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Characteristics of the economic crisis

Economic crisis (dr.-Greek Krisis - turning point) - serious disturbances in normal economic activity. One of the manifestations of the crisis is the systematic, massive accumulation of debts and the impossibility of repaying them within a reasonable time. The cause of economic crises is often seen as an imbalance between supply and demand for goods and services.

The main types are the crisis of underproduction (deficit) and the crisis of overproduction.

The crisis of underproduction, as a rule, is caused by non-economic reasons and is associated with a violation of the normal course of (economic) reproduction under the influence of natural disasters or political actions (various bans, wars, etc.)

The crisis of overproduction is characterized by the presence of a large number of goods that exceed the demand of consumers. It usually arises due to the failure to identify aggregate demand and the impossibility of planning aggregate production in a free market. As a result, for a particular manufacturer, it is usually unknown what and how much the market needs. The first major crises of this kind appeared in England in the 17th century.

With the development of a market industrial economy, overproduction crises have become cyclical and today they constitute one of the phases of the economic cycle.

The consequence of the economic crisis is a decrease in the real gross national product, massive bankruptcies and unemployment, and a decrease in the living standards of the population.

Form of inflation in modern Russia

Inflation- a phenomenon inherent exclusively in paper money circulation, meaning the overflow of the sphere of circulation with an excess mass of paper money compared to the needs of trade, their depreciation and - as a result - an increase in prices for goods and services, a fall in the purchasing power of money. That is, inflation is caused primarily by the overflow of money circulation channels with excess money supply in the absence of an adequate increase in the mass of commodities.

There are the following types and forms of manifestation of inflation.

1. According to the degree of manifestation:

* creeping inflation- inflation, expressed in a gradual long-term increase in prices, when the average annual rate of price growth is 5-10%;

* galloping inflation- inflation in the form of a spasmodic rise in prices, when the average annual rate of price growth is from 10 to 50%;

* hyperinflation- inflation with a very high rate of price growth, when price growth exceeds 100% per year (the IMF takes 50% price growth per month for hyperinflation).

2. According to the methods of occurrence:

* administrative inflation- inflation generated by "administratively" controlled prices;

* cost inflation- inflation, which is manifested in the growth of prices for factors of production (in particular, resources), as a result of which the costs of production and circulation grow, and with them the prices for manufactured products;

* demand inflation- inflation, which is manifested in the excess of demand over supply, which, of course, leads to an increase in prices;

* supply inflation- inflation, which manifests itself in rising prices due to an increase in production costs in conditions of underutilization of production resources;

* imported inflation- inflation caused by the impact of external factors, for example, excessive inflow of foreign currency into the country and an increase in import prices;

* credit inflation- inflation caused by excessive credit expansion.

3. According to the forms of manifestation, inflation is:

* open- i.e. inflation due to free (open) price growth of consumer goods and production resources;

* hidden (suppressed)- when inflation occurs as a result of a shortage of goods, accompanied by the desire of the state to keep prices at the same level. In this case, there is a "washout" of goods in the open and their flow to the shadow, "black" markets, where prices, of course, grow.

Despite the many factors that cause inflation, there are three main groups of factors that cause inflation.

cost inflation. This type of inflation is manifested in an increase in prices for resources, factors of production, as a result of which the costs of production and distribution, as well as prices for manufactured products, increase. The reasons for rising prices for resources are, as a rule, changes in world prices for resources and depreciation of the domestic currency. In turn, the increase in costs for a particular product affects the change in prices for other goods, since in order to purchase goods that have risen in price, it is necessary to raise the price of your product.

In each country, the inflationary process has its own specifics associated with a combination of causes and factors that cause it.

Over the past two years, the form of inflation in terms of the rate of price growth in our country has been creeping (moderate) inflation, which is characterized by relatively low rates of price growth, up to about 10% or a few more percent per year. This kind of inflation is inherent in most countries with developed market economies.

In the correlation of price increases for various product groups, i.e. according to the degree of balance of their growth, inflation in modern Russia is the expected balanced inflation. Expected inflation can be predicted and predicted in advance with a reasonable degree of reliability. In balanced inflation, the prices of different goods are constant relative to each other. Balanced inflation is not terrible for business. You only have to periodically raise the prices of goods: raw materials have risen in price by 10 times, and you accordingly increase the price of your final product. The risk of loss of profitability is inherent only to those entrepreneurs who are the last in the chain of price increases. These are, as a rule, manufacturers of complex products based on intensive external cooperative ties. The price of their products reflects the entire amount of the increase in prices of foreign cooperation, and it is they who risk delaying the sale of super-expensive products to the final consumer. It is dangerous to engage in this business; it is better not to purchase shares of the respective companies.

Etc.).

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Causes of economic crises

Austrian school

The main cause of economic crises is the simultaneous accumulation of erroneous investments (the so-called "crisis of overproduction"). These mistakes are usually made by extremely prudent investors and business leaders under the influence of systematic gross misrepresentation of the information necessary for making investment decisions. Such information is the prices of the goods produced and the prices of the resources needed to produce them. One of the most important resources for the rapid expansion of production is credit. If future income is overstated or expenses are understated, the expected profit will be unreasonably high. This will lead to massive simultaneous erroneous investments and the inevitable crisis. The source of such large, erroneous information simultaneously affecting all investors is the distortion of the market price of money (price of credit). An underestimated relative to the natural market rate of credit leads to "credit expansion", creating at the same time an increase in effective demand and the availability of credit for expanding production. . The crisis in a market economy occurs as a result of the situation in the money market, created by central banks and a system with a not 100% reserve ratio, which leads to understated interest rates, an increase in the money supply (see Banking multiplier). This creates an economic boom. It seems to firms that the projects are needed by the economy, they will be profitable, and they begin to invest in potentially unprofitable projects - “bad investments”. Households, due to rising prices, stop saving and start spending more of their income - they take loans. The boom cannot go on forever and the second stage always comes - collapse, crisis. Lending is falling, the money supply is falling, as a result, prices are falling, entrepreneurs have to urgently sell “bad investments”. Both consumers and businesses are in debt. Production optimization begins - layoffs occur.

Marxism

Psychological causes of crises

Among the causes and factors leading to economic crises, a special place is occupied by psychological factors, since the behavior of economic entities may turn out to be a "trigger" for a crisis. So already in the 19th century. J. Mills noted that the explanation of crises should be sought in the mental characteristics of a person, since credit, the fluctuations of which are the most characteristic feature of crises, is a spiritual phenomenon. He emphasized that panic destroys credit and, accordingly, harms the economy.

how to determine at what point irrational optimism inflates the value of assets so much that the risk of sudden and prolonged drops increases sharply

In conditions of economic imbalance, the psychological mood of society has an impact on the duration and forms of the course of the crisis, its consequences. Therefore, some scholars believe that for understanding the origin and characteristics of the crisis, taking into account the psychological factor is almost as important as for understanding the causes of military victories and defeats or the causes of revolutions. Earlier, the well-known English economist E. F. Schumacher, in search of an alternative way of developing the economy and society, turned to the value criteria of the Buddhist world. In his book Small is Beautiful, published in 1973, he criticizes the economic system based on the increase and stimulation of consumption, he writes that "consumption is not an end, but a means, and the indicator of the standard of living is the maximum well-being with minimal consumption”, and comes to the following conclusion that “civilization cuts the branch on which it sits, in particular by poisoning water and predatory destruction of forests” (see Schumacher 1973). The well-known American anthropologist F. Fukuyama defines the decisive factor in the development of society as "social capital" or "a set of informal values ​​or norms that are shared by members of a group and make cooperation within this group possible" (Fukuyama 2003).

The cyclical nature of the economy

About the terms "economic crisis", "depression", "recession", "slowdown" and "financial crisis"

A successful interpretation of terms that are similar in essence was given by the famous economist of the middle of the 20th century Murray Rothbard:

In the old days, we suffered from periodic economic crises, the sudden onset of which was called "panic", and the long period after the panic was called "depression".
The most famous modern depression is, of course, the one that began in 1929 with a typical financial panic and continued until the outbreak of the Second World War. After the catastrophe of 1929, economists and politicians decided that this should never happen again. To successfully and without much trouble to cope with this task, it took only the elimination of the word "depression" from use. From that moment on, America no longer had to experience depressions. For when another severe depression came in 1937-1938, economists simply refused to use this terrible name and introduced a new, more harmonious concept - recession. Since then, we have experienced many recessions, but not a single depression.

However, pretty soon the word "recession" also turned out to be rather harsh for the refined sensibilities of the American public. Apparently, the last recession we had was in 1957-1958. Since that time, we have had “downs”, or even better “slowdowns”, or even “deviations”.

Crises in history

• Great Depression (1929–1939)

Changes in people's incomes, their opportunities and needs during a crisis can be called a fundamental factor in the well-being of the population. "Modern economic crises are largely driven by global hyperconsumerism - people's uncontrollable cravings for consumption." The main problem of the economy is that a person, as a rule, does not measure his desires and needs with his own capabilities. For most people, desires are limitless, needs change both quantitatively and qualitatively: one desire has come true, and the next one is waiting on the threshold. However, unlike needs, opportunities are limited. The contradiction between needs and limited opportunities in society will always exist, but in the context of the economic crisis, this contradiction is intensifying and further intensifying its negative impact on a person.

The economic crisis brings with it not only material losses: economic crises are dangerous not only for the wallet, but also for health. Financial losses or simply the cessation of income indexation, anxiety for one's future and the future of one's loved ones and family reduce life expectancy. A sharp decrease in the purchasing power of the family, the need to refuse those goods and services that were previously available, have a negative impact on the emotional background of a person, which can potentially lead to stress and depression. As a rule, short-term and rare stressful situations carry little risk. However, in the event of a global economic crisis, a person can be in a stressful state for a very long time. Equally important is the fact how a person relates to stress itself. Faith in oneself and in one's own strength allows one to respond adequately to all these problems, to find new solutions that will help overcome difficulties.

The nature and extent of the impact of the crisis on a person is determined by his character and personal characteristics and may have different outcomes. Some people give up because of hopelessness and problems that have piled up, others find the strength to change, adapt, develop further and be a support to their loved ones. It is at such moments that the help of relatives and friends, that is, such a social institution as the family, can be indispensable. The family is of paramount importance in overcoming the crisis, however, the situation may turn out so that the crisis will affect the family in a diametrically opposite way. Some families unite even more, supporting the victim of the crisis, while others break up, due to the inability to cope with the accumulated contradictions that were intensified by the crisis. Even being in a strong and stable family, where the support of its members is encouraged, the victim of the crisis cannot always receive decent help. This happens because the family system cannot be rebuilt quickly, which means that its support is not adequate to the ongoing changes in the economy or simply insufficient. The family in a crisis becomes a field of positive changes aimed at its integration, which are essential for each of its members.

An important role in the formation of a positive worldview in the conditions of the economic crisis is played by such a social institution as education. The role of education has only increased over time. Education is the most powerful driving force behind the economic growth of the country's economy, increasing the efficiency and international competitiveness of the national economy. Education is one of the most important factors of national security and welfare of the country. A high level of education makes it easier for a person to adapt to changing economic conditions, which are often associated with an increase in requirements for personnel qualifications.

Some part of the population in the conditions of the economic crisis finds support in such a social institution as religion. Religion performs the function of uniting, uniting or integrating members of society. It does this by developing universal human norms and values. If a person has not found support in the institution of the family, he can, with the help of religion, come to a rethinking of himself and his position in society, the world.

In addition to family, religion, a person's worldview is influenced by such a social institution as the mass media (media) and public opinion. It is the media that should form a positive outlook in a crisis.

The media is now the main source of information for most citizens. It depends on the media, journalists whether people learn about existing problem how they will react to it, whether this problem will arouse interest in society and what solution can be found and applied to overcome the problem that has arisen.

On the one hand, the crisis is seen as a negative phenomenon in the economy, but if you look at it from the other side, the economic crisis can be defined as an impetus to a new round of development.

In modern conditions, perhaps such an interpretation of the crisis as a chance to change life for the better, because in a crisis, sometimes a person is forced to radically change the scope of his activity. In addition, during the economic crisis, there are specific income opportunities.

Economic crises primarily affect the commodity, currency and stock markets, which contributes to instability in the global economy. As for gold, it is one of the few stable and safe objects for investment, because its price always tends to grow, which is used by reliable investment companies. Gold not only protects against such negative consequences as a financial crisis, but also allows you to earn decent money from it. The main thing to remember is that investing in precious metals is a long-term investment.

You can save and increase your savings by indirectly investing in precious metals by purchasing precious coins. Coins are divided into 2 classes: investment and collection. Most of the coins issued by the Bank of Russia are collectible. To increase my capital by investing in this type of money is quite problematic, unless the person is a professional in this field. To save savings, you need to invest in investment coins. The Bank of Russia issues such funds in fairly large circulations, the quality of their minting is normal. They are made using simplified technology. The pattern on their surface is simple in design and does not change over time. For collectors, numismatists, these coins are of no value, but they are a means of payment. When purchasing them, VAT is not included in the price. In addition to the above methods of investing money, one more can be named - this is investing in commemorative coins.

The point of making money during an economic crisis is not to focus on getting the maximum profit, but to use your time, knowledge, energy to create and provide something truly valuable, in demand, and useful. Find ways to give people what they want, what they really need.

Thus, we can conclude that the economic crisis can have not only a negative impact on a person, but also a positive one. The economic crisis is the time to rethink your life, reevaluate your capabilities and use them for the benefit not only for yourself, but also for society as a whole.

World economic crisis

It began in the USA in the autumn of 1929, then spread to Latin America, Western Europe and other countries of Asia and Africa. The huge stock market crash then, on "black" Tuesday, October 29, 1929, marked the beginning of the crisis, or "Great Depression" of 1929-1933. The fall in prices was accompanied by a sharp decline in production, there was a deep crisis of the entire banking system, currencies depreciated, enterprises went bankrupt, an exorbitant level of unemployment appeared, mass poverty, disappointment of the population in the existing order - and this is not a complete list of troubles that have fallen on the economy of states, until recently considered the richest and most successful.

The main causes of the world economic crisis (1929-1933) were the excessive monopolization of production, the absence of any regulation, the disproportion between the growth of production volumes and the income level of a significant part of the population. The solvency of the population decreased, and it was not able to buy goods, the number of which was increasing.

The industrial crisis converged with agrarian overproduction. The agrarian crisis hit the peasants tangibly. Due to extremely low prices, agricultural production became unprofitable, a massive decrease in food production began, and a massive ruin of rural and farm enterprises began. And this could not but affect the state of the domestic market.

The crisis dealt a tangible blow to world trade. The decrease in trade turnover led to the curtailment of international relations. The competition of international monopolies actually developed into an open trade confrontation between countries. Trade disputes have disrupted the traditional foundations of financial relationships between countries.

The crisis of the 1930s forced the governments of these countries to make serious attempts to influence economic development and prevent their devastating consequences.

