Fritz Morgen live journal. Blog Fritz Moiseevich Morgen: A place for discussion - Food security of Russia - Irkutsk Sidelines up

Right now, several thousand Kiev residents are besieging the US Embassy. On the one hand, their behavior can be understood: it is painful to watch how the Americans are leading your country according to the Libyan scenario. On the other hand, the destruction of the embassy will be just an additional reason for the Americans to throw more gasoline on the Ukrainian fire.

In 2011, Russia harvested 46.2 million tons of beets and took first place in the world in terms of this indicator. In 2013, the sugar beet harvest was lower; at the end of November 2013, the harvest was expected to be 39.5 million tons.

Sugar processing plants are usually located in close proximity to beet harvesting sites, since transporting raw materials over long distances is not economically viable.

In the medium term, the production of beet sugar in Russia is projected to be 4.2-4.5 million tons.

Sugar consumption in Russia is about 39 kilograms per capita per year.) Thus, the volume of our own production will allow us to cover 75%-80% of our sugar needs in the near future.

This means that a safe level of sugar production in Russia has almost been achieved - which is confirmed by the words of the Minister of Agriculture.

Vegetable oil

Russia produces 3.5-4 million tons of vegetable oil per year, mainly sunflower oil. Thus, we almost completely cover our needs for vegetable oil. The share of imports in the market is no more than 3%. (link) Vegetable oil exports, on the contrary, are very impressive and account for approximately 25% of production volumes. (link)

Thus, food security for vegetable oil in Russia is ensured with a reserve.

Meat and meat products

The situation regarding meat continues to be quite difficult. On the one hand, since 2000, meat production has been growing in Russia, and, for example, we provide ourselves almost completely with poultry meat. On the other hand, we still import about 30% of meat and meat products, while meat exports from Russia are insignificant.

So, in 2011, we produced 7,460 million tons of meat products and imported 2,687 tons, and consumed 10,041 tons.
This means that the level of domestic meat production is approximately 75%, which is slightly less than the 85% prescribed in the Food Security Doctrine.

Milk production is closely tied to the number of cows, which was greatly reduced in our country in the nineties. It is also necessary to take into account that cows are divided into meat and dairy, and the number of specifically dairy cows is about 8% of their total number.

The production of raw milk is about 30 million tons and has remained at approximately the same level for several years now, as has the production of dairy products.

In 2012, 8.52 million tons of milk and dairy products were imported to Russia, with its own production being 31.92 million tons. Most of the imports come from Belarus.

Thus, the level of domestic milk production is about 80%, which is less than the target of 90%.

Fish and fish products

Russia ranks fifth in the world in terms of fish catch volume, which provides us with a reliable raw material base in this industry.

The minimum physiological norm for consumption of fish meat according to the Academy of Medical Sciences of the Russian Federation is 15.6 kg per year per person. Thus, the total level of fish consumption in the country should not be lower than 2.2 million tons.

In reality, about 28 kg of fish per year is consumed in Russia. Fish production exceeds 3.7 million tons.

Thus, the level of food security for fish is ensured with a large margin.

Potato

In 2012, Russia harvested 29.5 million tons of potatoes. This is not a very high harvest: for example, in 2006 we collected 38.5 tons.) However, even with such a harvest, Russia took third place in the world in potato harvesting, after China and India. Another potato power, Belarus, harvested 6.9 million tons in 2012.

Potato consumption in Russia is declining - higher incomes encourage Russian residents to prefer more expensive products to potatoes.

Potato exports from Russia are insignificant. Potato imports do not exceed 1.5 million tons per year: these are mainly high-quality potatoes that retail chains purchase for their assortment.

The rate of potato consumption, according to various sources, ranges from 100 to 130 kilograms per person per year: thus, Russia’s needs for this product range from 14 to 18 million tons.

Our own production covers these needs with a large margin.

Table salt

Data on the Russian table salt market are contradictory. However, research agrees on several conclusions:

* Russia imports about 30% of its salt consumption, mainly from Ukraine and Belarus;
* The lion's share of salt consumption comes from industry, primarily the chemical industry;
* The physiological need of Russians for salt - 260 thousand tons per year - is several times less than the volume of their own production.

If we take into account that salt reserves in deposits on Russian territory amount to billions of tons, we can conclude that a shortage of table salt does not threaten Russia under any circumstances.

Calculation of food supply in Russian regions

Changes in food supply in Russian regions from 2000 to 2011.

