Hilarious that BBC, a broadcaster paid for by British tax payers, has a subheading in that article titled "Russian connection" describing various dealings of Russian characters who are "close associates" of Putin and an equally sordid "Iceland connection" but not even a mention of David Cameron's father's tax evading schemes listed in the documents which the people of Great Britain should be vastly more interested in. Not to mention direct implications of various other western puppets (Saudi King, Ukrainian PM, Iraqi former PM) and other dubious "connections".
Is it remarkable, or is it completely expected for propaganda?
I've been visiting the US for 6 months now, and the only time I hear anything about the outside world is when (China/Russia/NorthKorea) are doing something bad, or their citizens lives suck, or rarely when a social program in a developed country (UK, Europe) goes a little wrong (over budget or whatever).
Interestingly, the fact that hundreds of millions of people living in developed countries have better health care, education, roads, etc. than Americans is never mentioned. It's also never mentioned that American politicians are for sale, and bribery is completely legal here.
I really feel like this is an unnecessarily melodramatic comment. I can't tell if you're being serious about American news only reporting things that make America look good but that's certainly not true in my experience. Mainstreams outlets (NYT/WSJ/etc.) have different biases on their editorial boards but they are more than willing to report negative news about the US and mundane current events from around the world.
Also, I think it's a little bit to early to call propaganda/controlled-opposition on this leak. Because the US has such a strict tax evasion regime, it's pretty reasonable to believe that Americans would be treated differently by firms selling tax evasion services. Or, it could be that American names will be released later. Hard to tell at this point.
> I can't tell if you're being serious about American news only reporting things that make America look good
I'm being serious.
Other countries I've lived in spend a lot of time in their media comparing their own country to other countries that are doing very well, or are doing something better than them, such that they can learn from that and make their own situation or system better.
When you only compare America to countries doing much worse, you never get that.
The American sentiment of "we are the best" has been seriously harmful in the last ~20 years because it means there is no drive to improve anything. In fact, I notice it's very "un-American" to even suggest changing/improving things.
Hypothetically, even if a given country were the best at something, that's not a reason not to improve it.
I don't believe the US is hung up on not improving. I think that's blatantly false and I think you're wrong about some of what you're claiming.
It's also a fascinating bit of hypocrisy, to say that the US is hung up on being right, and yet you feel free to bash the US while promoting the things others do right (you listed healthcare, education, roads). How does that work again?
The US does in fact improve. See: gay marriage legalization (something many of those supposed progressive nations you're referring to still lack). Body cams for police (a wide national interest in ending police brutality). Ending mass incarceration and the war on drugs (changes that are now supported by the majority of Americans). The ACA / Obamacare.
If you want to talk about roads, much of Europe for example has seen its spending on infrastructure plunge dramatically. The US is now spending more on its infrastructure than most of the countries you're likely to reference:
"Infrastructure spending in the euro zone has dropped to an average of 2.7 percent of gross domestic product, compared with 3.4 percent of GDP for the U.S. and 3.6 percent for Japan."
It's almost universally recognized within the US that there are significant problems in both education and healthcare. You can hardly get away from discussions on these topics. What is occurring, is a slow moving national debate on what to do about fixing them. The US has a healthcare system the size of all of Europe's healthcare systems combined in dollar terms, which employs directly or indirectly millions of people - there's no scenario under which you're going to radically remake something like that in short order.
The US is a relatively complex, massive representative system, with local + state + federal systems that all play an important role and a total government budget so large it would be the world's #3 economy by itself. It's difficult for a government system that large to move quickly on almost anything. Imagine trying to get most of the countries in Europe to agree on major changes to their education or healthcare systems simultaneously, it's approximately an equivalent feat to remake education or healthcare in the US - both of which are heavily managed at the state levels.
> It's also a fascinating bit of hypocrisy, to say that the US is hung up on being right, and yet you feel free to bash the US while promoting the things others do right (you listed healthcare, education, roads). How does that work again?
He's not bashing the US, but rather being realistic about the sorry state of American healthcare, education, and infrastructure. And it's perfectly valid to suggest that both American exceptionalism and a general lack of exposure to the ideas and experiences of foreign citizens, are partially to blame for America's failures domestically and abroad.
> The US does in fact improve. See: gay marriage legalization (something many of those supposed progressive nations you're referring to still lack). Body cams for police (a wide national interest in ending police brutality).
Gay marriage is a great step forward, but there are more pressing issues honestly, primary among them reigning in the military-industrial complex that has been steadily toppling democratically-elected governments for the past 60 years, stealing resources, fighting proxy wars, and selling weapons to one or both sides.
