Soviet Economist Leads the New & Future Russia 

Interessting. Konstantin from "Inside Russia" says the same and he has studied economy in Russia and the USA. Thank you Mark.

In soviet Russia, bank robs you

And yes, we want whatever makes you cry, your tears are so sweet

Konstantin Samailov, also an economist, from the Inside Russia channel, basically said the same thing.

Thank You Mark, always a pleasure to learn from you.

If I might misquote Winston Churchill: Many economic systems have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that free-enterprise is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that free-enterprise is the worst economic system except for all others. As a further comment, I watch a number of WW2 tank restoration videos and to find examples of worker sabotage is not uncommon. Bad working conditions lead to bad workmanship and outright sabotage

Good comparison when you take the example of Albert Speer. At the moment when things were going wrong for Germany, this individual, architect of formation, took matters into his own hands to reform the war effort by mobilizing all available forces into a centralized enterprise even to the point of perverseness. We must admit that this intervention initially led to noticeable economic successes for the military-industrial complex, even as British and American bombing began to increase in intensity as the war progressed. The lack of raw materials and sufficient manpower in defense and production combined with persistent bombings and advancing Allied armies have progressively put an end to this "success story". When the Soviet Union further destroyed itself in the 1980s through mismanagement, corruption, nepotism and the hopelessness of their money-consuming involvement in the Afghan conflict, it did not take much more to put them over the edge by the end of that decade, finally ending this communist experiment under the Reagan presidency. If Western military efforts and support for Ukraine are maintained at current levels, we can only hope that the Soviet Union 2.0 will eventually implode under the weight of their own miscalculations.

Be thankful that you live in the US, where such missallocations of resources could never happen. Oh!

Still horrified from one Russian talkshow debunking a concentration camps for kids report by saying that it is a garden variety labor camp.

You are spot on. In my country, all the day, the journalists is talking about how difficult it will be for Ukraine now and the war will drag out when the russian millitary is run more effectively. Maybe they are too young to remenber what plan economics does, the only thing this man has ever learned, is plan economic, will he introduce it in the middle of a war?? It will create very big turmoil in the weapen factories, the steel plants and of course down to the millitary units that needs equipment. When a factory is been told to cut the costs by the state and the state is`nt paying the real price for the product, what do you do then? Make a bad quality and use low price workers, maybe prisoners, it will result in Inefficiency = weapens that do not work and certainly dont arrive at the frontline at time. I was not totally convinced that Ukraine would win the war before, but now I am.

💯% true! Salam from Kazakhstan

Thanks for the great messages.

Cheers Mark, thanks for the information, and lesson.

It did take long for you to become one of my top fav RU-vidrs. Love your videos 😎

Thanks for the interesting video.

Thanks, Mark, for another informative drop.🤠

Technology is racing ahead faster & faster and Russia is planning to go backwards? Everything just gets worse & worse in Russia. I'm always keeping a close eye on the war & related news AND each & every day I thank God I wasn't born in Russia.

Your talks really make sense in this confusing world. Thank you

Good stuff Mark.

“Deutche is Russian bank”…. No wonder this guy was fired from German bank

It is like in that simpson episode. Soviet Russia was still there, waiting.

Thank you for these solid points, Mark! Belousov's job is to manage the shift to a war time economy, which almost by definition means a higher level of centralization at the cost of the civil economy. It also reflects the degree of Putin's personal fatalism in relation to the Ukraine war he can't win. There seems a parallel with Hitler in this respect. By the end of 1942 most serious observers ruled out that Nazi Germany could be victorious. But Hitler struggled on, resulting in 30 months more misery over Europe including over his own country.

Bro, love your videos. Keep it up, your channel is taking off and rightfully so.

Amazing knowledge, Mark. Thanks!

Two main critic points. 1) This article was published in 2001! It was 23 years ago and a lot has changed since then. Now Belousov has 23 more years of experience working for the government. I would say the ideas from the article are most likely not valid anymore. 2) I was born in the USSR and it had some problems, but it was surely not "the worst place on earth". Otherwise why so many old people in Russia wish the USSR back?! In fact the worst place on earth it was after the end of USSR during Gorbachev and Yeltsin times. The other question is, why the economies in the West have such heavy problems right now? And why Chinas state regulated socialistic economy is Nr. 1 in the world now?!

