The Titanic, full of money

The authorities are ready to spend reserves on anything except the well -being of citizens

The Moscow financial forum unexpectedly turned out to be a place for discussions. The bosses argued who was to blame that there was no economic growth in Russia, and what to do so that growth would still begin. And then a strange thing-for once in the country, inflation formally slowed down (in fact-no), the budget is executed with a record surplus (3.6 trillion rubles), more than 7 trillion rubles, reserves of the Central Bank $ 520 billion have accumulated in the National Welfare Fund (FNB).

The chiefs are boasting a recordly low public debt, the Ministry of Finance holds almost 12 trillion in the form of free residues in accounts in the Central Bank and bank deposits.

A big business feels good - in the first eight months of 2019, owners of the largest states in Russia became richer by $ 28.3 billion.

But for some reason the economy does not want to grow. According to the Rosstat on the dynamics of GDP for the II quarter, if that is growing in Russia, it is the extraction and transportation of raw materials, as well as the issuance of loans, which has not yet been limited by the new requirements of the financial regulator. But the trade has already begun to slow down: there is no demand - there is no offer.

A year and a half ago, the bosses competed in optimistic forecasts of economic growth, promising an increase in GDP by either three or four percent per year. But today the concept has changed-optimists from the Ministry of Economic Development hope to 1.3% of growth, pessimists from the Central Bank expect 0.8%, and economists respond “dialectically”-someone (and you know who) will have growth, and everyone else will have a decline.

Actually, in anticipation of this recession in Russia, it is planned to greatly limit the issuance of consumer loans - there will still be nothing to return them.

Official statistics set a line of poverty about 13% of Russians, and according to the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, at the level of “real poverty” there are 68% of the population.

No one argues that there is a lot of money in power, there was a lot of money and now it could have been spent, at least from the same FNB. The question is - where to spend? There are no new thoughts here - bridges, pipelines, oil terminals, aircraft. The list of trusted recipients of state money has not changed for two decades. Some ministers are advised to damage foreign buyers of Russian “high-tech products”-in order to not just send someone weapons, but first transfer money there.

They also offer to modernize public transport in million-plus cities (apparently based on the forecast that personal cars should again become a luxury, as well as taxi services). True, even individual heads of state corporations object - money on such matters was spent before, many worthy people on this got rich, but this did not help economic growth too much. Maybe you should think and invest in education, medicine or any technologies, otherwise futurologists predict that tens of millions of Russians can be unemployed with the development of artificial intelligence.

At the same time, no one recalls another driver of the economy - an increase in demand. You can, for example, give money not only to state corporations, but also to small and medium -sized businesses.

Or even to citizens - if not in the form of direct payments, but through a decrease in taxes, replacing the funds “falling out” from the budget due to the accumulated.

If even in Poland, the Poduzheva GDP of which we will compare with the Russian one, the minimum salary in terms of rubles is three times larger than the Russian federal minimum wage - which prevents us from raising the minimum wage at least twice?

So there really is no money, the authorities will shuffle his shoulders. The Russian budget is rich, but this wealth is not at all for everyone. Having divided the Semitrillic FNB equally, into all 145 million citizens, it will be possible to help close loans - each will have fifty thousand for each. Who is able to cope with loans himself will buy something necessary, but most likely it will be consumer imports, from which the authorities are trying to wean people by all means.

With a budget surplus - a similar story. After it is divided into everyone equally, everyone will be due to half the amount than in the case of the divided FNB. You can, of course, share this money only among the poor, but the poor, as we recall, we have almost 70% of the population, or 100 million. And the entire expenditure part of the federal budget of the Russian Federation this year is about 18 trillion rubles, about $ 275 billion, but not for 145 million people. Sweden spends $ 270 billion per year on its 10 million citizens.

The bosses have long made their choice - if there is still enough money only to provide a paradise life for themselves and a privileged minority, then let this life be provided with a minority. At the level of world standards and even higher. Therefore, the Russian ruling class can afford what the upper class of Europe or the USA cannot afford. The budget revenues will be enough in order to ensure the welfare of the commanders of armed detachments that protect those in power if necessary. And let all the others let them "save as they can." As on the Titanic.