> Ending mass incarceration and the war on drugs (changes that are now supported by the majority of Americans). The ACA / Obamacare.
No way the majority of citizens of support ending the drug war. Legalization or decriminalization of marijuana are only small steps toward ending mass incarceration. How many people currently support heroin being legal, taxed, and available down the street? Not many, but until US society has that revelation, there will still be black market violence, and still be addicts ODing because their heroin is anything from 10% to 90% pure and potentially cut with other harmful substances, and because they hesitate to call an ambulance for fear of exiting the hospital in police custody.
I was wondering the same. Whenever I'm in the states, I don't find the media to be particularly different...read a NYT or a WSJ paper and you'll get a lot of international news, positive and negative. As always, if you want news, you have to go looking for it. It just isn't going to be hand fed into your mouth.
I do not for the life of me get CNN and the 24 hour news cycle, though. It just seems to be all noise for news on cable TV. Anyways, still better than what I can get in the country I currently live in (China), but there is always the Internet (even with the GFW in place).
Alright, well, most news is going to be negative, that's just how news works. You're not going to see the headline "Things at the NHS are going pretty well", because that's not news. Just like you won't see "Medicare has been pretty solid this month" or something. You will see that kind of analysis in editorials and magazines though.
So I can understand if you don't see much positive commentary about other countries, that's just the nature of the news. But if you're not seeing anything negative about America, then I can't believe you're actually reading any news.
I think the expected mindset for the reader is that things in other developed countries are usually going pretty well, and no news is good news. The media will report on ongoing stories, like Brazil's corruption scandal, the European migrant crisis, Israel/Palestine, etc., and on new newsworthy events, which unfortunately are usually negative. Something like "France passes great budget" is just not interesting enough for a general audience newspaper.
> I think the expected mindset for the reader is that things in other developed countries are usually going pretty well
You're expecting all too much of readers.
Of the hundreds of people I've hung out with in the last 6 months (in 4 different states) I would say less than 1% of them have any idea about the outside world.
They think healthcare in Canada is crap (which is very far from the truth)
They have no idea the murder rate in the US is so high compared to other developed countries.
They have no idea tertiary education is paid for with taxes in other countries, so students don't pay out of pocket.
etc.
In my experience, the majority of Americans don't know much about how the outside developed world functions, so they can't make meaningful comparisons for the purpose of improving things.
They can, however, compare America to Russia/China/NK all day long, and say "We're doing GREAT!"
Why would they, when Time Warner (owner of CNN), for instance, is a top 10 contributor to the Clinton campaign and is therefore legally bribing politicians?
It makes me wonder why an "associate" of a foreign head of state is a more relevant story than the father of the head of state, or of serving politicians with close links to the party of the head of state, from the same country's taxpayer-funded news service.
The story doesn't even mention the implication of Cameron's father in the scheme. Which is odd, because Cameron stood to gain from the inheritance. And if the allegations are true, then he would have benefited from the proceeds of tax evasion.
There are also several other heads of state directly implicated in this scheme, yet they were not even mentioned in the story: the current heads of state of UAE, Ukraine, Argentina, and Saudi Arabia for example.
And the figure who is apparently at the center of the Russian allegations is a concert cellist who has known Putin since they were teenagers. Yet the link and related BBC story convey the impression (at least to my mind) that Putin was somehow complicit in the scheme, without establishing any proof for this.
Nope. His wife is the only one mentioned in the data according to the reporters:
> The third Spaniard to appear in the giant leak is the wife of former Spanish Agriculture Minister Miguel Arias Cañete, Micaela Domecq Solís-Beaumont, who was "empowered to approve transactions of Rinconada Investments Group SA, a Panama company registered in 2005 which was in existence while her husband Miguel Arias Cañete held public positions in Spain and the European Union.
Which is why it's good that this massive pile of data is analyzed by a huge load of international newspapers.
This way, papers can selectively publish stuff that won't put themselves in too grave danger - just look what happened to The Guardian with the Snowden leak (visits from three-letter agency officials) or what happens in Turkey, Ukraine or Hungary with media that dares to publish stuff too offensive to the respective regimes.
The situation sucks, yes, but it's the only viable modus operandi for now.
I mean sure journalists and meme-makers will spin this however it suits them, but I thought here in the west we're assured that we have freedom of press. This type of obvious slant certainly doesn't make it seem that way.
