Russia's Ruble is Global Best Performing Currency in March; 1st Qtr Current Account Surplus Soars to Record High
Russian President Vladimir Putin said defiantly on Monday that Western sanctions have proved to be “ineffective” in meeting their objective. In his words, “They (US and EU) expected these sanctions to rapidly produce a devastating effect on Russia’s finances and economy, sow panic in the markets, bring about a collapse in the banking system and create major shortages of goods in shops.”
“However, we can already say in all confidence that this policy has failed in Russia. The strategy of unleashing an economic blitzkrieg has been ineffective. Moreover, the sanctions affected those who initiated them. I am referring to higher inflation and unemployment and the worsening economic outlook for the United States and European countries, as well as the declining living standards of Europeans and the depreciation of their savings.”
All indications are that the contingency planning that Russia had worked out to pull through a severe sanctions regime is paying off. The ruble’s recovery has been absolutely astounding. The US President Biden had boastfully redacted that he’d turn ruble into “rubble” but the exact opposite happened. In the immediate aftermath of sanctions, the Russian currency plunged to 121.5 ruble per dollar and things looked dire enough. But it has since surged all the way back to where it was before Russia’s special operation in Ukraine began — around 80 ruble per USD in mid-April. Ironically, ruble turned out to be the best performing currency in March!
Putin noted that consumer prices have “grown considerably in Russia over the past six weeks, by 9.4 percent,” and people have “felt the impact on their family incomes.” He announced a decision “to adjust all social benefits, pensions and wages in the public sector, in accordance with inflation.” Russia can afford it, as in the first quarter of this year, “we are witnessing a record level of budget surplus.”
In comparison, it is a dismal scene in the US with inflation touching a 40-year high — 8.54% for March — that is going to get only worse if the conflict in Ukraine continues. Worse still, this scenario may upset Biden’s green energy plan. As for Germany, the largest EU economy, this year’s inflation is expected to touch double figures.
Interestingly, Russia is enjoying a “robust trade surplus” and in the first quarter of the year, current account surplus exceeded $58 billion, “setting a historical high. Foreign cash is returning to the banking sector and household deposits are growing.” Indeed, the factors behind the ruble roaring back are self-evident.
It seems the EU has sensed that Russia is putting back together amazingly well the pieces of life in an environment of extreme isolation from the West. The EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has admitted publicly that “With regard to financial sanctions, of course, you can always go further, but we have already reached the limits of what we can do. We did everything we could.”
Anonymous
PS. The shallowness of the Americans daft thinkers is showing. Instead of destroying Russia with this war, Russia is having a bonanza while Europe is going to have a runaway inflation and the US not far behind. This is like picking a real big piece of rock to drop on one's own feet.
Well done silly Americans. Everything they do will turn and bite them.
Nah..it's more like loading 6 bullets into the revolver and playing Russian roulette.
ReplyDeleteGuarantee baochek one!!
ReplyDeleteWith China, lndia, lndonesia and the Many Nations in Middle East, Africa and S E Asia maintaining their trades with Russia, the Ruble is poised to be more valuable.
Anyway,
always barter trade first and make currencies as Second Choice. This shall ensure equitability and less manipulation.
"Tinkov is one of Russia's most well-known entrepreneurs and founded the global online bank Tinkoff Bank and owned the cycling team Tinkoff-Saxo.
ReplyDeleteHe is also one of the most high profile Russians to publicly condemn President Vladimir Putin's actions.
Two of the country's most prominent oligarchs Mikhail Fridman and Oleg Deripaska have made separate calls for peace, but have stopped short of direct criticism."
These three are the Scoundrels of the Russian People! They need to be shot because they have forgotten from where their money came from.
If the country does not provide an avenue for them to enjoy their lives, there is nothing to say. But if Russia has been providing a source of revenues for their riches, then they must be criticised for being ungrateful, disrespectful and selling-off their own Motherland to cater to Western Audiences!
They deserved to have their money robbed by the Americans.
ReplyDeleteUS$ was 78 to the rouble before invasion, and reduced to 80 to the rouble now. Also domestic interest rates has gone up to 17%. How can this be best performing?
ReplyDeleteGot any readers smart to buy rubles or not? Must have chi to buy.
ReplyDeleteToday:
ReplyDeleteWASHINGTON: Russia's war in Ukraine is to blame for exacerbating "already dire" world food insecurity, with price and supply shocks adding to global inflationary pressures, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Tuesday (Apr 19).
Even before the war, over 800 million people - or 10 per cent of the global population - were suffering from chronic food insecurity, Yellen said, and estimates showed higher food prices alone could push at least 10 million more people into poverty.
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Yellen told a high-level panel countries should avoid export bans that could further boost prices, while stepping up support for vulnerable populations and smallholder farmers, a message underscored by German Finance Minister Christian Lindner.
"I want to be clear: Russia’s actions are responsible for this," Yellen said, adding that the United States was working urgently with partners and allies to "help mitigate the effects of Russia’s reckless war on the world’s most vulnerable".
Russia calls its Feb 24 invasion a "special military operation" to "denazify" Ukraine.
