Category Archives: Viva!

Putin and the Proxies – OCCRP

via aleksey godin

Credit:

Kremlin.ru

A Novaya Gazeta and OCCRP investigation looks into the wealth surrounding Russian President Vladimir Putin.

When it comes to distribution of wealth, Russia is one of the world’s most unequal major countries. In the quarter-century since the collapse of the Soviet Union, capitalism has arrived with a vengeance. Incomes rose substantially for most people — but dodgy privatization schemes, weak rule of law, dependence on natural resource extraction, and political manipulation has allowed a small class of oligarchs to gain control of a huge proportion of the country’s wealth.

Once beholden to no one but themselves, the oligarchs have been tamed since Vladimir Putin’s arrival to the presidency. The longtime leader has struck a mutually beneficial bargain: Leave the politics to me, chip in when I need you to — and you can keep, and even grow, your wealth.

But part of the story of Russia’s new wealth is missing: What about Putin himself?

In a recent interview, he replied to Oliver Stone’s questions about his assets with a chuckle and a sardonic smile: “I don’t have the wealth they attribute to me.”

Indeed, the Russian leader is notorious for keeping himself “officially” clean. But, sensing that there must be more to the story, OCCRP and its long-time partner Novaya Gazeta went digging to find out more — and pieced together the assets of some of President Putin’s friends, family, and inner circle.

Some of these people lead or have stakes in large companies, many connected to Russia’s lucrative natural resources sector. The one commonality in their financial success is their connection to the to the president.

A smaller, more mysterious group — the proxies — have no obvious explanation for the hidden wealth reporters have uncovered. They claim not to be businessmen, are not known to the public, and in some cases have little idea of the riches that are registered under their names. Again, they have one common attribute: they are all family or boyhood friends of Putin.

These proxies’ wealth may be accounted for by the simplest explanation: It may really be Putin’s money. But in Russia, nothing is simple.

Stories

Vladimir Putin has always denied having any serious wealth. But one of his relatives somehow amassed as much as $573 million in assets while working at an $8,500 per year job.

A former butcher worth US$ 550 million. A shipping company employee who amassed $573 million. A cellist whose offshore firms handled $2 billion.

According to OCCRP’s calculations and their 2017 Forbes ratings, the total wealth of Putin’s inner circle — a mix of family members, old friends, and friends who became family members — stands at nearly $24 billion. Their most successful businesses are either linked to the largely state-controlled oil and gas sector or connected to other state corporations.

Three of the people on this list — Mikhail Shelomov, Sergei Roldugin, and Pyotr Kolbin — form their own pattern. Though they hold enormous assets, they stay out of the public eye, seem largely unaware of their own companies, and are at pains to explain the origins of their wealth. This, along with their personal connections to the president, raise questions about whether their assets really belong to them — or if they are merely proxies.

Click on the names below to explore the members of this exclusive club and the connections between them.

Note: OCCRP did not include politicians and top state company managers among Putin’s friends. He also has other friends and relatives whose wealth is unknown.

President Doocy’s Shutdown

via Sophia, NOT Loren!

Donald Trump had a face-saving narrative put together to avoid a shutdown: 1)call any border security funding “the wall,” and 2)claim that the lightly renegotiated NAFTA constituted Mexico paying for it. Alas, the conservative media that would normally parrot Trump’s bullshit du jour decided to push back:

You could see the outline of a plan. Trump would wheedle some money out of Democrats, rebrand the tweaked NAFTA as Mexico “paying” for it, rebrand the fence as a wall, and say he won. Accordingly, Trump abandoned his previous threats to shut down the government over the lack of a wall.

But then right-wing media threw a fit. A backdrop here is that numerous right-wing infotainers build their audience by promoting irrational confrontational tactics. Figures like Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and the cast of Fox & Friends don’t have serious, substantive policy disagreements with Republican leaders, but they do like to goad them into hopeless confrontations by pretending they will create leverage that does not exist. Under the Obama administration, conservative media promoted a series of government shutdown threats out of the belief that they could be used to make Obama give them policy concessions. For whatever reason, they’re not going along with the plan of pretending the wall is getting built, and instead they’re demanding Trump shut down the government to get the wall.

And when right-wing infotainers demanded this, Trump “alternately seethed and panicked about the stream of invective he’s hearing from allies on television,” as Politico reports.

The normal political strategy of a shutdown holds that the president will give up in the face of a shutdown because presidents care about the government looking competent and orderly. But this is an unusual situation — a shutdown being engineered by the president, rather than against him.

The situation is even worse that a closed wingnut media system echoing the president; the closed wingnut media system often pushes Trump (and many other Republican officials) to be even wingnuttier. In this case, a lot of working people will suffer as a result.

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Corbyn faces furious Labour backlash over backing Brexit

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Labour leader accused of betrayal on second poll and ‘in danger of losing young backers’

Jeremy Corbyn is facing a storm of criticism from Labour activists and MPs after suggesting he would press ahead with Brexit if the party won a snap general election.

In a sign that he is losing backing among overwhelmingly pro-Remain Labour supporters, Corbyn was also accused of betraying the party membership by appearing reluctant to back the idea of supporting Remain in a second referendum.

Continue reading…

Robert Reich: The end is near for Trump

Trump is a “dangerous menace.”
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This morning I phoned my friend, the former Republican member of Congress.

ME: So, what are you hearing?

HE: Trump is in deep sh*t. 

ME: Tell me more. 

HE: When it looked like he was backing down on the wall, Rush and the crazies on Fox went ballistic. So he has to do the shutdown to keep the base happy. They’re his insurance policy. They stand between him and impeachment.

ME: Impeachment? No chance. Senate Republicans would never go along.

HE (laughing): Don’t be so sure. Corporate and Wall Street are up in arms. Trade war was bad enough. Now, you’ve got Mattis resigning in protest. Trump pulling out of Syria, giving Putin a huge win. This dumbass shutdown. The stock market in free-fall. The economy heading for recession. 

ME: But the base loves him.

HE: Yeah, but the base doesn’t pay the bills. 

ME: You mean …

HE: Follow the money, friend. 

ME: The GOP’s backers have had enough?

HE: They wanted Pence all along.

ME: So …

HE: So they’ll wait until Mueller’s report, which will skewer Trump. Pelosi will wait, too. Then after the Mueller bombshell, she’ll get 20, 30, maybe even 40 Republicans to join in an impeachment resolution. 

ME: And then?

HE: Senate Republicans hope that’ll be enough – that Trump will pull a Nixon.

ME: So you think he’ll resign? 

HE (laughing): No chance. He’s fu*king out of his mind. He’ll rile up his base into a fever. Rallies around the country. Tweet storms. Hannity. Oh, it’s gonna be ugly. He’ll convince himself he’ll survive. 

ME: And then?

HE: That’s when Senate Republicans pull the trigger. 

ME: Really? Two-thirds of the Senate? 

HE: Do the math. 47 Dems will be on board, so you need 19 Republicans. I can name almost that many who are already there. Won’t be hard to find the votes.

ME: But it will take months. And the country will be put through a ringer. 

HE: I know. That’s the worst part. 

ME: I mean, we could have civil war.

HE: Hell, no. That’s what he wants, but no chance. His approvals will be in the cellar. America will be glad to get rid of him. 

ME: I hope you’re right. 

HE: He’s a dangerous menace. He’ll be gone. And then he’ll be indicted, and Pence will pardon him. But the state investigations may put him in the clinker. Good riddance. 

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