Good topic

Very interesting! I was looking in MSM for any information on him when I saw that Putin put an economist in charge of defence. Keep up the economic insights on Russia!

Thanks

I'm a Trekker too Mark. I like your use of TOS in your videos.

In his (or someone’s) speech about the new Minister and objectives, they mentioned “cutting of costs”. I think this will be good for Ukraine, and hence, the world.

Can you evaluate where Elvira Nabulina would fit in this new economic order? She's proven herself a talented /adaptive cog in the economic machine. She's (supposedly) a very western /open market banker in her approach to problems. (She tried to resign at the start of this criminality). She's proven her skills at trying to reach the goals of the leadership for the economy....constrained by circumstances as she may find herself 🤷. Any thoughts on her future, her powers /authorities in this new order? Is there anything in her background /approach that enhances or inhibits her security as a central banking head in Belousov's fever dream?

I think the russian economy is much worse off than everyone is being led to believe, and the appointment of an economist to this position says "at this point, we're more worried about where we'll be getting our weapons in twelve months than the military trying to overthrow that thing in the Kremlin." Shoigu is loyal to the point of sycophantic. You NEED that, if you're going to change your constitution to make yourself a tsar, while still pretending that you run a democracy. The coup always comes from the military - unless your inept camping buddy is looking for a job. Slap a couple dozen giant medals on that guy's chest and - bam - you got yourself a Minister of Defense. ...until your economy goes so badly awry that supplying your genocidal war becomes a challenge. At this point, you bring in someone like Belousov, who has architected many of the rf's famous "retroactive voluntary windfall tax-" yada yada yada, they're policies that allow the Kremlin to raid private businesses. It tells us that the need that Belousov serves has superseded the need that Shoigu served - not that either need has necessarily gone away. This is terrible news for the russian economy (well, the private "non-war" economy) in the long term and is a bad indicator for how things are going behind the scenes in the Kremlin. This happened in response to the passing of military aid for Ukraine by the US, not the (haha) "election" and subsequent coronation of Dobby the Dacha Elf. Two cents, and worth exactly that.

I hope you're right. Thanks.

You shouldn't compare war-time economies with peace-time economies. The UK and US had command/planned economies during WWII - massive state spending and employment, price and wage controls, rationing etc.

When I read about him and learned he graduated in 1981, it became clear that what he had studied is marxist economid theory. Those that studied this in gdr when the Berlin wall fell knew it was wasted time. Given his age, I should have known immediately but I thought for a second that he had done later studies.

problem are bureaucrats. I just watched another video about economic scandals in CCCP, and Brezhnev introduced policy where bureaucrats can lie about industry achievements without punishment. So, nothing was produced, shelves were empty, but nobody got punished. What China has is combination of planning and feedback in a probably right balance. Even Bank of Japan, through famous Guidance Window Guidance policy was secretly running combined planning and market economy. And this Japanese mixed planned market economy became the most successful economy on the planet ever, until US decided to punish Japanese for exporting too much, and kill 5 million jobs in Japan.

Good points, thanks

"Belousov" means "man with white moustache" :)

where is this book i would like to read this

Keep up the great work my friend and fighting the good fight 💙💛🇺🇦🤘

The F16s came into Service in the early 90s Russia introduced 3 new planes last week and have brought a lotr more into service in the 2000s does mr Dannat think these are inmferior to the F16s.

His last name means white mustache 🙂, so you're right. Thanks for this coverage, very interesting and encouraging!

Thank you, Mark. Very informative, can't say I know the any of in depths details of this topic. But I enjoy your take on it, let's say it's food for fought.

Pyotr Krasnov "Behind The Thistle" was written after the Romanov Rebellion and described a future Russia that is much as you describe. Said to be very popular book earlier in Putin regime.

History never repeats, I tell myself before I go to sleep.

