Archive

September 16, 2008

Learned Helplessness of Russia’s Foreign Investors

Isn’t it amazing that no matter how many cases we see of political interference in the Russian economy, that nobody seems to learn their lesson? We’re disinclined to agree with Kliment in his view that the money will come running back ...
September 16, 2008

The Vodka Pipeline to Estonia

The AFP is reporting today that eleven people have been arrested in a criminal operation to smuggle vodka via an underwater pipeline from Russia to Estonia. Though certainly a lucrative black market trade, it doesn’t look like they were send...
September 16, 2008

China Sends Money to Georgia

A while back we wrote about the colossal diplomatic blunder Moscow was making when they thought that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization would be the ideal venue for them to drum up support for separatism and annexation in the Caucasus (having i...
September 16, 2008

Russia’s Financial Armageddon

This is really no laughing matter now. When I woke up today, the RTS and the MICEX were down by more than 10%. When I check back a little later, the markets have halted trading after indexes crashed down to 17%. Steven Dashevsky of Unicredit nails...
September 16, 2008

Energy Blast – Sept 16, 2008

The price of crude oil has fallen to a seven month low. A new report by the International Atomic Energy Agency says that Iran has substantially improved its nuclear enrichment facilities whilst continuing to stall a UN investigation. France’...
September 16, 2008

Today in Russian Business – Sept 16, 2008

Lehman Brothers’ filing for bankruptcy has affected Russian markets, but President Dmitry Medvedev has insisted that Russia is not in crisis and announced that the government will provide liquidity to the banking sector. The markets, however, aren...
September 16, 2008

RA’s Daily Russia News Blast – Sept 16, 2008

TODAY: Nato demands that Russian troops leave Georgia; Russia building embassies, demanding observers in breakaway states; WTO membership no longer under question; Sevastopol navy base under scrutiny; Aeroflot to rebuild image. Nato is demanding t...
September 15, 2008

Squeezing the Media

An interesting article from the Washington Post illustrates how the Russian state’s grip on the media has tightened considerably since the war. The Kremlin controls much of the Russian media, and Putin occasionally meets with friendly groups...
September 15, 2008

Tempering Medvedev’s Georgian Moves

Lehman Brothers has folded, markets are diving, and a lot of powerful people in Russia are beginning to feel the heat. Tightening access to international credit and mounting stock losses are hurting Russian billionaires as well as state-owned corp...