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[Sheb]

You got a source for that?

Also, now that Crimea is officially part of Russia, I don't see Putin giving it back. I guess we'd need a face-saving measure: find a technicality in the joining document, then place it under international supervision for a few years, with a referendum at the end.

[Sergarr]

You got a source for that?

Also, now that Crimea is officially part of Russia, I don't see Putin giving it back. I guess we'd need a face-saving measure: find a technicality in the joining document, then place it under international supervision for a few years, with a referendum at the end.

But what if Putin gets overthrown by current elites, who want to alleviate sanctions by doing anything they can?

They're already showing their financial power by taking the natural oil plunge of ruble and accelerating it into free fall mode. And I'm sure these two days were just the beginning.

[Sheb]

I'm not sure that's the plan. The world if full of trader willing to make a quick buck by shorting the ruble.

[alway]

Ya, that stuff is just unintended side effects. The elites don't want to see the ruble fall, but much more than that, they don't want to see their wealth cut in half or more. And so they and everyone else who values their wealth will be running to the nearest exchange until either controls prevent them from doing so or the currency drops so far it isn't even worth converting any more.

[Sergarr]

At least there can potentially be one good consequence - decrease in oil prices will force the government to invest in something else apart from oil.

I hope the prices will stay low for at least three years, because the last time, all the talks about building oil-independent economy in 2008 at 40$ per barrel have died down when the oil prices have gone up again.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

I suspect that three years of $60 per barrel can destroy Russian Ferderation as a country.

[Sergarr]

They can, but they probably won't.

It'll certainly destroy the artificially propped up middle class, though. But the entire idea of "middle class in Russia" is unnatural, anyway. You are either filthy rich or dirty poor in natural Russia.

Being dirty poor is good for science, you know. With less money comes more time to think about the fundamental problems of the universe.

[alway]

At least there can potentially be one good consequence - decrease in oil prices will force the government to invest in something else apart from oil.

I hope the prices will stay low for at least three years, because the last time, all the talks about building oil-independent economy in 2008 at 40$ per barrel have died down when the oil prices have gone up again.

Though that will be a tricky opportunity to take. With recent rabble-rousing against foreigners with things like the 'foreign agent' laws in combination with sanctions and the potential for military stuff to result in further sanctions, getting high-tech international companies to come to Russia is a hard sell.

I honestly have no idea about the state of education and its relationship with available work in Russia, but three years is a pretty short time. Without a pretty substantial pool of well educated but underemployed workers, dramatically increasing other sectors becomes very difficult. With a big push, you could certainly do something to start moving in that direction, but it would still be years before the effects started really showing. From what I've heard, Russia also has issues with petty corruption in the lower levels of government hurting businesses.

In the US, the will to make such drastic changes towards modernizing education and its role in the future of the country haven't really been seen since the Sputnik Crisis at the start of the Space Race. I doubt even low oil prices coupled with a total economic collapse would be enough to spur such a will into existence, though it would certainly be a powerful catalyst. What is needed is either the total focus of the Russian government and the regime behind it, or at the bare minimum, a large group of oligarchs who make such change their priority at the expense of all else and who are free to do so with tacit support of the government.

[Sergarr]

Sadly most oligarchs in Russia are very cosmopolitan and do not care about Russians in the slightest.

I think the last time we had Russian oligarchs that were, well, Russian in spirit, was in 17th century, before Petr I have reformed the entire elite class to be as close to European one as possible.

That was a very bad thing he did. Essentially gave Russian elites completely different culture than common Russians. Hell, most Russian elites in these times didn't even know how to speak in Russian! They were French through and through.

It's amazing just how far back in time one would need to go to fix the underlying cause for current problems of Russia.

[smjjames]

Heh, CNN is saying that Russia is heading for a crash as the Ruble plummets. IMO, the situation is so fluid that you can't really forecast it.

@Sergarr: Russian nobles in that time wouldn't be the same thing as the oligarchs now, but they aren't too different either. French was also the language of the royal courts back then. Just out of curiosity, how did that problem get fixed? Or did that never actually get fixed?

[Sergarr]

Heh, CNN is saying that Russia is heading for a crash as the Ruble plummets. IMO, the situation is so fluid that you can't really forecast it.

@Sergarr: Russian nobles in that time wouldn't be the same thing as the oligarchs now, but they aren't too different either. French was also the language of the royal courts back then. Just out of curiosity, how did that problem get fixed? Or did that never actually get fixed?

I think this problem got fixed with the advent of Pushkin in 1830s and his rewrite of Russian language.

The analogues of Pushkin for our military (Suvorov) and for our fleet (Nakhimov) haven't achieved the same degree of long-lasting effects, though. It's pretty sad, since Suvorov was ahead of his own time by at least a century and his military doctrine was based on speed and shock - and as his http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Suvorov#Suvorov.27s_Italian_campaign shown, it was very successful.

And Nakhimov has done this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sinop
Just look at the ratio of casualties!

If only our politicians were as brave as those people...

[mainiac]

I'm not sure that's the plan. The world if full of trader willing to make a quick buck by shorting the ruble.

If I could ever figure out the magic that gives short sellers the power they supposedly hold I would be a billionaire in a year.

[Sergarr]

I'm not sure that's the plan. The world if full of trader willing to make a quick buck by shorting the ruble.

If I could ever figure out the magic that gives short sellers the power they supposedly hold I would be a billionaire in a year.

Inside information + lots of contacts with other billionaires?

Also ability to ask money from Central Bank on the basis of "too big to fail" (yes, really).

[Guardian G.I.]

Sometimes I wonder what Knit Tie and Sergarr's "Dream Russia" would look like.

And Guardian G.I., or is he from Belarus? Which is effectively a sattelite of Russia anyway.

For a satellite, we quarrel with Russia too much.
After the food ban was enacted by Putin in August, Belarusian food producers started importing raw foodstuffs from EU, because it suddenly became cheap. After processing in Belarus, the resulting goods were shipped to Russia with "Made in Belarus" stickers. Someone in the Russian government thought it contravened the EU food import ban, and the Russian authorities attempted to obstruct the sales of some Belarusian goods - Russian sanitary inspectors banned the import of meat products by several Belarusian companies in late November. The current status of the ban is unclear. Eventually, Belarus re-introduced border control on the Belarusian-Russian border - the declared reason was preventing the smuggling of EU goods into Russia.
Now President Lukashenko is making rather vague statements asking Russia to clarify their policies towards Belarus and reminding Russia of the threat posed by the West.

[mainiac]

Inside information + lots of contacts with other billionaires?

Also ability to ask money from Central Bank on the basis of "too big to fail" (yes, really).

So your answer is that short selling gives them this power because of something completely seperate from short selling.