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October 30, 2008 7:17 PM

Moscow is home to the largest number of billionaires and in Russia, there are nearly 100 billionaires. Due to recent economic developments and the drop in oil prices, the oligarchs, who rose to prominence under Gorbachev, have lost a combined total of $200 billion. Help is here.
posted by gman (21 comments total)

Careful there, gman.
posted by sebastienbailard at 7:27 PM on October 30, 2008 [1 favorite]

i wonder why the world's other petro state doesn't have this "problem."

actually, i don't
posted by klanawa at 7:30 PM on October 30, 2008 [2 favorites]

I meant to hyperlink 'Moscow' simply to highlight that it's the most expensive city in the world this year. And while I'm at it, I'd like to mention that the fuckin' dropdown google ad, is REALLY annoying.
posted by gman at 7:31 PM on October 30, 2008

Careful there, gman.

Whatever.
posted by gman at 7:36 PM on October 30, 2008

So the russian government is getting back the corporations that were, basically, stolen during the capitalistic "shock therapy" engineered by the hypercapitalists at the IMF/World Bank/whatever in the 90s. It would be pretty funny if it wasn't for the fact that the Russian government wasn't so obnoxious these days
posted by delmoi at 7:57 PM on October 30, 2008

*brandishes world's tiniest violin*
posted by mullingitover at 8:24 PM on October 30, 2008 [1 favorite]

Watched this last night: video of a talk by Misha Glenny at a foreign correspondent's club. Glenny wrote McMafia:

a fearless, encompassing, wholly authoritative investigation of the now proven ability of organized crime worldwide to find and service markets driven by a seemingly insatiable demand for illegal wares. Whether discussing the Russian mafia, Colombian drug cartels, or Chinese labor smugglers, Misha Glenny makes clear how organized crime feeds off the poverty of the developing world, how it exploits new technology in the forms of cybercrime and identity theft, and how both global crime and terror are fueled by an identical source: the triumphant material affluence of the West.

He had some very interesting insights into how the former security service apparatchiks made a neat transition to become the new oligarchy of the post-communist world.
posted by Abiezer at 8:26 PM on October 30, 2008

a fearless, encompassing, wholly authoritative investigation of the now proven ability of organized crime worldwide to find and service markets driven by a seemingly insatiable demand for illegal wares. Whether discussing the Russian mafia, Colombian drug cartels, or Chinese labor smugglers, Misha Glenny makes clear how organized crime feeds off the poverty of the developing world, how it exploits new technology in the forms of cybercrime and identity theft, and how both global crime and terror are fueled by an identical source: the triumphant material affluence of the West.

Sure, because before the triumph of the material west, there was hardly any crime or suffering.
posted by delmoi at 9:08 PM on October 30, 2008

You'll probably be astounded to find there's a bit more to it than the blurb off a web-site. Don't be a numpty.
posted by Abiezer at 9:43 PM on October 30, 2008 [1 favorite]

So…the rich tycoons in Moscow are all essentially criminals.

What is the news in this?
posted by paisley henosis at 9:46 PM on October 30, 2008

>>So…the rich tycoons in Moscow are all essentially criminals.

Sounds just like our tycoons.

I think the lesson here is that tycoons are crooked bastards the world over.
posted by SaintCynr at 10:04 PM on October 30, 2008

I read somewhere (Orlov?) that oil prices are what really caused Russia to collapse, not the U.S. cold war spending.
posted by mecran01 at 10:23 PM on October 30, 2008

I think the lesson here is that tycoons are crooked bastards the world over.

True that. The lemonade tycoon down the street threatened to bash my knees in for asking for a discount on a refill.
posted by clearly at 10:51 PM on October 30, 2008

i'm pleased at a small number of the worlds billionaires. Soros, Gates, Buffet in my mind will have done more good than harm in the world.

maybe philanthropy is merely a way to relieve the guilt of the obscenely wealthy, but some of our tycoons are making the world a better place....

(despite an occasional blue screen)
posted by el io at 11:32 PM on October 30, 2008 [1 favorite]

Well, breaking the Bank of England was kind of a dick move, although I understand why it happened. And Windows is a crap OS that continues to damage computer security worldwide. But Buffet seems pretty decent. I like his annual reports.
posted by ryanrs at 12:36 AM on October 31, 2008

ryanrs--

You think any platform is more secure than Windows right now?

It's a mess out there. An absolute mess.
posted by effugas at 1:55 AM on October 31, 2008

The BBC aired a series called 'Russian Godfathers' a couple years back and BBC4 has plans to do a comedy about an oligarch family living in London.
posted by gman at 3:59 AM on October 31, 2008

You think any platform is more secure than Windows right now?

Pretty much all of them i'm guessing. RedHat, SunOS, Mac OS X, etc.
posted by chunking express at 4:59 AM on October 31, 2008

That last link is key. I wonder what russian conservatives say when they hear about the government repo-ing major industries. "Man this place is becoming just like the Soviet...well, us!"
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:02 AM on October 31, 2008

I wonder what russian conservatives say when they hear about the government repo-ing major industries. "Man this place is becoming just like the Soviet...well, us!"

I'm pretty sure "conservatives" in Russia are actually more pro-soviet.
posted by delmoi at 9:04 AM on October 31, 2008

I'm pretty sure the term "conservative" is worse than useless in discussing Russia.
posted by languagehat at 11:50 AM on October 31, 2008