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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.

43 of 252 comments (clear)

  1. minutes to midnight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Anyone else here miss the 1980s USSR? Looks like Putin does ...

    1. Re:minutes to midnight by sillybilly · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:minutes to midnight by Lennie · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You might think it is funny, but this really is sort of the plan of Putin.

      It has always been his plan, from the start.

      He never made a secret of it and clearly states that this is what he is trying to do.

      It might not be communism he wants. What he wants a is strong Russia, a country other countries respect (maybe this can be explained as: fear).

      Which includes re-integrating most of the former USSR countries.

      --
      New things are always on the horizon
    3. Re:minutes to midnight by umghhh · · Score: 2
      Yea I remember that too - I just came back from shop where I bought my lunch and I had to stand in the line too - terrible!

      Other than that - there is more media than back then but there is no more freedom of press now than it used to be - there is no state censorship but corporate one instead. Modern media are abused more than they server democracy and human rights.

      What else - ah torture and extrajudicial killings by 'Securitate' - I recall the guys in the freedom movements were seriously pissed off by that - guess what - we still have that - progress has been made as people do not die accidentally during water boarding anymore, I have to give you that.

      Och and overwhelming surveillance - yea communists did not do it right, did they? Incompetent idiots!

      I can sue the government this much is true and I did and I won. Still when I went to a lawyer to get back the house that communists took from my grandpa he (the lawyer) said - I want your money but your case has no chance as your grandpa was of wrong nationality - so this much about rule of law and all this other shit in EU. It is still more than we had before. Elections albeit not rigged now can be seen for what they are - exercise in futility as govs do what they want anyway.

      The real progress and there is no 'but' this time is in pr0n - I can watch as much as I want to albeit it is admittedly of bad quality. Still where we had to run a bit embarrassed to get video now we can just watch it directly.

    4. Re:minutes to midnight by nospam007 · · Score: 3, Informative

      "No, we're already there. Name one thing the Russians did that the US Congress doesn't assume that it has the authority to do to a US company."

      Since those companies _own_ congress, they would do it to themselves.

    5. Re:minutes to midnight by CRCulver · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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. ... At the very least I would have ended up at some Siberian Gulag.

      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.

    6. Re:minutes to midnight by benjfowler · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    7. Re:minutes to midnight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No we are not, not even close not even to todays Russia.
      From personal experince in both countries.

    8. Re:minutes to midnight by dunkelfalke · · Score: 2

      Much less. Texas had somewhat over 500 executions 1976-2014. Then again, Russia had no capital punishment since a serial killer has been executed in 1996.

      --
      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
    9. Re:minutes to midnight by rubycodez · · Score: 3, Insightful

      In the 1980s Russia was run by KGB thugs, in the 2010s Russia is run by former KGB thugs

    10. Re:minutes to midnight by andydread · · Score: 2

      You seem to be Mighty ignorant of the differences between communisim and fascism. Short summary: in a communiist country the government owns the corporations, in a fascist country the corporations control the govt. We don't have communism here in the USA. We have socialism and fascism. Here in the USA we have two main political parties. The socialist party (Democrats) and the fascist party (Republicans) So when we vote we are basically choosing between socialism or fascism. Whats missing? Authoritariianism. We have Democratic Capitalism in place of Authoritarianism and people actually get to vote for either of the two (socialism or fascism)

    11. Re:minutes to midnight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Define basic stuff!?
      Poland used ration stamps till 1985 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ration_stamp). Among rationed goods were: flour, sugar, butter, soap, gas - they seam quite basic stuff to me. Here is how your monthly supply looked:
      http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reglamentacja_towar%C3%B3w_w_PRL#mediaviewer/Plik:Kartka_P3_11-83.jpeg

      Add to above endless lines for even toilet paper and good luck living like that.

    12. Re:minutes to midnight by fuzzywig · · Score: 2
      It's worth noting that Energia originally started out as OKB-1 of NII-88 and was the centre for the Soviet space program that put man into space, so it was originally part of the government.

      This (presumed) takeover is actually a move back to the old days of government control, although I'd assume more as a way of establishing control rather than paying lip service to socialist ideals.

    13. Re:minutes to midnight by MightyYar · · Score: 3, Insightful

      but they don't start wars.

      - stares in disbelief at monitor -

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    14. Re:minutes to midnight by dunkelfalke · · Score: 2

      Well, not USSR. Ration stamps were only used starting 1989.

