Where to get 800 billion Topilina?
At the Gaidar Forum, the Minister of Labor and Social Security, Maxim Topilin, once again reminded compatriots how much money the Russian poor lack. He even told reporters how the income deficit of poor families was calculated and where this impressive, not frightening amount came from - about 800 billion rubles. Approximately the same, more precisely from 750 to 800 billion, Topilin counted back in December last year, when he answered the question of how many Russians do not have enough for the poverty rate in the country to finally become zero.
Our “almost official” network, the MIA “Russia Today”, and the official organ already real, “Rossiyskaya Gazeta”, rated the performance of the social minister quite positively. For what? Yes, at least for the fact that he plucked up the courage to put the problem itself. And let him do it not at a government meeting, and not even during the report in the Duma, but at the Gaidar forum. It seems that not only because they were listening to him, the main thing - they wanted to hear. However, “officialdom” is simply obliged to praise the minister, and it was hardly worth waiting for any critics, even constructive ones, because it has traditionally been the official media partner of the forum.
But business media, for the most part, as is well known, are more liberal than conservative, in one voice saying that Topilin explained how we can fight poverty. Honestly, after scrupulously reading the report of the Minister, as well as having read his comments on the sidelines of the forum, I did not find an explanation. But he found a quite distinct desire of the minister to come down from heaven to earth and already begin to distance himself from the various unpopular measures taken recently, such as pension reform.
In the comments to the publications, someone already maliciously recommended the members of the government, and not only to them, but “to all these officials who care about the people,” to take advantage of the well-known practice of total immersion: “plunge into the life of an ordinary citizen for a couple of months. To live on his salary, in his apartment, to look for a decent job, you look, and soberly assess the situation will begin? "
I do not intend to dispute the calculations of the minister, much less deny the need to combat poverty itself. I will confine myself only to stating the fact that someone after all has managed to bring these Russians to such poverty that almost a trillion rubles is required for its liquidation. It is necessary to take into account that from a representative of the department, who without any cardinal changes managed to save at least some inheritance of the union Goskomtrud, the Russians almost for the first time hear something intelligible and generally encouraging.
And it’s not for nothing that the “official” are so optimistic. It seems that even in 28 years they have not forgotten how to count in Minsotstrud, but for some ideas you have to knock on completely different doors. So, in Topilin's hands there is, let's say, almost everything. There is a balance on the subsistence level of the family, which the minister estimated at "20 thousands, let's say they get all 18". Accordingly, "this family’s income deficit is two thousand, the other has five thousand, the third has 25 thousand per person."
Summing up the family deficiencies, Topilin got the same 800 billions. This, according to him, “is a shortage of incomes, and for everything to fall exactly into the family where there is a shortage of incomes, in order to overcome poverty completely, you need about 800 billion.” Topilin even has an idea how to start making these 800 billions, and that’s all, hold on to the chairs, “events that are implemented as part of decrees”. So simple?
The minister can only be envied, because he even cited an example when he spoke about the construction of roads, which will influence the fact that high-yield jobs will be created. Immediately I recall the experience of Franklin Roosevelt, who, to get out of the crisis, attracted the unemployed to social work. But after all, it also took him years to fight poverty in rich America, and, moreover, US participation in World War II, surprisingly lucrative, by the way, for this country.
US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the radio. 1936 year
In general, the real recipes for finding the means that are necessary for overcoming mass poverty, cannot be found in the Minister’s speeches yet. Infrastructure development, targeted support for families with children is, of course, systemic measures, but somehow it will not be enough, as the character of one very popular New Year cartoon said. And then there’s one of Topilin’s predecessors in the ministerial chair of the social department, and now Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova told the participants of the same Gaidar Forum with enviable confidence that poverty in Russia (the favorite word of the late reformer) does not grow, but decreases.
Not at all in unison with Topilin, she voiced statistics, which asserts that in nine months the poverty level of the population was 13,3%, which is lower than last year’s similar level in 13,8%. But after all, the president of the country quite unequivocally demands that the poverty level be halved, albeit by the year of 2024. And it must be admitted that Rosstat’s interest, even from the mouth of the most compelling woman in the cabinet, is somehow not impressive or clinging. But billions Topilina cling tightly. Although even the latest increase in the minimum wage (MROT) does not fit in well with them - from 11 163 rubles per month to 11 280 rubles.
The president’s demand was refuted by none other than the more inveterate Gaidarist and liberal Alexei Kudrin, who is now abandoned by the head of state for a specific job in the Audit Chamber. He had long before the forum, more precisely, in October last year, said that the goal of reducing poverty by 50% is almost unreal. There will not be enough growth rates of GDP, or redistribution of resources. Thus, Kudrin, one may say, ahead of time actually suggested sending Tatiana Golikova and optimism, and all the calculations of Maxim Topilin into the trash can and optimism.
