Crisis - Russia is investing billions in the US economy

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

While the United States is extending sanctions against our country, we continue to buy American debt.

Since March 6, President Obama has extended the sanctions state of emergency against Russia for another year, declared by his decree 13660. For the first time, the United States and its allies imposed anti-Russian sanctions exactly 2 years ago. In connection with the events in Ukraine. They affect the energy, defense, financial sectors and individuals in Russia.

GIVE YOUR WIFE TO UNCLE …

One of the main goals of Obama's decree 13660 is to cut off Russia's access to Western loans, financially weaken, and even strangle our country. No wonder, as part of these sanctions, at the end of February, the US State Department and Treasury insistently recommended (read - ordered!) The largest American banks Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Bank of America, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley not to buy Russian government bonds. Do not dare to finance the economy of a potential enemy! The Wall Street Sharks were immediately saluted. Moreover, Goldman Sachs had previously agreed to the placement of Russian debt instruments, but after the command of the State Department was forced to withdraw his application. So the State Department has clearly shown who is really the boss in the world market of "free capital".

This is despite the fact that Russia itself, under the conditions of the sanctions inspired by Obama, is again increasing the purchase of American bonds, the so-called Treasuries. In November - by 6 billion dollars, in December - by 4.1 billion. In total, as of January 1, 2016, RF investments in US Treasuries amount to $ 92.1 billion. And when our Ministry of Finance decided in February to place debt securities in overseas banks for a measly 3 billion "green", it immediately received a shock from the State Department.

What is this strange policy of the Russian financial authorities? The country is sorely lacking money. The budget is being sequestered, spending on medicine and education is officially being cut, veterans are periodically frightened by freezing pensions … Loans to businesses, mortgages - at enormous ruinous interest rates! To replenish the budget, the authorities recently introduced new excise taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel, which will inevitably lead to a new rise in fuel prices in Russia soon. Despite the fact that oil prices in the world have fallen sharply. Next in line are excise taxes on palm oil, soda … The number and amount of fines for motorists, paid parking lots, other "fees", fees, extortions are growing. The list can be long. A bitter joke about the imminent "air tax for Russians" is popular. The feeling that the government wants to get out of the crisis exclusively at the expense of the population. His income and salaries have already fallen, even according to official statistics. And prices are rising, as is unemployment …

And at the same time, billions of dollars go overseas, are invested in the economy of our potential enemy.

A popular saying comes to mind - "Give your wife to your uncle, and go to … your aunt (of easy virtue)." It reflects the situation very accurately.

The townsfolk, experts, even other deputies are perplexed. Here is how State Duma deputy Alexander Starovoitov commented on the $ 10 billion investment in Treasuries at the end of last year:

“Probably for some, these are empty numbers, but a small comparison: these amounts for two months are equivalent to the planned government spending on supporting the Russian economy for the entire 2016, 30 percent higher than the annual government spending on education, 54 percent higher than on healthcare."

Starovoitov insists that the leadership of the Bank of Russia come to the State Duma and explain the mysterious policy of diverting funds into overseas securities: "Maybe this is some kind of cunning economic trick, maybe they really have information that this will bring the country substantial profits?"

QUIET HARBOR OF CAPITALS

I don’t know what the Bank of Russia will answer to the deputy and whether it will answer at all. Therefore, I ask you to explain the situation. Director of the Institute of Globalization Problems, Doctor of Economics Mikhail Delyagin.

- The name of the US government debt, derived from the English Treasury - "treasury", "treasury" or "Treasury". The official name of the US Treasury is literally translated as "Treasury Department". The term "Treasury" means all types of its debt obligations: short-term treasury bills (usually with a maturity of 4 to 26 weeks, but up to a year), medium-term by their standards "notes" (maturity from 1 to 10 years) and long-term bonds (from 10 to 30, but usually up to 20 years). The latter are of the greatest importance and they are usually understood as "Treasuries", although this is not entirely accurate.

There is a huge secondary market for all types of Treasuries. The power, wealth and active dominance of the United States, as well as the development and layering of markets, make Treasuries absolutely liquid and reliable. They are gladly accepted as collateral to secure loans of all types.

