Putin and the Current Russian Economy

In Search of Putin’s Russia – Part 2 Arising from the Ruble

Al Jazeera (2015)

Film Review

In the second episode of In Search of Putin’s Russia, Russian journalist filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov examines Russia’s 2014 economic crisis, which he blames on falling oil prices and US and EU sanctions.

Overall he feels the sanctions (and more importantly Russian counter sanctions) have helped strengthen Russia’s domestic food and industrial production. At the same time the sanctions have hurt many ordinary Russians, in part due to really low salaries. For example, the average Russian teacher earns $300 a month.

The drop in the value of the ruble has led to many home foreclosures. Ever since the Soviet collapse, Russian banks only issue mortgages in foreign currencies. Because Russians are paid in rubles, they could no longer keep up with payments when the value of the ruble dropped 40% in 2014.

Access to health care is also a major issue owing to the collapse of the state-run Soviet health care system. This is especially true in rural areas where people are too poor to pay privately for care.

Most health care funding seems to come from charities, which also raise funds to keep children out of orphanages when their parents are too poor to provide for them. Russia’s current economic crisis has placed a growing number of families in this predicament.

 

 

6 thoughts on “Putin and the Current Russian Economy

  1. Russia has plenty of resources and know-how, to not be involved in nuclear madness . They foisting it off on the world for profit, death , and nuclear madness.
    There is no reasonable or feasibly safe way to sequester nuclear waste . it will remain active for thousands of years.

    http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/01/31/world/storage-nuclear-waste-global-crisis-stockpile-reaches-250000-tons-greenpeace-warns/?fbclid=IwAR00RzAI7RE8_Ah6UNMnQSYwLuhJMotFjkRq2s0_ZxCGGrKKcYQOdsPr9eY#.XFM4yzQRYZU.facebook

    Two cities in China rose up and protested against nuclear reactors in their area and the government listened.
    The Chinese are getting out of nuclear and are the largest renewable producers in the world

    https://nuclear-news.net/2019/02/04/countries-going-into-deep-nuclear-debt-to-russia-hungary-the-latest-victim-of-this-political-blackmail/

    Like

    • From what I understand, Gloria, China has a really strong environmental movement – from what I’ve heard the central government covertly encourages the environmental movement to help keep corrupt provincial leaders in check. To the best of my knowledge, Russia has no viable environmental movement – which leaves their oligarchs free to spread their nuclear madness around the world. It’s a great pity.

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