Slashdot Mirror
Putin Government Moves To Take Control of Russia's largest space company Energia
schwit1 writes Vitaly Lopota, the president of Russia's largest space company Energia, was suspended Friday by the company's board of directors. From the article: "The move appears to be part of an effort by Russia's government to obtain majority control over Energia, of which it owns a 38-percent share. The directors elected Igor Komarov as its new chairman of the board. Komarov is chief of the Russian United Rocket and Space Corporation (URSC), the government-owned company tasked with consolidating Russia's sprawling space sector." The government is also conducting a criminal investigation of Lopota, which might be justified but appears to be a power play designed to both eliminate him from the game as well as make sure everyone else tows the line so that URSC can take complete control.
... really... you "toe the line" not "tow the line" as the submitter writes.
Anybody still seriously doubt that Russia is a neo-Fascist country?
I like the "to take control" euphemism for steal.
Putin is stealing private property, that's the actual headline here. There can be no real economic development if private property rights are not protected, specifically not protected from government theft. This wouldn't be the first time Putin stole something, by the way, even before Crimea I mean. Of-course he basically stole democratic elections in Russia, I guess nothing can beat that.
You can't handle the truth.
Hey it's nowhere near as bad. I for one, living in the USA, would have been shot long long time ago for running my mouth like I do here on Slashdot, had I been doing all this in 1980's KGB Soviet Union. (I grew up in the Eastern Bloc, I remember standing in line for bread.) At the very least I would have ended up at some Siberian Gulag.
Administrative takeover of corporations by autoritative central state, with intimidation through abuse of executive power, is textbook fascism. Mussolini would be proud.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
Sure, the way Russians go about nationalizing companies is not very nice or even subtle. But I wish my government did the same. Services that people need in order to live - energy, water, medical - shouldn't be on the free market. All that stuff should be publicly owned and the goal shouldn't to be to make money but to provide critical services to the people for the cheapest amount possible.
I see. So if you were privileged or able to work your way into a company supplied med insurance program. You win the lottery and all is well. However, if you were unprivileged or had to work your life away in low, menial jobs to support your poor family and never had a chance to work your way into a company supplied insurance program, then you lost the lottery of life; you should just accept that you will die early. Then there is the lottery of your company shipping your job overseas to some low wage country when you are in your 40's or 50's. You then have little chance of further employment and your insurance is gone with your job. And you might have been allowed to get an medicaid, if you have lost enough of your wealth...except that was made harder by some governors rejecting the wider coverage. So, better hope you stay healthy and employed and aren't steamrolled by corporate America.
Most modern countries have healthcare for their citizens. How is it the U.S. cannot figure this out?
So, it is the Americans fault the new Russian Tsar stole back the Crimea, a piece of Georgia, is threatening a piece of Ukraine, is threatening Moldova, is threatening the Baltic states, and consolidating all power in the Kremlin.
Is there anything else you'd like to blame the U.S for?
Oh, please, what a silly stereotype of the USSR, completely inappropriate for its last decade. Shooting dissidents and sending them off to gulags in the Soviet Union came to a nearly complete end with the death of Stalin in the 1950s. By the 1980s, persecution of dissidents had long since become more subtle, such as commitment to psychiatic hospitals on false grounds or pushing them into exile in the West.
Not this basement-dweller stupidity again.
The US is ***NOWHERE*** near as bad as the old Soviet Union or it's satellites. So just STFU about the whole 'cops confiscated my spliff == GULAG' thing.
No we are not, not even close not even to todays Russia.
From personal experince in both countries.
In the 1980s Russia was run by KGB thugs, in the 2010s Russia is run by former KGB thugs
I think that the natural resources are a big part of the solution, but it's not just figuring out to how exploit them and looking at the overall national GDP that many seem to have latch onto; the really telling numbers are when you compare the GDP ranking for the country as a whole with the per-capita rating - there's a serious problem with the human side of the equation too. The country as a whole is right up there with the EU's big three (6th in the world, according to Wikipedia's 2014 estimate), but is languishing down in 58th per capita, on a par with second world countries (which is what Russia really is these days) and/or countries that have massive over population and subsistence employment issues. Ultimately, there's a fundamental problem with the distribution of wealth in Russia (Occupy Wall Street has nothing to complain about in the light of a hypothetical "Occupy Red Square"), and stunts like this are not going to help fix the problem, especially since those that have the money also have the all the power and are not afraid to use the latter to keep them both. At this point, perhaps the only option left might be for the people of Russia to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution with another one...
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
but they don't start wars.
- stares in disbelief at monitor -
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.