The "Great Depression" showed the inability of traditional approaches to solving socio-economic problems. In search of effective anti-crisis means in most countries, they came to the conclusion that it is impossible to get out of the crisis without state intervention. The government and business circles of the developed countries of the world made extraordinary efforts to overcome the crisis. The state became one of the factors of stability and progress in these countries; more and more economic functions were concentrated in its hands, which were expanded due to side methods of economic regulation. To this end, credit, subsidies, loans from the state budget were widely used, and the tax system was regulated. In most countries, a policy of protectionism was pursued. The joint efforts of the state and entrepreneurs not only overcame the consequences of the crisis, but became a kind of guarantor of future stability. Transition to broad empowerment state regulation made it possible to restore the expanded reproduction of capital, find new opportunities for building up economic and technical potential, and reduce the severity of social conflicts. The economic crisis of 1929 - 1933 turned out to be global. It disrupted all international economic relations, led to a massive reduction in industrial production and other sectors of the economy in almost all states.

In the United States, a large number of banks closed, deflation appeared and real estate prices collapsed, industrial production fell by 2 times, unemployment rose to 12 million people, many farmers went bankrupt, grain crops fell by 2 times. In the UK, by contrast, the Great Depression brought economic recovery and investment in old industries. For France, this period ended with the loss of leading positions in world markets. In Germany, as a result of the depression, the National Socialists led by Hitler came to power, and in Italy it marked the beginning of the formation of fascism, other European countries also suffered significantly from this global crisis. As a result, we can say that the Great Depression, which began in the United States, led to the Second World War, which inflicted unheard of suffering on millions of people on Earth.

Causes of the economic crisis

The causes of the crisis can be external and internal. The former are associated with trends and strategies for macroeconomic development or even the development of the world economy, competition, the political situation in the country, the latter with a risky marketing strategy, internal conflicts, shortcomings in the organization of production, imperfection of management, innovation and investment policy.

Causes of crises:

Financial and economic situation in the country;
intense competition;
unprofessional management (wrong decisions);
risky development (strategy);
crisis management (creating conflicts, crises);
difficult socio-political situation;
natural disasters.

In understanding the crisis, not only its causes are of great importance, but also various consequences: it is possible to renew the organization or destroy it, improve it or create a new crisis. The way out of the crisis is not always associated with positive consequences. We cannot rule out a transition to a state of a new crisis, perhaps even deeper and more prolonged. Crises can occur as a chain reaction. There is also the possibility of conservation of crisis situations for quite a long time.

The consequences of a crisis can lead to abrupt changes or a soft, sustained and consistent exit. And post-crisis changes in the development of the organization are long-term and short-term, qualitative and quantitative, reversible and irreversible.

Different consequences of the crisis are determined not only by its nature, but also by anti-crisis management, which can either mitigate the crisis or exacerbate it. The possibilities of management in this regard depend on the goal, professionalism, management art, the nature of motivation, understanding the causes and consequences, and responsibility.

Violation of the established economic state in a particular country or on a global scale, which is characterized by a decrease in various financial indicators and the general state of the economy, is commonly called a crisis.

It leads to mass bankruptcies of enterprises, a decrease in the level of production, and a deterioration in the life of the population.

We can distinguish the main features characterizing the economic crisis:

Decline in production;
massive rise in unemployment;
depreciation of the national currency;
imbalance in the financial spheres;
imbalance between supply and demand in market relations;
decrease in the solvency of the population;
decline in GDP;
outflow of foreign capital;
increase in the balance of payments deficit;
a sharp and significant drop in prices in the raw materials industry.

The causes of the economic crisis are so diverse that it is difficult for a non-specialist to understand the primary sources and possible consequences. Decline can occur as a result of a cyclical process that requires modernization and improvement of the management system or its revision and radical change. So, and after natural, social disasters, due to military events with the participation of a party experiencing a turning point in the economy.

It often happens to observe a combination of several factors that mutually influence the decline in macroeconomic indicators. The emergence of a crisis in the country can be triggered by external and internal factors.

Over the entire history of the existence of our planet, it has been necessary to observe economic fractures of local and global significance more than once. They can be studied in textbooks and library archives. Contemporaries keep fresh memories of some of them in their memory. And the younger generation can get acquainted in detail during lectures at specialized events.

The term "crisis" comes from the Greek word crisis. Its meaning is a turning point or a definite decision in a doubtful situation. In ancient times, it was used only in medicine and had a clear definition of the patient's condition, after overcoming which, it will become clear whether he will recover or the disease will completely destroy him.

Thus, we can say that the economic crisis is a turning point, which will show how the situation will turn in the future. And it depends on an adequate assessment by the country's leadership of the situation, causes and possible consequences. As well as the correctness of the actions taken by them to improve all indicators that have fallen into decay.

The concept of "crisis" was applied to the processes taking place in society about 400 years ago. And only in the XIX century it spread to the economic sphere.

Historian Philip Kay suggested that the world's first economic crisis occurred in the Roman Empire, eighty-eight years before the advent of our era. Closer to our time with an extensive geography, it covered England, France and the United States in 1825. It spread simultaneously to several industries.

The Russian economy has found itself in similar situations more than once. A striking example is the crisis of 1812-1815.

Historians have identified the following main reasons for it:

A huge amount was allocated for the cost of conducting military operations with Napoleonic France;
the ban on trade relations with Great Britain caused great damage to the Russian economy;
huge expenses were required for the restoration of the western provinces, benefits for residents of cities affected by devastation;
the decline of peasant farms during World War II.

Agriculture suffered the most. At that time, peasant households were the basis of the Russian economy. Therefore, their ruin caused such serious consequences for the country's economy. Complete depletion of material and military resources, post-war devastation, total losses exceeded 1 billion rubles. This amount was simply enormous, given that the annual income of the state at that time was about 100 million rubles. Historians also testify that in order to further reduce economic performance, French intelligence imported fake paper rubles.

The tariff charter of 1810 at that time saved Russia from collapse in the financial and economic sphere. He was able to ensure the dominant volume of exports of goods over imported products. Great support in a worthy settlement of the current situation was provided by financial assistance from England.

The crisis trend in Russia was also observed in 1899. Its beginning struck light industry and spread to heavy industry. Then about 3 thousand enterprises went bankrupt. Gross oil production decreased, and the production of wagons and steam locomotives was halved. The crisis of that time smoothly turned into a depression for our country, which ended only in 1909. Trying to increase labor productivity during this time, Russia managed to carry out the technical re-equipment of enterprises. Thus, a decent number of people got the opportunity to work and earn again.

Russia went into default in 1998. Government bonds depreciated, and the ruble depreciated three times in just 6 months.

These crises, together with the world crises of 2008-2009 that came to Russia, have a common motive - the fall in oil prices. The main branch that gives profit to the state suffers. Even the current protracted crisis, which lasts throughout 2014-2015, which has already come into its own in 2016, has the same reason. Of course, the current situation is aggravated, albeit by a slight decline in production, and a slowdown in economic growth. This is due to a sufficient measure with the sanctions that have been applied by some countries in relation to Russia.

And if in 1998, in a similar situation, reforms that were difficult for the country were passed, and many states and international funds helped to get out of decline, today the situation is different. Important reforms are ahead, and many former partner countries are more than careful about Russia.

Undoubtedly, the way out of the economic crisis is not a lightning-fast process. This will require a comprehensive approach of the country's leadership to the problem and the responsible adoption of many decisions. There are many people for whom such an event and the search for compromise or radical solutions to the problem is a daily work. And when everyone minds their own business, everything will eventually be resolved in the best possible way.

It will be interesting and important for ordinary citizens to know about the fact, proven by scientists, of the influence of the psychological mood of society on the duration of the course, the form of the crisis and its consequences. Your behavior can equally turn out to be both a "trigger" and a "calming" for the country's economy. Therefore, you should not fuss once again, sow confusion and provoke panic among fellow citizens. A calm and balanced attitude to life, respectable relationships with people can play an important role in resolving the difficult situation within the country.

Socio-economic crisis

Under the new conditions, there is a discrepancy between the value orientations of individual groups of the population and the objective socio-economic conditions of their lives. This discrepancy is expressed in the contradiction between the desire for material wealth and the low economic status of the family, as well as between the desire for high spiritual values, to spiritual development and limited opportunities due to material scarcity and the commercialization of culture.

Socio-economic changes cover various aspects of people's lives and become universal. Through the channels of culture, knowledge, values ​​and norms are transmitted that set the way of life for the broadest masses, contrary to the ideas, models and stereotypes of the majority. Under these conditions, culture becomes a mechanism for adapting the population to social changes, a mechanism for regulating behavior and activities, and an institution for the socialization of the individual.

This role of culture has largely led to changes in the contacts of the population with it. The consciousness of the majority of people was not ready to perceive the spread values ​​and norms. The study of the contacts of the population with culture will make it possible to judge its real impact, the depth and nature of changes, to identify the sections of the population that are most involved and accept or do not accept them. This will also provide an opportunity to find out the national and regional specifics of the impact of traditional and rational ways of regulating behavior and activities. Representatives of different strata and groups of the population are differently oriented towards certain methods of transmitting sociocultural information, which determines the different impact of culture on a person and his activities.

In this regard, it is supposed to take into account not only the interaction between socio-economic development and the nature of the functioning of culture, but also the problem of social differentiation of society. Under the conditions of the transition to market relations, social differentiation deepened, there was a division into the haves and the have-nots. There is a connection between the position of a person in society and his interests, values ​​and norms of life. On the basis of value orientations, a person develops his own personal position in life, attitude towards society, ongoing changes, various social situations, models of sociocultural information. All this makes it necessary to study the structure of the population from the point of view of the social status of people, the characteristics of their attitude towards life, and the prevailing value orientations. These characteristics were taken into account before, but they have become especially significant in connection with the new socio-economic situation.

Economic Crisis in Russia

In the article, we will analyze what caused the crisis in the country's economy at different times, and what consequences these events had for the Russians.

The situation of 1998, which is often referred to as "Default", was the result of the domestic economic policy of 1992-1998 and the "Asian" crisis. Experts believe that one of the main reasons for the default was the unstable political situation in the country. Yeltsin, together with the government, tried to form a market economy and minimize government influence on business development, while the State Duma sought total control over financial flows.

As a result of internal strife, the country's economy suffered. To contain inflation, the money supply in circulation was reduced. The population was not paid wages and pensions, financial obligations to budgetary organizations were not fulfilled. At the same time, taxes were kept high. Most of the enterprises switched to the barter form of remuneration.

The Duma adopted unbalanced budgets in which expenses were not covered by revenues. To eliminate the imbalance, GKO obligations were issued, for which the public debt grew. In 1998, the GKO system turned into a pyramid scheme, because old obligations were covered only by attracting new ones. In addition, restrictions on the export of capital from the country were lifted.

The internal and external debt of the state increased, and the possibilities of its return were reduced. By the end of 1997, interest rates on loans and government obligations began to rise sharply, and the stock market began to fall. The government tried to get additional loans from the IMF and the World Bank.

At the same time, commodity prices fell significantly, and a serious financial crisis erupted in Southeast Asia. As a result, on August 17, 1998, a technical default on government bonds of the Russian Federation was announced. The policy of containing the ruble in a narrow band was deemed untenable and was replaced by a floating exchange rate. The exchange rate of the ruble against the dollar jumped from 6 to 22 rubles in six months.

Unprofessional management of the economy and the confrontation of political forces led to a severe crisis. The rate of inflation was forcibly reduced, but production fell into decline. Investors began to leave Russia, and capital flowed abroad.

As a result, the standard of living of the population has declined, and inflation has become galloping. The trust of the people and investors in the state and the banking system fell for many years. Many banks and enterprises went bankrupt, and the population lost all their savings.

There have never been cases in world history when a state defaulted on domestic debt in national currency. Usually money was printed and domestic debt paid off.

Among the positive consequences of the default, there is an increase in the competitiveness of enterprises and the efficiency of exports, a general strengthening of the economy and the monetary system. Monetary regulation became much softer, the amount of money in circulation was no longer limited, and budgetary discipline increased, which led to the normalization of the financial situation.

The crisis of 2008 in Russia was the result of the global financial decline.

However, our economy was affected by the American credit bust more than developed countries due to the country's dependence on oil, which fell to $40 per barrel, unprofessional government actions and aggressive policy towards Georgia.

Economists believe that the decline began in May 2008, when Russian stock indices stopped growing. After that, the market began to fall. The deterioration of the investment climate in the country was noticed after the attack on Mechel, the government's speeches against foreign and domestic businesses and aggression in Georgia. During the Georgian conflict, our stock exchange experienced one of the most severe falls in the last ten years.

The war in Georgia prompted investors to flee the country, while general instability in global stock markets and falling oil prices exacerbated the situation. The huge external debt of Russian companies and the inability to access Western loans have led many organizations to turn to the government for help. Unemployment rose, the ruble devalued.

At the beginning of 2009, it became clear that a second wave of problems awaits us, connected with non-repayment of loans and a decrease in oil prices. According to Forbes magazine, from May 2008 to February 2009 the number of Russian dollar billionaires decreased from 110 to 32 people.

However, in December 2009 the government announced the end of the active phase of the crisis. The consumer price index in 2009 increased by 8.8% - this is the lowest inflation rate in the country's recent history. The fall in GDP in 2009 amounted to 7.9%, which was the worst result among the G8 countries.

In March 2010, Forbes noted that the number of dollar billionaires had doubled again to 62 (although there were 110 before all this). The improvement of the situation is connected with the rise in oil prices and the stabilization of stock markets.

There is an opinion that our economy never got out of the hole of 2008-2009. Structural problems accumulated, and at a certain moment had to break out. Starting in 2013, the economy began to slow down, and the foreign policy of the country's leadership led to an aggravation of the situation and financial decline.

The peculiarity of the crisis of 2014-2015 is that it developed only in Russia. European countries showed a slight economic growth, and the US was in the prime of its investment attractiveness. Against this background, the fall of the Russian economy looked the most gloomy.

The main source of income in our country is the sale of energy, and production is on the sidelines. The problems of 2014 were exacerbated by the fact that the cost of oil began to fall sharply, reaching $57 per barrel at the end of the year. When forming the budget for 2014, the government proceeded from the cost of $93 per barrel, so such a sharp drop had a detrimental effect on the financial condition.

Another factor that pushed us to the abyss was the annexation of Crimea and aggression against Ukraine. As a result of the actions of the Russian authorities, European countries, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Australia and the United States have imposed economic sanctions against a number of companies, credit institutions and individuals. The financial blockade and the closure of access to international capital have put many enterprises and banks at a disadvantage, depriving them of cheap money.

In response to Western sanctions, the Russian government imposed a moratorium on the import of certain types of products from abroad, which spurred inflation and worsened the economic situation.

Thanks to foreign policy and retaliatory sanctions, a sharp outflow of capital began. The devaluation of the ruble and rising inflation caused panic among the population, which rushed to buy the currency. Inflation in 2014 amounted to 11.4%, in January 2015 in annual terms it reached a maximum since May 2008 - 15%, and in monthly terms - a maximum since February 1999 - 3.9%.

The policy of the Central Bank also contributed to the rise in prices. An increase in the key rate in December 2014 from 9.5% to 17% provoked a collapse in the foreign exchange market, as a result of which the US dollar and the euro reached historic highs. In addition, the rate increase led to an increase in the cost of loans.

As a result of the crisis, Russia has lost the status of a promising market. A rapid exit from the difficult situation and a return to high economic growth rates, as was the case in 1999 and 2009, was impossible.

