Confederalization is Russia's only chance to survive

A brilliant article in today's Gazeta.ru:

http://www.gazeta.ru/comments/2009/02/19_a_2945783.shtml

I fully agree with the author.

Russia is a country too large to be effectively managed in a centralized way. And this means that the country has to be decentralized, has to be truly federalized (what it isn't now) or even confederalized.

You can't manage any problems in a same way in the Islamic Northern Caucasus, the Finnish borderlands and the semi-inhabited far eastern Kamchatka that have completely different economical, geographical, cultural conditions. It's impossible to even have a single educational system on a territory that large. Therefore functions should be transferred from the Federal power to local administrations, the more the better.

People should have the chance to achieve real changes on local level and not just to migrate to Moscow or St. Pete for opportunities and career. They should have the freedom and the responsibility instead of relying on the Federal government. The Federal government has to encourage people to develop their home regions - and the only way to do so is to decentralize the country.

Otherwise we will see Russia falling in parts as soon as it faces a serious economic crisis where Moscow starts lacking resources to control the regions. And this process would be accompanied by terrible wars that would make a second Yugoslavia, if not a second Rwanda, out of the Northern Caucasus and the Volga region.

On the other hand, there is the problem that confederalization and decentralization of a country like Russia may end in its collapse. We're used to be forced to live together and every loosening of the brutal binding power creates the temptation for the local elite to break away completely. Especially this relates to regions that are able to live separately like Yakutia, Kaliningrad (former German Eastern Prussia), Tatarstan, Vladivostok.

This means that some other motivation should be created for the regions to be loyal to Russia. One should not be proud of being Slave of an Empire, but should enjoy being a free member of a Federation that gives opportunities and is an attractive example for the neighbouring states.
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How bad can the crisis get us?

Somebody said that one should always hope for the better and be prepared for the worst. Looking at all those news related to the economic crisis, hearing about collapsing Eastern Europe, watching that incredible industrial production decrease percentage numbers, seeing the fund market's negative reaction on Obama's signing this Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Mr. Obama's election for US president itself should have already said us all that there's nothing good to expect), is makes you think of what could be the worst thing to happen.

Back to industrial age or even deindustrialization? Dissolution of the Russian Federation (I heard the Constitutional court recently officially re-approved the 1990 for-now symbolic Declaration of Independence of Yakutia, the Siberian republic)? An other world war?

Yeah, and here it reminds me of the Apocalypse scheduled for December 2012 according to the Mayan calendar. Would be funny to wonder in four years from now, how the hell the Mayas could have predicted it so precisely, heh?
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Moscow yuppies and the economic crisis

It seems to me that our generation of young Russian twens will be psychologically hit the hardest by the economic crisis. Today's Moscow yuppies and recent university graduates - how can they be ready for a crisis?

We were to young to feel whole gravity of the 1990s in Russia - no matter how hard it was, we were still children then and had our parents to care for us. I remember how we got humanitarian aid handed out in school in 1991 or early 1992. It was several tins of Danish Tulip meat conserves and a pocket of dry milk for every pupil and it was really the first time since very long before that we drank milk (no matter how bad) and ate meat. And - strangely - I did not feel suffering at that time. To the contrary, after that for a long time (psychologically the feeling went away only a couple of years ago) I had some inner impression that having bananas or yogurts on our table is luxury and that one could perfectly live without these now seemingly simple food products. And we really could survive without them and as a child I wasn't stressed about that.

In the crisis of 1998 many of us were still teenagers with our parents caring for us. I can not say for that time because we left to live abroad exactly 5 months before the August crisis.

Anyway, today my generation is a generation who became truly adult and economically active in the prosperous 2000s with oil prices above USD 100 per barrel enriching whole Russia and our sweet home Moscow in first line. It's only tiny 8 years since 2000, but the ones who just really started living in these years could get the impression that these wealthy years would last forever. It's bad when people take "special" for "normal".

