Kudrinskaya loop
Career "effective manager"The son who served in Latvia (where Kudrin was born) and the Arkhangelsk military after two years worked as an auto mechanic and instructor in the laboratory of the Military Academy of Logistics and Transport in Leningrad. This probably allowed him to avoid the army and eventually enroll in the Leningrad State University. Unlike Nabiullina, who, being a graduate student, as far as can be judged, and could not defend her candidate, Kudrin coped with this task in the 1988 year. Having entered the circle of reformers (in 1989, Gaidar introduced him to Chubais), in October of 1990, he became deputy chairman of the Lensovet executive committee on economic reform.
He quickly climbed up the hardware ladder, achieving financial management of the city, and became one of the key figures of the Sobchak team, which, as far as can be judged, brought rich and developed Leningrad to a near-blockade state (in vivid contrast with Moscow) and with the bang of a losing 1996 election of the year .
The criminal cases related to the management of St. Petersburg’s finances were closed mostly in 2000: it seems that Kudrin hid behind the back of Vladimir Putin, who became president.
And in 1996, he found shelter in Moscow: heading the Presidential Administration, Chubais appointed him Head of the Control Department, and heading the Ministry of Finance - his first deputy. Kudrin was a loyal member of the "team of young reformers" who brought the country to a disastrous default of 1998 of the year - and, it seems, learned a lesson from the impunity of its organizers.
He was fired only in the middle of January 1999 of the year, and with the utmost apparatus humanism - “in connection with his transfer to another job”: Chubais’s deputy to RAO “UES of Russia”, which had not yet been destroyed by that. After the expulsion of Primakov, who stabilized Russia and became dangerous for the liberal camarilla after that, Kudrin immediately returned to "his" post in the Ministry of Finance, and after Putin's inauguration, headed the Ministry of Finance, becoming also first deputy prime minister.
He was finance minister for over 11 years; Close ties with Putin provided him with exceptional influence.
Personal incompetence (as far as can be recalled, Putin once “caught” live on his ignorance of the magnitude of the budget deficit) did not play a role: Kudrin was loyal, joined the team and seemed to be Putin’s chief economist, whose opinion was final. As far as can be recalled, this was the first time the phrase was said about him “the only post from which it is impossible to dismiss is the friend of the president” (although liberal propaganda, of course, did everything to forget this).
Kudrin reinforced Chubais’s tradition in which the Ministry of Finance was a “government within a government” —and in many ways more influential than the government itself, since it could block any undertaking.
Despite the absence of scandals, such as those connected with Shuvalov, Kudrin seems to be one of the richest Russian officials. When the French glamor magazine L'Officiel published in the middle of his wife’s “zero” photos, “the most authoritative publication in the world reflecting fashion trends,” as it is modestly on his website, merchants rated only Kudrin’s wife’s annual income. And she modestly emphasized that she is photographed only in her things.
Kudrin was accused of lobbying KIT Finance during the crisis of 2008-2009 and deciphered this name as Kudrin and Tintyakova (his second wife). Even Milov, a faithful liberal, was perplexed: “There is a lot of opacity in certain actions of the minister (Kudrin). For example, these are unprecedented expenses for salvation ...“ KIT Finance ”- 130 billion rubles ... ... He didn’t work a single day anywhere except in public service. A few spent months at RAO UES, but this is also a state-owned corporation. But he lives well, and his personal financial resources are great. ... I don’t want to accuse him of anything, but I have to explain myself. " The last time Kudrin was "explained" (in my opinion, mockingly empty), as recently as this January.
And in September of 2011, one day after Medvedev’s public refusal to fight for power with his benefactor Putin, Kudrin gave up his place in the future government and the next day Medvedev was sacked miserably. The formal reason for the resignation was the unwillingness to finance Russia's defense capability, natural to a liberal; Real, it seemed, was a reluctance to submit to an obvious nonentity and a desire for their political game.
Probably, accepting these motives and remaining grateful for past merits, Putin declared that Kudrin "remains in the team." For President Kudrin, as the main economic authority (a kind of Gaidar for Yeltsin), is a ready-made “spare prime minister,” and Kudrin himself seems to dream of slipping into real power on behalf of the West and the liberal clan, if successful.
