Russia faces catastrophe

An interesting article from Matthew Lynn at Bloomberg deserves wider circulation.

The implications of his point that Russia is not a sensible place for major international investment are even more profound than they first appear.

Essentially Russia is not only refusing to allow international business to function, but where investment is being made in capital equipment and techniques that the Russians do not posses themselves, then they are trying to steal this proprietary technology.

Meanwhile the political picture grows more violent. Putin's "Nashi" goons continue to harass anyone they see fit- including the widespread use of violence and murder.

This is not a recipe for a powerful Russia. It is a recipe for an impoverished, weak and isolated Russia. Such is the catastophe that the KGB Colonel has led his country into.

The greedy, Mafia state will fail- and with unforeseeable consequences. Despite the flow of petro-dollars, the money leaves Russia as fast as it arrives. Away from the Potemkin villages of Moscow and St. Petersburg, conditions are little better than mediaeval. Corrupt and broken police forces vie with the local hoodlums to see who can extract more from the defeated and downtrodden populace. The corrupt and brutal army continues to bully thousands of conscripts- hundreds of whom die each year. Meanwhile generals make a niced cut selling arms, often to the Mafia or to the Chechen troops that they are supposed to be fighting.

The average Russian male can now expect to live less than 52 years. Most even of that short time is likely to be in a drunken haze of gutrot vodka.

By taking away peoples rights to control their own lives, you take away their reason to live. The criminal regime of the vile Putin- now apparently the richest man in his tin-pot kingdom- has destroyed more than it created, but mostly it has destroyed the most precious thing of all: hope.