In this calculation, the main products are considered grains, potatoes, vegetables, meat, milk and eggs. As you can see, this set of products does not differ from that specified in the Food Security Doctrine of the Russian Federation: eggs are added here and fish with vegetable oil is excluded. Table salt is produced in Russia in huge quantities, so the level of salt supply is ignored.

The basis for calculating food supply is a formula from the UrFU textbook, the essence of which boils down to the following:

1. For each product, the loss coefficient during storage and processing is taken into account;
2. Each product is converted from pieces and units into kilocalories;
3. The total calorie content of products produced in the region is calculated;
4. This calorie content is compared with medical consumption standards;
5. The result is the region’s provision with products of its own production, as a percentage.

The calculation shows that in 1990, the RSFSR’s supply of basic products was 183%, by 2000 it dropped to a critical 108%, and by 2011 it had recovered to a completely safe level of 150%.

It should be noted that in 1990, the USSR experienced huge problems with the system of storage, processing and distribution of products - because of this, Soviet citizens in those years were forced to stand in long lines for food and receive them in small quantities using coupons.

Over the 11 years from 2000 to 2011, food supply increased in almost all regions. The Stavropol Territory (almost three times), Kurgan, Belgorod and Kursk regions increased production the most. Only in seven regions out of more than seventy did security decrease by more than 10%; the strongest decline was observed in the Saratov (25%) and Pskov (18%) regions.

Thus, we can conclude that the myth about the degradation of agriculture during “Putin’s reign” is greatly exaggerated.

We can also observe that there is no threat of a food shortage in Russia under any circumstances, and that even depressed (in the food sense) regions can be provided with food products from surpluses in donor regions.

The decrease in food production during this period in depressed regions was mainly caused by urbanization processes and the transfer of agricultural land to other needs.

Due to the fact that today, in such a difficult time of crisis for everyone, dear olegmakarenko.ru found the strength in himself and promoted me on his blog, causing a wave of new comments and friends in my LJ, I, not knowing what else to do, decided to repay him in kind.

So, Fritz Moiseevich Morgen, aka Oleg Makarenko, is a successful businessman-metasatanist from St. Petersburg... No, perhaps we’ll leave such garbage to Wikipedia :)

My father once told me that I was an “addicted person.” And indeed, there were some times when I was interested in music, studies and beer, but also others when I was interested in “House-2”, the problems of neighbors and vodka. I won’t hide the fact that at some point I was addicted to beer and vodka at the same time, and together with the same neighbors. Actually, it was around this moment that I began to read the “works” of Comrade Stillavin. I liked the fact that he always had topics about which everyone could “bark” something. Luckily, one day I said something “wrong” and I was . I cried for a long time, killed myself, drank and even... But Fritz Morgen appeared on the horizon and I decided that the purchase of rope and soap could be postponed.

My point is that, perhaps, many were faced with a situation when, because there was “nothing to watch”, “nothing to read” and “nothing to do”, people began to watch “Dom-2”, read Dotsov and scold Russia for that , that beer has risen in price by 2 rubles. But then the film Zeitgeist, the book “Harry Potter and Everything-All-Everything” and the game Tekken 6 for Xbox 360 come out, and everything falls into place. Actually, the blog of the aforementioned Fritz Morgen fell into a number of such events.

In short, Fritz Morgen's magazine is perhaps the only one in my friend feed that I was interested in reading from the very beginning. If you want, like a book or a collection of stories. “Contents” is located on the page metasatanism.ru, if you like something, you can simply read neighboring posts from the same topic. I admit that I read everything and even added several useful books to my “queue”.

The blog is philosophical, everything is written in a very accessible way, another thing is that many things can be scary. On the other hand, snowboarding is also scary at first. In general, there are too many good posts to list them, but I’ll still try to provide links to articles with “big names”:

Materials on metasatanism:
Holy Trinity plus Freud
The origins of kindness: the view of a metasatanist
Rule of two palms
Fighting Evil for Dummies
Presumption of reasonableness
Dead man test
Satan in one word
Progress represents Satan
The meaning of life of a Satanist

Society and politics.

We continue to devirtualize LiveJournal's top bloggers. Today we are discussing olegmakarenko.ru . He is also one of those who is not shy about his appearance, and you can find several of his videos on the Internet. In general, it is very useful to look at the network character in life. You stop demonizing or mythologizing him.

Fritz Morgen is the vanguard of moderate patriots, which is why he is hated by opposition-minded bloggers, of whom there are many in LiveJournal.