We must pay tribute to Kudrin: as long as he manages to combine these contradictory positions. The aggravation of the crisis, caused primarily by the implementation of his policies and recommendations, leads him to power - first with the hands of Putin, and then, possibly, of his gravediggers.
The core of the liberal clan
Honorary Professor of the Higher School of Economics, Buryat and Dagestan State Universities, Kudrin is important as a man who, after Medvedev’s public fiasco, became the “face” of the liberal clan.
Kudrin today is the most consistent, respectable and influential liberal who has taken an ideal political position: being out of power, he publicly criticizes it and earns popularity. At the same time, he still largely determines the policy of this power - both through ideological influence, and probably also through direct henchmen, who owe their posts and well-being to him personally.
And it seems that no one in the political leadership of Russia cares that the liberals have long been ridiculed even by Soros as “market fundamentalists”, and liberalism directly contradicts the interests of Russia.
Russia needs a vigorous and active state - and liberalism justifies the laziness and incompetence of officials by striving to minimize government intervention in the economy.
Liberals see the state as not the key organizer of development and the structure-forming element of the market, but as the irreconcilable opposite of the latter. They do not recognize that state regulation is the only instrument for ensuring development and freedom, including economic.
Russia needs to restore its social protection system in order to increase the capacity of the domestic market and restore human capital, and liberalism destroys it, even choking on money. After all, it is the only religion that removes the responsibility for the weak from the strong and thereby legitimizes their irresponsibility.
Russia needs to modernize the real sector, develop high technologies - and liberalism requires the destruction of the protectionism necessary for this in order to turn the country into a colony of global business and prevent its competitors from arising.
Liberalism is the propaganda of the state as a "night watchman", with corresponding levels of responsibility, activity and efficiency, but for some reason with dizzying incomes and wealth. This is “privatization for one’s own” with total violations of the law and selling at bargain prices; this is an insider game of officials on the markets they regulate and impunity of the most brazen theft.
Kudrin’s entire activity, to the extent that it is not caused by incompetence, is subject, as far as can be judged, to the interests of the liberal clan, that is, global business. Therefore, we are not talking about individual mistakes or even about the wrong strategy, but, probably, about goal-setting and the value system that are fundamentally hostile to Russia and inconsistent with its very existence.
Master of liberal discourse
The main result of his work at the head of the Ministry of Finance appears to be the creation of a unique mechanism whereby taxpayers' money is not directed by the budget to the needs of the country, but is transferred abroad and invested in securities of Russia's strategic competitors.
At the same time, budget expenditures are mercilessly cut (up to the systematic death of sick children "because of a lack of budget funds"), and Russia continues to hold higher interest rates both domestically and internationally, which from a commercial point of view is a blatant robbery.
Vice Prime Minister Dvorkovich expressed the essence of this policy in a chased formula: "Russia must pay for the financial stability of the United States," and Kudrin deserved the enthusiasm of the West.
In 2003 and 2006, the English magazine Emerging Markets named him the best finance minister of the year: first in Central and Eastern Europe, and then in all emerging markets (in 2006, Kudrin achieved an early payment of 22 of billions of dollars in Russia's foreign debt - and a billion-dollar fine for that). In 2004, he received titles from The Banker magazine "World Finance Minister of the Year" and "Europe's Finance Minister", and in 2010 he named him Euromoney magazine the best finance minister of the year.
But the “Kudrin loop” does not boil down to a simple withdrawal of Russian money to the service of its strategic competitors.
This conclusion has become an important factor in the artificial creation in Russia of a brutal "money hunger", which led even in the "fat" for business "zero" years to the exorbitant high cost of loans. As a result, successful corporations were forced to lend not in the country, but abroad, taking on currency risks (which became an important factor in Russia's dependence on the West and caused us great damage during the current crisis and the 2008-2009 crisis).
Surprisingly, the external debt of the corporate sector of Russia (taking into account, of course, the banking multiplier) roughly corresponds to the funds taken abroad by the Kudrin Ministry of Finance!
Thus, the liberals forced the Russian business to borrow abroad their own money, paid to them by the state in the form of taxes!
This is really a noose, strangling Russia now, and Kudrin not only tightened it on the throat of our Motherland, but also justified its necessity to his friends from the top management.
