Доброе утро frauen, being BUSY as Vlad's PA doesn't leave much time for grunking these days, but he wanted me to report back with the situation in Russia. Of course, Thorpe Bay is the centre of the known universe but I thought it would be useful to note that other places exist which are *also* experiencing food price increases (maverick, I know
).
Russia's food prices have been increasing for a while now and are hitting poorer Russians hard, but this is a complex situation. After sanctions were imposed in 2014, inflation went a bit crazy and prices skyrocketed, but a combination of counter sanctions and increase in agricultural practices meant that they dropped in the years following. But the pandemic has had an impact globally on supply chains and the availability of (sad to say) terribly paid migrant labour. Russia relies massively on farm workers from former Soviet republics AND we know that Britain does/did too rely on largely Eastern Europeans picking strawberries for £2/hour or something appalling like that. Actually, both Brexit and sanctions for Crimea are comparable in terms of availability of goods/ease of imports across the border.
Russia has several indexes for tracking real-world price increases which focus on the shopping habits of average Russians (the vast majority of which live paycheck to paycheck). The Borscht Index tracks the cost of the standard ingredients for making borscht soup (potatoes, carrots, beets, sour cream etc) and has risen between 2-15% since this time last year (depending on which region you live in). The Olivier (salad Russians love to eat at new year which is basically sausage, potatoes, pickles and mayo) Index has risen by up to 15% since last year. These indexes don't include champagne or lamb or caviar, but they are not crazy figures like 344% because they reflect the actual situation that is happening? Which is that poor/late harvests, increase in farming equipment and supplies and lack of cheap labour (plus panny d) have caused a rise in inflation. But it's also acknowledged that these indexes only have limited use in capturing the nuance between family to family, region to region - to actually do that would require a crazy amount of work (lol) that Jack just aint gonna do
So in response Vlad capped prices on some of the Russian staples such as sugar and oil and flour. Economists are saying that this is a stupid short term fix (he had an election coming OKAY) and will actually
duck the economy more in the long run by discouraging farmers (who are already struggling in the UK as several fraus have mentioned). It seems like this is what Jack wants to happen too? It also seems like Jack is focusing her attention on bags of carbs/things in tins rather than fresh food like she doesn't understand that these things are also dependent on farmers/crops?? When it comes down to it, the main issue is the fact that salaries/benefits are not increasing in line with being able to pay for food (and the terrifying energy hike which is partly due to Vlad hoarding all the gas - see, it's all CONNECTED). Shouting at the Tories for purposely screwing "the poor" by refusing to protect cheap food prices displays a terrible grasp of the complexity of the situation.
ANYWAY thank you for coming to my lecture. Might I suggest Jack's index drop the ridiculous Vimes analogy (food gets eaten almost immediately so it's not a false economy at all - you can either afford it or you can't??) and renames it after one of her essential slop dishes? How about the Come-to-Bed-Parmigiana Index? Horse-Spunk-Lasagne Index? Manky-Salad-Bag-Pesto Index? The options are endless...
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