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Putin's People – a groundbreaking study that follows the money

theguardian.com

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Re: Putin's People – a groundbreaking study that follows the money

#61

Post by bryanrasmussen »

NicoJuicy wrote: post #42
namdnay wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's managed to keep sole control of Russia for 20 years, and probably made himself one of the wealthiest people in the world, so he's definitely playing fiddle for a lot of people

It's more about being corrupt than fiddling a lot of people. The one who fiddles the "best", is the one that you don't think about :) Everyone knows what Putin is doing, so i would say he's not doing such a good job.

at some point fiddling by it's nature becomes loud enough for people to notice, no matter how deft the fiddler.

Re: Putin's People – a groundbreaking study that follows the money

#62

Post by [deleted] »

NicoJuicy wrote: post #45
gear54rus wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He might be the most powerful in current soviet union that is CIS. However I fail to see how he can be the most powerful in the world given that USA surpasses russia in both military and economic might (which are pretty much the same thing if you think about it). Russia has no answer to sanctions and those counter-sanctions are just a delusion. USA can make many other countries respect the sanctions due to dollar bei…

Russia's economy is the sum of 3 countries in Europe ( I think France, Belgium and Netherlands would do) and they redirect an insane amount of their GDP % to military. But even then their army is ancient and mostly predates the fall of Soviet Union. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_Russian_militar...

[deleted]

Re: Putin's People – a groundbreaking study that follows the money

#63

Post by chaoz_ »

toyg wrote: post #39

Putin and his friends do a pretty decent job of running an old-school oligarchy. That's not really the problem, there is nothing groundbreaking in their approach. The problem is that the "Western" bloc (if there ever was such a thing, really) is currently ruled by elites that fundamentally share those values: weak collective institutions, strong private corporations, the bottom line as the final measure of virtue, an…

The rate of Putin's acceptance has dropped by factor of 2 since 2015. I think the ease of information exchange is the game-changer.

The point you're missing is that Russian gangsters've made some terrible decisions (from economic perspective) and now the only voters they only get old people who only have TV access.

Which is still enough to manipulate elections, but I don't think it's going to continue forever.

EDIT: There is also another social group that supports Putin. "Siloviki" and their families, which happens to be >1% of Russian population.

Re: Putin's People – a groundbreaking study that follows the money

#64

Post by pjc50 »

chaoz_ wrote: post #63
toyg wrote: post #39

Putin and his friends do a pretty decent job of running an old-school oligarchy. That's not really the problem, there is nothing groundbreaking in their approach. The problem is that the "Western" bloc (if there ever was such a thing, really) is currently ruled by elites that fundamentally share those values: weak collective institutions, strong private corporations, the bottom line as the final measure of virtue, an…

The rate of Putin's acceptance has dropped by factor of 2 since 2015. I think the ease of information exchange is the game-changer. The point you're missing is that Russian gangsters've made some terrible decisions (from economic perspective) and now the only voters they only get old people who only have TV access. Which is still enough to manipulate elections, but I don't think it's going to continue forever. EDIT:…

> gangsters've made some terrible decisions (from economic perspective) and now the only voters they only get old people who only have TV access.

In America, that's an electable majority. Bit of voter suppression and making sure that it's difficult for working age people to vote just helps to push it over the line.

Even more so in the UK, where 44% of the vote share gives total control.

Re: Putin's People – a groundbreaking study that follows the money

#65

Post by chaoz_ »

roelschroeven wrote: post #46
NicoJuicy wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's utter bullshit and i'll tell you why: Russia has been severly weakened by democratic Europe. They have lost an insane amount of area since the fall of USSR and Europe has never been "closer" to Moscow, their capital. They are now getting punished for actions of last resort. Eg. Invading Ukraine, because otherwise their entire naval fleed would be rendered useless, since it couln't even go out. Russia is weak,…

Are they really getting punished for Ukraine though? My impression is that Europe by and large does almost nothing, partly out of fear of getting cut of from Russian gas. There are some economical sanctions, yes, but do they hurt Russia? More than they hurt Europe's farmers? If there's any punishment, it certainly is not effective. Russia still occupies large parts of Ukraine (even some areas outside of the Crimea).

Some oligarchs can't visit Europe/US anymore and spend their $$$ there.

