Free Republic

Rick Perry And Texas Job Numbers Full disclosure: I don't like Rick Perry for our next president. I have my reasons that aren't worth going into here. However, when I was watching the GOP debate and pro-Perry people started bringing up Rick Perry's job numbers as a cudgel against other candidates, I looked into the BLS data on Texas jobs. Having familiarized myself with the data, I started noticing claims on the Texas jobs data that started popping up that directly contradicted what I was seeing in the data. So I wanted to clear up a couple of these...

Viktor Vekselberg, the Russian billionaire, has agreed to merge his power assets into the power-generation holding of Gazprom to create a state-controlled national electricity champion that will control a quarter of the country’s electricity market. Analysts said the merger announced on Thursday risked overturning the country’s hard-won privatisation of the sector, one of the few successful market reforms of the past decade, with state control of the sector set to increase from 50 per cent to 70 per cent as a result of the deal. “After the merger, the state will simply dominate the market,” said Derek Weaving, electricity sector...

On the third Wednesday of every month, the nine members of an elite Wall Street society gather in Midtown Manhattan. The men share a common goal: to protect the interests of big banks in the vast market for derivatives, one of the most profitable — and controversial — fields in finance.

Russian's new mega-yacht leaves German dockyard one year late Berlin - The biggest luxury yacht on the planet, the 535- foot Eclipse, on Thursday left the German dockyard where it was built, presumably bound for delivery to Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich. Legends have surrounded the huge white boat ever since its keel was laid down in a Hamburg dockyard. It is being delivered a year late, reportedly because of a dispute with Abramovich over the price. Some insiders claimed this week the wallpaper was manta-ray leather and the decoration included real fossils. But they denied claims in British tabloids that...

On the heels of news that the Obama administration is suing the state of Arizona over its new anti-illegal immigration law come news that the same treatment is being leveled at DuPage County, Illinois whose policies almost mirror the Arizona law… Well, that is the headline that should be in the papers today if, that is, the Obama administration actually cared about law instead of only looking for a convenient political target which is all the administration's focus on Arizona really is. It isn't about immigration, illegals, the law, or any legitimate thing other than pure partisan politics. Obama thinks...

Head of Russia's Skolkovo research hub Viktor Vekselberg signed an agreement on Tuesday with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on the maintenance and protection of the U.S. Fort Ross national park. Fort Ross is a former Russian settlement with a wooden fortress on the Pacific Coast, 80 km (50 miles) north of San Francisco. It is a U.S. National Historic Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. California cut funding to its national landmarks in 2008 because of the financial downturn. "The fact that such an exceptional historic object like Fort Ross is located here interested me,"...

Finally, someone is speaking up on a theme we've been promoting for a long while - one of the many "arbitrages" currently going on in the US. In this case, throwing America's savers under the bus, so that (a) any 4-year-old may run a bank successfully simply by turning on the light in the morning [Apr 20, 2009: How Banks will "Outearn" their Losses] and (b) so that debtors may benefit. What is sad to see is the potential for the desperate American saver - who has been hit by multiple Federal Reserve induced bubbles - being set up to...

The economic crisis has hit Ukraine’s business oligarchs hard. But not so hard as to stop them throwing their money and their influence behind the top contenders in the country’s presidential election. “Their pockets are not as deep as they were,” says Vadim Karasiov, a political adviser to President Viktor Yushchenko. “But in a gamble, they are putting their chips on a strong president who could defend their interests.” In the first presidential election since Mr Yushchenko’s Orange Revolution triumph in 2004, the biggest beneficiary of billionaire backing is Viktor Yanukovich, the opposition leader defeated back then by Mr Yushchenko...

An unnamed Russian group is close to buying control of one of recession-hit Ukraine’s largest steel groups, in a deal that risks causing political controversy in Kiev in the run-up to this month’s presidential election. The Financial Times has learnt that the debt-laden ISD Corporation, which has plants in Poland and Hungary as well as Ukraine, could be sold later this month in a transaction valuing the group up to $2bn (€1.4bn, £1.3bn) with Vnesheconombank, the Russian state bank, playing a role in the acquisition. News of the deal could raise political tensions in Ukraine, where Yulia Tymoshenko, the prime...

China has called on Russia not to overreact in its clampdown on a Moscow bazaar, home to tens of thousands of Chinese traders and well-known for its thriving contraband trade. The unexpected shutdown of the sprawling Cherkizovsky Market in the Russian capital last month has caused "enormous economic losses" to Chinese traders there, the commerce ministry said in a statement posted on its website. "The Chinese side pays deep attention to this and... urges the Russian side to handle the issue with discretion," said ministry spokesman Yao Jian in the statement. The statement urged Russian authorities to protect the legal...

