[OPE-L:8529] Russian Billionaires

From: gerald_a_levy (gerald_a_levy@msn.com)
Date: Sat Mar 01 2003 - 07:15:23 EST


The annual list of billionaires has been printed by 
_Forbes_ magazine (for full story, see www.forbes.com ).  
Particularly noteworthy is the list of billionaires from Russia.  
There are now  -17-  billionaires in Russia -- up from -0- 
in the year 2000.  The _Forbes_ article claims that Russia may 
have the "highest billionaire-to-GDP ratio"  in the world and 
in absolute terms only the US, Japan, and Germany have more 
billionaires. Most of Russia's billionaires made their fortunes in the 
oil industry.  

Fully story at  http://www.forbes.com/global/2003/0317/074.html

Neoliberal advocates of privatization must be heartened by this 
news: surely, they must see the potential wealth that can be
redistributed globally by following "Russian model" for the
oil industry, i.e. by privatizing the domestic oil industries of 
nations.  One might ask, also, what role the domestic oil 
industry has for Russian foreign policy in relation to Iraq.

In solidarity, Jerry


This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sun Mar 02 2003 - 00:00:00 EST