The US government guarantees the owners of their debts, albeit a low, but a fixed percentage (in recent years from 0.25 to more than 3%, depending on their type and market situation). However, depending on the balance of supply and demand, they can be placed at a price either below or above par; their price constantly fluctuates at subsequent auctions.

In general, their profitability is low and, taking into account the inflation of the dollar, it means, as a rule, the depreciation of investments. This is the flip side of risklessness. However, full liquidity and an actual guarantee against falling securities prices make Treasuries attractive as a means of saving money, a “safe haven” for unused capitals around the world. The growing global crisis, growing instability and the expansion of zones of bloody chaos (including the one carried out by the United States to finance its development by frightened capital from the whole world) increase the demand for them and, accordingly, reduce their profitability.

If on June 1, 2006, the yield of the most common 10-year bonds ("bonds") of the United States was 5.145% per annum, then by July 1, 2012 it fell to 1.47%. By December 1, 2013, it grew to 3.026%, and on March 1, 2016 it amounted to 1.881%.

- Investments in treasury are carried out by both the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Russia. The Ministry of Finance, reducing the Reserve Fund (45% of which, as well as 45% of the foreign exchange portion of the National Welfare Fund, is invested in the US national debt) to cover the budget deficit, is also cutting investments in Treasuries. The Bank of Russia sells treasuries when its gold and foreign exchange reserves decrease and buys when they increase. Therefore, the growth in investments was caused by the activities of the Bank of Russia, and not the Ministry of Finance.

From the point of view of common sense, investing in US debt securities is, to put it mildly, irrational. However, from an accounting point of view, the actions of the Russian monetary authorities are correct. As liberals, they serve global business, for which Russia's progress is unacceptable, as it can create competition for it. And since the money of the people of Russia should not work for him, they must simply lie, ideally, slowly being pulled apart by all sorts of speculators (because global business is speculative by nature) and corrupt officials (because they, taking the stolen out of the country, ultimately turn it into financial global business resource).

Money should “just lie” in the most reliable financial instrument - and this is just Treasury. The increase in investments in them is a clear expression of the fundamental refusal of the liberals of Russia from the development of the country as such.

I personally cannot explain the logic of our monetary authorities in any other way.

Suffice it to recall that according to the internationally recognized “Reddy criterion”, to ensure the stability of the national currency (moreover, in an open economy, without limiting speculation), there are enough international reserves equal to the sum of quarterly imports and annual payments on external debt. Throughout the devaluation of the ruble, since January 2014, international reserves exceeded the level required by the Reddy criterion by 1.5-2 times, that is, they were excessive, and the devaluation was completely man-made.

At the beginning of 2016, the Reddy criterion for Russia is $ 165.3 billion, and our international reserves are $ 368 billion.. Now they are above $ 379 billion! That is, 200 billion dollars, right now lying in the pockets of the state, can be directed to the development of the country without any risk of a weakening of the ruble. But the liberals prefer to support with this money the countries waging a "cold war" of destruction against Russia. As I remember, Dvorkovich said, “Russia must pay for the financial stability of the United States,” and this maxim is being strictly observed.

Therefore, the leadership of the Bank of Russia, as well as the socio-economic bloc of the Medvedev government, in my opinion, is high time to invite not to the fluffy carpets of the State Duma, as the deputy Starovoitov suggests, but to the cold tiles of the Lubyanka.

KUDRIN'S LOOP

- Certainly. This money can go to modernize infrastructure, to normalize education and health care, to treat children, to pay salaries to FSB officers, after all! But they are being withdrawn from the economy, which creates an artificial money hunger. Before the start of the Western credit and investment blockade in March 2014, large Russian corporations developed by borrowing their own money from abroad, paid as taxes to the state and withdrawn by it abroad. It was called "Kudrin's loop" - after the name of the person who threw it all over the country.

After Russia's rejection of the Nazi coup d'etat organized by the West in Ukraine and, in fact, its American occupation, this "loop" was broken by the West itself. They stopped lending to Russian taxpayers, even with their own money.

