Putin just expanded state media, he stole the last election. He is not for freedom...he is only for the elite being "capitalist".
Obama is trying to head us down the Putin road but America has a long way till we get there.
“Putin just expanded state media, he stole the last election. He is not for freedom...he is only for the elite being “capitalist”.”
The key questions are not about who is politically connected that makes money off that but about the common man and how free is he to earn a living in a “free market”. How much of his income is taken to pay for wealth redistribution schemes? or for government “regulation”?
There has never been a pure capitalist economy and probably never will as there are always people at the top that seek some advantage in the market place based on their connections or government power. But if I look at it the US has become a crony capitalist/Fascist welfare state. Over half my salary goes to support the government and welfare. We have SWAT raids on farms sell “raw” products, we have seizures of any large amounts of cash you might be carrying, you can’t board a plane without being virtually stripped searched. In both Russia and China you basically starve if you don’t work as there is very little wealth redistribution and while there is also a large amount of cronyism and any large corporation is politically connected in someway I would say that they are on the whole more capitalist than we are.
facts are facts, taxes in Russia are far lower then in usa, and russia is far more conservative then usa right now on social issues like gay rights.