To form an objective opinion (if anyone needs it at all) about the ongoing processes in the Russian economy and world politics, I would advise including both Fritz’s blog and the blog of his opponents in the list of blogs you read.

What I like about his blog is that there is a lot of news about robotics there. This is a real modern trend that will change our lives in the near future. For example, here is his latest post, without any politics: The dark side of gamification, the shortage of IT specialists in Russia and the destruction of ordinary jobs

And in order to visually imagine the person under the nickname Fritzmorgen, I chose this video, albeit with a rather unpatriotic title:

Fritz Morgen. Judaism is much better than Orthodoxy

Information: Oleg Makarenko (born 1978) is the creator of the Rukspert project, top blogger on LiveJournal, small businessman (network of snack machines). Since 2007, Oleg Makarenko has been running a blog on LiveJournal (Fritz Morgen), which by 2011 had become one of the most famous Russian-language blogs, almost all of whose posts regularly appear in the top LiveJournal. Today he ranks 11th in the TOP LiveJournal bloggers.

Previous post in the series devirtualization of top bloggers.

In recent years, only the lazy have not properly trampled on the “class” topic. They say that boyars live in Russia, “masters of life”, to whom everything is allowed. And there live the mournful “people” who are forced to groan under the whip and toil for pennies at their backbreaking work...

To assign a certain citizen to a specific class, you must first understand what feeds him.

I present to you my classification.

1. Feudal lords

The feudal lords feed themselves from the resources they seize. Such resources could be oil rigs, a high position in the government, or a position that gives control over the flow of budget money.

The feudal lords are the elite of modern Russia, since they, in fact, now have all the power. As the famous song says, “if there is a well, life is good.” Moreover, what is typical is that a state well is even more convenient than a personal well. The money is the same, but there are fewer problems.

For example, a city can act as a well. The mayor of a million-plus city can usually easily surpass the average oil sheikh in terms of his income.

Parents are ready to pay $35,000 for admission to Moscow State University ( link). This is not the cost of education, but the cost of the child joining the circle of children of noble birth. It is understood that this $35,000 will be more than repaid in the future on friends who will help attach the stigma to a good feeder.

In addition to the actual cash flows, feudal lords also have corresponding class privileges.

For example, the internal affairs bodies do not touch the feudal lords, even when the feudal lords openly violate the law ( example). By the way, based on yesterday's discussion. Here ( link) you can watch the video where Mikhalkov, under camera, kicks a young man in the face who is being held by Mikhalkov’s guards.

In addition to the right to break the law at their discretion, feudal lords have the right to disperse cattle from their path, blocking streets, stadiums and even entire cities if necessary.

A classic example is a man similar to Sergei Mironov, who once in St. Petersburg, stopping on the Trinity Bridge, took a beautiful photo of the sunset over the Neva. While he was taking photographs, traffic on the bridge was blocked. The redneck cars stood and waited until the traffic police officers accompanying the dignitary allowed them to continue driving ( link).

At the end of last year, a car from Mironov’s motorcade rammed a commoner’s car that had driven up too close for the speaker to pass safely ( link).

By the way, for those who think that Sergei Mironov is some kind of special redneck. In fact, on the contrary, Mironov is the only politician I know who considers it right, if not to abandon motorcades/flashing lights, then at least to apologize to voters for his behavior.

And after the photo on the bridge, and after ramming the car of a woman with a child, Mironov somehow tried to justify himself ( prooflink). Mironov even said that he would have removed the flashing light completely if it were not for the President and the Prime Minister (yes, with a capital P), who regularly demand that he fly at full speed to the Kremlin. When similar stories happen to other feudal lords, they, unlike Fair Russia, only maintain a contemptuous silence.

A recent example is the economic forum in St. Petersburg. The forum organizers behaved like white colonialists among wild blacks. They tightly blocked off part of the city, created a lot of traffic jams, and obliged local residents to coordinate visits of guests with the local police officer ( prooflink). I happily wrote about this in spb_auto one of the drivers ( ):
“Colleagues told me that they stopped at the traffic cops on Nevsky and asked how impudent they could be. The answer pleased me: “well, don’t fly 180 around the city, and you don’t need to fly the whole Nevsky in oncoming traffic either, otherwise I don’t care”...
...on the way home, we played motorcade. It's boring to just drive like that. I’m in the middle, there are two skis in front and behind, a distance of two or three meters, we drive 130 through the entire city, from Pulkovo-1 to Lenexpo, we scare those around us, we drive them out of the left lane, we don’t let them get between us. It's all funny...
...I completely forgot to write about the huge number of worthless rogues in rusty credit car washes, who, blushing with envy and hatred, tried to pinch and grind forum cars..."