There is no particularly strong legal basis for "freedom of press" in the UK. While recent history has had the press being largely unhindered by the government, our history is one of strict restrictions that have been gradually relaxed over the centuries.
You're probably confusing us with the US, which has some constitutional guarantees.
Thanks for clearing that up. US press seems curiously absent from even covering this story. As per @mathewi the only US media companies on the #panamapapers team are Miami Herald, Univision, Fusion and McLatchy.
I guess we'll see how active they'll become and what their spin will be, if any, in the coming days.
Apparently they split out all the documents relating to Americans and haven't released them yet. So nothing has "hit home" so to speak for American media.
The US press situation is a standard consolidation story. They are dependent on leaks and access to officials, and have little meaningful competition to drive risky behavior.
There's a reason Fox leans republican and CNN leans democrat -- they get to avoid competition.
In a market like NYC with 4-5 papers, the Post and Daily News always try to one up each other, posting off politicians in the process.
> I thought here in the west we're assured that we have freedom of press.
Freedom of press does not guarantee freedom from persecution (or prosecution), so the international consortium approach is a much better guarantee for all the information actually getting out.
The BBC does have freedom from persecution or prosecution (assuming it doesn't publish things that are e.g libelous). But, due to the particular way it is funded, it doesn't have freedom from government intervention.
In particular the BBC charter is reviewed every so often. This process involves the government and can affect things like the level of funding available to the BBC, and its remit in terms of the services it is allowed to offer. It's no secret that the current government are not big fans of the BBC, both for ideological reasons, and because of cozy relationships with certain commercial broadcasters. They are already waging a war in the press trying to convince the public that the BBC has an intrinsic left-wing bias, and are mooting ideas like preventing it from making programmes that are too popular and so may draw audiences away from commercial rivals. In this environment, and with funding already being cut, and jobs lost, it's not hard to see why you would think twice about running stories that could lead you open to allegations of an anti-government agenda.
Although the particular details of that situation are unique to the BBC, it's important to note that commercial broadcasters, and media outlets in general, also don't have freedom in the sense of freedom-from-consequences. For example there was a story last year about HSBC pulling adverts from media outlets which ran articles critical of its business practices. In an environment where, particularly for print media, margins are tight or non-existent, it's easy to see how this can give commercial interests hidden editorial control over a "free" press.
Not really, freedom of press is much narrower. What you're suggesting is an ideal world where journalists are protected from the egos and reputations of powerful people who might want to retaliate against them for their reporting. There are many forms of legal retaliation that freedom of press cannot protect against. In practice, this freedom is weighed against the consequences of publishing any single piece.
For example, not having to run all (or huge parts of) your stories through a censor before being allowed to publish them (e.g. China, Israel).
Or, like in Germany, various protections like e.g. the police not allowed without complex judiciary checks to monitor the phones and internet connections of a journalist, or to go into a newspaper office and seizing random data to uncover a source.
You can be prosecuted for reasons entirely unrelated to your publishing of a story, even if that is the true reason. Do you think people don't try to intimidate journalists?
> but I thought here in the west we're assured that we have freedom of press
Hell no. As long as crap like NSLs (or other secret gag orders, see UK), anti-whistleblower laws or (esp. USA) actually independent media with mass reach exist, there is no freedom of the press.
This is is of course an area of concern. It is sometimes referred to as cognitive capture, akin to regulatory capture. It occurs when a regulatee so strongly paints a picture of how they feel the world should work, that a regulator fails to fulfill their duties, because their lens on the world has become so distorted in favor of the regulatee's perspective.
It often flows private industry ----> govt, with private industry cognitively capturing the government.
But it can just as easily go the other way. Afterall, in the west the media/journalist industry has historically been seen as the regulator of the government, the fourth estate.
I believe they are withholding details regarding any British connections until the BBC Panorama show which airs tomorrow. As before, this leak is coordinated across different media organisations and the whole news cache is released iteratively.
Disagree. This way they can perhaps force anyone involved to comment, while blowing everything wide open in public would perhaps make the case revolve around a single case, and not the actual political aspects of the case. Or am I just making stuff up here? In my world this is a great tactic. Danish television will be covering this for a week. If politicians are involved it's probably best to let them comment and do their job first, instead of putting them in the spotlight where they will avoid commenting on the case.
Maybe, but "father of a PM" is not even close to the same thing as "PM". If Cameron's father has done something wrong, that doesn't (shouldn't) affect perceptions of his son. The days of punishing children for the crimes of their parents are long in the past.
Assuming the guy did anything wrong, of course. As these articles note, off shore companies are not illegal.
