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This much should be evident given Russia's economic growth amidst the economic sanctions by the west. In reality these sanctions only hurt the west especially Europe more than it hurt Russia. That's where we are at in the world.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paddy234
As for the sanctions hurt the west more. Look at Europe, the effects of imposing sanctions on Russian oil and Gas in nations that are barely experiencing any growth compared to Russia which is powering forward. There's more to the west than the US
This argument is totally illogical. Yes, the EU countries took a hit with the oil and gas sanctions, but Russia took a much bigger hit when it lost its biggest export market for hydrocarbons, likely forever. Europe was quick to react and was able to recieve oil and gas from other countries, like the US, Algeria, Nigeria and the UAE. Simultaneously it quickstarted renewable energy projects like wind and solar plants like never before, and nuclear is also making a comeback. Thanks to Russia, the transition to green and renewable energy took leaps forward. There was no oil, gas or energy shortages in Europe either in 2022 or 2023.
The second illogal argument is that Russia would've been some kind of driver of the European economy. It wasn't. It was a similar size economy as Italy, and while Italy is a regional powerhouse, it's not on an EU level as a whole. The Russian nominal GDP was before the war 9-10% of the total EU GDP, and the average monthly wage in Russia was smaller than any EU country, in many cases dramatically so. Spain hasn't been doing so great in the past decade, but the average net wage is 3 times that of Russia. Besides hydrocarbons, metals and fertilizer Russia didn't export much to the EU, because Russia doesn't produce anything else that Europeans would be interested in. Meanwhile European cars, electronics, food, luxury goods are globally attractive. It's very easy to find new markets in emerging economies, including BRICS countries.
Of course the sanctions hit Russia much more, because it lost access to a market 10 times its size, most Western companies left Russia, it was kicked out of SWIFT, it has a hard time getting foreign currency, and while sanctions evading is possible and happening, the prices for sanctioned goods have skyrocketed.
GDP and GDP growth is simply a metric to calculate the value of all goods and services produced during a timeframe. It's not an indicator how well an economy is doing or how healthy it is. Nazi Germany's highest GDP and GDP per capita was in 1944, when much of its cities were in rubble and it had already lost the war. The GDP grew because due to Albert Speer's efforts the war production was still growing. Ireland's GDP per capita is double of that of Germany's, and as both are European highly developed economies, the Irish should be double as wealthy as the Germans? But they aren't. Net salaries on average in Ireland are only €300 higher than in Germany, but when comparing to cost of living (PPP), the German wage is over €600 more valuable than the Irish. A month.
Same situation is with Russia now. Every tank and artillery shell produced raises the GDP, but when that tank is destroyed and artillery shell fired, that GDP is forever lost. The GDP grows because the government burns money on war production, but that stimulates only the war industry. As one third of the government spending is on military, that is away from infrastructure, healthcare, education and mechanisms how the Russian economy can prepare for not having access to Europe after the war.
The outlook for the Russian economy is very poor. Russia is literally killing its workforce, 1-1.5 million of its brightest youth have emigrated, all Western investment has fled, bankruptcies of companies have risen dramatically, the ruble has lost all value, the Central Bank has to spend tons of money to prop it up and has to try to control inflation at great cost. Soon Russia will have hundreds of thousands of traumatised, maimed and bitter veterans from the war coming home. It will lead to skyrocketing in crime and substance abuse, and some of the veterans will never rejoin the workforce again. It happened to the USSR during and after the Afghan War, and it happened in the US after the Vietnam War. And it's already happening today in Russia. But do you know who like bitter people who are violent and can use weapons? The Russian Mafia.
Other misconceptions are that we would be rapidly moving towards a multipolar world. We aren't. We are moving to a bipolar world where China is challenging the US led West's global hegemony. As was during the Cold War and the USSR and US. Where are the third or fourth poles?
While the economical strength of many countries like India might grow substantially, India has so far shown no interest in becoming a global player on the international stage. I remember one Indian official saying in 2022 that it's bad that the war in Ukraine is taking all of the West's attention, while there is growing food insecurity in the world at the same time. Did he suggest Modi that India should take initiative and try to solve the issue? No, he cried "why won't the West do something!?!?"
Another misconception is that a multipolar world would mean a more fair and stable world. Newsflash: it won't. China, Russia or Saudi-Arabia don't give a damn about fairness. Neither does the US, UK or France, but some of their inhabitants do. Remember FIFA World Cup in Qatar? Who were the only ones who cared about the slave workers who toiled and even died building the stadiums? Westerners. Not anything was heard from the BRICS countries.
