Russia: Where to Head in the Post COVID Economic Crash

Let us face it, the Western world's and its satellite's system of Debt-Finance driven paper growth was broken long before COVID showed up and gave it the coup de grace in the back of the head. The system was showing severe strains and creaking under its engorged weight in H2 2019 and Recession was in the air. It was the big white elephant in the room, about which only a few dared to talk to loudly.

COVID's arrival did two things: on the one hand, it turned what was apt to be a medium strength recession into a depression that may make the Great Depression look relatively mild and on the other hand it gave the politicians an excuse for all their 30 years of folly and self enrichment and thus a way out without changing anything. Additionally, it has presented the western central banks the opportunity to play out their latest insane theory: the Modern Monetary Theory...that is, print print print and its all good to print some more. Perpetual Quantitative Easing. A crack binge of epic proportions with a naive belief that nothing bad will arise from it. Ask the Romans how well that worked out for them, or the last Mongol dynasty of China. Two thousand years of history proves otherwise, but then again, History has ended, correct?

I wrote months before COVID lock-downs why anyone working remotely should already be living in Russia, it only makes economic sense. Now for the rest.

The West was already facing steep youth unemployment, with the US suffering in the 25-30% margin, many of the starter jobs having been taken either by illegal aliens, for the low skilled, or by H1Bs and automation for the higher skilled labor pool. Europe, even worse, with some EU members hitting the 50% mark. With COVID this will only get worse.

Russia is in a unique position. For one, it has a giant reserve of half a trillion dollars that is actually growing, due to the increase of the cost of gold, even as the government pulls funds to support the economy. The government has done a lot to make sure that Russia is well positioned to come out of this in one piece. The crisis has given feeder stock to many Russian industries, some created in answer to COVID that will feed industrial production in the years to come.

Additionally, with debt to revenue of 16% of GDP, as opposed to most Western nations of 80-150% and growing rapidly, and because of the endless anti-Russian sanctions, Russia is mostly immune from the crashing banking and tsunami of debt storms rolling down on these economies. The final plus is that the Russia lock-down looks set to serious lifting in mid to late May and in all will last only about 1.5 months, as opposed to the 2-3 month lock downs or longer in the West.

This of course means there will be greater opportunities in the Russian market for all those western unemployed engineers and scientists, well greater than sitting around on a bankrupt government dole.
Metallurgists, industrial engineers, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers are in extremely short supply and that considering that Russia graduates more engineers than any other nation, almost twice as many as second place America.  It is also huge and experts are needed.

With all of this, where do you think that venture capital is going to go? To bankrupt struggling western economies or to where it can still earn some semblance of a profit?

Finally, for those who fancy themselves social conservatives, Russia is definitely a go to place. Society is naturally conservative and old fashioned. More akin to the majority in the West in the 60s, 70s and 80s rather than the present. In other words, the good old days the present leading generations remember from their childhoods. Christianity is not frowned upon, it is celebrated. Getting on a plane or a public bus, one is apt to see icons of Christ or the saints on the dashboard of the driver or in the corner of the niche for the stewardesses. Like wise moderate Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Shamanism, Catholicism can be found practicing in peace and without interference. Even in this COVID madness, the churches were never closed, because under the Russian constitution, the government has no right to interfere in religious matters.

In a roll of good news, the Russian government has continued to liberalize immigration policies. In a follow on article, I will outline just how easy it is for Americans to move to Russia and get citizenship.

Amongst other things, the requirement to give up the previous citizenship has been removed, effectively allowing duel citizenship for anyone who is not directly working for the government, in politics or working on secret projects. Additionally, anyone who has a spouse or child who is a Russian citizen no longer has to pass the Russian language test (though you will be hard pressed with work if you do not learn Russian) and the 3 year living in Russia requirement to put in for citizenship.

Next on the list is the reform of the Temporary and Permanent Residency programs. The order is to first get the Temp, which lasts 3 years and then put in for the Perm program. The Permanent Residency used to require reissue every 5 years but is now life long, as long as at least 183 days a year are spent in Russia. The cross hairs are now on the Temporary Residency which will be removed totally with everyone going directly to Permanent Residency.

Russian Highly Qualified Specialist work visas are also relatively easy to get, as long as you have a sponsor. In all, it takes less than a month to get the visa processed.

