The government has no money. It is not just a matter of uncollected taxes. There is simply no money. The price paid by the state for low inflation was the withdrawal of money from circulation. According to Sergei Glazyev, former head of the department of economic security of the Russian president's Security Council, the volume of money in circulation in the country is 12 percent of GDP, whereas according to the rules of economics it should be no less than 70 percent.
Pensioners are very bad off.
With indignation, he said that, whereas nonpayment of pensions amounted to 8 trillion rubles in January 1996, by December the figure had reached 16 trillion rubles, and he ordered that these arrears be paid off by May and June of 1997. They didn't carry out the president's order then, and they won't carry it out now. There is no money in the pension fund, which is entirely dependent on the government, and no money is expected. The deficit in the fund has reached 51 trillion rubles, and it continues to grow. Chaos is acquiring increasingly sinister hues.