Thanatopolis DC’s one true religion is Death-worship and killing is the prime sacrament.

@USAma. In a nutshell. Like the teeshirt I saw on a Yankee boy out with his mother:
“Winners Make Points. Losers Make Excuses”.

I pulled the direct quote from the Saker below: Putin is a neoliberal …end of. His economic advisors and the head of the Russian Central Bank are neoliberals. Russia is neoliberal: with ‘Russian characteristics’ …privatization, globalisation, and opening up to FDI are part of that. PCR argues cogently that this only favours the investors: Russia could, and should, create the ruble capital itself. Instead, it is borrowing $$$$ capital and sticking it in the bank (as ForEx) to accrue interest for the (shadow bank) investors. This gives the $$$$ lenders unnecessary leverage and is, in effect, a soft-Yeltsin approach that will destroy the Russian economy. If and when they want to withdraw their capital – Russia tanks.
The Saker laments that Putin is the Russian government: “Putin rules in a manual regime” …he has to do everything himself. What comes after him: he cannot rule forever?
What PCR does not say, is that the biggest $$$$ market is the offshore shadow banking sector …the so called Eurodollar market. The institutions that run this are the capitalist elite superclass: to whom he is giving a ‘free lunch’. It is this economic imperialism that has destroyed the world economy. Quite how this can be viewed as somehow ‘anti-imperial’ escapes definition. When the shadow bankers choose: they will collapse the ruble and turn the clock back to 1993. Can you explain how this is in the interest of the Russian people?

I like the Saker (as I like Putin) but here it seems he’s acknowledging the competing interests and institutional problems Russia inherited from the Yeltsin years and needs to work a balancing act. Which Putin does very well, and I don’t see any evidence he’s a neo-liberal because he didn’t do everything some would like. Saker:

So if Putin is so bad, why do I support him? Simply because at this point in time there is no alternative. And it’s not really that Putin is “bad” – but rather that he is a human being, not a miracle worker with a magic wand in his hands who can reform Russia simply by waving it and saying “abracadabra”. Especially not while Russia is at war with an Empire which threatens her very existence!

As to FDI and capital outflows/inflows, that’s just they have to do to allow Russia to massively invest in resource and infrastructure elsewhere, which suits its geo-political strategy.
I’m encouraged by moves away from the dollar and regional trade deals. Once the Russia-China nexus firms, hopefully Putin can improve the domestic situation. But yes, Putin DOES seem to invest in a “third way”, albeit with a uniquely Russian flavour,

Are problems in the space/time continuum? 🙂 I posted two recent articles from earlier this year (one above by PCR; and one below by the Saker) and you trump me with a two year old article?
Can either of you answer this question: if Russia is not neoliberal, why are they opening up to FDI?
There really only is one answer, is there not?

Hi Bevin: did you read the PCR link …or the embedded links where PCR and Michael Hudson talk about their misgivings on Russia’s neoliberal policies? Even the Saker gets dismayed that Putin has done little, except accomodate the “Atlantic Integrationists” as he terms them. So reversing the neoliberal order is not what is happening, not if hedge funds and the like controlling $70tn+ of $$$$ capital get invited to SPIEF to show that Russia is open for investment? That is neoliberal integration, is it not?
“Second, and to my personal great regret, Putin is a neo-liberal” The Saker.
http://thesaker.is/russian-presidential-elections-boring-useless-and-necessary/
You’ve never really defined what you think human autonomy is? My definition would be: not something one can find at the bottom of a heap of neoliberal supra-sovereignty. I don’t have any faith in the modern iteration of “democracy” either, or even “social democracy”, as you have noted. I’ve proposed on numerous occasions that all 19th and 20th paradigms are dead: having been predicated on cheap hydrocarbons that are no longer cheap. The fact that they still appear ‘cheap’ is that they are hugely subsidised by unrepayable debts (the unrepayability being something we both agree on?).
So the biggest strawman of all is that Russia/China offer an alternative to neoliberal globalisation. There is literally zero evidence for this: Russia /China want nothing more than neoliberal integration under the aegis of the UN/WTO:
“SCO member states also stressed the significance of improving the global economic governance system, consolidating and developing the multilateral trade mechanism with the World Trade Organization at its core, and building an open world economy.”
From the press communique of the recent SCO Summit, held the same weekend as the G7/G6 shitshow (and Bildeberg in Turin). I’m calling it globalisation’s “Good Cop, Bad Cop” act. I fail to see any “foci of resistance” in integrationionism?
There’s two ways this can go. The dominant superstructure of states are becoming bio-energtically and ecologically untenable. They will not cede power. They, and the supra-sovereign central banking system that serves them will draw and horde resources to themselves. The choice is simple: they get rid of us (not even necessarily intentionally) …or we get rid of them? Preferably, non-violently …if the repressive state apparatuses come with us? Then we can live in peace and harmony with what’s left of Nature? Not very worldly or practical, I admit …but still preferable to the neoliberal globalisation project that Russia and China are integrating into, IMO. Global economic governance, anyone?

Nevertheless makes important reference to Paul Craig Roberts thoughts; there’s a spilt in Russian economic thinking between the western influenced economists of the Central Bank and the nationalists. Russian PM Medvedev also was said to be of an ‘Atlanticist’ persuasion.
However, signs are that Putin’s moving away from neo-liberalism, as Roberts himself notes here https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/08/11/will-russia-reject-neoliberalism/

Are you sure that you are not battling a straw man ?
The view that you take of Russia and China is very similar to that of the imperialists- another version of “a plague on both of their houses” like Cliff’s ‘Neither Washington or Moscow’ .
Like those who, while no fans of the Soviet system supported most of Russia’s foreign policy-because it was in opposition to that of the aggressive empire, seeking hegemony- I find myself supporting all foci of resistance to the Empire.
The question of neo-liberal socio-economic policy is important only insofar as it weakens the societies which adopt these divisive and destructive measures. Nations like Venezuela, defending themselves against aggression depend upon the solidarity and strength of the masses- it is madness for a country under attack to deepen class divisions and subvert the well being of the population.
In fact Putin has learned that the prime necessity in Russia is to reverse the neo-liberal order introduced under Yeltsin- an order that was decimating the population and demoralising the armed forces.