We're not used to live in a crisis, we're used (or started getting used) to have our vacations in Egypt or, better, Spain, to take loans and buy cars and apartments. Our generation is a generation of young glamourous Moscow investment bankers, fund market analysts and brand managers. But it's not only about the top young bankers and analysts - there are much more middle class young people who work as white-collars in small (or big) companies just doing their jobs from 9am to 6pm and renting a flat, and they are going to be hit much harder than top professionals.

Psychologically many of us do not really know what it is to live in a crisis, to get fired having a loan to pay back. Only few of us can imagine what it is to go and work as a construction worker or to trade vegetables on a bazaar (*lol* I hope it won't get that bad, but still).

Of course, people have survived in worse times than these. Our grandparents had survived a world war and our parents survived the hopeless totalitarian USSR. What is a stupid economic crisis compared to a war or to decades of an isolated totalitarian system that seemed to stay there for centuries? We'll survive the challenge anyway and will hopefully remember these times as interesting and adventurous.
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Russian ruble lost 41% of its value against US dollar in 6 months

Bloggers write that today it's 6 months since the Russian ruble exchange rate starting falling against the US dollar. In June 2007 one dollar was worth 23.12 rubles and now it's 32.57 rubles.

During the same time the oil price went down from above 145 $/bbk to 45 $/bbl.

As sad as it is for Russian economy. The miracle couldn't have last too long without serious diversification of the economy.
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Why Israel Finally Started Its Anti-Terrorist Operation in Gaza

15 seconds: the time for people of Sderot, the Israeli town near Gaza strip, to get to bunkers to hide from rockets shot by Palestine terrorists.



Hamas rocket attacks were the reason for Israel's counter-terrorist Operation Cast Lead in Gaza.

The situation reminds of South Ossetia in August 2008. Ossetian militia were shooting at Georgian military units and villages for several weeks before Georgia's president Mikheil Saakashvili first called them to finally cease fire and then started the military operation. However, in Russian state media the whole was called "Georgian aggression against South Ossetia".

Now we had the Palestinians bombing Israeli towns for several months and intensifying the attacks after the end of ceasefire between Hamas and Israel in December. Once Israel finally decided to strike back we got the media around the world crying about "Israeli aggression" and about "Israel killing innocent people".

Here another even more shocking movie to get a feeling how the situation is seen from the Israeli side:



Let there be peace as soon as possible and let the terror finally stop.
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Russian Finance Minister Kudrin: 2009 Worst Year Since World War 2

Happy new year 2009: Finance minister Kudrin promises us a deficit of the Russian state budget as huge as RUR 1.5 - 2 trillion (USD 51bn - 69bn).

"2009 will be the hardest year for Russian and global economy. It will be the worst year since the end of World War 2", Mr. Kudrin said.

// http://www.vz.ru/news/2008/12/27/242613.html


Inflation will rise but the government still does not plan cuts in financing the construction of Sochi 2014 Olympic infrastructure.
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Russians protest against the government rising automobile import duties

Russian car-owners protest against the government's plan to seriously rise import duties for automobiles starting 1 January 2009. Mass protests started in the Far Eastern regions where the majority drives Japanese cars.

People say the rising of import duties was lobbied by Russian car makers (AvtoVAZ and GAZ and probably foreign players who have production facilities in Russia: Chrysler, Ford, Renault, Nissan, Peugeot-Citroen, GM, Toyota, Volkswagen).

I just found an other reason not to buy myself a car in the coming spring :,)

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Kremlin-backed liberal party to attempt spoiling of the radical opposition's rally?

As usual, Kremlin-created kinda-liberal kinda-opposition parties turn out to act as spoilers for the radical democratic opposition.

This time, the newly created pro-Kremlin liberal party "Pravoe Delo" organizes a demonstration on Moscow's Pushkinskaya square on the same day and almost at the same time when the radical opposition marches from Triumfalnaya sq.



It just couldn't have been more predictable. It's so sad to see a bright and talented man like Euroset founder Evgeny Chichvarkin involved in this thing. This is my first "minus one" sympathy point for Pravoe Delo.

No chance for them to win sympathy of Russian liberals if they keep on acting as a spoiler party for the democratic opposition, no matter how good or bad the latter is.
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Unemployment in Chechnya over 65%

An impressive number: according to the Russian governmental statistics service, 65.3% of the population of the sadly known republic of Chechnya is unemployed (Source).

