Housing and overall inflation in Russia since 2000, accumulated, % (2000 = 100%)

Data sources: Central Bank of Russia; Rosstat

Made with ms Excel instruments

You should juxtapose Ukraine, if you have the data. Ukraine is losing housing to the war and Russia is not...

Data would be more beautiful if we didn’t have to translate 2000=100% ! /s

I'm struggling to understand this. Housing prices are going up? There's more demand for houses in Russia? Overall inflation seems completely unaffected by the war. Something feels off with the data.

I think the consensus now is that the sanctions have failed. Turns out that Russia is self-sufficient in all the daily needs of its citizens, its businesses import/export via China and India for everything else, its banking system has proven to be bullet proof and its RBL credit markets look to be sufficiently liquid to finance the requirements of domestic commerce. As for wartime production causing inflation, turns out that having a state controlled MIC and mothballed soviet era production lines is a really good way to procure cheap weapons.

The sanctions have failed in terms of causing swift and dramatic effect to Russia's economy. But they obviously do limit future growth and investment in the country.

No prob. Invading Ukraine will fix all that. Heil Putin!

People keep saying that, but I I don’t think it’s obvious at all.

Keep in mind we’re not talking about some two bit South American country reliant on imports - we’re talking about a country with excellent STEM educational infrastructure, an enormous manufacturing base and a rock solid services sector that isn’t constrained by a lack of FDI.

In fact, there’s a case to be made that western sanctions are a medium and long term benefit to Russia because they’ve given local manufacturers a chance to occupy the ecological niches left by the dominant (and default) western brands. Not only that, Russian businesses get to take over local factories sold for cents on the dollar by the retreating western brands, and the surplus generated by their output is now staying in Russia rather than being repatriated westward. Then there’s China for everything else.

There’s a scary unspoken doubt lurking in the back of every economic policy maker in the west: what if it turns out that the western system is no longer essential to the world? How does that change global economic behaviour??

That doesn't negate what I said. Russia could still grow, while still being limited by these sanctions in terms of the methods in which they can grow.