Life in Armenia

[Artashes]

Re: Life in Armenia

------- kocharian buys Greek island -------
------- kocharian vacations in Greece -------

Truly disgusting.
While. Armenians dream of Armenia, this bigoted criminal wants to live somewhere else.
He has clearly shown his colors. He's a sellout. He is indistinguishable from the other greed ridden. As common as dirt.
However, I still think the diaspora can & should tackle the corruption problem in Armenia as well as any & all other problems our country faces.
Unfortunately, in my lifetime I've had to get assertetive with the driver of the vehicle & take control.
I don't let someone else risk my life or others because their behind the wheel.
In my youth, I used to carry a claw hammer on my belt like some would carry a buck knife. Found a hammer to be highly effective.
W here there is a will, there is a way.
Brains, concerted effort ... A difficult, daunting task ---� I still say ... Gather the forces and prepare for an assault.
It's gotta be done, period.
Let nothing dissuad use from grappling with this monster, period.
Artashes

[londontsi]

Re: Life in Armenia

Fine thoughts Artashes, sadly the reality is this,

It does not matter how bigger engine you put in a car, fit it with the best mod cons available,
what matters who controls the steering wheel, accelerator and the breaks.

Everything starts from fraudulent elections.

I read a comment that Serj Sarkissyan is not as bad as Robert Kocharyan.

Apparently Kocharyan has bought a Greek island for himself.

http://news.am/eng/reviews/4234.html

.

http://www.privateislandsonline.com/

You may wish to set the filters appropriate for an ex president who served for eight years,
set up and maintained the oligarchic system, got rid of anybody he did not like and
did very well for himself, thank you very much.

Of course he never stopped being patriotic.

Let you imagination loose!!

[londontsi]

Re: Life in Armenia

....
We in the diaspora need to flex our muscule, brain power, expertise, & finances in conjunction with those at home who are being overwhelmed.
We need to tackle this corruption problem with a fineness that we can (CAN) muster.
If we don't, the problem will continue.
I see no diaspora think tank with clear strategy & tactics backed by our best brains & finances.
----- WHY ---� ???
....
Artashes

Fine thoughts Artashes, sadly the reality is this,

It does not matter how bigger engine you put in a car, fit it with the best mod cons available,
what matters who controls the steering wheel, accelerator and the breaks.

Everything starts from fraudulent elections.

I read a comment that Serj Sarkissyan is not as bad as Robert Kocharyan.

Apparently Kocharyan has bought a Greek island for himself.

http://news.am/eng/reviews/4234.html

.

[londontsi]

Re: Life in Armenia

Private pension schemes by definition are voluntary. On the other hand state pensions are compulsory.

This plan is being forced on the people primarily to satisfy the appetite of the financial community rather than serve the people.
If the government believed in this system it should have made it voluntary as it is in most countries and look at the take up.
The only additional action that would have been appropriate was to educate the population of its benefits. Never force.

The reality on the ground is that current state pensions are so appallingly low they hardly contribute to the pensioners’ sustenance.
This responsibility traditionally has fallen on their adult children/relatives.
So they are already paying for the pensions, in the form of upkeep, of their elder dependants.
To be forced additional financial burden with no immediately visible benefit is pushing the already hard-up population too far.


.

[Artashes]

Re: Life in Armenia

IMO, the pension plan opens the door (again) to fraud.
We all know the gas price at the border is significantly less than at the individual consumer end.
We all know at least one of the 50 or so greed ridden families has their hands in this.
I suggest that a percent of every gas sale be taken for pension funds.
Everyone uses gas.
The percentage taken from gas sales should not raise the gas price but rather come from the manipulative gaugers pocket.
This gas from the border to the consumer needs to be scrutinized by independent evaluators and exposed.
The money for fair pensions is in fact actually there.
It is being fraudulently stolen by the likes og gago or whoever has the "sweetheart" deal.
Artashes

For that matter, all mineral wealth exported from the country should have a percentage deducted for pension and medical costs.
This wealth also belongs to the country & people.
The benefits should be utilized as such.
Artashes

At the very best, it's a well intentioned endeavor that will do much more damage than good. At the not so very best, it is exactly as you say: another attempt at theft.