Lindner, speaking on behalf of Group of Seven (G7) advanced economies, said targeted and coordinated action was needed, but called on all countries to "keep agricultural markets open, not stockpile and not withhold stocks, and not impose unjustified export restrictions on agricultural products or nutrients".
Of course, it is very easy to put each and every blame upon the Russians. They simply are not able to bite back.
But, the facts are that whatever blames that they have levied upon the victims of this Ukrainian War, imposed by the Americans and the Little Britain, are pure lies and deceptions, nothing else.
These are pure, simple and nasty lies!
Anon 3.54 pm - Correct. I think Uncle Redbean bought ruble. I don't dare to buy ruble, but I buy DBS share. Tomorrow, DBS give divided $330. Huat, ah! I will buy 100 Big Sweep. I think can make more money than buying ruble. LOL!
ReplyDeleteThe UN Security Council held an extraordinary event on April 6 under the rubric Arria Formula Meeting on Biological Security regarding the biological activities in countries including Ukraine. Predictably, the US and UK representatives didn’t show up at the event and the western media also blacked out the proceedings. But that does not detract from the profound significance of what transpired.
ReplyDeleteThe highlight of the Security Council proceedings lasting over two hours was the disclosure by General Igor Kirillov, chief of the Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defense Forces of the Russian Armed Forces, that Washington is creating biological laboratories in different countries and connecting them to a unified system.
He said the US has spent more than $5 billion on military biological programs since 2005 and detailed that in territories bordering Russia and China alone, about 60 facilities have been modernised during this period . The Ukrainian network of laboratories is designed to conduct research and monitor the biological situation consisting of 30 facilities in 14 populated locations.
Highly sensitive materials from the Ukrainian biological laboratories were exported to the US in early February just before the Russian special operation began, and the rest were ordered to be destroyed lest they fell into Russian hands. But the cover-up was only partially successful. Indeed, Russia is in possession of highly incriminating evidence.
Previously also, Russia had released a number of documents related to the biological military activities of the Pentagon, which pointed toward a worldwide project to set up biological laboratories in rival countries with the goal of developing targeted viral weapons against those countries.
The proceedings of the Security Council conference on April 6 are in the public domain and are accessible. See the video.
Russia has made specific allegations, pointing finger at:
*Pentagon funding for the bio-labs in Ukraine;
*Location of these bio-labs(not only in Ukraine but in 36 countries around the world);
*Diseases and epidemics on which research work is going on, focusing on the means for their release, the countries where they are being tested (even without the knowledge of the governments of these countries); and, of course,
*Experiments relating to coronavirus (and bats used to transmit this virus).
However, the US has so far point-blank refused to accept any supervision and verification of such incriminatory evidences and has stonewalled the demand for a verification mechanism. It is unlikely that the US will permit an international verification process that holds the potential to expose it as indulging in crimes against humanity — although there are appropriate frameworks in place including the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and the UN, to hear the clarifications from the relevant country in a fair and impartial manner.
( Cont_d )
ReplyDeleteMigratory birds of mass destruction
A mind-boggling “discovery” that Russian forces in Ukraine stumbled upon is the use of numbered birds by the Pentagon-funded labs. This almost falls out of science fiction and Sir Alfred Hitchcock could have made an epic movie out of it where deception mixes with innocence and man’s cruelty to nature becomes unbearably grotesque. The project works like this:
To begin with, the Pentagon accesses the scientific data available with environmental specialists and zoologists after studying the migration of birds and observing them throughout the seasons, relating to the path these birds take each year on their seasonal journey from one country to another and even from one continent to another.
On the basis of this data, groups of migratory birds are caught, digitised and capsules of germs are attached to them that carry a chip to be controlled through computers. They birds are then released to the flock of the migratory birds in those target countries toward which the US intelligence has malevolent intentions.
Of course, these migratory birds travel great distances. The wandering albatross, for instance, is known to migrate at least 8500 km eastward across the South Pacific to the coast of South America, and many shy albatrosses migrate westward across the Indian Ocean to the coast of South Africa.
During the long flight of the birds that have been digitised in the Pentagon bio-labs, their movement is monitored step by step by means of satellites and the exact locations are determined. The idea is that if the Biden Administration (or the CIA) has a requirement to inflict harm on, say, Russia or China (or India for that matter), the chip is destroyed when the bird is in their skies.
Plainly put, kill the bird carrying the epidemic. Sadly, my mind goes back to the novel by the American author Harper Lee To Kill a Mocking Bird, the haunting story of innocence destroyed by evil.
To return to reality, once the “digitised” bird is killed and the capsule of germs it carries is released, the disease spreads in the “X” or “Y” country. It becomes a highly cost-effective method of harming an enemy country without any need of war or coup d’état or colour revolution.
The Russians have made the shocking claim that they are actually in possession of such migratory birds digitised in the Pentagon’s bio-labs.
International law expressly forbids the numbering of migratory birds because they freely criss-cross the blue sky and air of other countries. By supplying them with germs, these birds become weapons of mass destruction. What human ingenuity! But the US enjoys total immunity from international law.