I wonder what all those people are just doing out there? Probably, a large part of the employed is simply working for the local government or in local military units (police, president Kadyrov's private guard etc). The unemployed must mostly be living from shadow economy or own-grown food.

Since the end of the Chechen war, the republic keeps living on subsidies from the Federal government that keep the former rebels from starting a new war again. As oil price has already shrunk below all pessimistic forecasts, and so may the state budget of Russia, hot times may come back to North Caucasus.
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The Soviet Story (Padomju stāsts, 2008)

The Soviet Story (Padomju stāsts), a 2008 Latvian documentary about Communist crimes (in English and Russian with Latvian subtitles). Includes interviews with Russian and European historians, a Finnish EU Parliament Member, a former member of KPSU Central Committee, with the Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky. Very worth seeing.


Part 1: http://irc.lv/video?id=YrHosaqsKcUW

Part 2: http://irc.lv/video?id=q8Fyk1CH4vUw


The very good thing about this movie is that it underlines that roots of Soviet terror lay in Marxist ideology itself. Stalinist USSR was not a misinterpretation of Marx' Socialism - it WAS Socialism just as Socialism was supposed be.

Hitler was a National Socialist and the Soviets claimed to be "International" Socialists. There's no difference as all of them were fans of social engineering and constructed totalitarian states that should define and control all aspects of a person's life. Hitler killed people according to their ethnicity, Stalin killed people according to their social status. I'd call that difference a matter of taste.

There must be a Nuremberg Trial for Communist crimes. Not really to forbid something - but for people to get the right attitude to the USSR and to left-wing ideology. Although it's "uncool" today to be a fan of Hitler and "not very cool" to be a fan of Stalin, it is still completely acceptable to be Marxist or Maoist and even "cool" to be a fan of Che Guevara. While there's not really a big difference between them all.
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Russian rouble to fall soon?

Seems like devaluation of the Russian rouble is on its way:

1. «Я не исключаю повышения гибкости валютного курса рубля <...> с некоторой тенденцией к ослаблению рубля в отношении иностранных валют», — предупредил Игнатьев.

"I do not exclude an increase of the flexibility of rouble exchange rate <...> with a tendency towards weakening of the rouble against other currencies" - Sergey Ignatiev, head of Russian Central Bank

2. На наш взгляд, резкая девальвация национальной валюты, с макроэкономической точки зрения, более предпочтительна, чем постепенное ослабление, так как в последнем случае значительные ресурсы страны в течение длительного периода времени отвлекаются от реального сектора и начинают использоваться в валютных спекуляциях. Мировой опыт подобной политики, в том числе и в России 90-х, показывает, что резкого падения курса национальной валюты все равно не избежать"

"In our opinion, a radical devaluation of the national currency is <...> more preferable than a gradual one<...>. Global experience <...> shows us that a drastic fall of the national currency exchange rate can't be avoided anyway" - Raiffeisenbank analysts
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Kinda debut...

Svyazinvest should not be broken up ahead of privatisation, AFK Sistema will participate in tender

Svyazinvest, the Russian, state-owned telecommunications group, needs to be privatised as as a whole and not be broken up in separate parts, AFK Sistema chief executive officer Alexander Goncharuk told dealReporter.

Speaking shortly before his resignation from the CEO position at Sistema last week, Goncharuk, whose company controls a blocking 25% + 1 share stake in Svyazinvest, said that the Russian government has already approved a privatisation plan for the company. He was, however, unable to reveal the plan due to confidentiality undertakings.

Both Svyazinvest and the Russian Federal Agency for Federal Property Management (Rosimushchestvo) that controls a majority stake in the company declined to comment regarding the future privatisation of the company.

In a formal interview in his Moscow office, Goncharuk said that it was his opinion that Svyazinvest should be privatised as a single entity rather than being broken into parts. He also said that the subsidiaries of Svyazinvest would be consolidated and then merged into the Svyazinvest holding company.

