Professor Elam

Despite all the predictions of a new era for the Soviet Union, it pretty much looks like the old eras, which is to say lots of violence orchestrated by brutal bosses and dictators.  Peter the Great  did not have much luck linking Russia to Europe.  Nikita K never buried us.  Gorbachev found that there is no such thing as ‘ a little openess.’  And so discovering that ‘other folks don’t live like this’ a consumer revolution (my opinion) brought down the Berlin Wall and the Old Communist Regime. But instead of spawning a new consumer entrepreneur culture the whole place, as JIm Rogers  observes, has plunged into a lengthy civil war.  On Sept 13 Russian Central Banker Andrei Kozlov  died of a Mafia style hit, no one has been arrested.  The killers of American journalist Paul Klenbnikov, shot two years ago in Moscow, have not been found.

Russia spans some twelve time zones but no consumer zones.  This post WW II semi power has yet to produce a single popular consumer good, other than vodka and the AK 47.  Worse, Putin seems to be just what he always was, a KGB operative who only understands central control.  We’ll pass on Moscow investing.

DLE