Whatabout poverty COVID style

[panama hat]

When one compares government debt levels of Russia and the USA, how on earth do you infer

You and Skidmark have a remarkable ability to ignore what you wish, turn the discussion and then question why . . .


I didn't compare the US and Russian debt levels - you did.

Yep. A failed state with the 5th most foreign exchange reserves in the world

Here another one - Excellent, the 5th most blah blah bah . . . I can't be bothered anymore checking if your shit is just more made up shit . . . but regardless - if your measure of a 'successful' state is just that then good for you.

Both you and Sabang (together with Klondyke and OhOh ) have this habit of clinging onto one point which you thinks trumps all else - discussion is then closed.

Go on Skidmark, tell me how having the 5th largest blah blah blah helps the people:

Russia's rising poverty fuels political discontent


Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, crowds have grown at the Martha and Mary Convent in central Moscow.


The white-walled women's monastery houses one of Russia's best known charities that gives out free food parcels, among other projects.


"Before the pandemic we had around 30 to 40 people a day," Yelena Timoshchuk, a social worker at Miloserdie (Mercy) told AFP, leaning against a table loaded with bottles of sunflower oil.

"Now we get about 50 to 60 people daily. It's a heavy workload."


Many of the visitors who queue for packages containing buckwheat, sugar, and tea are retired but there are also those who have lost their jobs or had their salaries cut.


The coronavirus pandemic has delivered a new blow to Russia's stagnating economy, which was already chafing under Western sanctions, low oil prices and weak corporate investment.


Observers say that rising poverty, falling incomes and lack of tangible government support during the pandemic are fuelling discontent with President Vladimir Putin's two-decade rule and strengthening the opposition.


Answering the jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny's call, tens of thousands of people have protested across Russia over the past few weeks, and his team plans more protests ahead of parliamentary elections in September.


Russians' real disposable incomes have been falling for the past half-decade, and contracted by 3.5 percent in 2020, while the cost of basic foodstuffs surged.


Aware of growing anger over falling living standards, Putin in December ordered ministers to introduce emergency measures to cap prices.


Despite government efforts to rein in inflation, the cost of sugar was 64-percent higher in January than it was a year earlier.


Wearing a red cap over long braids, 66-year-old Sandra said she had stopped going shopping and instead turned to Miloserdie's free food parcels.


"You can't buy anything anymore," said the pensioner, who did not give her last name. "Before I could afford to feed the birds but now even grain is expensive."


- 'Risks have increased' -


"From the point of view of political consequences, the current situation does not look good," said Igor Nikolayev, head of strategic analysis at FBK Grant Thornton.


"The risks for the authorities have increased."


Older Russians were particularly "very sensitive" about rising prices because they brought to mind runaway inflation that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Nikolayev said.


He suggested the Russian government might unveil a new economic package to dampen social discontent ahead of the parliamentary polls.


"They have to do something," added Nikolayev.


According to a recent poll by the independent Levada Centre, 43 percent of Russians do not rule out protests motivated by economic demands, a level last seen in 1998.


The study also found that 17 percent of respondents were ready to take part in those protests themselves.


Denis Volkov, deputy director at Levada, said recent protests showed that anger at the authorities was no longer limited to the marginalised opposition and that many demonstrators were motivated by economic hardship.


The protesters wanted to "express their disappointment with the authorities, concern over a lack of prospects and the dead end in which our country has found itself according to them," Volkov wrote in the Russian edition of Forbes last month.


"Authorities have nothing to offer to those who are unhappy over their policies," he added, pointing to "ostentatious wealth" of the Russian elites and growing divisions in society.


Eighteen-year-old Yekaterina Nikiforova, who joined pro-Navalny rallies in the Pacific port of Vladivostok, said the country was stagnating.


The political science student told AFP she could not see "any prospects of economic and political development" in Russia.


Arseny Dmitriyev, 22, who rallied on the other side of the country in the second city Saint Petersburg, struck a similar note.


The sociology graduate said he understood "how things are going for the county".


"Just looking at the statistics I understand that real disposable incomes are falling and the quality of life is not improving".