Meanwhile, the current head of the main control department, like his slightly less liberal counterparts, could hardly have thought of the methods and means that the already mentioned President Roosevelt used to fight poverty. After the Great Depression of 1928-1933, Roosevelt did not stand on ceremony with offshore zones, with various funds and non-profit organizations engaged only in money laundering, with financial offices that duplicated banks.
It was he who gave the big business an ultimatum: either invest in America or fail anywhere. It was Roosevelt who made government protectionism a normal practice, which his current successor in the White House Donald Trump is frankly abusing today. When Roosevelt immediately began to flourish and state regulation, which our liberals esteemed for exceptional evil, the state order flourished, from which, in the opinion of most Gaidarians, more harm than good.
Incidentally, Roosevelt had another “trick” - the massive closure of companies, which are now commonly called “managers”, but in fact they allow us to take to the side the incomes of real enterprises, which generally should be taxed and with deductions. . Remind you here, not quite by the way, in which office do we have such a CC? Yes, yes, the liberal Chubais - in Rosnano.
By the way, A. Kudrin even together with T. Golikova and M. Topilin for some reason did not recall the experience of one of the predecessors of the current minister in the social department, Alexander Pochink. It was he, also a flawless Gaydarovets and a liberal, at the finish of his very diverse bureaucratic career proposed to introduce a fixed minimum wage rate, mandatory not only for private but also for state-owned enterprises. The rate is hourly, so that the innovation will affect both temporary and seasonal workers, and with some effort - guest workers.
Today, very few people remember one of the last ideas of Alexander Pochinka.
Alexander Pochinok backed up his idea, which was not at all a sort of backstage declaration, clear calculations, which he put together in an explanatory note. It was just a few years ago, and the author, in his time, had a chance to get acquainted only with excerpts from it, but even in comparison with them, the calculations of the current Minister of Social Work look very modest. So, according to Pochain, with a mandatory minimum salary of about one and a half, or better, two minimum wages, Russian finances could become balanced in just a few months, and the budget would be reduced with a surplus, and there would be enough money for raising pensions .
It was enough just to remove all wages from the shadows, to force employers to remove them from envelopes. Someone will say that it was pure idealism, but why then the lobby of the oligarchs immediately set all dogs on the hapless minister - from the Duma, from the bureaucrats, and from the press? Wouldn't it be worth today to reanimate the idea of the late Alexander Petrovich?
Our “almost official” network, the MIA “Russia Today”, and the official organ already real, “Rossiyskaya Gazeta”, rated the performance of the social minister quite positively. For what? Yes, at least for the fact that he plucked up the courage to put the problem itself. And let him do it not at a government meeting, and not even during the report in the Duma, but at the Gaidar forum. It seems that not only because they were listening to him, the main thing - they wanted to hear. However, “officialdom” is simply obliged to praise the minister, and it was hardly worth waiting for any critics, even constructive ones, because it has traditionally been the official media partner of the forum.
But business media, for the most part, as is well known, are more liberal than conservative, in one voice saying that Topilin explained how we can fight poverty. Honestly, after scrupulously reading the report of the Minister, as well as having read his comments on the sidelines of the forum, I did not find an explanation. But he found a quite distinct desire of the minister to come down from heaven to earth and already begin to distance himself from the various unpopular measures taken recently, such as pension reform.
In the comments to the publications, someone already maliciously recommended the members of the government, and not only to them, but “to all these officials who care about the people,” to take advantage of the well-known practice of total immersion: “plunge into the life of an ordinary citizen for a couple of months. To live on his salary, in his apartment, to look for a decent job, you look, and soberly assess the situation will begin? "
I do not intend to dispute the calculations of the minister, much less deny the need to combat poverty itself. I will confine myself only to stating the fact that someone after all has managed to bring these Russians to such poverty that almost a trillion rubles is required for its liquidation. It is necessary to take into account that from a representative of the department, who without any cardinal changes managed to save at least some inheritance of the union Goskomtrud, the Russians almost for the first time hear something intelligible and generally encouraging.
And it’s not for nothing that the “official” are so optimistic. It seems that even in 28 years they have not forgotten how to count in Minsotstrud, but for some ideas you have to knock on completely different doors. So, in Topilin's hands there is, let's say, almost everything. There is a balance on the subsistence level of the family, which the minister estimated at "20 thousands, let's say they get all 18". Accordingly, "this family’s income deficit is two thousand, the other has five thousand, the third has 25 thousand per person."
