What’s the difference between the Russian government and the American government?

Strictly in terms of bail outs and takeovers OUR government is just as bad if not worse.

Since when should a federal government use taxpayer’s money to effectively sell a company to a private firm. A firm that gets to take on zero debt, while the American taxpayer is involuntarily forced to pay for it all.

In the case of the Russians, the prior owners get screwed. In the case of the Americans, the non-owners, the taxpayers (and most likely their children) get screwed.

Let’s face it. They both suck but I would consider the modern American version to be far far worse.

The problem there is the same as the problem here; the rich serving each other and screwing the rest.

Just kidding.

Excellent point. I remember reading a book by a Russian citizen who talked of the difficulty of changing the society. She said it was hard to change the communist mindset, but even harder to rebuild a sense of society after decades of not completely trusting your freinds, familes, etc.

Seriously, how many cycles of this do we have to go through before people wake up? I can only imagine what kind of negotiations must go on to get the decision makers to throw other people’s money away like this. Women, caviar, diamond’s, etc. If you own stock in a company looking at investing in Russia, you should start looking for a way to dump the stock unless you somehow can track the swiss accounts, deposit boxes, and sexual parts of your executives.