Goncharuk said that breaking up Svyazinvest would entail the separate privatisation of profitable and unprofitable regional service providers that are now subsidiaries of the overall holding. Of 18 companies in which Svyazinvest owns stake, only five are profitable and are practically used to subsidise the rest.

He said that the privatisation of parts of Svyazinvest would be difficult as prospective buyers would seek to cherry pick the company’s best assets and not the company’s loss-making operations.

He also said that the divisions of Rostelecom used for strategic government services will more than likely be separated and kept under state control. Also, there will probably be limitations set for future private owners so that the communication needs of the depressed and geographically disadvantaged regions, for instance, of the far north, will still be satisfied.

Goncharuk added that Svyazinvest has urgently to be privatised because of the company’s managerial weakness and inability to keep on track with technological advances. The company’s equipment does not get renewed and becomes increasingly obsolescent. Svyazinvest needs an efficient owner and this owner could only be a private one. Besides that, without a private owner Svyazinvest would not be able to cope with its current debts and attract new loan stock, Goncharuk said.

Goncharuk stated that AFK Sistema will definitely be among participants of the privatisation process. Among others, there will probably be interest from oil companies as they tend to show interest in high-tech and media sectors. An obstacle for them may be limits set to participants of the tender.

For instance, a limitation can be set allowing only established telecommunication companies to bid. Foreign investors may be allowed to take part in the auction but are unlikely to. Recent changes in the government and the new role of former telecommunication minister Leonid Reiman do not change the situation significantly because decisions are made on a “far more senior level,” Goncharuk said.

However, a top Russian industry source said that Reiman was a key player in the government’s planned privatisation of Svyazinvest and will maintain an important role in the privatisation process.

While he no longer has a formal position in the current government, Reiman is a direct advisor to Russian president Dmitry Medvedev.

However, the deputy director general of Russian investment bank Kit Finans, Maxim Tsyganov, said he does not believe that the privatisation of Svyazinvest is currently the best option for the company. In his opinion, the privatisation must be preceded by significant improvements of the corporate governance and an overall reorganisation.

”A simple transfer of the company to a private owner is not in the interest of the government as the current shareholder,” Tsyganov said.

Svyazinvest is a unique asset that presents a good platform for telecommunication business development in Russia.

Due to the current stable economic situation in Russia, the state budget does not need additional finance, and can even make investments in Svyazinvest to increase the company’s market value. A possible scenario of the company reorganisation should start with a consolidation, followed by a business model improvement and only then should it be privatised, he said.

Still, Tsyganov did not state the probability of the government deciding not to start the privatisation process. Kit Finans would not invest in Svyazinvest if it were privatised, Tsyganov said, but it may buy shares of the company on behalf of its clients if they show interest in it.

Svyazinvest is a Russian state-owned telecom holding company that holds a majority stake in seven inter-regional fixed line service providers (CenterTelecom, North-West Telecom, VolgaTelecom, Southern Telecom Company, Uralsvyazinform, Siberia Telecom, Dalsvyaz), and holds stake in other companies mostly related to telecommunication: Central Telegraph (51%), Dagsvyazinform (51%), Rostelecom (51%), Giprosvyaz (51%), MGTS (28%), Kostroma GTS (37%), MobiTel (100%), Svyaz-Bank (1%), United registration company (9%), StarKom (25%) and RTComm.Ru (0.5%).

// me for dealReporter
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Belarus not in CEE?

An interesting research on Roland Berger's website: CEE Headquarters: Effectively managing a fragmented growth region

Belarus is for global business as usual a Terra Incognita in the centre of Europe: no information on Belarus on p. 6 (although the GDP growth rates and population could have been found easily), and an expressive "?" on Belarus' map for wage cost relation on p. 7 (my estimate would be around 27). The country simply does not exist for westerners. Not because they want to, but because it really does not exist as a place to consider as a potential investment goal. A pity now, but - may be a great opportunity for the future, when it will finally be over with the regime of Aliaksandr Lukashenka.
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On the Social and Political Role of Audit

Audit plays an important symbolic role in the economy and society. May sound odd, but one could speak of the social and political role of the auditing profession.

