What Putin Fears More Than War

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So he’s just posting Joe Rogan-certified “experts” and their fake TED Talks as his only source for entire videos now?

👍︎︎ 1 👤︎︎ u/[deleted] 📅︎︎ Apr 30 2023 🗫︎ replies

The boy who can go from telling you what “Putin Fears The Most” is onto “Why Cheasecake Factory Isn’t a Factory, but Good” in 23 days. You’d walk out of this if it was a classroom

👍︎︎ 1 👤︎︎ u/[deleted] 📅︎︎ Apr 30 2023 🗫︎ replies
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This is not CGI. It’s neither a  Sci-Fi video game, nor a movie. This is the town of Vorkuta, Russia and it’s all  too real for the 70,000 people who call it home. Virtually everything about Vorkuta  screams “Don’t live here.”,   starting with the extreme  difficulty of getting there. Nearly a hundred miles north of the Arctic  Circle, it’s the easternmost town in Europe. With no roads in or out, the only ways to  or from Vorkuta are a 40-hour train ride   or one of the two to three weekly flights…  assuming they’re unimpeded by blizzards. Because of this, those who move away are  liable to just leave behind their cars   and apartments with everything in them — which  is how you get apocalyptic scenes like these. During the winter, temperatures can  drop as low as -58 degrees Fahrenheit.   The sun appears for just an hour  on the average December day. Then, after enduring this for 8 long months,  residents are rewarded with a brief, 70-day   intermission when the snow melts, revealing the  city’s bright, Soviet-era buildings underneath. Clearly, mother nature would prefer Vorkuta  remain a vast, untouched reindeer sanctuary.   So, why does the city exist at all?  What kind of person would move here? Initially, the kind who didn’t  have a choice — prisoners. Chosen precisely for its isolation,  the town was once home to one of the   largest and most notorious of the  Soviet Union’s forced labor camps. Later, after Stalin’s death  and the end of the Gulag,   Moscow invested billions of  rubles transforming distant,   arctic settlements like Vorkuta into  shining, triumphant symbols of the empire. Conquering nature was no less a political as a  practical project. Like Mao’s obsession with dams,   Vorkuta and places like it were irrefutable  physical testaments to the power of Socialism. These towns — some, though not  all in Siberia — were usually   designed around a single industry.  Sometimes even a single factory. In Vorkuta, that industry was coal mining. Further south, another one produces asbestos.   In fact, the town is named after the known  carcinogen, which it still mines to this day. In total, there are about 300 Russian ‘monotowns’,   of which Vorkuta is neither the furthest  north, most remote, nor even the coldest. Take, for example, Norilsk, a nickel mine  masquerading as a city of 200,000 people. Entry is strictly off-limits to foreigners,   which may be a good thing, considering it’s  one of the world’s most polluted cities.   Its hazy, brown air and toxic, discolored water  make Vorkuta, by comparison, look like Disneyland. Despite this, thousands packed their bags  and cheerfully moved to places like Norilsk   and Vorkuta in the 70s and 80s thanks  to the Soviet system of social welfare. Although the retirement age was set very  generously at just 55 for women and 60 for men,   you could retire even earlier and collect an even  larger pension if you met certain conditions. …Conditions like working in a mine, or, better  yet, working in a mine… in the middle of nowhere. That placed Vorkuta right in the  bulls-eye of the Venn Diagram. Young Russians could move to the arctic,   do a few years of hard labor, and then  retire early down on the Crimean beach. But all that came to an  end on Christmas Day, 1991. The collapse of the Soviet Union meant the   collapse of the entire economic model  on which these monotowns were based. Suddenly, these mines, factories,  and power plants were thrown out   to the wolves, forced to fend for  themselves on the global market. After a lifetime of artificial state  support, how could they possibly compete? So, what happened next was as  predictable as it was tragic. Bankruptcies led to layoffs. Layoffs led   to poverty. Poverty to crime.  And crime to mass migration. A quarter of the Vorkuta fled in the  four years between 1998 and 2002. Meanwhile, the 1998 financial crisis had reduced  the value of Russian pensions by nearly 50%. In short: seniors were on  the verge of financial ruin. And what little social welfare remained  was often inconsistent or ineffective. Retired teachers might be entitled to free bus  rides where public transit no longer existed.   These but not those veterans might be  granted free phone service… etcetera. This was the Russia that Vladimir Putin  inherited at the turn of the millennium. The entire social welfare system  was in dire need of an overhaul.   And his first attempt to fix it was  called the “monetization of benefits”. Rather than maintain 230 different complex,  outdated categories of benefits — the idea   was — why not just give people cash  and let them decide what to do with it? In truth, it was a fairly modest proposal  with entirely reasonable intentions. But, the government failed to communicate  its plan effectively. What’s more, the   Kremlin delegated implementation to individual  regions, leading to geographic disparities. Russians — everywhere from downtown Saint  Petersburg to rural Siberia — were. furious. Thousands of protestors descended on the streets,   shouting “Down with Putin!” and  waving nostalgic Soviet flags. In their eyes, this was not a mere  change in policy. It was nothing   less than a giant middle finger to their  years of hard labor and national service. These coal miners traveled all the way from  Vorkuta to protest in the streets of Moscow.   