Russia today: how the game is played

[Fogbuster]

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Here's glimpse of what is going in Russia today. We may rail at our U.S. corporations and their penchant for abuses -- and personally I am outraged that top execs take such unnecessarily extravagant personal wealth from these corporations -- but Russia has its own unique set of problems with abuse of position and power. Any claims of "U.S. wrongdoing" in its dealings with Russia immediately after the break-up of the old Soviet need to be compared with the facts of what some inside of Russia have done to accumulate enormous wealth at the expense of the average citizen of Russia.


Putin, the Kremlin power struggle and the $40bn fortune

Luke Harding in Moscow
Friday December 21, 2007
The Guardian

Russian president Vladimir Putin, whose alleged accumulated wealth of $40bn would make him Europe's richest man.

An unprecedented battle is taking place inside the Kremlin in advance of Vladimir Putin's departure from office, the Guardian has learned, with claims that the president presides over a secret multibillion-dollar fortune.

Rival clans inside the Kremlin are embroiled in a struggle for the control of assets as Putin prepares to transfer power to his hand-picked successor, Dmitry Medvedev, in May, well-placed political observers and other sources have revealed.

At stake are billions of dollars in assets belonging to Russian state-run corporations. Additionally, details of Putin's own personal fortune, reportedly hidden in Switzerland and Liechtenstein, are being discussed for the first time.

The claims over the president's assets surfaced last month when the Russian political expert Stanislav Belkovsky gave an interview to the German newspaper Die Welt. They have since been repeated in the Washington Post and the Moscow Times, with speculation over the fortune appearing on the internet.

Citing sources inside the president's administration, Belkovsky claims that after eight years in power Putin has secretly accumulated more than $40bn (£20bn). The sum would make him Russia's - and Europe's - richest man.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/art...230924,00.html


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[Fogbuster]

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Whats a matter? Nobody wants to talk about other national bosses who have humongous private bank accounts?? Only Repubs are fair game??



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[PressCoverage]

....... lol

[QuiGon]

He kinda reminds me of Arafat... pretending to man a "man of the people" when all he is doing is stealing from the people hand over fist to enhance his own personal fortune. Although I believe Arafat stole only a measley $1 billion...

[Fogbuster]

Originally Posted by Obi-Wan

He kinda reminds me of Arafat... pretending to man a "man of the people" when all he is doing is stealing from the people hand over fist to enhance his own personal fortune. Although I believe Arafat stole only a measley $1 billion...

It's been the way of the world all throughout history, truth be told, but it won't work anymore. The world is exhausted for that crap. Leaders show the way by their own example, nothing less. From now on, the leaders who rise to the top will those who set the highest standard, not those who beat down all opposition, using threats, intimidation, and outright violence. Those days are dying fast, and will soon be a mere sad footnote to history.


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