Miracle or not, Putin on course to win in Russia

[mai]

Kasz216 said:

bouzane said:

''The guy before him was Boris Yeltsen.  Putin I believe is more popular, though it's not that much of a differnece since they're essentially two peas in a pod.''

WHAT?!?!? They're the polar opposites. Yeltsen was pro-democracy, friendly to the West and led Russia to absolute financial ruin whereas Putin has consolodated power, stood up to America and restored some semblance of economic well-being within his nation. Personally, I am utterly perplexed that there is any opposition to Putin within Russia, it's like people forgot the extreme hardship thrust upon them by the incompetents who formerly ran the country into the ground.

Yelstsen and He are equally as corrupt.

And though he was scapegoated for the economy, there isn't anyone who was going to end up doing well in that transition.

Putin was only benefiting from coming in at the end of the process after the pain from transitioning came about and market transitions were complete.  He's only gotten in the way of Russias economy.

http://www.iie.com/publications/papers/paper.cfm?ResearchID=974

LOL, Kaz, that's so typicall of you. Present an opinion throwing in some long and boring article as the only argumentation, practically forcing people to read it. Well, valid, but will you have a little mercy on people? Your opponents are human beings, too :D

I've made an effort over myself and read it all, couple of times stumbling over the name Nemtsov along the way, which made me worry and gave a strong sense of deja vu at the same time. And while reading through reference materials I've come across... Itogi reference. Jesus mother fucking christ... Itogi :D That's what it reminds me, an infamous Nemtsov and Milov's Itogi. Though merely a single reference, the entire article is basically a summary of Itogi, quouting it couple of times, like here, which's Aslund's key idea as I understand it: "What remains of Putin's economic legacy is only that he was lucky to reap the benefits of the arduous but productive reforms his predecessor instigated in the 1990s (Milov and Nemtsov 2008)". Really he could have never bothered to brining anything else to the references except of Itogi.

Of course, it's excusable for you, Kaz. Should you've known about Russian politikum more (the figure of the author, Nemtsov, is pretty much telling all by itself), you wouldn't touch with a ten feet pole anything that's based, mentions or refers to Itogi without an attempt to have a few laughs. Just be warned, that serious people in serious talks avoid brining up Itogi, the same way historians do not bring up Fomenko*.

 

* Ok, that's yet another cultural-specific example, but I believe you got an idea and can think of a better example for yourself.