      --
      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
    15. Re:minutes to midnight by CRCulver · · Score: 2

      I'm not at all an apologist, my good man. As I am a linguist working with minority peoples of Russia, I am acquainted with many indigenous activists whose were put through hell by the Soviet state. Pointing out that hellish treatment progressed from one form (gulags, outright execution) to another (forced internment in psych wards, exile) is hardly defending the latter.

    16. Re:minutes to midnight by MightyYar · · Score: 2

      By that logic, the only moral problem with Iraq was that the opponent had the audacity to resist invasion. If they'd just surrendered, the US would have been in the right and could have gone further and annexed the territory.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
  2. Jump start the US space industry again? by asmkm22 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Maybe we'll finally stop relying on Russia for access to space...

  3. Trillion-dollar boo-boo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    This sort of thing is why shares of russian companies trade at a huge discount compared to shares of western and asian companies.

    1. Re:Trillion-dollar boo-boo by davester666 · · Score: 2

      of course. It's used the same way as it is everywhere else, chiefly to transfer wealth from a large of small clients to a small number of large clients.

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    2. Re:Trillion-dollar boo-boo by Zocalo · · Score: 2

      Yes, it does, the Moscow Exchange, or MICEX.

      This kind of rampant corruption and cronyism is also the same reason why, despite an abundance of available resources and labour, Russia can't drag its economy out of the doldrums and up to a level that it ought to be capable of achieving. Russia's GDP is on a par with the that of countries like the UK, Germany and France - realistically it ought to be at least an order of magnitude above that. Ultimately though this is mostly an asset grab - you watch as control over Energia is transferred to Putin's supporters over the next few months - and probably an attempt to try and recoup funds lost through the latest round of sanctions imposed over Ukraine.

      --
      UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
    3. Re:Trillion-dollar boo-boo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Russia's GDP is on a par with the that of countries like the UK, Germany and France - realistically it ought to be at least an order of magnitude above that.

      Russia's GDP is about half that of Germany, with almost twice the population. On a per capita basis it's less than half that of Germany or the UK.
      You're right that it ought to be considerably higher, but absolutely nowhere *near* an order of magnitude larger.

    4. Re:Trillion-dollar boo-boo by Zocalo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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!
  4. people who can't write because they didn't read... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... really... you "toe the line" not "tow the line" as the submitter writes.

  5. Russia = Fascism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Anybody still seriously doubt that Russia is a neo-Fascist country?

  6. "to take control" by roman_mir · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:"to take control" by sillybilly · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's called nationalizing. Sometimes it's done in the best interest of the public of the nation. Such as USRA was a nationalizing of all private rail during WWI in the USA, only to be spun off again in the 1920's as private enterprises. In fact USRA was a nationalization of rail twice, once during WWI, and one in the 70's related to Conrail. See the first two entries at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U... Also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...

    2. Re:"to take control" by hughk · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Consolidating a fragmented industry can be a good idea and has worked to a greater or lesser extent in the past. The problem is that the government is usually too far behind the curve to make the best decisions and a good example would be some of the nationalisations that happened in the UK.

      However, in Russia, it is about redistributing the assets privatised in the early nineties. The privatisations were a "fire-sale" in which only a favoured few could take part, however subsequently, the shares traded on a secondary market and became assets belonging to pension funds and the like. Unfortunately, in the early nineties, when Putin and his backers (the so-called Siloviki) came to power, they discovered there was nothing new to privatise so they took some companies back such as Yukos. On the smaller scale, many companies found themselves forced with new directors who had relationships with the Siloviki.

      Either way, by undermining corporate governance and the protection of property, the government has made it far more difficult for a normal financial infrastructure to exist.

      --
      See my journal, I write things there
    3. Re:"to take control" by FatLittleMonkey · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Nationalisation pays the previous owner. It's a compulsory purchase, not just seizing control.

      What the Russians are doing is just theft, extralegal, unconstitutional, just as they did with all the energy companies which are the only thing propping up their economy, and media companies. The method is a variation on how organised crime takes over a business, but with the backing of the courts.

      --
      Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
  7. Somebody mod this up by Jesrad · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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 ?
  8. Re:Response to sanctions by mjwx · · Score: 3, Informative

    They always one up whatever move you do and the only way to end the cold war was when the US stopped the race and started de-escalating the conflict and offer a treaty after a treaty, until finally Russia felt safe enough to let go.

    Erm...

    The cold war ended because the Soviet Union was broke and in disarray.

    Diplomacy was the only option left to Yetlsin. They couldn't feed an army, let alone civilians.

    As it will be with Putin or Putin's successor. Breadlines, not hard-lines with break them.

