Chris, you mention the Russian oligarchs. It was a little more complex than the way you put it. I spent a month in Russia, mainly Moscow, in 1994, shortly after the collapse of Communism. It was chaos. Yeltsin was desperate: he had a country to run and yet there was no way he could tax. Ever so much of what went on in Russia at the time took place in the "underground economy" operated by "the Mafia". Printing money was one way to do the business of the state, but it was tremendously inflationary. Other schemes were tried, but nothing seemed to work. In the end, Yeltsin had to turn to well-to-do Russians with international connections -- the oligarchs. They agreed to get him money in return for collateral, shares in key national industries. The idea was that Yeltsin would fix the country up, make it productive, repay the oligarchs and get the shares back. It proved to be a very foolish idea.
If you want to know more, read Chrystia Freeland's "Sale of the Century", a very good book on what went on at the time. Ed ----- Original Message ----- From: "Christoph Reuss" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, June 01, 2010 7:47 AM Subject: Re: [Futurework] [Ottawadissenters] Re: Sound money > Keith wrote: >> In effect, what is going on now is a battle between the US$ and the price >> of gold. But unlike the huge spike and crash of gold in 1980, the central >> banks have been unable to prevent the rise in gold price in recent years. > > Because they had sold too much of it in the meantime. Basically, the > scheme > was that politicians bought by billionaires sold much of the national gold > before the gold price tripled, in order to enrich the same billionaires. > It's the old game of privatizing the nations' "family silver" into the > hands of a few billionaire oligarchs, as happened most blatantly in > Russia. > > Chris > > > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > SpamWall: Mail to this addy is deleted unread unless it contains the > keyword > "igve". > > > _______________________________________________ > Futurework mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework > _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
