Louis,
Your question is solid. How much is this boom is due to high oil prices?
Some estimates suggest as much as half to 2/3rds Yet, I really think it
hard to dismiss the role of the ruble's devaluation in creating this new
growth. It created the first investment in Russian industry since the USSR
as its products again became price competitive. It also contributed to the
first growth from below I observed in Latvia, where I have lived on and off
since 1995. In many ZNet articles I too described the hagiographic accounts
of the former Soviet bloc's "rise" in the 1990s as horseshit, but what's
happening now in Russia and the Baltics looks different, and again, the data
I have seen in Latvia shows much growth coming from consumer demand.
That said, the Baltics are very dependent on FDI from Scandinavia and
offshore money racing through from Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine. If that
dried up the Baltic economies would crash....
Jeff
on 3/9/04 17:48, Louis Proyect at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Chris Doss wrote:
>> How do you fix that damn line thing anyway?
>
> Tell me what mail client you are using (Eudora, MS Outlook, or whatever)
> and I'll tell you.
>
>> I write: Well, there were "trebuyetsya srochno prodavets" ("we're hiring
>> vendors urgently") signs in all the shop windows I passed on my way to work
>> this morning. The Russian economy has been taking off now for the past
>> several years. I think the Western Left missed this little fact almost
>> deliberatelty because it didn't fit the metanarrative they had constructed
>> for Russia.
>
> But we heard the same thing about Poland, Hungary and other Eastern
> European nations as well. Anecdotal evidence is less interesting to me
> than broader questions of the nature of the growth. For example, Saudi
> Arabia had rapid growth throughout the 1970s, but once you build an
> economy that revolves around oil exports your run into the same
> difficulties of any other commodity-exporting nation, including those
> who export coffee, the second most valuable import into the USA in terms
> of asset value. You are subject to crises of overproduction.
>
> The New York Times
> January 11, 2004, Sunday, Late Edition - Final
>
> In Post-U.S.S.R. Russia, Any Job Is a Good Job
>
> By TIMOTHY L. O'BRIEN
>
> DATELINE: KIROVSK, Russia
>
> Despite needle-prick winds, numbing cold and winter days that crawl into
> constant darkness, miners seldom stop hollowing out the hills
> surrounding this Arctic town.
>
> Few of the workers, it seems, want to stay. But even fewer have better
> options. In a country where a quarter of the population lives in poverty
> and the average wage is $190 a month, a steady job is a good job.
>
> The lodestar in town is Apatit, a fertilizer factory that used prison
> labor and reindeer to haul minerals when the Soviets opened its doors
> more than 70 years ago and that went into private hands in questionable
> circumstances in 1994.
>
> Apatit is now Exhibit A in the state's criminal fraud case against the
> tycoon Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky; more broadly it is a test of the
> post-Soviet society's tumultuous encounter with capitalism.
>
> Apatit's managers note that the company employees 14,000 people, but as
> three Apatit machinists tipped back vodkas at a grocery store one recent
> evening, they complained that their circumstances had diminished under
> capitalism.
>
> "Life was better under the Communists," said Aleksandr, 49, who said he
> has worked here since he was 19; like the others, he asked that his last
> name not be used for fear of reprisal from the company. "The stores are
> full of things," he recalled, "but they're very expensive, and labor
> isn't worth a thing."
>
> Victor, on the other hand, said the main problem was the long-gone
> stability of an earlier era of affordable health care, free higher
> education and housing, and the promise of a comfortable retirement --
> things now beyond his reach.
>
> Most of all, he wants his children to live elsewhere but even that dream
> is faint. "I don't really believe that's possible." Victor said.
>
> "You want them to leave?" asked Aleksandr.
>
> "Yes, to leave here is freedom."
>
> Managers in their modest executive offices enthusiastically defend Mr.
> Khodorkovsky's stewardship, arguing that the operation was on the brink
> of collapse when he took over. "Privatization was new to all of us,"
> said Vadim Svinin, Apatit's technical director. He said the managers had
> to succeed "because if we don't the towns that depend on us will die."
>
> Yet prosecutors accuse the jailed tycoon of rigging an auction to gain
> control of Apatit a decade ago, then failing to pay the bid of $283 million.
>
> Mr. Svinin, a former miner who has an easygoing mastery of Apatit's
> business and a devotion to his work, contends that Mr. Khodorkovsky has
> invested more money in Apatit than the $283 million originally required.
> He said the company spent more than $100 million on new equipment in the
> last two years, plans to invest $75 million this year and projects
> capital outlays of more than $1 billion by 2020. If true, Apatit would
> spend a significant portion of its funds upgrading operations.
>
> In 2002, Apatit had revenue of about $529 million and net profits of
> about $33 million, according to the company that manages Apatit's
> accounts. It paid scant taxes that year: about $4 million.
>
> Mr. Svinin said that this year the company would produce almost 9
> million tons of fertilizer concentrate, up from 6 million tons a decade
> ago, though well below the peak of 20 million tons a year reached in
> 1989 when the state held control.
>
> Sprawling across 35,000 acres peppered with 120-ton dump trucks,
> football-field-size factories, and miles of mine shafts, Apatit dates
> largely from the Soviet period. The company said that most new
> investment has gone into trucks, mining equipment, and other small-bore
> improvements.
>
> Critics accuse corporate titans like Mr. Khodorkovsky of amassing
> fortunes from company coffers while leaving average Russians struggling,
> but Mr. Svinin said that Apatit's workers have been treated well. "You
> don't think our state is so foolish as to allow people to extract huge
> profits and leave people without food?" he asks. That darker opinion is
> held by many in Kirovsk, and across Russia -- a view that has fueled
> broad support for president Vladimir V. Putin's crackdown on the
> business elite.
>
> Workers say their wages have not kept pace with increases in the cost of
> living and that, despite Kirovsk's Alpine beauty and its friendly
> residents, young people want to flee.
>
> "It's like this all over Russia. said Andrei Yamashev, a 31-year-old
> driver who failed to find work in St. Petersburg before returning to
> Kirovsk. "I'm really sad about this."
>
>
> --
>
> The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