But Cameron directly benefited from his father's tax avoidance. He received several hundred thousand pounds as an inheritance from his father's estate. I'm sure he would have received less if his father had not saved money by avoiding taxes. He wasn't running the scheme, but he did directly benefit from it.
A child has no control over their parent's financial affairs when they were a minor. If they are involved after they reach majority that's very different.
No, I thought that was kind of dumb too, but I've got used to western media constantly dumping on Putin regardless of the merits of the case so I just ignore it now. Like, I just skip any part of the Economist that talks about Russia because their coverage of the topic is so hilariously unbalanced.
> Maybe, but "father of a PM" is not even close to the same thing as "PM". If Cameron's father has done something wrong, that doesn't (shouldn't) affect perceptions of his son. The days of punishing children for the crimes of their parents are long in the past.
That's still in the public's interest to know about this kind of thing, assuming it is actually illegal.
>The days of punishing children for the crimes of their parents are long in the past.
Except if the victims are white. Then so many people like to play the game of attempting to justify contemporary offence/injustice X, with historical event Y.
While there may be new information about Cameron's father, his tax schemes were thoroughly covered by the British press years ago. They're not in and of themselves news in the UK, so unless these documents reveal something significant that hasn't already been known, it's not strange they're not making a big deal over it.
But when channels like Al Jazeera do the same thing with issues pertaining to Qatar, which is unethical of course, everyone has their pitchforks ready. I mean come on - everyone knows that BBC is a "neutral" news source.
While that is mostly true, (it's the same people obviously) I'm pretty sure the BBC isn't funded by taxes. If they were, they would be under political control. Which would be silly.
It certainly is indistinguishable from a tax from the licensee's perspective, so I agree with the classification in that sense (e.g. for evaluating the tax pressure of UK citizens etc).
The important takeaway however is that unlike proper taxes the money isn't politically controlled.
That was my point. It might not sound like a difference from a tax, but the difference is pretty substantial when we are discussing the control of the company.
Both the British and (especially) German [0] media are virulently anti-Russian. They blame Russians for all of their ills. Societal problems? Blame Russians. Anything that happens in their countries, they manage to find an angle to blame it on Russians somehow. Norway [1] & Sweden are also under a constant paranoia that Russians are just days away from invading them.
But nothing compares to German media when it comes to paranoia about Russians. They're truly in the league of their own. They have tabloids like BILD that devote several pages of every issue on "evil russians". They even print special issues about evil Russians and new Hitler aka Putin.
When I visited Germany last year, I felt like they're in a second Cold War or something. In the US, we managed to stop being paranoid after 1990s but Germans are still paranoid about Russians. It was explained to me by a german friend of mine that this is because their biggest publisher, Axel Springer, was started with CIA money and that every journalist who works for any of the Axel Springer properties has to sign a contract that says that they have to foster the relationship with the US. Unsaid rule is that they have to disparage Russians. And sure enough, if you search for some of this stuff, you can find things like [2] and [3]
Edit #2 : I see my comment is controversial and is being heavily down/upvoted with downvotes winning.
Anyway, to add even more evidence to what I'm saying, see the Twitter feed [4] of Julian Röpcke, who's a 'political editor at BILD'. Go take a look for yourself and start scrolling. Everything that happens in the world, Russians are somehow behind it according to him. Millions of refugees from Syria in Europe? That's because of Russians and Putin (never mind the fact that millions arrived way before Russians started their deployment in Syria). I guess he cannot mention that unrest started after US implemented a policy of destabilizing Assad and funding of various islamic terror organization... because that would be against his pro-US "jounalistic" contract that he signed.
Being Russian citizen I find this critical position actually pro-Russian. It's in our interest to have a professional government and a president elected on transparent and free elections, to fight corruption and to work for the prosperity of our Homeland and for happiness of all our people. The government, the president, the courts and the deputees of parliament that do not satisfy these criteria can and shall be criticized by anyone who dares. And, by the way, these media do not criticize the Russian people. So, we are ok with that critics and sane people here are not humiliated by what others may call "lecturing from the West". In fact, we are proud that there's so much interest to the Russian politics, that we are treated as important part of the world and that we do matter. Moreover, such critics will not change anything in Russia, because Russian internal affairs are only our internal affairs. I'd say, they are for internal consumption in Germany and UK, and it's good - even western citizen enjoying the taste of democracy may fall to Putin's propaganda, so better keep fighting.
> In fact, we are proud that there's so much interest to the Russian politics, that we are treated as important part of the world and that we do matter.
