Russia's Putin warns business on excessive job cuts

[Pale Blue Dot]

Source: Reuters

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told employers on Saturday not to cut jobs unnecessarily as unemployment soars due to the economic downturn.

"Business should not... fire people without extreme need," state news agency RIA Novosti quoted Putin as telling a meeting with ministers.

"Our goal is to minimise losses (of business), maintain its ability to survive, but not to guarantee its profits," he added.

Putin, who served as president from 2000 to 2008 before becoming prime minister, still enjoys huge popularity -- unlike his predecessor Boris Yeltsin, who led Russia through the rocky 1990s when unemployment rates and wage arrears were high.

But economic stability, and Putin's popularity, could be damaged should unemployment rates rise sharply from the current 5 million, or 6.6 percent of the workforce.

Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKTRE4BJ1JO20081220

---

"Our goal is to minimise losses (of business), maintain its ability to survive, but not to guarantee its profits,"

Imagine if an American leader said this?

[acmavm]

1. Way to go Vladdie! We need someone to do that for us. But since ours

is a government by the people and for the people, I expect the warning to come out anyday now.

:sarcasm:

[Igel]

6. They tried that a number of decades back.

I forget if it was Hoover or FDR. The result was companies that had trouble staying in the black continuing to pay employees for manufacturing wares that the company couldn't sell even at cost. That pushed prices down (contributing to deflation) and pushed more companies in the red--and the reduced prices for goods made competitor's unprofitable, and helped kill *their* businesses off.

Net result: It made the onset of the Depression harsher and sharper than it needed to be, and provided short-term benefits for some very nasty long-term pain.

[ohio2007]

2. Putin orders Russians to buy Russian cars in spite of their 'quality issues'

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-ap-eu-russia-putin-automakers,0,2016097.story

Buy Russian or you'll be sent to the gulag...and don't even think about burning the Russian flag comrade

Russia riot police detain 100 at crisis protest

http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre4bk0vl-us-financial-russia-protest/

[Joe Chi Minh]

4. Absolutely right. And so elementary. You're a disgrace to your country

nursing such a myopically narrow and short-term self-interest. You deserve to lose every material thing you possess in this Depression.

[Joe Chi Minh]

3. Why does it take a Russian ex-Communist leader to speak elementary

common sense?

[Deja Q]

5. Out of genuine concern for his people or simply to mock the US?