| Publication |
2009.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Its nature is financial. Number one problem is that the oncoming global recession is driving everyone into an impasse. Russia is hit hard in particular on account of the declining demand for its long-standing export commodities, like oil, gas, metals, and much else. All of that is leaving the market. There is no more consumption on the former scale. This means that the super-profits that used to sustain us and made it possible to support the social sphere are disappearing. Let us have a look at it. The 2009 budget was drafted on the assumption that the oil price would be $95 per barrel, the then world price. Later the figure was somewhat trimmed and became $70 a barrel. But the current price of Urals, our brand, is $48 a barrel, and a further decline is possible, because there is no demand. Gas consumption is being reduced, and, accordingly, the price of gas slides down as well. This tends to "knock out," so to speak, the sectors that were of most importance for the national development, even from the point of view of finances: when the price is $48 a barrel, there is no more money to spare and economies have to be made.
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