Saturday, November 29, 2014

How Putin and his cronies stole Russia

Anne Applebaum | New York Times
18 Dec 2014


In her book Sale of the Century (2000), Chrystia Freeland memorably describes the moment when she realized that the confusing regulations and contradictory laws that hog-tied Russian business in the 1990s were not a temporary problem that would soon be cleaned up by some competent administrator. On the contrary, they existed for a purpose: the Russian elite wanted everybody to operate in violation of one law or another, because that meant that everybody was liable at any time to arrest. The contradictory regulations were not a mistake, they were a form of control.

READ IT HERE:

Stephen Colbert on Meet The Press

14 Oct 2012