China, yo.

[Crissa]

Yes, portions of Russian politics have motive, but so do a bunch of capitalists making dough off the government.

Motive does not a case make.

-Crissa

[angelfromanotherpin]

Whenever I have to decide between two explanations, and one of them is "a government was incompetent," I have a hard time giving the other explanation much weight. Especially when it starts to sound like a conspiracy theory.

Dude, never bet on incompetence when greed's in the running.

[cthulhu]

What? all russian politics is about people with organised crime ripping off the populace.

Ps I love this

In our professional opinion, the best way to become obscenely wealthy is still the old fashioned way in 4 simple steps.

Western World Version

1. Take outrageous risks with extremely high upside.
2. Be the 1 out of 500 million for whom it pans out. This one is key so focus on it.
3. Attribute your wealth creation to your own hard work, your own genius and the power of your business plan. Be sure to stress how your wealth was singularly made possible by your unique endowment of elbow grease, street smarts, common sense, all of which your competitors obviously lacked (proven by how poor they are compared to you).
4. Buy a mega yacht and/or athletic team.

Russian World Version*

1. Acquire assets illegally either from or with the help of the state. Extra rubles for seizing commodity related assets
2. Kill all your rivals.
3. Buy a mega yacht and/or athletic team.

* The Russian version is only 3 steps reflecting certain “efficiencies” in the Russian billionaire market.

http://longorshortcapital.com/four-simp ... ire.htm[br]

[Username17]

Putin dresses like a James Bond villain and his enemies turn up dead in really weird ways. Litvinenko's assassination was almost certainly the work of Putin's men. The fact that it left a bread crumb trail all the way back to Moscow isn't a fatal flaw, that's the entire fucking point!

When Bush recognized the coup against Chavez before it was even over he wasn't doing a monumental fuck-up and tipping his hand that he was involved. He was supposed to do that because making it extremely obvious to everyone on Earth that Bush was complicit in the coup was determined to be a desirable result.

When Russia has defectors in Britain killed in a very public and only vaguely deniable way it's done for exactly the same reason that the United States sends spy planes to fly through Russian air space or that Russia sends armed nuclear bombers to fly up to New York and then turn around and go home. It's simple intimidation and brinksmanship.

It has been determined by the people in control of Russia that having a slightly more active "Cold War" is better for them staying in power. Certainly the people at the top of the United States government couldn't agree more.

-Username17

[Jacob_Orlove]

1197118287[/unixtime]]Dude, never bet on incompetence when greed's in the running.

I'll take incompetence over greed any day of the week. People are selfish, sure, but that doesn't even hold a candle to human stupidity.

[Lago_AM3P]

Seriously, though, Russia pretty much returned to a one-party system... and no one cares?

What the hell, old media? What the hell?