Although the St. Petersburg Economic Forum was a little soured this year by the doldrums of the crisis and the humbling of global capitalism, the Russian government still closed the show with a bang with President Dmitry Medvedev promising a rapid rebound from the recession, while helping land “several tens of billions” worth of new deals from premiere Western corporations.  Nobody seemed to noticed that Finance Leasing Company (FLC), a state-owned aircraft company, became the first Russian government business to default on its bonds since 1998 (there may even be a fraud by FLC to divert funds toward other purchases).  Back on June 5th, the president had all the right words that international business wanted to hear:  “State ownership in most of the sectors of the economy should be viewed as an inevitable but a short-term solution.”  Cautious optimism, at least for some (like Citigroup), was the order of the day.