We are all used to the state having the central controlling function, meant to be on behalf of the society. But the more the society liberates itself from the state’s meddlesome “services”, the better. The state is per definition a bad and inefficient service provider, not only historically and in terms of its “corporate culture”, but also simply because of its scale: a small local enterprise will certainly be better able to concentrate on the demands of the local “small” ordinary people than a big universalized machine trying to fit all the interests of all the multiple different people at the same time. The same with the state: it has traditionally has the goal to be “everything for everyone”, grant welfare to all the people. But as a result it just wastes time, money and human resources; or is more often just an instrument of influence in the hands of certain immoral persons.

So, audit is exactly the instrument and hopefully only one of the first signs of how a society can take over the functions of the state. As far as not only the shareholders, but also the general public too, are users of the audited financial statements, here we see how a company builds its relations with the society. I don’t like the word “public control” as no one should control anything that is not his private property – and a private company is certainly anything but a “private property” of the public. But what we see here is exactly how a company communicates with the society and the society “has its eye” on the company without a slight participation of the archaic bureaucratic state in the process.

Of course, the bureaucrats are trying to put their fingers into auditing and establish their control there. Remember the stupid situation with the Russian authorities getting PwC to court for the audit of YUKOS.

At the end of the day, the auditing firm’s only real asset that allows it to do business is reputation. The auditor simply states that after having done some procedures it has the impression of the financial statements to be true and fair. Not more and not less then that, and whether to rely on the auditor’s statement or not – is up to the individual user of the financial statements. Of course one will be more likely to rely on them is the auditor is Deloitte or E&Y than if the statement comes from some unknown little audit company. But even if having trusted a brand – it’s always, always the user’s own risk and decision.

That’s how important audit is as a symbol of civil society’s self-regulation replacing the state. In some way it makes me proud to have worked in this noble profession, no matter how hard it was at some times and how much the work process itself has to be improved and will be improved as technology advances.
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"European Choice" As A Ticket to "Titanic"

A translation of my yesterday's post to http://www.pozirk.org/ by the guys from http://blogs.tol.org/belarus

The "European Choice" as a Ticket to the "Titanic"

It is more than popular in the democratic community now to talk about European standards and that Belarus should follow the European path, introduce “European reforms” to comply with “European Quality Standards”. No one explains what it is, being European, making a “European Choice”, but everyone for sure knows that it is something attractive, sweet, warm, and tasty. Chruschov promised every family to have a flat and live in communizm by 1980. Like this, lots of naive people in Belarus suppose that Belarus should join the EU by ANY means, and the effect of this accession will be close to that of getting into comunizm waters.

Therefore when I read those calls to come to European March, I simply don’t know what to feel or think. Please don’t misinterpret me: we should go there - but for a different reason.

Calls for eurointegration resemble calls to provide everyone with free meet for the rest of their lives: here is an example of a typical logic employed today:

"Belarusian pension is something you can only cry on, not live on. Like an elderly lady who had worked all her life like an accountant asks why a German accountant who had worked at the same job, with the same responsibilities (but only in Germany) gets 600 EUR pension and can travel on that. Whereas she gets only 150 USD. They both worked the same time, with the same effort, but the Belarusian lady can survive only with her sons help, whereas the German Frau can travel around Europe. This cry shows all! The lady wants to live in Europe, get European pension for a European work . And the only thing that barrs her from that is that she lives outside Europe. Just a bit outside… "

So, what are we being offered now? That Europe is a magic key to all our problems. Should it come - and our life will turn into heavenly succession of problemless days. But it is never immediate. The German and the Belarusian accountants did DIFFERENT things as they worked for different economies. The Soviet woman worked for an ineffective socialist economy which was destined to die, sooner or later. This is the real tragedy, and not only of that lady in question, but of millions of people who wasted their effort to do useless work for a useless system. C’est la vie.

Democratization and europezation won’t GIVE people their long-wished well-being: they will ALLOW them to EARN it through hard work. It is difficult to fight agains Lukashist populizm without being a populist yourself, but democratic populism still remains demagogy, from whatever side it comes. Or may be Belarusian nation can not accept more complicated arguments?

