Свобода!!!! Freedom!!!

Свобода!!!!

In a radical turn around from previous statements, the mayor and city council of Moscow have announced that as of tomorrow, 9 June 2020,  all curfews, walking times by building and electronic pass in Moscow will end, period. 

On the 14th all summer cafes will also open.

Previously, the mayor Mr. Sobyanin had stated that the next phase of easing of restrictions would only commence on the 14th and that it would last months. That there would be no big celebrations on the 24th June, when the rescheduled 75th Victory Parade is to take place and so on. 

Guess our president V.V. Putin showed the mayor who is boss. Thank God.

This is the second good news of the week, as this week summer has finally arrived and the rainy weather with temps in the low to mid 10s, which has hung over Moscow and surrounding areas, form Europe, has been in place for some 4 weeks. Now temperatures are in the upper 20s to lower 30s and rising and sunny.

Just perfect weather for the residents of Moscow, some 13-17 million, to come out to the parks for fresh air, sunshine, vitamin D and exercise, just what is needed to boost immune systems.

 

https://tass.ru/obschestvo/8675085

Russia Is Well Positioned UPDATE 4 (1 June 2020)

Despite the "best wishes" of the Western mass media that everything in Russia is failing, the reality of the situation is that Russia is uniquely positioned to rebound economically faster and stronger then the over leveraged West.

Even the NYT came to this conclusion "Thanks to Sanctions, Russia Is Cushioned From Virus’s Economic Shocks", true, you can taste the bile in the first half of the article, but then they get to the various points.

Russia has been cut off from the Western financial markets, Russia has been busy regrowing its industry for the past 7 years and Russia has a huge reserve of over $600 billion set aside for occurrences just like this with a government debt of less than 10% to GDP. But this is not enough, what Russia has, unlike the West, is a leadership that is ahead of the curve.

The Russian leadership has foreseen what is coming down the road and has taken key steps to block that road as best as possible. Russia instantly closed the borders with China, while infected people from China were still traveling everywhere. Russia closed commercial flights with the rest of the world more slowly and that did allow for the infection to leak in. Either way, for what ever reasons: Grace of God, cold weather, partial immunity from TB vaccines, the virus has been slow to spread and the rate of full recovery is 5 times to that of deaths, while globally right now its about 2 to 1, of the officially recognized infections.

The Russian government has stock piled medical equipment and has retooled very quickly to manufacture additional equipment and materials, enough so as to send aid to 14 other nations, including the US, as well as 15 plane loads of trucks and personnel to aid Italy, bringing lacking equipment, such as disinfectant machines, spreaders, and liquid as well as over 200 doctors and military biochem experts. Russia has disinfected over a twenty hospitals and homes for the old, as well as building field hospitals, throughout hard hit northern Italy.

Russia has over 44000 artificial/assisted breathing machines and two large manufacturers are working 24/7 manufacturing more. As a comparison, Japan with the world's oldest population, a population of 120 million, has only 24000 and 10000 are already occupied by the sick from other infections. Milan, Italy had 48.

But more so then the medical preparedness, is the economic steps that Russia has taken to make sure that a post infection economic crash does not come at the end of the month long quarantine.

Europe and the US panicked, sending everyone into lock down without a single thought about how the already financially overstretched and struggling populations will feed themselves and survive a month plus without money to buy food and in some cases without food, not to mention pay rents, credit debts and utilities. All plans came only as an after thought, not much for proper full spectrum planning. Over 10 million have filed for unemployment in the US alone, in just two weeks. Unheard of numbers.

The Russian government, spearheaded by President Putin has avoided this and has put in key points for both the workers and the small and medium businesses. They are as follows:

For people:

1. 50% increase to unemployment benefits by the Federal government, so that unemployment will not be less than the minimum allowed salary. Sure a person will not be eating steaks on this but he will not be starving either. Unemployment is available to anyone who has worked for at least 4 months previously. As a comparison, in the US unemployment is available only to those who work full time, on contract pay (not hourly workers) and has worked at least 12 months previously.

2. Provinces will add to the unemployment payout as much as their budgets allow. Moscow for one will double the unemployment payouts of the Federal government.

3. Sick leave pay has also been increased by 50%.

4. People facing unemployment or inability to pay credit due to pay cuts are now able to take a 6 month credit holiday from payments. Banks, by law, have 3 days to process the paperwork and freeze credits.

5. Pensions will be indexed +6%.

6. Filing for Bankruptcy is now free.

For business:

1. For small and medium businesses percent free loans to pay salaries up to 20 million rubles ($270.000 at current exchange rates) without a need to pay back for 8 months after the emergency is lifted.

2. Rents owed on Federally owned lands and infrastructure waived for 8 months.

3. All taxes on rent givers are waved in exchange for them lowering the rent payments demanded from their renters.

4. All business taxes, with the exception of VAT, are waved for 6 months.

5. Large funds for investment in support of whole business sectors.

6. Bankruptcy for businesses can be stalled for 8 months.

Other ideas are still being worked out.

As you can see, the Russian government is dead set on making sure Russian bounces back fast, hard and ahead of its Western competition. But to make sure Russia does not become a temporary slush fund for Western credit, two additional laws were passed:

1. a 13% tax on all percents, dividends and other earnings on deposits or investments over 1 million rubles. This is only on the money earned, as money making money will now be equated to income, unlike in many countries, so the rich will pay their fair share along with all workers.

2. a 15% tax on all monies being transferred out of Russia. So it will no longer be a quick slush fund and get the cash out later, doing damage to the economy built on those monies. At least a portion will remain in the country to be put back into the economy.

Now we will wait and see what other new projects or laws will come in and only time will tell who in 2 months will be standing, who will be on their knees and who will be on the floor bleeding out with a white chalk outline.