In general, when I lost 2 hours of working time that Friday because of the forum, I was glad that I did not live in the times of Peter I. Since in those days I would have often had to take off my hat in front of passing VIPs, and I really don’t I love it when my ears are cold.

2. Businessmen, plankton and workers

Why in category 1? Because they earn money on their own. They don’t take money, they don’t receive money, but they earn money. This leaves a very serious imprint on a person’s thinking.

For example, for a representative of this class it is completely incomprehensible why he should suddenly stand in a traffic jam, waiting for some dignitary to solemnly proceed to a gala banquet in a restaurant. After all, he doesn’t owe this dignitary anything at all. Moreover, a worker, unlike a dignitary, goes to a restaurant at his own expense.

It should be noted that the theme of flashing lights and marches of bluebirds ( link to recent march ) is often called "contrived". They say that these bores are toiling away with nonsense - is it really a shame for them to lose several hours once a month, showing respect for worthy people?

In fact, I agree that traffic jams caused by motorcades are rare outside of Moscow. However, we must understand that motorcades with flashing lights are a very clear indicator of the structure of society. If we have motorcades with obstructions, if residents are prohibited from driving along their home streets during visits by VIPs under pain of physical harm, then we live in a feudal society.

3. Bandits

Moreover, which is typical, they have now become closely integrated with the state apparatus, and are engaged in extortion, almost on legal grounds.

A clear example for everyone is the traffic police officers. The main income is the tribute collected from car enthusiasts.

We now have a sea of ​​such “tribute collectors.” These are fire inspectors, this is the SES, this is the tax office, this is the state drug control... thousands of them. Moreover, they collect their tribute mainly from the previous class - from those who earn money through labor. From businessmen, from plankton and from workers.

The only difference is that if you can cut billions of dollars from a businessman of Chichvarkin’s level, then you cannot take away more than 1 apartment from an ordinary mechanic.

The bandit class has the following in common. They live off what is called “taken value.” If a worker making a part from a workpiece creates “added value,” then a patrolman who takes 500 rubles from a guest worker generates “taken value.”

But there is a lot of competition there, and it takes a lot of effort to get the money. And after working, for example, in the tax office, you will have serious problems finding a job - few people will want to warm up to a person with such a past. For the curious, it colorfully tells about the life of a civil servant from the inside. anat_andreevi4 (link).

Life in a viper, unfortunately, cannot but lead to professional deformation of the individual. At the same time, in general, I know several honest and decent employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, whom I trust and whom I respect. However... all of them have now resigned from the ranks of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in different ranks.

I suppose today it is easier to remain an honest pickpocket or an honest card sharper than an honest police officer. Because if you work in this system, it means that you are given a plan. And, unfortunately, it is absolutely impossible to carry out the plan without getting your hands dirty.

As an example, I’ll give you a funny story from two weeks ago. A certain local police officer from St. Petersburg called young people, informed them that their car was allegedly involved in an accident, and invited them to visit them “for analysis.” When the naive young man came to the traffic police, they took him by the arms and led him to the military registration and enlistment office to draw up documents to be sent to the army ( link).

4. Rentier

Many, many people do not earn their money, but... receive it from the state just like that. For the very fact of its existence.

Rentiers include pensioners, civil servants, teachers of most universities and employees of clinics... you can easily continue this series yourself.

Nobody demands work from rentiers. They either directly receive benefits (like pensioners), or, as work, they engage in imitation of useful activities, the results of which no one sees.

Many rentiers are even proud of the fact that they “work” in government agencies for little money. They believe that doing useful work, such as building houses or cleaning premises, is downright shameful for a decent person.

There is nothing special to take from rentiers, so bandits usually don’t touch them. Again, rentiers treat the feudal lords with great understanding, since, in fact, it is the feudal lords who decide whether their allowance will be increased in the current year. Therefore, most election campaigns are aimed at rentiers, as the most understanding audience.

Some indignant entrepreneurs often write that pensioners and officials allegedly live from their taxes... In fact, this is not so. Pensions and salaries for state employees are paid, as far as I know, from oil money. Therefore, if tomorrow suddenly all businessmen and all workers suddenly leave for permanent residence in Israel, the average pension, if it decreases, will be insignificant.

