🚀 go-pugleaf

klaatu wrote:
> 
[snipped]
> 
> All good points.  But I will hope that you'll recognize that quite a bit
> of  Russia's present economic woes result from the fact that when the old
> Soviet State went down the tubes, many of the already-corrupt _apparat_
> looted State resources, and sold it on the Black Market (which they'd been
> doing for years anyway but not on so grand a scale) and where there had
> formerly been a sort of understanding between the Internal Security forces
> and the Mafia, now there was not only collaboration, but a mutual
> absorption. In short, much of the KGB and the Mafia combines to loot the
> State resources and concentrate capital into criminal enterprises, which is
> where an immense segment of the Russian economy remains today -
> concentrated into the hands of capitalists who, oddly, tended to formerly
> be the enforcers of the failed Communist (or more properly,
> State-Capitalist) regime.
> 

Absolutely agree... 100%! In fact, I alluded to this very thing in
another post, referring to it as "the corruption already in place."

If ever there was a country with a siege mentality, it is Russia.
They've been invaded by practically everybody, and in turn, have invaded
practically everybody. The only time in their history that they've had
any say in their government (to the best of my knowledge), was after the
recent failure of Communisim, or as you perhaps more correctly state it,
"State-Capitalism."

In no small way, it compares to Post-WWII Germany, where former Nazis
were used to keep the trains running.

You seem to have stated the case well, where I tried a more succinct
approach to say essentially the same thing, i.e. they have had no
experience, save arbitrary rule, so we probably should have expected
what has occured. And, in fact, many commentators and Russian "experts,"
have been saying the same things for a number of years now.

Again, you state it more bluntly than did I in places, but we are saying
essentially the same thing. I think it borders on criminality, but it's
only the latest in a long line of national screw-ups of a similar nature
(and NOT just by the United States either).

-- 
Olin Murrell
Austin, Texas
http://www.realtime.com/~olin