Reply to Sergei Lopatnikov

In response to our review of S. Lopatnikov's article in Moskovsky Komsomolets, the author left an indignant note in our state book: * "I would like to make a few remarks regarding the commentary on my interview in MK."

The author of the comment either does not understand well what liberalism is, or does not understand economics and politics.

Perhaps this is news to the author, but liberalism is significantly different from idiocy, although both end in "ism".

1. There is nothing anti-liberal in stating the fact that there is no transfer of Russian volumes of oil the size of Iraq to foreigners.

2. There is no "anti-Westernism" in this either. Since any foreigners are under the control, such volumes of oil are unacceptable, even if Mother Teresa becomes their owner. The reason is that the Russian budget is extremely poorly diversified, which I directly write about in the article, and TNK + YUKOS + SIBNEFT accounts for an unacceptably large share of the Russian budget, which is taken out of Russia's control. I emphasize - not the Russian authorities, but Russia, that is, the Russian people. This, excuse me, is the basics of political economy.

The way out of this situation is absolutely liberal - which I write about in the first article in Komsomolskaya Pravda and in Inerview: Russia needs a middle class that ensures diversification and, consequently, stability of the budget.

Unfortunately, the author of the comment belongs to the category of "marshinal-democrats" who have learned a couple of "liberal slogans" taken out of context, completely unaware of the essence of the problem.

We, in turn, would like to object to S. Lopatnikov the following.

First, about "taking an unacceptably large share of its budget out of Russia's control . " This share is very easy (approximately, of course) to calculate. Based on the data of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation for 2002, it is possible to estimate the tax contribution of the three campaigns mentioned by the author: provided that they pay 50% of their profits to the Russian budget, it turns out about 5 billion dollars (in 2003 - more, but not twice as much ). The budget of Russia, according to the author himself, is 95 billion. assuming that companies will not pay taxes AT ALL, Russia will lose 5-6%, well, 7% of the budget. Too much, of course, but certainly not a large share.

However, it does not follow from anything that the largest Western companies would pay less taxes than the Russian owners have done so far. It's easier to somehow assume the opposite.

Secondly, in this interview we were not interested in general words about the need for a middle class in Russia, but in a slender construction in the spirit of "the tentacles of the enemy are stretched out ...". We sincerely admire the architectural structure of S. Lopatnikov, although we must admit that in a number of cases he sins against the truth.

For example, it is completely incomprehensible to us what kind of nuclear war we are talking about in 1946, and what were the volumes of production and explored deposits of Iran, since they almost started a war because of them? as recently as this week It is not clear why the author believes that the occupation of Iraq is necessary to control the Caucasus and the Caspian - and control over the Bosphorus is not enough (which, by the way, was demonstrated )? Well, about the "oil pressure" on continental Europe, which receives oil from Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Libya, Norway and Russia, also somehow ...

We would like to express our gratitude to Anvar Amirov, an expert of the IIC "Panorama", for his consultation on the economic aspects of the problem.