Inflation Continues to Ravage Putin's Russia
Filed under: Russia
As if the world needed any further proof of the extent of Vladimir Putin's failure to effectively govern Russia, Bloomberg reports today that Russia has incurred 5.3% overall consumer price inflation in just the first quarter of 2008. That puts the country on track to rack up 21.2% inflation by the end of the year. "Price growth in the week is unbelievable," said Yevgeny Nadorshin, chief economist at Trust Bank. Last year, Russia incurred 11.9% inflation according to the Kremlin's data, quite likely to be an understatement. Russia was already on pace to exceed that rate by February of this year.
Inflation increased by 70% compared to the first quarter of 2007, when the rate was just 3.7%. Food prices led the soaring index, despite aggressive neo-Soviet moves by the Kremlin to fix those prices; overall food prices were up 2% in the last four weeks alone.
It will not have escaped the notice of the attentive Russia watcher that Putin does not have one single shred of legitimate economics or business credentials to his name. He has attempted to "solve" the inflation problem in same way Robert Mugabe employed in Zimbabwe, simply ordering producers not to raise prices. Similarly, his "solution" to Russia's woeful birth rate was to bribe parents to have children. This proud KGB spy is no more capable of building a real economic or social foundation for the country than of flapping his arms and flying to Mars.
NOTE: To comment on this post for publication, write to: kimzigfeld@gmail.com
del.icio.us | 
digg | 
technorati | 
stumble upon | 
furl | 
reddit