Letters

Filed under: Letters

RE: Inflation Continues to Ravage Putin's Russia (April 9th)

Dear Publius Pundit,

As someone with a postgraduate university degree in political and economic subjects, who works in risk analysis advising major companies on investments in Russia, I absolutely had to go against my better judgment and comment on this article. it is woefully ignorant and shows a lack of intellectual rigour to attempt to attribute inflation to Putin -- you might as well blame the leader of almost every East European (and the occasional Western) country where inflation is rampant. The reality is that inflation is hitting everyone hard due to global economic issues I won't bother to detail here (you must be aware of them yourself), not to mention oil money etc. Secondly, to suggest that Putin is incapable of any social or economic reforms because he isn't an economist is a blatant misunderstanding of the political system. How many heads of state are trained economists? I guarantee that you can count them on one hand. in any case, you seem to have conveniently forgotten the significant reforms Putin introduced during his first term, and the flat tax (only a distant dream in America) which continues to be praised in the Western media. in fact, contrary to your insinuations, the obvious explanation for inflation is that it is taking place because the economy is doing well, not poorly: as Reuters reported, in 2006 "GDP reached $1 trillion in nominal terms, propelling Russia into the world's top 10 economies". Finally, to compare Putin and Mugabe is simply untenable, and typical of US commentators' inclination to portray Russia in an unjustifiably negative light -- whereas most of the country's problems stem from the various impractical recommendations made by Western institutions and the rapacious gangster capitalism that inevitably took hold after the total destruction of the previous system. Putin is not an ideal leader, but he has not done exclusively bad things as somany so-called 'pundits' would like to believe. I hope that in future you will think twice about misinforming the public with your clearly biased and strident opinions.

Very truly yours,

Anna Marron (vervana@googlemail.com)

Publius Pundit responds after the jump.

Dear Ms. Marron,

We feel your pain. There you are working hard to collect a bunch of suckers to invest in Russia so you can line your pockets, and here we come blowing your cover. How dare we!

But seriously. When a person starts out an argument by talking about their educational credentials without actually naming the institution that issued them -- much less citing any blog where they stand behind any particular position -- we can only conclude that the person is basically a fraud, fully aware that the substance of their argument is lacking and therefore in need of a smokescreen to distract attention from that fact.

And when that same person blithely admits that they earn their living by convincing "major companies" to invest in Russia, only the most guileless reader would fail to recognize the hypocrisy that is obvious when such a person complains about the "bias" in others. The idea that you might be some kind of "objective" source of information about Russia, when in fact you're nothing but a salesperson who will say and do anything to make the sale, is an insult to our intelligence -- and that of our readers. It's classically neo-Soviet of you to think you could get away with such a charade. You're trying to line your pockets by telling outrageous lies about Russia, and we think that's despicable.

You then merrily attempt to change the subject, bringing in the other nations of Eastern Europe as if their failure would excuse Russia. Ms. Marron, the last time we checked only one Eastern European nation sat on the G-8 or the U.N. Security Council, and that nation was Russia. Last time we checked, moreover, none of the other nations of Eastern Europe were governed by proud KGB spies who were obliterating federalism and freedom of speech, imposing dictatorship at a breathtaking rate. Had you bothered to actually read and think about our post, you would have realized our point was that if Putin is going to take those steps then he'd better have some pretty impressive economic progress to brag about, and he doesn't. Instead, his nation is suffering from double-digit consumer price inflation of a type that would be viewed as an apocalypse in any Western country.

Though you claim to be a scholar, your letter is totally devoid of even data, much less links to source material, regarding the progress of other East European countries. Though the topic of the the post is inflation, you attempt to discuss GDP, which has nothing to do with the topic. To us, that seems like naked propaganda of the classic Soviet type. In a most unscholarly fashion, you ignore the fact that the per capita purchasing-power-parity GDP figure for Russia is not only not in the top 10, it's not in the top 50 in the world. It matters little to the starving, oppressed people of Russia that their nation's government presides over a large economy compared to other nations when they suffer from such miserable poverty.

It's always possible to claim that any given leader -- even Hitler or Stalin -- didn't "do exclusively bad things." The fact that Hitler made the trains run on time does not excuse or justify his concentration camps, and only a true fanatic would argue other wise. The fact that you can so blithely ignore Russia's recent past while claiming that Putin's barbaric crackdown on democracy doesn't matter is an expression of pure contempt for the people of Russian and their fate, and it's contemptible in the extreme.

Finally, you seem oblivious of the scholarly analysis that has clearly shown Russia would be far better of economically if it weren't ruled by Vladimir Putin, chiefly led by Michael McFaul. Simply put, you don't -- because you can't -- point to one single shred of evidence that any specific policy enacted by Putin has resulted in economic progress for the people of Russia. You grossly mischaracterize our post as attacking Putin for not being an economist. That's not what we wrote. We said he "does not have one single shred of legitimate economics or business credentials" meaning not only isn't he an economist but he's never run a business or met a payroll. Many leaders of other countries have done that, and other countries aren't the issue. Russia is. If you can't even fairly read our post, how dare you question our fairness towards Russia?

In short, your one-sided and hypocritical, self-serving screed, which doesn't admit any specific failure on Putin's part, is hardly likely to convince us -- or anyone -- to change our tune of criticism where Russia's malignant dictator is concerned.

Very truly yours,

Kim Zigfeld

NOTE: To comment on this post for publication, write to: kimzigfeld@gmail.com