Question of the day: will the surplus appropriation system be introduced in Russia to overcome the crisis?

The rise in prices for food products in Russia forced some economists to recall the old, good, in their opinion, method - state regulation of domestic prices for oil, fuels and lubricants, metal, petrochemical products, fertilizers. That is, literally everything, which ultimately determines food prices.

However, other economists are confident that stopping the rise in food prices is possible only by lowering taxes and electricity prices for producers, paying subsidies and providing cheap loans.

And there are also those who do not exclude that the country will have to switch to such savage measures as coupons, surplus appropriation, food detachments, as was the case in the USSR.

Novye Izvestia has already reported on the report of Academicians Abel Aganbegyan and Boris Porfiryev, and Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Director of the Institute for Economic Forecasting of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Alexander Shirov, published in the Vedomosti edition, "On Overcoming the Current Crisis and Ways of Developing the Russian Economy" the country has a series of controversial radical economic reforms amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Among the proposals they voiced were the following:

- to double the financing of anti-crisis measures (to use gold and foreign exchange reserves, funds of the national welfare fund, bank assets, accumulations of enterprises and citizens, as well as state borrowing and funds from the mass privatization of state assets);

- to use these funds to raise the minimum wages to 20 thousand rubles. in 2021, unemployment benefits - up to 20-25 thousand rubles, pensions - up to 22 thousand rubles. in 2022;

- to bring the growth of investments in fixed and human capital up to 15% annually;

- recalculate all loans taken by Russians at a rate of 8% per annum;

- prohibit banks from issuing loans at rates more than twice the key rate;

- abolish income tax on low incomes;

- to introduce a progressive tax on income over 100 thousand rubles. per month (per family member) from 20% to 30%;

- take non-bank long money funds out of the control of the Central Bank;

- to endow the tax service with distribution and incentive functions;

- transfer the regions to self-financing and self-sufficiency;

- to return to the five-year planning of socio-economic development.

According to the authors of the report, these measures will help to ensure the growth of the national economy by 3-4% per year.

Experts of the popular channel "Kremlin Madness" write about why the proposals of the academicians are absurd.

"Catch up and overtake America!", - this slogan is still in the minds of a part of the population. And now a group of academics, seeing that the United States is slipping into the scoop in its worst manifestations, decided to develop a program "How can we overtake the states and slide into the USSR 2.0 before them".

The team of the crypto channel certainly agrees with the call to print the money box, finally, it is already quite reasonable, after all, if the money was put aside for a rainy day, then it’s impossible to think of anything blacker.

But it is completely incomprehensible how the accumulations of enterprises and citizens got into the list of sources of funds for anti-crisis measures.

It is strange that he did not offer a new Pavlovian reform or obligatory government bonds.

To direct these funds to raise the minimum wages - again, I would like to remind the academicians that the USSR no longer exists, and in most cases it is not the state that pays wages.

The progressive scale of personal income tax is also a long-discussed measure, but how can we avoid the transfer of salaries to gray schemes? Academicians do not tell us this.

Transferring the regions to self-financing and self-sufficiency - that's just now, and was not enough to start the rampant separatism. If earlier it was a sluggish separatism of the well-fed, unwilling to share, like California or Catalonia, now it will become an active revolt of hungry subsidized regions, which will reasonably ask - why do they need the Oil Federation, where they get nothing from oil?

The idea of recalculating all loans taken by Russians at a rate of 8% per annum is classic populism, and at a level such that the Liberal Democratic Party would be ashamed. Well, the crown of all is proposed to return to the five-year planning of socio-economic development. Literally return Gosplan.

Of course, no one will accept such a populist plan. But it’s good for academics — their job is to propose, and then shrug. You can also offer to introduce the gold ruble. Nationalization of leading enterprises. Labor camps. Unconditional basic income. So many measures can be proposed, but who will be responsible for their implementation?