Archive for the ‘Economy’ Category
Posted on January 29, 2009 - by Venik
Politics of Fear?
Lou Dobbs – a noted Republican xenophobe and CNN’s resident Mexico-basher – is accusing Obama of engaging in “politics of fear” by trying to push the economic stimulus package through Congress. Lou says that Bush used this sort of scare tactics and now Obama is following suit. Unfurling the 650-page legislation proposal into the camera [...]
Posted on January 28, 2009 - by Venik
Why Bailout Will Not Work, Again
Back in September I wrote a short piece on Bush’s bailout plan – Why Bailout Will Not Work. The bottom line of my rant was: the US economy is so massive and the US national debt is so high that the federal government is just too poor to fix the problem by simply throwing cash [...]
Posted on January 8, 2009 - by Venik
Paying Ukraine’s Gas Bill
Bloomberg reports that Ukraine’s president is using the gas war with Russia as a way to endear himself to the West and to improve EU’s disposition toward his country. What dark twisted alleys of logic led Bloomberg analysts to this extraordinary conclusion we will probably never know. Luckily. “Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko may be calculating [...]
Posted on November 22, 2008 - by Venik
Gas Wars: Episode V
Russia’s natural gas monopoly Gazprom says Ukraine has a $2.4 billion past-due balance. Ukraine acknowledges the debt, but say the amount is $1.3 billion. The $1-billion difference in the two positions is due to Ukraine only counting what it owes for September-October period, while Gazprom also counts November plus various past-due fees and fines. Medvedev [...]
Posted on November 4, 2008 - by Venik
Russia’s Financial Crisis and Beluga Caviar
I just ran across a rather amusing article in the Financial Times by Robert Skidelsky. The point of his rant is nicely summarized in the last paragraph: “Russia needs to scale down its geopolitical ambition to its real weight – that of an emerging economy with only 3 per cent of the world’s gross domestic [...]
Posted on October 17, 2008 - by Venik
On the State of Our Bernanked Economy
Yesterday Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said that the US economy faces a “significant threat”. Dr. Bernanke was not optimistic, not optimistic at all: “Stabilization of the financial markets is a critical first step, but even if they stabilize as we hope they will, broader economic recovery will not happen right away…” This “even if” [...]
Posted on October 14, 2008 - by Venik
Standard & Poor’s Role in the Credit Crash
Russia’s Interfax news agency published a short article by Sergei Vybornov, president of the ALROSA corporation, touching on the subject of S&P’s responsibility for the global lending industry crisis. ALROSA is Russia’s largest diamond mining company handling a quarter of the world’s natural diamond production. Sergei Vybornov – a diplomat in the past – is [...]
Posted on September 29, 2008 - by Venik
Why Bailout Will Not Work
People who believe that America’s economic problems will be cured by the “cash-for-trash” bailout bill right now stuck in the Congress are in for a huge disappointment. There is little doubt that the size of this bailout will grow well beyond the initial $700 billion and in the end all this money will help very [...]
Posted on September 20, 2008 - by Venik
The Day Capitalism Died
On December 26, 1991, the Supreme Soviet – USSR’s highest governmental body – recognized the collapse of the Soviet Union and dissolved itself. Some in the West viewed this day as the official date of their “victory” in the Cold War. By the same token, some Russians view September 18, 2008 as their, if not [...]
Posted on July 27, 2008 - by Venik
Karl Marx and the White House
The redneck right in the US and their fearless leader John McCain are praising Dubya for lowering oil prices. Just look at the facts, they say, oil price dropped ten bucks and the gas price is a whole penny lower. We’ve been paying a lot of attention to the prices of crude and gasoline, but [...]
Posted on June 9, 2008 - by Venik
Russia as Global Economy Leader
Russia’s International Economic Forum this year netted a rather impressive collection of the world’s top energy executives. Chairmen and CEOs of BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips, Total, Schlumberger and Dow Chemical flew to Russia’s former imperial capital of St. Petersburg to listen to the country’s new president, as well as to keep [...]