Re: Putin's People – a groundbreaking study that follows the money

#66

Post by fit2rule »

toyg wrote: post #39

Putin and his friends do a pretty decent job of running an old-school oligarchy. That's not really the problem, there is nothing groundbreaking in their approach. The problem is that the "Western" bloc (if there ever was such a thing, really) is currently ruled by elites that fundamentally share those values: weak collective institutions, strong private corporations, the bottom line as the final measure of virtue, an…

>Unless we significantly change the game, Putin will keep winning.

How we change the game - do these same studies on our own oligarchs. Treat the members of the CFR with the same interest in their financials.

Re: Putin's People – a groundbreaking study that follows the money

#67

Post by chaoz_ »

pjc50 wrote: post #64
chaoz_ wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rate of Putin's acceptance has dropped by factor of 2 since 2015. I think the ease of information exchange is the game-changer. The point you're missing is that Russian gangsters've made some terrible decisions (from economic perspective) and now the only voters they only get old people who only have TV access. Which is still enough to manipulate elections, but I don't think it's going to continue forever. EDIT:…

> gangsters've made some terrible decisions (from economic perspective) and now the only voters they only get old people who only have TV access. In America, that's an electable majority. Bit of voter suppression and making sure that it's difficult for working age people to vote just helps to push it over the line. Even more so in the UK, where 44% of the vote share gives total control.

I would not compare election quality of "Russia" with UK/US. For example, now we have a voting procedure during pandemics where nobody wants to go not to get infected with corona. But the old people get their voting papers home delivered by pro-Putin activists (Good targeting). It's also not rare for police to arrest key people from opposition and for us to see videos of voting stations based on the stump (literally) in the countryside.

In US you have whole war of Facebook not handling AI enough and your "branches of power" do somewhat work. For sure you have your own problems, but Russia is on another level.

Re: Putin's People – a groundbreaking study that follows the money

#68

Post by Synaesthesia »

People seem to think Putin is beholden to oligarchs, when actually he has taken them on and even sent some to jail!

We must remember who created the oligarchs in the first place, and the fact that in the West they never seem to be called “oligarchs”

Re: Putin's People – a groundbreaking study that follows the money

#69

Post by Mirioron »

roelschroeven wrote: post #46
NicoJuicy wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's utter bullshit and i'll tell you why: Russia has been severly weakened by democratic Europe. They have lost an insane amount of area since the fall of USSR and Europe has never been "closer" to Moscow, their capital. They are now getting punished for actions of last resort. Eg. Invading Ukraine, because otherwise their entire naval fleed would be rendered useless, since it couln't even go out. Russia is weak,…

Are they really getting punished for Ukraine though? My impression is that Europe by and large does almost nothing, partly out of fear of getting cut of from Russian gas. There are some economical sanctions, yes, but do they hurt Russia? More than they hurt Europe's farmers? If there's any punishment, it certainly is not effective. Russia still occupies large parts of Ukraine (even some areas outside of the Crimea).

They are being punished for Ukraine, but it's always the people that suffers from trade sanctions. Look at Russia's GDP per capita graph: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location...

Russia had a GDP per capita of $16,007 in 2013. In 2014 Russia annexed Crimea. In 2016 Russia's GDP per capita was $8,745. This drop was twice as great as the 2008 economic crisis. It has recovered from it somewhat, but it'll take time to get back up again. Keep in mind though that other countries did have a dip in GDP per capita in 2015 as well, but nowhere near the same level as Russia.

GDP per capita PPP did drop as well. More than after the 2008 crisis, but they have recovered from it by now.

It definitely seems like Russia is economically in trouble. How much of this is from sanctions is hard to tell though.

Re: Putin's People – a groundbreaking study that follows the money

#70

Post by fit2rule »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #59
dgellow wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014. I don’t know what else you want them to do to be considered aggressors.

What about the western backed coup in Ukraine and the fact that in eastern Ukraine the people asked Russia to intervene.

Don't bother, most of the people with an interest in discussing Russia have not one iota of understanding of the difference between 'invading' a country and 'annexing' it, or they choose to willingly conflate the two since it works against American's interest in this discussion:

Russia annexed Crimea.

America invaded Iraq.

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