Translated material
To take while they give
In the economy
To take while they give
February 5, 2007. Maxim Blan
The former head of the Russian Pension Fund, and now the Minister of Health and Social Development, Mikhail Zurabov provoked another scandal last week. According to the Kommersant newspaper , its department prepared and sent a bill to the government, essentially abolishing those last snaps of the funded pension system that remained after the exclusion of middle -aged workers (born until 1967) and the abandonment of the gradual increase in the funded part in the total amount of pension deductions.
The essence of the proposal is to give those who have not yet decided on the selection of a private management company or a non -state pension fund for another five years to think, and after the “bench” to cover and “undefined” to finally and irrevocably deprive them of individual accumulative accounts, using money for current payments to retirement. And instead of individual accounts, it is supposed to give “guarantees” to the payment of respectively an increased insurance part. Moreover, from next year it is proposed not to transfer the money of “silently” to Vnesheconombank, but to use it to cover the deficit of the Russian Pension Fund (FIU).
I must say that after the scandal caused by the publication began to gain momentum, Zurabov tried to calm the audience, saying that the press was discussing a “raw”, an inappropriate option. It sounded a little strange: if the option is raw and inconclusive, then it is not entirely clear why it entered the government. The Ministry of Economic Development and the presidential administration sharply opposed the bill, so the alarm seemed to be false. However, it will not be possible to unambiguously say that Zurabov lost it, even if (and most likely it happens) the bill will sink in the bowels of the government apparatus without passing the coordination of all the necessary instances. But the probability that the document would have turned into the law quietly and without unnecessary noise: Russian citizens are not too interested in their pension future - in Vnesheconombank (VEB) there are money of 9 out of 10 employees who opened accumulative accounts. And this despite the fact that the VEB, which for a year in a row shows the lowest profitability that does not even cover even official inflation. With the help of the new law, at least two serious problems would be solved - from year to year the growing shortage of the FIU and “extra” money in VEB, which, according to existing rules, can be invested only in state debt obligations. The state, with the current accountability of the budget, is not at all from hand in debt.
However, the ubiquitous journalists inflated the story, which, in principle, is also not bad. Citizens, previously indifferent to the fate of their accumulative accounts, learning that they are trying to deprive them of these same accounts, can finally spend a little time transferring money from Web into a more decent place, at least from protest. Thus, the illogical situation will be resolved, to put it mildly, when the government, not knowing what to do with the available money, is also forced to occupy, placing debt papers on the market so that the VEB can invest the money of future pensioners at least some minimum percentage.
It is not known which option at heart was more than Mikhail Zurabov, signing the bill emerging from the bowels of his department, especially if you take into account that just six years ago, when pension reform only started, it was an ardent supporter of the funded system.
In any case, the minister can only be thanked for the fact that he, albeit in a somewhat extravagant way, managed to draw attention to serious problems, the acceptable solution of which no one still has suggested. If you decide where to allow VEB to invest pension accumulations of citizens is not so difficult, then it is impossible to endlessly solve the problem of the “hole” in the FIU at the expense of the stabilization fund, as it is done now. Firstly, because oil prices are an unreliable and little predictable category, and at some point a violent financial river can turn into a miserable stream, or even dry up. And secondly, the FIU deficiency, on the contrary, is a figure that is quite amenable to calculations, directly depending on the demographic situation, which in the foreseeable future in Russia will only worsen, and, very rapidly.
Maxim Blanc
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