The only reason Russia "matters" is that it's non-compliant to the Western interests. The only kind of "freely-elected" government that the West would approve of is one that would bend to its wishes. Take a look at Ukraine to see what happens to elected governments that don't.
There are plenty of reasons why Russia matters, and non-compliance is not the one of them. To name few: nuclear weapons, vast natural resources (including fresh water), great cultural heritage. And quite good representation in tech, btw. The West is not a Satan, like some ayatollas would say, and Russia is not the Last Fortress standing against his armies.
As for Ukraine, unfortunately it is the failed state, that is severely (almost deadly) damaged by corruption - it has nothing to do with Western or Russian interests, first of all it's the failure of Ukrainian people to get rid of crooks (just like the failure of Russian people to do the same), and only then there are the sides that would like to play with it.
I appreciate your perspective on your country and the world. I'm a USian but I agree with you and can't fault Russia for resisting the neoliberal/neoconservative Empire erected by the Western elites.
Russians (and the rest of us?) are supposed to fall meekly into line in the world created by the likes of GWB, Victoria Nuland, Hillary Clinton, Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld, David Cameron and Merkl? No thanks.
> It's in our interest to have a professional government and a president elected on transparent and free elections
I think everyone has been looking forward for this to happen for hundreds of years. Nothing has happened. It's still land of kleptocrazy (let's not start arguing that there are other equally bad players as well). And even to this day, Russians seem to be like: "there is nothing we can do". And Putin is more popular than ever. Take this as a critizism for Russian people. You have allowed such a bad leaders run to your country. Russians I have met, talk more about leaving the country.
Now that we have the leaks, look what is happening in Iceland and compare that to what is happening in Russia. In Iceland people are demanding their prime minister to resign. In Russia, people think that this is an attack from the west.
Do you really believe that western media care a single bit about free elections in Russia? The only reason they care about it is because The position of Russia government does not match the western narrative.
> Ohh, please stop, do you really believe that western media care a single bit about free elections in Russia?
I think any person in the "west" would be delighted to see free elections in Russia. Why wouldn't we? Since it would be a missive influence on our lives, of course western media should care!
A government elected by popular vote would be stabilizing to the region (and the world) since it wouldn't have the same need of maintaining poopularity by inventing an external enemy (and at regular intervals, creating one, if necessary).
> "does not match the western narrative"
What is the "western narrative" really?
I suppose one historical "western narrative" is that the Soviet Union was dissolved in the early 90's, and that the borders drawn then are those of sovereign states who each have a choice of trade/military alliance. I'm getting increasingly worried that this isn't the historical narrative tought in some schools in parts of the former union.
> I think any person in the "west" would be delighted to see free elections in Russia.
No, they will be delighted to see the candidate they (westerns) like more - win, they won't care who most people really voted and supported in Russia. Putin won on the recent elections and I did not notice any "delighted west media" after that, even thought as I said in a separate comment - vast majority of the people in Russia actually did support Putin vs other candidates. It's hard to see from the outside, but most people in Russia are actually supporting Putin, I think the reason is that those who were against Putin have a better reach to international media since they speak english and are more socially active thus from the outside it looks like most of the population dislikes Putin, which in reality is not true.
I don't doubt Putin has massive support, but in a country without free press or free elections popularity says nothing. Putin doesn't win elections, he arranges them.
North Koreas leaders have traditionally enjoyed a 100% support, and it might even be genuine support, but it doesn't mean anything.
The media climate in Russia isn't yet North Korean of course, but it's far from a climate in which elections would be called fair.
https://index.rsf.org/
(You really don't want to rank with Belarus and Congo on the freedom of press index).
To win a real election you make sure you have freedom of press, then you have an election overseen by internationally recognized observers such as the oecd.
The fact that Putin is popular despite rapidly growing deficits and receding standard of living (at the same time as massive military spending) is pretty telling.
> rapidly growing deficits and receding standard of living
Really? What is it based on? Compared to a period after the perestroika, level of life has greatly improved in Russia, the worst period of crime and absolute horrendous inability of police to prevent the growth of organized crime is not something most of the people of Russia want to experience again and that is why they want to go with stability which they think Putin gives them.
> in a country without free press or free elections
Throwing around big captions like this does not help a single bit, these words mean absolutely nothing to me, what do you mean by "free press" isn't most of the popular media in UK or US owned and heavily censored by corporate leaders or government parties? What makes this media "free" and media in Russia "not free".
