Russia Confiscates $7.6Bln in Assets in Largest Nationalization Yet - The Moscow Times
(www.themoscowtimes.com)
EatingOnions
EuropeNeed money for the war machine now, don'cha?
From the article: '...The value of the assets seized from Moshkovich exceeds that of several other high-profile nationalization cases that have reshaped Russia's business landscape in recent years.
Those include the confiscation of seafood magnate Oleg Kan's "crab empire," valued at about $4.3 billion; Moscow's Domodedovo Airport, valued at 320 billion rubles ($4.42 billion); gold producer Yuzhuralzoloto, controlled by billionaire Konstantin Strukov and estimated to be worth around $2 billion; assets belonging to former Yugra Bank owner Alexei Khotin worth more than 200 billion rubles ($2.76 billion); pasta producer Makfa, valued at roughly 100 billion rubles ($1.38 billion); PVC manufacturer Sayanskkhimplast, valued at 92 billion rubles ($1.27 billion); and car dealer Rolf, valued at about 60 billion rubles ($828 million).
...The agency reported that billionaire Suleiman Kerimov, whose fortune is estimated at $11.6 billion by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, offered during a closed-door meeting with Putin in March to contribute 100 billion rubles ($1.38 billion) to the state budget.
Bloomberg reported that the federal budget subsequently received 220 billion rubles ($3.04 billion) in what officials described as gratuitous contributions following Putin's annual meeting with leading business executives.'
He's shaking them down.
Oligarchs in the US take note… this is your future
Have you seen people migrate in huge numbers from X to mastodon or Reddit to Lemmy? The oligarchs in the US are fully in control. People crave Capitalism.
Except capitalists. Each of them wants to be a monopolist.
Each of them wants to be a monopolist.
The monopolies, that is Capitalism. Free markets with competition is not Capitalism because then people with capital don't have much power.
you're conflating capitalism with plutocracy.
And yeah, capitalism will lead to plutocracy if left unchecked, but they're not the same thing.
capitalism will lead to plutocracy if left unchecked
But is it Capitalism if it is checked? If something stands above capitalism and controls it, then that is the governing philosophy and deserves the -ism, not capital.
You can see it that way, but most billionaires we have today aren't monopolitsts but are completely beyond the reach of the law and buy out governments.
I can't see SpaceX not getting nationalized in 6-10 years, assuming we make it that long.
SpaceX was built up to not be a government agency. They have received many subsidies that could have been spent on NASA. The US had decided to privatize their space industry. Why should they undo it?
E.g. Starlink in Ukraine is just a private company. It's not an official involvement of the US in the war.
If the American gov wouldn't be insane, integrating space X into NASA would be an enormous benefit to humanity in general.
We're not looking to benefit humanity atm.
Shareholder benefit on the other hand...
I think midrange investors, upper middle class people with investments, have more to worry about.
Now THERE's a country where billionaires pay their taxes. They have a weird schedule to do so but they pay them!