5. Pariah

There are vast layers of people in our society who have no rights at all. These are drug addicts, “severe” alcoholics, homeless people, prisoners, conscripts, gopniks, guest workers.

Unites the outcasts 1 - they can be beaten and robbed with impunity.

For example, if a school teacher or a worker at the Kirov Plant falls asleep at the station, no one will wake him up with a blow of a baton. The police officer will politely enough wake up the sleeping person and, after checking the documents, gently ask him to get up from the bench or even allow him to continue sleeping.

But if a homeless person or a non-Russian construction worker falls asleep on a bench... well, you understand. Homeless people are beaten in every city every day, often to the point of hospitalization. Conscripts are beaten no less often. This does not cause any noise or at least surprise.

However, as soon as police officers stroke a conservatory employee with a baton a couple of times, an all-Russian scandal immediately breaks out. Because of this, you can often see statements like “the police don’t beat anyone, these are isolated cases” in LiveJournal.

However, once you dig a little, it turns out that a child from a good family is writing to us, and among his close friends and relatives there are simply no representatives of the pariah class.

Result:

From my description it is clear that the Blue Vegetarians are fighting for a valid idea - for the idea of ​​dismantling class society.

The Nazis, who stick round signs “I don’t care about anyone, I park as I want” on expensive cars, are simply trying to quarrel with people and distract them from real problems. It is not the owners of expensive cars who are to blame for the problems of our roads, but the feudal lords. For obvious reasons, no one will allow our Nazis to stick leaflets on their cars.

To humiliate the owners of Mercedes and Bentleys in front of the camera, attacking them with a mob of gopniks... personally, this seems to me extremely undignified behavior. Especially when you consider that our drivers don’t understand traffic rules, which is why they several times stuck their circles on cars that were parked according to all the rules ( prooflink).

2.
Why are scientists returning to us from abroad so slowly? Why do 80% of businessmen sit on suitcases ( prooflink)? Why do young people often think about emigrating?

The reason, in my opinion, is not at all the presence of classes as such. In the same Emirates, our tourists willingly communicate with local feudal lords, and do not experience any mental discomfort.

The reason is in the atmosphere of lies.

The fact is that we are not Asia or North America. We live in the Russian Federation, the successor of the USSR, which, in turn, was the successor of the Russian Empire. And our people are not accustomed to either lying or listening to lies. A culture of smiling hypocrisy has not developed in our country.

When a tsar is called a tsar, this is normal for the Russian ear. According to VTsIOM, 10% of respondents even consider the issue of restoring the monarchy quite relevant ( prooflink).

But when a tsar looks like a tsar, speaks like a tsar and behaves like a tsar, while calling himself a democratic politician... We, sorry, are not the USA, where in the minds of the natives dioxin-filled Vietnam, torn to pieces Yugoslavia, war-torn Iraq and good /fair/peace-loving American army.

Russian people are categorically not ready to tolerate obvious lies. And the authorities, due to the development of technological progress, are no longer physically able to hide this lie in the quiet of offices and behind high fences, as was done with varying success during the Soviet era.

I believe that if the current state of affairs were legalized, if Medvedev or Putin were crowned, if Luzhkov became the Grand Duke, and if traffic cops were granted the highest right to collect tribute from travelers, I am sure that the tension in society would sharply subside.

It's one thing to pay 100,000 in legal taxes. It’s a completely different matter to give the same 100,000 to extortionists... However, colleagues, I think it’s quite obvious that the moment for the coronation of our presidents has already been missed. Now we are in the 21st century, and democracy, with all its shortcomings, has firmly established itself in the brains of the majority of our citizens.

I will end my post with the words of the legally elected President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev ( ):

« I am absolutely sure, and I think you will also agree with me, that the era of a return, to a certain extent, from representative democracy to immediate, direct democracy, with the help of the Internet, is coming.

We are all accustomed to the fact that classically, even when I was studying at the university, we considered the so-called representative democracy as the highest form of democracy, because there are deputies, they represent the will of the people, they are literate people, truly motivated for parliamentary work. But the people, they are not very experienced, and when democracy is carried out directly and directly, as during the veche, the most absurd decisions are made, therefore representative democracy is best. This is an outdated idea.

Taking into account the level of education among our citizens and in the world in general, I am absolutely sure that elements of direct democracy, not only discussion of pressing issues, not only sociology, not just just discussions on blogs, but direct democracy, they will appear in our life. This, of course, will depend on how accurately the will will be verified, down to elementary electronic voting. But this is achievable, it can already be done today, but what can we say about the future.