Economic diversification requires political reforms and structural changes. The likelihood of strengthening sanctions is also high, which, against the backdrop of an outflow of investments and cheaper oil, excludes the possibility of economic growth in the coming years.

In 2015, due to the depreciation of the ruble, freezing wages and rising tariffs, consumption fell sharply, which, combined with a halt in consumer lending, led to a fall in GDP and a crisis in the financial sector. The inflow of funds from export-import operations has decreased, and this has slowed down construction, real estate prices have fallen.

The main problems of the Russian economy remain low oil prices, tougher economic sanctions, as well as internal problems (high levels of corruption, poor investment climate).

The good news, however, is that the worst is behind us. 2016 was the last year of the economic recession, and since 2017 modest economic growth has begun. If the government does not take any steps that sharply worsen the situation, the economy will remain in stagnation, demonstrating low rates of economic growth while maintaining the current level of real incomes and the quality of life of the population.

2018 for the population and businesses is the time to finally calmly conduct a SWOT analysis and move from survival mode to growth and development mode. One has only to take into account that the situation in the economy will remain bad and plan your own future based on the current state, just in case, keep in mind the possible worsening of the situation.

Ordinary people should not despair either. Yes, the country lives badly and will live even worse, but this does not mean that the same fate is in store for everyone!

Read an article on how to survive the current economic crisis for ordinary people, as well as our material on how to earn your first million dollars and remember that a crisis is a time of opportunity.

Economic crisis of 1929-1933

The Great Depression was a prolonged recession in the world economy that began in 1929 and finally ended in the late 1930s. At the same time, the recession has spread to most of the Western countries and other countries around the world. In fact, the Great Depression is a global economic crisis, and the term itself is usually used in relation to the United States of America.

By the time the crisis began, 1% of Americans had ultra-high incomes, 42% ultra-low. In 1929, about 100 large corporations controlled half of America's corporate finances, and the banking system was in a wild state. Banks often promised their depositors 4-5% income per day.

Since the mid-1920s, the US stock market has been completely at the mercy of the "bulls" - players who play to increase stock prices. In 1923, the Dow Jones stock index was at 99. In August 1929, it soared 400% and reached 380, and on September 3, the index reached a record of 381.17 - one of the reasons for this increase was the activity of stock speculators.

The amount of savings that US residents kept in banks has risen sharply. Interest rates were then low, so bank loans were available to a great many Americans who expected to repay them in the future. Speculators took out bank loans in order to invest this money in stocks.

The state of affairs in the industry seemed brilliant. Industrial companies reported profits and preferred to invest them in the production of new products. This encouraged stock market players to actively buy their shares. However, in 1929, it turned out that the shares did not provide a high level of dividends, and the profit forecast of many issuing companies turned out to be overestimated. The issuing companies experienced falling sales volumes while their stock prices rose.

October 24, 1929 (this day went down in history as "Black Thursday") on the New York Stock Exchange there was a sharp decline in stocks, which marked the beginning of the largest economic crisis in the history of the world.

"Bulls" were replaced by "bears" - players for a fall. Investors began to sell shares en masse, and attempts to maintain share prices were unsuccessful.

The value of securities fell by 60-70%, business activity dropped sharply, and the gold standard for major world currencies was abolished.

The most solid shares - the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, the General Electric Company and the General Engine Company lost up to two hundred points during the week. By the end of the month, shareholders had lost over $15 billion. By the end of 1929, the fall in stock prices reached a fantastic amount of 40 billion dollars. Firms and factories were closed, banks burst, millions became unemployed.

In the first three years of the depression, 4,835 banks went bankrupt. And the panic-stricken population tried to withdraw their savings from the surviving banks at the first opportunity, as a result of which the amount of money in circulation increased from $454 million in 1929 to $5699 million at the end of 1932.

The crisis raged until 1933, and its effects were felt until the late 1930s.

Industrial production during this crisis decreased in the US by 46%, in the UK by 24%, in Germany by 41%, in France by 32%. Stock prices of industrial companies fell in the US by 87%, in the UK by 48%, in Germany by 64%, in France by 60%. Unemployment reached colossal proportions. According to official data, in 1933 there were 30 million unemployed in 32 developed countries, including 14 million in the USA.

The "New Deal" of President Franklin Roosevelt, the essence of which was to carry out state-monopoly regulation of the economy, made it possible to gradually normalize the situation in the country. The policy of the "New Deal" included price regulation, initiation of the association of producers into large enterprises, a social program to establish a minimum wage, a maximum working week, the introduction of pensions for workers over 65 years old, etc.

As a result of this crisis, the United States created the Securities and Exchange Commission, which was called upon to establish the rules of the game and punish violators. Also, a law was passed that banned ties between investment and commercial banks, and state insurance of bank deposits was introduced for an amount not exceeding $100,000 (for this, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation FDIC was formed).

The market recovered to pre-crisis levels only 39 years later - only in 1954 did the Dow Jones index exceed the level of September 3, 1929.

Development of economic crises

The concept of economic crisis is connected with the concept of cyclical development of the economy by N.D. Kondratiev. The crisis is one of the successive phases of the cycle along with the rise, depression and recovery.

Marxist theory considered crises an integral part of only the capitalist economy. Non-Marxist economic theories initially denied the inevitability of economic cycles, proving the possibility of overcoming cyclicality within the framework of traditional market mechanisms.

In the first half of the 20th century, ideas arose that cyclicality, and, consequently, the causes that give rise to crises, can be overcome by state regulation of a market economy. These ideas are associated with the name of J. M. Keynes.

Recently, the position of a number of specialists has been determined, according to which state intervention in economic processes does not always lead to smoothing out cyclicality and anti-crisis regulation, but often turns into the opposite result, expressed in maintaining and provoking cyclicality.

The causes of cyclicality and the emergence of crises in economic development have also been tried to be explained from different positions.

In particular, P. Samuelson cites the following theories as the most famous:

Monetary theory, which explains the occurrence of crises by the lack (compression) of bank loans;
- the theory of innovation sees cyclicality in the periodically arising need to use important innovations in production;
- psychological theory sees the cause of cyclicity in the presence of the will of the pessimistic or optimistic mood of the population;
- the theory of underconsumption interprets the causes of cycles as too large a share of income that is deposited with very thrifty people and is not invested in the economy;
- The theory of overinvestment states that the causes of cycles, on the contrary, lie in overinvestment.

Financial and economic crisis

Moreover, let us ask ourselves the question: the systematic increase in public debt and the printing of unsecured dollars - can this be considered a prudent financial policy, can it continue indefinitely?! The answer is obvious - of course not, sooner or later it will lead to collapse, to a catastrophe. What to do? Before answering this question, let us discuss the main features of financial policy in the world as a whole and, in particular, in Russia, the United States and Europe.

The global financial crisis of 2008 led to a recession in the economy, but gradually faded away. Many financiers and politicians have already begun to say that the threat has passed, the crisis is over, and so on. But then came a new threat of crisis in August this year. This threat has not been eliminated today, but only postponed for a year and a half by the decision of the United States to raise the level of public debt.

Today there is a very paradoxical situation in the development of modern society. Indeed, humanity has mastered space, created computers and a global information network, begins to clone organisms, build ordered nanostructures from individual atoms with new, fantastic properties, and so on. etc. There are still enough natural resources on our planet, humanity is ready to consume more and more new types of products. And, most importantly, the intellectual breakthrough of mankind into the depths of matter and into the field of the latest technologies continues to develop at an unprecedented pace. Of course, there are also problems - crime, terrorism, radioactive waste, ecology, alcoholism, drug addiction, etc.

However, against the background of the achievements listed above (and I mentioned only a small fraction of them), any sane person has a question: excuse me, what kind of crisis can we talk about? So, there should not have been any crisis with a reasonable development of the economy. But humanity, or rather, those of its representatives who influence decision-making at the global level, have driven themselves into a dead end and continue to mock themselves with sadistic pleasure.

How is the crisis that began in 2008 usually characterized? This is an avalanche-like growth of non-payments on loans, especially on mortgages, a catastrophic shortage of money, as a result, a sharp drop in demand from the population and, accordingly, a drop in production, bankruptcy of enterprises and banks, mass unemployment. Is it so? Yes, yes, but all this is not the cause, not the essence, but only the consequences, the external manifestations of the crisis. The essence of the matter lies in monetarism, in the separation of the financial system from the real sector of the economy, in financial pyramids, in the speculative nature of the financial sector.

Money is an integral element of the modern economy and life, money is needed by everyone and always. And yet, they are not the primary, true value. The true value is the material and intellectual wealth of both an individual and each country as a whole.

Financial pyramids play a special role in the crisis today. Undoubtedly, the United States is the birthplace of financial pyramids. With deep regret, I have to put Russia in the second "honorable" place in this row. I will list just a few of the main financial pyramids of the United States: the dollar paper pyramid, fantastic mortgages, Madoff's financial pyramid, etc. etc. By the way, Madoff's financial pyramid is 65 billion dollars.

I will list several financial pyramids of Russia: Mavrodi's pyramid; the pyramid of GKOs (government short-term bonds) of Chubais, which led to the default of 1998 and to the depreciation of the population's deposits in banks several times; numerous financial pyramids in construction, which burst with a bang, leaving people who invested in the construction of their own apartments with their noses (for example, in the summer of 2006, 80 thousand families became deceived investors).

The current crisis can be compared to the Great American Depression of the early twentieth century. Let us recall how the great American President Franklin Roosevelt began his fight against this depression. (Further description follows the memoirs of Roosevelt himself). On the morning of March 5, 1933, newly elected President Roosevelt woke up for the first time in an unfamiliar bedroom at the White House. He had breakfast in bed, dressed, and was then driven by his valet in a wheelchair to the Oval Office. When Roosevelt was left alone, he leaned back in his chair and suddenly cried out desperately, realizing the tragedy of the situation in the country and the burden of responsibility that lay on him. Coming to his senses, he decided that time was running out. The first thing Roosevelt did immediately was to issue a proclamation to close all banks until March 9th. An emergency session of Congress was called for that day.

On March 9, 1933, congressmen and senators gathered at the Capitol, and the President proposed to Congress an "emergency banking law," under which banks could only be opened after they were deemed "healthy" after the audit. By the way, at the same time the export of gold was prohibited. The law in the House of Representatives was adopted unanimously, and in the Senate by 73 votes to 7. So, after the adoption of this law, more than 2 thousand American banks were not recognized as "healthy" and closed forever.

Let's go back to the present. On October 7, 2008, all the banks of small Iceland were nationalized on the same day, the next day, on October 8, 2008, part of the UK banks were nationalized. I will not continue this list.

And what is happening with banks in Russia in last years? The state rushed to save the banks, investing significant budgetary funds in them. And Minister of Finance A.L. Kudrin proudly said that thanks to these measures it was possible to stabilize the financial system, and Russia got through the crisis with minimal losses. Alas, the situation is actually quite the opposite. It is well known that many banks either transferred budgetary funds invested in them abroad, or used them for speculation in the foreign exchange market, or provided loans, but in a very small amount and at an unacceptably high percentage (about 15-25%, while in In Europe, a loan to enterprises in the real sector of the economy is given at 1-2%, or even at zero).

In general, if you delve into the essence of the work of banks, it seems to me that they can be compared with the old money-lender from Dostoevsky's famous novel, and therefore the state must strictly control banks.

Now consider one of the highlights the last time. The main, initial cause of the global financial crisis is the fact that the world currency is the dollar, and since 1971 the United States has been printing dollars in unlimited quantities, and these dollars are not backed by anything and are not tied to anything. Today, too, the United States is increasingly expanding the uncontrolled emission of the dollar, which is already trillions and tens of trillions. The US national debt today exceeds $14 trillion, which is roughly equal to US GDP.

And here I will make my proposals. To eliminate the main cause of the global financial crisis, you need to abandon the dollar as a world currency and switch to another currency. Of course, such a step will be very difficult for many countries, but it is absolutely necessary, because the alternative to it is collapse.

Is it necessary to introduce some new world currency? Fortunately, in my opinion, this is not necessary. Today, a unique political organization has been built and is successfully functioning - the European Union with a population of about 500 million people, with its own single currency - the euro. It is this currency that should be made the only world currency.

The euro, compared to the dollar or any other currency, has the huge advantage that today the international procedure for distributing euro emission among various European countries has already been worked out. In this sense, as in a number of others, the euro is a unique currency. The idea of ​​switching to the euro has been expressed more than once.

What is needed for this? First of all, the first step should be a political decision at the global level. In my opinion, the most appropriate format for such a decision is the G20 meeting with further approval of this decision at the UN General Assembly.

The second step should be the announcement of a transitional period during which dollars are gradually withdrawn from international circulation and replaced by euros.

As a third step, the European Central Bank should tighten its policy, namely, not to allow the issuance of unsecured euros, to link the permission to issue euros to various countries to their GDP, while taking into account such significant indicators of the country's budget as inflation, budget deficit, government duty. A separate issue is how to calculate GDP. In my opinion, in this calculation, it is necessary to exclude income related to speculative activities.

The fourth step should be the gradual expansion of the euro area, the admission to this area of ​​both new European and non-European countries that meet the relevant requirements. In the future, the euro area should be extended to the whole world.

The fifth step, which should be taken simultaneously with the start of the fourth step, should be the creation within the framework of the UN, in the style of the Security Council, of the World Financial Center, which should consist of permanent members (for example, members of the G20), and re-elected members from among the rest of the countries. This Center should take over in the world those functions that are carried out today in Europe by the European Central Bank, i.e. regulation and control of the emission and money supply of the euro and the distribution of euro issuance quotas by countries in proportion to their GDP. It would be reasonable to choose one of the European cities as the permanent residence of this Center.

Of course, the most painful rejection of the dollar and the transition to the euro will be, first of all, for the United States. But they must understand that this step is absolutely necessary for the world economy, otherwise there will be a collapse, social upheaval, and so on.

It is also worth emphasizing that the United States cannot endlessly issue unsecured dollars and flood the world economy with them - this bubble will burst sooner or later. Therefore, one of the possible scenarios is that the US will default, depreciating the dollar many times over and getting rid of almost all of its debts. But this default will bring down the entire world economy, under the rubble of which the US economy will inevitably collapse in a short time. So the default scenario, if it comes to fruition, would be extremely shortsighted. The US must change its financial policy and live within its means. For them, this is the only reasonable way out of this situation.

It should be noted that today there are serious financial and economic problems in the European Union. There is nothing perfect in the world. But the European Union, unlike the United States, is taking reasonable real steps to address these problems.

Let's return to Russian problems. It has been 20 years since communism collapsed in Russia and the country began to build a capitalist society. 20 years is a long time, it's time to sum up some results. Yes, of course, today there are certain positive results. To them, I include, first of all, the elimination of the total deficit of communist times, filling the shelves with goods, the freedom of citizens to travel to foreign countries, and a number of other points.

However, one can hardly say anything good about the welfare of the population and the development of the economy. And the primary goal of any state, including Russia, is to ensure the well-being of the population and build a strong state with a powerful economy based primarily on innovation and high technology.

When the transition to capitalism began in Russia 20 years ago, naturally, one of the top priorities was the question of ownership and, accordingly, privatization. In theory, privatization pursued three goals: the creation of an effective owner, the creation of a middle class in the country, and the replenishment of the state budget. None of these goals were achieved. Is it really possible today to assert, as Chubais and his like-minded people do, that although privatization was carried out with certain mistakes, but on the whole it was necessary, and it was necessary to act quickly in those conditions? The vast majority of the current oligarchs, who made their fortune during that privatization, are not effective owners; today they make money either on the export of Russian energy resources or on speculative-type financial transactions.

Individuals play a huge role in human history. Therefore, I will dwell especially on the figure of the man who led the privatization in Russia, who is called the "father of privatization." A.B. Chubais is a modern Herostratus who has not received a single positive result in the course of his work in many areas (of course, I mean the results for Russia, and I will not now talk about the results for Chubais' own pocket). Is it worth talking about it? After all, it is generally accepted that criticizing Chubais is a commonplace, that he still occupies any chair so firmly that no one will ever be able to touch him with a finger. It seems that this is how things are going.

And yet, in my opinion, the situation is not so hopeless. Let me give you an analogy from the events of last year. Mayor of Moscow Yu.M. Luzhkov, together with his wife, ruled the capital of Russia for almost 20 years, managed the budget of Moscow as his own, created a bureaucratic pyramid riddled with corruption, and at the same time seemed absolutely unsinkable.

However, we must pay tribute to the President of Russia D.A. Medvedev - he decided to remove Luzhkov. Generally speaking, it would be necessary to bring the ex-mayor and his wife to criminal responsibility for causing damage to the country on an especially large scale.

So, I really hope that the same fate awaits Chubais, but I would like it to happen as soon as possible. After all, the scope of Luzhkov's activities is Moscow, while the scope of Chubais's activities is the whole of Russia!

It so happened that our paths in life crossed with Chubais. When he carried out his privatization, I was a people's deputy of Russia. From the very beginning, I resolutely publicly opposed privatization according to Chubais. At the end of 1991, I prepared my own privatization program, completely different from the one that was carried out later by Chubais. In September 1992, on behalf of the parliamentary faction “Civil Society”, he published a statement in a number of central newspapers “Vouchers are a deception of the people”. On September 25, 1992, speaking at a session of the Supreme Council of Russia on the issue of the upcoming privatization, he descended from the podium and, in protest, threw Chubais, who was sitting in the government box, a small notebook with blank sheets, which symbolized the fact that the voucher is an empty piece of paper.

I foresaw and publicly warned about the financial crash of 1998 associated with the GKO financial pyramid (government short-term bonds) built by the same Chubais. He offered real urgent measures to prevent this crisis, which were not implemented by the authorities. On May 18, 1996 (more than two years before the default), he published an article on this topic in the newspaper Sovetskaya Rossiya entitled “Mad Money (a time bomb in the Russian economy)”, and on August 3, 1998, two weeks before the default - in "Novaya Gazeta" an article called "Debt Everest".

After the default of 1998, Chubais' activities continued in that direction. He was appointed head of the RAO EU. And so, on May 25, 2005, a dress rehearsal of the apocalypse took place in Moscow - a global power outage. So how did this power outage happen? And it's very simple. One of the worn-out Moscow power substations, Chagino, failed, the equipment on which had not been updated for decades. And then, as the leadership of the RAO EU, headed by Chubais, explained to us, a cascading power outage occurred. Every engineer, every sane person understands that if in some system built from homogeneous elements, some of its elements fail, then it should not interfere with the operation of the entire system, it should be excluded from work in one way or another. This is how all engineering systems have been built for hundreds of years. But after all, Chubais, a professional revolutionary and a bright representative of monetarism, stood at the head of the RAO EU. Why does he need to know such trifles ?! After all, the main thing is money!

And here is the result. The official estimate of losses in Moscow (I'm sure it's sharply underestimated) is 5 billion rubles. A month later, at the end of June 2005, the annual meeting of RAO EU is held. It is worth noting two points. Firstly, the state again puts Chubais in charge of the RAO EU, and, secondly, members of the Board of Directors receive annual bonuses, each of 1 million US dollars. Top managers from the elite club of monetarists are valued in our country! I think that the results of Chubais's work in the field of nanotechnologies, which he now heads in Russia, will soon also have an effect. The chain: privatization, the pyramid of GKOs, RAO EU, Rosnanotechnologies continues to develop successfully.

In the light of financial problems, it makes sense to dwell on the most important issue of the well-being of the Russian population. It is, in short, very deplorable. Public sector salaries are very low. It is sometimes said that the low wages of the population ensure the competitiveness of manufactured goods. This is a very short-sighted position, because, not to mention even the standard of living, low wages mean a low demand of the population for goods and, accordingly, a decrease in production, i.e. leading to a downturn in the economy.

What needs to be done in Russia today in order to get out of the pit of the financial and economic crisis? I will briefly list only the most necessary measures, without claiming to be a complete list.

First of all, the whole history of the last two centuries shows that the market economy, of course, gives serious positive results, but, being left to itself, inevitably, sooner or later, leads to the dictate of monopolies and crises. In Russia today, the market economy is given too much freedom, and therefore the state should intervene more actively in the economy.

How should this be expressed? It is necessary to use state levers to pursue an active anti-monopoly policy, to prevent the creation and diktat of monopolies, to pursue an active and flexible tax policy, and to regulate duties.

Particular attention should be paid to the results of privatization and it is necessary, within certain limits, to carry out deprivatization, nationalization. First of all, this concerns the natural wealth of Russia, such as energy resources, minerals, etc. All this is a national treasure, and should not be in private hands. There is already experience in this regard in the world - for example, income from oil production in Norway goes to the accounts of all citizens of the country. Further, it is necessary to completely eliminate private ownership of land, because it leads to frenzied speculation and the wild criminalization of society. At the same time, of course, it is necessary to leave the right to use land for life, for example, for owners of summer cottages, even with the right to inherit, but, categorically, without the right to sell. By the way, I can say to the opponents of deprivatization that at one time, after the reign of the “iron lady” Margaret Thatcher ended in the UK, she was very strongly criticized for the bias towards privatization, and in the classical country of capitalism - in the UK - it was carried out, in certain scales, deprivatization.

The state must stop the creation of all kinds of financial pyramids in the bud, sharply limit all kinds of speculative activities, prevent the merging of power and business, which inevitably leads to rampant corruption.

Of course, the state must ensure a decent life for its citizens, bring their well-being closer to world standards, build an economy based not on the export of natural resources, but on high technologies and innovations, raise medicine, education, science and culture to the proper height.

Consequences of the economic crisis

Closer to the Marxist position are economists who consider the cause of crises to be disproportionality, or "disequilibrium." Crises are due to the lack of correct proportions between industries, spontaneous actions of entrepreneurs. The theory of disequilibrium is combined with another widespread view of crises as the product of external conditions - political, demographic, natural.

To date, economic science has developed a number of different theories that explain the causes of economic cycles and crises. P. Samuelson, for example, as the most famous theories of cycles and crises in his book "Economics" notes the following: the monetary theory, which explains the cycle by expansion (contraction) of bank credit (Hawtrey and others); the theory of innovation, which explains the cycle by using important innovations in production (Schumpeter, Hansen); a psychological theory that interprets the cycle as a consequence of waves of pessimistic and optimistic mood covering the population (Pigou, Bagggot, and others); the theory of underconsumption, which sees the cause of the cycle in too much of the income going to rich and thrifty people compared to what can be invested (Hobson, Foster, Catchings, etc.); the theory of overinvestment, whose supporters believe that the cause of the recession is rather excessive than insufficient investment (Hayek, Mises, etc.); theory of sunspots - weather - harvest (Jevons, Moore).

If we understand the crisis in this way, then we can state that the danger of a crisis always exists, that it must be foreseen and predicted. In understanding the crisis, not only its causes are of great importance, but also the consequences: it is possible to renew the organization or its destruction, recovery or the emergence of a new crisis, perhaps even deeper and longer. Crises can occur as a chain reaction.

There is a possibility of conservation of crisis situations for quite a long time. This can also be explained by certain political reasons.

The consequences of crises are closely related to two factors: their causes and the possibility of managing crisis development processes.

The consequences of the crisis can lead to abrupt changes or a soft, long and consistent way out of it. Crisis changes in the development of the organization are long-term and short-term, qualitative and quantitative, reversible and irreversible.

Different consequences of the crisis are determined not only by its nature, but also by the nature of anti-crisis management, which can either mitigate or exacerbate the crisis. The possibilities of management in this regard depend on the goal, professionalism, management art, the nature of motivation, understanding the causes and consequences, and responsibility.

Practice shows that crises differ not only in their causes and consequences, but also in their essence.

There are general and local crises. General ones cover the entire socio-economic system, local ones - only a part of it. Depending on the problems of the crisis, macro- and micro-crises can be distinguished. The macrocrisis is characterized by rather large volumes and scales of problems; microcrisis captures only a single problem or a group of problems.

Depending on the structure of relations in the socio-economic system, the differentiation of the problems of its development, separate groups can be distinguished.

Economic crises reflect acute contradictions in the country's economy or the economic condition of the company. These are crises of production and sale of goods, relationships between economic agents, crises of non-payments, loss of competitive advantages, bankruptcy, etc.

Social crises arise when contradictions aggravate or clash of interests of various social groups or entities: workers and employers, trade unions and entrepreneurs, workers of various professions, personnel and managers, etc.

Organizational crises manifest themselves as crises of separation and integration of activities, distribution of functions, regulation of the activities of individual units, as a separation of administrative units, regions, branches or subsidiaries.

Psychological crises are crises of the psychological state of a person. Manifested in the form of stress, acquiring a massive character, the emergence of a feeling of insecurity, panic, fear for the future, dissatisfaction with work and social status.

Technological crises arise as crises of new technological ideas under conditions of a clearly expressed need for new technologies (a crisis of technological incompatibility of products, a crisis of rejection of new technological solutions).

By anticipation, crises can be predictable and unexpected. Predictable - come as a stage of development, can be predicted and caused by objective reasons for the accumulation of crisis factors - the need for restructuring production, changing the structure of interests under the influence of scientific and technological progress. Unexpected - often the result of gross errors in management, or any natural phenomena, or economic dependence, contributing to the expansion and spread of local crises. There are also obvious crises (they are noticeable and easily detected) and latent (hidden, they occur relatively imperceptibly and therefore are the most dangerous).

In addition, crises are acute and mild. Acute crises often lead to the destruction of various structures of the socio-economic system. Soft crises are more consistent and painless. They are predictable and easier to manage.

In general, the consequences of the crisis can be divided into two large groups:

The first group is the current consequences. They are a quick response to a crisis. Their analysis allows assessing the state of the economy and society in the short term. The most tangible of these consequences are unemployment, inflation, the rate of decline in economic indicators;
The second group of consequences are those changes that await us in the long term. At this stage, the assessment of such consequences of the global financial crisis is more in the realm of forecasts. But it is precisely on the extent to which the crisis will affect the world economy, how its content will change, that its entire future will depend.

The global nature of the crisis does not mean, however, that its consequences will be the same for all countries and all sectors of the economy. As in the case of the causes of the crisis, its consequences vary greatly depending on the level of industrial development of states and the anti-crisis measures taken by the authorities. This is clearly seen in the examples of current consequences - the rate of decline in GDP in different countries over comparable periods differs quite significantly, it is natural to assume that their long-term consequences are also unlikely to be the same.

In addition to the economic, the social consequences of the crisis were also very strong. Most of all, as always, the townsfolk suffered. Someone went bankrupt on stocks, someone on a mortgage, someone was fired due to the bankruptcy of an enterprise or to reduce staff. In 2008, 1.1 million Americans attempted suicide.

Economic and political crisis

The dissatisfaction of the peasants with the surplus appropriation, which continued to increase every year, led to a reduction in sown areas, a decrease in yields, and a decrease in the supply of grain to the state.

A wave of peasant uprisings and anti-Soviet rebellions swept across the country: in Ukraine, in Siberia, Central Asia, in the Tambov, Voronezh and Saratov provinces. The military anti-communist mutiny of sailors in Kronstadt in March 1921 was a socio-political crisis that threatened the existence of Soviet power.

The turn to the New Economic Policy (NEP) was carried out under the strong pressure of general discontent in the country in order to normalize domestic economic, social and political relations.

Initially, the NEP was based on the duality and inconsistency between socialist and market principles, politics and economics, etc. The first direction of reforms was carried out with the aim of strengthening the socialized state forms in the economy and implied the expansion of planning principles (the formation of the State Planning Commission), strengthening state control and regulation ( the activities of the Rabkrin, the opening of the State Bank, the beginning of the stabilization of the currency), the concentration of production, the expansion of distribution relations (between the leading industries, the largest enterprises). For the development of this direction, the full power of state institutions and ideological support were used within the framework of the concept of building socialism.

The second direction of reforms is the activation of market, private capitalist relations. For this, a block of relations new in comparison with war communism was formed. To develop this direction, a set of measures was carried out to promote the functioning of commodity-money relations: the transition from food appropriation to food tax, the permission of free trade and private industry, the leasing of state-owned enterprises, concessions, and the provision of freedom to the peasantry in the use of land, inventory, labor.

The prospects for this direction of reform were limited in scope (mainly in the sphere of small-scale production), time (for a long time, but not forever), growth potential (without a threat to the interests of the political domination of the dictatorship of the proletariat).

The first step in the transition to NEP was the decisions of the 10th Congress of the RCP(b) (March 1921), at which the question "On the replacement of apportionment with tax in kind" was discussed. V.I. Lenin, and with a co-report - A.D. Tsyurupa. IN AND. Lenin drew two main conclusions: first, "only an agreement with the peasantry can save the socialist revolution in Russia until the revolution breaks out in other countries"; secondly, “we should not try to hide anything, but should say bluntly that the peasantry is dissatisfied with the form of relations that we have established with them, that they do not want this form of relations and will not continue to exist like this.” At the Tenth Congress, Lenin's proposal was adopted to replace the apportionment with a tax in kind.

Tax in kind was introduced on 13 types of food, technical and fodder crops. Everything that remained with the peasants after the tax was paid was completely at their disposal. The tax in kind was almost half the apportionment, and most of it was levied on the wealthy peasantry. The poorest peasants and collective farms were exempted from the tax or received more significant benefits. The size of the tax in kind was reported to the peasant in advance, that is, on the eve of the sowing season, so the peasant could expand the area under crops, get more food surpluses and then sell them at a free price on the market.

With the introduction of the tax in kind, the way was opened for free trade, initially limited by the scope of local turnover, i.e., the place of residence of the peasants. But already in August-September 1921, the authorities were forced to abolish state barter, embark on the path of emancipation of commodity-money relations, and the widespread use of market methods of management. Trade has become the main form of bond between the city and the countryside. For the further formation of the market, it was necessary to revive the industry, to increase the output of its products. To do this, during the transition to the NEP, the denationalization of small and, partially, medium-sized enterprises was carried out. On May 17, 1921, a resolution of the Council of People's Commissars was adopted, in accordance with which it was proposed to take measures to develop handicraft and small-scale industry both in the form of private enterprises and in the form of cooperatives.

