About pension reform

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The law on the next pension reform causes heated debate among politicians [voting on this issue in the State Duma unambiguously draws a line between EdRo-m - “for” and the systemic opposition - “against”] rallies, demands the resignation of the government and is trying to appeal directly to the president, who, like, quite recently, promised that he would not allow raising the retirement age.

Essence of the question

Let's turn to the experts. Two economists, on the website of the Moscow Center, of course, Carnegie, I. Lyubimov and V. Nazarov tell us that by 2030, 16.7 trillion rubles will be required to pay pensions [while maintaining the replacement rate at 40%]. and insurance premiums will amount to only 8.8 trillion rubles, that is, 53%. Thus, the missing 7, 9 trillion rubles will have to be paid extra from the federal budget. If you do not pay extra, the replacement rate will inevitably fall to 22%. Experts do not see alternatives to these two scenarios, however, they list: equalization of conditions for retirement for civil servants, reduction of corruption, use of income from natural resource rent, suppression of abuses in the field of public procurement and development of the pension savings system.

Forbes magazine writes: the main source of the problem is not the government's desire to save money on pensioners, but the objective difficulties that arise as a result of the tendency to increase life expectancy. It turns out that we are no longer a country with an extremely low life expectancy, as they reported to us quite recently [- 110th place (70 years old), worse than Venezuela (74 years old) and slightly better than Rwanda (66 years old)], and if so, then the legislators are already promised to help us with this. “If we take 2006 as a basis (when the total expenditures of the budget system were first calculated taking into account extra-budgetary funds), then the entire increase in expenditures, measured as a percentage of GDP, was spent during this time on social policy (primarily on the pension system). In fact, social policy acted as the only priority of the budget; otherwise, we can only talk about temporary fluctuations in the structure of expenditures. If the level of pension spending remained unchanged, this would make it possible to almost double the cost of health care, the quality of which is critically important for both pensioners and other citizens”- we read there.

Another independent expert, Olga Smirnova, calls on our internal responsibility for our future. They say that you cannot rely on the state, you need to save yourself, and if you can work on your own, there is no need to “sit” on the necks of children and grandchildren. “Today the situation is even more complicated, the pension system is sorely lacking money to support the older generation. It is time for the population to take responsibility for their future, one cannot rely on someone else. … In any case, the earlier you start saving for retirement, the more prosperous your life will be in the "autumn" age. And it is certainly not worth counting on the fact that the state should provide you with a happy old age. For a decent pension, it is important to start saving yourself. I would not shift all responsibility to the state,”she writes.

I would like to note right away, in my opinion, there is a substitution of the concepts of “insurance pension” and “solidary pension”. I did not find the concept of a solidarity pension on the PF website, but the essence, apparently, is that current pensioners receive a part of the income of future pensioners. We, working citizens, all "chipped in" and fed our "old people" in the hope that when we ourselves become weak, subsequent generations will do the same. Thus, the solidarity of generations is realized and, yes, this mechanism remained to us as a Soviet legacy. Unlike the previous one, the concept of “insurance pension” is in this dictionary and contains a clear individual connotation, they say, a person works, individually transfers an insurance premium from income and has the right to count on insurance payments in case of disability, including old age. All this is regulated by Federal Law No. 400 of 2013-28-12, you can see.

Therefore, I consider Ksyusha Sobchak's performance on Echo of Moscow to be another “flight”. And, specifically, this: “It's ridiculous to read the populist argument“how much will someone get less money”or“how we were robbed”. But people could never get this money! They simply do not exist physically. Fork either less time to receive now or more time less than now. The reform does not take away non-existent money, but only actualizes the idea that there is none. They weren't there anyway, understand! The state reports and dates the PF!”. Obviously, it remains in the solidarity pension model and does not see its individual function.

Calculations

I think it's not worth relying entirely on the opinion of experts. I would like to see something myself in order to be able to form an objective, free from other people's emotions, opinion. Uncle Lenin used to say, it happened, they say, under communism, even a cook would have to be able to run the state. Well, according to his calculations, communism has been around for 40 years now, and the IT specialist, why is it worse than a cook?:)

The first thing that we can see is the planned budget of the Pension Fund for 2018. The fund's expenses of 8, 4 trillion rubles, only 4, 8 trillion rubles, are dated at the expense of insurance premiums. This is already 57%. We remember the experts - there are 53%. Well, maybe … The good news is that the government also thinks that we should have an insurance pension rather than a solidary one. By the way, what else can be seen from this picture is that employers' contributions to the funded part of the pension amount to only 0.5 billion rubles. Added to them are 4.5 billion rubles of voluntary contributions and 5.5 billion rubles of co-financing from the federal budget. In total, a little more than 1 trillion has already been accumulated, which, given current annual expenses, is a little more than nothing. The fund itself takes 117.3 billion rubles for its security, which is a lot, of course, but clearly not enough to solve a global problem by optimization. Clear…

Second, this is the planned federal budget. Sotsialka [mostly state. pensions] - 31%, Defense - 17%, Economy - 14%, Law enforcement - 12%. Obviously, in such a situation that we “eat up” most of the income, a little more is left for development than nothing. Education - 4%, Healthcare - 3%, Culture, Ecology, mass media, housing and communal services - all this is practically not funded. Where can experts from the Carnegie Institution get hope for economic growth by 2030? Nevertheless, even in this situation, we have growth in GDP, household incomes and, accordingly, government revenues, at least as planned. By the way, this year's budget was 9% unprofitable [last year was 21% unprofitable].

