" Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, reached back to the rhetoric of the Cold War on Sunday to angrily accuse the West of trying to meddle in his country's forthcoming elections. "

Vladimir Putin told the West to butt out of his country's internal affairs.Speaking ahead of a parliamentary vote this weekend that his party is expected to win, the country's de facto president-in-waiting told the West to butt out of his country's internal affairs and to stop funding human rights groups that he disdainfully likened to Judas Escariot.

Originally posted by Evolutionsend
reply to post by NowanKenubi

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The original idea of a king came from the will of the people (democracy). They all decided as some point in history, that they wanted the government of one man. Russia is going down that same path again. They really want this man to lead them. Is it a failed democracy, or democracy in action? The more things change, the more they stay the same. The real test will come when they decide they do not want him anymore. Will he step aside, or have undermined the democracy by then?

Originally posted by ludwigvonmises003
reply to post by sonnny1

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Stalin and lenin would be rolling in their graves.Putin has 13 % tax and doesn't steal from poor like the commies.

• Russian spies use senior mafia bosses to carry out criminal operations such as arms trafficking. • Law enforcement agencies such as the police, spy agencies and the prosecutor's office operate a de facto protection racket for criminal networks. • Rampant bribery acts like a parallel tax system for the personal enrichment of police, officials and the KGB's successor, the federal security service (FSB). • Investigators looking into Russian mafia links to Spain have compiled a list of Russian prosecutors, military officers and politicians who have dealings with organised crime networks. • Putin is accused of amassing "illicit proceeds" from his time in office, which various sources allege are hidden overseas.

Low tax and excessively laissez faire? The news reporting about Russia is so devoid of information that few Americans know about this. Russia did a couple of years ago what Ronald Reagan couldn t pull off; it has introduced a flat personal income tax. The single rate for earned income 13%. The corporate income tax rate is 24%, and it is widely considered (even by the Communists) that this is still too high. Dividend income is taxed at 6%. Social taxes are regressive, starting at about 35% but falling to less than 1% for incomes over a few thousand dollars a month. The value added tax is high at 20%, and the Putin administration s next tax bill will propose halving that to 10%. Laissez faire? The state has practically withdrawn from direct involvement in the economy, and with more than 90% of GNP produced in the private sector (including GNP which is supposed to be produced in the shadow economy), Russia is (by that measure) the most capitalist country in Europe. No wonder the old socialists in Brussels are worried about Russia. In Russian universities, obscure Austrian economists dominate the economics courses. The cover story of one issue of Kommersant weekly (Russia s Wall Street Journal) this past January marked the 49th anniversary of Schumpeter' s death (if I remember correctly). [Joseph Schumperter died on January 8, 1950, so it must have been his 52nd anniversary, if I remember my arithmetic. I was surprised that he has such an influence in Russia; he represents dog-eat-dog, law of the jungle economics, which I judge a sure route to social disaster.RH.].
wais.stanford.edu...

Originally posted by ludwigvonmises003
reply to post by sonnny1

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guardian is a british rag owned by oiligarchs. As for russian mafia ,check their top essentially jewish ,many with israeli passports .Surprisingly a lot of chechen terrorists,russian mafiaso,corrupt politicans and defectors stay in the UK.UK is a hub of islamic fundamentalists too.

russian mafia has lost dominance under putin ,they nowwhere have power like Yeltsin era.