So if you have not wondered, you should be. If you have not planned, you should be. There is still a light in the middle of this bleak spring of despair.

The Wisdom of Dollar Deleveraging

A wisdom of the Orthodox Church states that God sends us our enemies for reasons, often to make us realize our mistakes, or to push us in the right direction to do that something that we are otherwise loath to do. Because of this, a true Christians, especially an Orthodox Christian, should pray for his enemies, as they are God sent instruments.

As such, the all out financial and economic attack upon Russia by the West as a whole, led by the USA, has had many economic benefits for Russia. Sanctions and counter sanctions have allowed Russian agriculture to boom and Russia who once imported 20% of its food, is now one of the world's biggest exporters of wheat, rice, pork, chicken and many more. Those, like Poland and the Baltic statelets, who howled the loudest for sanctions were hit the worst by the agricultural counter sanctions, with many thousands of farmers and fishermen loosing their livelihood. Additionally, import substitution has seen many dozens of new manufacturing plants open, from high tech cable producers to Mercedies and Nissan and Russian made goods are now on export world wide, with resource extraction only accounting for 21% of GDP, on par with the USA, and 40% of government tax earnings.

But the biggest boon that has come to Russia is the financial de-levering. This was, by far, the hardest hits by the West, causing the most panic and pain in the Russian markets, causing Russian businesses to be cut off from European lenders and faced with expensive Russian credit. The one week shut down by Visa and Master Card processing caused more panic in 2014.

All of this has had a profound effect over the past 6 years. One of the first growths that came from 2014, was the creation of the Mir Card, Russia's own credit card that is now wide spread domestically and growing internationally, albait, so far slowly, but growing. Visa and Master Card never created another artificial shutdown again and have been forced by law to process all Russian purchases in Russia, creating protection against shut downs and prying eyes of western intelligence.

After this came a far from complete reorganization on the banking sector, with many small and often corrupt banks closed down. Big banks consolidated, and while this creates its own problems, it also creates more control on the porous market with routes for money laundering out of the country.

An amnesty was given for a no questions asked repatriation of rubles from offshore bank accounts. Quite a few businessmen repatriated all or some, many more did not and when Western countries found them as soft targets for confiscation of billions of dollars, pounds, euros, they had only themselves to blame but also served as excellent lessons for others not to follow.

Additionally, the rates for loans and credits were sharply reduced, especially for such industries as agriculture and machine building. Likewise, loan rates for mortgages have also drastically come down, from 17-21% in 2014 to 6.5% in 2020, along with various other government incentives for first time buyers and for families with 3+ children.

Russia lowered taxes, made tax paying straight, transparent and easy, moved up radically in the Ease of Doing Business from the mid 120s in 2014 to 28th place in 2020, ahead of such economies as Japan, Spain, China, France, Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and India.

But the two key moves that Russia has taken and which are now going to pay off with vast dividends were to transfer the reserves out of dollars and to go on a huge gold buying spree that has lasted a goodly 6 years now. Dollars make up 22% of the Russian reserve, still to much and a painful future loss but not crippling and nothing that can be used to hamstring or blackmail the Russian economy.

So how has this helped? Well, first we shall speak of the gold. Gold is the ultimate value reserve. When foundationless fiat currencies, formerly just printed paper, but now generated computer bits, are in inflationary valued free fall, gold escalates in value. So as Russia has been forced to spend much more on her economy this year, due to, the dollar value of her reserve funds have actually grown. From 23 March 2020 to 23 April 2020, Russia's reserves grew 18.5$ billion to 569.7$ billion and are set to continue to grow as gold is now sighted to continue growing towards $3000/ounce from its year start in the $1300 range.

But best of all, was Russia selling off more than 70% of her US treasuries and obligations. China, has proven not so lucky and the US, backed into a corner by her immense preCorona debt of $23 trillion and looking set to expand that debt by $3-10 trillion more in this year alone and let us face it, now that the Federal Reserve has drawing rights to the Blackrock run slush fund to give out to their friends as they see fit, it will definitely be the entirety of those $10 trillion. So US debt is set to rise to 33$+ trillion.