China, Russia, Egypt, India, Indonesia etc have not shown any interest in making the world more fair, the first two are actively doing the opposite, and Egypt doesn't even care to take in Palestinian refugees, or for the fair treatment of them. India and Indonesia are solely focused on themselves.
Countries like Türkiye, Iran, UAE and Pakistan don't care about fairness either. They care about power, and they want more of it. They don't believe in decolonisation or equality or anything good for the world. They want the West to become weaker so that they can do nasty things without backlash from the West. Some of their inhabitants might want a more fair and equal world, but they don't have a say in those things.
I believe that a multipolar world would be inherently unstable, and possibly dangerous to small countries around the world. The world was multipolar before WWI where the poles competed for resources, colonies and alliances while building up their militaries, soon to be used against each other. And small countries like Belgium and Serbia suffered from it. Similarly, in the future small countries might be under pressure to prefer one pole over another, while other poles influence some other factions in the countries, which might lead to instability or even civil war. And those countries under pressure won't be Sweden, Australia, Canada or Portugal. They will be small and middle countries in the so-called Global South that already are unstable.
I think that democracy, human rights, freedom of speech and assembly, equality among genders, protection of minorities and freedom. Therefore I support the current Western hegemony, and wish that it continues. It might not be a perfect upholder of these values, but it's the only faction in the world that does. And any westerner that believes in the same values should think the same. If you want more equality and human rights, you should hope that countries like Sweden take a bigger role on the world stage, not countries like Iran.
Brazil 2024 GDP: 2.33 trillion USD
Brazil 2014 GDP: 2.46 trillion USD
Yes Europe is ****ed, but the US isn't and that US is larger than all of Europe combined anyway.
Indonesia's population is like 250 million. Growing 400 billion in the last 10 years is terrible. Taiwan only has 23 million people and grew close to 300 billion in the last 10 years without any population growth.
Brazil 2024 GDP in R$:R$ 10,900 trilions ($1 = R$ 4,90)
Brazil 2014 GDP in R$:R$ 5,779 trilions ($1 = R$ 2,647)
Yes, there was some growth during this time.
I know you're the guy who says that GDP in national currency or GDP PPP doesn't matter, just the nominal converted to dollars, but anyone who understands economics knows that that doesn't make sense. The dollar is going through a period overvalued by the policies of the American FED, but over time it will stabilize around the middle of what it was before the pandemic and today.
In the last three years, the growth of Brazilian economic activity has exceeded both market estimates and those of the government itself, remaining around 3%.
A series of signs that there is a change in the growth trend of the Gross Domestic Product that is not yet fully captured by market prediction models.
The investment rate of the Brazilian economy has grown consistently in recent years and reached 18.7% as a proportion of GDP in the second quarter of 2022.
if the investment to GDP ratio is between 18% and 20% and the TFP growth is 0.0%, the increase in GDP will be between 2.0% and 2.4%. Estimating a TFP of 0.5%, GDP growth is between 2.6% and 2.9%.
Growth of 3% may not be spectacular, but constant growth of 3% over time in a country without vegetative growth and already being a middle-income country at GDP per capita level is not negligible, but who knows, maybe if the investment rate rises a little more the potencial growth rate of 4% over time can be achieved, that would be already very good
Russia and China would love to turn BRICs into some kind of an anti-Western alliance but the addition of India is complicating things, for China especially. Still, it is kind of sad to see supposed democracies like India, Brazil and South Africa even partially giving legitimacy to BRICs especially when Russia is being treated like its invasion of Ukraine is no big deal.
The term BRIC was created by an analyst at Goldman Sachs, economist Jim O’Neill in the early 2000s to group 4 large, rapidly growing emerging countries that offered great opportunities for investors.
From then on, the governments of these four countries (Brazil, Russia, China and India) began to get closer and cooperate in several areas.
Brazil uses the BRICS to project influence at a global level, since as a non-aligned country during the Cold War, Brazil did not have great international relevance, and mainly to gain foreign markets. Europe, for example, has always been quite protectionist, closing its markets to third world countries.
Europe, Australia and the USA are Brazil's major competitors in the world food production market and when Brazil started to have preferences over China, mainly our negative trade balance problem was reversed.
