While we were watching Brian Cowen saying absolutely nothing to the Dail on the Irish economy today, 100 world heads of state are meeting at Davos in Switzerland to exchange their ideas and strut their stuff.

Putin has just spoken at length - Russia he claims has put by big reserves, but is overreliant on its natural energy resources and that must change.
He talked about becoming a major food exporter.He also spoke about a trend to "agressive annexation" citing Georgia, Gaza, Bosnia and other locations.

He poked the US in the eye for having come to Davos last year and talked about the stability of the US economy and the dazzling year ahead. He said about the crisis that "We never expect it to come like we never expect the Russian winter." A year later - Wall Street is gone, with losses bigger than the total profits for the last 25 years, he said.

Like Sarkozy and others he called for a world system of banking regulation, and had no other explanation for the crisis than that people had been asleep on their watch.

Ya know, dare I say it, Bad Vlad appears to be speaking sense... I liked his line about not expecting the Russian winter.

Well, the world may well need him to bump up Russian food exports; they should benefit hugely from any global warming coming their way...

cactus flower wrote:

While we were watching Brian Cowen saying absolutely nothing to the Dail on the Irish economy today, 100 world heads of state are meeting at Davos in Switzerland to exchange their ideas and strut their stuff.

Putin has just spoken at length - Russia he claims has put by big reserves, but is overreliant on its natural energy resources and that must change.
He talked about becoming a major food exporter.He also spoke about a trend to "agressive annexation" citing Georgia, Gaza, Bosnia and other locations.

He poked the US in the eye for having come to Davos last year and talked about the stability of the US economy and the dazzling year ahead. He said about the crisis that "We never expect it to come like we never expect the Russian winter." A year later - Wall Street is gone, with losses bigger than the total profits for the last 25 years, he said.

Like Sarkozy and others he called for a world system of banking regulation, and had no other explanation for the crisis than that people had been asleep on their watch.

Another post lionising St Vlad from the Lefties eh!

Well he is a most accomplished liar and throw in the Anti-Western/US/EU/free trade/market Hysteria which is slowly taking over this site - I'm not surprised he is being taken at his word.

Im just back from Dublin after attending the naturalisation yesterday of my good Russian Friend Yuri who after 8 years here has finally taken up Irish citizenship and I met up with all the Russian guys and gals I worked with over the last decade, Yuri, Alexi,Alexi R, Constantino, Markus and Natasha - all top software engineers,designers and developers and we talked long into the night about Russia, particularly as Im going to be taking a trip thru there this year - as soon as I get my backpay and redundancy from the Liquidators of my ex-employers- and the general prognosis is not good, not good at all - which is why all my Russian Comrades, patriotic folks who love their country and their people, have or are about to take up Irish or EU citizenship.

Democracy in Russia is now dead - Russia is now, to quote Yuri, a crypto fascist state - and all statements by the leader of the cabal who now runs it - with more direct power in their hands than anybody since Stalin - should be taken with a massive pinch of salt - the reality is a hell of a lot worse.

For starters - the free press is virtually finished - any that are left are so inconsequential to be not worth considering.Russia Today which we can get here on Satellite is interesting if you compare it with the other more extremist and strident channels, ie Fox ,Iranian Press Tv and Al-Jazeera, but other than that is just pure vanilla propaganda - the Kremlins in-house press department - Alexi R's sister worked for one of the last independent Tv stations in Moscow and had to skip the country 2 years ago after she wrote an expose on the business dealings of one of the oligarchs in Perm - ie the fact that virtually all the businesses in the city are owned by one family and no competition is allowed - she is currently living in Germany - but still looking over her shoulder.

Which is just aswell - because heres what happens you if you get too close to the truth:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/28/murders-kremlin-moscow-russia

This is just one of thousands that have occured over the last 8 years - no witness , never any police in the vicinity and the subsequent investigations never lead to anything and are quietly closed down. In a bizarre way , back in the Soviet era, at least you have been arrested, subjected to a show trial and probably sent for re-education and exile in Siberia unless you were really unlucky or lived in Stalins time - all you get now is no warning and a bullet in the back of the head - welcome to Putins Russia.

The lads were talking about the fact that Putin has now more control than anybody since Stalin - he appoints all the regional governors of the "Federation" - they are all graduates of the FSB (the new,larger and infinitely better funded KGB), extended members of his family or from vetted and trusted Oligarchs who are playing ball (ie abramovich - the Chelsea Bloke - is governor of one of the most impoverished Oblasts ("autonomous regions") in Siberia - he is never there, but has the personal rights to all mineral deposits and has spent the total sum of 5 million dollars in the 5 or so years he has been governor there- to put that in perspective - Michael Ballack - one Chelsea players - earns twice that in a year and abramovich has spent over 600 million euros on Chelsea alone in the last 5 years) - The FSB have brought back wire-tapping with a vengence and the internet is now censored in Russia for nearly 2 years now. Putin is the boss - that other Tosser who is President is just keeping the seat warm until Putin goes thru the motions and reascends the throne and probably do away with the pretense of elections altogher after that.

