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Russian pensions
俄罗斯养老金
An unaffordable system
支付不起的制度
Russia’s prime minister signs a disastrous1 pension reform俄罗斯总理签署了一项灾难性的养老金改革计划Vladimir Putin is facing a dilemma2: how can Russia’s president fulfil his campaign promises to increase social spending, especially when they were directed toward his political base, while also ensuring that the country’s deficit3 does not become unsustainable? He is keen to prolong the past decade’s economic stability, which was his biggest electoral asset.
弗拉基米尔·普京面临着困境：作为俄罗斯总统，他怎么才能在实现竞选中做出的增加社会支出的承诺的同时，特别是这些承诺都是维护为了他的政治基础做出的，但是同时又要保证俄罗斯的赤字不会变得不可承受。普京热衷于延续过去十年经济稳定的状态，这是他竞选中的最大优势。
If the direction of the country’s pension system is any indication, Mr Putin and his advisers4 are choosing short-term social and political stability at the expense of long-term growth and investment. On October 1st Dmitry Medvedev, the prime minister and former president, signed a long-expected strategy for reforming the pension system that would, among other things, nearly eliminate the funded component5, in which workers pay into a personal investment account they claim upon retirement6. The money freed up from this plan is supposed to plug the $50 billion hole in the pay-as-you-go system.
如果俄罗斯养老金体系的方向有所暗示的话，普京和他的顾问都是选择短期的社会政治稳定，牺牲长期的发展和投资。10月1日，现任总理，即前任总统德米特里·梅德韦杰夫（Dmitry Medvedev）签署了人们期盼已久的一项策略，改革养老金制度。工人向个人投资账户中存钱，在退休之后便可以拥有这一账户的所有权。但是在新的养老金制度下，除了其他方面以外，这种资金成分几乎被完全取消。这项计划的腾出来的钱应该能够堵上现收现付制度造成的100亿美元的缺口。
The strategy signed by Mr Medvedev calls for the funded component to decrease from 6% to 2% of the overall pension system. (The plan is still preliminary.) At the moment, those funds are just 1.8 trillion roubles ($5.8 billion), but they act as a catalyst7 for domestic investment and support a growing industry of fund managers. The funded pillar could also go a long way towards filling the gap in the Russian market for long-term financing, which is necessary for infrastructure8 development. With those funds gone, any notion of turning Moscow into a global financial centre—a favourite talking point of Mr Medvedev’s presidency—would probably be finished.
梅德韦杰夫签署的这项策略要求资金成分占整个养老金体系的比重从6%下降到2%。（这仍是初步计划。）目前，这些资金大约只有1.8万亿卢布（58亿美元），但是能够刺激国内投资，支持资金管理者行业的发展。资金支柱也可以经过长期发展，填补俄罗斯市场长期资金筹措的空白，着对于基础设施发展来说十分必要。梅德韦杰夫任总统期间，最喜欢说的就是把莫斯科变成国际金融中心。但如果没有这些资金的话，任何这种想法都可以停止了。
Virtually all Russia’s best economists9, as well as the technocrats10 inside the finance ministry11, have warned against cutting the funded pillar. Alexei Kudrin, a former finance minister, has waged a campaign in the pages of Vedomosti, a newspaper, against the idea. Vladimir Nazarov of the Gaidar Institute calls it a “real disaster” that will only finance the pension fund’s current deficit for six years, after which the deficit will begin to grow again—and this time without the money in the funded portion as a stopgap.
几乎俄罗斯最好的经济学家以及财政部的技术官僚都提出警告，反对减少资金支柱。前财政部长阿列克谢·库德林在俄罗斯商业日报上发起一场运动反对这种想法。盖达尔研究所的弗拉基米尔.纳扎罗夫将它称为一场“真正的灾难”，只会为如今的养老基金赤字提供六年的资金，六年之后，赤字将会再次开始增长，这次就没有资助部分的资金来临时替补了。
The only way forward, argue nearly all experts, is to raise Russia’s low pension age of 55 for women and 60 for men. Both the IMF and the members of Strategy 2020, an expert group formed by the Russian government, call for a gradual increase of the pension age to 63.
