The Russian economy (catch all)

[Firn]

An good find, outlaw.

Speaking at an investment conference in Moscow, Herman Gref, chief executive of state-run Sberbank, pilloried a state-led model of economic development, pointing to a lack of competition and poor governance.

"Why did the Soviet Union break up?" Gref, a former liberal economy minister, told foreign and Russian investors.

"There is one key reason which determined the rest: it`s mind-boggling incompetence of the Soviet leadership. They did not respect the laws of economic development," he said at the annual "Russia Calling" investment forum.

Seems I was not the only one reading an old book.

Citing a book by the key architect of Russia`s market reforms, Yegor Gaidar, "Collapse of an Empire," Gref said Russia must learn lessons from history.

"We cannot allow the same situation," he said, noting that the Soviet Union also faced a combination of high oil prices and "huge structural problems."

The high oil prices allowed the Soviet regime to do bad business as usual while the huge structural problems grew. The shock of low oil prices kicked away under it's economy what was left of it's legs...

German Gref is a son of German Russian which were deported during the war and speaks fluent German and his oldest son studied in Germany. From an older German article:

As director of a think tank set up by Putin, he worked in 2000 for a long-term oriented, liberal economic program. In the same year he was also appointed Minister of Economic Affairs. Putin and Gref know each other from the early 1990s at the Law Faculty of the University in St. Petersburg and developed mutual respect. Under the legendary Petersburg mayor Anatoly Sobchak, who was also Gref's thesis advisor, the lawyer as Putin began a management career in St. Petersburg. The dismissal of Gref as economy minister in 2007 can be understood as atmospheric disturbance in the relationship between Putin and Gref.

Google translated with some corrections.

@AP: I will responds perhaps later, no more time.