The microblogger had to go beyond the usual 140 characters to explain why the Russian authorities can be trusted only if you don’t check

April 2009. I am sitting in the office of a public organization close to one ministry. An advertising agency affiliated with it is participating in two tenders of the same department and is seriously planning to win both. At some point, a ministry official decides that a “double win” is too risky and that two tenders must be combined into one. They have one day to do this.

The agency is also virtual. There is not a single person in it who could combine two sets of tender documentation into one within a day. And even more so, who could do the work themselves. The gasket is forced to look for real working hands and turns to me. I agree to help in exchange for a verbal agreement that I will become a subcontractor. Half an hour later I arrive at the office on Mira Avenue and after another two I hand over the completed document. They ask me to send it to an inconspicuous mailbox on a free mail server.

(Read the answer of Leonid Bershidsky “Calculator against everyone” , who criticized some of KermlinRussia’s theses)

The total cost of the project exceeds market prices by approximately 12-15 times. I ask for 15%, expecting a bonus for “complicity.” They offer me 6-7%. After two days of intense negotiations, I refuse to participate in this. Greed does not allow me to come to terms with arithmetic, in which those who know how to work will receive 7%, and those who cannot - 93%.

A year later, I will read on Navalny’s blog that most IT project contractors who perform subcontracts for government contract winners do the work for 3–8% of the purchase price. It turns out that I was rated at the upper limit.

A couple of months later, a journalist I know calls me, who is investigating the activities of Rusnano and delving into the company’s procurement website. “Tell me, please, a “research on the sale of nanoproducts in the Novosibirsk and Belgorod regions” could cost $330,000?” He turned to me as an expert. A few months earlier, I had left my job at a large international research company.

Before leaving, I participated in a large-scale study of the entire Russian software market. To learn how to work with the final “deliverable” - the database, I had to go to training in Prague. When I completed the first request, the dual-core Vaio with four gigabytes of RAM thought for 20 minutes. The database contained data on sales of all software vendors on the Russian market, starting with giants like Microsoft, IBM and Oracle and ending with income from supporting the free Linux company Mandriva, which was recently acquired by ex-minister Reiman. With a detailed breakdown by product, region and market segment. 1,600,000 lines.

The project lasted several months and cost $600,000. 20 qualified analysts worked on it in several countries, and insufficiently qualified ones flew to Prague to study and lived in five-star hotels there.

There is no market for nanotechnological products in the Belgorod region. There are no five-star hotels in Belgorod. There are not dozens of manufacturers in the nanotechnology market who would sell products worth billions of dollars. The two studies were fundamentally different. Everything except the cost.

The purchasing power of our state is off the charts. To understand this, you don’t need to read Christina Potupchik’s email. It is not necessary to read the business press, which writes that the cost of a kilometer of the Russian branch of the Nordstream gas pipeline is five times more expensive than the German one. And that the contractor belongs to Vladimir Putin’s former sparring partner Arkady Rotenberg. The system has grown so much that sooner or later each of us encounters it personally.

Almost every day on the air of the Vremya program, Vladimir Putin generates random numbers, pairing them with millions and billions and telling who he will allocate them to and for what. Another thing is interesting: if someone spends a lot of money, where does he get it from?

The propaganda of Channel One convinces us that the good state collects rent from fattening oil and gas companies and distributes money to teachers, doctors, military personnel, security forces and other public sector employees. At the same time, well-fed economists boast that we have a flat scale and at the same time one of the lowest income tax rates in the world - only 13%.

But once you receive your salary, the government takes 35% of your real income. You discover that in addition to income tax, there are also mandatory contributions to various funds. Formally, they are paid by the employer. In fact, he is an employee.

Having taken your salary, you go to the store and buy a product that is subject to 18% value added tax. VAT is almost entirely passed on to the buyer. By the way, there is no VAT in the USA. There is a sales tax, which is often confused with VAT, and it varies from state to state from 1% to 10%.

Yes, VAT is offset. Many companies come up with complex schemes to minimize it. Others don’t come up with anything and use a simpler method, known as “cash out.” More importantly, VAT has an indirect negative impact on the entire economy. Firstly, in the form of hundreds of thousands of women in company accounting departments and tax authorities, who aimlessly beat each other’s brains out, calculating who should pay whom and how much. Secondly, in the form of a burden on millions of entrepreneurs, each of whom, if desired, can be presented with a claim that he underpaid VAT. It is not worth dwelling on the fact that honest businesses constantly have to check their counterparties to see if they are fly-by-night.

In Moscow, the cost of a Toyota Rav4 in the “Prestige” configuration (2.4 liters, 4WD, automatic transmission) will be $50,000. In the USA, the cost of a similar car will not exceed $25,000. The issue is not only and not so much the greed of dealers, but customs duties. You heard it right: the government continues to take your money. When you buy a car that costs one and a half to two times more, you pay another tax.

If you lack discipline and cannot save your six months' income, you will have to take out a loan. Russia has a devastatingly high refinancing rate. In most developed countries it is close to zero. Ours is 8%. Another way to seize part of your income for the benefit of the state.

Add to this customs duties on imports, thanks to which clothing, household appliances and electronics cost 1.5-2 times more than in Europe and the USA.

