Ed wrote: > 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.
Yeah right, the mega-thieves saved Russia! How absurd can neo-con spin get? Soros played an important role in the collapse of Communism. Guess with what goal? To liberate the Russian people, or to reap money? And the same rip-off now happens in Western Europe, with increasing privatization. You can't say that Switzerland is "chaos", can you? We have the best-functioning public services, but they are being privatized now to enrich a few oligarchs. The cave-men are taking us back to medieval times... 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
