Posted on 11/26/2008 11:17:55 AM PST by WellyP
"...It takes some doing to keep up with the financial meltdown that has been wrought in Russia by the misguided policies of the nation’s dictator, Vladimir Putin.
At the end of the week, Reuters reported that the Putin regime had squandered a breathtaking $58 billion in September and October alone defending the value of the Russian ruble. Another $14 billion had been washed down the rathole of the regime’s efforts to bail out its corrupt and decrepit banking system, bringing the total to a stunning $72 billion before even considering the vast undisclosed amounts being spent to prop up the crippled stock market, or the unknown expenditures that have already occurred in November. $72 billion is roughly 15% of Russia’s total foreign exchange reserve fund, meaning that another year of this kind of spending would wipe out the fund entirely, assuming nothing was spent either on the stock market or economic growth and nothing was needed to compensate for budgetary deficits. None of those assumptions are remotely valid. Russia is on the fast track to bankruptcy, just like the USSR faced not long ago..."
...yet they are saber rattling in Venezuela, Cuba and Georgia...and blaming the U.S. for their stock market woes. At some point, the people are going to start blaming Putin and watch out when that worm turns.
Ha! These guys are amateurs compared to our idiot Congress!
It is in their military's hands to save Russia by coming up with an adventure that can raise the price of oil.
Indeed. Before we laugh at the Russians, consider that our Congress is squandering more than ten times more money (by some estimates 20 or 30 times more)
Boy; I sure am glad we don’t have one of those CORRUPT AND DECREPIT BANKING SYSTEMS ! ! ! !
Mark my words, the price of oil will go up.
Isn’t this one of the stars that are rising as America declines?
$72 billion? That's the amount Ben Bernanke finds between the couch cushions without digging deep or moving the couch to find out what fell through.
Between its futile attempts to defend the ruble and the falling price of oil, Russia is in worse financial shape than we are.
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