So what has the US and its vassals in Europe started to do? That is correct, lay the quasi-legal frame work for annulling that debt, specifically a portion of that debt held by China and whom ever else gets into Washington's cross hairs. The first shots were fired by Trump at the WHO, followed by a German paper accusing China of spreading Coronavirus and thus owing Germany $164 billion in "damages".

As if on coordinated cue, various US congressman have pushed through bills that claim much higher margins than just a mere "conservative" $164 billion. Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn and Senator Martha McSally of Arizona are pushing the "Stop COVID Act", blaming everything on China, God forbid one takes a hard look at one's own record, but I degress, and demanding that China wave the $1 trillion debt America owes it. “We haven't talked through exactly what that way forward would be," she said. "But we do know that there are more people that agree that China should be required to make some form of restitution for this."

I wonder if the average man can do the same with the bank? Look, I am in a bad way and its your fault Mr. Bank, now wave what I owe you and of course I am not going to give back all the neat stuff I bought or look at my own sorry record, just wave what I owe you.

I think not.

So the future is obviously going to be very interesting and luckily Russia will be able to sit the US-China economic, financial and maybe military war to the side, at least as much as possible. That the US will more than likely default out on their debts to Russia is a gimmy. Once the US starts defaulting on whatever grounds it likes, with China, it will continue to creatively find other reasons to do so with other nations, to include its European vassals, whether they realize it or not. That China will retaliate and nationalize US factories and watch its own more limited American holdings nationalized, is also a no brainer.

In this, we must make sure that Russia does not become a dumping ground for Chinese products looking for markets, but that we grow trade with China in a sustainable manner. As for the US, once the euphoria of giving it to the Chinese settles, they will quickly realize that opening factories is not the same as flicking on a light switch but is an effort that takes 1-2 years, some times longer and setting up new supply chains is no easy deal either. Here to, we may find leverage, but it should be leverage that is predicated on strict political milestones and paid for in what matters, gold.

An Apology From a Czech Citizen To the Russian People

The following is a letter of apology that was sent to the Russian embassy in Czech for the actions of the mayor of Prague using the Covid-19 to tear down the memorial of General Konev.

VELVYSLANECTVÍ RUSKÉ FEDERACE V ČESKÉ REPUBLICE

nám. Pod Kaštany

160 00 Praha 6

Victory over fascism is the most important event for the Russians. And it’s not only for those who witnessed the war, but also for young people. Any damage, removal or other insult to these symbols, regardless of whether they are devoted, to the ordinary soldiers or commanders, the majority of Russians consider it as a personal insult.

The argument of Mr. Kolář for removal of the statue of Marshal Konev was that the statue in Prague 6 was repeatedly poured in red color as a reminder that Marshal Konev had blood on his hands as a suppressor of the nationwide uprising against the dictatorship in Hungary. For me only the fact that the Hungarians are at this time settled is also evidenced by the Soviet soldier’s memorial at Freedom Square in Budapest, which nobody spilled red. By the way, there is a statue of President Reagan on the same square. Maybe this could be an incentive for a thought for the Mayor of Prague 6.

What kind of person is Mr. Kolář, when he has to strengthen his ego by fighting with a long-dead person? What kind of primitive he is that have to tear down memorials for his personal visibility? Probably not a genuine person. He's a superficial hypocrite instead of helping his citizens in times of crisis, he decided to tear down historical monuments, while people sew masks at their homes and humbly tolerate quarantine, others abused the state of emergency for their own political actions because the mayor of Prague 6 Ondřej Kolář removed the statue of Konev in a situation of a ban on gathering, and he also dared to joke about it and said he did that because general Konev had no mask. How to describe such behavior? He is a poor man and a coward, someone who in order to win, leads a duel with the dead.

 

Only the ones who dont want to see, cannot unsee it. Only the ones who dont want to hear, cannot unhear it and only the ones who dont know, would never understand.

That is why he was able to dishonor the symbol of the thousands of Soviet soldiers who put their lives for ours. 26 million were killed before the evil was stopped. At least we can thank them and not forget.

Thanks for the sacrifice druzya.

I personally apologize here to the granddaughter of Marshal Konev Yelena Koneva and the Russian Federation at the same time and believe me, dear Russian friends, that Prague is not all of Czech Republic and Kolář is not everyone. I believe that such actions are political misery, it is totally unnecessary and counterproductive, and only cause unnecessary waves of hate.