Considering the more complex well intentioned route:

The United States of America, the country encouraging this campaign, a country that also happens to be the world's most powerful country, cannot itself maintain such a program. The Social Security Program has become an abused government nuisance on the road to bankruptcy that nobody seems to know how to reform. What would lead us to believe that Armenia would be able to a manage such a program that America cannot.

Even if the plan is executed perfectly and years down the road we see the benefits, it wouldn't matter. Armenia's most pressing issue is right now. Things are most dire now. People are having the most trouble making it by now. Emigration is happening now, not in 10 years. When you make it harder for people to be able to afford basic essentials now, it doesn't matter what it'll be like in 30 years, they care about being able to make it now, and in Armenia the margin is not big enough to save for 30 years later.


You are driving away your youth, your most talented, your highest earners.


At worst, and most likely scenario, it is nothing but fraud. It is nothing but more government funds that will be used in ways not intended to be used.

Again, I'm agreeing with your above post.
My point is that there is enough money being generated by the Armenian economy to to fund an appropriate pension fund & health fund.
The money's are being extracted by the wealthy manipulators for their own benefit & to the detriment of the country & it's people.
We in the diaspora know this and many times can point to where the fraudulent, incideous extraction of the public wealth is occurring.
We, as a community need to clearly identify, innumerate & document this.
As it stands right now, we are talking and accusing & nothing more.
We in the diaspora need to flex our muscule, brain power, expertise, & finances in conjunction with those at home who are being overwhelmed.
We need to tackle this corruption problem with a fineness that we can (CAN) muster.
If we don't, the problem will continue.
I see no diaspora think tank with clear strategy & tactics backed by our best brains & finances.
----- WHY ---� ???
The problem is not (NOT) going to fix itself.
Defining the catastrophic effects of such greed ridden conduct is one thing.
Straight forward, blunt addressing the causative factor(s) is another & separate issue.
Artashes

[Mher]

Re: Life in Armenia

IMO, the pension plan opens the door (again) to fraud.
We all know the gas price at the border is significantly less than at the individual consumer end.
We all know at least one of the 50 or so greed ridden families has their hands in this.
I suggest that a percent of every gas sale be taken for pension funds.
Everyone uses gas.
The percentage taken from gas sales should not raise the gas price but rather come from the manipulative gaugers pocket.
This gas from the border to the consumer needs to be scrutinized by independent evaluators and exposed.
The money for fair pensions is in fact actually there.
It is being fraudulently stolen by the likes og gago or whoever has the "sweetheart" deal.
Artashes

At the very best, it's a well intentioned endeavor that will do much more damage than good. At the not so very best, it is exactly as you say: another attempt at theft.

Considering the more complex well intentioned route:

The United States of America, the country encouraging this campaign, a country that also happens to be the world's most powerful country, cannot itself maintain such a program. The Social Security Program has become an abused government nuisance on the road to bankruptcy that nobody seems to know how to reform. What would lead us to believe that Armenia would be able to a manage such a program that America cannot.

Even if the plan is executed perfectly and years down the road we see the benefits, it wouldn't matter. Armenia's most pressing issue is right now. Things are most dire now. People are having the most trouble making it by now. Emigration is happening now, not in 10 years. When you make it harder for people to be able to afford basic essentials now, it doesn't matter what it'll be like in 30 years, they care about being able to make it now, and in Armenia the margin is not big enough to save for 30 years later.


You are driving away your youth, your most talented, your highest earners.


At worst, and most likely scenario, it is nothing but fraud. It is nothing but more government funds that will be used in ways not intended to be used.