Therefore, I am sure that in the future - and politicians need to prepare for this - the number of such democratic institutions will increase, and this complicates the work of politicians, because it is one thing to just fool around with it, and another thing when it is connected with the direct expression of the will of voters.”

PS: in my opinion, all of the above is largely true for other Slavic republics - for Ukraine and Belarus. Here, for example, is an indicative review of the work of the Ukrainian traffic police ( link).

PPS: as we expected, home education in Russia is going to be banned.

Books:

Olga Viktorovna Kryshtanovskaya - Anatomy of the Russian elite

Simon Gdalyevich Kordonsky - Class structure of post-Soviet Russia

Mikhail Sergeevich Voslensky - Nomenclature

Lots of letters, but interesting

It should also be remembered that a business career is far from the only possible one. Under modern capitalism, a talented person can go into science, politics, or some other area that does not require direct cash injections. There, career growth will depend rather little on the initial capital.

Finally, it’s worth thinking about 2 things that few people remember:

1. Many businessmen go bankrupt and then start from scratch again, sometimes many times during their career. Billionaire Donald Trump, for example, has gone bankrupt four times. This means that in order to climb the money elevator, the ability to handle money is much more important than a good start in the form of initial capital.

2. From this we can conclude that the social elevator under capitalism lifts to the top those who know how to make money. It is useful for society:
after all, if the social elevator raised everyone, for example, after a certain length of service, our economy would be run by random people, sometimes completely devoid of managerial talents.

V.: You say “talents”. But what kind of talent is needed to buy a 3% stake in a plant and sit on it without making any decisions?

A: You need talent to select promising factories. Let's introduce 2 capitalist investors, Chudakov and Krupnolobov. These are rich people, and their wealth is approximately the same. Both of them shake up their portfolios every six months, investing in shares of enterprises that seem promising to them.

20 years pass. Chudakov's fortune decreased by 10 times due to his ridiculous decisions. The fortune of the talented Krupnolobov has increased 10 times. The voice of a smart investor is 100 times more important than the voice of a stupid investor.

Q: What should those who do not fit into the market do? Lie down and die?

O.: Do exactly the same as in other economic systems. Work for hire, entrusting the right to make decisions to someone who can do it. Upon reaching retirement age, retire and receive it.

V.: Under capitalism, society is class-based, with what you started is what you end with

O.: The same can be said about any political system. There have always been military, medical and scientific dynasties, and the son of a minister, under any system, went to work as an ordinary mechanic at a factory, unless as an exception.

It would be foolish to deny that under capitalism class is also present, but I cannot say that it is greater than under alternative systems. On the other hand, the advantage of capitalism is that it offers extremely simple and understandable rules for climbing the social ladder.

1. You can upgrade your skills. A good milling machine operator or a good programmer can immediately get a job where their skills are paid according to their level. It’s a little more complicated with directors and ministers, however, laws that are not directly related to capitalism are already beginning to apply there.

2. You can go into business and earn as much money as you like. Registration of an individual entrepreneur takes a couple of hours of time, and recently the fee for it was even abolished. Then everything depends on your perseverance and talent.

Q: You write “go into business” as if everyone has start-up capital

A: I don’t encourage everyone to go into business. This is hard, responsible and risky work. There is no easy money in business, and there never has been.

However, specifically the problem of lack of start-up capital can be solved in a number of ways:

1. You can save the required amount.
2. You can take a person with money as a partner.
3. You can find an investor who will trust you with their money.
4. You can start a business in a field that does not require initial investment.
5. You can ask clients for an advance and start the business with this advance.
6. You can start under the wing of a friendly business, and then, having grown stronger, spin off.
7. You can start on your own, without an office or employees, and gradually grow.

Q: Why is the work of businessmen paid so disproportionately generously?

A: Someone else's work always seems easy. Others are shoveling money, and only we are underpaid.

Under capitalism, however, the rate of pay is set by the market, and the market usually regulates everything so as to induce people to go into the profession for which there is effective demand.

The work of an entrepreneur is very hard. You need to be in constant tension, constantly learn, be responsible for all your decisions, constantly risk your own money. Let me remind you that most new companies go bankrupt, and these are not empty words, these are real and sad statistics. If your neighbor goes to a factory and gets cheated out of his salary for 2 months, he will talk about it with anger for the rest of his life.
If your other neighbor goes bankrupt three times, losing everything he earned in 20 years, and then opens 4 businesses, you probably won’t even know about his story.

