Dollar mortgage holders urge Russia to end ‘financial slavery’
MOSCOW: When Olga Savelyeva took out a $226,000 mortgage to buy a small apartment on the outskirts of Moscow in 2008, she could never have imagined that the rouble would lose more than half its value in a few short years.
But Savelyeva’s $2,090 monthly instalments have skyrocketed in rouble terms due to the Russian currency’s dive against the dollar. The resulting jump in monthly payments from 49,000 to 115,000 roubles now devours most of her family’s income.
The 30-year-old mother of a young daughter and her husband have tried to honour their repayment commitments but despite their best efforts, December’s instalment was $400 short. “We’re left with 3,000 roubles ($56) this month,” Savelyeva said. “We won’t be able to make the January payment in full... “We also have other obligations,” she added, referring to her retired mother and cancer-stricken father.
http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/business/international-business/313595/dollar-mortgage-holders-urge-russia-to-end-financial-slavery
Despite Oil Riches, Life in Putin's Russia Hard – And About to Get Harder
The state's ability to deliver services is likely to come under further pressure as recession looms. Many Russians complain that the country often comes up short. Basic amenities can be poorly built or nonexistent, while the standard of living for the average citizen remains far below that in the West.
Kachalina earns 30,000 rubles a month — worth about $540, down from $860 before the ruble's recent collapse. Her extended family of six lives in a nearby town in an apartment with one room and a kitchen, where her ex-husband sleeps on a sofa.
"He has no other place to live," Kachalina said, adding that she struggles to get enough sleep before work. She shares the other room with her son and daughter, her daughter's husband and her three-year-old grandson.
It's a world away from the comforts Russia's elite enjoy. Russian media, mostly controlled by the state or people supportive of the Kremlin, keep the country's vast disparities in wealth out of sight. Some aspects occasionally seep out, though. In 2013, prominent opposition leader and blogger Alexei Navalny published details of a lavish country estate owned by Vladimir Yakunin, president of Russian Railways and a longtime associate of Putin. Navalny's allegations were based on anonymously leaked pictures of the property.
"We read on the Internet what houses Yakunin has. We know that," Kachalina said. "That's disgusting, because nothing has been done for workers."
...
Despite such inequality, Kachalina, the railway worker, sees no sign of Putin and his style of government changing. She did not vote for him in the last election.
"I can't say anything bad about him. The only thing is, he's helping others too much but not us," she said, referring to the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. "Why not increase wages for those who live here, the Russians, why not give them what he gives Ukraine? I'm against it," she said.
...
Pakhom says she believes that many Russians, especially younger ones used to the high life in Moscow, have no idea what awaits them as the country heads towards economic crisis. She has experienced downturns in Ukraine, where the economy has teetered on the edge of collapse in recent years.
"It's like Groundhog Day for us. We came [to Moscow] and we understand that it's going to happen the same here. We may be better prepared for our troubles than the Russians. It's going to be hard for fat Moscow," Pakhom said.
...
Putin will make their lives better in the end, the couple said. "We need to wait," said Valentina. Pavel said the president should be even more forceful with his people.
"He is taking care of us," Pavel said. "But if he was as tough as Stalin, the discipline would be better."
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/despite-oil-riches-life-in-putin-s-russia-hard-and-about-to-get-harder/514019.html
dissident wrote:It is simply not credible that people in Moscow, which has the highest incomes in dollar terms ($1700 per month) and highest per capita GDP would be suffering when people are feeling almost nothing in the hinterland.
BTW, America has no analogue of The Moscow Times. A "mainstream" anti-American rag.
Russian Battle Robots Near Testing for Military Use
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/russian-battle-robots-near-testing-for-military-use/514038.html
Sixstrings wrote:dissident wrote:It is simply not credible that people in Moscow, which has the highest incomes in dollar terms ($1700 per month) and highest per capita GDP would be suffering when people are feeling almost nothing in the hinterland.
What the article is saying is that *it's coming*. That people have no idea, but it's coming.
The article was a puff piece pretty much, but look at what I posted above it. About 4% of Russian mortgages being in US dollars! So now the ruble collapses and suddenly mortgage payments ballooned to double!