“People are always shouting they want to create a better future. It's not true. The future is an apathetic void of no interest to anyone. The past is full of life, eager to irritate us, provoke and insult us, tempt us to destroy or repaint it. The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past.”      ≈Milan Kundera ≈                                                                                                                                        

Kateřina Roszková

 

Sincerely K.R. - citizen of Czech Republic

 

Every Catastrophe Offers Opportunity

In true form, when ever one door closes another door opens.

With Covid-19 ravaging supply chains all over the world, medical supply chains have found themselves no exception. From the early days of the pandemic in China to the now global crisis, it quickly became evident that outsourcing the majority of your medical materials and equipment manufacturing, including ingredients for medication, to one country, is hardly a good idea.

Long before Covid-19 became a household name or was even thought up, various voices in Russia were urging the government to more fully invest in local manufacturing of at least medicines if not the equipment for hospitals. The government was slow to act, however the financial and economic war that the West declared on Russia in 2014 brought more attention and political will to this issue.

As President Putin made it his aim for the drastic improvement of the Russian medical system, especially outside of the top 5 major cities, it quickly became obvious that importing all the needed medical equipment would prove to be a very expensive endevour and one that was wrought with tensions as the US Congress played its favorite game of Tariff Russia. Thus, investments were already being realized in the medical fields for manufacturing of state of the art medical equipment for various purposes in Russia: from x-ray to artificial/assisted breathing machines.

Along comes Covid-19 and world wide everything unravels. Luckily for Russia, or a God send, you decide, the plague hit Russia almost last and has only in the past 2 weeks started to rev up. This gave Russia an additional two months to ramp up manufacturing in many sectors and to start to move fringe developments and technologies into full on exploitation. There is nothing like a war time footing to move technology along at rates otherwise not imagined. Survival is the real mother of innovation.

And so, Russia now stands on the precipice of coming out of this as a power of modern medical manufacturing. Below we will go over only a few of the new or expanding productions. As more information appears I will of course update this post.

This can be equally seen in the 16 new infectious disease hospitals being built across the country. These, unlike the Chinese container temporary Wuhan facility, are permanent state of the art facilities with 41 days start to turn key completion build cycles. Each of the hospitals are set up for 500-1000 beds and all the equipment has been procured from Russian companies. From top of the line adjustable beds, to surgical equipment, monitoring systems and stations, ambulances and assisted breathing machines. All are being delivered now and this is only possible because they are localized production, not imports from China or Europe.

So, we will start with the big heavy weight of the Covid-19 season: artificial/assisted breathing machines.

At present, Russia has some 44.000 units of various age and capacity in service, Japan 23.000. As a further comparison, Krasondar, the main southern commercial center with a population of about one million people has 950 such units in service. Milano, the main Italian industrial center with a population of 1.3 million coupled with horrid air quality, had 48 units.

As of March, Russia was producing some 300 state of the art units per month. With massive government support, the production is being increased to 500 units this merry month of April, with the aim of 2500 units monthly by the close of May and peaking at 3.000 units. Of course this level of sustained production is well past the capacity needs for Russia itself, but it will go to fill export orders. As of now, 30 nations have either placed or in the process of placing orders for machines.

The units are being produced by Shabe Holdings, a division of Rostec, in their Uralskii Optical-Mechanical manufacturing plant.

Other key productions of masks and garments are also taking off. Small and medium sized businesses are retooling. Production of the high grade masks has reached 2.1 million units per week with another 300.000 coming online this week. Of course this does not fill the demand but considering previously Russia was importing all of this volume, this has gone a long way in manufacturing from basically nothing.

Two technopark universities in Ekaterinburg and Tymin have also begun printing plastic masks (they still require cloth for the breathing filters) on 3D printers, in serial production. While still at small batches of 500 units per 2 days of printing, the proof of concept in a production environment has been provided, opening the doors to mass production that does not require outsourcing and international logistics or major manufacturing facilities. Equally they are printing replaceable parts to assisted breathing equipment, such as plastic valves that must be changed once every 24 hours.

