Bush > Russia

___________________
David & Carr

Me > You

bush = stronger faster quicker to take up a sword so we will esily preemptive strike on russia before they change their regime to Commies, then after that we will annex their country and after winning the powerball they will give it to me

___________________
David & Carr

quote:

Originally posted by Dervish

alright ill answer if you promise to stop crying.

1. yeah sure
2. i don't know. it doesnt even matter anymore were not talking about five years ago were talking about now. and yeah theres a bunch of people that want to go back to the good old stalin days(mostly pensioners that conviniently forgot all the bad things that mofo did), but there arent too many of them.

most of the people in russia are rubes living in villages with not much more than a radio, though. and the corruption and crime there is terrible, news of this and that businessman/board director with their bodyguards being shot up does not surprise anyone anymore.

___________________

quote:

Originally posted by dj_bas wow awesome!! that's way bigger than mine

But somehow in the constraints of the Russian economy they're upgrading their nuclear arsenal. What's up with that?/


[[[smoke]]]

quote:

Originally posted by smokeape But somehow in the constraints of the Russian economy they're upgrading their nuclear arsenal. What's up with that?/ [[[smoke]]]

They are probably doing it for the same reason China will do it - US national missile defence...

arms race all over again, and with china growing at a rapid pace they will pass up the US in power im presumig within the next 20 years

___________________
David & Carr

quote:

Originally posted by Dervish Like smiley said it was a world without the mafia running the place

its a myth that the mafia in russia didnt excist during the communist time, in fact the sovjet economy was pretty much going around thanks to the mafia.

Since no Russian person has responded to this issue, I will perhaps shed some light on President Putins actions since I have some familiarity with Russian government and business.

From a western standpoint the government treatment of Khordokovsky and Yukos seems inappropriate and a reversion to the bad old days this is not necessarily true.

A small number of businessmen the Russians call Oligarchs including Khordokovsky became instant billionaires through insider dealing most notably a deal called the loans for shares arrangement which saw big businessmen get ownership of the best State owned assets in exchange for providing loans to enable the government to pay its bills. They got this money through many illegitimate methods including borrowing or stealing (not paying workers wages) money from the very corporations they intended to buy.

The Oligarchs believed that they could use their financial pull to control the government, which they in fact did control under Boris Yeltsin. President Putin was in fact hand picked by one of the most powerful Oligarchs called Boris Bereszovsky who believed that a pro-business President would be able to be controlled. He thought wrong.

President Putin quickly realised he would be nothing more than a puppet to the Oligarchs so he double crossed them sending Berezhovsky and Gusinsky (big media barons) into exile.

Given Russias dependance on the Oil and resource industry it was only natural that the government assert control over the biggest corporation Yukos. It didnt help that Khordokovsky had ambitions to be one day be President of Russia, a rather dubious ambition given the lingering anti-Semitism of many Russians.

As for Russia reverting back to some form of anti-Western/capitalist country nothing could be further from the truth.

President Putin and his team may be nationalists but they are committed to the fundamental principals of western style economics. Putin has put former KGB/FSB officials called Siloviki into most of the important porfolios related to the economy. Autocratic they may be but anti-capitalist not at all.

people they didn't do this because they want to revert back to communism, they did this because russia needs fucking money

restructuring to a new government takes money and all that types of shit, we can't just change overnight and BAM we're a democracy

get off our asses we're trying hard but alot of private companies are draining what was otherwise controlled by the government during communism, so now the government is hitting back, easy for you in the US where the gov't controls oil flows but here it's all private companies

once the economy balances itself out and begins to grow then we'll see what's up, we haven't even been a democracy for 15 years and you're already quaking that we'll go back to communism, shut up and give it time you jackasses, it took US a whole war to establish democracy there, you don't see any of us questioning your methods