You already give almost half of your income to the state, and we haven’t even moved on to the most important thing - real estate and the “corruption tax”. By the way, it is thanks to the latter that you have practically no alternative in the form of domestic goods, because it is production that is easiest to impose this tax on.

The research company EVANS included Russia among the top five world leaders in housing unaffordability. To buy an average residential property in Russia you will need 26 average annual incomes. In the USA - 2.7. Masochists can compare the quality of objects, but I prefer to leave it out of the equation.

If you want to buy an apartment, for example, in Moscow, you will have to pay at least $200,000. And it will be something terrible, old, two-room, albeit within the Moscow Ring Road. Even $500,000 won’t be enough for something more decent. For $400,000 you can buy a five-bedroom house (a five-bedroom house is, in our opinion, at least a six-room house) in Cyprus, in Ayia Napa. On the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. This home comes with infrastructure in the form of excellent roads, as well as clean air, fresh food, and crime statistics that consist almost entirely of traffic accidents.

In Russia, real estate values are falling from region to region, but income levels are falling even faster. During my life, I went from a small provincial town through St. Petersburg to Moscow, but I only started thinking about buying an apartment in the capital. However, I dismiss the purchase of real estate in Moscow as extremely irrational. A mortgage is profitable if the cost of purchasing real estate and renting it at current prices for 20 years are the same. To buy an apartment that rents for $2,000 a month, you'll have to put down $40,000 down and pay $6,000 every month for 20 years. For that kind of money you can rent this apartment for 60 years.

A person familiar with the elementary laws of economics can guess that housing is unaffordable because there is not enough of it. The housing stock is a separate shame for our country. According to various sources, per person in Russia there is from 19 to 22 square meters. m of housing. In the UK - 55-65. In Germany - 45-50, in the USA - 75-80. Let's look at how the average extended family lives using the example of a “national leader.” If Vladimir Putin and his wife and his two adult daughters and their husbands were ordinary residents of Russia, each couple would live in a modest one-room apartment with an area of 40 square meters. m. Such living conditions would threaten the continuation of the race of the nation's favorite, because not every family would decide to have a child in such living conditions. There is another option: all three couples live in a large apartment with an area of 120 square meters. m with high ceilings, in the center of St. Petersburg. Every day six adults fight over the bathroom. If exactly the same family lived in the United States, each couple would have a modest house or apartment with an area of 150 square meters. m, in Germany - an apartment of 90 square meters. m. Statistics indicate that Vladimir Putin’s daughters are better off living, if not in the USA, then at least in Germany.

Even in Southeast Asia there are 21 square meters per person. m of housing. It is the most populous region on Earth and contains countries such as Bangladesh. A tiny piece of land in the Ganges delta, home to 160 million people - more than the entire population of Russia.

My developer friend says that the cost of construction of some classes of housing in Moscow does not exceed $1000–1200 per sq. m. m. Everything else is official or unofficial contributions to the “city”. It seems to me that only an official (or a manager of a state corporation) who has purchased something at the expense of the budget at 80% higher than the market price can buy real estate in Moscow. Only he doesn’t mind paying the extra 80% included in the price of the property. This is a kind of mutual assistance organization for officials. "80% Club" A strange cluster within which, according to my personal assessment, 80% of the money in our country revolves.

The most important thing is that this money is absolutely useless. They are great for buying a Rolex, a Birkin, or a Bentley, but they are absolutely impossible to improve education, develop technology, or create anything at all. The traditional tactic of throwing money at a problem area does not bring results, because at the end of the path of billions there must be a person who can do the work. With your hands. At least merge two technical specifications into one.

But members of the “80% Club” do not know how to work with such people. They seem too independent, they bow little, argue, and do not understand the “sit” command well. The system organically rejects a person capable of creating a product. He either leaves, or goes to distribute budgets himself, because it is more profitable, or does not agree to 7%. One of the surprising properties of the so-called “elite” is their reluctance to pay more, even when something really needs to be done. “I’ll now pay him normal money, this loser will go and buy the same tchotchke as mine. How will I demonstrate my superiority to him?

The “80% Club” is bad not because, through official or unofficial methods using the state apparatus, it deprives citizens of most of their income. There are many countries where citizens pay half of what they earn in taxes, but in exchange they receive good roads, clean tap water, hospitals, schools and a working police force. And a court in which you can win against the state.

For this 80% they shove AMRs with flashing lights in our faces. At the hospital they say that there are many of us, but she is alone. And the truth is that she’s alone and earns almost nothing.

With all of the above costs, we somehow pay for government services, the receipt of which is always associated with rudeness and humiliation, colossal inconvenience and monstrous loss of time. Any project to improve the provision of public services leads to people writing “f*ck!” on the Internet. and attach a screenshot of the next site. Crooked, slanted, but very expensive.

The “80% Club” does not need a country of thinking and doing people. The same “strong country” that we are told about on television. And now Vladimir Putin is speaking from the pages of liberal newspapers. Because thinking people know how to at least use a calculator. And basic calculations within two hours will turn them into radical oppositionists and irreconcilable opponents of Putin and United Russia.

Why the country of thinking and doing people is needed by the “hamsters from Bolotnaya”, I will tell you in my next text.

KermlinRussia: calculator against Putin