Is Russia that bad?

[fernando]

Over here ( south america ) we hear on the news, read on the newspapers and internet thar russia is currently going trough a severe economical depression.

I am really interested in russia as a cultural country, I am psychology student and as far as I know Russia has produced the most brilliant minds in psychology such as Pavlov and others.

well if anyone care to give me some facts of the REAL status of your country please do so

[Mihail]

Country is going through a process that most countries in the world had been through. Even United States after being independent country had many depressions, and crimes, but they were patriots and survived. Unlike Americans, Russians does not care about Russia, - money is a only important thing in Russia, oh yeah and Military.

[ILay]

I would not say that it's exactly right that the economy is under depression. Well it is, but not that deep as it is usually shown.
I'd better separate the financial position of the state and the economy itself.

I'll bring some statistics: according to official data in Russia there is from 150 to 300 billions CASH dollars. I mean CASH (in banknotes). This is more than the amount of cash dollars in the US. But, due to extremely stupid laws, the state is not able to collect taxes. And even if it collects them they do nothing to reinvest.

The money paid by state to reconstruct the President's residence - Kremiln was 300.000.000 (say three hundred million) US dollars. This is 10 times more than the building cost of the palace of the Sultan of Brunei. And all that money were paid to the FOREIGN company (and succesfully left the territory of Russia).

Up to the 18th of August 1998 the return on the state bonds (GKO - state finance obligations) was upto 180% interest per annum. Same time the inflation was not more than 35% per annum. Solid return margin of 145% per year - can you imagine this? The interest on banking debt was 200 - 250%% per annum. So no small or medium company could afford to take loans in Russia.

The taxes rate in Russia may exceed 100% of gross income if do everything legal. Thy do you think the people here do grey biz?

Of course there is a depression for the giant companies built in soviet era which can not cope with the market reality.

2 Mihail:
and what is bad about money?
Please try to understand: a rich country does not mean a rich STATE. It first of all means rich PEOPLE living in the country.
Pathriotism itself does not mean toî much in economical sense.
Ïîä ëåæà÷èé êàìåíü *** íå çàñóíåøü.


[This message has been edited by ILay (edited 30 January 2000).]

[fernando]

thanks for the facts Elay..

Does the goverment own any service company
( water, phone, energy )?

Here in Peru all the service companies where initially owned by the goverment, and all the money collected by the goverment was not reinvested and the rest was spent on projects made by foreing companies, mainly north america.

The new plan stablished since 1990 was to initally sell the service companies because the goverment did not have the money to keep the runing and if they were they did a very bad job at it.

Now what is being done by this goverment is to reinvest the money collected and give large loans of money to people that wish to start small to medium companies, all this to get the economy runing.

I dont know the real status of russia , but that maybe a plan to overcome the situation there.