How Did The Russian Workers' Paradise Suddenly Wind Up WIth So Many Billionaires?

[TexasTowelie]

A few days ago, the History Channel, debuted a much-anticipated episode in it's Book of Secrets series, "The Billionaire Agenda." I wish I could share it with you but History 2 isn't into sharing, as you can see above. Early in the program, though, there was a chart showing that the U.S. has the most billionaires, followed by China and then Russia. They reported that there are 111 Russian billionaires, although other sources have the number as high as 133. That was fast! If I remember correctly, Gorbachev ushered in perestroika in 1987, less than 39 years ago, making it possible, eventually, for the accumulation of personal wealth. But the workers' paradise spawned 111 billionaires that fast? I mean, we're not talking about millionaires here, these are billionaires and there weren't even any millionaires in Russia until after perestroika So how did it happen that this new elite sprang up out of nowhere?

When the Soviet Union started disintegrating, certain focused, avaricious characters with good government connections started jockeying for placement in line as state companies began planning for privatization. The state-owned companies, for the most part, were badly managed and the economy was faltering, to put it mildly. Anyone paying attention to how Russian was faring under Boris Yeltsin was aware that profound restructuring was coming. Many today still recall when the transfer of wealth from the Russian state to individuals began and how Yeltsin kick-started Russia’s privatization era, declaring in an April 1992 speech a future with “millions of owners, not hundreds of millionaires'”

But there were people who realized that meant there would be immense resources and opportunities in play. One such character was Vladimir Potanin, now one of Russian's 111 billionaires and already wealthy then as president of Oneksim Bank. From a 1996 report by Alessandra Stanley in the NY Times:

Oneksim Bank, which was founded in 1993, is the only Russian commercial bank to have met the starchy conditions of the Swiss Central Bank, a feat so challenging that a financial reporter in Moscow likened it to "me flying to the moon." Almost as if feting a lunar landing, Russia's Prime Minister, Viktor S. Chernomyrdin, sent the bankers an effusive congratulatory telegram.

These days, Government officials are no longer leaping to embrace Oneksim Bank-- at least not publicly. For it was the initiator of a privatization program whose blatant favoritism ignited a political scandal that inflamed the presidential campaign and cost Anatoly B. Chubais, the last free-market reformer in President Boris N. Yeltsin's Cabinet, his job.

Privatization began two years ago as a revolutionary step to roll back 70 years of Communism, selling off state assets to create a society of property owners with a stake in the success of a free-market economy. But its inequities-- most vividly illustrated by the bank's scheme-- have led the Yeltsin administration to disavow the process.

Under the deal, known as loans-for-shares, a few Kremlin-favored banks lent the Government money last year in return for a chance to buy shares in some of the state's most valuable assets at dirt-cheap prices.

- See more at: http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2014/05/how-did-russian-workers-paradise.html

[Vogon_Glory]

2. Well, Didn't The Marxists Say That

Well, didn't the Marxists say that property is theft? It looks like a lot of the Russian billionaires took that saying to heart. They either stole the State's assets or acquired them from the people who did.

A sobering example of what could happen here in the US if we gave into the Paulista/Koch-roaches and sold off the taxpayers' property at fire-sale prices or less.

[yurbud]

3. Naomi Klein had pretty good coverage of what happened in THE SHOCK DOCTRINE

Gorbachev wanted a European style social democracy.

The international bankers decided the former Soviet Union should become a Third World extraction colony.

You can buy off one hundred oligarchs a lot more cheaply than educated, well-fed, well-informed populace.

[awoke_in_2003]

4. Siberia

is a treasure trove of natural resources. Of course, after the collapse of the USSR the vultures flew in.