[davep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ReverseEngineer', 'R')ight now, wherever you are is where you will die, some sooner than others. See you on the Other Side.

[mklkatreeandleaf]

It is TOO LATE now to sell the house and move to a better area. It is too late to plan a retreat. It is too late to begin preparation. DAVEP is correct, your life is now how it is going to be until you die.

there may be the exeption who just packs up and heads oput because of savings, but the savings will inflate to nothing in a few months.

Those thinking about moving west beofore the nukes, would need a ton of money now and stay in motels, which would be a bad choice.

so, all you can do is watch the towers come down and go OOooo and AAaaah! and eat popcorn.


Been nice knowing you, there is a very real possibility this site will go down in a few moonths because no one has enough money to keep black hole money draining sites running especially after this crisis compleats.

This was the best news source cause it showed the most negative points of the news which you never saw in mainstream media.

Good work,Aaron, my advise to you is do not buy a house yet, just rent, soon the landlord will drop your rent just to keep you renting.

At least I helped you for all the good you did with this site, have a nice day

this is it, fasten the seat belts, and try not to throw-up.

[deMolay]

Russian Markets on life support trading suspended again: link

[Specop_007]

Damn what is this the third time its been shut down?

[deMolay]

Helps keep it in perspective. The #2 Superpower is struggling even tho they have oil and gas for sale.

[frankthetank]

Good quote...

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '"')Globally, investors are running from risk. With the price of crude crashing back to the $95 per barrel level plus worries about the outlook for stability within the country's financial system, Russia is firmly in that category," Uralsib strategist Chris Weafer said.

[MOCKBA]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('frankthetank', 'G')ood quote...$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '"')Globally, investors are running from risk. With the price of crude crashing back to the $95 per barrel level plus worries about the outlook for stability within the country's financial system, Russia is firmly in that category," Uralsib strategist Chris Weafer said.

[deMolay]

Noteworthy in article Russia has mobilized the police for any backlash. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/fina ... epens.html

[shortonsense]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('deMolay', 'N')oteworthy in article Russia has mobilized the police for any backlash. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/fina ... epens.html

[IslandCrow]

Putin: Russia to put off wood export duty increase

I wondered if this putting off of the rise in export duty on wood was a result of the financial crisis..with collapsing oil/gas revenues Russia still needs to keep up the export of other commodities.

The proposed increase in duty on wood export has created a lot of job cuts in Finland, with wood mills etc (that have relied on imports from Russia) closing. This in turn has a big impact on the alternative energy sector here as the biggest input is from the off-cuts and waste products of the wood processing industry.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')ubjected to more than a century of propaganda masquerading as news, Russians often seem to live in a different reality from the rest of us.

And sure enough, at a time when their country is locked in its worst financial crisis in a decade, they are more optimistic about the economy than they have ever been. According to opinion polls, 57 per cent reckon it is flourishing, up from 53 per cent in July.

Instead, just as in Soviet times, Russians are told how bad everything is in the West. The US, Russians are told, is in irreversible decline.

It has fallen to Russia, one television commentator gravely intoned, to come to the rescue of Europe. Russia, another newspaper declared, was set to become the continent's lender of last resort.

As Russians are frequently reminded, this supposed stability is almost entirely thanks to the wisdom and leadership of Vladimir Putin. Yet if the state has been successful in projecting an image of calm confidence, there is growing evidence of panic behind the scenes.

In part, it is to do with the financial crisis, which is far worse in Russia than Mr Putin would care publicly to admit. The prime minister has gloated over the woes of the United States, proclaiming the death of Wall Street and pledging to buy up Western companies on the cheap.

Yet Russia's own stock markets have been the world's worst performers, with share prices falling by 75 per cent since the summer. The rouble is under heavy pressure, and the central bank has had to spend a fifth of its currency reserves to stop it going into freefall.

So far, the crisis has mainly affected Russia's super-rich. In May, the value of stock owned by Russia's wealthiest oligarchs stood at $300 billion. Today, it is worth just $70 billion. As a result, Russia's elite appears to be at war with itself.

Russia's biggest businessmen owe Western banks more than $500 billion, borrowed using stock as collateral. The fall in share prices has triggered a wave of margin calls, prompting many banks to call in their loans. The state has promised $50 billion to rescue the oligarchs as part of a $200 billion bail-out – but not all will be saved.

