Dmitry Gudkov: "The Perfect Storm"

“In the not-so-distant 2012, Vedomosti published our article on the future of pension reform. It’s unpleasant to be Cassandra, but now, re-reading it, we can say that everything happened exactly as predicted - and none of the constructive (Who asked for constructive criticism here?) The proposals were not taken into account,” the politician writes on his Facebook page.

“Here are three scenarios for the future from the article: raising the retirement age (announced today), raising taxes (announced today) and a nominal reduction in pensions, non-indexation - remember the generous 5 thousand for pensioners. However, I still thought that we were facing one of three bad scenarios. But no: the government outdid Ilya Muromets and took all three roads at the same time.

Since 2012, I have written and said many times that the worst development of events can be avoided, there is a whole range of measures... However, first our funded pensions were stolen (they went to Crimea, to the war, God knows what else), then They started a cold war - and an objective, inevitable demographic crisis was superimposed on a man-made economic one.

This, comrades government, is called the “perfect storm”, which you created.

What's the point now in repeating beautiful decisions made six years ago? And voluntarily, for bonuses, delayed retirement, and privatization of state property in favor of pensioners, and reduction of insurance premiums for older people. There were a lot of ideas - working and working -. But not a single one of them was adopted.

As a result, now we all can only say thanks to Putin and Medvedev for the country’s missed opportunities. It's a dead end, as it was said."