вторник, 29 декабря 2009 г.

Stalin and Stooge

He occasion was solemn. Stalin's birthday anniversary. They came in numbers to pay him tribute laying flowers at his tomb. A delegation of the Communist Party, of course, hardly a surprise. But mostly they were plain Russian folks, neither communist sympathizers, nor socialist day-dreamers. The were sons and grandsons whose fathers died in the War. Why were they doing this?

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воскресенье, 22 ноября 2009 г.

Rescue of Dollar is War

Here is a common enough situation – late night, a lonely passerby and a band of hooligans. Their question is common too – "Got a smoke?". There is no need to say you don't smoke – this is the kind of remark they are waiting for, because they need a fight, not a cigarette. They are itching to get into it and a scuffle can solve their problem. The situation in the international politics is not much different. Whom do the States want to beat?

Picture: Gazeta Mercantil (Understand the real value of money)

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среда, 7 октября 2009 г.

When did WWII start?

The answer appears simple: 1 September 1939. But if you take a closer look, you will see how strange and controversial this date is to mark the start of the war.

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вторник, 29 сентября 2009 г.

Голодомор: кто автор?

There is no crime that the capitalist wouldn’t commit for 300% of profit, said Karl Marx about the bourgeois insatiable appetite. However, Russian history has a period that proves otherwise. This is a period of Russia's recovery after the Revolution.

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Did age of empire elapse?

Russia is regularly reproached for imperialistic mind. They tell a sacramental phrase: "empires' age elapsed". God forbid! It did not! The British empire's not gone. It has simply (just) hidden. Disguised. Canada. Would you like to check up your erudition? Who is the head of this state? What political regime does it have?

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четверг, 24 сентября 2009 г.

Why Russia needs French helicopter carrier

To be quite honest, why should we need to buy advanced military hardware from the West? As usual several answers are possible. They vary from the betrayal of national interests, conscious destruction of our military-industrial establishment and kickbacks to buyers to common folly. So what is the real reason of it?

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пятница, 18 сентября 2009 г.

Moscow Deal: end result

The article "Moscow Deal" lays out my understanding of the agreements between Moscow and Washington, reached during Obama's visit to Moscow. After six weeks, the time has come to check if the forecast was correct. Let us compare what I wrote with what has actually happened.

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Moscow Deal

To make negotiations successful, each of the parties should offer something important to the other and less important to itself. Politics is always about bargaining, with a whole range of bargaining chips. You need to give up something if you need to get something else in return. This is the true nature of negotiations, unless a party suffers a military defeat. During the Moscow negotiations Russia and the US were equal parties. This equality was not decided by a currency exchange rate or GDP volume, but rather by the fact that both parties have control over something important to each other. SOMETHING they cannot get unless they negotiate.

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среда, 16 сентября 2009 г.

Why liberals do not know how to count?

On Sept. 9 on the insistence of Georgia, a vote was held in the UN General Assembly on the resolution initiated by Tbilisi. 48 countries voted for the document, 19 were against, 78 abstained. 47 delegations had not participated in the vote.

Comments on the results of the vote as reported by radio ‘Echo of Moscow’ shocked me. It turns out that our liberals… do not know how to count.

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вторник, 15 сентября 2009 г.

Why did Sberbank buy Opel?

It has almost become a detective story. General Motors group changed its mind five or six times in a diametrically opposite way. Factory workers, the Government of Germany… and common sense were in favor of selling Opel to a Russian Savings Bank and Canadian Magna. Since the American auto giant became unprofitable, it is supposed to sell some part of its empire in order to save the rest. But in fact the behavior of GM was like a dog in the manger in Lope de Vega comedy: it can’t use it and won’t give it away to the others. But it happened, the squeeze worked out. Why did then GM resist so much, why was it reluctant to sell Opel to an investor ‘made in Russia‘?

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