Vladimir Putin is not the first time to communicate with the Russians during the economic downturn. But now the recession lasts for more than a year, stagnation for almost 3 years, and if you look at long-term economic growth, all of seven years, in 2015 Russia’s GDP was higher than in 2008, just 2%.
Given that resources for explosive economic growth have not yet seen, in fact the main task of the President — to force the Russians to accept the lack of income growth. Make it difficult, but, in practice, can.
Putin, referring to the forecast of the government, said that Russia will face a recession in 2016, but in 2017 will certainly rise. However, only 1.4%. Also Vladimir Putin did not forget to say that real disposable incomes have fallen by 4%, while real wages even more.
The growth in agriculture, which is assured Vladimir Putin in the beginning, the reasons for his optimism, actually paid by the increase in food prices, the President recalled later. The growth was purely man-made: the government has imposed an embargo on the import of cheap and good products from Europe and some other countries.
Inflation usually reduces the level stronger the lives of those who have it is not too large, and high food inflation, said the President, primarily hits the poorest segments of the population. That is, “conditions for the development of our agriculture” paid for the poorest Russians, who prefer the term “food security” and “food shortage”.
Vladimir Putin said that the village is home to 40 million Russian citizens — keeping in mind that these 25% of the population are beneficiaries of agricultural growth. But not all those living outside the city work in agriculture, the industry employs only 9% of the working population of the country, it is at best 7.5 million people.
Of course, all these calculations don’t come up with the bulk of the audience “straight line”, and should not come. Citizens, and that, willingly or unwillingly, was shown in a “straight line” is great feel the situation and without knowledge of the introductory course on macroeconomics. Non-payment of wages, maintenance workers in the position of slaves, the growth of utility payments (and that means a reduction of the real disposable spending) are all glaring signs of a slowdown in the economy.
No ways out of recession was proposed. Except that Vladimir Putin once again spoke about Alexei Kudrin, who “will deal with issues associated with the development strategy for the near future, after 2018 and for the longer term”. Kudrin, of course, an experienced bureaucrat, but quite strange to the President to shift responsibility for the recovery of economic growth per person, which even now is not in the public service.
In General we can say that the special format of communication with the nation in recession in the Kremlin have not yet invented. Most likely, such an objective and not standing, although the old way of dealing with all the miseries — the promise of money resources is not enough.