Summing up the family deficiencies, Topilin got the same 800 billions. This, according to him, “is a shortage of incomes, and for everything to fall exactly into the family where there is a shortage of incomes, in order to overcome poverty completely, you need about 800 billion.” Topilin even has an idea how to start making these 800 billions, and that’s all, hold on to the chairs, “events that are implemented as part of decrees”. So simple?
The minister can only be envied, because he even cited an example when he spoke about the construction of roads, which will influence the fact that high-yield jobs will be created. Immediately I recall the experience of Franklin Roosevelt, who, to get out of the crisis, attracted the unemployed to social work. But after all, it also took him years to fight poverty in rich America, and, moreover, US participation in World War II, surprisingly lucrative, by the way, for this country.
US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the radio. 1936 year
In general, the real recipes for finding the means that are necessary for overcoming mass poverty, cannot be found in the Minister’s speeches yet. Infrastructure development, targeted support for families with children is, of course, systemic measures, but somehow it will not be enough, as the character of one very popular New Year cartoon said. And then there’s one of Topilin’s predecessors in the ministerial chair of the social department, and now Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova told the participants of the same Gaidar Forum with enviable confidence that poverty in Russia (the favorite word of the late reformer) does not grow, but decreases.
Not at all in unison with Topilin, she voiced statistics, which asserts that in nine months the poverty level of the population was 13,3%, which is lower than last year’s similar level in 13,8%. But after all, the president of the country quite unequivocally demands that the poverty level be halved, albeit by the year of 2024. And it must be admitted that Rosstat’s interest, even from the mouth of the most compelling woman in the cabinet, is somehow not impressive or clinging. But billions Topilina cling tightly. Although even the latest increase in the minimum wage (MROT) does not fit in well with them - from 11 163 rubles per month to 11 280 rubles.
The president’s demand was refuted by none other than the more inveterate Gaidarist and liberal Alexei Kudrin, who is now abandoned by the head of state for a specific job in the Audit Chamber. He had long before the forum, more precisely, in October last year, said that the goal of reducing poverty by 50% is almost unreal. There will not be enough growth rates of GDP, or redistribution of resources. Thus, Kudrin, one may say, ahead of time actually suggested sending Tatiana Golikova and optimism, and all the calculations of Maxim Topilin into the trash can and optimism.
Meanwhile, the current head of the main control department, like his slightly less liberal counterparts, could hardly have thought of the methods and means that the already mentioned President Roosevelt used to fight poverty. After the Great Depression of 1928-1933, Roosevelt did not stand on ceremony with offshore zones, with various funds and non-profit organizations engaged only in money laundering, with financial offices that duplicated banks.
It was he who gave the big business an ultimatum: either invest in America or fail anywhere. It was Roosevelt who made government protectionism a normal practice, which his current successor in the White House Donald Trump is frankly abusing today. When Roosevelt immediately began to flourish and state regulation, which our liberals esteemed for exceptional evil, the state order flourished, from which, in the opinion of most Gaidarians, more harm than good.
Incidentally, Roosevelt had another “trick” - the massive closure of companies, which are now commonly called “managers”, but in fact they allow us to take to the side the incomes of real enterprises, which generally should be taxed and with deductions. . Remind you here, not quite by the way, in which office do we have such a CC? Yes, yes, the liberal Chubais - in Rosnano.
By the way, A. Kudrin even together with T. Golikova and M. Topilin for some reason did not recall the experience of one of the predecessors of the current minister in the social department, Alexander Pochink. It was he, also a flawless Gaydarovets and a liberal, at the finish of his very diverse bureaucratic career proposed to introduce a fixed minimum wage rate, mandatory not only for private but also for state-owned enterprises. The rate is hourly, so that the innovation will affect both temporary and seasonal workers, and with some effort - guest workers.
Today, very few people remember one of the last ideas of Alexander Pochinka.
Alexander Pochinok backed up his idea, which was not at all a sort of backstage declaration, clear calculations, which he put together in an explanatory note. It was just a few years ago, and the author, in his time, had a chance to get acquainted only with excerpts from it, but even in comparison with them, the calculations of the current Minister of Social Work look very modest. So, according to Pochain, with a mandatory minimum salary of about one and a half, or better, two minimum wages, Russian finances could become balanced in just a few months, and the budget would be reduced with a surplus, and there would be enough money for raising pensions .
It was enough just to remove all wages from the shadows, to force employers to remove them from envelopes. Someone will say that it was pure idealism, but why then the lobby of the oligarchs immediately set all dogs on the hapless minister - from the Duma, from the bureaucrats, and from the press? Wouldn't it be worth today to reanimate the idea of the late Alexander Petrovich?
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