There's a lot of duplicates of this particular Quora answer. Some of these are quite hilarious in retrospect:
https://truthaboutrussia.quora.com/How-is-it-that-the-Russian-economy-did-not-collapse-yet
Aug 29:
sanctions are not like fast food. You want instant gratification, go to Burger King. the sanctions are working exactly as intended.
Aug 30:
Wait until Winter. Russia has brutal winters, just ask former opponents. Ukraine was, previously, producing 65% of the wheat to Europe, the Russians, and many other Nations. Thanks to Russia, there will be little wheat available in Eurasia. In the 70s, even in the Cold War, the US exported wheat to the Soviet Union, in need. If O’Biden is decent, we might, regardless of sanctions, we may have to. I do not think any Americans want the populace to starve. Russia is in deep S__t, come Winter, only a few months away. What will the populace do?
Aug 30:
I guess it depends on your definition of “collapsed”. My view is that it has collapsed and Russia is living in poverty as a result. But perhaps it will continue to collapse and future Russians will look back with starry eyes at those times in September 2022 when it took only one wheelbarrow of cash to buy a loaf of bread.
Sep 2:
The ruble is about to collapse. The GDP is contracting. Inflation is rising sharply. Of course, Russia is still raking in money from its oil and gas exports. Oil and gas revenues have reached $74B by the end of July 2022 in Russia. However, this is only a decoy because Russia's financial circuits are blocked. Russia can no longer produce cars practically. Russia has to ground its planes because of the lack of spare parts from the West. Many domestic flights are canceled. The Russian industry is about to stop completely. Always this lack of parts due to Western sanctions. The Russian economy will continue to collapse so Russia will not be able to support its war effort in Russia. Within 6 to 8 months, experts estimate that Russia will run out of missiles...
Sep 11:
Because the idea that the Russian economy is doing fine is based on statistics complied and provided by Russia. They are just as reliable as everything else Russia says.
Oct 27:
The Russian economy is shrinking. Whether you want to call this ongoing decline collapse or not is a political decision, not an economic one.
Jan 31 2023:
It takes a while. Russia had resources and a lot of their citizen’s money to use in smoke and mirrors to prop their economy up. As it gets used up, along with other things like factories producing worse and worse goods, it will eventually anger the people, and it will collapse in revolt. It’s like killing a major boss in a video game. It’ll soak up the damage for a long time before it finally collapses and dies. Just have to be patient and keep attacking.
:galaxy-brain:
Holy shit how did I not see this one, first one in the list:
The Soviet union was established at 1922, but was under Bolshevik rule since 1917. It collapsed in 1992. It suffered a civil war and a world war. It had a truly f*cked up economy, yet it lived 70 years. Why?
"It suffered a civil war" like it wasn't the event that led to the creation of the Soviet Union in the first place.
"It suffered a world war" like the Soviets somehow conjured the Nazis upon themselves.
"truly fucked up economy"
Absolutely legendary take right here.
Look, ever since of the end of the Tsarist regime, the economy was just limping along on the ball bearings they already had. While we commend the USSR on their ability to recycle the same ball bearings and use their failing-for-40-years economy to get to orbit before any other country, they had to run out of ball bearings eventually. That's why the Berlin Wall fell, Stalin thought there were ball bearings in there.
Russia's shit. It's always been shit. It's supposed to be shit. An if you don like it ya can bugger off.
This is literally the neoliberal answer to every "Why didn't your brilliant plan work?"
Obamacare. Climate Change policies. Economic reforms. Education initiatives. Policing. Our endless foreign wars. You name it.
"Oh, you just have to be patient. The $7T a year we budgeted at the national level just hasn't had a chance to kick in yet. Incremental change over time, baby! We can't afford to rock the boat. But change is coming, we promise!"
This Russia shit is just the latest. A plan that's clearly not operating as intended - one that is arguably the opposite of what federal admin intended - just needs more time!
Fucking McArthur is full retreat back across the 38th parallel shouting "Actually its all going according to plan! They're about to fall into my trap!"
:so-true:
The Russian's crinkled hands cannot produce ball bearings of such precise and beautiful quality, everything they ever made is made out of beets and mayonnaiseLibs thinking about russians and all they can picture is the Heavy Weapons Guy from tf2
Or Arnold Schwarzenegger's character from that movie where he was the Russian cop teamed up with Jim Belushi's American cop
They put all the ball bearings in fidget spinners and ran out
Lmfao, this quora thread is an absolute goldmine. From another one of these ball-bearing enjoyers:
History repeats itself. Ballbearings for Russia.
World War II created a huge demand for ball bearings. The German aviation industry alone used 2.4 million of them a month. Production was concentrated in Schweinfurt, where five plants turned out nearly two-thirds of Germany's ball bearings and roller bearings
In August 1943, he was at last able to put together enough B-17s for a large mission that would launch almost 400 bombers in a deep double strike against the ball bearings at Schweinfurt and the Messerschmitt factories at Regensburg
Although the Messerschmitt plant was important—producing up to 400 Me 109 fighters a month—it was not the main target. By going first, LeMay’s division was supposed to lure away the German fighters to give Williams a better shot at Schweinfurt
Attack on Schweinfurt" - before and after. Forgotten Heroes.
:thonk:
So I take one look at the Wikipedia article of the Schweinfurt-Regensburg mission (I know, I know -- not a reliable source usually for these topics, but it's usually pro-America), and lo and behold:
Albert Speer reported an immediate 34 percent loss of production, but both the production shortfall and the actual loss of bearings were made up for by extensive surpluses found throughout Germany in the aftermath of the raid. The industry's infrastructure, while vulnerable to a sustained campaign, was not vulnerable to destruction by a single raid.
The Schweinfurt mission in particular foretold the failure of deep penetration raids of Germany without adequate long-range escort. The 1st Bomb Wing was over German-occupied territory for three hours and thirty minutes, of which two hours and ten minutes, including all of the time spent over Germany itself, saw no fighter support whatsoever. When the second attack on Schweinfurt came on October 14, the loss of more than 20% of the attacking force (60 out of 291 B-17s) resulted in the suspension of deep raids for five months.
Although the Schweinfurt factories were badly hit, the mission failed to achieve any lasting effect.
They aren't even trying anymore.
Something something the Russian brainpan is not capable of constructing high quality ball bearings
Lube you bearings comrades. There are plenty of bearings in Russia that remember the Soviet Union.
It's only collective punishment if it comes from the Geneva region of Switzerland, otherwise it's just sparkling economic sanctions.
USSR was doing the space race without ball bearings. No wonder it collapsed.
Don't need ball bearings to make pizza. :galaxy-brain:
sanctions are not like fast food. You want instant gratification, go to Burger King. the sanctions are working exactly as intended.
I am begging, PLEASE make this a site tagline
what if someone in Russia knows how to make high quality ball bearings
There's definitely quality differences with bearings, but the funny thing is you could have bought those exact same bearings from like an online mechanics store for half the money or less, they just wouldn't be bones branded
Sanctions work but very slowly, also known as "Once X crisis hits, the CCP is doomed to collapse".
