
•�July 14, 2011
•�1,500 Words •�38 Comments
Иn the wake of the 2009 recession, declinist rhetoric has come to dominate discussion of Russia's economic prospects. Jim O'Neill, the founder of the BRIC's concept, has his work cut out defending Russia's expulsion from the group in favor of Indonesia, Mexico, or some other random middle-sized country. Journalists in the Western media claim its... Read More
Names of the Oligarchs On A Map of the Motherland*
•�July 2, 2011
•�600 Words •�12 Comments
Not really arguing anything in this post, just sharing some interesting stats I found about the affluent class in Russia (as compared with BRIC's and others). First, as we know Russia is (in)famous for the opulence of it oligarchy. But according to the research firm Wealth-X, despite a relatively high number of billionaires, its overall... Read More
Given Free Publicity On NTV, Khodorkovsky Only Incriminates Himself Further
•�June 11, 2011
•�200 Words •�9 Comments
Following the failure of Khodorkovsky's appeal against his prison sentence for theft and money laundering, state-owned NTV aired a positive segment on his case on national prime time. Most sides of the story were mentioned: Amnesty International's designation of him as a "prisoner of conscience", the Kremlin's view that it was only the criminal justice... Read More
National Comparisons: Freedom and Security
•�April 5, 2011
•�6,500 Words •�15 Comments
In the first part of my series comparing Russia, Britain and the US, I am going to look at their levels of social freedoms. While political scientists go on about to what extent a country has "democracy" or "rule of law", this ignores that these arcane concepts have practically zero relevance to the everyday lives... Read More
REPRINT: Is Putin Pitiable, or Is the Financial Times Corrupt?
•�December 30, 2010
•�2,700 Words •�14 Comments
A thundering takedown of the Financial Times transparently one-sided coverage of the Khodorkovsky affair -and Khodorkovsky says Putin is ‘pitiable’ can also serve as a palimpsest for Western media coverage of this topic in general - from Eric Kraus at Truth and Beauty. BTW, do feel free to add his blog Truth and Beauty to... Read More
Exercises in Banality: the Moral Preening By Khodorkovsky Apologists
•�December 29, 2010
•�500 Words •�11 Comments
My views on Khodorkovsky - and by extension his being found guilty of $25bn embezzlement - aren't exactly a secret (1, 2, 3) so I'll keep this brief. 1. As usual, the only people who care about this are Western politicians eager to score cheap shots against Russia's "assault" on transparency and rule of law... Read More
A Response to Vadim Nikitin's Arguments for the "Liberation" of Khodorkovsky and the Kuriles
•�November 5, 2010
•�3,600 Words •�17 Comments
Over at his Foreign Policy Russia blog, and (provocatively?) a few days before Russia's Unity Day, Vadim Nikitin penned the post Khodorkovsky = Kurils in which he argued for their mutual liberation from the Russian state. Whereas in their time both the conquest of the Kurils and the destruction of robber oligarch Khodorkovsky had been... Read More
Russia Updates: Luzhkov, Rearmament, GDP
•�October 2, 2010
•�1,000 Words •�13 Comments
As you may have noticed, posting has slowed down in the past few days, mostly thanks to a combination of (1) Kindle, (2) 中文 and (3) the natural periods of apathy that afflict most non-pro bloggers. I don't really see that changing until the end of the year... 1. Sayonara, Luzhkov. Props to Jesse Heath... Read More
The Kremlinologist Catechism
•�August 27, 2010
•�700 Words •�9 Comments
This is a reprint of my article for the Sep/Oct 2010 issue of Russian Life magazine. It is a condensed version of Rosstat and Levada are Russophobia’s Bane. Enjoy! There is a Catechism that dominates American discourse on Russia today. Just flip through The Washington Post’s editorials, peruse American political science journals or listen (cringe)... Read More
The Red Slope to Caviar Road
•�July 23, 2010
•�500 Words •�14 Comments
The Russian magazine Esquire came up with some pretty shocking figures: It would be cheaper to pave one 48km road for the Sochi Olympics with elite beluga caviar than asphalt. The total cost would come in at a cool 227 billion rubles, or $160 million per kilometer - five times higher than what it costs... Read More
Russia's Roads to Nowhere, or: Build Railways Instead!
•�July 12, 2010
•�1,100 Words •�10 Comments
Though it's not quite true that Russia has "no roads, only directions", the old saying isn't far off the mark. The World Bank's recent report on Russia's economy notes that the Eurasian giant's road network is primitive and crumbling, coming in 111th in a global ranking (the railway system does much better at 33rd); more... Read More
Some Updates on Russia's Economy
•�July 5, 2010
•�1,900 Words •�8 Comments
There is a wide divergence of views on Russia's economic future. The pessimists project near zero growth (e.g. SWP, Guriev & Zhuravskaya), or even a renewed collapse if Europe goes haywire. The inventor of the BRIC's concept (and Russia bull) Jim O'Neill of Goldman Sachs believes it will manage to eke out growth of 7%,... Read More
Rosstat and Levada Are Russophobia's Bane
•�July 1, 2010
•�2,700 Words •�27 Comments
Still no economic collapse. Still no anti-Putin bunt. Still no demographic apocalypse. As the years pass by, Russophobe canard after Russophobe trope is relegated to the dust-heap of history, only to rise back out of its grave, zombie-like, whenever Boris Nemtsov pens a brilliant indictment hysterical screed on the failures of Putinism or when the... Read More
� Earlier Items �
"Economy" Items Across Entire Archive
Anatoly Karlin
About Anatoly Karlin

I am a blogger, thinker, and businessman in the SF Bay Area. I’m originally from Russia, spent many years in Britain, and studied at U.C. Berkeley.

One of my tenets is that ideologies tend to suck. As such, I hesitate about attaching labels to myself. That said, if it’s really necessary, I suppose “liberal-conservative neoreactionary” would be close enough.

Though I consider myself part of the Orthodox Church, my philosophy and spiritual views are more influenced by digital physics, Gnosticism, and Russian cosmism than anything specifically Judeo-Christian.