Russia's rising poverty fuels political discontent - France 24

Just a hint for you both, and Klondyke and OhOh . . . there are not only three countries on this world. China, Russia and the US may be the three largest in many ways but they are not de-facto comparables.

[sabang]

I didn't compare the US and Russian debt levels - you did.

Indeed, after you said that Russia could not afford it's military- which of course, like the Pentagon, is funded by the government.

[panama hat]

Indeed, after you said that Russia could not afford it's military- which of course, like the Pentagon, is funded by the government.

And your comparison is still irrelevant and Klondyke-like whataboutism at its 'best'.

Who gives a shit about the US when the discussion is about Russia and its inability to feed its people. Knowing that the US has its difficulties doesn't help/feed/sustain some Russian who is freezing to death while starving.

Why is it so difficult for you acknowledge shortcomings in some places yet gleefully highlight the same, or to a far lesser degree, in others.

Whataboutism, sabang - it's beneath you. Leave it to morons like Skidmark, OhOh and Klodyke

[sabang]

some Russian who is freezing to death while starving.

Give me some examples of a Russian that is freezing to death while starving. I think you may be confusing it with Yeltsin's Russia. Exaggerating some?
I acknowledge shortcomings in Russia, indeed in every place. When did I ever say otherwise? I also acknowledge Putins buoyant popularity in Russia- unlike you.
You are the ones(s) trying to dehumanise and treat the Russian people as if they are brainless robots- not I. I prefer to listen to them, instead.
Normal people such as these- just like you and I really, but Russian. Are they not allowed to have an opinion that differs from you? Could you show me the starving, threadbare ones please?

[panama hat]

Examples?
Ok
Aleksei Petrenko
Natasha Volgarov

On the other hand John Smith and Mary Jones in the US didn't die.

I am now using the sabang/Klondike/skidmark/ohoh debating style.

You lose

[bsnub]

You are the ones(s) trying to dehumanise and treat the Russian people as if they are brainless robots

Spewing utter nonsense as usual.

I prefer to listen to them, instead.

By watching RT.

[sabang]

Petrenko died in 2017 at the age of 78, in Moscow. An actor. He was Ukrainian born.

Aleksei Petrenko - Wikipedia

I can find no reference to the other person. You're getting catty. Are you saying these people died freezing and starving? Show me some evidence, don't just throw a Russian name. You are losing all credibility.

^ A'hhh, talking of brainless. you could watch the Youtube video too, einstein.

[bsnub]

A'hhh, talking of brainless. you could watch the Youtube video too, einstein.

I watched it months ago. It is just some Russians in an upscale district in Moscow. Not representative of life outside the capital where most of the people live.

[sabang]

Can't get much further from Moscow. I knew a Russian teacher couple from one of the coldest cities in Siberia, back in Ubon. Wow, they were normal people too- nice actually.
Perhaps quit drinking the Koolaid, and realise that other people are human just like you. Try asking and listening to them. Right now, you guys sound like damn radical Jihadi's.

[panama hat]

I can find no reference to the other person.

Igor Novchenko and Svetlana Novgarod

Both died of starvation and hypothermia because they couldn't afford rent.


You asked for examples. I provided them.

13 Deaths to Single Russian Region


At least 13 people have died due to cold in the Far East Russian region of Buryatia so far this new year, with alcohol a common denominator in their deaths.

Bitter Cold Brings 13 Deaths to Single Russian Region

Yea, starvation . . . lack of medical care . . . alcoholism . . . etc . . . Failed state

Are you saying these people died freezing and starving?

I am

Show me some evidence, don't just throw a Russian name. You are losing all credibility.

Welcome to the

sabang/Klondike/skidmark/ohoh debating style.

You and your cohorts like dishing out your shit this way but now you don't like it?

Can't have it both ways


While we're at it:

21M Russians Live in Poverty, Official Data Says

The number of Russians living below the poverty line has grown by half a million since early 2018, according to official data.

