Russia isn’t looking so hot right now. If this is a crisis of confidence, it is going to be a lot harder for Russia to pull out of it. Bloomberg reports Russians Retrench as Crisis Evokes Memories of 1998 ‘Nightmare’:

Russia has lurched into reverse after 10 years of uninterrupted growth driven by revenue from oil, gas, metals and consumer spending. While almost half of all Russians still have no savings, people with spare cash like Zaporozhtseva say they are guarding it to pay bills and survive as wages decline and the number of jobless rises beyond 6 million.

The government expects the economy to shrink 2.2 percent this year after expanding about 7 percent a year since 1999.

Already, household incomes have sunk with the 35 percent plunge in the ruble against the dollar since Aug. 1 and inflation surged to 13.4 percent in January because of the cost of imported goods. The Russian central bank has raised its benchmark repurchase rate four times since November, to 12 percent.

This is going to be some severe whiplash. There will be political, social, and economic changes in Russia that will have no comparison in the US. Fortunately, many Russians have already lived through a time like that.