He is very clever man - he hasnt a democratic bone in his body - but according to the lads - he throws money at the Orthodox church, keeping them sweet by starting one by one , to shut down all western cultural schools and consulates around Russia except Moscow , St Petersburg and Vladivostock, is slowly clamping down and throwing out any missionaries and clergy of any christian faith or cult except the Russian Orthodox , he hasn't touched the muslims yet , as the whole southern Russian federation would explode and the Russian Military is way too weak to deal with anything like that for the forseeable future - Natasha is from Dagestan - which is beside Chechnia and Georgia down the Cacusus - she says the whole region is on tenderhooks and the military presence is very visible - the Chechnia genocide is well known about, but uprisings in Dagestan and Cabardino-Balkaria against Russian rule around 2000 were ruthlessly put down by the Red Army in a very efficient and silent manner - I asked them about Georgia - the general consensus was that Georgians were sucidally stupid - Putin (according to the 2 Alexis who both served in the Army - Alexi R in Afghanistan) was virtually willing it on as the Georgian were the only military force in the area where he was guaranteed a military victory - the Red Army being a virtual joke these days. The Georgian victory allowed him his triumph - which he needs to go with his flag waving nationalism and its 3 handmaidens, xenophobia, racism and virulent anti-semitism which the lads say are scarily making a comeback - Alexi who is from Volgograd said that there is a serious campaign to restore the image of Stalin going on, there is a campaign there for the renaming of the city back to Stalingrad and all the monuments and frescos that were covered up are being restored - without , of course the explanation that this was a man responsible for the deaths of at least 40 million people in his reign of terror. Alexi R said that the best indication of this is in the treatment of the Notorious Perm 36 - the last of the gulags that finally closed in 1987 - its located about 70 miles outside his home town of Perm - in any other country it would be a national monument to the savagery that went on there for over 50 years - instead - it is studiusly ignored - still in the hands of the FSB who are slowly knocking it down and more ominously rebuilding parts of it - as Alexi said - it wont be for an interpretive centre - Mother Russia it appears to the guys - seems destined to repeat its bloody history of authoritarianism and chauvinism over over again - they are very depressed about the future and think the whole country is undergoing the Stockholm Syndrome.

Much to ponder there and I will definitely make the trip before it is too late to do so - but as regards Putin - he has virtually no money - all that reserves stuff is bollox - what hasn't been nicked by his mates and family has lost so much value - the Moscow stock exchange has collapsed and the rouble is in freefall - as regards a major food exporter - Russia currently imports over 50% of its foodstuffs - no crazy 5 year plan is going to change that while the country is literally drowning in corruption -whats the point in trying to be entrepreneurial when anything of any value was nicked over a decade ago by the khomenkatura and their Western Fast buck merchants like Ganley - they can take it all away from you tomorrow - it will be decades before Russia is self sufficent in Food , let alone exporting - total bull - but if the Russian population keeps collapsing at the rate it is - hey maybe they will be exporters - there wont be anybody at home to eat it- Putin is on his knees praying for the end of the recession in the US and EU as much as the rest of us - yes Russia has loads of oil and gas - but if nobody wants to buy it or pay thru the nose for it well! - it would be probably too much to hope that this economic collapse might hasten the end of the Putin/Yeltsin Dynasty.

Complain bitterly all you want about the Americans -at least they are capable , and did kick out the Bush and republican junta for somebody a bit more intelligent and sane - I know from the viewing point of the theoretical left and libertarian cliche around here it might seem like small potatoes - but I'll take Obama over Putin anytime.

Are you saying that the record high approval rates that are reported for Putin are false. I thought he is viewed as a hero back there.

I remember Dagestan getting a good lash when they acted up. Your friend from there would like independence if I read you correctly. Do the others from their respective areas wish the same

Another hit and run job Edo. I don't support Putin, and I think the idea that this crisis is because of lack of regulation is rubbish, as I have often said on this site. I've also posted here about the dire state of the Russian economy and the collapse in life expectancy there in the last fifiteen years. People here have posted pictures of wild dogs in the streets in Moscow. I don't disagree with anything substantive you say in your post about Russia (as far as it goes), if you would just cut out the straw men. Your own view that everything with the US is just hunkdory, with thousands of people being made unemployed and homeless, agressive territorial wars and destabilisation being waged at enormous financial and human cost and a post 9/11 legal system that stripped US people of their rights, is strange to say the least.

We had an opportunity to have good and constructive relations with Russia and we decided instead to destabilise and try to break up the country. We blew it.

After an idiot like Yeltsin you get a Putin, Putin is intelligent and devious but very, very capable in a semi malign way.

What sort of person do you need to run that country, corruption is so rampant that it would make Zaire blush. It is virtually impossible to do business there. In some countries corruption is, sort of benign, it is lowly paid officials trying to make ends meet. In Russia and the likes of Zaire it is aggressive. Our own politicians wouldn't last a week in that place, you need someone more feral.

Squire wrote:

We had an opportunity to have good and constructive relations with Russia and we decided instead to destabilise and try to break up the country. We blew it.

After an idiot like Yeltsin you get a Putin, Putin is intelligent and devious but very, very capable in a semi malign way.