Hello Mr. Biernat, hello everyone! In my opinion, in the analysis and opinion that you presented in this video. You are absolutely right! Modern Russia is de-evolving towards the USSR model. And this is a global mistake of the authorities. And yes, thank you for your work, I enjoy watching your videos.

As a Polish I say your pronunciation is good

Do you feel like there may some short-term improvements with the change, or will he speed up the decline from the start?

Interesting Star trek references, they are normally based on somewhat obscure history.

Here is a simple Task Mark, try to do a video about Canada, your neighbor scan Canadian economy and services and try to make a video about us, please ! This video Link (under) that I am sending you, you can use as a base, because it is 100 correct: Why people want to leave Canada (but can’t)

finally someone competent amid all these experts

Centralisation is a good idea really. The Netherlands had to go into severe economic depression once with tulip price speculation, next time 50 years later with an other type of flower. They had learned their lesson. Moscovians may also.

In the short term, better (perhaps slightly less corrupt) management can boost military production. In the long term, planned economy is less efficient overall.

I agree. It's pretty much the same as Konstantin from Inside Russia says, Belousov is a former Gosplan economist who knows nothing but soviet economy.

Great take on this topic. More than accurate and relevant

Fascinating. Thank you.

I don't think he has control of the economy to implement what you say. Rather, he can just maybe use this approach in regards to the operations of military equipment

In 1998-1999, Russia had a Government headed by Primakov. Soviet official with communist views. The results were brilliant.

He was put into position to structure Russia's MIC. it will be interesting to see how that will compare to the USA's MIC.

I'm curious to see where he's going to find all the consumers for his new Russia.

The Soviet’s had Communism- which was an idea where people gave their lives, ideals, religious ideology, - that means billions of free labor and savrifice

The Chinese have the largest manufacturing sector on the planet and the USSR was the second richest major economy in world history. Centralization can work for some aspects of economic growth and development. That’s not even touching the U.S. war economy of the late 30s-40s which pulled the U.S. out of the depression.

I hope you are correct in your evaluation of Byelousov and that the collapse of russia accelerates. BTW this surname comes from the roots of byely "white" and usy "moustache", so it translates as white moustachioed

Hi Sir Could you do a video talking about the fed movibg from an scarce reserve to an abundant reserve and then an ample reserve model?- specifically, what this means for money creation and inflation? I have read that the zero reserve requirement is not actually a problem and will not result in unlimited monetary expansion aka printing money? To a lay person like myself, a zero reserve requirement for banks seems absolutely insane?

Hi Mark, Belousov in russian mean white mustache, belo - white usy - mustache

More centralization and more control of the state over private citizens' actions is what the EU has been doing for decades, just at a very slow pace.

Very interesting video, thanks for this.

Belousov is another Potemkin Soviet economist. I suggest reading how he managed to raise Russia's "Doing Business" index.

100% agree with all your points. And I think it's even worse for Russia. When it was ruling the Soviet empire there were a lot more products made in Russia. Lots of the former factories have since been closed down and now Russia will just import those products and pay with their petro dollars. On top of that, a lot of things were made in other member countries of the Soviet empire and not in Russia at all. Russia can't call on many of those as they are now "on the other side" or don't want to get hit by secondary sanctions from the US. About the slave labor side of things, recently the minimum working age has been reduced to 14 I believe, and a list has been drawn up of roles these young Russians can perform. I somehow don't think they'll get much pay either. Well, looks like we're getting 5 year plans and people cuing in the streets again, just a question of time.

Belousov translated like White Mustashe

Just because there was loss does not mean it wasn't 'Efficient' That would be to say it was not 'Effective'

Russian economy is a mess right now. People from smaller towns & villages can hardly survive for their meager salaries, and prices are rising all the time.

But the truth is that they have been isolated for a very long time.They have been under isolation for a very long time. The only necessary goods that they would need are from their neighbors. The Soviet Union was able to adequately supply itself. The means but not very quickly. Now that the world is warming up, food production and technology have changed. The necessities of that the Soviet Union required during the 70s and 80s It's not the same. I'll ask anybody here. Does anybody know how they get their gunpowder??????? In my opinion, I think you're concluding that it's impossible that they can not achieve it. An efficient economy.

