What about the economy? The Prime Minister reported to the state Duma for 2018, like, all right. Well, if to judge according to the government report, all is not what is normal, and everything is just great. But just a couple of days after the report of the Prime Minister Rosstat published data for the first quarter of 2019. It turns out that the situation is, shall we say, more interesting than it seems to the authorities.
As regards the Rosstat and it is worth to pay attention to his numbers, I want to say the following: we have no alternative, other statisticians, we have.
Alternative data we do not, because this is a very expensive business — statistics across the country. In the Federal budget for the year 2019 at the statistics allocated 16.6 billion rubles.
It is impossible to find comparable money to obtain independent data. So I have to still pay attention to figures from Rosstat.
Thus, the majority of the main socio-economic indicators for the first quarter of 2019 were in positive territory compared to the corresponding period in 2018. But without exception, the figures were worse than the same indicators of 2018:
— industrial production of +2.1% (+2.8 percent);
— agriculture +1,1% (+2,4%);
— turnover of +2.1% (+2,5%);
— retail trade turnover +1.8 percent (+2.7 percent);
— etc.
But the rate in foreign trade turnover was much worse: in January—February 2019 -1,7%, while in January—February of 2018, was 25.5 percent. Real wages, by the way, haven’t increased this year: +0.4%, while a year ago it was +10.2 percent.
I repeat: without exception, all the main economic and social indicators of the dynamics of this year worse than the same period last year.
But the most interesting is the index of real disposable income of the population in the first quarter of 2019, they decreased by 2.3%, while a year ago, recorded an increase of 1.4%. Why is it so interesting (if that word fits here)? — Calculated because this indicator was already using the new method. And why is it that under the new methodology? Well, it is, in my opinion, today many people know. On the background of long-term decline in real disposable money income of the population, the authorities decided that it is urgent to change the method of calculation of this indicator. First, as you know, the first Vice Prime-Minister Anton Siluanov said that the quality of the calculation of real income, “terrible”, and after some time the Minister of economic development Maxim Oreshkin said that the Rosstat should consider the idea of changing calculation methods.
The methodology changed, and the key indicator is the real disposable monetary incomes of the population — back in the red (?!). Now what will the authorities do? — Again, change the method to get the required numbers? But it will be quite a bit better.
Conclusion: reality is increasingly at odds with data from government reports. Monetary incomes of the population decrease for the sixth consecutive year, and no attempts to change this trend using new methods of calculation do not help.
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