Russia’s poverty rates totaled 14.3%, or 20.9 million people, in January-March 2019, according to Russia’s State Statistics Service (Rosstat). That’s up from 13.9%, or 20.4 million people, in January-March 2018.
Authorities set the minimum subsistence level for January-March at 10,753 rubles ($169), up from 10,038 rubles ($158) the previous year.

21M Russians Live in Poverty, Official Data Says - The Moscow Times


20 million under the subsistence level at $169 ffs . . . $169


You want proof? There's your proof.

[sabang]

Russian average life expectancy actually reached an all time high of 73.4 years in 2019.

This link may be of interest. Compare it to the Yeltsin years.

Russia Life Expectancy 1950-2021 | MacroTrends

[Backspin]

38 million people live in poverty in the US. That's before covid 19.

Oh I fucking know that the US has a bigger population. But this is allegedly the richest (sic) country on zee planet we are talking.

[panama hat]

38 million people live in poverty in the US.

More whataboutism

Oh I fucking know that the US has a bigger population.

No shit, Sherlock. 140 million vs 350 million, you utter muppet. Added to which, the level of subsistence is much higher in the US which would increase the number compared to Russia - do you understand that????

Oh, Switzerland has fewer people living below the poverty line. I know it has a smaller population but it is blah blah blah

But this is allegedly the richest (sic) country on zee planet we are talking.

Umm, who says it is and why do you use <sic>?

[Klondyke]

13 Deaths to Single Russian Region

At least 13 people have died due to cold in the Far East Russian region of Buryatia so far this new year, with alcohol a common denominator in their deaths.

I am surprised what is here the debate about? About whataboutism? In the tread of Navalny? Isn't it off topic?

I was deleted yesterday only when I remarked that there are so many "rising poverty" everywhere around, not naming anybody), just referring to the post before...

Do we have here new rules?

[panama hat]

I am surprised

. . . at how you're still breathing after vodka and those shit Russian cigarettes have destroyed your body?

[misskit]

Seems I posted this before somewhere, but here goes again.


US suffers sharpest rise in poverty rate in more than 50 years

The end of 2020 brought the sharpest rise in the U.S. poverty rate since the 1960s, according to a new study.
Economists Bruce Meyer from the University of Chicago and James Sullivan of the University of Notre Dame found that the poverty rate increased by 2.4 percentage points during the latter half of 2020 as the U.S. continued to suffer the economic impacts of COVID-19.

That percentage-point rise is nearly double the largest annual increase in poverty since the 1960s. This means an additional 8 million people nationwide are now considered poor. Moreover, the poverty rate for Black Americans is estimated to have jumped by 5.4 percentage points, or by 2.4 million individuals.


The scholars’ findings, released Monday, put the rate at 11.8% in December. While poverty is down from readings of more than 15% a decade earlier, the new estimates suggest that the annual Census Bureau tally due in September will be higher than the last official, pre-pandemic level of 10.5% in 2019.

Black Americans were more than twice as likely to be poor than their white counterparts in December — an improvement from the summer months when they were nearly three times more apt to live in poverty — but an increase from before the pandemic, when the differential was under two.

Despite improvements in the overall poverty rate since the middle of the 20th century, Black Americans had been about three times as likely to be poor as white Americans for most of the past 60 years. The gap started to narrow after the financial crisis, during the longest economic expansion in history.


These December poverty estimates are based on survey data collected late in the month after some government relief measures expired. The researchers found that the stimulus checks the federal government issued in the spring helped forestall the poverty rate from rising even faster.

In late December, $900 billion in additional federal relief aid was passed, and President Joe Biden is asking Congress for an additional $1.9 trillion in stimulus.

US suffers sharpest rise in poverty rate in more than 50 years - Chicago Tribune

[Backspin]

More whataboutism


?

i used sic because i dont agree with the claim that the US is the richest cuntry in the wor;d

whataboutism: what racist Russophobes call comparative analysis and context when hypocritical agitprop exposed

[misskit]

Covid-19-driven recession may see Russian economy contract by 4.5% & a million plunged into poverty, says finance guru Kudrin

The economic consequences of Covid-19 are becoming clearer, and they aren't good. The number of Russians in poverty is projected to grow by about a million by the end of 2020, with the overall economy due to fall as much as 4.5%.