But the liberals in power, serving the West hostile to Russia, not only do not take our funds from its financial system, but continue to withdraw them there!

The wise Kudrin started the game with Treasuries in order to lower inflation and save money from being stolen. Money still continues to steal, inflation is frenzied, to put it mildly … The logic "so that our money is not stolen in Russia, it must be given to someone as soon as possible" fully characterizes the intellectual level of Russian liberals. It is no coincidence that our competitors from the West recognized Kudrin as the best Minister of Finance, and Nabiullina as the best head of the national bank.

As for inflation, it is frantic precisely because of the artificially organized money hunger. Withdrawing money from Russia overseas, liberals bleed the economy. And the only way to somehow support it is devaluation. It raises the price of imports, the share of which is large (since domestic production is destroyed by money hunger and the enslaving conditions of the WTO), and causes panic, encouraging monopolists (whose arbitrariness is not fundamentally limited by liberals who oppose government regulation as such) to increase prices even more.

As a result, the monetary famine, allegedly created to curb inflation, but in fact to withdraw money from the country at the disposal of global business and to support it, contributes to the acceleration of price growth in our country, not to mention the completely colonial destruction of the economy.

- Their economies have been rebuilt, they are investing extra money in US debt that cannot be used.

Our economy is monstrously underinvested, it suffocates without money, desperately needs it. This can be judged at least by the Russian roads. Sometimes, even on federal highways, we have the feeling that the Great Patriotic War has not ended yet, the Fritzes continue bombing …

China, Japan, I repeat, are investing too much, and we are tearing away from ourselves the last, that which we ourselves are sorely lacking.

CALL OF THE STATE DEPARTMENT

- The search by the Ministry of Finance for $ 3 billion, as well as domestic loans, with unused reserves, which, according to its own reports, amounted to 10, 2 trillion rubles as of February 1, 2016, are simply beyond the bounds of good and evil.

But the Ministry of Finance takes loans, it seems, in order to pay interest on them later: this is assistance to financial speculators who credit it, at the expense of taxpayers, at our expense.

American investment banks, I think, are used to working according to these schemes. It is hard to imagine that they were not corrupt, and it is difficult to look for new intimate partners.

Although, of course, Chinese loans are more expensive than Western ones. But this is not a critical difference. The reason, I think, is that people are shot for corruption in China. Or maybe China, as a strategic competitor to the United States, simply cannot be a partner of Russian liberals: overseas owners can punish for this.

- Nekrasov once wrote: "People of serfdom are real dogs sometimes: the heavier the punishment, the dearer the Lord is to them."

For liberals, the West is not so much a source of money as the ultimate truth. When I observe the interaction of our liberals with the West, I remember Mayakovsky: “Did you see a dog licking a beating hand?” Now I see - almost every day.

So it will not sober up: on the contrary, I think, it will plunge them even deeper into self-intoxication and delight of servility.

UNDER THE IRON FIVE CONTRIBUTIONS

- The economy of the enemy is sponsored by the liberal part of the elite of Russia, which, I repeat, considers our independence unacceptable and almost a crime - our sovereignty. And this liberal part, in addition to managing the entire socio-economic sphere and a huge part of the information and propaganda sphere, is extremely influential in other elements of the state.

The 90s have not gone anywhere: they are in power and dream of returning. The liberal opposition on the street is ridiculous, pitiful and even useful in some ways. Really dangerous are her adherents who rule Russia in the interests of the mortal enemies of our Motherland …

-Maybe it’s in vain that you “run into” the liberal wing of the government, Mikhail Gennadievich, and the little chest just opens? The "strange" purchase of Treasuries is actually an indemnity disguised from the people that Russia is forced to pay for losing the Cold War. A very common version! There is, they say, such a secret agreement between the winner and the loser. Some conspiracy theorists go further, believing that Russia has been under external control since Yeltsin's time.

- External control of a nuclear power is possible only as external control of the traitors who are entrenched in its leadership. No other forms of external administration, not to mention occupation, are technologically impossible.

