Break Out the Thunderbird

Apparently the worldwide economy is so damn shitty that the Russians can’t even sell their vodka. TRAGEDY.

With retailers struggling to find credit and ordinary Russians being forced to change their spending, a vast lake of undrunk vodka is accumulating in distilleries across Russia.

Official statistics indicate a collapse in demand for vodka over the past two months. November inventories of unsold vodka stock have risen to 82 million litres, a 600 per cent increase from 2007, according to the National Alcohol Association.

The vodka lake has grown even as desperate producers have slashed output, which fell by 15 per cent in October according to industry estimates.

Retailers and producers alike attribute the main reason for the collapse in the market to the evaporation of credit, with many suppliers unable to refinance loans from banks to buy new supplies.

“People are spending less money on alcohol and other products because of the financial crisis,” said Pavel Shapkin, the executive secretary of the National Alcohol Association. “As people try to save money, they are turning to cheaper brands.”

This is bad news for the vodka industry, but really good news for vodka drinkers, because you better believe prices are going to start sliding, big time. Someone better lock up Lindsay Lohan, stat.

I wonder if the Russian government will be called on to bail out the vodka manufacturers. Or maybe they’ll just skip the middle man and go ahead and ask the U.S. government to bail them out, since we seem to be in the business of bailing out anyone who asks politely these days. Why would we hold anyone accountable? Honestly we should change our national motto from “In God We Trust” to “It’s Not Your Fault.”

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 24th, 2008 at 5:07 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.