GOVERNMENT USING CRISIS TO SEIZE PRIVATE PROPERTY - IN... ER, UM RUSSIA

WHAT'S SHOCKING ISN'T THAT THEY'RE DOING IT THERE - IN RUSSIA; IT'S THAT WE'RE DOING IT HERE!

NYTIMES:

the Kremlin seems to be capitalizing on the economic crisis, exploiting the opportunity to establish more control over financially weakened industries that it has long coveted, particularly those in natural resources.

... At the forefront of these efforts is Mr. Sechin, 48, a deputy prime minister who has been a Putin confidant since the two served in the St. Petersburg city government in the early 1990s. Mr. Sechin almost never gives interviews or speaks publicly, but he is believed to spearhead the use of the secret services and other government arms to capture companies.“He is the state’s main raider,” said Olga Kryshtanovskaya, a prominent Kremlin expert at the Center for the Study of Elites in Moscow. “He organizes these raider seizures, sometimes to the benefit of the state, or sometimes to the benefit of companies that are friendly to him.”

... A growing recognition of its outsize influence over business appears to have helped sour the investment climate here, and suggests in part why the Russian stock market has been among the worst performers in the world this year.Widespread corruption has deepened this mistrust.

... With the financial crisis jolting economies around the world, Russia is hardly alone in taking ownership stakes in corporations these days. But many governments seem to view this as an uncomfortable role that has been thrust upon them.

Russia’s rulers, however, appear to perceive the crisis as a chance to further expand their control over the economy, concentrating ever more power and wealth in the Kremlin.

“We will put capital directly into major companies, in cases when it would be beneficial to the state and eventually to the taxpayer, and in those enterprises that are the basis of the economy of the Russian Federation,” Mr. Putin said in a television appearance on Thursday. “We do not exclude that these tools may be used in a large-scale way.”

WE SHOULD ALWAYS BE WARY OF PUTIN - AND WE SHOULD BE WARY OF WASHINGTON DC'S INCREASING INVOLVEMENT ON THE ECONOMY, TOO...