For a business, losing the result of many years of work is the norm. Before an entrepreneur becomes a wealthy person and, in general, understands what’s what, he will almost certainly either go bankrupt, or at least find himself in a very difficult financial situation.

Q: What if everyone becomes an entrepreneur? Who then will do my difficult work that is necessary for society?

A: If people from your profession begin to switch en masse to become entrepreneurs, there will be a shortage of personnel. Employers will be forced to raise wages, and then people will go in the opposite direction, from entrepreneurs to your profession.

Of course, this system does not work perfectly. For example, there is simply no paid demand for some professions; people in these professions are doomed to earn little.

If you are underpaid and don't quit, you are doing a disservice to society by showing your employer that people in your position can be paid a low salary.

V.: Under capitalism there are crises of overproduction

A: The crisis of overproduction is part of the work cycle of capitalism. In short, this is how crises work:

As people begin to spend less, manufacturers enter into fierce competition with each other for a shrinking “piece of the pie.” Prices go down, profits fall, but no one stops production until the last minute, since trading at zero or even a slight minus is not as painful as closing down entirely. From time to time, someone cannot withstand the pressure, goes bankrupt, and the warehouse remains he throws onto the market reduce prices even further.

Since a failed business does not purchase products or pay employees, problems spread like an infection throughout the economy. After some time, almost everyone runs out of money, demand falls and a crisis ensues. There are many goods, few buyers with money.

Broke players make room for those who perform best. The same thing happens at the employee level:
the work remains with those who manage to make more parts in their 8 hours, and in compliance with all quality standards. The rest, willy-nilly, have to catch up with the leaders just to earn at least some money.

Everyone begins to work a little better than before the crisis, effective demand appears in the market again, and the piston moves in the opposite direction. The economy grows for about 10 years, only to then again plunge into another planned crisis.

In the West, this system was broken in 2008 with near-zero interest rates. Then the planned crisis was postponed, with very little bloodshed, but this means that the next crisis will be much more destructive. A steam boiler that is not depressurized for a long time will sooner or later explode.

Q: Why do businessmen buy yachts?

A: Large businessmen have billions of dollars in wealth not because they do some important work personally, but because they know how to manage money better than anyone else.

It is not so important to society who is the owner of the canned food factory - the capitalist Tolstopuzov, the Ministry of Food Industry, the Marquis Tuntzovio or, say, the factory staff. It is important for society that the plant produces good canned food, develops, buys new machines and pays workers decent wages.

Under capitalism, the leader is determined by competition:
For success in business, managers are given special business points, and managers can spend these business points on obtaining the position of manager of the next business object. As you may have guessed, these business points are colloquially called “money.”

Buying yachts and other wasteful amusements of billionaires is a cost of capitalism. The efficiency of capitalism is quite high, but still far from 100%, so a capitalist can invest money not in a new machine, but in a new luxury car.

To discourage capitalists from such socially ineffective behavior, some countries impose large taxes specifically on personal consumption. If you bought a machine with company money, you do not pay any taxes. If you bought a house for personal use with this money, you pay, say, 35%.

Status consumption - all these Swiss watches for hundreds of thousands of dollars and the like - is not stupidity in its purest form. We have quite a strong animal nature, so status consumption often allows us to emphasize our position in society and thus help in real business.

Q: If capitalism is so effective, why do factories close so often?

A: The closing of factories under capitalism is one of the main reasons why we buy German machines and American microprocessors.

Let's imagine 2 factories. One makes bad TVs, the other makes good ones. During the next crisis of overproduction, only the factory that makes good TVs survives, and when the crisis ends, it expands to the size of the previous 2 factories. During the next crisis the situation repeats itself, then again and again. As a result, selection occurs - the best remain on the market.

Other economic systems, in which poorly performing factories are not closed but remain afloat with the help of government subsidies, inevitably lose:
their factories inevitably and hopelessly lag behind capitalist ones.

Q: So it turns out that you are a supporter of social Darwinism in the spirit of Ayn Rand?

O.: By no means. I believe that the state should provide a certain minimum standard of living to any working person. The Spartan tradition of throwing off cliffs citizens who do not fit into the market is inherently extremely barbaric.

Moreover, I believe that the state should ensure civilized rules of the game in business - much like it happens in sports. The state may well help a good plant that has suffered from external problems, but a bankrupt businessman should be given the right to write off his debts during bankruptcy and start over.

