Professor Nikita Krichevsky, Dr. Sc. (Economics):
"I have thought all along (and the phone-in, unfortunately, confirmed my point of view) that the prevailing thinking in Russia is that all problems can be solved by throwing money at them. And not a word has been said about the results that we are supposed to get. For example, whether a thousand, two thousand or three thousand kilometers of highways will be built with our money. What will be the length of the new railways? Or what market share will be controlled by domestic producers of food and clothing. The talk is always in terms of billions. Billions is all very well, but reality is very different.
"Mr Putin used the word ‘modernisation' in his address in 2007. At the time he spoke about modernisation of infrastructure and other sectors. The fact that the word was hardly mentioned during the phone-in makes no difference. It is not about terms but about practical actions. At present there are no real projects."
Vladislav Inozemtsev, Director, Post-Industrial Society Studies Centre:
"In crisis, the governments of various countries allocate money to support various enterprises. The question is that even if an enterprise is loss-making, the money must be used for modernisation. In this country the money is mainly used to keep intact the structure that is in place, to meet the appetites of the managers who run the loss-making enterprises. The problem is not that they should not be given money, the problem is how to give it, under whose control, for what purposes and how they should report back. The government's problem today and Putin's fundamental problem in general is not that he gives somebody money but that he never asks how the money is spent. Bureaucrats are shifted from one job to another without losing any of their incomes regardless of their failures and the managers remain in their places and the enterprises are no better off than before. This is the whole problem.
"As for a rapid exit from the crisis, we do not see it in America, in Europe or in Russia. The results of 2010 will be worse than those of 2008, i.e. in effect we will not be out of this pit and no one will be out of this pit except perhaps China which has not fallen into it. So, if Putin says that we will leave the crisis behind us, he is speaking in unison with the countries which are saying the same."
Yelena Reznikova