[Artashes]

Re: Life in Armenia

IMO, the pension plan opens the door (again) to fraud.
We all know the gas price at the border is significantly less than at the individual consumer end.
We all know at least one of the 50 or so greed ridden families has their hands in this.
I suggest that a percent of every gas sale be taken for pension funds.
Everyone uses gas.
The percentage taken from gas sales should not raise the gas price but rather come from the manipulative gaugers pocket.
This gas from the border to the consumer needs to be scrutinized by independent evaluators and exposed.
The money for fair pensions is in fact actually there.
It is being fraudulently stolen by the likes og gago or whoever has the "sweetheart" deal.
Artashes

For that matter, all mineral wealth exported from the country should have a percentage deducted for pension and medical costs.
This wealth also belongs to the country & people.
The benefits should be utilized as such.
Artashes

[Artashes]

Re: Life in Armenia

IMO, the pension plan opens the door (again) to fraud.
We all know the gas price at the border is significantly less than at the individual consumer end.
We all know at least one of the 50 or so greed ridden families has their hands in this.
I suggest that a percent of every gas sale be taken for pension funds.
Everyone uses gas.
The percentage taken from gas sales should not raise the gas price but rather come from the manipulative gaugers pocket.
This gas from the border to the consumer needs to be scrutinized by independent evaluators and exposed.
The money for fair pensions is in fact actually there.
It is being fraudulently stolen by the likes og gago or whoever has the "sweetheart" deal.
Artashes

[Mher]

Re: Life in Armenia

Armenia: Should Workers Be Forced to Save for Retirement?
January 27, 2014 - 2:03pm, by Gayane Abrahamyan


A US-supported pension-reform project has ground to a halt in Armenia amid a popular outcry over whether the state can compel taxpayers to plan for retirement.

Pensioners account for roughly 18 percent of Armenia’s population of 2.8 million, according to the National Statistical Service. Currently, retirees receive monthly state pensions of 25,000-40,000 drams ($61-$100) -- amounts generally not deemed adequate to meet basic living expenses. Already struggling with a relatively weak economy, many Armenian families don’t have enough income to help out elderly relatives.

Citing the current economic environment, officials in Yerevan are arguing, with backing from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), that working Armenians should start saving for their own retirement. Under a plan the government hopes to launch later this year, wage earners born after January 1, 1974, would have 5 percent of their monthly salaries withheld by the government. The withholdings would be placed in an interest-earning pension fund that could be tapped by individuals only after they turned 63. The state would guarantee 80 percent of the deposited monies.

Many taxpayers are objecting to the forced-savings plan. In response to a motion from civil-society activists and the country’s four main opposition parties (the Heritage Party, Armenian National Congress, Armenian Revolutionary Federation and the Prosperous Armenia Party), the Constitutional Court, Armenia’s highest judicial body, ruled on January 24 to postpone the reform’s introduction pending a March 28 review of its constitutionality.

Memories of lost savings in the state-run Sberbank after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union drive much of the current misgivings about the pension plan initiative. “They deceived us back then!” shouted 85-year-old pensioner Greta Shahumian, holding high two Soviet-era bank account books at a well-attended January 18 rally in Yerevan against the reform. “Now again they are trying to pocket your money -- don’t trust them!”

Meanwhile, economist Artsvik Minasian, an MP for the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), contended the reform would be “economically disastrous” by “increasing both taxes and the shadow economy, reducing the number of jobs, decreasing GDP . . . [and] triggering another wave of migration.”

President Serzh Sargsyan’s administration remains committed to the reform. On January 24, Sargsyan predicted that the pension plan would “later be called historic,” the president’s office reported. The Central Bank has licensed C-QUADRAT Ampega Asset Management Armenia, a joint-venture involving an Austrian and a German investment firm (C-QUADRAT Investment AG and Talanx Asset Management GmbH respectively), to manage the fund. USAID has pledged to help “ensure the successful roll-out of the new pension system.”

A determinedly upbeat Labor and Social Welfare Minister Artem Asatrian, whose ministry would oversee the program, asserted on January 21 that the change would bring “tangible results.”

That’s just what worries some critics.