Thank you very much for this video

The new Russia may collapse at some point, but ... didn't Germany draw the world in some kind of tiny war?

I can't say for or against but I want to try & understand better to ask a question. People have been saying Russia's finance system is on it's way to collapse & I do believe that part but I get the impression we have a good number of years before we see it happen, will this speed that collapse up faster? & will it's effects be quick enough to make a difference in Ukraine's position of suffering?

Imagine waking up in the morning,and all you have on your brain is russia. I had a the same crush on a girl, I ended up marrying her.

What picks my grits is that supporters of Socialism always say that the only reason Socialism fails is bc other Capitalist Free-Market countries won't trade with them, sanction them, and blockade them. Yet Capitalism and Free Markets can self adjust to sanctions, blockades and trade barriers. In fact, in all Socialist economies, it's the Black Market (run by the common ppl) that keeps the Command Economy (run by the elites) going, long after the Socialist mechanisms have failed.

Very interesting. A completely different take on the guy, and very valuable. Stellar analysis. Of course, I wonder what he was thinking. Prior to the influx of western capital, the Chinese economy made the Soviet economy look like a success story. The term for creating a totally self-dependent economy is "autarky". That was Hitler's idea. The only thing I disagree with you, and many others, on is an assumption that the current complex global supply chains we have are necessary, or even a good thing. In fact, there are two motivations for the current state of affairs. One is that our product companies are no longer run by engineers, but by MBAs and bean counters. I explain below. This leads to the constant search for labor differentiation. A corollary to that is the move of manufacturing to countries with a large and growing market. This is a way to get around protectionism, plain and simple. Look at automobile manufacturing. Japanese and Korean companies build cars in the US. Why? Is the labor cheaper? No. They were trying to forestall being kicked out of the most lucrative market in the world. Another example is BMW. All of their SUVs are assembled in the US. I told a German colleague of mine this and he was not happy. To show you the madness of this, my attorney (and friend; good to have one of those) bought one recently. He had to wait for a while because parts and assemblies were flying back and forth across the Atlantic. In the 1980s the movement in manufacturing was to collocate engineering and manufacturing. This was, in large part, because of the concept called "design for manufacturability". It was driven as much by quality as cost. To go back to automotive, GM wanted to design a "world car" platform they could sell, with local adaptations, anywhere. They could also produce it anywhere. They had fancy graphics of the envisioned assembly plants. All their suppliers would have feeder plants actually abutting the main assembly plant. This was also driven by the idea of "just in time" or JIT manufacturing. This all falls apart in the current model. I have already written too much, but just a couple more things. One is that I have already seen examples of products that were brought back to the US after moving manufacturing to China. Instead of just making the same thing, the product was reengineered to be more efficient to manufacture. The cost actually came down. In the US! I have consulted with companies and know of the situations of many more (some very large) that contract manufacturing to China. I was involved, of course, because they were having problems. The Chinese manufacturers did not build the product exactly as specified, and they failed. You can't separate engineering for quality (product and production process) and quality control from manufacturing. The result is the low quality of many of the goods we have now. This is a part of what I talk about above. The other thing is automation. Have you seen the plants in China that produce the iPhone? There are hundreds of thousands of people involved using very little automation. The workers are literally peasants. What we will see as disengagement from China proceeds is much more innovation in automation. That is capital intensive, so it is not likely to work in China, or in Russia. By the way, I use a lot of examples from the automotive world, but my background is in aerospace. We often studied what was being done in other manufacturing areas to get ideas for our own manufacturing.

Very strange analytics. Belousov was in charge of Russian economy block for the last decade. And his actions were nothing like Soviet economy. Now he’s moved to military management to optimize the processes and spendings there. Overall course of Russian financial sector is still further liberalization of the economy, that’s what they were doing for dozens of years already, and achieved good results.

I just watched that STAR TREK episode, great example of where Russia is at now !!!