No one asks a question how long European heaven will hold and what will it bring us. We just hear a “hardtalk” which all the time finishes in a conclusion that “we should move to Europe coz we are Europeans”, and that “when we join the EU, we will start earning like the Europeans”.

However, eventual accession of Belarus to the European Union brings lots of negative things as well. Bureaucratic apparatus created by Brussels weighs so much that the “old Europe” economy almost does not grow. This is the reality where shops are forbidden to work after 7 and where tax pressure exceeds 50% on average. These tax money are further redirected into such welfares when unemployed people get subsidies reaching an average salary in their country. They are also transferred into salaries of bureaucrats in Brussels. Salaries which are more than high.

This is a real social union. And social union (or state) is inflation plus unemployment, and that exactly what we see in the EU case. If it had been limited by just some states - one could carry that, but such standards are being imposed on all new members. Say, Estonia had to stop its several liberal trade programs and even increased import tax for some non-EU goods just because membership conditions required that.

European socioeconomic model does not simply deeffectize economy, but turns some categories of people into parasites (in a milder form than in social economies, but they still think that the state should take care of them in difficult situations).

And this is the main thing that immigrants living on subsidies in their ghettos learn about European life. And what is the awfulest thing here - that those people living on subsidies are RATIONAL in their behaviour: “Why should I care when the state will take care about me. Why should I work when the industrious pay half of their income to support such lazybones like me?”

// Source

Actually, there was also a second part of the post published today, hopefully they will translate it as well

UPD here it is:

Talented people were usually leaving Europe for America and Canada, and had been doing that till the very recent days. Entrepreneurs could realize their ambitions much easier in more liberal United States, Australia, or Canada, than in socialist Europe. Just recall Arnold Schwarzenegger who quitted his European Austria for the US dream.

Demographically Europe is dying, and after 50 years is going to turn into one big house for elderly people. That concerns not just the age, but also dinamism, innovativeness, proactiveness of position. Even now Western Europeans are the people who need nothing else from the world but to have their social guarantees and a croissant in the morning. They are sure the state will take care of them. And as a result, European culture is retreating under a passionate influence of active immigrants from Turkey, Africa or the Middle East.

Economically, countries of South-Eastern Asia together with the USA, Brasilia, India, and China are going to dominate in the world of the 21st century. Ok, adding up Russia whose oil influence will not decrease until Chinese economy is growing. The EU has no strategy for development, and has no clear view for the next 10 years. This might end in one of the 2 variants; either acceptance of liberal values and imminent economic and political increase, or a crisis with a post-acception of liberal values. Now Europe walks more the second way.


Once having joined the EU, there will be no way back. Accession to the Union means loss of state sovereignty. Once and forever. And this is not just about national honour, but about a simple ability to act as you want without a repressive influence of the social bureaucratic EU machine from outside. The machine which has no idea of what is going within. The Union is bound to centralize more as time passes, with local and national powers being left just with current-day questions to solve. As a small country, Belarus will have no weight inside the EU. And when joining, the EU will centralized more than ever.

Do we want Belarus to become part of such construction? After mere 15 years of independence to have come after 300 years of historical absence, do we really want to become pensioneers of this world?

There is a sence for Belarus to become a part of NATO. Accession to this organization will mean a guarantee for us that we are not going to assaulted again; this is a sign of democratic, choice in favour of freedom, democracy, and progress. A guarantee that not a single Eurasian empire will take our country out of that.

We need a non-visa and free-trade regime with the EU - exactly like with the other neighbors and in general with as many countries - as possible. But by no means we need to hang ourselves on the chain of eurobureaucrats, which depend on those social regime, and by no means we need to abandon our state sovereignty.

We should say NO to fetishization of the EU; we don’t have to behave like Georgia or Albania begging to accept us into the European family: we ARE Europeans. We should aim not at the EU accession, but at building a market competitive economy which would allow all people to earn decently and live with honour, which is based on democratic principles. Eurointegration might be a means on that way, but not an objective in itself.

