Quote:
Originally Posted by Gantz
Wow so much hate on Russia in this thread, many good posts, but a lot of people are clouded by mainstream media and can't discern reality from propaganda. As a disclaimer I am not a Putin apologist, I am just here listing some facts:
Claim #1: Moscow/Russia is not a European country.
Fact: It is self-evident that the central Russian region is decidedly European. If you ever go to Moscow/Russia and travel around the world, you'll know it right away. St. Petersburg in particular is one of the most beautiful cities in Europe hands down.
Claim #2: Russia has huge income inequality.
Fact: Russia is around average when it comes to income inequality. Other big developing nations have much bigger income inequality compared to Russia such as Mexico, Brazil, or Chile. Oddly enough for many members on this board, under Putin Russian income inequality went down. Putin main support base are the poor/uneducated and minorities (ethnic Russians have lower support for Putin compared to other ethnicities), not oligarchs or the rich.
Claim #3: Russia is not part of global financial system/everything is state-owned.
Fact: There are roughly 6,000 banks currently operating in Russia, a vast majority of them are private banks and have no connection to Russian government whatsoever and are not in western media eye for sanctions. Russia is a member of all major economic global organizations such as WTO, APEC, SCO, OSCE, etc. Russian stock market, banks, and publicly traded companies follow international accounting standards. Moscow stock exchange is a member of Euroclear and Clearstream. It is also in the top10 exchanges in the world when it comes to derivatives trades.
Claim #4: Russian population has been falling for decades, everyone is an alcoholic/drunk and drug addict.
Fact: This is propaganda in 2 parts:
Part 1: Population
Russia, unlike other European countries has natural increase in population. Also, Russia has one of the highest birth rates in Central or Eastern Europe. There are only a handful of European countries with higher rates and the difference between US and Russian TFR is around 0.1-0.2 now. In addition, Russia accepts more immigrants than any other nation, only behind the United States I believe. As a result, most Russian cities are at their historic highs population wise.
Part 2: Alcoholism
Actually Russian per capita alcohol consumption is lower than some other European countries such as Czech Republic, Finland, UK, and is comparable to many others. Overall, Russian alcohol consumption statistics are not outstanding at all, and are not *orders of magnitude* higher that some claim. Of course, Russia is the largest alcohol market in Europe, but this is all due to the size of the population. Oh and they also make vodka...
From my personal tourist experience: I've seen more drunks on the streets in South Korea than in Russia. I'd guess anyone else on this board who have been to Seoul/both countries will concur.
Not sure if I missed anything.
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Saying there are 6,000 banks means nothing in regards to how state owned the financial industry or that they are on the stock market.
Top 5 Russia banks by Assets
Sberbank - Mostly government owned
VTB - Mostly government owned
Gazprombank- Mostly government owned
VTB-24 Mostly government owned
Rosselkhozbank- Government owned
All of Russia's biggest banks that hold most all of the banking assets are government owned whether flat out owned or most of their shares are owned by the government. As many of these companies say their public companies but the shares are owned by the Russian government and most all of there leadership are ex-Russian Politicians. Pretty much any bank in Russia with significant holdings are Russian owned such as Sberbank which is the largest and owns a whooping
30 percent of the amount of banking assets in Russia and has it's shares owned by the Russian Government and German Gref is the chairman and look at the surprise in that he was Minister of Economics and Trade of Russia for Putin for 7 years. Sberbank also receives preferential treatment from the state and holds 73% of all bank deposits.
You can say all you want about the number of banks but when it comes down to it the Russia Government owns or owns majority stake in most all major players and the leadership of these companies are made up of mostly politicians under Putin. Russia is not part of a global financial system for the most part and mostly only does business or influence in ex-soviet influenced countries. The Russian economy is overall far to invested in the government and the state owned energy industry and the little "global" sense they have is being shut out by sanctions.
As for your population quip Russia does have a serious problem with population growth and from 1992-2013 had not seen a natural birth increase which is a serious problem. Even with immigration Russia saw population decline for almost two decades and only last year did it see a very small increase in population. Your tip toeing around the issue by saying they have a higher fertility rate than other central and eastern european countries but it does not change the fact they are barely growing in population with immigration and the UN forecasts population decline overall for many years to come. The article on forbes is right in the situation has been getting better but it still bad overall. It is like saying a company is now doing great because they are slightly profitable after 20 years of decline and loss! It is still a bad situation and the forecasts are not looking good overall again.
I will keep this last part short but while Russians wealth has risen under Putin inequality has not gotten better and the Russians face horrible inequality here is a link to articles that talk about the recent Credit Sussie report which says
"Russia, the bank says, has the highest rate of inequality in the world – barring some small Caribbean islands.
Just how bad is it? Thirty-five percent of household wealth in the country is in the hands of 110 people (Yes, that's right — 110.)."
The article also gives charts comparing the US and Russian and if you do not believe business insider Russia today also reported on it the Russian owned state media. Now while I agree the poor are better off and have more wealth than in the 1990s the inequality has not gotten better.
http://www.businessinsider.com/putti...ective-2013-10
http://rt.com/business/russia-househ...ditsuisse-169/
Claiming people are influenced by the main stream media is foolish when it seems your heavily influenced by Russian propaganda. I realize everything the media says is not true about Russia and other countries face problems also but Russia overall faces serious problems that your trying to brush over like they are not a big deal.
Population, Inequality, Corruption and Government control are four major problems that are not seeming to budge much and are seriously threatening Russia and its stability in the long run.
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