What sort of person do you need to run that country, corruption is so rampant that it would make Zaire blush. It is virtually impossible to do business there. In some countries corruption is, sort of benign, it is lowly paid officials trying to make ends meet. In Russia and the likes of Zaire it is aggressive. Our own politicians wouldn't last a week in that place, you need someone more feral.

I wouldn't agree that it is impossible to do business in Russia. I would agree that it's impossible to do business expecting to find the same business mores apply in Ekaterinburg as apply in Kilkenny. Many "western" companies entered the Russian market with a cultural deficit in the suitcase with them and believed, based on an erroneous assumption that they had the local market over a barrel as it were, that this was easy money. They were wrong.

Failing to adapt to the local culture was a significant reason why many got burned and continue to do so. Companies which went in for the long haul and established meaningful partnerships with Russian companies will continue to do better and will remain long after the short termists get fried.

I would say the mentality of many Russian businessmen and, even more so, businesswomen, must be understood before a company can seriously make any commitments in that market.

Davos:

Quote :

Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin calls for end of dollar stranglehold

Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin has called for concerted action to break the stranglehold of the US dollar and create a new global structure of regional powers.

"The one reserve currency has become a danger to the world economy: that is now obvious to everybody," he said in a speech at the World Economic Forum.

It is the first time that a Russian leader has set foot in the sanctum sanctorum of global capitalism at Davos.

Mr Putin said the leading powers should ensure an "irreversible" move towards a system of multiple reserve currencies, questioning the "reliability" of the US dollar as a safe store of value. "The pride of Wall Street investment banks don't exist any more," he said. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/davos/4376315/Russian-prime-minister-Vladimir-Putin-calls-for-end-of-dollar-stranglehold.html

I'm sure that's linked to oil sales and revenue.

Slim Buddha wrote:

I wouldn't agree that it is impossible to do business in Russia. I would agree that it's impossible to do business expecting to find the same business mores apply in Ekaterinburg as apply in Kilkenny. Many "western" companies entered the Russian market with a cultural deficit in the suitcase with them and believed, based on an erroneous assumption that they had the local market over a barrel as it were, that this was easy money. They were wrong.

Failing to adapt to the local culture was a significant reason why many got burned and continue to do so. Companies which went in for the long haul and established meaningful partnerships with Russian companies will continue to do better and will remain long after the short termists get fried.

I would say the mentality of many Russian businessmen and, even more so, businesswomen, must be understood before a company can seriously make any commitments in that market.

Slim

Not impossible, just very difficult! There are all sorts of 'hidden' costs that even local business partners cannot fully anticipate. Had an involved with others, at one time, regarding timber from mother Russia and cement from Moldova. We would have been happy to build up a proper working relationship, but the extortion and blackmail was beyond acceptability. You will pay for every bit of paper you need, or your goods will sit, in a harbour or railway siding and consideration about how this will impact on job creation just do not exist. Not only that but the Russians themselves need to consider our needs as customers. If you want 150mm x 50mm kiln dried etc that is what you actually want not what they happen to have. I know they have difficulty, and would like to help but there has to be consideration to customers needs and honesty goes a long way. Also I would be happy, no delighted, to invest in the place if I knew the nature and scale of the corruption, but you don't and that country really does need investment. I had enough problems in Lebanon at one time, managed to get shot, and not revisiting that sort of mess again. Why should I or anyone else? The Russians need to clean up their act! It is dire!

There is a whole lot wrong with what Putin actually does... you lot forgot those conveniently exploding apartments that may have given 'em an excuse to go into Chechnya in the first place.

However, what he actually said as quoted above sounds respectable. He's good at saying the right thing....

I think we probably all know he produces more pork pies than Denny's, though.

C4 did a very good health of Russia series which exposed a lot of the problems mentioned above

He is popular in Russia, but I think that is because the Yeltsin era was so dire that ANYTHING could be seen as an improvement.

For the avoidance of any doubt, I would like to point that my OP merely reports what Putin said, and is not an endorsement of him or any other political product.

This could have gone into anynumber of threads.

Stiggers is on the job again. That man should have a theme tune.

FT: A measure remodelled (GDP)

....
Maybe it is time to rethink the metrics. Most experts agree that the most commonly used indicator, gross domestic product, is an imperfect yardstick of economic activity. The trouble is, no one has yet invented a better one.

But wait: a 24-member commission of prominent economists led by Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen, both Nobel prize winners, is due to report in April on ways of improving our economic bookkeeping. The aim is to render economic data more comprehensive, more intelligible to the public and more relevant for policymakers by taking into account such factors as environmental degradation and quality of life.
....
Mr Stiglitz, a professor at New York's Columbia University, says that as an indicator of the market value of all goods and services produced in an economy, GDP has always been a flawed measure of economic performance, let alone social progress. He argues that the current global economic turmoil has made its deficiencies even more glaring. "This crisis has shown that the GDP numbers for the US were totally erroneous. Growth was based on a mirage," he says.

"Many people looked at US GDP growth in the 2000s and said: 'How fast you are growing - we must imitate you.' But it was not sustainable or equitable growth. Even before the crash, most people were worse off than they were in 2000. It was a decade of decline for most Americans."
....