Medical garment manufacturing, robes for doctors, at 6.000 units daily. At present this is well below daily consumption and stocks are filling the gap. However, manufacturing is being ramped up to 25.000 units per day, as even heavy industry giants like Komaz and Tatneft are retooling for a new manufacturing branch job.

The big bottle neck is cloth for the medical gowns which is still mostly imported from China. In steps Chaikovskii Textile which has come up with a new medical material Panatseya PP180 which is a light weight, flexible material that is inhospitable to bacterial, fungal and viral microorganisms. The textile also is not absorbent, so liquids do not penetrate and cause stains. Full sustained production is in its early stages set to ramp up.

March goggle manufacturing was at 12.000 units per day with the aim of reaching 22.000 units per day by end of April.

Additionally, by end of March, respirators production had reached 20.000 units per day.

Of the seventeen key medications used in treatment of Covid-19, fourteen are manufactured in Russia, the remaining 3 are having to be imported. Unfortunately, this is a much slower ramp up issue, but one that has once again been high lightened as a weak link.

Russian pharma companies are also working on 7 separate vaccines, with live human trials on 60 volunteers (these people are already chosen and half are the scientists themselves) set to start by end of May/early June. Due to the long incubation periods of this virus, testing will take at least 1 month. Generiym, one of those companies, has patented and pushed into full scale production an express test for Covid-19 that delivers results in 30 minutes with a 94% accuracy rate. Yes, I know, the western media has not squeaked a word about this, which should not be in the least surprising.

Other high tech equipment is being manufactured by such companies as Litharinskii Optical Glass Plant, working with Germanium lenses to manufacture top of the line thermal imaging equipment that allows a doctor to scan a crowd up to 30m out and identify individuals in the crowd whose body temperatures are out of norms set.

Evromedservise is now manufacturing a full line of medical furniture with built in ultraviolet radiation lamps for quick and full sterilization of medical equipment and supplies.

Rosatom Helskia has produced large scale radiation sterilization equipment that will sterilize up to 58 million masks per month. Their work contract goes into effect this month.

To keep this engine of production and innovation chugging, the Russian central bank has relaxed all lending requirements to any company starting or currently manufacturing medicines, medical supplies and medical equipment.

Now we will see in what position Russia will be on the medical equipment markets once all of this settles out. Next time you are at your doctor's, the equipment might just read "Made in Russia".

The Truth About Media Censorship In Russia

At this point, most of you, having been conditioned by your own MSM for 70 years, and most intensely these past 7 year, are expecting me to tell you how it is all one sided and Putin all the time. I am sorry but you will be quit disappointed.

There is some truth to that assumption, on the government owned channels, where it is definitely very pro-government, not unlike the BBC, Deutschawella or PBS, not to mention dozens of other channels across the world, such as Al Jazeer, which would never dare criticize the conditions of labourers in Qatar or Qatar’s policy of supporting Islamic Jihadists through the Muslim Brotherhood, around the world and giving them safe haven. So, if you are looking at the Russian media market strictly from that point of view, you will be somewhat justified in your views.

Of course, if one actually understands Russian and watches the various debate programs, there are always opposing voices, usually from politicians or talking heads from other countries, many of them viraly Russophobic. Where on any single US "debate" or "discussion" on Russia would you ever hear a pro-Russian voice from no less a Russian? Forboddin.

However, when you notice that the government channels are far from the only game in town, it becomes quite clear that Russia has more media freedom and views than many of the nations in the West that constantly criticize Russia. Yes, for many of those reading this, this is a crisis concept, as everything blasting around you is telling the opposite. Stop for a moment and wander aloud, “Why is it, that such a “free” Western press is always saying the exact same thing, no matter what country it is in….as if on queue….hmmmm”.

Now, on to our story. I will break this down into two parts, first the Russian media and then the foreign media.

The native media:

Russia has more channels than any other country in the world, though the vast majority are local channels. This should be no surprise, as Russia is the biggest country and conditions and to some degree cultures vary from one end to the other. Russia itself is bigger than all of Latin America. On the national level, there are several independent channels, broadcasting their own news shows. True, most follow more or less the same line, that is, the majority opinion in part because they themselves share that opinion, because it sells commercials (and that is the point of most big news, to sell commercials), and in part because it grants easier access to the people in power, to again, get the story that attracts the viewers that sells commercials.