Q: What's good about making money? Is this a worthy occupation?

A: Money is just a way to measure the real result that society needs. Thus, contempt for money means contempt for results.

The phrase “I don’t want to think about money” means “ I don't want to do anything useful enough for society for anyone to want to pay for my work." Or, to put it simply, it means “I don’t want to work, but I want to live for my own pleasure.”

It is clear that painting pictures and writing poetry is more pleasant than driving a sewage truck or laying bricks at a construction site. Another thing that is not clear is why a person who does not do anything useful considers himself superior to those whom other people willingly pay for his work.

Q: Can a society based on traders and kulaks be called healthy?

O.: Here is an example of such a “huckster and kulak.” In the summer of 1944, Lieutenant Colonel GB Orlovsky, a hero of the Soviet Union, wrote a letter to Stalin. At the beginning of the letter, he talks about his combat biography and indicates that in battle he lost his right hand, lost 4 fingers on his left hand and damaged the auditory nerve by 50-60%. Further, Comrade Orlovsky writes:

It is easy to see that Comrade Orlovsky acted like a typical entrepreneur. I drew up a business plan, approached an investor, and received funding. Achieved results while managing his company. At the same time, I am convinced that even ardent opponents of private property will fully approve of the actions of the lieutenant colonel. He took the collective farm in poor, made it rich - there is nothing to argue about.

The only difference from today is that under capitalism it is much easier to find financing. There are banks, there are a huge number of private investors who are ready to invest in promising projects. Finally, you can now save money on your own - starting small and gradually developing to large turnover.

Q: Can a capitalist think about quality? He needs to make money

O.: Actually, it is the capitalist who can afford to think about quality, and for 2 reasons.

1. Market competition forces everyone to perform well. A company that makes 3 bad parts per shift on a machine loses to a company that makes 10 good parts per shift on the same machine. Doing quality work is often profitable.

2. Healthy capitalism inspires people to respect themselves and their work. The owner of a small umbrella production workshop does not depend on anyone. He himself will not want to produce bad umbrellas, and no one will be able to put pressure on him from above and order him to “drive the plan”, since he is his own master.

Another question is that not all capitalists want to think about quality - many are simply interested in money. In conditions when the state has little control over business, and people “buy” everything that is on the shelves, manufacturers of junk do not outright outperform manufacturers of quality goods, but at least push them into the far corner.

Q: Is capitalism efficient? After all, a lot of energy is spent on advertising and duplication, and surplus products are destroyed.

A: The efficiency of capitalism, of course, is far from 100%. The market sometimes dictates strange or downright ugly decisions, such as the destruction of oranges, which Steinbeck talked about so colorfully in his “The Grapes of Wrath.”

At the same time, under capitalism people are not inclined, for example, to underestimate labor productivity for fear that additional responsibilities will be assigned to them for free. Under capitalism there is no problem either buying the right thing or getting the right service.

As history has shown, with all its many imperfections, capitalism is still much more effective than any other economic system.

Q: You write about skillful managers. But can a bandit who seized a plant from an honest owner be called such a bandit?

A: Yes, indeed, significant resources constantly fall into the hands of random people. To those who stole money, won the lottery or, say, received an inheritance from a rich uncle.

We can roughly say that under healthy capitalism such “random” people make up approximately 20% of the total number of investors. These people, however, gradually lose their fortunes after making one bad decision after another.

In my opinion, a situation where management decisions are made by 80% of literate owners and 20% of illiterate ones is, although not ideal, still quite good for our imperfect world. In alternative economic systems, the proportion of inept bosses is much higher.

V.: You write as if capitalism is heaven on earth. Doesn't capitalism have problems?

A: Capitalism has plenty of problems. At the same time, we must understand that most of the problems of capitalism - poverty, inequality, corruption, insanity, loan interest, and so on - have nothing to do with capitalism. These are problems not of the economic system, but of a weak state that cannot restore proper order in the country.

Problems specific to capitalism - planned obsolescence, choice without choice, junk economics, and so on - are not so much on the minds of the general public; many do not even suspect that such problems exist at all.

To conclude, let me remind you that capitalism, unlike most other economic systems, provides everyone with the opportunity to experiment. There is no problem buying a hectare of land and trying to build a more efficient, non-capitalist management system on it.

Thus, anyone who considers capitalism to be morally obsolete can prove it with action - open their own factory or farm and show the pot-bellied bourgeoisie in top hats real class.