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As usual, we need to be careful with our friend DKM and his usual pull out of your know what statements.
Investment percentage of GDP
Increasing in Russia (higher and higher peaks)
Quite lower in the US but there is a late spike
The alarmed "return of price control after years" is the reaction to supply constraint caused by the Coronavirus, contraints faced by all other economies.
Guess what...a survey done by the Brookings Institution (not exactly a Pro Russian propaganda shop) found the majority of Americans did favor price controls to keep a lid on the price of goods affected by the pandemic.
Not only that, sorry to burst his bubble, only a fraction of SoCal engineers are really high quality material....most of them are just average and H1B visa riff raff...not to mention all the companies that live on hot air generating no revenue and not even prospects of being profitable thanks to the monstrous stock market bubble pumped by 0% interest rate.
However, I do recognize that Russians may have a customer service problem by direct personal experience....I collect Vostok watches and I buy them directly from the factory shop in Chistopol, Russia.
I bought already at least 20 of them if not more....the last one they sent had a misaligned bezel and I sent a picture to get a replacement part...first they replied that they did not see anything wrong then I took a zoomed out picture again pointing at the defect with an arrow...finally they agreed it was defective and they told me "when you order the next watch we will send you a replacement part".
Well I currently do not want to order more watches, the bezel part list price is $2 and shipping cost it's like $5 after all the money I spend with them.....an American company would have sent the replacement part right away, no question to ask.
There is a need for a change of attitude to be competitive.
Don't even go there...
I just sent a letter to Russia via "Priority" super something mail with tracking number, which ( according to USPS) was supposed to reach the addressee in 3 to 5 days.
It left the US in a matter of couple of days, so by the time I started tracking it in Russia on the day 5th, the mystery of the "Russian customer service" thinking behind the whole process kicked in.
By day twelveth, after I watched helplessly how the letter has been moved from one shelf to another under pretense of "verifying the address," I called the potential recipient and told her "quick, come to the rescue," because I realized that all these manipulations were not the end of it, and the letter could have been kicked out of Moscow ( yet again,) to be channeled to some "special location" that was taking "special care" of the mail like mine.
And that "special care" entailed the unbeknownst to me routs, that were ending with some "courier service," that the recipient was supposed to sit and wait any time from "9 in the morning till 8 in the evening" two days in a row.
Not only that, but all while I was studying the place my letter was currently in, I've read the "customers reviews," that would curl your toes or make your blood boil ( whichever comes first.)
So I thought to myself it was a good thing that I was probably the only sender of the foreign correspondence who could read all this, otherwise the DHL service would get the exclusive rights to deliver mail in Russia, IF..
If the mystery of "Russian customer service thinking" wouldn't extend in the planning of that company too...
When some naive people were saying that "poor customer service in Russia" was directly connected to the "Soviet system," they knew NOT what they were talking about)))
P.S. Oh guess what - after my friend called that post office and filed the request to send my letter to her local post office, skipping that wonderful "courier service," they still marked my letter as destined for out of Moscow location, which gave me a heart attack and sent her screaming ( virtually) to high heaven. Yet at the same time ( as it turned out) they've sent it in her direction after all.
On a bright side - she didn't leave for Germany as intended, so at least the letter didn't hung in the air, with no one to go to)))
So I have to say that I've had few mishaps with US postal service, but it all faded away, after I've read the reviews left on that particular post office site)))
...but you live in a place where you need one million dollar for a tool shed of a house and probably 30 bucks for a lousy entree in a restaurant for dinner....PPP dear DKM, PPP.
According to your theory we should not have anybody worth a damn left in Europe given the disparity on salary for high tech.....that is not the case....
How a successful company like Kaspersky exist?? Why it engineers are not all in SoCal??
I wasn't talking about just SoCal, but if you think prices here are 10 times more than Moscow, you'd be wrong (again). I lived in both places so I can speak from experience. Many things cost LESS here than in Moscow, much to the astonishment of friends who moved here right before the pandemic. Rent is more, and homes are quite a bit more but not necessarily (depends on where). Food, clothes cars and restaurant meals are cheaper. Rents are higher though but that is because of the limits on supply here. Utilities aren't cheap but we also can reliably drink water from the tap unlike Muscovites. Chicago or Denver are cheaper than Moscow and engineers there are making 3-4 times as much as in Moscow.
Quote:
Originally Posted by saturno_v
As usual, we need to be careful with our friend DKM and his usual pull out of your know what statements.
It was from Rosstat that I got the information about the decline in investment in 2020. Perhaps as the shift towards Stalinism continues, Putin needs to order Rosstat to fake numbers so you can feel better?
Quote:
Originally Posted by saturno_v
The alarmed "return of price control after years" is the reaction to supply constraint caused by the Coronavirus, contraints faced by all other economies.
Guess what...a survey done by the Brookings Institution (not exactly a Pro Russian propaganda shop) found the majority of Americans did favor price controls to keep a lid on the price of goods affected by the pandemic.
]
People wanting price controls and actually doing them because food prices are rising are two very different things. We did not enact them, Russia did. It doesn't end well when Russia is in this cycle of instability and turns to repression and price controls (while self sanctioning imports). Putin and his elite will destroy Russian's livelihoods before sharing any of what's left of Russia's national wealth.