There is only one valid argument in favour of European choice which can cross all arguments against. Pragmatic reality often dictates the choice which is far from the desired one. After years of anti-NATO ideology and in the wake of the fact of the NATO allergy people have now, the only option against new integration into an “Axis of Freedom” of some Eurasian dictators or into some new formation of the CIS which strengthened revanchist Russia will start assembling is a socialist, but at least democratic UE.

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Good news!

After quitting smoking, having one or two drinks a day is the best single thing you can do for your cardiovascular health. It's better than losing weight, better than getting more exercise, and better than lowering your cholesterol.

[...]

The benefits to alcohol consumption are absolutely clear. Drinking five to six drinks a week reduces the risk of sudden cardiac death by 79 percent. It cuts heart attack risk, both in men who exercise and eat right and in men with hypertension. It also protects against type-2 diabetes and gallstones. In middle-aged women, moderate consumption of alcohol is associated with a 17% reduction in death from all causes.

// Wisebread.com


I'll quit smoking one day, I promise! )
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Atlas Shrugged

My essay on Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged", kindly translated from Belarusian by the guys from TOL Blog Belarus

***

written by czalex
translated by meramo

The world of Ayn Rand might seem exaggerated, but if you take a minute and look around, read the news, you can see this world: a world we live in. Characters of corrupt politicians, of so called "public opinion leaders", for whom "there's no black and white" but only gray unscrupulousness – all these things are described in the book. Positive characters – strong, conscientious men and women. They, may lack some "human" features, some liveliness or human weakness. But it's so because Rand first of all a great essayist, and only then – a writer.

"Atlas Shrugged" is a famous novel by the American philosopher Ayn Rand. It's among the first books in the genre of a business-novel, and is the first fiction book in the library of 3dWay. The novel was published in 1957 and was later recognized as one of the best and most important literature works of the 20th century. The story takes place in an unclear period in the future in the United States. Almost all countries of the world have become socialistic "people's republics". The USA is one of the last democratic and market-oriented countries, but is following other countries' path very quickly. The economy is in recession and survives only because few profitable enterprises led by talented and skilled businessmen. One of these companies is Taggart Transcontinental, a railway company . Its chief is Dagny Taggart, the book's main hero, has to fight for her business under the press of corrupt bureaucracy, which introduces more and more restrictions of the business initiative and as by that only worsens the situation.

Ayn Rand describes an absurd world and society where a person's disadvantage is the cause for rewards, where the initiative, intellect and ability for a creative work are punished by the obligation to take care of losers. This world is ruled by people who can talk about spirituality and refusal of the material while living in dirty bungalows instead of prosperous cities burned as a result of their Utopian "human-loving" projects. The rich ones have to take care of the poor, the strong ones – of the weak , the successful ones – of losers, the talented ones – of the untalented and the intelligent ones – of fools. Sweet speeches about public interests hide the real faces of amoral and corrupt people. Public life in these cruel conditions becomes entailed by oppression and violence, which lead the country to a complete disaster.

But there are people who resist the system, the "atlases" who hold this world on their shoulders – the business elite. The state uses them as it wants. But as they give wealth, technologies, working places – they are more and more blamed for selfishness and "oppression of the working people". As this happens, they one by one disappear, leaving the society to the hands of people, who curse them. When the working people have rights to strike, so the businessmen take this right for them too – and very soon it becomes obvious, what is the key element in economy. Labor can do nothing without intelligence and business talent; it is nothing but an instrument in the hands of businessmen.

The world of Ayn Rand might seem exaggerated, but if you take a minute and look around, read the news, you can see this world: a world we live in. Characters of corrupt politicians, of so called "public opinion leaders" and "philosophers" for whom "there's no black and white" but only a gray absence of any principles – all these things are described in the book. Positive characters are strong, conscientious men and women. They may lack some "human" features, some liveliness or human weaknesses. But it may be so because of Ayn Rand's being first of all an outstanding essayist, and only then a writer.

The economy of a country has to be maximally efficient, therefore maximally rational, therefore maximally liberal. The caring about other people can not be put above giving the chance to care about themselves to those who are able to.