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/russian-battle-robots-near-testing-for-military-use/514038.html
I like that approach, make a darn tank a robot! US is working on super fancy things like robots with cheetah legs that can run fast, tiny surveillance robots with hummingbird wings, and bipedal humanoid battle robots.
So what's Russia do? Just put some darn tank treads on the robot, tried and tested all terrain locomotion. Makes sense. But I sure hate to see this era dawning, looks like Russia may be the first to ever deploy *land* drones.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
AgentR11 wrote:Yeah, I'm not seeing this huge distress in Russian language sources, neither high level press nor midget sized asymmetric blog/post sources.
...
Its a puzzle I can't figure out, and it sets my paranoia drive in high gear.
Sixstrings wrote:Do you remember the early days of the housing and financial crisis, in the US?
Nobody was "feeling the distress," at first.
Anyhow, I don't want to see Russians in Russia having problems or coffee and tea costing a fortune at the market and mortgages doubling. So if they get by okay, then fine.
And I was watching Anthony Bourdain with an Iranian family, and they were talking about sanctions. The Iranian family was saying that because of the sanctions, young people can't get good jobs anymore and start their lives anymore.
But.. a report about 4% of Russian mortgages being in US dollars and other currencies, and then ruble collapse, and then mortgage payments doubling beyond what people can pay -- that's real journalism.)
AgentR11 wrote: By using dollars they were able to get the Russian Central bank to pay for about 40% of the cost of their house. They made a huge bet, with other people's money, and lost. Gamblers do not deserve sympathy, ever.
Strummer wrote:Regarding the dollar mortgages, those people are no victims. They tried to gamble the system to get an unfair advantage and they lost.
radon1 wrote:Well, that's a bit more complex than that. They'd certainly take rouble mortgages if the interest rates were reasonable. But the rouble rates have always been rapacious. You'd finish up paying for your house multiples of the purchase price.
Even the dollar rates were tough. Something like ~10% for a good solid borrower. The central bank has actually made every incentive for the people and companies to borrow in foreign low-interest currencies. And play a forex game with their balance sheet instead of focusing on running their principal business.
Russia throws lifeline to companies starved for cash by sanctions
Russia: Ruble plummets, mortgages skyrocket
The Russian government is pumping money into big companies that are being starved for cash by Western sanctions.
In the past week alone, it invested 100 billion rubles ($1.7 billion) in Russian bank VTB and nearly 40 billion rubles ($680 million) in Gazprombank.
The two banks are among Russia's biggest financial institutions and were barred last year from raising funds from U.S. and European markets.
The government has also reportedly given 150 billion rubles ($2.6 billion) to support a major natural gas project owned by Novatek, a massive Russian energy firm that has also been hit with sanctions.
Russia's economy is shrinking, its currency has plunged by over 40% in the last year, and inflation is running rampant as the country struggles with Western sanctions and a drop in oil prices.
Many investors and depositors are pulling money out of their Russian accounts -- weakening capital levels at the banks. This, in turn, means Russian financial institutions have less to lend to local companies, a trend that threatens to further squeeze the fragile economy.
http://money.cnn.com/2015/01/02/news/economy/russia-rescues-companies/
AgentR11 wrote:Six, there will be no bailouts for people that financed their homes in a foreign currency. None. Period. Stop dreaming.
AgentR11 wrote:
They will not get a bailout.
radon1 wrote:AgentR11 wrote:
They will not get a bailout.
No bailout, but the banks have apparently done a bit of restructuring for them, fixing the liability at some exchange rate and converting the dollar mortgages into rouble ones, with a quiet financial backing of the government. Not a sweet deal, the borrowers' reliability record destroyed anyway, but something. Those forex mortgagers held a couple of protesting rallies, and the government gave in. They react really fast to any sign of mass public protests, fearing for a local maidan obviously. On another occasion a guy sat in his car for nine hours protesting about forced evacuation of his car, the thing went highly publicized in the media, and the state Duma immediately adopted a law limiting forced evacuations, obviously mindful of auto-maidan in Kiev.
dissident wrote:
No amount of adding zeros to the turnout numbers for Navalny cult members will transform them into some sort of voice of the mainstream.
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