Russia's top tycoons on Tuesday expressed hope that US President Barack Obama's visit to Russia would help boost lacklustre business ties as Moscow and Washington seek to warm up diplomatic relations. A host of Russian and US companies are aiming to capitalise on a "reset" of political ties expected from Obama's two-day meetings with Russian leaders at a parallel business forum. Viktor Vekselberg, a billionaire tycoon and head of the Renova group, said at the forum that while there were some positive examples in Russia-US business relations, that cooperation has not become systematic yet. "We are going around in circles...

The Obama administration and the Democrats insist that the money the government gets from cap-and-trade will benefit the creation of clean-energy initiatives in the US, making us the world leader. If so, someone should tell Senators Evan Bayh and Dick Lugar. The two have partnered on earmarks that will subsidize a Russian company in the engineering and production of lithium-ion batteries: The Indiana lawmakers have secured $6.5 million in congressional earmarks for Ener1, Inc., and have talked up the company’s efforts to secure a slice of nearly $3 billion in two Energy Department programs offering grants and loans as part...

When Barack Obama, US president, announced his decision to shepherd General Motors into bankruptcy on Monday, Vladimir Putin, Russian prime minister, was conducting some car industry business of his own. Mr Putin met in Moscow with Siegfried Wolf, co-chief executive of Canada’s Magna International, and German Gref, head of Sberbank, whose groups are due to take a controlling interest in GM’s spun-off European Opel division in a deal to be negotiated in the coming weeks. Two days earlier, when Magna and Sberbank won preferred bidder status over Italy’s Fiat for a joint 55 per cent stake of Opel, Mr Putin...

Budapest - Hungary's largest gas distribution company Emfesz has been sold to Swiss-based firm RosGas AG, Emfesz spokesman Igor Gallyas said Thursday, confirming a report in the Russian newspaper Vedomosti. The news has prompted speculation that the Russian energy giant Gazprom, which is believed to be behind RosGas, is looking to strengthen its hold over the Hungarian, and by extension, the EU market. Gallyas, speaking to the Hungarian news agency MTI, neither confirmed nor denied the report by Vedomosti that RosGas is part of Gazprom's family of subsidiaries. However, in a statement posted on its website on April 28, Emfesz...

Metinvest, the steel conglomerate controlled by Ukrainian billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, said yesterday it had acquired West Virginia-headquartered United Coal Company, in a purchase estimated to be worth up to $1bn. Analysts said the deal showed some of Ukraine's leading businessmen were sufficiently cash-rich to make big purchases abroad in spite of a deep recession that has battered their country and halved production at their steel mills. Mr Akhmetov is Ukraine's richest man. The value of Metinvest's UCC purchase, closed between the two privately owned companies, was not disclosed. But local investment bank Dragon Capital estimated that the deal was worth...

In an interview with Newsweek published on April 11, President Saakashvili speaks of sources of opposition funding, about his U.S. friends, his stance of U.S. under Bush and Obama administrations, as well as about being disappointed with the West putting relationships with Georgia on hold while waiting for the outcome of the street protest rallies. Asked who sponsors the Georgian opposition, Saakashvili responded: “Most of the money—millions of dollars—comes from Russian oligarchs. I have documentary proof of that, which I am not making public yet. Whether the money is being sent from Russia under the supervision of the Russian government,...

A controversial Russian businessman has accused Vladimir Putin of using "dirty money" to control British companies. Boris Berezovsky, who is wanted in his own country on charges of fraud, told Sky's Jeff Randall that cash stripped from the Russian economy is being siphoned off by an international web of companies. "Putin and his cronies made absolutely dirty money and tried to invest this money all over the world including Britain." .... Mr Berezovsky claims that Moscow is using Iceland to launder "dirty money" before investing in other countries. "You remember three months ago the Russian government declared that they would...

LONDON - Russian billionaire and former KGB spy Alexander Lebedev is trying to buy London's Evening Standard newspaper, British media outlets reported Thursday. > He also is part owner of the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, one of the few media outlets critical of the Russian government.

AN EX-KGB spymaster who subjected the British secret service to its worst embarrassment since the Cold War is the right-hand man of Lord Mandelson's controversial Russian friend Oleg Deripaska, the Evening Standard discloses today. Valery Pechenkin was a high-ranking officer in the KGB and a Colonel-General in its successor, the FSB. He is employed as head of security at Deripaska's company Basic Element, but the part he plays in Deripaska's affairs goes far beyond the role suggested by his job title. According to well-placed sources in Moscow, Pechenkin is one of Deripaska's strongest links to the Kremlin. The veteran spy...

Russia’s state development bank on Wednesday approved $10bn (£6bn, €8bn) in refinancing for the country’s cash-strapped oligarchs. This came as the first step of a $50bn government bail-out that could redraw Russia’s business landscape. As part of the package, Oleg Deripaska’s UC Rusal holding company was set to receive a $4.5bn loan. It will use it to repay in full a syndicate of western banks, including Royal Bank of Scotland and Merrill Lynch, that Mr Deripaska has been scrambling to pay by a Friday deadline, people familiar with the situation said. The approval of the government loan – to be...