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Gold/Mining/Energy : Canmine resources -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Marshhawk who wrote (1796)	8/29/1999 4:05:00 AM
From: bill	Respond to of 2769

No Russian in his right mind wants to keep money in Russia. Anyone who is able to skim off money from foreign aide is sending it offshore. Think of Chicago during the days of Buggsy Seigel. Then think of what it would have been like if organized crime had taken over. People are paid dreadful wages but even these are not being met by the govt. Instead, they are being given IOU's. Everything is for sale. Everyone is for sale. The few in positions of power who aren't get blown away.Foreign companies investing is Russia seem completely blind to the fact that Western rules don't apply. Before Glasnost and Pierestroika things worked badly. Cumbersome, awkward. Centralized planning that made moving quickly impossible. But it worked better than now. Before there were constraints. Now there are none. Grab what you can and get it out of the country. Buy, bribe, steal a passport so if the whole thing collapses, you can get out. American Intelligence is an oxymoron. Twenty-four hours in Moscow and I could tell you not much was working. Five hours in Leningrad and I could tell you which restaurant the local crime lords used as headquarters. A stroll through the park made it clear that the Party had lost control. You have to remember that it is not just rogue individuals who are shipping resources offshore, collecting and keeping the payments. Groups are involved. Military, govt. Industry. They all have to look out for themselves. The Canadian govt. had to impound a Russian plane to force them to honour a deal. Now there's another war starting up. Ordinary people are worried of another Afganistan. That was their Vietnam. They looted their diamond supplies and sold lots on the black market. Never mind any agreements. They've been dumping oil, metals, etc. for cash. However, a point I made a long time ago on this thread is that everything is short term driven by greed and necessity. The problem is that you can't keep ripping off foreign investors and expect to get the capital to replace worn out equipment. You can only cannibalize what you have to a certain point. You can only pay workers with IOUs for a certain amount of time. You can only steal foreign aide for a certain amount of time before the equipment is worn out, not replaced and production falls precipitously. Always be careful about what you wish for. If you're really unlucky, you just might get it. The USA wanted the economic destruction of the USSR. It got it. The outcome, though, is not a russian musical with a happy ending. No happy capitalist democracy. Shipping resources to avoid govt. taxes. That's not even the tip of the iceberg. That's maybe a small piece of ice that's broken off the iceberg.