RUSSIA HAS LONG HISTORY OF IRRATIONAL GOVERNMENT.Byline: Rob Morse GOING to Russia is just the ticket to improve Bill Clinton's morale. The best healing process for low self-esteem is to look good in comparison to someone else. Why not go see Boris Yeltsin “Yeltsin” redirects here. For other uses, see Yeltsin (disambiguation). Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin (IPA: [bʌˈrʲis nʲikoˈlajevɨtɕ ˈjelʲtsɨn] , knock back shots of Stoli, do the twist with some Kremlin interns, and enjoy the company of a world leader who has more trouble than you do? That is, if Yeltsin is still there, and hasn't been sent to some 12-step gulag by Boris Berezovsky This article is about the Russian businessman. For the Russian pianist, see Boris Berezovsky (pianist). Boris Abramovich Berezovsky (Russian: Бори́с Абра́мович , the billionaire former used car dealer who has emerged as the power behind the throne The phrase power behind the throne refers to a person or group that informally exercises the real power of an office. In politics, it most commonly refers to a spouse, aide, or advisor of a political leader (often called a "figurehead") who serves as de facto . Berezovsky is the guy who traded in the last prime minister, Sergei Kiriyenko, for Viktor Chernomyrdin Viktor Stepanovich Chernomyrdin (Russian: Ви́ктор Степа́нович Черномы́рдин , who already had a lot of hard miles on him as a pre-owned prime minister. And Yeltsin bought the used prime minister. Yes, Russia is secretly run by a used car dealer. Clinton should feel right at home. Poor Clinton can't win for winning. During the Cuban missile crisis Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962, major cold war confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. After the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the USSR increased its support of Fidel Castro's Cuban regime, and in the summer of 1962, Nikita Khrushchev secretly decided to , his hero, John F. Kennedy "John Kennedy" and "JFK" redirect here. For other uses, see John Kennedy (disambiguation) and JFK (disambiguation). John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917–November 22, 1963), was the thirty-fifth President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in , faced down Soviet missiles to save American civilization. Clinton gets to face down the ruble to save our 401(k)s. At least now we know what the K in 401(k) stands for: Kremlin. This is Clinton's chance to go eyeball-to-eyeball with Yeltsin and see who is more bloodshot blood·shot adj. Red and inflamed as a result of locally congested blood vessels, as of the eyes. bloodshot Vox populi adjective . Show me more market reform, Boris, and I'll tell you what went on in the Oval Office. On Thursday, the Dow plummeted 357 points, and the ruble fell so far that now anyone in Russia who has a ruble owes the government money. As 30-year-old Moscow schoolteacher Tatyana Atamas told a reporter: ``In my circle there's no panic because there's no money.'' Do we care? You bet we do. We have money. Well, we have it on paper, somewhere in the stock market listings. We'd like to be able to retire. The Russians are used to being poor. We can't cut it living on nothing. Only the homeless will be able to survive. When I was in Moscow 11 years ago near the end of the Soviet era, nobody used rubles. The authorities tried to make us buy a bunch so we'd be stuck with them, but we knew enough to buy things with the strong American currency of dollars and rock 'n' roll rock 'n' roll: see rock music. T-shirts. Unfortunately, there wasn't anything to buy in grocery stores but three kinds of canned fish from Cuba. Fortunately, there was plenty of vodka available, and vodka is the perfect wine to go with mackerel mackerel, common name for members of the family Scombridae, 60 species of open-sea fishes, including the albacore, bonito, and tuna. They are characterized by deeply forked tails that narrow greatly where they join the body; small finlets behind both the dorsal and . Somehow Muscovites Muscovites may refer to:
I went into a jewelry store and watched young women ogling pictures of jewelry in display cases where real jewelry ought to be. Now Russians have stuff to buy, but nobody is paying their salaries. Think about this, Bill, while you're looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. that McDonald's in Red Square. For years, we lived in fear of the Kremlin's powerful missiles, submarines and tanks. Now they're going to wreck us with their lousy ruble. Whose idea was this to give the Russians a stock market? It was like giving them a nuclear device with a built-in chain reaction to Wall Street. As a friend of mine said, ``The best thing about the Cold War was that the guys in the Kremlin were mismanaging everything using their irrational system instead of our irrational system.'' This is Russia. Throughout history its governments have been excellent at the irrational. Nikolai Gogol said it best in his 1836 play ``The Inspector General,'' as nightmarishly bumbling small-town officials prepared for the arrival of a grand government dignitary: ``The more destruction there is everywhere, the more it shows the activity of town authorities.'' Communism fell, and with our help Russia got capitalism. It turns out to be gangster capitalism, exactly as portrayed in old Communist propaganda. ButRussians like things American, such as Playboy, bluejeans and, of course, dollars. They bought a lemon of a used prime minister from a used car dealer. They'll buy whatever Clinton is selling and gladly pay for it with rubles. |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion