Here's Why Putin's Popularity Is Depends On The State Of The Russian Economy

Jim O'Neill, Former Goldman Sachs Group Inc GS Asset Management Chairman, is the man who coined the term BRIC. So, with the Russian economy experiencing significant turmoil, perhaps there are very few suitable people who can explain the problem and provide an outlook on it than him.

Neil was recently on CNBC to discuss about the current state of the Russian economy.

“Many people, I have spend a lot of time with as well as foreign leading political figures have often told me, they think he [Vladimir Putin] is the smartest guy in the world political stage for many years, but one wonders about that when you look at the challenges that Putin finds himself under here, but in some ways I kind of turn a lot of conventional thinking on its heads,” O’Neill said.

He continued, “I wonder whether it was a decline in the old [price] and the realization that the Russian economy was going to go through a really weak phase. We should encourage Putin to think of ways of remaining just as popular as of course he has been for the past decade if not longer in Russia.”

O’Neill co-related Putin’s popularity to the increase in prosperity seen by Russians in the last decade, saying, “the miscalculation, I think, he has made here is because of the collapse of the Ruble, there is going to be a huge shock to the real incomes of 140 million Russians and his popularity is not just because he is tough, it’s because Russian people have done so well in the past decade if not longer.”