The president of a country that has at least one Rubezh-class missile is free not to fulfill any obligations that he considers harmful to the country. Including contributions.

"FIFTH COLUMN" PACKAGES SUITCASES?

- In principle, such plans of members of the ruling liberal clan are possible. However, it is clear that if the "convenient moment" comes, the West will not give them even their own money and assets withdrawn to fashionable countries. Great Britain, as far as one can understand, has already carried out initial preparations for their confiscation.

- Under normal conditions, the United States will never confiscate other people's investments in their debts, as this discredits their securities and shows that they are not a safe type of investment. This will bring down their entire pyramid of debt, as they will no longer trust her. I remember when, in the mid-90s, Switzerland opened unclaimed accounts in its banks as part of a campaign to “search for money from victims of Nazism,” its banking system lost a quarter of its assets in a year, as investors saw: the old, absolute banking secrecy no longer exists.

However, in the context of the global crisis, in the course of the expected disintegration of the global market into macroregions, and the unified financial system of the world into currency zones, the United States may go to the confiscation of assets invested in its national debt.

Therefore, it is necessary to secure our money.

- Very simple! There is no need to keep your money in the pockets of a potential adversary who cultivates rabid Russophobia without hiding, waging a cold war against us for destruction, organizing Nazi coups d'état in friendly countries and unleashing civil wars there.

THE KEY TO A PERFECT FUTURE

- First of all, it is necessary to recognize the salvation of the people and the economy as the goal of the state. People who consider his goal to serve a hostile global business can work as dishwashers, janitors, and even, perhaps, taxi drivers - but not prime ministers, not leaders of the Bank of Russia, not deputy prime ministers or ministers.

The key to a great future is infrastructure modernization. To prevent investments in it from being on the foreign exchange market tomorrow, it is necessary to separate speculative capital from the rest of the economy. In the market USA, the beacon of democracy, it was canceled only in 1999, in Japan - in 2000!

So that investments are not stolen, it is necessary to limit corruption, so that they do not go into overpricing - the arbitrariness of the monopolies. These are tasks that have long been solved in the world: there would be a desire.

It is necessary to ensure reasonable protectionism, at least at the level of the European Union. Since the sanctions can be lifted, it is necessary to leave the WTO. It is simple, since any treaty with corruption motivation is null and void under international law. Knowing the liberals who were involved in Russia's accession to the WTO, I believe that it will be easy to prove the corruption motivation.

Further, for the development of the country, human capital is needed. This means that it is necessary to restore high-quality and free education and medicine, to guarantee a real living wage.

Finally, it is necessary to exempt non-speculative small businesses from taxes, and beyond the Urals - and medium-sized businesses, to transfer vacant agricultural land to those who are ready to process them, and to decriminalize VAT. Replace the regressive scale of taxation of wages and salaries with a progressive one. Today, 30% of the income of the poor is deducted from the income of the poor, 10% from the well-to-do, and the rich can wriggle out and pay nothing. A flat scale of progressive tax in the world has survived only in Russia and Bolivia. The reason for the retirement crisis is the liberals building a tax haven for idle billionaires and a tax hell for everyone else; we remove it - and the Pension Fund from the "black hole" will become the largest investor in the country.

- Quite right. Developed countries have gone through this. Otherwise they would not have become developed. Only now our government, which has been sitting in the White House, will not write these prescriptions, as you might guess. Preferring to act the old fashioned way. More precisely, to be inactive. And the crisis is growing.

LARGEST US DEBT HOLDERS

1. China - $ 1.2 trillion.

2. Japan - $ 1.1 trillion.

3. Countries of the Caribbean - $ 351.6 billion.

4. OPEC countries - $ 292.5 billion.

5. Ireland - $ 264.2 billion

6. Brazil - $ 254.8 billion

7. Switzerland - $ 231.9 billion

8. United Kingdom - $ 218.3 billion

9. Luxemburg - $ 200.5 billion

10. Hong Kong - $ 200, 2 billion

…15. Russia - $ 92.1 billion