(Russia) - '..the economy “will go downward after 2018.” '

'The trigger for the downturn, Inozemtsev says, was Putin’s return to the presidency in May 2012. He raised taxes on business and real estate to finance military spending and expanded the reach of inefficient state-controlled companies..'

<blockquote>'The situation resembles “a staircase leading down,” says Evgeny Gontmakher, a board member at Moscow’s Institute of Contemporary Development, whose chairman is Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. Gontmakher predicts Russia will probably eke out near-zero growth through 2017 and that the government will reassure citizens the economy will resume climbing after the March 2018 presidential elections. Instead, he says, the economy “will go downward after 2018.”

Russia has weathered crises before, including a 2008 oil price plunge and a 1998 sovereign debt default. In those cases, robust growth returned within a year or two. This recession’s different, says Vladislav Inozemtsev, a professor at the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow. “It’s not about oil or sanctions; it’s about structural weakness,” he says. There already were signs of malaise in 2012, when oil topped $100 and Western sanctions over Russia’s annexation of Crimea were two years off.

The trigger for the downturn, Inozemtsev says, was Putin’s return to the presidency in May 2012. He raised taxes on business and real estate to finance military spending and expanded the reach of inefficient state-controlled companies such as oil giant Rosneft. “Businesspeople became disillusioned,” curbing investment in factories and equipment, Inozemtsev says. Productivity slackened, corruption thrived, and foreign investment slowed as investors fretted about the state taking over their assets, says Timothy Ash, an emerging-markets strategist at Nomura International in London.

..

The state-run companies that dominate the economy are headed by loyal Putin friends, while other members of his inner circle have benefited from big-ticket projects such as the Sochi Olympics that failed to produce lasting economic benefits. Far-reaching reforms, economist Gontmakher says, “are contrary to the institutional interests of the current government.” '

- Putin has shown little interest in changing the economic model, January 28, 2016</blockquote>


Context

<blockquote>'..Putin and the siloviki, like the Bourbons, have learned nothing and forgotten nothing..'

'..the marginal cost for efficient U.S. shale-oil producers is about $10 to $20 a barrel in the Permian Basin..' - Get Ready for $10 Oil

After 40-year ban, U.S. starts exporting crude oil, January 29, 2016


'..Allowing U.S. Crude Oil Exports.' - '..Canada and the US – could be global leaders in future [energy] supply developments..'

'America must lead, but mainly by example .. Most importantly, invest the savings to build a secure, dynamic, and prosperous America that others want to emulate.'</blockquote>