This is no different from why Sky News is uncannily similar to the BBC and why NBC, MSNBC, CNN and CBS are basically clones of each other, giving powderpuff interviews to government officials. Fox is only a little off the beaten track and even then, not too far, as any voice on Fox that questioned the American government’s actions to loudly has been quickly removed.

Sochi Olympics was a prime example: an American comedian, Jimmy Kimmel created the “wolf of Sochi” story, by having his crew film a trained wolf walking down a stage that looked like a corridor and planting it on the internet as a wolf walking down the halls of the athletes dorms in Sochi Russia. Western “intellectual” and “investigative” journalism was at its finest, all picking up the video and running with it right off of the cliff. That of course was Mr. Kimmel’s point that the Western media are blind and hypocritical and clones of each other.

Even on the government owned channels the political talk shows, that are aired daily, are anything but one sided. The hugely popular show on Russia 1, headed by Vladimir Solovev, an on and off Kremlin critic (get that, a Kremlin critic runs one of the most popular discussion TV and daily radio shows on a Kremlin owned channel…wow now that’s “censorship”) often covers Ukraine. Unlike the American “fair and balanced” Fox that has a procession of ever more extreme and unhinged personalities screaming for the murder of Russians, Solovev’s show, structured in opposing panels of 3-4 speakers on each side, often has Ukrainian government officials and members of Poroshenko’s own party, as well as members of the Novorossian government. This in truth, is about as close as the two sides ever get to speaking with each other.
 
And yes, the Ukrainians are often screaming degradations on their hosts and on Russia. On one such tirade, the opposing speaker pointed out that at least in Russia, when they leave the building and freely move around Moscow, they will not be beaten by Ukraine's Right Sector or other government goons or have their property confiscated as does the opposition in Ukraine. On another episode, when a young, military aged party member of formerly Poroshenko’s power party, was denigrating Russia, the counter speaker pointed out that if he hated Russia so much, why is it he now lives in Russia and hides out from the Ukrainian draft. Why he was not fighting. The young “intellectual” shut up.

However, there are also Russian channels that differ from the media. Never mind that many parties and the Church have their own channels, that put their slant on the news or their own stories out, there is also an out and out anti-Russian channel Dozd. This channel is viciously anti-Russian and such a channel would never be tolerated in America or Britain. Maybe the Germans, but I doubt even them. And surely no channel that constantly criticized the government and society and made both out to be subhuman, would be tolerated in such European beacons as Poland, Latvia, Estonia or God forbid, Ukraine (where no opposition media is allowed, and the last president owned his own personal propaganda channel).

Dozd has lost quite a bit of its viewership and commercial sponsors over the last 1.5 years, in part because of the wave of patriotism that has swept Russia and with it the pride in Russia that no longer views itself as the country bumpkin to the enlightened by the West but as a separate civilization with separate values that have little in common with the modern West. But Dozd’s troubles began much earlier when they openly questioned the defense of Leningrad (St.Petersburg) against the Nazis and the heroic sacrifice made by the population and army to keep the northern capital out of Hitler’s hands. They named it a stupid decision and that the city was better off being surrendered to the Germans and if Russia had lost everyone would be drinking German beer now. This had a rather negative reaction from society, to put it mildly.

Radio:

Now on to the radio media. In parallel to Dozd is the extremely popular, amongst the Russian Liberal class, Echo Moscow. It spews a similar anti-government, anti-Russian, anti-Russian cultural message, 24 hrs a day every day. Imagine a radio station heard across America that constantly broadcast that all Americans were hillbilly rednecks, ignorant and racist and should copy themselves on France if they wanted to think of themselves as even remotely human. Now you get the gist of the programming. Add in constant conspiracy theories and irrational screams of oppression and you get the daily dose of insanity.

More rational but still anti-government radio stations, also broadcast 24/7 across Russia such as Business News FM and Vedomosti. Again, these are not your American Fox brand of mildly slapping the government wrist.

As for other points of view, again, every major party (in all there are over 700 registered parties, most minor), and we have 4 major and dozens of minor parties and the Church as well as the minority Catholic Church (4% of the population) have their own stations. There are also hundreds of local stations, and no we do not have a monopolist like Clear Channel Radio that owns 80%+ of all the radio stations.

