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> rapidly growing deficits and receding standard of living Really? What is it based on? Compared to a period after the perestroika, level of life has greatly i

by usaphp 11y ago

> rapidly growing deficits and receding standard of living Really? What is it based on? Compared to a period after the perestroika, level of life has greatly improved in Russia, the worst period of crime and absolute horrendous inability of police to prevent the growth of organized crime is not something most of the people of Russia want to experience again and that is why they want to go with stability which they think Putin gives them. > in a country without free press or free elections Throwing around big captions like this does not help a single bit, these words mean absolutely nothing to me, what do you mean by "free press" isn't most of the popular media in UK or US owned and heavily censored by corporate leaders or government parties? What makes this media "free" and media in Russia "not free".

alkonaut 11y ago
> Really? What is it based on? The fact that the budget is balanced on a completely different oil price, and no sanctions. The russian reserve funds are falling pretty rapidly, while defense spending is still increasing and over 5%. > Compared to a period after the perestroika, level of life has greatly improved in Russia No doubt. The period after the union dissolved standard off living rapidly rose. The period of openness over the last decade meant great growth and together with rising oil prices it saw rising standards of living. This only changed in the last years with falling oil prices and sanctions which have seen prices rise at a faster rate than wages and pensions. This is also known as a "sinking standard of living". Russian price and wage indices aren't subjective or secret information so please let's not debate whether you can e.g. buy more or less food for a teachers' salary in 2016 than 2013. I'm talking about the very last years now, not the period since 1990. > stability which they think Putin gives them. I don't blame them. Putin saw great economic success in his early years. I do however consider it foolish to vote for an authoritarian if the cost of this stability is lack of opposition and lack of free press, which has been the result in recent years. > what do you mean by "free press" The methodology used by Reporters Without Borders is a pretty decent one: "[The level of] pluralism, media independence, environment and self-censorship, legislative framework, transparency, and infrastructure. The questionnaire takes account of the legal framework for the media (including penalties for press offences, the existence of a state monopoly for certain kinds of media and how the media are regulated) and the level of independence of the public media." As I posted earlier, Russia fares no better than Belarus in this matter (a totalitarian dictatorship!) and also little better than many third world failed states, which is just embarrassing for a mostly developed country like Russia. > Isn't most of the popular media in UK or US owned and heavily censored by corporate leaders or government parties? Yes, a lot of the press is owned by corporations, or non political organizations, or political parties, or individuals. A lot of it has a party bias. That's entirely natural. Pluralism is the key -- e.g. are there media outlets representing all political parties etc? Is there excessive control of one type of media such as TV by a government entity? Self-censorship is a problem, but this problem is accounted for in the freedom-of-press index. > What makes this media "free" and media in Russia "not free". It's not black and white, it's a scale from completely unfree (North Korea) to completely free (Nowhere!). Somewhere along this scale we can argue that is are "free" and somewhere I'd argue they are not free. Where one draws that line is entirely arbitrary. Out of pure interest - if you yourself were to use the freedom of press ranking to draw a line somewhere above north korea where you consider the press to be "free", which state is that? Since it is below Russia in the ranking, where is it? Belarus? Cuba? Saudi Arabia? I do suspect this -- you will not be able to pick a state on that list as being below Russia but still enjoying press freedom. What you will have to do instead is a) dismiss reporters without borders and their "freedom of press index" as a western invention deviced to make "western style media" look good, while painting the Russian media landscape as failed, or b) claim that no country on the rank has free press, even Finland at the top spot, since hey, all media in Finland are owned and self censored by individuals and corporations or parties or organizations... If you are going to do a) or b) above, don't bother - you'd be better of not responding.
- usaphp 11y ago
  > The russian reserve funds are falling pretty rapidly Any data to back up that claim? Looking at the national reserve fund data it does not look to be anywhere near "falling pretty rapidly" [1] Also Russian national debt has decreased by quite a lot in recent years [2], and now is only about 25% of GDP, which is a very low figure compared to other countries. 1 - https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A0%D0%B5%D0%B7%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B2%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9_%D1%84%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B4_%D0%A0%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%B9%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B9_%D0%A4%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%86%D0%B8%D0%B8 https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A0%D0%B5%D0%B7%D0%B5%D1%80... 2 - https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%BD%D0%B5%D1%88%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B9_%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B3_%D0%A0%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%B8 https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%BD%D0%B5%D1%88%D0%BD...
  - alkonaut 11y ago
    The fund shrunk by 20% in the last two years (from 2014 to 2016) due to the sanctions and low oil prices. I'd say 10% on a per-year basis is pretty fast. http://old.minfin.ru/en/nationalwealthfund/statistics/amount/index.php?id_4=5830 http://old.minfin.ru/en/nationalwealthfund/statistics/amount...
    - usaphp 11y ago
      Why are you only cherry picking the data that fits your narrative? The link you included shows that since the time when Putin become a president in 2008 - reserve fund increased by more than 230% in USD and almost 10X in rubbles, the recent drop in reserve fund in USD is happening because of the oil prices decrease (same thing is happening with US national reserve [1]) , but even thought oil prices dropped by almost 400% in recent 2 years - the Russian reserve fund has only dropped by 20% in USD and it actually increased in rubbles. I am very far from Putin supporter, and I absolutely dislike what is happening in Russia, but I just don't like when people come up with "facts" by cherrypicking stuff, if you want to be objective - look at the combined data, do not ignore whatever does not fit your narrative. 1 - http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/foreign-exchange-reserves http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/foreign-exchan...

