Back to the USSR
Back in the day, the Soviet Union was what Al Quaeda is today. The Orwellian bugbear. Then came glasnost and perestroika (I can't remember the difference, something to do with being all open and human, in sharp contrast to the secretive apparatchik predecessors), the falling of the wall, devolution of the former soviet union countries, the re-unification of Germany, and the give-away of public assets to Friends of Yeltsin. Suddenly the Russians didn't look 7-feet tall anymore, they were just cute and friendly, everyone waited for the so-called "peace dividend" (money to be saved from the defense budgets -- yes, I'm not kidding) and pundits heralded a New World Order.
I don't know about you, but Putin (as in "Put in the boot") scares me. Granted, it was getting a little anarchic over there before he took over, what with former KGB guys going around private-enterprising like crazy. And it's true that the sale of assets to the oligarchs under Yeltsin was extremely sleazy. Still, he really seems to be returning the country pretty rapidly to central state control. He got back most of the oil and gas assets by trumping up some ridiculous charges against Khordorkovsky and Yukos, and sent packing any other of the so-called oligarchs who didn't toe his line. All very KGB, which isn't really surprising considering his origins. You'd have thought there'd have been an outcry in the west. State appropriation of assets? That's capitalizmu? There were a few murmurs here and there, but the main reaction of the western investors was to pile in and start trying to get a piece of the action, like buying Gazprom bonds. They still can't wait to invest more, even under the new rules whereby foreigners can't own more than 49% of Russian oil & gas assets. So P has the best of both worlds: he gets the dollars and still keeps control of the assets. Just as for small shareholders under US-style capitalism, the question springs to mind: what is ownership without control?
Amazingly, Putin did put up with some dissent, notably from his outspoken economic advisor, Andrei Illaryonov, who called the Yukos appropriation the "swindle of the year" and, as a pro-free market economist, has been very critical of the return to central control. Illiaryonov lasted a surprisingly long time. He's gone now, though, I need hardly add.
Lately, Putin's been busy trying to squeeze the strategically important FSU countries back into the old Bearhug. Ukraine and Moldova and so on. And in the past week, he's been turning his beady eye (you know, the one our esteemed leader looked into and found a soulmate in) on the human rights organizations. No wonder, considering how much flak he's taken over his methods in Chechnya. Meanwhile, he's taken over the presidency of the G8. And still nobody really seems to care.
Russia is the world's second-largest producer of oil, after Saudi Arabia, and is rapidly becoming Europe's sole source of natural gas. See http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1228/p01s01-woeu.html for a map of Russia's gas pipeline network in Europe (which excludes proposed pipelines to the Far East). Russia has about 25% of the world's reserves of gas, about equivalent, I'm told, to Saudi Arabia's oil reserves. And that's before they start on the Barents Sea reserves.
I suppose you can't blame him. After all, it's his job to advance his country's interests. But why are we going along with this and pretending it's all fine?
I don't know about you, but Putin (as in "Put in the boot") scares me. Granted, it was getting a little anarchic over there before he took over, what with former KGB guys going around private-enterprising like crazy. And it's true that the sale of assets to the oligarchs under Yeltsin was extremely sleazy. Still, he really seems to be returning the country pretty rapidly to central state control. He got back most of the oil and gas assets by trumping up some ridiculous charges against Khordorkovsky and Yukos, and sent packing any other of the so-called oligarchs who didn't toe his line. All very KGB, which isn't really surprising considering his origins. You'd have thought there'd have been an outcry in the west. State appropriation of assets? That's capitalizmu? There were a few murmurs here and there, but the main reaction of the western investors was to pile in and start trying to get a piece of the action, like buying Gazprom bonds. They still can't wait to invest more, even under the new rules whereby foreigners can't own more than 49% of Russian oil & gas assets. So P has the best of both worlds: he gets the dollars and still keeps control of the assets. Just as for small shareholders under US-style capitalism, the question springs to mind: what is ownership without control?
Amazingly, Putin did put up with some dissent, notably from his outspoken economic advisor, Andrei Illaryonov, who called the Yukos appropriation the "swindle of the year" and, as a pro-free market economist, has been very critical of the return to central control. Illiaryonov lasted a surprisingly long time. He's gone now, though, I need hardly add.
Lately, Putin's been busy trying to squeeze the strategically important FSU countries back into the old Bearhug. Ukraine and Moldova and so on. And in the past week, he's been turning his beady eye (you know, the one our esteemed leader looked into and found a soulmate in) on the human rights organizations. No wonder, considering how much flak he's taken over his methods in Chechnya. Meanwhile, he's taken over the presidency of the G8. And still nobody really seems to care.
Russia is the world's second-largest producer of oil, after Saudi Arabia, and is rapidly becoming Europe's sole source of natural gas. See http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1228/p01s01-woeu.html for a map of Russia's gas pipeline network in Europe (which excludes proposed pipelines to the Far East). Russia has about 25% of the world's reserves of gas, about equivalent, I'm told, to Saudi Arabia's oil reserves. And that's before they start on the Barents Sea reserves.
I suppose you can't blame him. After all, it's his job to advance his country's interests. But why are we going along with this and pretending it's all fine?
posted by econoclast at 11:02 AM
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