The fact that the budget is balanced on a completely different oil price, and no sanctions. The russian reserve funds are falling pretty rapidly, while defense spending is still increasing and over 5%.
> Compared to a period after the perestroika, level of life has greatly improved in Russia
No doubt. The period after the union dissolved standard off living rapidly rose. The period of openness over the last decade meant great growth and together with rising oil prices it saw rising standards of living. This only changed in the last years with falling oil prices and sanctions which have seen prices rise at a faster rate than wages and pensions. This is also known as a "sinking standard of living". Russian price and wage indices aren't subjective or secret information so please let's not debate whether you can e.g. buy more or less food for a teachers' salary in 2016 than 2013. I'm talking about the very last years now, not the period since 1990.
> stability which they think Putin gives them.
I don't blame them. Putin saw great economic success in his early years. I do however consider it foolish to vote for an authoritarian if the cost of this stability is lack of opposition and lack of free press, which has been the result in recent years.
> what do you mean by "free press"
The methodology used by Reporters Without Borders is a pretty decent one:
"[The level of] pluralism, media independence, environment and self-censorship, legislative framework, transparency, and infrastructure. The questionnaire takes account of the legal framework for the media (including penalties for press offences, the existence of a state monopoly for certain kinds of media and how the media are regulated) and the level of independence of the public media."
As I posted earlier, Russia fares no better than Belarus in this matter (a totalitarian dictatorship!) and also little better than many third world failed states, which is just embarrassing for a mostly developed country like Russia.
> Isn't most of the popular media in UK or US owned and heavily censored by corporate leaders or government parties?
Yes, a lot of the press is owned by corporations, or non political organizations, or political parties, or individuals.
A lot of it has a party bias. That's entirely natural. Pluralism is the key -- e.g. are there media outlets representing all political parties etc? Is there excessive control of one type of media such as TV by a government entity? Self-censorship is a problem, but this problem is accounted for in the freedom-of-press index.
> What makes this media "free" and media in Russia "not free".
It's not black and white, it's a scale from completely unfree (North Korea) to completely free (Nowhere!). Somewhere along this scale we can argue that is are "free" and somewhere I'd argue they are not free.
Where one draws that line is entirely arbitrary. Out of pure interest - if you yourself were to use the freedom of press ranking to draw a line somewhere above north korea where you consider the press to be "free", which state is that? Since it is below Russia in the ranking, where is it? Belarus? Cuba? Saudi Arabia?
I do suspect this -- you will not be able to pick a state on that list as being below Russia but still enjoying press freedom.
What you will have to do instead is a) dismiss reporters without borders and their "freedom of press index" as a western invention deviced to make "western style media" look good, while painting the Russian media landscape as failed, or b) claim that no country on the rank has free press, even Finland at the top spot, since hey, all media in Finland are owned and self censored by individuals and corporations or parties or organizations...
If you are going to do a) or b) above, don't bother - you'd be better of not responding.
> The russian reserve funds are falling pretty rapidly
Any data to back up that claim? Looking at the national reserve fund data it does not look to be anywhere near "falling pretty rapidly" [1]
Also Russian national debt has decreased by quite a lot in recent years [2], and now is only about 25% of GDP, which is a very low figure compared to other countries.
The fund shrunk by 20% in the last two years (from 2014 to 2016) due to the sanctions and low oil prices. I'd say 10% on a per-year basis is pretty fast.
Why are you only cherry picking the data that fits your narrative? The link you included shows that since the time when Putin become a president in 2008 - reserve fund increased by more than 230% in USD and almost 10X in rubbles, the recent drop in reserve fund in USD is happening because of the oil prices decrease (same thing is happening with US national reserve [1]) , but even thought oil prices dropped by almost 400% in recent 2 years - the Russian reserve fund has only dropped by 20% in USD and it actually increased in rubbles. I am very far from Putin supporter, and I absolutely dislike what is happening in Russia, but I just don't like when people come up with "facts" by cherrypicking stuff, if you want to be objective - look at the combined data, do not ignore whatever does not fit your narrative.
I'm not cherry picking I'm just talking about the recent years and I'm completely aware that the economic situation is due in large part to low oil prices. There was no problem being popular when high oil prices and an open market meant steadily increasing standard of living.
What I'm discussing is how hard it is for any politician to be popular in the face of rapidly decreasing purchasing power and living standard such as when there is a budget deficit and inflation. So why isn't Putins popularity decreasing when the economy is? Is it because the people saw what he did in 2008-2014 and trust he can bring that back? Makes sense, but a diverse media would question that idea. It wouldn't be enough in any country with a working media and opposition. Leaders in working democracies don't have that high approval ratings even in good times.