I wasn't talking about just SoCal, but if you think prices here are 10 times more than Moscow, you'd be wrong (again). I lived in both places so I can speak from experience. Many things cost LESS here than in Moscow, much to the astonishment of friends who moved here right before the pandemic. Rent is more, and homes are quite a bit more but not necessarily (depends on where). Food, clothes cars and restaurant meals are cheaper. Rents are higher though but that is because of the limits on supply here. Utilities aren't cheap but we also can reliably drink water from the tap unlike Muscovites. Chicago or Denver are cheaper than Moscow and engineers there are making 3-4 times as much as in Moscow.
I can bring you many cases of people making much much less than what I make in Europe but they have the same or better quality of life, they have cars, houses, etc...you are right I never lived in Russia however I suspect you are mixing a bit of apples and oranges to fit your case from what I heard from people actually living in Russia. I suspect that there are not many dilapidated shacks in the outskirt of Moscow going for a million dollar, in the Bay Area they are common sight.
According to the latest data from the World Bank (2018), the Gini index of the Russian Federation was 37.5, the US was 41.4...so before you talk about oligarchs and inequality, actually the US is more unequal than Russia.
Quote:
It was from Rosstat that I got the information about the decline in investment in 2020. Perhaps as the shift towards Stalinism continues, Putin needs to order Rosstat to fake numbers so you can feel better?
You know that there is a little thing called pandemic going on...
Quote:
People wanting price controls and actually doing them because food prices are rising are two very different things. We did not enact them, Russia did.
Russia did the right thing as contingency for supply disruption because of the pandemic....maybe the US should have done so as well, as that survey suggested and reduce people economic stress because there are people here in America that are suffering a lot economically in this pandemic, not everybody work in hi tech like you and me dear DKM.
Last edited by saturno_v; 05-01-2021 at 02:02 AM..
I have never had any problems with Russian customer service nor Belarussian.
There was the time in Amsterdam the port put the container I was supposed to pick up in St Pete on a ship to Odessa though. Just how that happened I have no idea.
For me personally I bought a Zvesda model kit of a BTR 80 and found the rubber wheels were not made correctly when the rubber was mixed and were unusable. I found their website and sent them a message. Next day they sent a message back saying they could replace them but considering it was winter they had no idea when I would get the package.
Since I was going to be in Moscow in a month we just decided I could stop by their factory in north Moscow. I did and simply picked up a good set right from their small factory.
Given the current situation, Russian need to be self sufficient even in the airline sector. Potential access to Cinese and Indian market is of the utmost importance but they have to get it right.
Agreed. I don't think Russia will ever be able to compete with the likes of Boeing and Airbus in the passenger liner industry, China is another story. I think they will and may just thump their skulls doing it. As I said, Russia needs to fill niches and they're quite capable of doing that. That WIG is a niche aircraft that will not only serve Russia well but others such as Indonesia. It can carry up to 400 tons of cargo at high speeds over long distances cheaper than anything out there. Hands down.
Want to build a floating city? That can take care of your electrical and all your water needs in one go. Want to build floating farm 10 square miles in area? That's what you need. Want to turn an island in the Pacific into a huge resort? Use WIGs to transport people and goods and from with FNPPs to power all the malls and Casinos on that island.
Judging from that description Russia now has a highly advanced military, probably making Russia stronger than at any time during Soviet times. Apart from the new, world's biggest Belgorod submarines and other nasty arms, there is one weapon in particular that Nato is very worried about, a nuclear torpedo called Poseidon that can create tsunamis with waves several hundred meters high.
Then again, the economy is today's battle ground, maybe it would make more sense to invest equally much time and money in the Russian economy.
The Poseidon has not been built. Yet. I am quite sure they're ironing out the bugs as we speak. It is a fearsome weapon and entirely doable for them. America is also very vulnerable to it.
Another is the hypersonic Kinzahl missile. Air launched from numerous platforms it hits its target at over 7000 mph. With the kenetic energies involved here you don't need nukes. This system is very accurate also.
Russia has one of the best (if not the best) military forces in Eurasia. Their Airforce is questionable but their air defenses are not. They're the envy even of America. All this debate about airpower seems to be doctrinal in nature. I.e a power like the US has air superiority as its main doctrine. Russias doctrine is the deprivation of an enemies air superiority.
Build all the fancy planes you like. We will not let them fly.
Judging from that description Russia now has a highly advanced military, probably making Russia stronger than at any time during Soviet times.
Russian missile development has literally changed the military paradigm on the ground. Intstead of chasing the enormously expensive US Navy, Russia is making sure it can turn these ships in very expensive reefs in case of a military confrontation. Russia basically can deny the main mean of American power projection.
Quite few Western military experts are saying that the modern aircraft carrier is turning into the mid 20th century traditional battleship, obsolete, against peer or near peer adversary.
In the article it says that according to the head of the Norwegian secrets service Russia is already testing Poseidon, so it seems there already is at least one unit roaming the waters.
Yes, I read somewhere else days ago that Russia also has a new, highly advanced air defense system.
(So does China.)
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