Zero Hedge
Economy
From Communism To Monopolistic Capitalism In A Single Swoop
by Ben Tanosborn, via Zero Hedge.com:
What’s the difference between an apparently benevolent Ukrainian oligarch and a charismatic chief of a drug cartel in Colombia or Mexico? There isn’t any! Economically, politically and socially both were birthed as identical twins; and that behavioral-DNA which exists in both can also be found in most other powerful economic magnates who have metamorphosed in former communist nations, or Soviet republics, from the ranks of the party elite after conveniently setting aside the precepts of Karl Marx… and readily accepting pseudo-entrepreneurial predatory capitalism as the new cult.
And while a chocolate cake was instrumental a week ago in the capture of drug kingpin Servando Gomez in Mexico, the chocolate kingpin in Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, roams presidentially-free in charge of a bankrupt nation temporarily being held afloat by the IMF and a shotgun western alliance led by the United States.
Although the president of Ukraine was dropped from Forbes’ list of world billionaires compiled three week ago, that was just a reflection of the devaluation in the Ukrainian hryvnia. Twenty-three past Russian billionaires also failed to make the list for the same reason, the value of the ruble in this case (88 listed this year vs. 111 in 2014).
Poroshenko does bring center stage the very calamitous way in which much of the wealth and natural resources which belonged to the people in the many republics of the Soviet Union ended up in the hands of mafia-entrepreneurs, often parasitic scoundrels who from their posts of influence in government would structure the “redistribution” of such wealth. Mikhail Gorbachov’s idea of perestroika, no matter how well-intentioned in both its political and social aspects, appears to have been lacking in the most critical element of all: the optimal way of reconstructing the economy.