For Mr Putin, the crisis provides plenty of opportunities that he could take advantage of. Assets that were privatised in the 1990s will again come under the control of the Kremlin and can be palmed out to his closest allies. The oligarchs who are allowed to survive will be bound to him even more closely.

There is compelling evidence that the crisis has started affecting ordinary people. The middle class has shrunk from 25 per cent of the population to 18 per cent in the past few months alone. Many companies are laying off jobs, and doing so in a manner likely to cause resentment.

Forecasts suggest that there is worse to come. Some banks are already predicting that growth could slow to between 2 and 3 per cent, a disastrous slowdown.

[deMolay]

http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2B ... 03008.html

[galacticsurfer]

renationalization of most major assets could occur. In the west there is already discussion of this possibility in various industries in exchange for loans. In russia the big enrgy industries have been nationalized to some extent under Putin. If everything collapses andpeople can't feed themselves or buy food, etc. it seems that a soft communism could take place so people wonT' be trhown on the street and starve.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'r')enationalization of most major assets could occur

[dissident]

God, what tripe.

Unlike the rabid fantasies dished out by articles such as this, the fact is that the era of the oligarchs that developed under Yeltsin (with full western approval) ended under Putin in the last eight years. What a crime against humanity a popular, elected government doing what the vast majority of the electorate wants: end of robber baron capitalism. Shock, horror. People in the US should read some of their own history and learn about the gilded age and what Teddy Roosevelt did.

The western media systematically omits opinion polls in Russia. There are private polls by Gallup and the Levada Center that are never reported. This way all the tinfoil hat conspiracy theory excrement about "petro tyranny" and whatever else the authors of this drivel decide to squeeze out passes for news.

[dissident]

Just gotta love that patronizing, chauvinist smear about Russians being all brainwashed by state propaganda. Nobody in Russia believed the state media under communism in the last 40 years at least. The default position of Russians regarding news is to never give it the benefit of the doubt. In complete contrast, as this thread shows, it is people in the west that trust every piece of crap that their media produces. After all, it is the "free media" supposedly composed of entrepreneurs of truth and not a corporate infotainment factory composed of paid drones who get fired if they don't toe the company line. Ever notice how Murdoch's media assets reflect his views? Same goes for Berezovsky's Russian newspapers. But the article claims that there is no diversity in the Russian media so we will have to ignore such minor details.

[ReverseEngineer]

You know, prior to the recent crash of the Ruskie Stock market, I saw a list of Cities with the most Billionaires posted on Yahoo. The city with the most Billionaires at that time? Moscow.

This seemed just a bit odd to me. How would it be that in just about 20 years would it be possible for former Communists to become RICH in such great numbers? Where did all this money COME from?

Well, obviously it came from the West, Investors in the Emerging Market of the former Communist nation. Great Resources! But of course they did not GIVE the money to the ex-Commies, they LOANED it to them, to the tune of around $500B. Said money distributed around to former Soviet Apparatchiks still in control of the Goobermint, like former KGB bosses, aka Vladimir Putin.

With the collapse of the Ruskie stock market and the concurrent collapse of world demand for Oil, the original Investment of $500B in Russia is now estimated at around $70B. There are a few less Billionaires living in Moscow today then there were a few months ago, obviously. LOL.

However, are the few remaining Billionaires REALLY Billionaires at ALL? The Billions they "have" is all BORROWED MONEY. If they cannot pay off on the Investments the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers made there, they will be FORECLOSED on! Even after the last $70B is taken back, they still owe the other $500B they borrowed and lost here.

If you accept the laws of banking and ownership, the Russians no longer own Russia, the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers do. Of course that is preposterous, but that is EXACTLY the kind of methodology that has occurred for years with the Banking families.

Are the Ruskies going to pay back this $500B? In a pig's eye they will. Why should WE be so stupid as to pay back loans we took out either? You want the money, come and get it.

The system is in collapse. The money is quite meaningless now, though by inertia Govermentments and the banks are still operating as though it does have some meaning. The main question is just how long it takes for the paperwork to get worked out here so everyone realizes they have NO MONEY at all!? A month, a year, HOW LONG can this go ON?