That’s like swimming from  Guam to the White House lawn. For Putin, the message was loud and clear:   don’t touch pensions — or anything  resembling pensions — with a ten-foot pole. Pensioners became a critical base of  support for his party, “United Russia”. In 2005, on the subject of raising the retirement  age, Putin declared unequivocally on television,   quote, “this decision will not  be taken while I am president.” He later called pensions the Soviet  Union’s greatest achievement. And after seeing how the issue of social  welfare inspired political interest even   in Siberian coal miners, his government  paid particular attention to these remote,   decaying monotowns, home to  a large number of retirees. The Kremlin was so concerned that it tasked  the Federal Protective Service — Russia’s   equivalent to the Secret Service — with  conducting, quote, “sociological surveys”. These undercover agents identified  54 monotowns as having the greatest   risk of unrest, with another 104 not far behind. Thus, while other ex-Communist  countries like Poland and Hungary   encouraged the residents of their “rust  belt” towns to slowly migrate toward jobs,   Russia saw them as delicate kindling, waiting  for the tiniest spark to ignite a wildfire. Less risky to simply keep these  dying regions on life support,   handing out just enough busy work to ensure  scarce time for any… “extracurricular activities”. These factories may not produce  anything tangible of value,   but what they do produce  are votes for United Russia. High employment plus rising  pensions equals harmony. The first way it achieves this harmony  is with a wildly bloated bureaucracy. In 2011, nearly 20% of the entire national  labor force was employed by the state.   And that’s not counting state-owned  companies — another 12%. In fact, the pension fund itself employs  over 100,000 people — 60% more than   its American counterpart — despite  serving a population half as large. You know there’s a problem when the American   government looks like an efficient,  well-oiled machine by comparison. Secondly, the Kremlin “collaborates” with —  or, more accurately, threatens — businesses. Oligarchs may be given an  incredibly long leash in Russia,   but one red line they definitely don’t  dare cross are excessive layoffs. Shut down an unprofitable factory in  a politically sensitive area and you   might suddenly develop a dangerous  habit of falling out of windows. When times are tough, oligarchs wisely  try just about anything under the sun   before resorting to lay-offs,  including deferring paychecks,   slowing down recruitment, and giving  workers unplanned, extended holidays. Finally, monotowns are directly  subsidized. In 2010 alone,   $846 million U.S. Dollars  were allocated to 27 towns. That’s how the Kremlin keeps the  baseline dissatisfaction low. But, Putin also sprinkles in some sweet carrots,  particularly before an important election. As you can see, pensions have increased  substantially since the year 2000.   They more than doubled between 2012 and ’22. Now, Russian pensions have never been large. The  average amount is only $222 US Dollars a month.   But remember, this is a country where  the mean annual income is about $8,000. For 93% of its 46 million pensioners, this is  the only thing keeping them from extreme poverty. To call these retirees “single-issue  voters” is a massive understatement.   Either they receive these pensions  or they starve. It’s that simple. And given the sheer size of this  voting block — one-third of the whole   country(!) — Putin’s extraordinarily  high approval should be no surprise. Over the course of his career, Putin  perfected this high employment,   rising pension social harmony formula. But this incredible success was deceiving. Beneath this bandaid, the infection  was getting worse. A lot worse.   And to see why, we need to take a brief step back. In their simplest form, the way pensions work  is that one group pays in to a giant pool of   money and another group withdraws  out of that same pool of money. In other words, the whole concept  requires a balance of payers and payees. This is what that balance looked like  before the Soviet Union collapsed.   The 1991 population broken down by age,  from young at the bottom to old on top. Better yet, let’s ignore the kids, combine  everyone aged 20-54 into one “contributor” group,   and anyone older into a single “recipient” group. Take it all in and now compare that  1991 balance to this 2021 balance. As you can see, the Soviet Union  was playing welfare on “easy mode”,   with much fewer recipients. Immediately after its fall, the  number of new births collapsed.   And for every one of the last 32 years  since, Russia has gotten considerably older,   tilting pensions off-balance, with 44% more  recipients and slightly fewer contributors. The writing has been on the wall for three decades  — the math simply doesn’t add up. And there’s   no doubt Putin knew this. But to peel back the  band-aid and confront the root cause would mean   risking a larger, potentially regime-threatening  version of what happened back in 2004. So, he waited. And waited. And waited. Until  the inevitable could be delayed no longer. To regain balance, the “recipient” group  had to shrink and the “contributor” group   had to grow. Which meant Putin had to  do what he vowed never to do 13 years   earlier on television — raise the retirement age. This time, however, he had a plan. On June 14th, 2018, while Russian soccer  fans were busy cheering their defeat of   Saudi Arabia on the opening day of  the World Cup, Putin made his move. The retirement age was quietly increased from  60 to 65 for men and from 55 to 63 for women. With this one change, the Russian retirement  age went from one of the world’s most generous,   unchanged since