EDITORIAL
Putin the Pickpocket
An item in Monday’s issue of the Moscow Times showed how Vladimir Putin’s polices are quite literally picking the nation’s pocket — more evidence of the same is provided in an item today by columnist Dave Essel.
The MT story stated ominously: “Signs are mounting that a worsening of the financial crisis could dampen businesses’ willingness to accept credit and debit cards.”
It’s a truly breathtaking statement. Six months ago, with the Russian stock market at a historic high, who would have believed the nation could fall so far, so fast? We would have, and we did. We sounded the warning, but the people of Russia chose not to listen. Maybe they will hear the sound of silence made by their national cash machines?
The MT reports:
Yury Topolov, vice president for credit card management at Citibank in Moscow, said that if the financial crisis deepened, banks would simply run out of funds to prop up credit reserves or settle their client’s accounts. “Banks may also have to curtail the volume of credit given as well as the credit limits imposed, and this would create a second-tier crisis of confidence between the banks and their cardholders,” he said. Russian consumers spend around 30 percent more when using credit cards, Topolov said, meaning that retailers have a strong incentive to continue accepting them.
This is the so-called “leadership” that Russians bargained for when they chose a totally unqualified KGB spy to rule them. Even though oil prices are stratospherically higher than they were just a few years ago, resulting in windfall profits for Russia, it’s still not enough to float the boat of the corrupt KGB regime that cluelessly guides the country, so that now the cash machines and the national savings account are rapidly running dry.
When will the benighted people of Russia ever learn?
La Russophobe 