Published Media

At any newsstand, and there are hundreds, one can literally buy one of two dozen papers and several dozen magazines, many of which are owned and published by Western companies. Yes, we have National Geographics, Vogue, Maxium, Popular Mechanics and so on and so on.

All political parties and movements also have their own daily news papers, to include the viciously anti-government and anti-Russian papers such as Moscow Times, which is actually a Danish/Finish project. The Moscow Times is a platform for any and all anti-Russian neocon scribblings. Many of their articles are reprints from various US think tanks, Reuters and other platforms and their editorials are screeching grounds for some of the most vicious anti-Russian liberals.

Again, there are less extreme but just as anti-government papers and magazines to choose from.

Foreign Media:

No, Russia is not shut off from foreign media. As I mentioned earlier, the print media is rife with foreign owned magazines and journals. As a matter of fact, go to your local bookstore and chances are, anything you have on your selves, you can find the exact same issue in Russian on our shelves.

As for televisions, since most of the country is now on digital and satellite, there is a wide range to choose from. We have CNN, BBC, Sky News, Euronews (A Brussels based BBC Clone which is banned in Ukraine for daring to show both sides of the conflict), Al Jazeer, Deutschawella, Bloomberg, Press TV (Iranian) and on the east coast various South Korean, Chinese and Japanese news channels. We have more access to the news then most Europeans or Americans, none of it banned, all of it broad casting. On top of this we have an open internet, except for controls on child pornography.

So with all that, Russians make a much more informed choice what to believe and not to believe then the much more controlled information bubbles that are the media space in most of the West. Russians are well educated and exposed to everything around us.  We are some of the most traveled populations in the world and a large chunk of the population speaks multiple languages (most schools now require 2 foreign languages, the first begins in Kindergarten). Russia has the world’s highest percent of the population with advanced degrees, 7% more as a percentage of the population then the next competitor, Japan.

I would challenge the reader to actually contemplate what I have written and consider just for a moment who actually lives in a free media space and who in a controlled information bubble.

Russia Is Well Positioned UPDATE 4 (1 June 2020)

Despite the "best wishes" of the Western mass media that everything in Russia is failing, the reality of the situation is that Russia is uniquely positioned to rebound economically faster and stronger then the over leveraged West.

Even the NYT came to this conclusion "Thanks to Sanctions, Russia Is Cushioned From Virus’s Economic Shocks", true, you can taste the bile in the first half of the article, but then they get to the various points.

Russia has been cut off from the Western financial markets, Russia has been busy regrowing its industry for the past 7 years and Russia has a huge reserve of over $600 billion set aside for occurrences just like this with a government debt of less than 10% to GDP. But this is not enough, what Russia has, unlike the West, is a leadership that is ahead of the curve.

The Russian leadership has foreseen what is coming down the road and has taken key steps to block that road as best as possible. Russia instantly closed the borders with China, while infected people from China were still traveling everywhere. Russia closed commercial flights with the rest of the world more slowly and that did allow for the infection to leak in. Either way, for what ever reasons: Grace of God, cold weather, partial immunity from TB vaccines, the virus has been slow to spread and the rate of full recovery is 5 times to that of deaths, while globally right now its about 2 to 1, of the officially recognized infections.

The Russian government has stock piled medical equipment and has retooled very quickly to manufacture additional equipment and materials, enough so as to send aid to 14 other nations, including the US, as well as 15 plane loads of trucks and personnel to aid Italy, bringing lacking equipment, such as disinfectant machines, spreaders, and liquid as well as over 200 doctors and military biochem experts. Russia has disinfected over a twenty hospitals and homes for the old, as well as building field hospitals, throughout hard hit northern Italy.

Russia has over 44000 artificial/assisted breathing machines and two large manufacturers are working 24/7 manufacturing more. As a comparison, Japan with the world's oldest population, a population of 120 million, has only 24000 and 10000 are already occupied by the sick from other infections. Milan, Italy had 48.

But more so then the medical preparedness, is the economic steps that Russia has taken to make sure that a post infection economic crash does not come at the end of the month long quarantine.

