As Europe falls into recession, Russia climbs out

Worse. Food have become more expensive although prices rise slowed down. Many clothing brands have left and replaced with brands from Turkey etc. But we are not starving, have gas, electricity.

It is using some sort of an alternative to GDP, but I don't understand why they made that choice:

"The Current Activity Indicator (CAI) is an alternative summary measure of economic growth constructed from major real activity indicators. The CAI includes both “hard” and “soft” economic indicators, and it puts a relatively high weight on the latter."

Trust me bro

Personally, I try soak up nuggets of info from "alt right", libertarian and prepper channels or sources. If you're comfortable wading through things you disagree with, then you will get a ton of info.

There is just something too "sanitized" and "prepared" about mainstream sources that I actively distrust them on any heated topic.

Not the economic situation, but here's a very good and in-depth analysis of the Russo-Ukranian war by a retired indian army general, made 3 months ago - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78KbH3Eb8lc (HN - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33197358 )... In it, he briefly mentions that economic indicators point that sanctions against Russia are also hurting the US too, not just Europe.

Are you sure you aren't suffering from a case of confirmation bias here? I have noticed, especially in circles like Twitter or HN that people are very eager to accept and buy into reports that the Russian economy is doing poorly, but if Western sources, media, analysts, companies, think-tanks, and agencies report that Russia might not be doing as poorly as we thought, the amount of suspicion and the level of hard-facts standards suddenly goes through the roof.

This can cause us to reach at rather silly lengths to explain away these reports using whatever reasoning necessary.

On the other hand, maybe you're right, and maybe The Economist, Goldman Sachs, the IMF, and the numerous other sources referenced in the article have all been compromised by the KGB within the past several months and have been turned into Kremlin propaganda pieces.

What is more likely, that The Economist is Russian propaganda now or that you might be wrong?

No nationalistic flamewar on HN, please. From https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."

Edit: We've had to ask you this kind of thing several times in the past, including just recently (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32922335). Please don't keep doing it.

> Mere weeks ago The Economist was claiming Russia's economy was collapsing under the weight of sanctions...

Do you have a source?

I don't understand why people think Russia, China and India are united. They aren't. China and India are rivals and have skirmishes on their borders. China doesn't want to trade only with Russia at the expense of the rest of the world.

The only thing that can make that alignment happen is a common enemy. And only Russia views America as a true enemy. It's not as simple as the media makes it out.

Another way to think about this, if a WW3 breaks out, its not clear that China will defend Russia. And India and China certainly won't defend each other.

They haven't. For instance, China hasn't even recognized Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea.

China and India are not on the same team. India seems neutral on Russia and is pretty much par for the course for a country that explicitly formed the Non Aligned Movement to stay out of the Cold War.

The politics of diplomacy is never all black or white.

India buys oil from Russia because of discount rate, but has also pivoted away from using hi-tech Russian weaponry in favor of US & Israeli arms. Until 2 decades ago, India's defense & industrial backbone was Soviet. Currently, its mostly American/Allied western sourced. US-India have a much higher dollar value of defense & bilateral trade than India-Russia traditionally had in the past. Also they both are members of Quad alliance with Japan & Australia against China.

The world is becoming slowly multipolar. There are no two sides anymore. There is US-Russia, Sino-Russia, Indo-Chinese, Sino-American conflicts of interests. In addition to US, India & China have considerable impact on geopolitics - both economic & military. India has been acknowledging Russian misadventures as dangerous, with Modi giving a clear rebuke recently. However, I think the polity is cautious going too far in chorus. Relationships are built over decades & fickleness of US political theater doesn't really help making such costly international decisions. Let's assume US decides to screw over India with sanctions over Kashmir. Would they like to come to grinding halt because a sitting US president thought it was a great idea? Because that's what happened in Pakistan slowly after 9/11. They were military ally with US, but publicly shunned in following years because Pakistan was not clearing the bars set by Bush & Obama administration, despite a lot of sincere effort from the government machinery. No one wants the same fate as Pakistan.

Think of India as another Saudi Arabia. They are thick buddies with US on many matters, but India wouldn't necessarily toe the line, just like S Arabia won't pump more oil to keep American gas prices stable. What they do is their business

they are big countries, they don't need to go all in

It isn't that Russia, China and India have gone in with each other so much as they have all rejected the unipolar world run by the United States. It is much more within the national interest of China and India to maintain (and expand) their economic relations with resource-rich Russia than it is to punish their own economies at the behest of the United States. Many people, for better or worse, are convinced that continued US global hegemony is not only desirable, but absolutely essential. These are the people who talk solemnly about the importance of the "rules-based, liberal international order". What they mean by that is the ability of the United States to make the rules by which other countries must abide, but which we are exempt. The reality is that the multi-polar world has already arrived. You're absolutely right that we'd be better off figuring out how to best survive (and thrive) in that world instead of flailing around in a desperate, futile attempt to maintain control.