Brazilian left-wing governments saw in the so-called ''global south'' an opportunity for economic and technological cooperation, a way to break the economic and technological dependence of former European colonizers and the USA. And this has been working, today there is already a great deal of trade between developing countries, the trade cycle inherited from the colonial era, metropolis vs colony only, has been broken.
The problem is that China and especially Russia, the disputes with the developed world (West) are more ideological than purely economic as for Brazil and India.
This argument is totally illogical. Yes, the EU countries took a hit with the oil and gas sanctions, but Russia took a much bigger hit when it lost its biggest export market for hydrocarbons, likely forever. Europe was quick to react and was able to recieve oil and gas from other countries, like the US, Algeria, Nigeria and the UAE. Simultaneously it quickstarted renewable energy projects like wind and solar plants like never before, and nuclear is also making a comeback. Thanks to Russia, the transition to green and renewable energy took leaps forward. There was no oil, gas or energy shortages in Europe either in 2022 or 2023.
The second illogal argument is that Russia would've been some kind of driver of the European economy. It wasn't. It was a similar size economy as Italy, and while Italy is a regional powerhouse, it's not on an EU level as a whole. The Russian nominal GDP was before the war 9-10% of the total EU GDP, and the average monthly wage in Russia was smaller than any EU country, in many cases dramatically so. Spain hasn't been doing so great in the past decade, but the average net wage is 3 times that of Russia. Besides hydrocarbons, metals and fertilizer Russia didn't export much to the EU, because Russia doesn't produce anything else that Europeans would be interested in. Meanwhile European cars, electronics, food, luxury goods are globally attractive. It's very easy to find new markets in emerging economies, including BRICS countries.
Of course the sanctions hit Russia much more, because it lost access to a market 10 times its size, most Western companies left Russia, it was kicked out of SWIFT, it has a hard time getting foreign currency, and while sanctions evading is possible and happening, the prices for sanctioned goods have skyrocketed.
GDP and GDP growth is simply a metric to calculate the value of all goods and services produced during a timeframe. It's not an indicator how well an economy is doing or how healthy it is. Nazi Germany's highest GDP and GDP per capita was in 1944, when much of its cities were in rubble and it had already lost the war. The GDP grew because due to Albert Speer's efforts the war production was still growing. Ireland's GDP per capita is double of that of Germany's, and as both are European highly developed economies, the Irish should be double as wealthy as the Germans? But they aren't. Net salaries on average in Ireland are only €300 higher than in Germany, but when comparing to cost of living (PPP), the German wage is over €600 more valuable than the Irish. A month.
Same situation is with Russia now. Every tank and artillery shell produced raises the GDP, but when that tank is destroyed and artillery shell fired, that GDP is forever lost. The GDP grows because the government burns money on war production, but that stimulates only the war industry. As one third of the government spending is on military, that is away from infrastructure, healthcare, education and mechanisms how the Russian economy can prepare for not having access to Europe after the war.
The outlook for the Russian economy is very poor. Russia is literally killing its workforce, 1-1.5 million of its brightest youth have emigrated, all Western investment has fled, bankruptcies of companies have risen dramatically, the ruble has lost all value, the Central Bank has to spend tons of money to prop it up and has to try to control inflation at great cost. Soon Russia will have hundreds of thousands of traumatised, maimed and bitter veterans from the war coming home. It will lead to skyrocketing in crime and substance abuse, and some of the veterans will never rejoin the workforce again. It happened to the USSR during and after the Afghan War, and it happened in the US after the Vietnam War. And it's already happening today in Russia. But do you know who like bitter people who are violent and can use weapons? The Russian Mafia.
Russia is in dire straits.
This is simply not true. US imported gas to Europe costs four times as much as on the other side of the Atlantic angering many EU countries. Cutting off Russian gas and being forced to import from other nations aswell as invest in alternative means is costing Europe significantly. Remember we are talking about a Europe that is now almost economically stagnant. As i said these have HURT the west more so than it has hurt Russia because it is Europe that is in a more vulnerable position than Russia economically which whether you like it or not is doing very well and is expected to do so over the coming years if we look at the IMF. Of course events can quickly change that. Russia might have lost it's share of the Western market but all this is doing is pushing them into closer partnership with their own allies who all want to become independent eventually of US influence.
