Aug 28, 2023·edited Aug 28, 2023Liked by Data Humanist
Your piece made me recall stories I heard from some of those private equity firm types who told me of the first cons on the Russian people made by the oligarchs and foreign investors. Involved the privatization of publicly held businesses, like utilities, energy, manufacturing, all industries all previously owned by the Soviet State.
Every Russian citizen was given shares of stock in them as they were apportioned. Russians, uneducated on western financial instruments, private capital about the value of stock shares received their shares but had little appreciation for the inherent value in the stocks. And while they would be queuing up for bread lines or other lines waiting to purchase goods or register for other means of subsistence would be approached in line by people offering to buy their shares for tiny fractions of what they were worth. Hungry and oblivious, many Russians would take a few rubles for the stocks worth thousands. Happy to have received "free" bread that night.
Meanwhile the people who bought the shares were working for the oligarchs and foreign investors, receiving a few rubles for the shares they purchased with the money they were previously given. Allowing the oligarchs and foreign investors to round up vast wealth in stock holdings of those formally public companies that were privatized and allotted to ordinary Russian citizens.
Those types of corruption and predatory practices was commonplace. And fortunes were made. And turned the Russian people against the idea of capitalism, their only experience being getting ripped off by the wealthy greedy - just like they always had been told in the USSR. Yes. Putin endures. And the west isn't trusted. For damn good reason.
Thank you -- as always -- for your deeply informed comments. The Soviet Union -- the USSR -- had to go. A disaster on so many levels. But the early 1990s still haunt some of us as a series of missed opportunities: a Russia with representative government and market capitalism (however imperfect to start) was the hoped-for outcome and did seem possible. What we have now is what we have. If Russian territory east of the Urals falls under control -- defacto or dejure -- of the Chinese, this would not be a good outcome for what remains of the West.
Important topic to bring up, thank you. Putin is a lot of things, many bad, but many good - for the Russian people. He is a Russian Nationalist before any global alliance. Which is why they want to remove him. And why they didn't want an American Nationalist, Trump, to establish friendly relations with him. Combined the two nations have sufficient power to reject the globalist schemes, even China's influence - built up by globalists - isn't sufficient to prevail over a Russian-American nationalist alliance.
You write: "He is a Russian Nationalist before any global alliance." Strongly agree. He stands in the way of the Great Reset. I am an American nationalist with some qualifications, but without apology. So I do not support the WEF agenda, or the Newsom equivalents being offered by our own bi-coastal globalist elites. If what is happening in California is our national future, God help us all.
If the MSM says X, then it is almost assuredly not X. I joke about this, but it's true. If they hate Putin, he's probably a decent fellow. I've never read any of his speeches that I've substantially disagreed with. I'd rather have him as president than Biden any day.
I won't testify to his moral character, but he has endured this long because he has genuine support -- not just a brainwashed or terrified populace, as the MSM would have us believe. He did preside over a remarkable historical turn-around in Russia's fortunes. If he had stepped down earlier, his legacy -- I think -- would be beyond dispute.
Very interesting,DH: you got at least one reader waiting for the next episode in the serial.
Ugh. Just wading through the memories of the snake pit of the Clintons and Boris: smarmy, dangerous & deadly.
Don’t watch TV since ‘Brought to you by Pfizer’, but subscribe to Vanessa Beeley, still living in and reporting from Syria. Currently reading “Operation Aleppo - Putin’s Military Intervention in the Syrian War”, from 2015, yet deja vu.
Why is it that whenever I hear/read Putin, or Russian spokespeople, or simply their citizens, they sound like grownups?
Thank you for Vanessa Beeley reference! I immediately searched and found that Wikipedia has a smear piece on her. So I found her Substack and subscribed: https://beeley.substack.com/
Your piece made me recall stories I heard from some of those private equity firm types who told me of the first cons on the Russian people made by the oligarchs and foreign investors. Involved the privatization of publicly held businesses, like utilities, energy, manufacturing, all industries all previously owned by the Soviet State.
Every Russian citizen was given shares of stock in them as they were apportioned. Russians, uneducated on western financial instruments, private capital about the value of stock shares received their shares but had little appreciation for the inherent value in the stocks. And while they would be queuing up for bread lines or other lines waiting to purchase goods or register for other means of subsistence would be approached in line by people offering to buy their shares for tiny fractions of what they were worth. Hungry and oblivious, many Russians would take a few rubles for the stocks worth thousands. Happy to have received "free" bread that night.
Meanwhile the people who bought the shares were working for the oligarchs and foreign investors, receiving a few rubles for the shares they purchased with the money they were previously given. Allowing the oligarchs and foreign investors to round up vast wealth in stock holdings of those formally public companies that were privatized and allotted to ordinary Russian citizens.
Those types of corruption and predatory practices was commonplace. And fortunes were made. And turned the Russian people against the idea of capitalism, their only experience being getting ripped off by the wealthy greedy - just like they always had been told in the USSR. Yes. Putin endures. And the west isn't trusted. For damn good reason.
Thank you -- as always -- for your deeply informed comments. The Soviet Union -- the USSR -- had to go. A disaster on so many levels. But the early 1990s still haunt some of us as a series of missed opportunities: a Russia with representative government and market capitalism (however imperfect to start) was the hoped-for outcome and did seem possible. What we have now is what we have. If Russian territory east of the Urals falls under control -- defacto or dejure -- of the Chinese, this would not be a good outcome for what remains of the West.
Important topic to bring up, thank you. Putin is a lot of things, many bad, but many good - for the Russian people. He is a Russian Nationalist before any global alliance. Which is why they want to remove him. And why they didn't want an American Nationalist, Trump, to establish friendly relations with him. Combined the two nations have sufficient power to reject the globalist schemes, even China's influence - built up by globalists - isn't sufficient to prevail over a Russian-American nationalist alliance.
You write: "He is a Russian Nationalist before any global alliance." Strongly agree. He stands in the way of the Great Reset. I am an American nationalist with some qualifications, but without apology. So I do not support the WEF agenda, or the Newsom equivalents being offered by our own bi-coastal globalist elites. If what is happening in California is our national future, God help us all.
If the MSM says X, then it is almost assuredly not X. I joke about this, but it's true. If they hate Putin, he's probably a decent fellow. I've never read any of his speeches that I've substantially disagreed with. I'd rather have him as president than Biden any day.
I won't testify to his moral character, but he has endured this long because he has genuine support -- not just a brainwashed or terrified populace, as the MSM would have us believe. He did preside over a remarkable historical turn-around in Russia's fortunes. If he had stepped down earlier, his legacy -- I think -- would be beyond dispute.
Very interesting,DH: you got at least one reader waiting for the next episode in the serial.
Ugh. Just wading through the memories of the snake pit of the Clintons and Boris: smarmy, dangerous & deadly.
Don’t watch TV since ‘Brought to you by Pfizer’, but subscribe to Vanessa Beeley, still living in and reporting from Syria. Currently reading “Operation Aleppo - Putin’s Military Intervention in the Syrian War”, from 2015, yet deja vu.
Why is it that whenever I hear/read Putin, or Russian spokespeople, or simply their citizens, they sound like grownups?
Thank you for Vanessa Beeley reference! I immediately searched and found that Wikipedia has a smear piece on her. So I found her Substack and subscribed: https://beeley.substack.com/
She’s the real deal.
Good analysis. Will be linking it tomorrow @https://nothingnewunderthesun2016.com/
Flushed down the memory hole, but briefly recovered.