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The real Putin, as in trading partner of the United States ?

For the record, the trade statistics between the United States and Russia, for those keeping score:

http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c4621.html

2013

TOTAL 2013

Exports from US to Russia: $11,164,000,000

Imports to US from Russia: $26,961,500,000

Net Trade Balance: $-15,797,500,000

Boeing (a key US defense contractor) by their own admission:

“The Boeing Company has maintained a cooperative relationship with Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) since the era of the former Soviet Union. In the 1970s, Boeing as a part of the historic U.S.-Soviet space mission, Apollo-Soyuz, when spacecraft from both countries docked in orbit.”

To find the complete PDF online on Boeing’s website, just google:

boeing russia backgrounder

Why would a key defense contractor engage in such high-tech trade with a supposed “enemy” nation ? Obviously to the people making the real decisions, Russia is a trading partner, not an enemy.

IMHO, it makes no sense at all to bang war drums, given that it looks like globalist bankers/traders are running pretty much everything as they please while keeping the fact well-hidden (in plain sight) from the public.

And the goodie:

Moscow is "not likely" to annex Crimea. "Russia is not considering the option to adjoin Crimea. Only the citizens may and should decide on their future in the conditions of free expression of will and security," Putin said.

Takeaway: Crimean independence, similar to that enjoyed by the Georgian breakaway territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia is very much on the table.

Take it however you like it - Crimea is ours and no one else's business. How we run Crimea is none of your concern. Period.

IBM has been doing business in Russia since

1972

According to IBM's website:

"Russia is in northern Eurasia and is the largest country in the world, covering more than a ninth of the Earth's land area. Russia also is the ninth most populous nation with 143 million people. IBM has been in Russia since 1972. It has offices in several cities, including Moscow, which is the capital and largest city. CSC deployed in Russia in 2010. Locations have included Kazan, Sochi and Rostov. Projects have included working with the University of Kazan on a long-term strategy for developing a social and educational network of the university."

http://www.ibm.com/ibm/responsibility/corporateservicecorps/wwa_russia.html

The "Cold War" was a fake.

US and other Western international companies happily did business with the "evil empire" all during the "Cold War".

The press in both Russia and the US, of course, dutifully did its part to hide the fact from the public of both countries so they could continually be frightened and angered into supporting the "Cold War" mentality that enabled massive government spending on both militaries.

We're still at it. Russia is still portrayed by conservative operatives and the unwitting rank-and-file as some boogie man that is out to make war on the US.

People don't understand basic accounting and the tax implications of being a vendor to the government. If the tax system has tax credits (like GE and other companies routinely use to reduce their tax due to little to nothing), then large government vendors, whose net after-tax profits come largely from high-margin sales to the government, can reach a point where the net after-tax profits from the government sales alone is more than what they pay in tax to the government.

Once that point is reached, they are, in effect, taxing the people to pay for their operations, using the government as an intermediary for collection services.

NGOs, of course, are definitely in that category, as they are tax-exempt so they pay nothing in. Social services and healthcare payments are generally also in the same position as well. Much of our tax dollar goes to private sector business operations which receive more tax money from the government than they pay to the government.

Sheeple just don't get it. They can't do the math, and/or don't want to think about it.

He’s been President-for-Life for 14 years and clearly intends to never leave the actual head of power in Russia. He’s been helping Iran acquire nuclear weapons; he’s been helping Assad stay in power. He’s been doing his best to shutdown US access to support our forces in Afghanistan through the “stans.” He’s done as much as he can to harm Israel. All that says more about his seriousness than his smiling or not smiling.