“The lobby of the Metropole, Moscow's lovingly restored grand hotel a few blocks from Red Square, is almost deserted on this gray spring afternoon. That's just fine with Jeffrey D. Sachs, a boyish-looking 38-year-old Harvard professor who is now probably the most important economist in the world. He has appropriated a cluster of comfortable armchairs for a meeting with two members of his team, Americans who work full time in Russia. The agenda is Russia's safety net or, more precisely, whether unemployed workers will be able to make ends meet.

I was happy to see that my blog post “Who needs a safety net?” stimulated a lively debate, which was exactly its purpose. However, so many points have been raised that I have decided to write a new post on the topic rather than answering each one of them separately.

One of the definitions of a safety net that one can find on the internet is the following: “a net placed to catch an acrobat or similar performer in case of a fall”. This brings to my mind images of thrilling performances I saw at the circus when I was a child.