Budget vs development
Kudrin's budget strategy actually boiled down to reducing non-interest budget spending. Self-removal of the state from the life of society and the removal of responsibility from it were considered as the ultimate goal of economic policy.
The main priorities of the budget, as the experience of its execution shows, under Kudrin are (and remain now) the “freezing” of taxpayers' money and speculation with state debt.
Budget expenditures, despite the surplus, were planned on the infamous "residual principle" (after repaying the loans made, primarily external), without interest in the real needs of society, which could be higher or lower than the stipulated amounts.
An attempt to switch to calculating the economy’s need for money was made in the Budget Code, which envisaged the development of minimum social standards, but the government did not attempt to fulfill its requirements.
This means that the budget is unrealistic: no one knows what, but is not even interested in the real needs of the country in money. Accordingly, it is not clear whether government spending is excessive, adequate or insufficient.
The provision of financial assistance to the regions is focused on the mythical indicator of “average Russian budgetary security,” and not on the needs of the regions and their populations.
Financial assistance to the regions is focused on the current leveling of their security, but not on overcoming imbalances in their development. Therefore, the gap between the regions is only growing, and the need for financial assistance is increasing.
This undermines development opportunities: the fiscal burden on successful regions increases, convincing them of the senselessness of work, “since they will take everything away anyway,” and outsiders are accustomed to dependency.
The entire burden of reforms is shifted by the liberals to the regions. The government does not care about their condition, which plunges them into a budget crisis and leads to the destruction not only of the social sphere, but, in some cases, of the transport communication as well.
Tax suppression of Russia
The transformation of the budget into a tool for the destruction of our country should not overshadow other achievements of Kudrin.
It was under him that the tax reform took place, which has become an important factor in blocking the development of the country's “rising from its knees”.
Contrary to world practice, a flat income tax scale was introduced in 13%. The fact that it is lower than the income tax stimulates consumption to the detriment of investments.
In the world, only Bolivia and Estonia have abandoned the progressive income tax scale. It seems that they served the liberals as the ideal of the Russian future.
The flat tax rate for the poor and the rich ignores the fact that the rich have more opportunities to influence the state than the poor. Big opportunities mean big responsibility, which should be expressed in the tax sphere.
But wages are not only subject to income tax, but also mandatory social benefits, which are disgusting class nature. They are regressive: the less a person earns, the more he pays. As a result, “taking out of the shadows” makes sense only high incomes: taxation of the rest is prohibitively high.
This makes honesty itself the privilege of the haves. The poor (including a significant part of the so-called "middle class") are pushed by the liberals into the "shadow", criminogenic economy and are doomed to live in fear by the very fact of relatively low income. This is a totalitarian approach that reinforces the inhumanity of a liberal state.
Russia has been turned into a tax haven for billionaires (including the liberal reformers themselves) and a tax hell for the rest - and this seems to be the merit of Finance Minister Kudrin.
The reduction in income tax in the 2002 year, which the liberals are still proud of, was accompanied by the abolition of investment benefits and therefore stimulated the reorientation of money from investment to consumption and flight abroad, which sharply slowed investment growth.
The refusal to take into account the mining and geological conditions during the taxation of subsoil use has caused the death of small and medium-sized companies operating in the worst conditions, and super-profits to large corporations controlling "tidbits".
Forward to power!
The influence of Kudrin is colossal now. Although it is probably weaker than that of the strategist of the liberal clan - Voloshin - it focuses on concrete economic issues and is therefore more noticeable.
Observers joked that for the past leadership of the Bank of Russia "there is no god but Chubais, and Kudrin is his prophet." Under the current leadership of last autumn, Kudrin’s appeal to free the ruble exchange rate directly preceded his catastrophic collapse, probably because he was perceived by the leadership of the Bank of Russia as an order to be followed without question.
The entire liberal information policy is aimed at preparing the public for the appointment of Kudrin as prime minister.
But, rather, one of the “heavyweight politicians” who do not have a taste for economic policy (like V.Matvienko) will be appointed prime minister, and Kudrin will become the first deputy sitting tight “on the farm” - not the real head but the master of the government.
And then the Maidan in Moscow, as it appears by virtue of the above, will become inevitable.
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