Cyrill Vatomsky, Where All Politics Are Global

I am honestly looking for something positive to report about Russia while browsing various web sites of Russian newspapers and press agencies. I probably should stop altogether, since I am afraid I sound way too negative. Well, my desire for Russia is to improve way beyond its current state and I do not think its current administration is leading it in the right direction, if it is leading it anywhere at all.

Gazeta.ru reports that according to Arkadi Dvorkovich, Head of The President's Expert Office (whatever that might be) state investment in the economy have surpassed private capital investments. This, according to Dvorkovich reveals poor investment climate. No effing shtick Sherlock!

Besides "poor investment climate" surely not related to Yukos, Royal Dutch Shell and TNK-BP affairs - why would they really - the newspaper speculates about the increase of government stake in businesses as well and offers a figure of 40%. Do I get this right and does it mean that 40% of the economy is controlled by the state? And this is the sector of the economy that is most active in investment and borrowing. This is not a healthy situation. But to be sure, it is better then it was in the USSR.

The newspaper then mentions some "experts" that think this is not because government wants to control everything, but rather because it just happens this way based on day to day economic demands. One of these experts compares  Russia's economy with a boat, that the state investment is trying to steer it in the right direction using state investments.

I am left wondering what that right economic direction could possibly be if in order to steer towards it, the state needs to control more then 1/3 of the economy.

Kommersant is following up on the medical specimen export ban, offering Mr. Putin statistics he had admitted lacking. Wouldn't it be prudent to have statistics first and band second? No matter, there was an interesting little sign during the highly publicized interview Putin offered last Friday. He actually expressed doubt that all that export of medical specimens was warranted. Kommersant does a great job of providing data to the contrary of Mr. President's opinion.

But to me this little blurb of news opens a very interesting peek into Putin's economic philosophy. Why hire someone else when we should be doing it ourselves? Yes I understand that this is a very slim sampling rate, but add to it all recent actions of Russian government designed to strike it all alone, limiting participation of outsiders - Shtokman, Sakhalin to name just a few. It suggests to me that Putin, and most likely all of his entourage are stuck in the zero-sum economic model and do not understand benefits of capitalist integration, sharing the wealth so more of it can be created again and again.

In the heart of it lies trust in individuals. Just like Democrats in the US, Putin and his government do not trust individuals and especially the market. Yes sure, the scope of distrust is different but the roots are in the same old left wing ideology. A welfare state? A corporate state? Merger of business and state? What a progression comes to mind: Mussolini - Chavez - Putin - Clinton.