andrew_bidlaw , 1 month ago

Maybe, maybe not. With such a mass of resources it could’ve been hard to take it below zero even with all the sanctions and corruption that eats the economy for decades. But here is the thing: GDP is a favorite metric of Putin (and ВВП == his initials lol) but it’s misguiding, more so for a semi-wartime economy because military equipment that ends up in ukrainian soil counts as a product too, and with a third of a budget dedicated to that waste, they are actually in a pretty depressive state. Positive numbers don’t mean shit if this amount of products is paid and consumed by the government without getting anything back. That’s like if one guy on a minecraft server took everyone’s diamonds to make 64 diamond hoes, or just dropped them into lava. By more sensible calculations, with the unnaturally ballooning MIC, just a 5% uptick means production of everything else is fried and fucked.