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.
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.
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