On August 9, 1921, the "Order of the Council of People's Commissars on the Implementation of the Beginnings of the New Economic Policy" was adopted, containing the initial principles of the work of industry under the NEP: the development of industry was supposed to be carried out within the framework of a single general economic plan under the leadership of the State Planning Commission; the management of the national economy was restructured, its excessive centralization was weakened; instead of labor mobilization, workers began to be hired; their material incentives were introduced, the salary was calculated depending on the qualifications and the quantity of products produced. State enterprises were transferred to economic accounting, which expanded their rights, it became possible to independently resolve issues of procurement of raw materials and the sale of finished products. In the city, it was allowed to open or lease small industrial and commercial enterprises to cooperatives, partnerships, other associations or private individuals.

On October 6, 1922, the Land Code was adopted. The peasants received the right to freely leave the rural community and choose the forms of land use. The lease of land and the use of hired labor were allowed in an extremely limited amount. Individual peasants provided 98.5% of all agricultural products. By 1922 the rationing system had been largely abolished. By the spring of 1923, the transition of the economy to a market economy was generally completed.

In 1922–1924 a monetary reform was carried out (its main authors were the Council of People's Commissars of Finance G. Sokolnikov and Professor L. Yurovsky). A hard currency was introduced - chervonets. The new currency was used primarily for wholesale trade. One chervonets was equal to ten royal gold rubles, but it was exchanged for gold only in settlements with foreign partners. The rapid development of the market made it possible to eliminate the budget deficit by the beginning of 1924. The need to issue Soviet signs has disappeared. In retail trade, where they circulated, they were replaced by treasury notes (in rubles), which have a certain ratio with chervonets. The exchange was based on the following calculation: one ruble of treasury notes was equal to 50,000 rubles in Soviet signs. One hard convertible currency appeared in the country, which was accepted for circulation on Western exchanges that had ties with the USSR.

The country's economic successes during the NEP period were obvious. By the beginning of 1922, the rise of the national economy was clearly visible, the country was fed and clothed. Cooperation gained momentum. In 1925, the gross grain harvest was 10.7% higher than the average annual harvest in 1909–1913. By 1927, the pre-war level in animal husbandry had been reached. Food consumption in 1927 exceeded the level of pre-revolutionary Russia. This advantage applied to rural residents. On the whole, the national economy of the USSR in the economic year 1927/28 reached the level of industrial production in Russia in 1913.

At the same time, many complex problems began to arise during the NEP period. One of them is the cyclical nature of the economy with serious crises in 1923, 1925 and 1927-1928.

In the autumn of 1923, the so-called sales crisis broke out. The rural population was unable to buy the urgently needed manufactured goods at existing prices, with which all warehouses and shops were packed. This situation provoked a response from the peasants: they began to delay the transfer of grain to state storage facilities under the tax in kind. Soon the Bolsheviks were forced to restore price parity, lower industrial selling prices, and the sales crisis was eliminated.

Grain procurement crises in 1925 and 1927–1928. were also caused by disproportions in the structural and pricing policy of the government in relation to the city and the countryside. The Bolsheviks saw the way out of crisis situations mainly through the prism of administrative methods of regulating the economy.

In Russian society in the second half of the 1920s. dissatisfaction with the NEP on the part of various social groups began to manifest itself more and more clearly.

The new economic policy was met with hostility by the party and state apparatus, as it had to abandon the method of command decisions. Commodity-money relations demanded a flexible professional policy, knowledge and experience. However, the apparatus did not have sufficient incentives for this, since it had its own social guarantees (and very good ones), regardless of the efficiency of work.

In addition, the NEP objectively led to an increase in unemployment, including among managers: by January 1924, among the 1 million unemployed, there were 750 thousand former employees. This problem was very painful and exacerbated the social contradictions in the country.

In the countryside, the stratification of the peasants intensified, wage labor was permitted, and exploitation increased in the countryside. NEP undermined the social security of those who were accustomed to living on the principle of mutual responsibility when there was a community. That part of the peasantry, which was connected not with commodity production, but with subsistence farming, was significantly reduced during the NEP years. A huge number of immigrants who poured into the city dissolved the industrial proletariat. Wealthy peasant kulaks were also dissatisfied with the NEP policy, which was identified with high taxes, "scissors" in prices between industrial and agricultural products.

The working class did not become the social support that would fight and defend the principles of NEP. Cost accounting did not reach workplaces, it was purely trust-based and was supported by administrative means. Therefore, the worker did not see the material benefit from obtaining the final results.

As a result, those dissatisfied with the NEP in the "lower classes" (the poor and farm laborers in the countryside, the unemployed, low-skilled workers and employees) were united in its rejection with the "top" (the party and state apparatus). The fate of the NEP was sealed.

The beginning of the economic crisis

Consider the cyclical nature of economic crises. Since the 1960s seven clear dips can be distinguished, the extreme low points of which fell on the following years: 1967, 1971, 1975, 1982, 1991, 2001, 2009. Not necessarily at the same time, the growth rate of world GDP went into the red (this happened only in 2009). So, seven crises, of which the last four occurred with a frequency of 7-10 years.

How many years have passed since the last crisis? Getting ready?

Yes, today there are suggestions that cyclicality is a thing of the past, that the dynamics of modern world economic development is generally one continuous crisis, etc., etc. But this has not yet been tested in practice.

Crises occur because capital has been striving and still striving for the spheres of its most profitable application. Previously, all this led to a banal overproduction of goods in certain markets. Today, everything has become more complicated and we are talking, as a rule, about the growth of crisis imbalances in certain financial markets. Let's say in 2008-2009. the decline was triggered by the US mortgage crisis, the immediate cause of which is the overheating of the US real estate market. Well, the trigger of the crisis is the collapse of the investment bank Lehman Brothers. In 2000–2001 the global recession occurred as a result of the crisis in the stock market of IT companies. The trigger of the crisis is the drop in the indexes of high-tech companies.

The crises that have occurred in recent decades had a fundamental reason - the global overcapitalization of markets. This is, so to speak, the background reason. How can one measure the degree of this capitalization and try to answer the question whether this very recapitalization of the economy has been achieved or not? In 2008, we (FBK Grant Thornton) used the indicator “capital intensity of GDP” (our name) for this purpose. This indicator is calculated as the ratio of the total capitalization of the stock market of national companies to the volume of nominal GDP. The economic meaning of the indicator is in comparing the size of the stock market and the economy. The working hypothesis was that a certain level of economic development corresponds to a certain threshold value of the GDP capital intensity indicator, if it is clearly and steadily exceeded, the economy goes into crisis. Crises of 2000–2001 and 2008–2009 showed that the threshold value of the capital intensity of world GDP was in the region of 120%, after it was reached, a fall began, which had more immediate causes. The correlation between GDP capital intensity and world GDP growth rates, if you look at the last 20 years, is very strong.

What is happening with this indicator today? The capital intensity of GDP fell below 60% in 2008, then began to gradually increase, reaching almost 100% by the end of 2016. The indicator has not yet reached the threshold value (120%), but is moving towards it.

If we look at national economies, which will have their own thresholds, the cause for concern may increase. In the US, the economic decline began with a GDP capital intensity of 140-150%, today this level has almost been reached. And the US economy is the world's leading one, and it is this economy that largely determines the dynamics of world economic development.

By the way, the correlation between the capital intensity of GDP and the rate of its growth is characteristic of developed economies and the world economy as a whole. The Russian economy has not yet been seen in such a stable and strong relationship. But if the next world economic crisis breaks out, we will not find it enough. Our economy is not among the developed ones, also because it is institutionally underdeveloped. The same is true for other emerging markets.

Almost eight years have passed since the last economic crisis, the capital intensity of the world economy is approaching its approximate limit of 120%. This means that we simply must conclude that the world economy is unlikely to avoid a crisis in the next three years. But there must be an immediate cause, and some kind of trigger? The answer to this question today seems to be the most difficult. We venture to make some assumptions about possible critical disproportions, bubbles, which, in the conditions of global overcapitalization of markets, can become the direct cause of another global economic downturn.

First, the likely overheating of the US stock market. The current capital intensity of the US economy is already close to historical highs. If the promised tax cuts begin and a significant increase in budget spending on the construction of transport infrastructure, defense, social needs, etc., all this will only spur the growth of stock indices.

Secondly, the probable collapse of the oil market. Efforts to cut oil production have had limited success. And then there is a possible slowdown in the growth of the Chinese economy, an accelerated transition of automakers to electric vehicles, etc. There are risks of a significant decline in world oil prices.

Here are the main risk factors: the US stock market and the global oil market. It is also likely that both factors will work at the same time. In addition, there are a lot of possible “black swans”: intensifying protectionist games, geopolitical instability, etc.

The world economy will not be able to avoid another crisis in the next 2-3 years. For the Russian economy, which is also weighed down by the sanctions confrontation, this will be a powerful additional negative factor.

The essence of the economic crisis

To date, economic science has developed a number of theories that explain the causes of economic cycles and crises.

The classical cycle of social reproduction consists of four phases.

The first phase is a crisis (recession). There is a reduction in the volume of production and business activity, falling prices, overstocking, rising unemployment and a sharp increase in the number of bankruptcies.

The second is depression (stagnation). The phase of adapting economic life to new conditions and needs, the phase of finding a new balance (duration 1.5 - 3 years).

The third is revitalization. recovery phase. Investments begin, prices, production, employment, interest rates rise.

Fourth - rise (boom). The acceleration of economic development is found in a series of innovations, the emergence of a mass of new products and new enterprises, in the rapid growth of capital investments, stock prices and other securities, interest rates, prices and wages. The upsurge, which brings the economy to a new level in its progressive development, prepares the basis for a new, periodic crisis.

The initial “push” (cause) of a new periodic crisis is a reduction in aggregate demand, and a decline in production begins again, a fall in employment, a decrease in income, a reduction in costs and demand.

Taking into account the variety of causes of cyclic reproduction and particular violations of traditional phases by scientists various directions The following types of cycles are offered:

The Kondratieff cycles are long-wave cycles lasting 40–60 years; their main driving force is radical changes in the technological base of social production, its restructuring.
Blacksmith cycles, their duration is approximately 20 years; the driving forces are shifts in the reproductive structure of production (these cycles are often called reproductive or construction cycles).
Jagler cycles, their periodicity is 7–11 years; which are the result of the interaction of diverse monetary factors.
Kitchin cycles, their duration of 3–5 years, are generated by the dynamics of the relative value of inventories at enterprises.
Private business cycles covering a period of 1 to 12 years and existing due to fluctuations in investment activity.

The influence of cyclicity on the socio-economic development of society:

1. Cyclicity is recognized as a multidimensional phenomenon, a number of its forms are global in nature;
2. Cyclicity in general, including its most destructive phase - the economic crisis, is recognized rather as a kind of form of ensuring the progressive development of the economy in the conditions of market relations; fluctuations in economic activity are assessed as one of the conditions for renewal and growth;
3. Cyclicity is recognized as a form of progressive development of society: the movement is not in a circle, but in a spiral;
4. it is necessary to deepen objective knowledge about cycles, their causes and find effective methods and means to mitigate their negative consequences.

The role of crises in socio-economic development:

Periods of economic crises

The financial and economic crisis of 1857-1858 can be called with full confidence the first world crisis. Starting in the United States, it quickly spread to Europe, affecting the economies of all major European countries, but Great Britain, as the main industrial and commercial power, suffered the most. Undoubtedly, the European crisis was exacerbated by the Crimean War, which ended in 1856, but economists still call the unprecedented growth of speculation the main factor that caused the crisis.

The objects of speculation were mostly shares of railway companies and heavy industry enterprises, land plots, grain. The researchers note that the money of widows, orphans and priests even went into speculation. The speculative boom was accompanied by an unprecedented accumulation of money supply, an increase in lending and a rise in stock prices: but one day it all burst like a soap bubble. In the 19th century, they did not yet have clear plans for overcoming economic crises. However, the influx of liquidity from England to the United States helped at the beginning to ease the effects of the crisis, and then completely overcome it.

The outbreak of the First World War gave impetus to a new financial and economic crisis. Formally, the cause of the crisis was the total sale of securities of foreign issuers by the governments of Great Britain, France, Germany and the United States in order to finance military operations. Unlike the crisis of 1857, it did not spread from the center to the periphery, but arose simultaneously in many countries. The collapse occurred in all markets at once, both commodity and money. It was only thanks to the intervention of the Central Banks that the economies of a number of countries were saved. The crisis was especially deep in Germany. Having seized a significant part of the European market, England and France closed access to German goods there, which was one of the reasons for Germany to start the war. By blocking all German ports, the British fleet contributed to the onset of famine in Germany in 1916. In Germany, as in Russia, the crisis was aggravated by revolutions that abolished monarchical power and completely changed the political system. These countries overcame the consequences of social and economic decline the longest and most painfully.

October 24, 1929 became "Black Thursday" on the New York Stock Exchange. A sharp decline in the value of shares (by 60-70%) led to the deepest and longest economic crisis in world history. The "Great Depression" lasted about four years, although its echoes made themselves felt until the outbreak of World War II. The United States and Canada were the hardest hit by the crisis, but France, Germany and the United Kingdom were also hard hit. It would seem that the crisis did not portend anything. After the First World War, the United States embarked on a path of stable economic growth, millions of shareholders increased their capital, and consumer demand grew rapidly. Everything collapsed at once. In a week, the largest shareholders, according to the most conservative estimates, lost 15 billion dollars. In the United States, factories were closed everywhere, banks collapsed, and about 14 million unemployed people found themselves on the streets, the crime rate increased sharply. Against the backdrop of the unpopularity of bankers, bank robbers in the United States were almost national heroes. Industrial production during this period decreased by 46% in the USA, by 41% in Germany, by 32% in France, and by 24% in Great Britain. The level of industrial production during the years of crisis in these countries was actually thrown back to the beginning of the 20th century. According to American economists Ohanian and Cole, researchers of the Great Depression, if the US economy had abandoned the Roosevelt administration's measures to curb competition in the market, the country could have overcome the consequences of the crisis 5 years earlier.

The crisis of 1973 has every reason to be called an energy crisis. Its detonator was the Arab-Israeli war and the decision of the Arab member countries of OPEC to impose an oil embargo on states supporting Israel. Oil production dropped sharply, and during 1974 the price of "black gold" rose from $3 to $12 per barrel. The oil crisis hit the United States the hardest. The country faced the problem of shortage of raw materials for the first time. This was also facilitated by the Western European partners of the United States, who, in order to please OPEC, stopped deliveries of oil products overseas. In a special message to Congress, US President Richard Nixon called on fellow citizens to save as much as possible, in particular, if possible, do not use cars. Government agencies have been advised to save energy and reduce car fleets, while airlines have been ordered to reduce the number of flights. The energy crisis has seriously affected the Japanese economy, which seemed to be invulnerable to global economic problems. In response to the crisis, the Japanese government is developing a number of countermeasures: increasing the import of coal and liquefied natural gas, and starting to accelerate the development of nuclear energy. The crisis of 1973-75 had a positive effect on the economy of the Soviet Union, as it contributed to an increase in oil exports to the West.