The Nazis ran a planned economy that was almost a mirror image of that practiced by the Soviets. In some cases it was actually better for the workers (subsidized cruises on Nazi owned liners for example). However Nazi Germany was already seeing shortages in foodstuffs etc before WW2 started We see the Chinese overpruducing goods such as solar panels which has led to a massive price drop as they dump them onto the international market. Its unclear to me if this is a conscious strategic act or just an example of failed economics, since many of the companies that produce these solar panels will eventually go bust and the market will rationalise itself unless the status quo is propped up by the CCP because of fears of increased unemployment

pronunciation was very good! "Belousov" could ber translated as: "White-whisker" or "White-mustache"

the dollar almost did not change in price compared to other currencies. of course he devalued. but during this time the currency was renewed several times in the Ryadian Union. that is, the poor got poorer, the rich got richer, how to explain it.

Isn't workers owning means of production really just the workers owning their own businesses? So if you just want to work and take on the responsibility of owing should receive less?

Gosplan 3.0 means that Russia becomes a technical museum because their blueprints are based on 40-50 year old innovation😂

Greetings from Malaysia. As a 13-year old kid who has followed Soviet history since the early 80s, the USSR centralized economy stagnated when Brezhnev took over from the liberal economy of Khrushchev. The Cold War sapped even the limitless economic resources of 'butter for guns' policy of the Soviet Union and a final collapse on itself when Gorbachev opened the can of Russian worms. Everyone blamed him but Gorbachev saw it coming. His morale was 'open up' (glasnost) or die forever. Unfortunately, the party apparatchiks, KGB elites and army generals stole the USSR's riches when a boozy Yeltsin ruled and became oligarchs. The biggest joke is ex-communist and economist Belusov took over Shoigu who never fired a gun as Defense Minister. It shows Putin has lost the war and hired Belusov for massive cost cuts in a bleeding Russian economy. With a lost war in Ukraine, EU gas revenues gone, huge discounts for oil sold to China and India and a crippled ruble, Russia will go bankrupt soon. Even our Bible says Russia(Magog) will be bankrupt (and a USSR break-up 2.0) only to be lured to fight against the West and Israel as commander of the '10-nation Islamic Army (Angkatan Ummah) led by Turkey to seek revenge but ultimately all destroyed !

This is quite interesting and makes sense.

There’s no pricing mechanism

So, it appears that the price of gasoline and diesel is going up enormously inside Russia. I'd be interested if anyone has information about that.

I think he'll pair well with their central bank governor Nabiullina. What makes you think is that all head russian characters involved in the war (Putin, Prigozhin, Shoigu, Peskov etc.) are universally hated as monsters by the western media but they love Nabiullina - oh she is so smart, amazing central banker. Essentially envying how percentually much more wealth their central bank extract from the productive part of the population and give it straight to the govt to fund a dumb project (in their case a war). Oh only if our side could get away with that level of stealing, she is so clever, what a heroine central banker!

so What is your problem

Belousov as adviser adapted the economy flexibly to the 14000+ sanctions, made it more self sufficient and now as a minister will further streamline the MIC already working 24/7 and completely outproducing the collective West with its vaunted "50 allies". He will make sure the gained extra capacity can be used for non military purposes afterwards. At any rate the period of imported western neoliberalism is over.

Shh. Don’t tell them!

…And the Princess Leia quote for the win!….

It will not matter what he do. The russian economy could not bring a victory against such a big and powerful alliance. Taxes transfers resources from the private sector to the government. And even if russia taxed the civilian sector at 100% would it still not be enough resources. And this transfer of resources will of course create inblances with growing productivity in the military sector and lower productivity and higher prices and inflation in the civilian sector. Add to that all dead young men this war creates. Productivity levels and population levels will fall, which will result in a GDP drop. Shortages and bottle necks of stuffs will cause rising inflation. Lack of semiconductors, lack of foreign currency will cause problems. And russia no longer have the know-how how to make many advanced weapons systems like it had back in soviet days like AWACS planes

sorry, but what i have learned, and wikipedia is proving, is that speer made the war economy more flexible and efficent. he took the control from the army to the industry. he could increase the output of the industry a lot.

In Soviet Romania, Government is Bank. Bank is God and Mason is the Head of it , Isarescu!

back in the ussr...love that song

Belousov could be translated literaly as Belo = white Usov = mustache. White mustache.