The Political Costs of Making Bad Decisions
From Yulia Latynina in the Moscow Times:
Of all the official statements coming from the government and big business over the past few weeks, three stand out as most important. First, multibillionaire Oleg Deripaska announced that he would not request any more government assistance for his ailing business empire. Second, Olimpstroi, the state corporation responsible for preparing Sochi for the 2014 Olympics, will reportedly return 50 billion rubles ($1.4 billion) to state coffers. (Rosnano and Russian Railways will also hand back 130 billion rubles and 80 billion rubles, respectively.) The third most-important announcement was made by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Friday when he met with United Russia leaders: “The crisis is far from hitting its peak,” he said.