That's according to the Chairman of the Accounts Chamber and former Finance Minister Alexey Kudrin, who revealed on Saturday the current projections for the state of the country's finances.


“Poverty will increase by about a million people,” he told the All-Russian Civil Forum on Saturday. “Unfortunately, we won't bounce back as much in the coming years. This means that we need to focus on those people who need support.”


Kudrin also noted that the standard of living has significantly decreased over the past five years, and Covid-19 will accelerate this further.


The former finance minister also predicted an economic downturn of up to 4.5 percent this year. According to the economist, this is a bad drop, but significantly better than the European average (8-9%), explicitly referring to the poor performance of the United Kingdom (11%).


“A crisis like this, when the entire global economy is falling by about four percent and even the Chinese economy is growing less than usual, means a new reality for the whole world.”


Earlier this month, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) complimented Russia on weathering the worst of the crisis, but advised Russia to “extend support for its people and firms until the recovery is properly entrenched.”


Covid-19-driven recession may see Russian economy contract by 4.5% & a million plunged into poverty, says finance guru Kudrin — RT Russia & Former Soviet Union

[Backspin]

Ah Kudrin..A Putin "crony". He was awarded finance minister of the year by Euromoney in 2010.

Euromoney Finance minister of the year 2010: Kudrin’s cautious approach pays off for Russia

[misskit]

In a Poor Russian City, Coronavirus Hits Hard


The pandemic has combined with poverty to push Ivanovo’s healthcare system to its breaking point.

IVANOVO — In this hardscrabble city in central Russia, the morgues are full and well-paid jobs are scarce.


Though many of Russia’s outlying regions are struggling with the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, Ivanovo — a working-class city of 400,000 located 300 kilometers northeast of Moscow — is coping worse than most.


“It’s impossible to see a doctor,” Alexei Kucherov, a 33-year-old IT specialist, told The Moscow Times. “You have to wait hours or even days for an ambulance to come. But it’s not the doctors’ fault, there just aren’t enough of them.”


Despite its location just four hours by train from Moscow, Ivanovo is one of Russia’s poorest cities, with average monthly salaries around a third of those in the capital. That has left its healthcare system teetering during the coronavirus pandemic as doctors have traditionally sought higher-paying employment elsewhere.


With the surge in Covid-19 cases in Russia’s regions in recent weeks, Ivanovo’s already beleaguered health system has been placed under acute strain. While authorities have announced an increase in hospital capacity to cope with the emergency, many locals report long waits for coronavirus testing and treatment.

Official figures put the Ivanovo region’s daily death tolls in single figures, with 155 new cases and three deaths on Nov. 20, but local media reports suggest that Russia’s classification method means the real figure may be substantially higher. Local healthcare authorities have stated that up to 15 people in the region are dying of coronavirus every day.


At a recent meeting of the State Duma’s healthcare committee, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova described the situation in Ivanovo as “critical,” with the region’s hospitals having exceeded 95% capacity.


On Monday, Ivanovo region’s healthcare chief Artur Fokin made it clear that the things are getting worse, saying that the region’s Covid-19 caseload had substantially increased.


“Because of this, we are now looking for additional refrigerators, because the morgues are already unable to store the bodies,” he said.


Ivanovo ranks 81st out of 85 Russian regions by average monthly salary, according to a 2019 analysis by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency. The region’s GDP per capita is Russia’s sixth lowest, weighing in at around $3,000 — comparable with that of Tajikistan.

A particular casualty of Ivanovo’s poverty has been its healthcare system. According to data compiled by the state statistics agency Rosstat, an Ivanovo doctor can expect to earn the equivalent of $627 a month, with other medics like nurses and ambulance drivers making around $321 — both the lowest average salaries in central Russia for healthcare professionals, and nationwide ahead only of the impoverished republics of the North Caucasus. Meanwhile, Moscow-based medical staff on average earn over three times as much.


