Russia Essays - Superpowers, Aid, Humanitarian Aid, Poverty, Russia

Russia Tristan Yapuncich Period 3 4/20/00 Position Paper Russia Position Paper: The Plan The main problem in Russia is lack of a non-corrupt government. It is impossible to run any country, poor or rich, crime or no crime, healthcare or no healthcare, economy or no economy, without some sort of government. Russia needs assistance in the form of socialist diplomatic support, advice, and very carefully monitored loans. There is no question of producing a Marshall Plan for Russia of the sort that the United States pioneered after World War II, but Russia needs to make that plan, and the U.S. needs to let Russia know that plan will be supported. Although the conditions in Russia differ significantly from the post-war Europe, this struggling nation needs a similar plan to restore it's economy, government, and human rights. Russia is in a desperate state of despair, suffering from poverty, crime, and disease, and needs aid from the U.S. It is also in the interest of the U.S. to provide this aid, as long as the aid is targeted at areas that would best boost Russia's terrible st atistics, and turn Russia into a successful trading partner. Poverty is a huge problem facing Russia. In a country with such long traditions of statistical manipulation and hostility to the inquiries of the state, it is not easy to pin down the true extent of poverty in Russia. But there is little doubt that the picture is looking increasingly bleak. United Nations figures suggest that the purchasing power of average income in the USSR in 1987 was about $6,000 or 32 per cent of the level of the US (Andrew, POVERTY: Bleak future for the poor). By 1996, it was just $4,531 in adjusted terms, or 17 per cent of the US level (Andrew, POVERTY: Bleak future for the poor). Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, there has been both growing inequality and a jump in absolute poverty. That is up from 11 per cent in 1994 (Andrew, POVERTY: Bleak future for the poor). Faced with such bleak figures, some observers argue that the figures are simply false. There is little doubt that data collection is plagued with difficulties, and there are fierce debates abou t methodology. There are problems that exaggerate, and others which artificially underplay, the true state of Russia's population. But as Tatiana Khokhlova of the Russian European Centre for Economic Policy in Moscow argues: It is very difficult to talk about the absolute level of poverty, but you can analyse the trends. And those trends are distinctly pessimistic. Government figures often show what citizens are entitled to receive rather than what they do receive. In 1997, just 20 per cent of income that Russians were entitled to under federal laws was actually paid (Andrew, POVERTY: Bleak future for the poor). Since then, arrears on the payment of wages and social benefits have increased sharply. Pensions are on average paid with a delay of one month at present, and wages are 2.5 months behind (Andrew, POVERTY: Bleak future for the poor). Equally, there is little doubt that Russians conceal the true extent of their income from official surveys as part of a broader strategy of tax avoidance. A recent World Bank study found that most people admitted to spending twice what they claimed to earn. Other research suggested that undeclared informal income had rocketed in the past few years to an average of 42 per cent of total household earnings (Andrew, POVERTY: Bleak future for the poor). If poverty is a problem, naturally health care, crime, and other issues become concerns. Russia has a declining life expectancy, increasing birth mortality, and increasing crime rate. Russia's population is likely to dip under 146 million by the year 2000 and drop to 141 million by 2010, according to a new government forecast. The report by the State Statistics Committee also projects that Russia's dismally low life expectancy figures won't rise in the decade ahead, Interfax news agency said. Based on the most likely of four demographic estimates compiled by the committee, the average life span in 2005 will be 65 years -- the same as in 1996 (Andrew, POVERTY: Bleak future for the poor). Russia's population, which has been in decline since