On August 17, 1998, the Russians first heard the terrible word default. This was the first case in world history when a state defaulted not on external, but on internal debt denominated in the national currency. According to some reports, the country's domestic debt was $200 billion. This was the beginning of a severe financial and economic crisis in Russia, which launched the process of ruble devaluation. In just six months, the value of the dollar rose from 6 to 21 rubles. Real incomes and purchasing power of the population decreased several times. The total number of unemployed in the country reached 8.39 million people, which was about 11.5% of the economically active population of the Russian Federation. Experts cite many factors as the cause of the crisis: the collapse of Asian financial markets, low purchase prices for raw materials (oil, gas, metals), the failed economic policy of the state, the emergence of financial pyramids. According to the calculations of the Moscow Banking Union, the total losses of the Russian economy from the August crisis amounted to 96 billion dollars: of which the corporate sector lost 33 billion dollars, and the population lost 19 billion dollars. However, some experts consider these figures to be clearly underestimated. In a short time, Russia has become one of the largest debtors in the world. Only by the end of 2002 did the government of the Russian Federation manage to overcome inflationary processes, and from the beginning of 2003 the ruble began to gradually strengthen, which was largely facilitated by rising oil prices and the influx of foreign capital.

2008 economic crisis

The economic crisis of 2008 was the result of a more private phenomenon - the mortgage crisis in the United States, which began to develop in 2006, but began to seriously affect the real estate market, and then investment began in 2007.

Among economists there are different points of view regarding the causes of the crisis. Someone stubbornly talks about economic cycles, that mortgages simply fell under the wheels of these inevitable processes. We will consider a more rigorous theory. This theory is of the opinion regarding several reasons that are detrimental to the US mortgage market.

The first reason is the provision of loans for 120% -130% of the cost of housing. In Russia, for example, banks are ready to finance, on average, up to 85% of the cost of an apartment or house. For the borrower, this loan is very promising - with the money you can not only buy a home, but also carry out repairs in a new house or apartment. For the bank, this loan was quite risky. If the borrower does not return it, the collateral (purchased house) will be sold for an amount less than the loan amount, that is, the investment in the event of a default became unprofitable.

Nevertheless, the number of such risky offers grew - they were popular among borrowers, banks were happy to issue them, and investors could not help but pay attention to the new growing market. As a result, mortgage agencies and banks received funding from investment banks.

The big problem was the provision of the same mortgage at floating interest rates dependent on LIBOR, which was the national average. The clear benefit of such a proposal is obvious. Borrowers can count on the fact that when the situation improves, the rate will decrease (for example, by 0.15 percent - this was still bearable) or, at best, will remain at the same level. Lenders can count on its slight increase, which will slightly increase the interest.

In fact, the entire US mortgage bubble in 2006-2008 was based on the expectation that the rate would either decrease, but rise slightly, or slightly rise, or, in the ideal case for both parties, it would be the same.

In practice, the LIBOR rate changes quite often, and significantly. Since the beginning of the 2000s, there has been a downward trend in the indicator, which influenced the success of such mortgages. But since 2004, this indicator has begun to grow. In 2006 it was 4.29% per annum, and by the end of 2007 it reached 6% and continued to grow steadily. Naturally, the borrowers were no longer able to pay their loans. As a result, since the beginning of 2007, the number of default borrowers began to grow, and all capital investments of banks began to melt before our eyes.

In the same 2007, everyone learned about the first victim of the crisis - then just the American crisis of the only industry. It was American Home Mortgage, the tenth largest undertaking in that market, with a 2.5% share of the loan market. Its loan portfolio in 2007 was $4 billion.

The company's shares fell by 45% after the payment of monthly dividends did not take place - the stock markets felt that something was wrong with the company. In the end, it became known that the fund went bankrupt. I had to lay off 90% of the staff (a little more than seven hundred out of 7,000 remained) in order to cut costs. The company began to look for buyers of its assets in order to somehow pay off investors and creditors. But for the global market, AHM's problems were much more dire. The main investors of the fund were the world's largest banks - Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan. They lost heavily in share value and suffered serious expenses.

Ultimately, this will result in a massive closure of investment banks in the United States - about 350 such organizations have been closed to date. Another crisis set in, the global economic one, and that crisis led to the closure of Lehman Brothers, the sale of Merrill Lynch, and a reversal of direction for banks like Goldman Sachs, which were seeking Fed funding during the crisis.

Consider a more global market - the world. In addition to the scale, we will change the objects sold on it. This is not a housing market, but oil and various industrial resources.

In 2008, the trend that had been going on since about the beginning of the 2000s began to fade. It was associated with rising prices for agro-industrial goods and oil. The cost of "black gold", in particular, reached $147 per barrel. The indicator was reached in July 2008, but the maximum has never been reached since then. Against the backdrop of rising oil prices, gold prices are rising - investors even then began to suspect an unpleasant outcome of the whole situation.

Soon the decline begins - and in October 2008 the cost of a barrel of oil was only $61, and in November it fell by another $10. This was the first reason - a natural decline in prices and indices associated with a decrease in consumption in the US and the mortgage crisis there.

Along with the decline in Europe comes some bad news. For example, the process related to information about the misappropriation of funds by a trader at Societe Generale, the largest French universal bank - his investment specialist Jerome Carviel became, on the one hand, a villain who actually ruined the company, on the other, an unwitting Robin Hood, who showed the main shortcomings in the work of the largest financial organization in their country. His case showed how freely traders were allowed to dispose of the liabilities of the company that hired them. In 2011, this story will repeat itself in England. Information about such numerous financial problems of European and American companies (for example, the unexpected discovery of a financial pyramid by Bernard Madoff) only added fuel to the fire of crisis panic, which supported the negative trend taken by world indices in the summer.

Also, agflation begins - an increase in prices for agro-industrial goods. This is the second reason for the global crisis. The FAO Price Index, by contrast, has steadily risen. But the agflation indicator reached its highest positions already in 2011.

Against the background of this movement of indicators since the summer of 2008, the value of shares of large enterprises began to decline - international indices went down. This was largely due to the fact that companies in search of profits participated in too risky transactions, which in the end caused them irreparable damage. The volumes of purchased products of the automotive industry began to decline. In 2008, car purchases fell by 16%, and in the US by 26%, which led to a decrease in demand for metals and a decrease in metallurgy production, and hence layoffs in the engineering and metallurgy sectors and other related industries.

This situation is explained by the financier J. Soros. The crisis of the US mortgage market and the ruin of a mass of large banks after it detonated, - he believes, - the global economic crisis. Having reached a maximum, the price of oil went down against the backdrop of unpleasant news from the US market, opening a new economic trend. It was followed by financial indices of European, American and international financial exchanges.

Financiers, describing the situation on the stock market in Russia, usually say that the cause of the crisis in our country was the "overheating" of the economy - a situation of excessively rapid economic growth with abundant investment and lending. In April 2008, the Ministry of Finance and the IMF voiced such concerns. "Overheating" led to an increase in inflation in Russia - in April 2008 it was 14%. Already in the spring, financiers were talking about the fact that with such an increase in the economy, “overheating” could not be avoided.

But there was the last, global reason. It was associated with an increase in the LIBOR rate in the US - the rate grew because the dollar became cheaper from 2002 to 2008. It continues to fall in price even now, but in 2008 the whole world suddenly realized that against the backdrop of growing economies and investment markets, no one thought that it was necessary to have a backup alternative to the dollar.

After 2008, a large-scale economic recession began in the world, the recovery of the world economy began only in 2014-2015.

Some countries have been hit harder by the crisis than even the United States.

Greece, as a result of problems in the global economy, was unable to cope with the budget deficit and the accumulated debt burden. The Greek debt crisis erupted in 2010 and is still far from over.

In 2013, the banking crisis broke out in Cyprus, the country's banking system was, in fact, rebuilt anew, many companies and individuals lost more than half of their savings kept in bank deposits.

The US and EU economies also continue to struggle, with economic growth remaining weak and households holding back on consumption.

Crisis of the economic system

Modern economic crises are associated with deepening contradictions in the global economy and the complexity of mega-regulation of the world economy.

The Greek word "crisis" means "decision". Subsequently, the concept of crisis was expanded and applied to any abrupt transition, to all changes perceived by people as a violation of continuity.

There are many definitions of crisis in the economic literature. The crisis is seen as an extreme aggravation of the contradictions of development, the growing danger of bankruptcy, liquidation; mismatch in the activities of the economic, financial and other systems; turning point in the process of change. So, according to M. A. Sazhina, a crisis is a difficult transitional state of the economic system, during which the foundations are laid for the restoration of the violated laws of the economy and its further development.

E. M. Korotkov defines a crisis as an extreme aggravation of contradictions in the socio-economic system, threatening its vitality in the environment.

The socio-economic system is understood as an integral set of interrelated and interacting social and economic institutions (subjects) and relations regarding the distribution and consumption of material and non-material resources, production, distribution, exchange and consumption of goods and services. The socio-economic system (like any other) is characterized by systemic qualities.

The socio-economic system has certain historical, geographical, ethnic, spiritual, political and economic boundaries, therefore, it can be embodied in specific state-political formations or in the form of other, smaller scale, socio-economic organizations.

As globalization intensifies, it is legitimate to consider all of humanity as a socio-economic system. This determines the historicity of the study: any system under study, on the one hand, is inevitably historically conditioned, and on the other, all categories and laws of this system are historically conditioned.

Overcoming crises in socio-economic development is, for the most part, a manageable process.

The socio-economic system is generally self-regulating (sustainable). A stable system is a system in which there are mechanisms for managing and restoring its balance.

Management exists, on the one hand, because it is part of these mechanisms, on the other hand, in order to rely on these mechanisms to ensure less painful and more consistent development of the socio-economic system. This is possible only if the patterns of development of the socio-economic system, its essential characteristics and signs of its state are known. In the economic system, there are processes that depend on each other and have an impact on the state of the internal and external environment. Therefore, the elements in the functioning system also change.

Crisis features:

1) elimination of obsolete elements of the dominant system, which has exhausted its potential;
2) creation of conditions for the approval of new elements of the new (nascent) system;
3) testing the strength of those elements of the old system that are accumulated and transferred to the new system.

The danger of a crisis always exists, even when it does not exist, so it is necessary to distinguish between the symptoms, factors and causes of crises.

Symptoms do not always reflect the causes of the crisis, since the causes often lie deeper than the outward manifestation of crisis signs.

The crisis goes through several stages in its development:

1) latent, hidden, when its prerequisites are brewing, but do not appear;
2) collapse, i.e. the rapid aggravation of contradictions and a sharp deterioration in all indicators in dynamics;
3) mitigating the crisis and creating prerequisites for overcoming it.

A symptom of a crisis is the initial, external manifestation of crisis phenomena, which do not always characterize the true causes of the crisis, but for which these causes can be established. The symptoms of the crisis are recorded in the indicators and in the trends of their change, reflecting the functioning and development of the socio-economic system. The symptoms of a crisis are differentiated primarily by typological affiliation - scale, problems, severity of the course (depth), area of ​​development, causes, possible consequences, phase of manifestation.

A crisis factor is an event, a fixed state or an established trend, indicating the onset of a crisis.

Factors of occurrence of crises in the socio-economic system may be different. But it is very important to see the first symptoms of crisis development in order to be able to timely launch methods or programs of anti-crisis management.

The cause of the crisis is the events or phenomena due to which the factors of the crisis appear. The reasons can be objective, for example, related to cyclical needs for modernization and restructuring, and subjective, reflecting management errors.

Crisis recognition is the process of detecting the symptoms, factors and causes of the crisis, determining its content and nature of the course. It is produced according to the signs and indicators of crisis development in the process of monitoring anti-crisis development.

Monitoring of anti-crisis development is the control of development processes and tracking their trends according to certain criteria.

To this end, the following should be defined:

1) a set of signs and indicators of crisis development;
2) the method of their calculation;
3) the method of their use in the analysis.

Prediction of crises is possible only on the basis of a special analysis of situations and trends.

Crisis management requires knowledge of:

1) trends in the behavior of the socio-economic system and its development;
2) all characteristics;
3) signs of her condition;
4) the onset of certain phases of this state and stages of development.

Of decisive importance in crisis management is the development of a carefully thought-out management strategy based on a preliminary analysis of the external and internal environment of the socio-economic system, identifying those factors and threats that are of key importance to undermine its stable dynamic development.

US economic crisis

Let's look at the main crises that occurred in the economy of the United States of America and their features:

1. The first world economic crisis, 1857. In the fall of 1857, the US stock market collapsed. It was caused by speculation in the securities of the railroad companies and the further collapse of the entire banking system of the United States. Soon financial problems swept over England, as its banks invested in the securities of American companies. The crisis also affected the economies of other European and Latin American countries.
2. The Second World Economic Crisis, 1873 The reason for this crisis was the credit boom in Latin America, as well as the collapse of the stock market in Vienna as a result of speculative growth in the real estate market in Germany and Austria. The second world economic crisis in the United States affected the panic in the banking sector, as German banks refused to roll over (to extend the term by taking a new loan instead of the old one) their loans. This crisis was the longest in the history of capitalism, it lasted five years.
3. The Great Depression, 1929-1933. The development of this crisis in the United States is associated with the deflation (falling prices) and recession that appeared after the end of the First World War, as well as banking and currency crises that affected many other European countries besides the United States. As a result, with growing production, there was a shortage of money supply, the value of shares fell by 60-70%, and business activity began to decline sharply. Many firms, factories and banks were closed, millions of unemployed people appeared in the USA.
4. The first energy crisis, 1973 The cause of this crisis in the United States and allied countries of the States was the actions of OPEC. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries imposed an embargo on energy supplies to the United States of America, increasing selling prices by 70%. The reason for this step was the support provided by the Western world to Israel, who fought with Egypt and Syria. As a result, due to a lack of fuel, the US authorities called for total savings for citizens and organizations, and there was an increase in the cost of almost all goods and services in the country.
5. Black Monday, 1987 On October 19, 1987, the largest drop in the Dow Jones index in its history occurred. It fell within one day by 22.6%. As a result, stocks collapsed not only in the US, but also in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong and the UK before the end of the month. The crisis that happened in 1987 smacks of mystery, since there were no visible reasons for the collapse, no important news and events occurred at the time of the collapse. Black Monday has called into question the foundations of modern economics in general.
6. Mortgage crisis in the US, 2007. It is caused by the growth of bad housing loans that American banks issued to unreliable borrowers. This crisis in the United States began in 2006, but its catastrophic consequences appeared only in 2007. The mortgage crisis that began was the first sign of the 2008 global financial crisis. The first victims of the 2007 crisis were individual mortgage companies, which stopped lending, laid off many workers, and their stock prices plummeted. Subsequently, the crisis spread to the banking sector as a whole, including foreign banks that invested in American mortgage companies. One result of the subprime crisis was a 20 percent drop in US property values, leaving American homeowners as a whole almost $5 trillion poorer.
7. World financial crisis, 2008-2011. In 2008, the financial crisis began in the United States and in general in most developed countries. It manifested itself in the form of an extremely strong decline in the main economic indicators, as well as in the form of a global recession that came at the end of 2008. Gradually, the crisis began to lead to a widespread decline in production volumes, a drop in demand and prices for raw materials, and an increase in unemployment. The consequences of this crisis have not been overcome and continue to manifest themselves to this day in different countries of the world.