by usaphp 11y ago

alkonaut 11y ago

> Really? What is it based on? The fact that the budget is balanced on a completely different oil price, and no sanctions. The russian reserve funds are falling pretty rapidly, while defense spending is still increasing and over 5%. > Compared to a period after the perestroika, level of life has greatly improved in Russia No doubt. The period after the union dissolved standard off living rapidly rose. The period of openness over the last decade meant great growth and together with rising oil prices it saw rising standards of living. This only changed in the last years with falling oil prices and sanctions which have seen prices rise at a faster rate than wages and pensions. This is also known as a "sinking standard of living". Russian price and wage indices aren't subjective or secret information so please let's not debate whether you can e.g. buy more or less food for a teachers' salary in 2016 than 2013. I'm talking about the very last years now, not the period since 1990. > stability which they think Putin gives them. I don't blame them. Putin saw great economic success in his early years. I do however consider it foolish to vote for an authoritarian if the cost of this stability is lack of opposition and lack of free press, which has been the result in recent years. > what do you mean by "free press" The methodology used by Reporters Without Borders is a pretty decent one: "[The level of] pluralism, media independence, environment and self-censorship, legislative framework, transparency, and infrastructure. The questionnaire takes account of the legal framework for the media (including penalties for press offences, the existence of a state monopoly for certain kinds of media and how the media are regulated) and the level of independence of the public media." As I posted earlier, Russia fares no better than Belarus in this matter (a totalitarian dictatorship!) and also little better than many third world failed states, which is just embarrassing for a mostly developed country like Russia. > Isn't most of the popular media in UK or US owned and heavily censored by corporate leaders or government parties? Yes, a lot of the press is owned by corporations, or non political organizations, or political parties, or individuals. A lot of it has a party bias. That's entirely natural. Pluralism is the key -- e.g. are there media outlets representing all political parties etc? Is there excessive control of one type of media such as TV by a government entity? Self-censorship is a problem, but this problem is accounted for in the freedom-of-press index. > What makes this media "free" and media in Russia "not free". It's not black and white, it's a scale from completely unfree (North Korea) to completely free (Nowhere!). Somewhere along this scale we can argue that is are "free" and somewhere I'd argue they are not free. Where one draws that line is entirely arbitrary. Out of pure interest - if you yourself were to use the freedom of press ranking to draw a line somewhere above north korea where you consider the press to be "free", which state is that? Since it is below Russia in the ranking, where is it? Belarus? Cuba? Saudi Arabia? I do suspect this -- you will not be able to pick a state on that list as being below Russia but still enjoying press freedom. What you will have to do instead is a) dismiss reporters without borders and their "freedom of press index" as a western invention deviced to make "western style media" look good, while painting the Russian media landscape as failed, or b) claim that no country on the rank has free press, even Finland at the top spot, since hey, all media in Finland are owned and self censored by individuals and corporations or parties or organizations... If you are going to do a) or b) above, don't bother - you'd be better of not responding.

usaphp 11y ago
> The russian reserve funds are falling pretty rapidly Any data to back up that claim? Looking at the national reserve fund data it does not look to be anywhere near "falling pretty rapidly" [1] Also Russian national debt has decreased by quite a lot in recent years [2], and now is only about 25% of GDP, which is a very low figure compared to other countries. 1 - https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A0%D0%B5%D0%B7%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B2%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9_%D1%84%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B4_%D0%A0%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%B9%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B9_%D0%A4%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%86%D0%B8%D0%B8 https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A0%D0%B5%D0%B7%D0%B5%D1%80... 2 - https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%BD%D0%B5%D1%88%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B9_%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B3_%D0%A0%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%B8 https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%BD%D0%B5%D1%88%D0%BD...
- alkonaut 11y ago
  The fund shrunk by 20% in the last two years (from 2014 to 2016) due to the sanctions and low oil prices. I'd say 10% on a per-year basis is pretty fast. http://old.minfin.ru/en/nationalwealthfund/statistics/amount/index.php?id_4=5830 http://old.minfin.ru/en/nationalwealthfund/statistics/amount...
  - usaphp 11y ago
    Why are you only cherry picking the data that fits your narrative? The link you included shows that since the time when Putin become a president in 2008 - reserve fund increased by more than 230% in USD and almost 10X in rubbles, the recent drop in reserve fund in USD is happening because of the oil prices decrease (same thing is happening with US national reserve [1]) , but even thought oil prices dropped by almost 400% in recent 2 years - the Russian reserve fund has only dropped by 20% in USD and it actually increased in rubbles. I am very far from Putin supporter, and I absolutely dislike what is happening in Russia, but I just don't like when people come up with "facts" by cherrypicking stuff, if you want to be objective - look at the combined data, do not ignore whatever does not fit your narrative. 1 - http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/foreign-exchange-reserves http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/foreign-exchan...