Inflation. Side view

Nikolai Vardul
Deputy Chief Editor of the publication "Gazeta"

Already someone, and we, living in Russia, will not be surprised by inflation. And for sure, the hot dispute, periodically arising between the experts independent of the government and the experts dependent on it, about whether the authorities will be able to maintain prices in the planned limits of 8% at the end of the year or the inflation will once again shame the government and amount to all 9%, leaves the experienced reader indifferent. In the best case, he will remember some brighter, but equally far from him, the dispute about which end the egg should be broken or how many devils will strengthen on the tip of the needle. In fact, the reader knows that his direct experience in filling his own notorious consumer basket clearly does not coincide with either eight or nine percent statistics of price growth. Nevertheless, I expect that the reader will read the written to the end. Because for me, not spoke interest is important, but completely different, contained in inflation.

Remember how Herman Gref put forward Anatoly Chubais to the Nobel Prize for Economics? It was like that. At the government meeting, they once again found out who was to blame for inflation. Gref rested on the fact that the tariffs of natural monopolies were to blame for everything. Chubais listened, listened, and then said that everything depends on the offer of money. There is its final amount, and then prices for contacting goods and services are already added up. Then Gref put forward his proposal. In a joke, I see. Although I will not argue with the fact that inflation has, as they say, monetary roots. And it is from this that the story begins, for which I undertook to write this text.

Where does the money come from in Russia? More precisely, why are there so many that inflation, if it decreases, is the pace that is clearly not felt by ordinary buyers of consumer goods? And here is the first paradox. Almost the only effective means of Russian monetary authorities against inflation is the strengthening of the ruble. The stronger ruble, logically, slows down inflation. But in Russia there is both the growth of the ruble, and non -destructive inflation. It's all about the ruble. When it is stronger, it becomes attractive to foreign investments. It's simple: today you invest $ 100 in rubles, and tomorrow you have more than $ 100 because of the grown exchange rate. This means that foreign capital flow to Russia, but since they are invested in ruble assets, they are converted into rubles. First of all, the Central Bank buys the currency (hence the fantastic growth of its foreign exchange reserves), and freshly printed rubles appear on the market. And then it turns out that the stronger ruble provokes inflation.

There is a second paradox. We all heard about the record scale of the influx of foreign investment in Russia. Especially in the first half of 2007 - China is shamed. But on August 13, the first deputy chairman of the Central Bank, Alexei Ulyukaev, revealed the secret of the police. Over the first half of the year, a net inflow of foreign capital to Russia amounted to $ 65.9 billion. But, I am sure, Ulyukaev, the influx for the year will be $ 70 billion. That is, the influx ceases. Ulyukaev calls the main causes of the record capital - borrowing Rosneft, which bought everything that remains of Yukos, IPO VTB and the placement of Sberbank shares. If his forecast regarding the actual termination of the influx of capital is correct, then this means that investors no longer attracts and continues to grow the ruble. So, the investment attractiveness of Russia is a myth. And then a possible decrease in inflation is a pyrrhic victory.