its establishment  by Joseph Stalin in the early 1900s,   to one of the world’s least generous. To make matters worse, these changes were  implemented much faster than in most countries. The United States, for example, is  very slowly raising its retirement   age by just 2 years in total  over the course of two decades. Needless to say, this… was not well received. This is Putin’s popularity since 1999 and this   15% drop in approval is when  the announcement was made. In days, Putin lost most of the surge in support  he gained from the annexation of Crimea in 2014. This was, in fact, the largest short-term collapse  in approval he’s ever seen — before or since. And by January, the public’s level  of trust in Putin fell to just 33%,   with a full 50% preferring the  resignation of his cabinet. The backlash was so intense that  his administration eventually   lowered the retirement age again,  this time from 63 to 60 for women. Though this concession failed to address  one of the most common complaints:   a huge number of Russians will never see a dime. Earlier, we saw this population pyramid  dividing the country into age groups. But this graph obscures a massive imbalance.   To see it, we have to split  each age cohort by gender. In case it’s still unclear, let’s show only  the excess men or women for each age group. Notice the pattern? Down here, men very slightly outnumber  women. Here, between ages 30-34,   the two groups are roughly equal. And then  from there, women start to rapidly eclipse men.   By the time you reach age 70, there  are three women for every one man. The simple, unfortunate reality is  that Russian men don’t live very long. Poor healthcare, physically arduous labor, plus  off-the-charts alcohol consumption will do that. To be clear, its life expectancy  has increased substantially in   recent years — credit where credit is due  — but that comes after decades of decline. You heard that right. Between 1960 and 94, the  average Russian lost three years of their life. But that’s both men and women. The male   life expectancy is dramatically  lower — a mere 66 years today. And even that’s just a national  average! In poor, rural regions,   the male life expectancy is much, much lower. Remember Norilsk from earlier? Its  life expectancy is 59 and almost   certainly lower for men, most  of whom work in nickel mines. That leaves its average resident  with a retirement of… -6 years.   Even the average Russian  male can only expect a year. So, you can probably see why the  2018 change wasn’t met with glee. Now, I won’t bore you with the  implications of Russia's invasion   of Ukraine, the pandemic which overwhelmed  its already underfunded healthcare system,   or the Western sanctions on  all manner of its exports. …But suffice to say: whatever demographic and   fiscal problems the country had five  years ago, things are much worse now. The beautiful thing about demographics is  that they allow you to peer into the future.   There are fewer Russian teenagers today, so there  will be fewer pension fund contributors tomorrow. But the devastating thing about demographics  is that, for the most part, they’re fixed.   Today’s teenagers are 13-year-old  ripples of actions past.   Unless Putin invents a time machine  or immigrants flock to a country whose   passport is becoming less powerful by  the day, there’s no short-term solution. The ratio of old to young  will only continue to grow,   shifting the pension balance ever more  precariously toward a large number of seniors. …Which means the 2018 change won’t be the last.   Sooner or later, Putin will  be forced to confront reality. This is not unique to Russia. Far from it.  Most of Europe has it even worse. Pension   protests will soon be a regular  feature of the global news cycle. But there’s one, critical difference. Take a second look at Putin’s approval rating. Now consider everything Russians  have tolerated during these 24 years.   Election fraud. A failing education system.  Rampant corruption. Crackdowns on civil   society. Rising inflation.  And most recently, a draft. And yet, throughout all of it, Putin  maintained an average approval of 74%.   The one. thing. that did move  the needle were pensions. No retiree in any corner of the globe favors  a decrease in their income — of course! But only Russian retirees have  put up with so much in exchange. Take away pensions and the trade  becomes everything for nothing. …Take away pensions and the entire social contract  supporting the modern Russian state falls apart. That is the challenge facing Putin. He might find some solutions with the help of  ChatGPT if only he had access to this class   on today’s sponsor Skillshare, about how  to use Large Language Models effectively. You might think, as I did, that since the whole  point of an AI is to understand your request,   you don’t need to learn how to use it. But  ChatGPT is merely a tool. And like any tool,   there are tricks and techniques you  can employ to produce a better result. When I started getting more  strategic with my prompts,   I instantly went from ChatGPT skeptic to  believer and this class can do the same   for you — whether you plan on using  it professionally or merely for fun. This is just one of thousands of  courses you can find on Skillshare,   including my courses in which I show how I make  these videos, now watched by over 23,000 people. An annual subscription costs less than ten bucks  a month but the first 1,000 people to join with   the link on screen get a one-month free trial.  Thanks to Skillshare for sponsoring this video.
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Channel: PolyMatter
Views: 2,136,656
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Length: 21min 21sec (1281 seconds)
Published: Fri Apr 07 2023
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