Quote:
Originally Posted by woj
it's actually $9,055... PPP one is after bs "adjustments", which is not what we are discussing here... average Russian makes $9k/year and that's that... so average citizen can afford 12 $750 iphones per year... or 25% of a $36k BMW per year... or one $9000 vacation to Paris... there is no "adjusting" out of that reality...
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An average citizen here earns the money in envelope and nobody knows the real amount. Haven't you ever asked yourself a question why "poor" Russians travel the world more than the "rich" Americans? I'm not talking about absolute numbers (your population is more than 2x times bigger than ours). I'm talking about relative figures (number of world travels per one citizen a year) - only Germans travel more than Russians. Also ask yourself why those "poor" Russian clerks drive Range Rovers and buy apartments in Moscow for many 100's of thousand dollars? Why 25% (according to Wikipedia) of those "poor" Russian families have at least two places of living: city apartments and a dacha house? I believe there is something wrong with your math ;)
Quote:
Originally Posted by woj
every country has this problem, in Russia it may be informal taxi service like you suggested, in the US it might be some entrepreneur growing and selling illegal weed...
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In the States and in Russia you will face a jail time for selling illegal weed. Illegal taxi service is not a crime here. Max that the police can do is to fine you for a couple thousands of rubles, but first of all they have to prove it, which is nearly absolutely impossible. The personal tax evasion here is also not a serious crime. If caught, you may be fined up the the amount of the tax you didn't pay for the last 2 years (>2 years old tax evasion can not be prosecuted) and you won't got to jail for that. This is how the corruption works. Have I said that Russia is very corrupted? Yes, I'm saying it again and again. Do I like it? No, but the most of population is used to live this way. From your point of you it should look like anarchy, but it isn't. This game has very strict rules and everybody knows them. E.g.: selling drugs is a big "no", while doing an illegal taxi service is ok. The same rules apply to other spheres of economics here. If you know the rules and don't cross the line, you are fine.