Everything for the front. Vladimir Milov about how a bloated military budget will bury the Russian economy

How Putin will be able to solve the problems of the low quality of the operational command of the troops and the low morale of the army with the help of additional money is not clear. A bulky, ineffective, monopoly and corrupt military -industrial complex, too, most likely, just produces the allocated money - as it happened more than once earlier .

Monopoly and corrupted VPK just produces the allocated money

Caprice for your money

It is clear that for Putin military spending is now a priority. But where are they going to get this additional funding? Many have already paid attention to the planned reduction in the costs of the economy and housing and communal services , as well as the lack of significant growth in allocation for education, healthcare, regional transfers - for the war, they will save on this.

However, the main expected source of additional revenues is a truly incredible increase in income in the budget. For some reason, the receipts of the federal budget should grow into fantastic 22%, or more than 6 trillion rubles. At the same time, oil and gas revenues, as the government plans, will grow by already 30%, not oil and gas - by 19%.

It is not difficult to understand that for such a sharp increase in income it will require a steady increase in world oil prices to a level significantly higher than $ 100 per barrel (however, this is not predicted, the budget is based on the price of just above $ 70), and the rapid growth of the Russian economy. Even if we assume that it will grow with a predicted rate of just over 2% per year, this cannot provide a planned increase in non -oil and gas revenues by almost 20%. From the explanatory note to the budget draft, it can be understood that the increase in income will be achieved by increasing taxes on the raw material industry , as well as in 2024, a number of “one -time” revenues to the budget are expected (in fact - the same increase in the tax load).

Revenue growth will be achieved by increasing taxes on the raw material industry

Increasing the tax burden in combination with the “long period of hard monetary policy”, which Elvira Nabiullina recently announced , is able to completely destroy any prospects for restoring the economy that the authorities hoped for. Putin's large business has already howled from the next tax innovations; The latest economic data show that in the current environment there are no conditions for growth of production and it has already begun to bend, as is clearly visible, for example, on the graph of the Federal State Statistics Service here . The notorious Asia will not save us - the other day Sergey Sobyanin said aloud that many are already well known: the East, taking advantage of the situation, squeezes all the juices from Russia, preventing us from either investment or earn profit, actually conducts an “economic war” against Russia.

The deterioration of the economic situation, in turn, will seriously brake the possibilities of balancing the budget and financing of military spending. Those who want to understand how this spiral works can read Yegor Gaidar's book “The Death of the Empire”. It scraped the arrogance of the Soviet leadership, which tried to maintain past search habits against the backdrop of sharply worsening economic conditions (today we are observing a lot of similarities with that story): today):

“[Soviet] leaders, as can be seen from their speeches in 1985-1986, were sure that they were able to return the lost dynamism to the Soviet economy, increase the pace of economic growth, overcome the lag from the most developed countries ... The leadership did not see and did not understand the nature and scale of the threat.”

You can also recall the budget crisis of the Russian Empire during the First World War - the history of Russian authoritarian rulers really does not teach anything.

Cross on the economy

There is no doubt that the Ministry of Finance and the government understand that the rapid growth of revenues laid down in the budget is a fantasy designed to satisfy only one inadequate customer who is looking for any opportunity not to lose the war he has started. Or, if, in terms of the mobilization of income, truly super -profitable measures are taken in the spirit of economic extensions (we have not yet been carried out from the economy of several trillion rubles from the economy), against the backdrop of growing inflation and strict monetary policy on economic activity, a double blow will be delivered.

The markets, as one would expect, took the news of a protracted war and the growth of military expenses poorly : investments can be forgotten, the growth of the tax burden is guaranteed, the most unpleasant - Putin's perseverance in terms of drawing into a protracted war can lead to sudden negative consequences of any nature. The fact that the war can be won by a simple increase in expenses, no one really believes. Yes, and the head of the Ministry of Finance Anton Siluanov himself, speaking the other day at the Moscow Financial Forum, although the memorized “our priority was rejoiced - everything for the front, everything for victory”, did not radiate much optimism.

The news of a protracted war and the growth of military spending, the markets perceived poorly

The conclusions are simple: in a stubborn desire to regain the initiative at the front, Putin forced the Ministry of Finance and the government to draw a completely unrealistic budget, which will be implemented by commissar methods from the 1920s and 1930s; This will kill the authorities to restore the economy. At the same time, they themselves do not create military expenses of a large multiplier: until 2024, up to 70% of the military budget went to the military industry, which does not know how to produce competitive civilian products. Thus, all these funds go to the production of weapons and ammunition, which are quickly consumed during the war in Ukraine and do not create additional added value for the economy. In the budget of 2024, the share of expenses on the military -industrial complex may be even higher.

Putin had a choice: to try to bargain for himself some “peace negotiations”, to win time and resources to stabilize the economy. But his stubbornness has no limit - he decided to squeeze the last drops from the Russian economy to continue the crazy and meaningless war.

Putin decided to squeeze the last drops from the Russian economy

Observe carefully: this whole story will enter the textbooks as an example of Epic Fale as ineffective and inadequate government. And do what you can, where you are now, in order to counteract this madness and put it to an end as soon as possible.

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