Europe and the US panicked, sending everyone into lock down without a single thought about how the already financially overstretched and struggling populations will feed themselves and survive a month plus without money to buy food and in some cases without food, not to mention pay rents, credit debts and utilities. All plans came only as an after thought, not much for proper full spectrum planning. Over 10 million have filed for unemployment in the US alone, in just two weeks. Unheard of numbers.

The Russian government, spearheaded by President Putin has avoided this and has put in key points for both the workers and the small and medium businesses. They are as follows:

For people:

1. 50% increase to unemployment benefits by the Federal government, so that unemployment will not be less than the minimum allowed salary. Sure a person will not be eating steaks on this but he will not be starving either. Unemployment is available to anyone who has worked for at least 4 months previously. As a comparison, in the US unemployment is available only to those who work full time, on contract pay (not hourly workers) and has worked at least 12 months previously.

2. Provinces will add to the unemployment payout as much as their budgets allow. Moscow for one will double the unemployment payouts of the Federal government.

3. Sick leave pay has also been increased by 50%.

4. People facing unemployment or inability to pay credit due to pay cuts are now able to take a 6 month credit holiday from payments. Banks, by law, have 3 days to process the paperwork and freeze credits.

5. Pensions will be indexed +6%.

6. Filing for Bankruptcy is now free.

For business:

1. For small and medium businesses percent free loans to pay salaries up to 20 million rubles ($270.000 at current exchange rates) without a need to pay back for 8 months after the emergency is lifted.

2. Rents owed on Federally owned lands and infrastructure waived for 8 months.

3. All taxes on rent givers are waved in exchange for them lowering the rent payments demanded from their renters.

4. All business taxes, with the exception of VAT, are waved for 6 months.

5. Large funds for investment in support of whole business sectors.

6. Bankruptcy for businesses can be stalled for 8 months.

Other ideas are still being worked out.

As you can see, the Russian government is dead set on making sure Russian bounces back fast, hard and ahead of its Western competition. But to make sure Russia does not become a temporary slush fund for Western credit, two additional laws were passed:

1. a 13% tax on all percents, dividends and other earnings on deposits or investments over 1 million rubles. This is only on the money earned, as money making money will now be equated to income, unlike in many countries, so the rich will pay their fair share along with all workers.

2. a 15% tax on all monies being transferred out of Russia. So it will no longer be a quick slush fund and get the cash out later, doing damage to the economy built on those monies. At least a portion will remain in the country to be put back into the economy.

Now we will wait and see what other new projects or laws will come in and only time will tell who in 2 months will be standing, who will be on their knees and who will be on the floor bleeding out with a white chalk outline.

God Bless.

Update 6 April 2020

The situation on the ground has continued to evolve, with several governmental and non-governmental actions starting to continue easing life for Russians and Russian business.

1. Sberbank has created a payment holiday for its clients, for up to 6 months. This, unfortunately, does not mean that percents are not accuring, but payments can be put off, as follows:
   -- Mortgages up to 1.5 million rubles
   -- personal loans up to 250.000 rubles
   -- automobile loans up to 600.000 rubles
   -- credit cards up to 100.000 rubles
   -- small business short term loans up to 300.000 rubles
While the sums are small, it is a start.

2. Government has cut pension contributions from businesses for their employees by 50%. This is the biggest chunk of the payroll taxes that a business has to pay.

3. Internet- all major internet providers have agreed that they will not cut service for those who are unable to pay, during the crisis period, however long it lasts.

Update 8 April 2020

The Russian government has allocated 10 billion rubles ($133 million) to double the salaries of medical personnel fighting the Coronavirus out break.

Emergency salary loans to small and medium businesses are now full operative and are being turned around in under a day. Bank staff are working from 0800 to 2400 daily.

Update 17 April 2020

In order to recharge the economy once the locks downs are over, the Russian government is now offering guaranteed 6.5% mortgages, with the government picking up the tab for any percentage above the 6.5% level. The mortgage level limit is 5 million rubles for Moscow and St. Petersburg and 3 million for the rest of the country.

Update 1 June 2020

The Russian government has now started to pay a one time sum of 10,000 rubles per child between the ages of 5 and 16. The first deposits have started and parents have up to the end of September to file.

Government loans to small and medium businesses for the purpose of paying salaries have now been modified so that if 90% of the work force is kept on, the government will wave the debt totally. If 80% of the work force is kept, 50% will be waved.