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Russia’s surprising consumer spending boom
(www.ft.com)
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this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2024
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That is still a massive percentage, and a large increase in the past several years. For reference the Chinese military expenditure as a percentage of GDP has stayed steady at 1.7% from 2014-2023, and the US has dropped its percentage from 3.7% to 3.4%. Meanwhile Russia has gone from 4.1% to 5.9%. This is the largest increase in military expenditure as a factor of gdp by a major world power by a long shot.
Is it a full war economy? Absolutely not, that is embodied more by Ukraine with its military expenditure sitting at 36.6%. However, it would be disingenuous to say that Russia has not pumped a massive amount of money into its military industrial complex. Something that would absolutely materialize as short term economic growth with little to no long term benefit for civilian markets.
Saying that that spending is the entirety of the reason behind why the Russian economy has grown is also disingenuous cope. The reality is probably more of a midpoint.
It's a massive increase from peace time, but it's a tiny percentage of the overall economy. The point here is that the overall economy in Russia is very obviously not driven by the military industry. The reality is that 6% of the economy is negligible in practice.