From the MT:
“As Prices Rise in
Supermarkets, Russian Families Suffer”
(People shop at an Auchan
hypermarket in Moscow. The Auchan retail group has introduced purchase limits on
sugar, vegetable oil, flour and salt per shopper.)
“The frenzied demand in the
Russian food market has already subsided," Vladimir Putin said the other
day. The Russian president made this announcement after the Russian and foreign
media were filled with images of mostly elderly shoppers grabbing up packages
of sugar. To be fair, in this case he wasn’t lying. You don’t see any lines for
sugar these days. But how did prosperity descend on our country so suddenly? The
answer is simple. People were buying up sugar and other products while they
were cheap. And now the situation has changed: Prices for that same sugar rose
by 30-40%. Even the pro-government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta had to admit
it. So frenzied demand smoothly morphed into an
inability of the majority of the population to stock up on food or even buy the
necessities. It’s worth remembering that according to Rosstat, the Russian
statistical agency, before the war there were about 20 million poor people in
the country. In reality, one in four Russian citizens is scrimping to make ends
meet.
FinExpertiza, a financial
consulting agency, once used internationally accepted methodology to calculate
income levels. Their experts found that 24.6 % of the Russian population, or 36
million people, had an income below 60% of the median income. The median income
last year was 27,000 rubles (about $300) per month. That means that a quarter
of the population lives on the brink of poverty with an income of 16,000 rubles
— about $150 — a month. At the same time price increases are — in the
euphemistic words of patriotic Russians — “unparalleled." If it was just
the price of sugar, that would be one thing. But in the city of Kurgan, for
example, the price of onions has gone up 160%. Compared with March of last
year, in Russia as a whole cabbage prices have increased the most among the
major essential foodstuffs: they have risen 209.45% — more than threefold. The
price of sugar went up by half (56%). Buckwheat is up 37.7%, flour —20.61%,
pasta — 21.22%, and almost all fruits and vegetables — onions, tomatoes,
carrots and potatoes — went up by more than 20%. Meat and poultry — beef, lamb,
pork and chicken — rose in price by 12-19%. Although the government is making
the usual statements about “market mechanisms,” in actual fact they took the
most obvious measure. They froze prices.
The Ministry of Industry and
Trade announced that they would fix maximum prices for essential goods. This is
permitted by legislation, which gives the government the right to freeze prices
for up to 90 days if they have risen 10% or more for 60 consecutive days. In
the provinces measures are even more stringent. For example, in Zabaikalsky
region, retail chains and the Ministry of Economic Development of the region
signed a memorandum to curb the prices of certain food products from March 28.
The list of goods includes nine items: milk, refined sunflower oil, sugar,
premium and Grade A wheat flour, rice, pasta, salt and bread. Retailers will
not be allowed a markup of more than 15% of the selling price. Under pressure
from the authorities, hundreds of stores in cites of the Khabarovsk region have
fixed minimal markups on essential goods. In Kuban, they are also trying to
keep prices down by administrative means. The list of goods that are 'frozen'
include chicken, sunflower oil, milk, kefir, sour cream and cottage cheese,
eggs, sugar, salt, flour, bread, and cereals. Last week butter and black tea,
as well as some kinds of baby food, were added to the list.
Naturally, the local security
forces, afraid they’ll be sent off to fight, are trying to show their value on
the home front by drastically stepping up their search for black marketeers and
saboteurs. “We must control prices, fix prices where possible, and fight
against black marketeers," said Sergei Zakharikhin, head of the local
branch of the Federal Security Service in the Krasnodar region. What will
mandatory price cuts lead to? Retail chains will cover their losses from the
sale of essential foodstuffs by raising the prices of everything else. The
overall result will certainly not favor the consumer. Another result will be a
sharp decline in the quality of essential foodstuffs. This is immediately
apparent in bread, now baked from low-quality flour. In short, this is a
typical situation for Putin's Russia, a clear demonstration that the
authorities don’t even have any understanding of the situation, let alone a
strategy for dealing with it.
^ Russia didn’t have enough food
to feed its starving people before the War and now there is less food and even
less people able to afford that food. Ukraine is known as the “Bread Basket of
the World” and of course they aren’t going to supply Russia with any food as
the Russians continue to murder their Men, Women and Children.
Putin built a Potemkin Village
across Russia over his 22 year Dictatorship where the outside façade (from
buildings to his Military) looked modern and prosperous, but the insides have
mold and decay. The same for the Russian People. On the outside
it looked that they were prosperous and doing better than anytime in their
history when in reality the vast majority are starving.
Bottom line: Putin should focus
his time and money on helping the Russians inside Russia have a Good Basic
Standard of Living rather than trying to kill people outside of Russia. ^
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