Features of the economic crisis

WB economists note that if by the beginning of the current global financial crisis Russia had not had a significant budget surplus and a huge amount of resources accumulated in the stabilization fund and gold and foreign exchange reserves, the consequences of the crisis would have affected much earlier and would have been much more serious than now. Just as important, the Russian government would have had far less time, resources, policy options, and room to maneuver to limit the impact of the crisis on the real sector.

The national features of the Russian crisis consist of a combination of the following components: on the one hand, demand for raw materials for exports has fallen sharply in the world, and on the other hand, many Russian companies have heavily over-credited on world financial markets. Thus, the credit and financial dependence was superimposed on the export of raw materials. The peculiarities of the Russian crisis include the fact that a recession has not yet been recorded in Russia, that is, a fall in production over two quarters, although the recession officially began in the United States, in many European countries. In the US and Europe, the recession is taking place in the face of the threat of deflation - for industrialized countries, the inflation forecast is 0.5%, - in Russia, the inflation forecast is 13%, and according to some experts, 15-17%. Another specific feature of the Russian crisis is the possibility of choice associated with the availability of reserves: the National Wealth Fund, the Reserve Fund, the Central Bank's gold and foreign exchange reserves. Now it has become quite obvious that the crisis will be protracted, and the reserves must be spent more economically, otherwise they may run out by the end of 2009.

A fundamentally important difference between the current Russian crisis and the 1998 crisis is its confidently predicted significant duration. If the events of a decade ago can be compared with one powerful blow (as is known, a month after the default of August 1998, a slow, but still economic recovery was indicated), today, rather, a “protracted suffocation” has begun.

So, the fundamental reason for the current crisis in Russia is the raw-material version of the development of the domestic economy, with an inevitable correlation with the crisis in the developed countries that consume raw materials. The crisis for Russia follows a commodity pattern that will never return to oil boom prices again, because it was caused by monetary causes, excess money flooding the stock markets, and it is clear that the new economic world, which may can be built on the ruins of financial pyramids, will arise only under the condition of strict strict state control over the correspondence of the commodity and money supply, which in itself contradicts the inflated prices for oil and gas.

This means that the restored (existing) raw material export structure of the Russian economy will not be viable in the post-crisis period. And in comparison with the global economic system, our way out of the crisis will be more costly, more labour-intensive, more demanding for systemic restructuring and will take longer.

In this regard, any anti-crisis measures should contribute to the diversification of the economy. We can start at least with the transition from the prevailing export of energy resources to the in-depth processing of oil, gas, coal, timber, as well as primary agricultural products. Russia came out on top in the world in the export of hydrocarbon raw materials, but this did not enrich it. According to the calculations of the Russian Union of Chemists: "If 1,100,000,000 tons of its exported raw materials were processed with the same depth as in the United States, Russia's economy would be the second in the world." In 1990, the gas raw material pyrolysis capacities in Saudi Arabia and Russia were approximately the same; in 2006, processing in Saudi Arabia increased by more than 3 times. It is assumed that by 2012 the gap will increase by 6 times. This is the result of the structural policy of Saudi Arabia, which itself has huge hydrocarbon reserves.

US President B. Obama's plan to stimulate the economy also pays great attention to the use of new energy sources. Obama's plan is not only a plan to deal with the current crisis, but also a kind of bridge that is thrown into the future. In Russia, most of the resources are directed to survival, to salvation, and there are still no incentive programs in sufficient volume. And those measures that have been implemented were not designed for the depth of the crisis.

The US President stressed that if they want to be competitive tomorrow, they must provide better educational opportunities for children today. The plan is not just to end unemployment, but to ensure that the jobs that those who have lost them will get will be aimed at building the future of the United States.

What makes up the total of $787 billion? To get people back to work and at the same time reduce America's dependence on foreign oil, it is proposed to invest in the production of renewable energy resources and the modernization of public buildings in such a way that their maintenance becomes less energy-intensive ($345 billion). Another 22 billion will be spent on "smart" investments - science and advanced technologies.

A separate line is the modernization of the entire transport infrastructure. Just as Roosevelt pulled the country out of the Great Depression by building roads, so Obama is going to overcome the crisis by rebuilding these roads.

Money will not be spared for "education in the 21st century" either. Obama believes that every American student should receive such an education in order to compete with any worker in the world in the future. Tax subsidies for schools and colleges, tax deductions for citizens, financing of various educational programs - 85.2 billion dollars. The article "health care" costs 21 billion. They will help both the unemployed and "mortgage holders". Obama stressed that the stimulus plan is only the first step. In the second half of 2009, another similar plan will be made public.

In this regard, it is interesting to see who the Russian government helps. At the end of 2008, a list of 295 strategic enterprises was approved by the government. For those on this list, the government promised to “maintain their sustainability, using not only credit instruments, but also other measures, such as state guarantees, interest rate subsidies, tax debt restructuring, government orders, customs tariff policy…” Many companies , which are not Russian on the list, are registered in offshore zones, for example, Alisher Usmanov’s Metalloinvest belongs to a Cyprus offshore, Roman Abramovich’s Evraz Holding is registered in Luxembourg, etc. Cypriot offshores own the largest coal company SUEK, Integrated Energy systems" is the leading producer of thermal energy in Russia. Why are many of our "strategic" enterprises registered offshore? For more convenient taxation, so that it would be easier to pay dividends without having to report once again to the Russian state. So that you can safely buy yachts and football clubs and relax in Courchevel. In general, so far everything is fine - they are independent and offshore, as it has become bad - they are already strategic and almost state-owned.

Analyzing the proposed measures to overcome the crisis, it can be stated that to date, not a single country and not a single national government has a clear action plan, such that people can breathe a sigh of relief: “This is the true path to economic salvation!” It seems that no one really knows what needs to be done specifically. The Russian government is pursuing a policy of maintaining stability in the short term. If only to hold out, there is no talk of a large-scale modernization of the country's economy. If only it didn't get worse. The country's infrastructural, technological, informational and social backwardness is being conserved.

The World Bank proposes to create a “vulnerability fund” for weaker countries in crisis, as the funds of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are not enough. The World Bank proposes to create a "vulnerability fund" in the following way: when rich countries approve their plans to stimulate the financing of their own countries, they must set aside an additional 0.7% to help stabilize the economies of poor countries.

There is a huge need for international coordination to deal with the risks and escalation of the crisis. Individual countries pursue different policies and adhere to different approaches to overcoming the crisis. Harmonization of national responses to banks struggling during a crisis would also be helpful. Now the main efforts of the leading countries are aimed at developing solutions based on a common understanding of the nature of the crisis and ways to overcome it. This position also meets the interests of Russia, which is interested in creating a clear, balanced international financial system with transparent regulatory mechanisms. In Russia, the discussion about the reform of the financial system is just beginning - it will have to be restructured both to meet the needs of the country's development and the expected changes in the global financial architecture. Provided that the financial sector is stabilized, a sharp increase in trade (and financial) protectionism is prevented, government actions are coordinated, and a deep recession is not allowed in a large group of countries, the global recession can be kept within “reasonable limits”. The current crisis marks the end of an era of financial capitalism that has flourished since the early 1980s. The patterns that have become habitual have lost their force, otherwise there would not have been such a deep crisis.

During a crisis, costs and business structure are optimized, innovative solutions are sought and found. A crisis is not only a problem, but also a stepping stone for development.

Problems of the economic crisis

A feature of the crisis of 1847 was that it was necessary to suspend the act of 1844, specially adopted by the Bank of England to prevent violations of monetary circulation. The Banking Act of 1844, named "Peel's Act" after the then prime minister, set a limit of £14 million for the issuance of banknotes not backed by gold. Peel's act completed the formation of the British monetary system, in which the Bank of England became responsible for maintaining the entire national currency; banknotes performed the function of gold coins during a period of shortage of cash, and money circulation was based on the gold standard - circulation, along with metallic paper money, freely exchanged for gold.

The system of the gold standard, introduced in 1821, was justified by D. Ricardo, who proceeded from the need to comply with the proportionality of the issue of banknotes to the volume of gold reserves in order to avoid price increases and the outflow of gold as a result of this gold abroad. Ricardo followed the quantitative theory of money and G. Thornton's concept of the impossibility of determining the number of bank notes required by the needs of trade, since "trade is tireless in requests."

Immediately after the introduction of the gold standard, a controversy arose between supporters of different understandings of the monetary factor in maintaining the stability of credit and economic turnover in general. And at the head different directions there were economists who, together with Ricardo, founded the Political Economy Club - R. Torrens and T. Took. Retired Colonel Robert Torrens (1780-1864), in line with Ricardo's position, was in favor of tight control of the monetary base as a way of ensuring sufficient control over all credit issuance. R. Torrens and the "monetary school" behind him believed that the regulation of the issuance of banknotes would be a means of preventing or alleviating trade crises. The legislative expression of this approach was the banking act of 1844, designed to prevent the introduction of excess banknotes into circulation and, thereby, the increase in prices, giving rise to speculation in goods, which, in turn, further raises prices and in emergency cases leads to a trade crisis.

The merchant and author of The History of Prices and Monetary Circulation (in 2 volumes, 1838) Thomas Tooke (1774-1858) criticized the quantity theory of money, the position of the "monetary school" and Peel's act. Referring to his research on fluctuations in prices (from 1793 to 1837), Tooke noted that in every "eminent case" an increase or decrease in prices preceded the increase or decrease in the number of bank notes, and did not follow it. From positions close to the doctrine of A. Smith's real bills, Tooke argued that bank emission cannot cause price increases and depreciation of money and be the cause of a trade crisis.

J. St. Mill agreed to a large extent with this, but he proposed a broader and, as usual, compromise approach.

Mill put forward the position of the existence of two market conditions: a calm, or static, and a speculative, or waiting state. For the first state, the "law of reverse flow" is true: any increase in the number of bank notes either returns to the banks, or remains unused in the hands of society, without producing an increase in prices. Something else is waiting: speculators seek to build up stocks in order to take advantage of the expected increase in prices, and those who have already bought goods - to obtain additional loans in order to be able to refrain from selling for some time longer; merchants place speculative orders with manufacturers, who also turn to banks for more loans. If these increased loans are issued in banknotes, the banknotes are spent on wages and get into various retail channels, where they directly contribute to a further increase in prices.

During this "upward" period of speculation, an expansion in the issuance of banknotes would tend to prolong its duration, supporting speculative prices and facilitating the outflow of precious metals abroad, which in the end, with a "sudden change in the course of trade", will force the banks "to reduce their credit more sharply and harshly."

In evaluating the 1844 Act, Mill pointed out that its usefulness in curbing speculative credit expansion in the earliest period turns out to be much more harmful after the onset of a commercial crisis, since the act limits loans intended to support creditworthy firms and greatly increases the severity of commercial coups.

Mill attempted a deeper explanation of the speculative state by noting that the cause of a prolonged increase in the demand for loans could be "the sudden discovery of some new and attractive method of permanent investment of capital," as, for example, the absorption of capital into the construction of railways. But this was only the first step in the analysis of economic dynamics, which required a revision not only of the controversy between the monetary and banking schools, but also of Say's law.

The economic crisis of enterprises

Let's start the consideration of this crisis from the micro level, considering that the mechanism of the crisis at the micro level is a subsystem of the systemic crisis of the Russian economy as a whole. Its other subsystems are the mechanisms of the crisis at the meso- and macrolevels. In addition, at the level of the world economy as a whole, there is its own mechanism for the development of the economic crisis, which individually and specifically interacts with the mechanism of the systemic crisis in each individual country. This applies to any country, even economically healthy at a given time. The crisis mechanism is similar to a virus. It can be suppressed until a certain time, as long as the forces of healthy socio-economic development prevail. As these forces weaken before then, the dormant mechanism of the crisis may wake up. At the same time, it always has an individual-specific character. Another thing is that for groups of countries similar in many respects (for example, the middle countries of Western Europe, the especially poor countries of Africa, etc.), there are similar features of the systemic crisis of the national economy.

The mechanism of the crisis at the micro level of the Russian economy is the interaction of the following factors, each of which generates an increase in crisis phenomena (in their totality, the action of all these factors is mutually reinforcing):

1. Enterprises at once turned out to be thrown out of the planning and distribution system of management into a spontaneous, almost unregulated market by the state, in conditions of undermining the very foundation of any market. This was one of the two most important causes of the catastrophic decline in production at the micro level of the economy. After all, if the capacity of the domestic market for the manufacturing industry or agriculture shrinks sharply, and products are uncompetitive on the foreign market or they are not allowed there by the methods of finely thought-out foreign trade barriers, then the volume of production will inevitably decrease in proportion to the decrease in market capacity, respectively, people work less, earn less, live worse.
2. Another important reason for the more than two-fold drop in production was the catastrophic cutting off of sources of financing for the production activities of enterprises:
a) 1992-1993 inflation practically brought to naught the own working capital of enterprises (own working capital), depreciation fund and savings from the composition of profits (intended for the development of production and the social sphere); in 1992 alone, retail prices increased 26 times, and wholesale prices 31 times; the economic organism of an enterprise is similar to a human one, and the deprivation of its working capital, depreciation fund is similar to the deprivation of a person of his vital organs;
b) budget financing of enterprises turned out to be practically blocked both due to the adoption of an ultra-liberal market ideology, proclaiming the complete withdrawal of the state from the economic sphere, and due to the impoverishment of the state budget;
c) due to its ultra-high interest rate (much higher than the inflation rate), credit turned out to be almost inaccessible to industrial enterprises; the ultra-high level of interest on a loan is due to super-high incomes in speculative-intermediary and short-term trade and purchase transactions with a high degree of risk (during all the years of radical reforms in 1992-1999, over 90% of the capital of commercial banks was used for lending to the speculative-intermediary sphere).

Thus, the combination of the two main causes of the decline in production outlined above (this most painful and destructive manifestation of a systemic crisis) forms a mechanism for suffocating production at each individual enterprise, and consequently, the country's economy as a whole.

In order to imagine the operation of this mechanism even more clearly, let us turn to the scheme of the circulation of the capital of an enterprise, which we represent as follows:

FP - D - T (Sp, Rs) ... P ... T1 - D1 - RPS,
where FP - production financing;
RPS - effective demand in the market.

The financing of production is an entrance to the circulation of the capital of an enterprise, and, consequently, to the production process on it. Effective demand in the market is an exit from the circulation of capital, respectively, and from the production process. Depriving manufacturing enterprises of money at the entrance to production and exit from it contributes to the financial suffocation of all Russian enterprises, even those that are very technically and technologically efficient, which is a consequence of macroeconomic policy aimed at artificial compression of the money supply (MM) in the country in accordance with the requirement of the IMF (DM to GDP in Western countries averages 80%, in modern Russia - 10-14%). In the future, when considering the mechanism of the crisis at the macro level, this issue is revealed in detail. Here it is touched on in order to show once again that the main causes of the systemic crisis of the economy are intertwined at all its levels.

3. As you know, production costs are divided into fixed (do not depend on the volume of production) and variables (directly proportional to the increase in production). With a steady decrease in production volumes, fixed production costs are distributed over an ever smaller number of products, respectively, the cost and price of each individual product increases. When the price rises, the volume of sales decreases. This causes a further drop in production. Fixed costs are spread over even fewer products. The cost price and the price of an individual product increase again, and so on.

