I don’t know what U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was thinking during his visit to Moscow earlier this week, but I bet he wishes his aides had given a better debriefing. Dispensing with some pleasantries, he finally got the chance to give Vladimir Putin his elevator pitch. After buttering him up with some flattery and profuse congratulations over the country’s booming oil wealth, Paulson opened a discussion about potentially having Russia’s sovereign wealth fund pour its billions into the struggling U.S. economy, and thereby help save him from a disastrous recession-tending tenure. Paulson laid it on pretty thick with the promises, talking about favorable conditions for Russian investors in the United States, his desire to see them make it into the WTO, and even the possibility, though difficult, to get Congress to drop Jackson-Vanik. Putin knows a panhandler when he sees one, and immediately started having fun with his flustered guest – already plans were in motion, it seemed, to play this capital invitation to their advantage.