    --
    Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
  9. Re:Biased Summary? by war4peace · · Score: 2

    Putin Government Moves To Take Control of Russia's largest space company Energia

    "Putin Government" ... instead of just "Government"?

    Because it happens right now, yes. 100 years ago it would gave been "Tsar's representatives".
    It's exactly why "Obamacare" is mentioned as such, and not simply as "care".

    --
    ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
  10. Not a bad idea by Alarash · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Not a bad idea by Registered+Coward+v2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      While that is a laudable goal the reality is government owned utilities rarely view "cheapest amount possible" as a primary goal. Rather, they become tools for politicians to use to maintain themselves in office by providing jobs, subsidies , etc to please their voters and donors. That is not to say government owned utilities cannot provide lower cost services just that cost is often secondary to politics.

      --
      I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
    2. Re:Not a bad idea by Alarash · · Score: 2

      I won't have escaped you that the market is less and less regulated because, as the means of growth grow thin, you need to be more "open." Sure, let's make house loans a financial product - then you get the subprimes crisis and people lose their homes AND their retirement money. Pharmaceuticals don't do research on diseases that are not, literally, worth it. The meat sector you mention? Sure, let's shoot the cows with antibiotics and GMO crops. That'll make more meat per cow, better margins. Etc.

      The problem with the free market isn't the free market. It's that it makes money the one and only goal, safety, health and logic be damned. I keep trying to make my electrical bill lower, and that's good for the environment, and I actually use less power now than 5 years ago. But I pay more to my electricity provider because they've got to keep that growth up, and by that I mean dividends. It's completely schizophrenic and it's driving me mad.

    3. Re:Not a bad idea by SiggyRadiation · · Score: 2

      Another poster discussed that letting government provide vital services often results in those services being used / abused for political gain. Abusing regulations is a lot less effective for politicians and so they tend to be manipulated less in my opinion.

      Let the free market do the producing.

      But let the government keep them in check with regulations. You are right that regulations tend to be thinned out when politicians see no other way to promote growth anymore but I'm still not convinced that that is in any way worse than when the government would be responsible for production itself. Governments are perfectly able and willing to cut back on vital infrastucture below any responsible levels. The New Orleans levee's were not built nor maintained nor were policies and budgets set by commercial entities!

      If the government is your only supplier you are left with no recourse should you be dissatisfied with their services. You can actually buy meat that has not been "improved" with all kinds of chemicals and pharmaceuticals. But you probably choose the convenience of buying the cheap meat at you local grocery store.

      --
      This unique sig is intended to make this user more recognisable.
  11. Re:people who can't write because they didn't read by fey000 · · Score: 4, Funny

    In Soviet Russia, line tows you!

  12. Re:Response to sanctions by wienerschnizzel · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It is basically Putin's way of saying: "Look, I am in control of how to get to space."

    He's not. I'm pretty sure Chinese, Indians, Americans and Europeans are going to continue to go to space with or without Putin.

    US simply does not understand the Russians. Sanctions cannot possibly work against them.

    US is not working against 'Russians'. It's just containing a power-hungry dictatorial imperialistic regime. Attacking the wealth of a regime is always a good way to reduce its ability to conquer neighboring nations.

    They always one up whatever move you do

    Do you seriously think they didn't consider all the options Putin has? Or maybe at least the obvious ones like cutting his exports and imports? It's just a typical reactionary BS

    This time it is gonna be played to the utter economic destruction of one of the two nuclear super powers or an all out nuclear war.

    Yeah, imagine US losing their 28th business partner by volume of trade . Economic destruction my @ss.

    It looked like such a smart move by the US state department to take over the Ukrainian government, too bad they didn't understand that the move would inevitably start a war. Now we will all pay the price.

    Typical dictatorship thinking - if I lose control over a government it must be because some other country took it. There's no way people would just elect their own representatives...

  13. Re:Biased Summary? by gtall · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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?

  14. Re:Response to sanctions by gtall · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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?

  15. Re:Response to sanctions by gmhowell · · Score: 2

    "US does not understand russians"? My outside perspective as neither american nor russian is, yes, they do. It turns out Russians are people too!

    Sting, is that you?

    --
    Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
  16. Re:UN representation of CIS members by Entropius · · Score: 2

    That's not a bad idea. Could the USA reformulate itself as a confederation with the same legal structure and operations, but with 49 seats in the UN rather than one? (I think everyone would agree that not having Florida represented is in the best interests of everyone except comedians.)

  17. Re:Response to sanctions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Yes. My cereal was soggy this morning. That's the fault of the Great Satan, too.