Cross-posted from: https://feddit.de/post/9439113
“It seems likely that the damage to Russia’s productive capacity from the loss of western technology and key supplies will increase over time,” writes independent economist Roger Bootle.
“Moreover, the medium-term outlook for its supply capacity has been severely dented by the loss of so many soldiers in the Ukraine war – and more importantly, by the exodus of so many well-qualified young people who wished to escape both the Putin regime and the prospect of call-up.”
The idea that economic growth being slightly slower than it otherwise would’ve been is a great tragedy seems like a typical economist’s fiction. It tells us very little about whether or not they’ll be able to keep on manufacturing artillery shells. So long as the world is eager to buy Russian oil and gas it’s hard to imagine they won’t have sufficient money to keep up the killing.
That they’re losing so many people seems more likely to prove unsustainable first. Perhaps they’ll eventually run out of young men who can be coerced into aiming the guns they’re given in the intended direction.