The Moscow empire (Russia) has no future. According to the forecasts made by both Russian and foreign experts, by 2015-2020 the degradation among the population will reach such proportions that the healthy part of the population will be unable to provide sustenance for that entire mass of alcoholics, drug addicts and mentally ill people. Economic and social collapse will set in.
In 2009 the demand in the labor market will for the first time exceed the rapidly decreasing supply, and by the year 2015, unless nothing changes, the deficit of manpower will reach $ 13 million, which will not let the economy develop freely.
The World Bank's Lead Health Specialist of the Human Development Sector Unit, Europe and Central Asia Region Patricio Marquez says that the main reason for the decrease of the able-bodied population in Russia is unusually high death rate from non-epidemic diseases and traumas (i.e. accidents, suicides, violence), which to a great extent is caused by consumption of strong alcoholic beverages.
Experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) make regular calculations of the damage done to the countries by non-epidemic diseases that make working people die or lose their capacity.
In 2005 in Russia the damages were over $ 11 billion. World Health Organization warns that with the current tendencies by the year 2015 the damages will reach $ 66.4 billion. To compare: in UK the damages in 2005 were only $ 1.6 billion, and by 2015 they will be near $ 6.4 billion, i.e. much lower than in Russia.
These figures are only the lower estimate of the one-time damage caused by loss of employee's working capacity, without considering the accumulated experience and lost profits. Based on the data of World Health Organization The World Bank decided to evaluate how much Russia will lose from the high death rate among its population.
The World Bank's estimates can still be considered as moderate. Upon the request from the social council of Russia's Central Federal District, researchers from the London School of Hygiene and World Health Organization have calculated economic damages based on local researches conducted in cities such as Izhevsk and Kursk. The calculation was done by using various methods, some of which took into consideration the accumulated experience and indirect influence of alcoholism on various areas of life. Other methods were evaluating only direct consequences.
According to the most conservative method, the damages from abuse of alcohol were estimated 2% of the gross domestic product a year. It means that by 2025 the damages will be over 40% of the GDP compared to 20% estimated by The World Bank.
But conservative methods cannot be taking into consideration everything, since they are only aimed at the calculation of damages due to lack of workforce. And many alcoholics are unemployed. Mark Sukra from the World Health Organization is assured: oftentimes they say that alcoholics are unemployed, and they do not add to the workforce, so their loss does not hurt the economy, but this is not so.
In Russia several million children are left unattended by their parents, who either died or lost their parenthood. Most often it happens with parents who are alcoholics. Their children become a burden for the state and the taxpayers.
Just like their parents, the children are left without support. Moreover, the unemployed are a loss of profit for the economy, which is just about to start suffering from lack of workforce in all areas. According to the bravest method of calculations used by British researchers, damages from alcoholism may reach 5% of the GDP a year.
"People with higher education, among whom alcoholism is not that frightening, often think that it does not concern them. Yet there is a real pestilence going on among the educated strata of society, whose consequences are spreading to everybody else." Even if you are a successful and moderately-drinking representative of the middle class, who was lucky enough never to encounter drunken criminals or drivers, you are still suffering from alcoholism because the country as a whole becomes poorer.
Can alcoholism be curbed and what is the point of making all of these calculations, since drinking has always been popular in Russia? All you have to do is look at the death rate among male adults in 19th century in order to understand that they were not drinking the way they are today.
You don't have to go too far into the distant past. Only as far back as in 1970s, long before any anti-alcoholic campaigns, alcohol was consumed 1.5 times less than it is nowadays, and death rate among working age males was 1.5 times lower. So, what is happening now is not normal. Even though it does happen to the countries that go through tough times and have the longstanding traditions of consuming hard alcoholic beverages.
For instance, such was the case in Poland, where right after the collapse of communism in the late 1980s the consumption rate of strong alcohol skyrocketed and life expectancy among males decreased. This trend was overcome pretty quickly with no pressure on the budget and without putting any strain on the country for the sake of healthy lifestyle. Poland became free and is a Catholic country, while Muscovy is the worldly-renowned center of debauchery and Satanism.
Thus, Russia has no chances for survival. The only rescue is to get the regions out of Moscow's control, since the key reason for the overall degradation of the population is the lack of freedom, government's lawlessness and outrageous injustice, all of which will remain for as long as the empire exists.
Source: ingria.info
Department of Monitoring
Kavkaz Center
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