No money

The structure of federal budget revenues shows a strong dependence on prices for raw materials and energy carriers. Playing on fixed-term contracts, damned capitalists can easily manipulate these prices, which they regularly demonstrate to us and it costs them practically nothing. The lost commission on refusal to buy out the contract does not compare with the damage they cause to our economy.

The government should keep in reserves the funds that it could spend on the development of the economy. It will not be possible to further raise the tax burden on commodity companies. There, most likely, there was a consensus of management, government and shareholders, when an imbalance could lead to the destruction of consensus, for example, an increase in the withdrawal of funds through expenses by management and a drop in government revenues to the current level, but at the expense of shareholders.

Manufacturing, trade, power generating and sales companies, most likely, everything is optimized there in the same way and the tax burden as a whole at the level of 10% allows to ensure GDP growth. It is not worth increasing it, if only because the last few years, there has been a decline in GDP, despite the fact that the revenues of commodity companies, due to the weakening of the ruble, have almost doubled. The downturn was driven by non-resource companies, which suffered a double loss from rising import prices and refinancing rates.

It is also not worth “playing around” with the refinancing rate, since the cheapening of loans, unfortunately, stimulates not only consumer demand and entrepreneurial activity, but also the rise in prices for goods, the fall in the ruble exchange rate.

And if I find it?

The picture is drawn and really bleak. The current budget is fully optimized for consumption, and now there is not enough money for the development of the economy, education and medicine. And then there is “on the horizon” a shift of the population, in percentage terms, towards pensioners. “There are nuances in the bill adopted by the State Duma in the first reading, but if nothing is done at all, then either the pension system itself or the budget will burst,” V. V. Putin. And, quite possibly, in order for all of us to survive, as the expert Olga said, we need to “tighten our belts” and “pull up” and ensure the “breakthrough” that our president spoke about on the eve of the elections. And I, of course, although not a “Putin’s soldier”, am ready to “push” at the end and, who knows, maybe I will not live the way today's pensioners live - better.

Let's see what projects we are currently developing in the appendix "Federal budget expenditures in 2018 - 2020 in the context of state programs" to the planned budget. The rating by value is among the first to start the project “Social support of citizens” - 1329 billion [- hurray, we are a welfare state!]; further “Management of public finances and regulation of financial markets” - 1269 billion [- “fighting” fools?]; “Development of the transport system” - 798 billion [-… with roads]; “Development of federal relations and creation of conditions for effective and responsible management of regional and municipal finances” - 816 billion [-… again, with fools?] And, yes, I almost forgot, “Expenses for the implementation of state programs of the Russian Federation (closed part)” - 887 billion [-?].

Generally speaking, the devil is, of course, in the details. And it's not a fact that these are Avtovaz parts … [- joke]. I don’t believe that the expansion of the last article is a secret for foreign special services. Most likely, this is all against us, my dear readers. And, most likely, there is, for the most part, overruns on other items. From the first lines of the rating of expenses, it is only clear that we spend a lot of money on solving troubles that cannot be overcome. For comparison, the costs of those projects that will really have some kind of impact on our lives in the future: “Development of health care” - 300 billion [- only a quarter, from “financial management”]; “Development of Education” for 2013 - 2020”- 481 billion; “Provision of affordable and comfortable housing and utilities for the citizens of the Russian Federation” - 97 billion; “Promotion of employment of the population” - 45 billion [- this is despite the fact that the decision to employ pensioners for another 5 years for men and 8 years for women is practically in their pockets]; "Environmental protection" for 2012 - 2020 "- 37 billion [- there could be cleaning of river beds, modernization of industrial enterprises to environmental standards]; “Development of Science and Technology” for 2013 - 2020”- 182 billion [- one-seventh from“financial management”]; "Development of industry and increasing its competitiveness" - 218 billion; “Development of the pharmaceutical and medical industry” for 2013 - 2020”- 11 billion [- one hundredth of“financial management”… and we have already closed our market for imported drugs, do you think it's too early?] And“cherry on the cake”:“Development defense-industrial complex”- 8 billion [- half a percent of“financial management”… don't believe me - see for yourself].

It turns out that the priorities of the government are arranged in a rather strange way, don't you think? And this is a document, by the way (c). By the way, in the Forbes article this is called “temporary fluctuations in the structure of expenses” which in no way can affect the ability to allocate additional funds for important social projects, such as the development of education and health care. Try to imagine what would happen to the planning department of an ordinary enterprise, if they tried to put such a budget on the board of directors, and even with such stupid motivation. A budget in which most of the funds are spent not on investments in increasing the volume and quality of products, is not consolidated into the assets of the enterprise, is not distributed in the form of wages and cash incentives at the places of profit origin - but, simply, is selected by the accounting department and the financial service, "driving" enterprise in an even larger loan. This can only happen in very small enterprises, in enterprises - less than five minutes, bankrupt.

conclusions

What is called “pension reform” is not really a reform at all. This is a calibration, adjustment of the current model to conditions that have changed due to objective reasons. Therefore, they wanted to “drag her through”, on the sly, without focusing attention.

As for me, as a common man in the street, I am ready to put up with something, the more I see that the foreign policy situation is worse than it was 5 years ago and it, nevertheless, is being corrected, and this is the great merit of the government and the president personally. But I am not ready to “risk” my money in the absence of prospects already at the planning stage, if you look at the planned budget. In other words, if our government was a PJSC, and the federal budget was its balance, I would not give a dime for its shares. If we say so. And the question is not about resources. They are. The question is about managers.