As for how well an economy is doing or how healthy it is. This isn't at all irrelevant to this discussion. GDP is largely an indicator of a nation's power. Why on earth therefore would we be discussing wage strength? Germans might enjoy a higher standard of living than China but China has more influence in Global affairs and is significantly more powerful. Also you seem to imply people's wage strength as being the main indicator of having a high standard of living but that is not true. Ireland and Germany in terms of standard of living are both identical which is a much more significant factor in looking at how well not just an economy of a nation functions but the health of it's social and political structure. Many G7 nations such as the US and UK do very poor in this regard due to severe inequality
The outlook for the Russian economy is quite good however your outlook for how Russia will look after the war, similar to after it's war in Afghanistan and the US after Vietnam might be true as every nation experiences this after a long and costly war but long term i don't see this weakening Russia just as it didn't the US.
As for claiming Russia is in dire straits, this propaganda by the West needs to stop. Even when we are losing we still claim we are winning. Let me tell you the reality. Russia has invaded a large portion of Eastern Europe, Ukraine and as now is now pushing further into this nation which is the largest in all of Europe. Russia is fighting against a Ukraine that has been supplied by almost every western nation on earth with state of the art weaponry and billions of dollars of equipment and funding. Russia won't lose this territory because even the west now accepts Ukraine just won't be able to push Russia back, at best all Ukraine will be able to do is negotiate and cede a large portion of it's territory. Therefore the reality is it isn't Russia that is in dire straits, it is Europe which has lost a large section of it's territory in the last several decades to Russia. Also i don't want to hear how Ukraine isn't in Nato or the EU. It's in Europe. Europe is in dire straits. Economically stagnant and losing territory to a nation getting stronger by the day. That's the reality.
I used to live in China and in Taiwan and still go there for very long stretches for work and family. I read, speak, and write in the language. I think you might be under some kind of illusion that BRICS is a coherent force or that the US is far more important as a foil than it actually is. Potential anti-US sentiment is not that much of a binding force when you have far more deep-rooted historical and ongoing conflicts right on your borders. You're talking about growth in BRICS countries in the sense of competition with the US or the general West, but you don't seem to realize that growth when you are in actual ongoing conflicts with your fellow members is perceived as a a threat by other BRICS nations.
Your arguments don't even seem to be internally coherent. How did you go from something that's not relevant because it's ten years ago to using a historical example from several decades ago as an argument? This seems somewhat irrational and so makes me wonder if there's something else that your factoring in besides what is ostensibly the topic matter.
I never said ten years ago wasn't relevant. I said it wasn't relevant to the next ten years in which it is predicted to grow by the IMF. Even the next 5 years it is expected to grow. Even in the next year it will have grown. My point is that the past ten years of a nation's growth isn't a indicator of the next ten years. I shouldn't have to explain this any clearer.
As for you living in Taiwan and China. Your experience in Taiwan isn't relevant and as for me being under the illusion that BRICS is a coherent force, i never claimed it was a coherent force so your arguing with a strawman. I claimed which you may disagree with is that the desire for nations to cut itself off from the reliance on the US dollar and US international policy is increasing to such an extent that these nations are cooperating together through BRICS which will only strengthen their relationships with one another in a new multi polar world. One would have to be delusional to not see closer partnership emerging.
Is this an American thing? I'd love to know how do you guys perceive the world today. Do you even know the state of Europe at the moment with the emerging refugee and economic crisis plaguing it aswell as losing a portion of it's territory on a daily basis to Russia? I find it disrespectful as a westerner that some Americans are still in denial at this point of the shift in Global power because they alone are still powering along. While BRICS is certainly still not able to compete with the G7 yet apart from militarily, economically it is expected to by many mainstream economists and with that economic reliance with each other comes close cooperation. The EU wasn't built in a day, neither will BRICS as a Coherent group
The largest indicator the US/Western dominance has come to an end will be if BRICS nations can finally achieve creating it's own currency and ending the reliance on the US dollar. Whether it comes to pass is another thing but if it does no-one can be under any illusion we are living in a multi-polar world.
How? The "Decline of the West" was put forward in 1918 by Oswald Spengler that Europe is done. 106 years and another world war plus a cold one later it still isn't. Yes the British, French and Dutch empires are gone, but that can hardly be considered a bad thing. And yes, Europe's absolute share of the world economy is declining, but the continent in general isn't.
EU's economy size is only slightly larger than it was in 2008. That's a terrible decline.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Baltic Whaler
Europe is still politically the most stable continent on Earth with robust economies and a highly educated workforce. And despite declining birthrates the workforce is still growing, and the number of employed people is 20 million higher than it was 10 years ago. Italy has been seen as a chronically ill patient for a longer time, but this year Italy's economy is on trajectory to grow faster than Germany's, which has been seen as an economical powerhouse. There is a lot of economical power for growth in Europe left.