God Bless.

Update 6 April 2020

The situation on the ground has continued to evolve, with several governmental and non-governmental actions starting to continue easing life for Russians and Russian business.

1. Sberbank has created a payment holiday for its clients, for up to 6 months. This, unfortunately, does not mean that percents are not accuring, but payments can be put off, as follows:
   -- Mortgages up to 1.5 million rubles
   -- personal loans up to 250.000 rubles
   -- automobile loans up to 600.000 rubles
   -- credit cards up to 100.000 rubles
   -- small business short term loans up to 300.000 rubles
While the sums are small, it is a start.

2. Government has cut pension contributions from businesses for their employees by 50%. This is the biggest chunk of the payroll taxes that a business has to pay.

3. Internet- all major internet providers have agreed that they will not cut service for those who are unable to pay, during the crisis period, however long it lasts.

Update 8 April 2020

The Russian government has allocated 10 billion rubles ($133 million) to double the salaries of medical personnel fighting the Coronavirus out break.

Emergency salary loans to small and medium businesses are now full operative and are being turned around in under a day. Bank staff are working from 0800 to 2400 daily.

Update 17 April 2020

In order to recharge the economy once the locks downs are over, the Russian government is now offering guaranteed 6.5% mortgages, with the government picking up the tab for any percentage above the 6.5% level. The mortgage level limit is 5 million rubles for Moscow and St. Petersburg and 3 million for the rest of the country.

Update 1 June 2020

The Russian government has now started to pay a one time sum of 10,000 rubles per child between the ages of 5 and 16. The first deposits have started and parents have up to the end of September to file.

Government loans to small and medium businesses for the purpose of paying salaries have now been modified so that if 90% of the work force is kept on, the government will wave the debt totally. If 80% of the work force is kept, 50% will be waved.

The Long Suffering Has Just Begun

Switch on the news, talk to anyone, read anything, run for your life but Coronavirus stories will follow you right along, you can not escape them. Social Distancing, Isolation, Quarantine are the catch phrases of the Spring of 2020. It is the Spring of Panic, but soon it will be the Summer of Anger and Blood.

As governments panic, as politicians choose the “hard” decisions of forced lock downs, they give only secondary thoughts to the facts that they have jammed a klinok, a dagger, into the very hearts of their economies and even less to what that means on the longer scale.

Italy was the first, who nation wide shut it all down, except for pharmacies and grocers. However they gave little thought that the average modern family has only 2-3 days worth of food in their pantry or that the average city has only 5-7 days in stock city wide. Sure distributors are still working and distribution centers have another 15-20 days worth of non-perishables or frozen goods. Forget about the fresh fruits and vegetables to be imported, with docks shut down, workers are home, who will unload, who will stamp the authorizations, who will move the goods. They will rot, which means citizens do not have access at their grocer and shippers and purchasers will lose their shirts. Same goes for imported drugs and drug sub-components.

Further, if these disruptions continue past 2-3 weeks, the distribution centers will run out and with upstream manufacturing, processing and farming effectively shut down, where exactly will the next wave of food come from? Government warehouses of dry store emergency rations? That will stoke anger in a public used to choice and freshness. It is one thing when that public is surrounded by the devastation of war or a natural catastrophe and  has acknowledged psychologically the predicament. It is quite another when their neat lives are disrupted by a flu-like virus they can not see and may not see the patients of. Then their quiet and busy lives have turned to first boredom and then hunger and then anger.

In parallel, most people will now be devoid of their base incomes as well. Most people do not work in such jobs that they can work remotely. Most of the average humanity works either in manufacturing or in services that requires both a server and a customer to be at there locations. Countries such as Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Georgia are tourist intensive, that is from a quarter to half their income is based on tourism and this panic and government quarantines have put a big fat x on all of it.

Sure governments are making half measured steps, such as the US government plans (and only plans at this point) to send out $1000 per worker for 1 month. In the US this will at best pay rent on an apartment and if the family lives in a really cheap, run down ghetto, it may have some left over for utilities. Groceries? Seriously? Insurance? Medicine? Europe is making equally half step measures with Italy banning the charging of rent during the lock down and France stopping the payment of utilities.

But these are half measures and with most workers in the “prosperous” West now surviving paycheck to paycheck, the minus of that one paycheck will mean they will have nothing to buy those groceries with within a couple of weeks to a month at most. Worst, with all other businesses closed down, they will not even be able to sell off their goods for quick cash. This means either the government will have to step in in a large way or starvation, anger, rage and rioting, looting will become the order of the day.

The cycle starts to feed upon itself, demanding from bankrupt governments, already drowning in debt, to print or raise more monies, from economies they murdered, to pay for the bailout of millions of their citizens who will otherwise riot and burn down the city and country.

And even if they are able to pay these sums and sustain their people and feed them and pull up these quarantines in a month and try to get things back without burned out neighborhoods and riot police, what then? Millions of businesses, small and medium and tens of millions of workers, will be out of work, mass unemployment, demanding yet more money and economies left in taters as unemployed citizens buy less and less and feed the downward cycle. Sure, the big connected corporations will get big connected bailouts, but everyone else? Not quite so lucky. Least we forget, in an advanced economy, small and medium businesses make up to half the employment. In a post industrial economy this could be as high as 75-80%. What then?

Unfortunately, few in most governments understand or bother to think through economic impacts. They fail to understand what long term implication or even medium term implications their actions will have. They are reactionary, virtue signaling popularity queens who were elected because they promised more, talked sweeter, looked better then their competition. This is the reality of behind the façade of democracy and its only one global catastrophe away from crushing its own society, and that Come to Jesus moment is upon us all now.