The bottom line is that only the US intelligence — and President Biden, perhaps, if he remembers — would know where all humans have been infected so far in this century by the Birds of Mass Destruction. Was Ebola that devastated Africa a test case and precursor of things to come?
What about Covid-19, which is known to have originated from funded laboratories that were administered by the US? It is very likely that the US might have used migratory birds to kill Chinese citizens. Clearly, the US in its desperation to reverse its global decline is pulling out all the stops to restore its hegemony in a world order that is inexorably moving toward multipolarity.
"During the long flight of the birds that have been digitised in the Pentagon bio-labs, their movement is monitored step by step by means of satellites and the exact locations are determined. The idea is that if the Biden Administration (or the CIA) has a requirement to inflict harm on, say, Russia or China (or India for that matter), the chip is destroyed when the bird is in their skies."
ReplyDelete~ reminds of the tragic crash of China Eastern Boeing 737 flight MU5735 on March 21 which killed all 132 people onboard - was there a kill chip for the sudden vertical dive?
Patriot, why you so angry and jealousy? Relax, man. Rich people are not the farmers and they don't eat all the food. If got food shortage, it is the supplier, and goverment.
ReplyDeleteMust know that anger and jealousy is also sins. Not just greed. Calm down, man. You should go to the temple every day. Please don't waste your life like this.
Russian airlines told to prepare to fly without GPS
ReplyDeleteThe reported move comes after increased reports of jamming and spoofing of the US satellite system's signal
Russia's air traffic regulator has told carriers to learn to fly their planes without relying on the American Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite-based-navigation facility, newspaper Izvestia reported on Friday.
According to the letter from the regulator, Rosaviatsia, which was seen by the paper, it has instructed national airlines to prepare to cope without GPS after a March report by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), which warned of increased cases of jamming and spoofing of the system's signal after February 24 – the day Russia started its military offensive in Ukraine.
These were apparently registered in such areas as Russia's western enclave, the Kaliningrad Region, the Baltics, eastern Finland, the Black Sea, the eastern Mediterranean, Israel, Cyprus, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey and northern Iran.
The interference has led to some planes changing their course or destination as the pilots were unable to perform a safe landing without the GPS, EASA has reportedly said.
According to Rosaviatsia, carriers should evaluate the risks of GPS malfunction and provide additional training to its pilots on how to act in such situations. The crews have also reportedly been told to instantly inform traffic control about any problems with a satellite navigation system.
The letter from the agency should be treated as a recommendation only and doesn't constitute a ban on the use of GPS by the Russian airlines, the paper clarified.
Several Russian carriers, including major ones like Aeroflot and S7, have confirmed receiving a relevant message from the traffic regulator.
Last month, Dmitry Rogozin, head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, warned that Washington may well disconnect the country from GPS as part of draconian sanctions imposed on it over the conflict in Ukraine.
On Friday, Rogozin took to Telegram to propose switching all of the country's commercial planes from GPS to its Russian counterpart, Glonass.
However, it might be a complicated thing to do as Boeing and Airbus planes, mainly used by the country's carriers, are designed to solely support the GPS technology.
- RT [You can share this story on social media]
I had many experiences flying Russian planes with Russian technology (TU 134, TU 154, Il 86, YAK 40, etc). Not many people know but GPS is owned and operated by US Military. Glonass is ok, but chiampahlan Russian with western technology, good luck to the passengers.
ReplyDeleteOnly good experience was in their Antonov 24 (propeller) flying from Sakhalin to Hakodate. Bumpy ride, but reliable and good pilot. Cannot even feel the landing.
Is it possible to switch to China's Beidou instead?
ReplyDeleteIf you don't mind landing into the side of a mountain. This is not like switching petrol brands.
ReplyDeleteFinding the direction in the air to go from point A to point B cannot be more difficult than on the ground. It is not precision engineering. If one can use a mobile phone to use Google map, one can also use it with the Beidou app. The mobile phone may not be an instrument of the plane, but it would not be that difficult to find a general direction to a destination unless you are talking about hitting a target with cruise missiles.
ReplyDeleteHitting the side of the mountain you need the skill or blindness of the USS Connecticut to do it. That requires special skills.
When the Americans switched off GPS during the attack on Iran, the Iranians switched to Beidou and could take down American drones.
Navigation and safe landing is crucial in aviation. It is designed and integrated into the aircraft technology. Using a phone to navigate if fine if you're the ground. If your phone isn't accurate, no big deal. You ask for directions. You don't have gravity or 90000 tonnes or 200 lives to deal with. Like I said, Glonass is good enough, and probably better than Beidou for navigation over Russia. It's a question of integration of technology which is the issue. It takes years to test and ensure total system safety when we are talking about aviation.
ReplyDeleteHitting the side of the mountain you need the skill or blindness of the USS Connecticut to do it.
Or the skill of a China Eastern pilot.
Taking down a drone is irrelevant. We don't know how many misses the Iranians had.
The mobile phone may not be an instrument of the plane, but it would not be that difficult to find a general direction to a destination unless you are talking about hitting a target with cruise missiles.
ReplyDeleteAirlines now don't need to spend millions on navigation and flight safety technology. Just give the pilot a Huawei phone. Problem solved. LOL!