At least we have each other
Edward's weekly news roundup & open thread (July 30, 2023)
A very friendly howdy-do to you. Welcome to Edward Slavsquat’s customary Weekend Link-Dump & Open Thread.
You have permission to shill your finest URLs. Or just say hello.
News from Russian media
Shoigu went to North Korea. [TASS]
According to the results of the first half of 2023, the net profit of VTB Group amounted to a record 289.8 billion rubles. The assets of VTB Group increased by 9.3% and reached 26.7 trillion rubles. [Kommersant]
From demographic to migration catastrophe [Military Review]
The Ministry of Digital Development is conducting a pilot project together with Yandex and Sberbank to test voice-based “public services”. [TASS]
The leader of the Just Russia—For Truth party, State Duma deputy Sergei Mironov, criticized income inequality in the country and said lawmakers were paid too much. [Kapital Rus]
Operation hyperinflation: How many zeros can be added on Russian banknotes? [Free Press]
Russia's Gamaleya Center is excited to deploy a new genetic clot-shot to ward off scary new COVID strains allegedly ravaging the African continent: “According to [Gamaleya director Alexander] Gintsburg, one of the main advantages of the updated vaccine is the ability to use it to vaccinate people of all age groups, including children and adolescents. ‘At the same time, we are developing an internasal vaccine for very young children, which has absolutely no side effects,’ he said.” [TASS]
The head of Rospotrebnadzor, Anna Popova, said that a new rise in the incidence of coronavirus is expected in the fall. [RT]
The State Duma has proposed prohibiting registration on Russian websites using “foreign” email addresses. [Vedomosti]
Russians can now receive and pay tax notices through the government’s State Services portal, Gosuslugi. [TASS]
More and more gas is being pumped into Ukrainian storage facilities [k-politika.ru]
Edward’s dispatches in foreign languages
Цифровой рубль «в законе». Развенчиваем мифы о цифровом рубле не как ЦБ РФ [Anna Rudneva]
Mitos sobre la moneda digital del Banco de Rusia [The Freelander]
Edward’s media appearances
I had a nice chat on Friday with Jesse Zurawell about the Bank of Russia’s CBDC.
Have a restful Sunday
— Riley
Hi Riley, Stan Sheppard had an interesting comment back in January, which I think is a critically important point relating to how independent Russia's top leadership actually is, and I'm wondering if you have any comments on it or if you can provide more of a deep-dive: “Exactly the right definition…"Washington consensus". The term was coined not that long ago, back in 1989, and essentially means how finances of the third world countries should be managed. Initially it applied to South America, but as Soviet Union was dissolved, Russia was given the status like that of Brasil or Argentina. The consensus consists of the three core principles - manage population using Darwinian principles, tightly control money supply primarily by the means of high interest rates, do everything possible to prevent internal investments in the manufacturing sector or anything else working to develop own economy and to create a favorable internal investment climate. The extent to which this consensus is applied to countries varies - Russia gets one of the harshest treatments. Now the bigger question is, how and why Russian fiscal authorities during the all out proxy war are still compliant with imposed rules? This drives many people to conclusion that perhaps this is not a real war between Russia and the West, but a make believe conflict at the expense of Ukraine designed to achieve totally different goals vs. those pronounced by Putin last February.”
From here: https://stansheppard.substack.com/p/glazyev-speaks-again/comments
"The head of Rospotrebnadzor, Anna Popova, said that a new rise in the incidence of coronavirus is expected in the fall."
Is she clairvoyant? Can she predict the winning Powerball numbers or does Popova just specialize in fortelling when SARS-CoV-2 will resurface.
Either she has a special skill which forsees the arrival of diseases, or the owners of pharmaceutical labs haven't finished securing additional billions poisoning their own citizenry.
Perhaps, since the Kremlin
is so gung-ho about CBDC's they might be eager to tie vaccination records to these digital accounts.
In any event, I can hardly wait for her next prediction. Maybe, it'll be about aliens landing not from bordering countries, but from outerspace. 😁