Armenians now pay an income tax amounting to 24.4 percent of their monthly salaries over 45,000 drams ($110) and 26 percent for salaries over 120,000 drams ($300).

Under the social-security plan, they would have another 5 percent of their salaries withheld. Deductions would be taken out of the individual worker’s gross salary, compounding the shrinkage of take-home pay, said accountant Maneh Tandilian, a member of the “I Object” anti-pension-reform movement.

Concerns about shrinking take-home pay resonate in the country’s relatively well-paid IT sector, an emerging economic field that the government is eager to develop. “Many among my friends are discussing options for leaving the country,” commented programmer Gevorg Gorgisian. “Why do we have to lose 40 to 45 percent of our salaries, which hardly suffice for covering our family expenses [and] looking after our parents, because the state does not provide decent pensions?”

Harutiun Mesrobian, a professor of economics at Slavonic University in Yerevan, said the idea has merit that the social security plan may stimulate emigration. The size of Armenia’s shadow-economy, widely believed to account for a large share of the Armenian job market, could expand as well. Taxpayers “cannot pay such big taxes . . . and survive at the same time,” said Mesrobian.

Given the prevalence of corruption, some opposition politicians are suspicious about Sargsyan administration’s motives. One, Naira Zohrabian, secretary for the Prosperous Armenia Party’s parliamentary faction, went so far as to call the withholding plan a “state racket.”

Minasian, the ARF MP, questioned whether taxpayers would see any benefits from the fund. He asserted that the government, by law, cannot guanatee 80-percent of its deposits since budgetary regulations require that such guarantees do “not exceed 10 percent of each year’s tax revenues.” If the pension fund, as forecast, increases by 100-billion drams ($245 million) each year, that amount would outstrip the government’s guarantee by the second year of the fund’s existence, he claimed.

Galust Sahakian, leader of the governing Republican Party of Armenia’s parliamentary faction, brushed off speculation about the government’s ability fulfill its pledges. “If the law says that the government will guarantee [deposited pension funds], so it will,” he said.

Representatives of the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare declined to respond to questions about the reform, referring EurasiaNet.org instead to Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisian’s remarks. In his end-of-the-year news conference, the prime minister on December 27 called opposition to the reform “understandable” since “any reform meets resistance.” But ultimately, he underlined, “there is no alternative to the compulsory accumulative pension system.”

http://www.eurasianet.org/node/67980

[londontsi]

Re: Life in Armenia

Understandable & reasonable. Also appropriate.
As I don't know anymore than what was contained in your post, I cannot speak about the details.

http://asbarez.com/118795/sarkisian%...n-south-korea/

The tycoon paid for everything on Serj's account.

Probably, mistake number 1

Was the tycoon seeking special treatment from Serj? Has this tycoon received undue privilege from Serj's quarter previously?

From the picture it appears its Ara Abrahamyan.
Through his effort and leadership no doubt contributed a lot to economic development of Armenia.
I would not fault him for gaining access to the president. Everybody is at it. All presidents of the world have to handle this “problem”.

http://arminfo.info/index.cfm?objectid=BAE251A0-3191-11E3-93E60EB7C0D21663

This guy & relationship needs be tracked & scrutinized intensely,IMO.

There is no need. He is the leader of Armenians in Russia.

Is Serj trying to get benefits for Armenia from tycoon?

No doubt he is a capable man and some influence. His patriotic credentials are not in question.

Can Serj bring back anything of value for his country because of this travel?

Unlikely, the only time he would have seen the Korean president would have on the local TV.

Had be seen the Korea president he would probably asked for some economic aide or support.
Not the best setting for such an eventuality.

We do have diplomatic relations.

yes

Did this trip further our diplomatic dialog with South Korea?

Unlikely, it was a private visit and daily “treatment”.
When you go to develop relations with a country you do not operate from a $200,000 per week spa.

On the surface it does look bad, maybe?

For sure, how will he look when he goes abroad to ask for foreign help next time.
What will the nation as a whole feel about it.

.