Re: Death of Zoya Krakhmalnikova, Russian Christian writer jailed

Marko Amnell wrote:

>On May 18, 2:23 pm, ++ <fri...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
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>>I've met and spoken to Mr. Aslund on a few occasions when he was
>>involved with the Carnegie Foundation.  His 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.  I think I attended a
>>discussion of his on the Ukranian "Orange" revolution in 2006.
>>
>>You are misinterpreting his statement into a generalization.
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>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.
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Hmm, let's go back to what I said.  I suggested that the conclusions you 
were drawing were dispro****tionate to reality.  I really doubt that you 
are a journalist, that you know anything much about Russia, or, in fact, 
that you are very knowledgeable about economics.  Thus, I'm not very 
worried about having to give up your illusion of educating me.

You attempted to credential yourself as a France Presse journalist.  
What hubris.  You don't have to pretend to be in a position to educate 
me to answer the simple questions I asked before concerning your stated 
qualifications to educate us all.  I'll repeat them.  Please provide 
your areas of expertise and where and when and what you covered for 
France Presse as a self stated international journalist.  And do please 
post your own article you wrote yourself in the 90s that you published 
in the same.  The only thing Google seems to know about you is that you 
wrote a review of a book on number theory.

> 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:
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>"...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)
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This is a quote by the person you quoted the last time, Aslund, who you 
represented as representing the greater end of that range as the norm.  
Why don't you simply apologize for misrepresenting the fellow originally? 


>http://www.moscowtimes.ru/article/1016/42/362262.htm
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>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.
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I didn't affirm or deny any particular figures.  You are the netbaby who 
generalized and misrepresented figures.  10% is not 20% and 20% is not 
50%% and instances are not norms. Evidence is not someone's article, 
unless it is empirical data included in that article and that empirical 
data is itself referenced.  Even then, it can be problemmatic and 
challenged.  I wonder what Prof. Aslund would think of this subthread 
and your peculiar representation of his work?

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