Archive for the ‘United States’ Category
Posted on January 31, 2009 - by Venik
Blago’s Predicament
Just finished watching Larry’s interview with Blagoyevich. What can I say… Before his arrest in early December I never heard of Blago. Well, maybe I did come across his name a few times while reading the news, but the name just didn’t stick. I had no idea who the governor of Illinois is, or if [...]
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 December 27, 2008 - by Venik
Uncomplicated Perspective
Long time, no posts. I resolved to not use a computer during my vacation. Quitting smoking was easier. Anyway, I just ran across an amusing editorial in NY Times about what Obama should do vis-à-vis Vladimir Putin. I am not sure if the author was trying to be entertaining, being coyly naive, or if he [...]
Posted on November 15, 2008 - by Venik
Russian Missiles: the Minsk Option
A number of times over the past months and even years various Russian government officials mentioned a possibility of a ballistic missile deployment in Belarus. The independent-minded Lukashenko kept Putin at an arm’s length, while managing to achieve a seemingly impossible task: to annoy Moscow, Brussels, and Washington all at the same time. Lately, however, [...]
Posted on November 11, 2008 - by Venik
Medvedev’s Missile Myth. Or Not…
In his recent article in the Moscow Times entitled “Medvedev’s Missile Myth“, Alexander Golts – a Russian defense analyst (without technical education or military background, as seems to be the rule for Russian military “experts”) popular among Western journalists in Moscow – expressed the following idea: “Imagine the following scenario: After the standoff between the [...]
Posted on November 8, 2008 - by Venik
Obama, Biden Complicate Relations with Russia
Paradoxical as this may sound, the victory of pacifist Obama over his saber-rattling Republican opponent makes the Kremlin very concerned. One reason for this is simple: an idiot in the White House was good for Moscow. Russians joke that Dubya was their best president ever. Indeed, Russians have Bush – not Putin – to thank [...]
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 September 18, 2008 - by Venik
Condi Rice is Becoming Isolated, Irrelevant
In her recent highly-publicized (by her aides) speech, Dr. Rice continued developing her thesis of Russia’s supposed political isolation. If one takes seriously Rice’s assertion that “Russia’s invasion of Georgia has achieved – and will achieve – no strategic objective”, a logical question arises: then what is the Department of State getting so worked up [...]
Posted on September 18, 2008 - by Venik
The War in Georgia: Who Said What
The difficulties Russia encounters dealing with Saakashvili’s propaganda machine are caused primarily by the West’s desire to believe the Georgian side of the story. Why does the West want to believe Saakashvili? Probably because the alternative to believing Georgian propaganda is to admit that for the past five years the West has been propping up [...]
Posted on September 17, 2008 - by Venik
The West Distances Itself from Saakashvili
The visit of Jaap de Hoop Scheffer (from here forward known as Hoop for the sake of brevity) and twenty six NATO representatives to Georgia was largely uneventful. As before, NATO gave Saakashvili no plans, schedules, or guarantees. Georgian president’s appeals to accelerate NATO membership program for his country fell largely on deaf ears. However, [...]