The same works in politics and social life. When we hear that some monumental goals have to be put above a person's private interests, the road back to Stone Age begins. And it doesn't matter whether these goals are used to camouflage some hidden agenda or are a product of naivety. Fascism, theocracy, socialism – all regimes, which legitimize themselves in any ways but a neutral and cold-blooded democratic procedure, or that start talking of Utopian ideas – these regimes are unfair, irrational, and therefore inefficient, and therefore wrong.

The system of values, where people doing their best to achieve their own purposes and wealth is the best basis for love and friendship, because the relations between people in this way grounds not on charity, but on the mutual respect and utility.

All these things are described in the novel. Rationality is the only criteria for determining the social order. Any excesses are excessive and harmful. A very talented description of the way a society not following this principle develops is the main thing that makes "Atlas Shrugged" a book to be read by every educated person.

Source
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Blogging about blogging

Thanks to Andrew Kable I started discovering the English speaking business blogosphere - and I'm very happy to do that!

For example, Penelope Trunk's blog has a very interesting series of articles on blogging.

I have my Belarusian-Russian blog since 2003. First it was just a diary, then a means to communicate with friends who also have a blog at Livejournal and to find new friends among Belarusian speakers. Livejournal is very popular in post-Soviet countries exactly because it offers broad opportunities to communicate and not just to blog. Practically, it developed into a social network above a blogging service.

Finally, it more and more became a blog on current political issues concerning Belarus, leaving less and less place for private stuff. Currently I have more than 440 Livejournal users subscribed to my blog, and landed among Top 30 Belarusian Livejournal bloggers a couple of month ago.

There is still much personal stuff there, and it'd probably make sense to transer this part to a new blog. I see the problem that a huge part of my Russian real-life friends who subscribe to my blog are not much interested in politics, especially in Belarusian politics, and mostly do not even speak any Belarusian :) . On the other hand, some people interested in politics may find it less interesting to read about travel, jokes and other life impressions.

But an argument against that is that serious essays and columns are also posted to http://www.pozirk.org and/or http://bielarus.3dway.org, so that interested people might subscribe to it there and http://czalex.livejournal.com may be left over as a portrait of my interests in common.

A completely different thing is with the blog you are currently reading. The blog was originally created to practice English and German, then there was a a period of it's being inactive, and now it is being revived as a blog in English (except for the tag names :) ) on professional issues. It's still far from some specialization and a concrete niche - but I hope to develop it as I grow professionally.

At least some directions covered here might be named:

- Business, economics of Belarus and Russia

- Personal career experience

- Notes on audit, consulting with an accent on banking industry

- Rare inputs on social issues in Belarus, like my Belarusian articles translated by TOL Blogs Belarus.

Even this list of 4 is too broad if I'm aiming to attract people with what I write and not just real-life friends. But I let time show what's gonna be the blog's final specialization.


-> Gotta find some interesting blogs about strategy consulting, audit and finance to add to my Google Reader
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The US Budget graphically

http://www.thebudgetgraph.com/poster/

Might sound shocking for a post-Soviet: 67% of American state expenses go for the Military and for National Security.

"Evil American Militarist Imperialism"?

No, just what a state is actually there for.
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Sports

It's very important to do sports for a successful career.

- A success comes from the inner motivation to succeed. And the taste of success comes from past successes and from small victories from the every-day life. A won football match, a distance run or rode by bike – that all gives the feeling of having achieved something, supported by the relevant physical impressions

- Every football or basketball match you play is training on team working skills, first of all on psychological level

- Every bike ride is you ruling the space, getting the flying feeling of from your fast move and therefore a physical impression of changing the reality on your own wish

- I'm not a specialist in medicine and may therefore sound naïve, but I know that sport makes the organism produce hormones and initiates processes inside you that improve your productivity

- Sports just give you a good feeling and a fit look. And if you feel well and look well and know you look well, you’ll do better.

When I was small I was a child who preferred to sit at home, watch an interesting movie or read an interesting book or play Lego instead of going out and play some football outside – and therefore I tend to like single sports like swimming or bicycle. That's something I'd like to be changed - but nowadays my low football skills may be a problem :(

The main thing s to get the time for sports, and this may be a problem when you leave work at 9 PM.

Yeah, now I’m motivated to go to the swimming pool tonight! :)
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