I got advanced notice of what the future held in the new Russia when doing business in the Comecon Bloc and introducing a Soviet technical-scientific institute to a British company in the same industry. The Soviet institute's senior management - all members of the Communist Party - had set up a parallel entity of which they were the shar…
I got advanced notice of what the future held in the new Russia when doing business in the Comecon Bloc and introducing a Soviet technical-scientific institute to a British company in the same industry. The Soviet institute's senior management - all members of the Communist Party - had set up a parallel entity of which they were the shareholders and, as managers of the Soviet entity, had transferred its assets to the parallel entity while leaving all the liabilities where they were.
Some say that the privatisation of British public assets during the same period by Margaret Thatcher amounted to the same thing: the British people owned them, and yet they were encouraged to pay again to own them. So in the British case, the shareholders were invited to invest again in the same assets much like the Monty Python sketch - "That'll be 2 shillings and 4 pence, please Sir", 'But I've already paid you', "No, you haven't", 'Yes, I have', "No ... ", 'Yes ...' - while in the Russian, there was no song and dance, the assets were simply appropriated.
That nobody was more aware that property is theft than members of the Communist Party suggested that, while East and West were imaginatively adapting to the rapidly changing times, they were doing so in dramatically divergent ways. Was there ever going to be a meeting in the middle?!
While I do not understand the UK privatization, and am surprised that there might have been...I hate to say theft, I was always forgiving of Russia going after whatever oil company is still tied up in international litigation.
A part of me thought if initial privatization was messed up, a "do-over" would be o.k. and I saw parallels to the US excess oil profits tax passed under Carter and not revoked by Reagan as US really needed the revenue. Life is full of compromises.
Why are there no oligarchs in Eastern Europe? Did they just not have assets? Maybe if EU funded Eastern Europe? Know there are big transfers via agricultural subsidies.
If someone tied these questions together and provided answers, I might be more sympathetic to Russia feeling like they were being encroached upon. I would have supported doing it for Poland as repayment for WW2 but I might have said no to other states being admitted to EU and NATO. Easy for me to say sitting in the US but you triggered another view that I wouldn't have had otherwise.
Hopefully, my random thoughts make some sense. I'm still disturbed by your comment about British privatization having some similarities to Russia; that would really bug me. Now that I think about it, I do seem to remember people being upset about privatization but Margaret Thatcher could do no wrong in my mind. Almost anyway.
I got advanced notice of what the future held in the new Russia when doing business in the Comecon Bloc and introducing a Soviet technical-scientific institute to a British company in the same industry. The Soviet institute's senior management - all members of the Communist Party - had set up a parallel entity of which they were the shareholders and, as managers of the Soviet entity, had transferred its assets to the parallel entity while leaving all the liabilities where they were.
Some say that the privatisation of British public assets during the same period by Margaret Thatcher amounted to the same thing: the British people owned them, and yet they were encouraged to pay again to own them. So in the British case, the shareholders were invited to invest again in the same assets much like the Monty Python sketch - "That'll be 2 shillings and 4 pence, please Sir", 'But I've already paid you', "No, you haven't", 'Yes, I have', "No ... ", 'Yes ...' - while in the Russian, there was no song and dance, the assets were simply appropriated.
That nobody was more aware that property is theft than members of the Communist Party suggested that, while East and West were imaginatively adapting to the rapidly changing times, they were doing so in dramatically divergent ways. Was there ever going to be a meeting in the middle?!
While I do not understand the UK privatization, and am surprised that there might have been...I hate to say theft, I was always forgiving of Russia going after whatever oil company is still tied up in international litigation.
A part of me thought if initial privatization was messed up, a "do-over" would be o.k. and I saw parallels to the US excess oil profits tax passed under Carter and not revoked by Reagan as US really needed the revenue. Life is full of compromises.
Why are there no oligarchs in Eastern Europe? Did they just not have assets? Maybe if EU funded Eastern Europe? Know there are big transfers via agricultural subsidies.
If someone tied these questions together and provided answers, I might be more sympathetic to Russia feeling like they were being encroached upon. I would have supported doing it for Poland as repayment for WW2 but I might have said no to other states being admitted to EU and NATO. Easy for me to say sitting in the US but you triggered another view that I wouldn't have had otherwise.
Hopefully, my random thoughts make some sense. I'm still disturbed by your comment about British privatization having some similarities to Russia; that would really bug me. Now that I think about it, I do seem to remember people being upset about privatization but Margaret Thatcher could do no wrong in my mind. Almost anyway.