Russia has become the fifth largest economy in the world and the largest in Europe, surpassing Germany and the UK, according to statistics of the World Bank. [PDF]
But liberals continue to "reason" about the future from the premise that Russia is tapped out completely and will never be able to withstand what's coming next.
Well not only did we send billions in military aid to far right extremist, gave out harsh sanctions that skyrocketed domestic prices, crippling our economy but we also managed to get overtaken by our 'enemy'!
You'd say this is all a failure for Europe, but it isn't. Big companies are raking in record profits. Energy companies can charge whatever the fuck they want with no limit whatsoever, effectively tripling CO poisoning deaths in my country. The US stranglehold on the EU has become even more tighter and NATO influence has grown. Not to speak about the boost this has given to the right wing. By all means, these sanctions have had their wanted effects. The goal was probably not to hurt Russia but to cripple the EU and their relationship with Russia.
Exactly, people tend to make the mistake of treating capitalist society as being homogeneous where everyone has common shared interests they all work towards each in their own way. The reality of course is that it's a society of class contradictions, and what hurts the working majority is often in the interest of the exploiter class.
Price Parity sure is an underrated metric. I have no idea why liberals love to ignore that one as if people worldwide are importing their food in dollars from Yankee companies.
Yeah, PPP is the only meaningful measure for comparison. What matters is the buying power people have domestically. It's just another subtle propaganda trick the US plays to make itself bigger than it is.
Let's see how Italy does under the same kind of sanctions...or better yet let's not because that would essentially amount to genocide. It's only thanks to the fact that Russia is one of the most self-sufficient countries on the planet, second to only the DPRK, that they have managed to essentially shake off this attempt at a second genocide via economic warfare (because apparently the first one in the 90s wasn't enough for the neoliberal imperial death cult). Showing yet again that the way that western "economists" measure economies is fundamentally wrong and does not actually reflect their real size and strength.
That's the problem with liberals, they think of themselves as exceptional. The G7/EU heads think they run the 'best' countries. So when they sit around a table and ask, 'Whose economy would survive a week of sanctions?' and they all shake in fear at the thought, they think it will have the same effect on everyone else. In many cases it would.
But they can't help but see Russia as backward—how could it possible withstand their worst nightmare? They're apparently unaware that they created the nightmare. Russia may be capitalist but it's not quite so neoliberal just-in-time. Still, I don't think the west understands what's happened; they're going to get a real shock when they try to turn up the dial on China because they haven't learned their lesson yet.
I was making reference to the lib statement that Russia will struggle because "they have the GPD of Italy" Which they might've, a decade ago or so.
But even if they still did, your response is correct, Russia is much more self reliant, something that western economies don't seem to be capable of being at all, so they try to measure economic success in ways they can pretend they are strong and their enemies are weak.
IMF is projecting growth for Russian economy this year, and given that Europe is in a recession now I expect that Russia is in an even better position than in 2022 at this point. Here are the ppp numbers for 2022 https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.PP.CD?locations=RU