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...The employers have to pay a lot of things for the employee, things that taxes would pay. So it is a different way to tax. Like our employers pay only half of social security, there I think they pay all. I donâ€™t remember the particulars, but the outcome of the explanation was that all things included, the taxation is closer to the same as ours. What the employer pays the state for the employee he does not pay the employee in wages.

I visited Russia on business 15 years ago. Went to their most advanced optical facility -- one that made the optics for their satellites.

The most striking thing I learned was that the head of this company was really more concerned with meeting his quota for cabbages than with any scientific advances. (They were grown on the land around the factory.) Not that their science was bad, but the penalties for not feeding his workers were severe.

At that time, at least, it was a different and very foreign world over there.