Re: Death of Zoya Krakhmalnikova, Russian Christian writer jailed by

On May 18, 2:23=A0pm, ++ <fri...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

[...]

> I've met and spoken to Mr. Aslund on a few occasions when he was
> involved with the Carnegie Foundation. =A0His statement above that you
are=

> relying on for the level of corruption is parenthetical and rhetorical
> at best and hardly to be relied upon as evidence. He is one of many
> people studying the Russian economy around here. =A0I think I attended a
> discussion of his on the Ukranian "Orange" revolution in 2006.
>
> You are misinterpreting his statement into a generalization.

Nah. Aslund states very clearly that corruption is a major
problem in Russia. Whether it is 50 per cent or 20 per cent,
those are still extremely high percentages. And quite frankly,
your total unwillingness to accept this basic fact about the
Russia economy makes me unwilling to waste any more of
my time trying to educate you about the economic problems
of your own country. But just by Googling I found numerous
other articles dealing with Russia's corruption problems.
Here's one quote, and this will be my last post on this subject:

"...opinion polls show that Russians are as upset as any
other people about corruption and that they have more of it.
Second, the mismanagement of the large state cor****ations
and alleged kickbacks of 20 percent to 50 percent on major
infrastructure projects have gotten out of control. In other
corrupt countries, people are upset at mere 2 percent kickbacks.
Russia's corruption is some of the largest in terms of the
absolute amount individuals receive and the relative share
of the kickbacks."

(There Is Nothing Normal About Corruption, 23 April 2008
By Anders Aslund)

http://www.moscowtimes.ru/article/1016/42/362262.htm

Did you catch what he said? That people in other countries
are upset at corruption that reaches a mere 2 percent
in kickbacks. In Russia the kickbacks are TEN TO TWENTY
times larger than that. Deny it all you like. It's not my
problem. But I am starting to wonder whether you are a
personal beneficiary of these kickbacks.