According to several Ivanovo healthcare professionals who spoke to The Moscow Times on condition of anonymity, the prospect of higher salaries in other regions has led to colleagues resigning in pursuit of more lucrative employment elsewhere, despite government bonuses for healthcare personnel working on the frontlines of the pandemic.


Even so, many were reluctant to blame the local authorities, or healthcare professionals, seeing the crisis in Ivanovo as the natural result of many years of stretched resources.


“It’s not really anyone’s fault. People can just get more money working privately, or in other regions,” said Alexei, an Ivanovo region ambulance driver interviewed by The Moscow Times by phone.


‘City of Brides’
A century ago, Ivanovo was an industrial powerhouse. Then the center of Russia’s booming textile industry, it was popularly known as “The Russian Manchester” — a reference to the English city that was the hub of the world’s cotton trade — and “The City of Brides,” on account of its mostly female garment workers.


But the collapse of the Soviet Union hit Ivanovo harder than most provincial Russian cities. The loss of the Central Asian cotton fields that had supplied the city’s mills and the arrival in Russia of cheaper Chinese fabrics sent the city’s signature industry into a downward spiral from which it has never recovered.

Though many Russian cities outside Moscow and St. Petersburg have struggled with poverty and unemployment since the collapse of Soviet-era industries, Ivanovo stands out for the extreme depth of its slump.


“Ivanovo is just so much poorer even than the neighboring regions,” said Mikhail, a 27-year-old teacher who declined to give his last name.


“We just don’t have the sort of big IT sector you see in other cities. All the jobs are in construction, security or shop work, so most people can’t afford to stay at home to control the virus.”


Faded grandeur
Today’s Ivanovo is a city of faded grandeur. On the city’s central Lenin Avenue, the crumbling mansions of 19th-century textile barons jostle for space with Soviet-era apartment blocks. The vast mills that once employed most of the population either stand empty, or have been converted into budget shopping centers.


In cafes and restaurants, and on the marshrutka minibuses that rattle up and down the streets, mask-wearing and social distancing is observed patchily, despite the threat of a 15,000 ruble ($196) fine — equivalent to half an average monthly salary – for rulebreakers.


Teacher Mikhail said he sees Ivanovo’s extreme coronavirus crisis as a reflection of the city’s underlying difficulties.


“It’s not as though we have people lying in the streets, dying from Covid here. The situation is bad, but it’s because of our economic problems, which are much more deep-rooted than just the pandemic.”


Ivanovo also suffers from its proximity to Moscow. With a new high-speed train taking just four hours to reach the capital, it is easier than ever to seek employment in Moscow, where the median monthly salary of $866 is more than three times that of Ivanovo. As such, many locals seek temporary security and construction work in the capital, rotating between the cities. With the pandemic, however, much of that work has vanished.


Pandemic or no pandemic, in Ivanovo everyday life must go on.


“This is just a depressed region,” said Roman Golov, a 41-year-old self-employed carpenter who has had to take on poorly-paid security work to make ends meet during the pandemic.


“There’s just very little work here. We’re not Moscow. What can we do?”


In a Poor Russian City, Coronavirus Hits Hard

[harrybarracuda]

Indeed, after you said that Russia could not afford it's military- which of course, like the Pentagon, is funded by the government.

In fairness, with the amount of money it earns off oil and gas, even at current prices, there would be plenty to go around if Vlad and his cronies weren't fucking nicking it all.

[David48atTD]

38 million people live in poverty in the US.

"poverty" ... is a relative thing.

"Rich" used to be when you could replace your horse with a car.

"Rich" used to be when you were the first family in the neighbourhood to get a BnW TV (well, that's what my Dad said)

But I richly digress

[sabang]

I still vaguely remember when dad got his first car, and we got our first TV. I preferred the radio back then actually.
As far as Russia goes, there are poorer European countries now- such as Ukraine & Moldova.

[panama hat]

As far as Russia goes, there are poorer European countries now- such as Ukraine & Moldova.

Excellent, good for Russia. The starving and freezing Russians will feel better now . . . and virtually every other country in Europe is wealthier and healthier.

[sabang]

Don't think I'll be moving to Siberia any time soon.