几乎所有的专家都说未来唯一的方法就是提高如今较低的领取养老金的年龄。女性55岁就可以领取养老金，男性则为60岁。国际货币基金组织和由俄罗斯政府组成的专家组“2020战略”的成员都要求逐渐将退休年龄提高到63岁。
The move is thought to be politically dangerous, if not impossible. Mr Putin has increasingly relied on the support of the rural population and industrial workers, as well as the 40% or so of the electorate12 who are elderly. One of Mr Putin’s many pre-election promises, now turned into official directives, was to keep the pension age intact. That order left the government with few options.
人们认为，这一举动在政治上是危险的，也许也是不可能的。普京越来越依赖于农村人口，工业工人，以及大约40%的老年选民的支持。普京在选举之前做出的一个承诺就是保持退休年龄不变，如今这已经变成了官方指令。这一命令让政府没有什么选择。
Mr Medvedev and his team were thus handed an unenviable task. No one disputes that today’s pension system, created in 2002, needs some kind of reform. Part of the problem is demography13. Declining birth rates in the 1980s and 1990s have left Russia with too few workers to support those in retirement; birth rates have stabilised in recent years but too late to affect the looming14 pension crisis. Today there are 100 workers for every 87 pensioners15, says Evsey Gurvich of the Economic Expert Group, who led the Strategy 2020 pension task-force; by 2020, that figure will be 100 workers for 100 pensioners.
梅德韦杰夫以及他的团队就收到了一项棘手的任务。如今的养老金制度始建于2002年，它需要一些改革，这点大家都同意。一部分问题在人口分布。二十世纪八九十年代生育率下降使得俄罗斯的劳动力极为缺乏，不足以支持那些退休人员。近几年来生育率保持稳定，但是要想影响即将到来的养老金危机已经为时已晚。2020策略养老金特别小组的领导者，经济专家小组的Evsey Gurvich说，如今，每100个工人要负担87个养老金领取者的费用，到2020年，每100个工人将要负担100个养老金领取者的费用。
Mr Gurvich warns of a creeping “gerontocracy”. He predicts a deepening of “paternalistic thinking”, in which citizens regard the state, and not themselves, as the source of their pensions. Perhaps that’s exactly what the Kremlin has in mind.
Gurvich警告人们小心悄悄出现的“老人政府”。他预测，“家长式思考”会更为严重，公民会将国家而不是自己视为养老金的来源。或者这正是俄罗斯政府所想的。
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1
disastrous
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| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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2
dilemma
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| n.困境，进退两难的局面 | |
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3
deficit
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| n.亏空，亏损；赤字，逆差 | |
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4
advisers
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| 顾问，劝告者( adviser的名词复数 )； （指导大学新生学科问题等的）指导教授 | |
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5
component
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| n.组成部分，成分，元件；adj.组成的，合成的 | |
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6
retirement
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| n.退休，退职 | |
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7
catalyst
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| n.催化剂，造成变化的人或事 | |
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8
infrastructure
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| n.下部构造，下部组织，基础结构，基础设施 | |
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9
economists
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| n.经济学家，经济专家( economist的名词复数 ) | |
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10
technocrats
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| n.技术专家，专家政治论者( technocrat的名词复数 ) | |
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11
ministry
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| n.(政府的)部；牧师 | |
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12
electorate
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| n.全体选民；选区 | |
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13
demography
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| n.人口统计，人口学 | |
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14
looming
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| n.上现蜃景（光通过低层大气发生异常折射形成的一种海市蜃楼）v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的现在分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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15
pensioners
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| n.领取退休、养老金或抚恤金的人( pensioner的名词复数 ) | |
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