The last couple of years have seen large inflation, and also stagnated salaries/pensions. This is a very recent phenomenon and started with falling oil prices and was worsened by the Crimea sanctions.
You could argue that discussing 2013-16 is cherry picking but those 3 years are pretty special -- they are the most recent 3!
With the sanctions in place 7+ percent inflation and oil prices looking to stay low for a long time, spending 5-6% on the military while the public can buy less every month for their salaries is only sustainable in one single way - make a story that the nation is in a conflict with an external enemy. That it's "us against them". It's simple nationalism and it has always worked. To support that story you cannot have an alternative narrative either so you must effectively control media and ensure there is no working opposition. This is exactly what the rest of the world believe has happened, which is why everyone is worried. It's becaus we fear that given enough time - the people of Ru wouldn't actually know they don't like Putin because there is no media that gives them any reason not to!
The point isn't that Putin is mismanaging the economy directly - it's that he is isolating Russia economically e.g by the Crimea story which will hurt the economy over time.
The same would happen in the US if Mr Trump was elected, but the difference there would be that media would eat him alive after that (e.g alienating Mexico or the entire Muslim world) and the opposition would win in a landslide come the next election.
> I think any person in the "west" would be delighted to see free elections in Russia. Why wouldn't we? Since it would be a missive influence on our lives, of course western media should care!
In practice, that's not true. Take Egypt as an example where the US government tried to keep Mubarak/Suleiman in place [1] until it was unfeasible during the Arab Spring. When it was time for elections, they pretended to be for them (And so did the western media and public) until the Muslim Brotherhood was elected. That was not well received because democracy is only good if people elect who we want them to elect.
The military coup [2] happened, probably with foreign intervention, and the US government couldn't be more pleased with it. Most of the western public either doesn't know, doesn't care or thinks it's better that way and the media will go along official US lines and not call them dictators like they don't call US aligned governments authoritarian or non-democratic. That's strictly reserved for our opponents.
> That was not well received because democracy is only good if people elect who we want them to elect.
Well, there is always the age-old question of whether democracy canbe abandoned with democratic means. (Note I don't know what the MB platform was in these elections, nor what the constiution looked like). Egypt has deep rooted issues with its military being entrenched in all parts of society and politics (A problem which in turn to a large part was created by western intervention /long time subsidies!). Reversing that will take a very long time, and there is always the risk that the people elect a populist government (be it religious populism or some other kind). There is little reason to believe the situation in Egypt will improve any quicker than it has in e.g. Burma. Which is to say, the west will try to meddle in semi-democratic elections for many decades yet.
When I say everyone in the west would be delighted to see free and fair elections in Russia it's because I believe that the Russian people are quite sensible and would elect a decent leadership if given the chance.
I did not say anything about my beliefs and it is not important WHY do they care about Russia. The only thing that is important, is the result - whether these critics are justified, whether they serve Russian interests or not. They do serve. If this was not someone's goal, shame on that guy, he failed. If it was, thanks to him, he did his job well.
> whether they serve Russian interests or not. They do serve.
You're assuming that free elections would benefit common Russians. They wouldn't. You're right about one thing, though: it wouldn't be Putin and his cronies siphoning all of Russia's wealth (resourceful citizens, natural resources, ...). It would be the western conglomerates.
The historical data does not support your theory. We all know that some of the countries now belonging to the "Western world", some time ago were neither democracies, nor successful free market economies. Now we all know about German, Korean and Japanese multinationals. Adopting the "Western" way does not mean surrendering and losing political and economical sovereignity. There were trade wars and political conflicts between Western powers, they all play their own games, they just have agreed on the way of conduct for them.
What makes you think that recent elections were not free? I am Russian and vast majority of people I know (like 90%) went to vote for Putin. I have one friend who was worried about elections not being free since he was voting for Prokhorov and really disliked Putin, so he signed up as an independent observer at one of the St.Petersburg voting booths, and he was shocked when he saw the amount of people that came to vote for Putin, he said it was like 9/10 people were voting for Putin after they counted vote papers, and he said there was no way to fake those votes at least at his booth.
For some reason individuals in Russia think that if the candidate they were voting for did not win the elections - it means the elections were not free and somehow fake, but you have to understand that there are a vast majority of people in Russia who thought that Putin is a better candidate compared to Prokhorov and others
For example, Moscow voted as two different cities:
https://github.com/alamar/elegraph/blob/master/moscow.png
Note the two obvious centers of blobs.