This is how the spiral of increasing production costs operates based on the unwinding of cost inflation. Note:

A) cost-push inflation unwinds not only in accordance with the above reason, but also for many others;
b) in the course of market reforms starting from 1992, the Russian economy was no longer subject to demand-side inflation (as was the case in the last years of the USSR), but cost-push inflation, while the reformers fought it as if it were demand-pull inflation (t .e. by compressing the money supply).
4. The growth of production costs at the enterprise, in addition to the distribution of fixed costs to an ever-decreasing number of products, occurs as a result of the following factors:
a) extremely high taxes are shifted to the costs of production (even if they appear in the profit, and not the cost, for enterprises they objectively act as costs);
b) to ensure their own ultra-high incomes, speculative-intermediary and trading structures supply the enterprise with the means of production (working capital and fixed assets) at inflated prices, which ultimately affects the cost of production of each individual production enterprise;
c) the inflated incomes of commercial banks (with rare exceptions, they also belong to the speculative-intermediary sphere), to which loans, albeit relatively rarely, but still forced to resort to enterprises, also settle in the end on production costs;
d) the growing physical deterioration of equipment due to the freezing of investments requires more frequent and more expensive repairs, which significantly increases production costs;
e) as a result of the disruption of existing economic ties after the collapse of the USSR and the CMEA, enterprises are re-mastering the manufacture of the components of production they need, which significantly increases production costs.
5. In addition, the destruction of many former economic ties causes underutilization of production capacities (due to the lack of production components necessary for their loading) and, accordingly, a decline in production. It should be noted that the disruption of existing economic ties, which painfully affects the micro level of the economy, in itself refers to its meso level. At manufacturing enterprises, capital investments are frozen to a very large extent, in connection with which the production crisis is fraught with an ever-increasing loss of product competitiveness in the market due to the lag in its technical and technological level and quality (it is difficult, often impossible, to manufacture competitive products on old equipment). If the number of such enterprises exceeds a critical mass (this is inevitable in the future, if the country's economic course is not radically changed), then the national economy of the country will fall into devastation and chaos, and no less than it was during the period of revolution, intervention and the Civil War. in Russia in 1917-1920.
6. The sharp underestimation of the wages of specialists and skilled workers, especially in comparison with incomes in various areas of commerce and trade, has led to the outflow of many qualified personnel from manufacturing enterprises. At the same time, the influx of talented young people into production decreased. All of the above applies not only to enterprises in the sphere of material production, but also to research organizations and universities, which are also manufacturing enterprises, but only functioning in the field of scientific and educational production (often this area is completely unjustifiably called the non-production sphere).
7. As a result of the privatization, the inefficient owner of an individual enterprise in many cases turned out to be replaced by an inefficient owner. For example, new owners who own a controlling stake use them as an object of speculation on Russian and foreign stock exchanges, without paying attention to the real state of affairs at enterprises. The administration of the enterprise, left to itself, in many cases rapaciously exploits all the resources of the enterprise, including the labor force, without paying wages for months, often sharply lowering its level. At the same time, the products of the enterprise are often sold at low prices to commercial structures that are controlled by the leaders of the enterprise and are aimed at enriching them. In a number of cases, the management of the enterprise is entrusted to dubious people who do not have the proper qualifications and management experience, often with a criminal past. At the same time, the activity of both old and new managers is oriented by the economic mechanism not to the growth of production efficiency, but to personal enrichment, which is most easily achieved through the predatory exploitation of enterprise resources and their plundering.
8. Scientific research and development, as well as the training of specialists of all profiles by universities, began to be in extremely limited demand among enterprises in the sphere of material production. Under the conditions of extreme contraction of budgetary financing of science and education and the inaccessibility of loans for them, this led to a particularly deplorable state of organizations (intellectual labor enterprises) in the field of science and education. Universities that train economists and lawyers are relatively more prosperous. However, in the future, economists and lawyers will be in abundance. Demand for them will fall, the position of economic and legal universities will worsen.
9. The one-sided orientation of the Russian economy towards the foreign market, with a dramatic narrowing of the domestic market, had a particularly painful effect on enterprises in the manufacturing industries, primarily science-intensive ones, which led to a significantly greater decline in production in these industries than in the entire national economy as a whole. As a result, as a result of radical reforms, the structure of industries and individual industries of the national economy not only did not improve, but deteriorated sharply. In this case, there is also an interweaving of the crisis at the micro and macro levels of the economy. Often the cause lies at the micro level, and the consequences appear at the macro level, i.e., the opposite direction takes place. In addition, the principle of feedback operates, when the effect on one of the levels turns into a cause that generates an effect on another level. Thus, the particularly difficult economic conditions of science-intensive enterprises (cause at the micro level) determine the deterioration of the structure of the national economy of the country (consequence at the macro level). In turn, this phenomenon leads to a deterioration in business conditions for knowledge-intensive enterprises (i.e., according to the feedback principle, a consequence at the macro level turns into a cause relative to the micro level).
10. Insufficiently controlled by the state, cheap imports of food (often harmful and hazardous to health) and consumer goods (often of low quality, but usually with a claim to fashion) have significantly worsened the situation of agricultural enterprises, as well as enterprises of the light and food industries. At the same time, small enterprises in the real sector of the economy, the development of which was most advocated by radical reformers, found themselves in a particularly deplorable situation, being squeezed between high prices for energy, raw materials, semi-finished products, on the one hand, and the low solvency of the main part of the population, on the other.
11. The quality of the labor force, especially at enterprises in the real sector of the economy (material production, science, education, public services), is steadily declining (recall that labor resources are the main productive force of society) in the following sections:
a) the health of the population is deteriorating, life expectancy is declining, incentives for productive work are falling;
b) the level of education, training and retraining of personnel in production and in the system of advanced training is falling;
c) the outflow of qualified personnel from the real sector of the economy is increasing, and the influx of talented young people into it is decreasing;
d) the labor force, including the skilled one, is more and more focused on earning easy money and is less and less inclined to hard, but highly skilled labor (wear and tear in the field of speculative-intermediary business, which has spread at the present time, does not count).

Types of economic crises

Irregular economic crises include intermediate, partial, sectoral and structural:

Intermediate - does not give rise to a new cycle, but interrupts for some time the course of the phase of recovery or revival, shallow, has a local character;
- Partial - covers any area of ​​social reproduction;
- Sectoral - covers one of the branches of the national economy. The reason may be disproportions in the development of the industry, restructuring;
- Structural - violation of the law of proportional development of social production. This is manifested in serious disproportions between industries and the output of the most important types of products in physical terms, necessary for a balanced development of the economy.

From the position of the theory of regulation, crises are classified:

A crisis as a result of an “external” shock is a situation where the continuation of the economic development of a particular geographical community is blocked due to a lack of resources associated with natural and economic disasters;
- Cyclic crisis - the phase of eliminating tension and imbalances that have accumulated during the rise in economic mechanisms and social processes;
- Structural crisis - any case of manifestation of the contradictory nature of long-term reproduction;
- Crisis of the regulation system - a situation when the mechanisms associated with the existing system of regulation are not able to change unfavorable market processes, although the accumulation regime remains viable;
- The crisis of the mode of production - the aggravation of contradictions that develop in important institutional forms that determine the mode of accumulation. The unviable most important regularities on which the organization of production, the distribution of value is based.

Economic crisis

Economic crisis

Economic crisis - a sharp deterioration in the economic condition of the country, manifested by:
- in a significant decline in production;
- in violation of established industrial relations;
- in the bankruptcy of enterprises;
- rising unemployment.
The result of the economic crisis is a decrease in the living standards of the population and a decrease in the real gross national product.

In English: economic crisis

Synonyms: Economic downturn, Recession

English synonyms: Growth recession, recession

See also: Business cycles

Finam Financial Dictionary.

See what the "Economic Crisis" is in other dictionaries:

- (other Greek κρίσις turning point) serious disturbances in normal economic activities. One of the manifestations of the crisis is the systematic, massive accumulation of debts and the impossibility of repaying them within a reasonable time. Reason ... Wikipedia

See ECONOMIC CRISIS. Raizberg B.A., Lozovsky L.Sh., Starodubtseva E.B. Modern economic dictionary. 2nd ed., rev. M .: INFRA M. 479 s .. 1999 ... Economic dictionary

economic crisis- - [A.S. Goldberg. English Russian Energy Dictionary. 2006] economic crisis A manifestation of the cyclical nature of economic growth inherent in a market capitalist economy. See Crises in the economy, Business cycle, ... ... Technical Translator's Handbook

Economic crisis- (English economic recession/crisis) 1) crisis of overproduction relative overproduction of goods that are not marketable due to the limited effective demand of the population; 2) a structural crisis is an overdue discrepancy between ... ... Encyclopedia of Law

See ECONOMIC CRISIS. Antinazi. Encyclopedia of Sociology, 2009 ... Encyclopedia of Sociology

Economic crisis- (economic crisis) manifestation of the cyclic nature of economic growth characteristic of a market capitalist economy. See Economic Crises, Business Cycle, Business Cycle... Economic and Mathematical Dictionary

Violation in the course of economic development; is manifested in the absolute decline in production, underutilization of production capacities, rising unemployment, violations in the monetary and foreign exchange financial areas and etc … Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

Violation in the course of economic development; manifests itself in the absolute decline in production, underloading of production capacities, rising unemployment, violations in the monetary and monetary and financial spheres, etc. Political science: Dictionary reference ... Political science. Vocabulary.

economic crisis- One of the phases of economic development in market conditions, expressed in the past in a decline in production, and now in the form of a monetary and financial crisis ... Geography Dictionary

Violation in the course of economic development; manifests itself in an absolute decline in production, underloading of production capacities, bankruptcy of enterprises, an increase in unemployment, violations in the monetary and foreign exchange and financial spheres, etc., and as a result in ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

Books

• Economic Crisis: Space and People, Nikolai Konyukhov. Resonances of gravitational and magnetic fields of celestial bodies are one of the important factors influencing the development of mankind. Economic crises are the result of people's actions. But… electronic book
• Crisis Crisis. Topical anecdotes and aphorisms about the economic crisis, Maxim Klim. To survive the current crisis, you have to be a big businessman =) Funny and funniest jokes and jokes about the crisis and lack of money. Do you want to relax and have fun? Then read this...

Etc.)

The crisis of overproduction is characterized by the presence of a large number of goods that exceed the demand of consumers. It usually arises due to the failure to identify aggregate demand and the impossibility of planning aggregate production in a free market. As a result, for a particular manufacturer, it is usually unknown what and how much the market needs. The first major crises of this kind appeared in England in the 17th century.

With the development of a market industrial economy, overproduction crises have become cyclical and today they constitute one of the phases of the economic cycle.

The consequence of the economic crisis is a decrease in the real gross national product, massive bankruptcies and unemployment, and a decrease in the living standards of the population.

First crisis

Causes of economic crises

Austrian school

The crisis in a market economy occurs as a result of the situation in the money market created by central banks and a system with a not 100% reserve ratio, which leads to understated interest rates, an increase in the money supply (see Bank multiplier). This creates an economic boom. It seems to firms that the projects are needed by the economy, they will be profitable, and they begin to invest in potentially unprofitable projects - “bad investments”. Households, due to rising prices, stop saving and start spending more of their income - they take loans. The boom cannot go on forever and the second stage always comes - collapse, crisis. Lending is falling, the money supply is falling, as a result, prices are falling, entrepreneurs have to urgently sell “bad investments”. Both consumers and businesses are in debt. Production optimization begins - layoffs occur.

Marxism

Psychological causes of crises

Among the causes and factors leading to economic crises, a special place is occupied by psychological factors, since the behavior of economic entities may turn out to be a "trigger" for a crisis. So already in the 19th century. J. Mills noted that the explanation of crises should be sought in the mental characteristics of a person, since credit, the fluctuations of which are the most characteristic feature of crises, is a spiritual phenomenon. He emphasized that panic destroys credit and, accordingly, harms the economy.

how to determine at what point irrational optimism inflates the value of assets so much that the risk of sudden and prolonged drops increases sharply

In conditions of economic imbalance, the psychological mood of society has an impact on the duration and forms of the course of the crisis, its consequences. Therefore, some scholars believe that for understanding the origin and characteristics of the crisis, taking into account the psychological factor is almost as important as for understanding the causes of military victories and defeats or the causes of revolutions.

The cyclical nature of the economy

About the terms "economic crisis", "depression", "recession", "slowdown" and "financial crisis"

A successful interpretation of terms that are similar in essence was given by the famous economist of the middle of the 20th century Murray Rothbard:

In the old days, we suffered from periodic economic crises, the sudden onset of which was called "panic", and the long period after the panic was called "depression".

The most famous modern depression is, of course, the one that began in 1929 with a typical financial panic and continued until the outbreak of World War II. After the catastrophe of 1929, economists and politicians decided that this should never happen again. To successfully and without much trouble to cope with this task, it took only the elimination of the word "depression" from use. From that moment on, America no longer had to experience depressions. For when another severe depression came in 1937-1938, economists simply refused to use this terrible name and introduced a new, more harmonious concept - recession. Since then, we have experienced many recessions, but not a single depression.

However, pretty soon the word "recession" also turned out to be rather harsh for the refined sensibilities of the American public. Apparently, the last recession we had was in 1957-1958. Since that time, we have had “downs”, or even better “slowdowns”, or even “deviations”.

see also

• Great Depression (1929–1939)
• 1983 video game industry crisis
• Socio-economic crisis in the USSR
• Argentine economic crisis (late 1990s)
• Cement Crisis (2006–2008)

Links

• The current economic crisis in historical perspective
• Economic Crisis "Economic Dictionary"
• ASKAR AKAEV: The Modern Financial and Economic Crisis in the Light of the Theory of Innovation and Technological Development (Russian) . Archived from the original on August 24, 2011. Retrieved March 9, 2009.
• Grinin L. E., Korotaev A. V. Global Crisis in Retrospect: From Lycurgus to Alan Greenspan. Archived from the original on February 17, 2012.
• The financial crisis through the eyes of Anatoly Wasserman

Notes

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See what the "Economic Crisis" is in other dictionaries:

A sharp deterioration in the economic condition of the country, manifested in: a significant decline in production; in violation of established industrial relations; in the bankruptcy of enterprises; in the rise in unemployment. The result of the economic crisis is... Financial vocabulary

See ECONOMIC CRISIS. Raizberg B.A., Lozovsky L.Sh., Starodubtseva E.B. Modern economic dictionary. 2nd ed., rev. M .: INFRA M. 479 s .. 1999 ... Economic dictionary

economic crisis- - [A.S. Goldberg. English Russian Energy Dictionary. 2006] economic crisis A manifestation of the cyclical nature of economic growth inherent in a market capitalist economy. See Crises in the economy, Business cycle, ... ... Technical Translator's Handbook

Economic crisis- (English economic recession/crisis) 1) crisis of overproduction relative overproduction of goods that are not marketable due to the limited effective demand of the population; 2) a structural crisis is an overdue discrepancy between ... ... Encyclopedia of Law

See ECONOMIC CRISIS. Antinazi. Encyclopedia of Sociology, 2009 ... Encyclopedia of Sociology