Reverse Engineer

[galacticsurfer]

In 1991 USSR was a monopoly company. After dissolution of USSR, Russia with advisors from West distributed coupons to citizens in lieu of company shares for now created companies being manged independently by former workers and managers. The people were ravaged by shortages and massive inflation and had to sell said coupons to buy bread. Several very smart guys, for example Khodorkovsky, Beresovsky, etc. made out like bandits by buying up all the coupons and thereby gaining control of the largest industrial structures on earth for next to nothing. Such people are now around 40-50 years old. Some other companies were able to be taken over by former managers. This is besides the well known mafia protection rackets which savaged the streets of the big cities. My wife says that she heard the machine guns after darkness in St. Petersburg so dared not go out to Theater, Museum, etc. Starvation was a real threat to her. Thank God for Care packages and a friend of hersworking in import-export.

Borrowed money from the West is not source of Russian billionaires. If a major industrial nation like USA were divided tomorrow among 100 ruthless criminals and the rest of the population were left to starve then these 100 people would be multibillionaires too.

The markets in the cities were controlled suddenly at that time by Caucasians (Georgians, Chechens, whatever) who would force farmers at gunpoint underway to markets to give up their produce for a pittance and sell it at highest price in the city. Many of the current young Russian generation having grown up under worst unjust situation and is seething with hate and/or nationalist pride and skinheads roam the streets beating up anyone with a dark complexion. There are very real reasons for this hatred from their point of view.

The Soviet Union was a subsidy system for outlying provinces. The Slavs got the worst part of it-empty shelves and bad conditions. Caucasus, Baltic, Eastern europe, Cuba, Africa got money, weapons, trade and easy terms and the slavs got empty shelves. This was the price they paid to have a brotherly communist system, an empire. Now places like Georgia are bankrupt backwaters having a million of their citizens living in Russia sending wages back home so the families don't starve. Now Russia is for Russia. "Our oil", "Our land". Putin is religious and nationalistic but not racist like some of the younger people. Russia has too many borders and too many people of mixed blood (pure Russians without slightly slanty eyes like say Yeltsin are less frequent). Stalin came from a small aggressive Georgian minority people same as current Georgian prez and Lenin was a mutt of many nationalities

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Lenin
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')The family was of mixed ethnicity, his ancestry being “Russian, Mordovian, Kalmyk, Jewish (see Blank family), Volgan German, and Swedish, and possibly others” according to biographer Dmitri Volkogonov.[3]

[Taghayee]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dissident', 'J')
ust gotta love that patronizing, chauvinist smear about Russians being all brainwashed by state propaganda.
.
.
In complete contrast, as this thread shows, it is people in the west that trust every piece of crap that their media produces.

[evgeny]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ReverseEngineer', 'Y')ou know, prior to the recent crash of the Ruskie Stock market, I saw a list of Cities with the most Billionaires posted on Yahoo. The city with the most Billionaires at that time? Moscow.

This seemed just a bit odd to me. How would it be that in just about 20 years would it be possible for former Communists to become RICH in such great numbers? Where did all this money COME from?

Well, obviously it came from the West, Investors in the Emerging Market of the former Communist nation. Great Resources! But of course they did not GIVE the money to the ex-Commies, they LOANED it to them, to the tune of around $500B. Said money distributed around to former Soviet Apparatchiks still in control of the Goobermint, like former KGB bosses, aka Vladimir Putin.

With the collapse of the Ruskie stock market and the concurrent collapse of world demand for Oil, the original Investment of $500B in Russia is now estimated at around $70B. There are a few less Billionaires living in Moscow today then there were a few months ago, obviously. LOL.

However, are the few remaining Billionaires REALLY Billionaires at ALL? The Billions they "have" is all BORROWED MONEY. If they cannot pay off on the Investments the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers made there, they will be FORECLOSED on! Even after the last $70B is taken back, they still owe the other $500B they borrowed and lost here.

If you accept the laws of banking and ownership, the Russians no longer own Russia, the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers do. Of course that is preposterous, but that is EXACTLY the kind of methodology that has occurred for years with the Banking families.

Are the Ruskies going to pay back this $500B? In a pig's eye they will. Why should WE be so stupid as to pay back loans we took out either? You want the money, come and get it.

The system is in collapse. The money is quite meaningless now, though by inertia Govermentments and the banks are still operating as though it does have some meaning. The main question is just how long it takes for the paperwork to get worked out here so everyone realizes they have NO MONEY at all!? A month, a year, HOW LONG can this go ON?

Reverse Engineer