alt Hacker NewsIt's utter trash, it was good when we had industry focused economies instead of service focused ones.
Everybody mocked Russia for having the same gdp as Spain. As it turns out your economy is much stronger when it's focused on heavy industries, steel, mining, oil, &c. Than when it is focused on tourism and other services
One produces value, the other generates money, when shits hit the fan you need energy, the drunk brits coming in your strip clubs aren't that useful anymore
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Pointing to Russia as a functioning economy is comical.
Industry focused economies are going to continue to come under pressure due to automation. The US for example has a lot of industrial output, but shrinking industrial jobs. And that’s a good thing. Sending people into coal mines should never be a long term plan.
Oh yes sorry, I forgot that Russia is super successful in Ukraine and Europe is on the brink of collapse because it ran out of energy!
Right but the services sector is more than running strip clubs for tourists. Spain just doesn't export any services other than strip clubs apparently. The US doesn't have this problem. The Financial Services market is the largest in the world.
Russia is fighting the war exactly how I would expect an economy of that size to fight a war. Slow attrition coming from an inability to overwhelm their enemy decisively and fast.
How exactly is their economy "strong"? By what measure? You cannot really eat tanks, that is what made life in the Soviet Union unsatisfactory as well.
Current price of Ural oil is some 9 dollars above their breakeven costs. As the classic says, not great, not terrible.
Depends if you look at Spain in isolation.
On its own? Sure. (Although to be fair to Spain, they've invested heavily in solar and high-value agriculture in recent years).
But seen as part of a system with Germany and perhaps the UK (no longer part of the EU, but was better for both when they were), it's a valuable part of quality-of-life in the overall economic bloc.
Where would you rather live? Spain, easy.
Who would win in a war? Russia, easy.
Some will read this as an argument against the Spanish lifestyle. On balance I prefer to read it as an argument against war.