I'm yet to see any non-handwavy explanation of that phenomenon, and why it then disappeared for the next President elections.
Can you explain to me how this chart proves that "elections were DEFINITELY rigged"? I just don't understand what do you mean by "obvious centers of blobs" and how does it correlates with rigged elections?
Who cares if the elections are rigged in terms of vote counting, if oppositional politics or media is more or less non-existent? Without a healthy opposition and oppositional media elections aren't free, period.
You would imagine, if Moscow is a city comprised of similar election districts, that election results in that districts will form a continuity.
There would be a few outliers and a massive core of "typical" districts with similar results in them.
We're even bound to get Gauss distribution of results or something similar.
However, for Duma election, there's no continuity. There are two distinct profiles. There are a lot of districts with one kind of results, a lot of districts with different kind of results. As if it was two different cities, possibly in two different countries. Or if election results were rigged in a large subset of districts.
Moscow is a huge city (12 mln population). I don't think that different results in different parts of it give you any reason to call elections "DEFINITELY rigged", if you look at New York state (which has similar population size as Moscow) elections for 2012 [1], you will also see that each county has a pretty different kind of results, some counties were in full support of Obama, and some were in support of Romney, but that does not make it "definitely rigged" no?
Don't get me wrong - I definitely hope and wish you get them. I also hope and wish they won't be abused by the West. And I hope I'm wrong with my pessimism. But I fear I'm right...
As a regular reader of German news, this does not seem true to me. My impression is that the German media are more Russia-friendly than their British and American counterparts. After all, Russia and Germany could be natural allies from a geostrategic perspective.
British and American media are virulently anti-Russian so that doesn't mean much.
I did not know that Axel Springer actually has support for America, the EU and Israel literally written into its corporate constitution. That seems like a powerful source of bias for a media organisation.
Go on BILD, Die Welt and Der Spiegel and read articles in German. I'm semi-fluent in German (studied it for 5 years and lived there for a year) and from my experience everything I said is true. I've added some references.
The part about poor Russia being targeted by German media for no apparent reason. German media space has plenty of differing opinions in it altho I do understand that the vocal Russian minority in Germany would rather if any criticism of Russia stopped regardless of its veracity.
While you are being downvoted, I concur, of all the people mentioned in the Panama papers [1] Russians for one reason or another drew unproportionally much attention of the media. By looking at the source [0][2, for posterity] I can only infer that Putin is in the center of the web.
I don't know why you were downvoted, but I completely agree with you. It's great that the Panama Papers were leaked, but blaming it all on Putin seems very convenient.
Right, because at no time in its entire history has Russia actively supported organisations whose sole goal was "the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie and for the creation of an international Soviet republic as a transition stage to the complete abolition of the State."
However, curiously, at least over here (Finland), the old Communist sympathizers seem to still be friends of Russia. Or vice versa: if someone is uncritically repeating Russian propaganda (re Ukraine, Donbass etc) then if he's standing in the election he's most likely with one of fringe communist parties.
It somehow goes beyond just hating America and NATO which are good common enemies. It is weird of course, as some of these people are very wealthy and in a real communist revolution would clearly get a bullet in the back of the head.
Yeah, I've noticed that some Communist movements still seem to be fond of Russia, despite everything that made them like it being gone. It's certainly not something exclusive to Finland.
Hardly. Russia is a fascist dictatorship. Fascism is a version of Socialism. Which is why fascists such as Mussolini and Hitler were such huge fans of Socialism, universally hated Capitalism, and were early proponents of the global Socialist movement in the 20th century.
In Russia the State is nearly all powerful, and realistically directly controls the means of production by its whim. It can change ownership of or nationalize any means of production at will. The only way it could be more Socialist, is if they nationalized all food production and stopped pretending there is private ownership. The government of Russia already controls all aspects of the economy and all major businesses. Supposed private ownership without actual private control is a farce, they're Socialist in everything but pretending regarding who owns what.
I'd be a lot more sympathetic to the claims of anti-Russian "propaganda" if it weren't for, you know, the whole thing with illegally invading and annexing part of another country.
Why are you denying all those people in Crimea and Donbass (vast majority of whom are ethic Russians btw) the right of self-determination? Didn't they vote to leave Ukraine? Or do you think they should be a part of a 'nazified' Ukraine? [0]
US and Europe seems is extremely hypocritical. They deny self-determination to Russians, Serbs, Kurds etc yet they happily support it for their enemies.