There is a major ongoing war on European soil which will likely last a couple more years. That's the furthest thing from stable. There's also a bunch of far-right idiots whose loyalty lies with Russia very likely to come into power in various European countries. Hungary and Slovakia are also literally Russian agents. Stable?
And Italy's growth is like 0.7%. Just because it's a smidge higher than a country that's not growing at all does not mean Italy is growing. 0.7% and 0.2% are all within margin of error. Neither is growing.
And a larger number of employed people does not necessarily represent anything positive. If anything it most likely means that there are more part-time senior employees. The EU's population peaked in 2017.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Baltic Whaler
Regarding BRICS, the big odd one out here is South Africa. It has experienced severe social unrest in recent years, and its economy is a small one, in nominal GDP roughly the size of Romania, the 13th largest economy in the EU. Romania is projected to have a robust economic growth in 2024, with around 3%. South Africa is projected to be on a 0.9-1.4% GDP growth track.
Developing countries in Europe are growing faster than Western Europe, but their growth rate is still very low for developing countries and they are not nearly large enough or influential enough to lift all of Europe out of stagnation. They are just catching up and they won't go much further once they do (if they ever do at all).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Baltic Whaler
Europe is far from done, and while the population is aging, Europe still has a lot going on for it. There's lot of innovation, the population is wealthy, it is a desirable region for immigration, there's no brain drain, unemployment is low (6.0% in the EU in January), NATO has made a total rebirth thanks to Russia, and after the disastrous Brexit debacle, not even the populists anymore want their country to leave the EU, but reform it.
Actually no, Europe has very little innovation. All the innovation is happening in America. The most profitable and largest companies in Europe are almost all legacy companies, which is bad. And there is brain drain from Europe to America.
That the birth rates are low now doesn't mean that they will always be so. And the world in general is aging, it's not only Europe. China is of course the most acutely rapidly aging country, but the fertility rate in Brazil is also well below replacement levels, around the same as in Latvia. Saudi Arabia and South Africa are just barely above replacement. What to these countries will be a problem is that the older population is much poorer and their retirement and elderly care infrastructure is underdeveloped.
The meme is that Europe's population is shrinking, so is the workforce, there's stagnation in innovation and economy, infrastructure is collapsing, government spending is unsustainable, people have low hopes for the future etc etc. Do you know what country ticks all those boxes the most? Well, that is Russia.
Yes, these countries have no future either, but that does not mean Europe is in a good position at all.
Brazil 2024 GDP in R$:R$ 10,900 trilions ($1 = R$ 4,90)
Brazil 2014 GDP in R$:R$ 5,779 trilions ($1 = R$ 2,647)
Yes, there was some growth during this time.
I know you're the guy who says that GDP in national currency or GDP PPP doesn't matter, just the nominal converted to dollars, but anyone who understands economics knows that that doesn't make sense. The dollar is going through a period overvalued by the policies of the American FED, but over time it will stabilize around the middle of what it was before the pandemic and today.
Yes USD is very strong now, but not almost twice as strong like it is against BRL in a decade. Against stable currencies USD is maybe 5-10% stronger now than it was before the pandemic. The fact that BRL is now worth half against USD relative a decade ago indicates Brazil's economic woes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by EVANGELISTTI
In the last three years, the growth of Brazilian economic activity has exceeded both market estimates and those of the government itself, remaining around 3%.
A series of signs that there is a change in the growth trend of the Gross Domestic Product that is not yet fully captured by market prediction models.
The investment rate of the Brazilian economy has grown consistently in recent years and reached 18.7% as a proportion of GDP in the second quarter of 2022.
if the investment to GDP ratio is between 18% and 20% and the TFP growth is 0.0%, the increase in GDP will be between 2.0% and 2.4%. Estimating a TFP of 0.5%, GDP growth is between 2.6% and 2.9%.
Growth of 3% may not be spectacular, but constant growth of 3% over time in a country without vegetative growth and already being a middle-income country at GDP per capita level is not negligible, but who knows, maybe if the investment rate rises a little more the potencial growth rate of 4% over time can be achieved, that would be already very good
If Brazil (or any country) can manage 3% annual growth without disruption for a very long time then sure, that would be very good, but that is extremely rare in history and only a handful of examples have achieved so and all of them are now developed economies.
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