Thanks, but I really should check my posts at least twice, it should have been 'guys'.Originally Posted by carl
A look at Russia:
'A kick into the teeth' of the Russian people:
Sadly this is just the acceleration of a long term trend in which more and more power within Russia gets centralized and concentrated. The 'Russian Federation' seems increasingly to be so only in name.Lawmakers from pro-Kremlin parties United Russia and LDPR have submitted to the State Duma a bill abolishing popular elections of mayors and city councils in major cities.
Analysts said the legislation represents an attempt to increase the dependence of municipal authorities on the Kremlin and effectively liquidate their self-government. Some observers also interpreted the proposed measure as part of a Kremlin effort to consolidate power in reaction to the political crisis in neighboring Ukraine.
The reform would apply to 67 large cities, including 56 regional capitals. The mayors of affected cities would be elected by city councils from among their members, while the city councils would consist of deputies delegated by newly created assemblies of city districts.
City governments would be headed by city managers — executives appointed by commissions, half of which would be chosen by governors and the other half by city councils.
The bill's sponsors argued that the bill would help fulfill an order by President Vladimir Putin
This grab of power was not restricted to the political landscape but was particularly severe in the one of the media. There are lots of recent examples, like the one made only yesterday:
It is deeply tragic for the vast majority that at a critical junction of Russia's history, in a time of political and economic instability a Mr. Putin was able to grasp the reigns of power. After almost 15 years he doesn't seem willing to let them go and his long consolidation has made it very difficult to see change coming. The bad luck of Russia was compounded by the boom of the commodities, especially the energy ones:The longtime editor-in-chief of news agency Lenta.ru has been replaced by the former editor of a Kremlin-friendly online publication, prompting an uproar among many journalists who say the move is just the latest nail in the coffin of Russia's independent media.
Alexander Mamut, head of the Russian Internet news service's parent company Afish-Rambler-SUP, said Galina Timchenko had resigned from her post, but the Lenta.ru editoral staff released a statement saying she had been forced out.
This has allowed the state to rather easily get it's hands on the by far dominant revenue stream and to support it's internal (and external) political agenda. The Kremlin could increasingly use all that money to achieve it's (short term) goals. The Russian economy has become an extractive one in every sense of the world and increasingly unable to get much sustainable growth in other sectors, especially those in need of high human capital. For the leadership this tight leash on economy has been quite beneficial in the short term but it is aweful for the Russian economy in the long run.
I generally don't advise people to try too hard to find connections between two graphs, but it is quite interesting if we consider the almost Gulf State-like Russian dependency on (energy) commodity revenues outlined earlier. Needless to say that the commodity index should be portrayed as a moving average.
It is important to look at the long term development of the index, not the often wild swings which can often get pretty smoothed out by the automatic stabilizers within an economy and fiscal policies. The weak performance of the Russian economy in the last year and it's bad outlook already before the crisis should not come at a surprise.
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