Vladimir Putin’s government has launched an aggressive campaign to nationalize the assets of Konstantin Strukov, one of Russia’s richest men and the owner of the country’s largest gold mining company. The move marks a sharp escalation in the Kremlin’s efforts to extract wealth from within its own elite as the financial toll of the war in Ukraine deepens.
Strukov, whose fortune is estimated at over $3.5 billion, is the founder of Yuzhuralzoloto—a gold empire built over decades with strong ties to the Kremlin. But on July 5, his private jet was grounded by Russian authorities as it prepared to leave for Turkey. His passport was reportedly seized, and the aircraft barred from departing.
Just like Ancient Rome. The dictator needs cash so he murders the rich people who aren’t his friends and takes their money
So when do the oligarchs learn? How much longer do they accept the status quo?
Strukov’s company has denied the incident entirely, stating that he was in Moscow on the day in question and calling the reports “disinformation.” But court documents confirm that a judge had already banned him and his family from leaving the country, and government agencies moved quickly to enforce it.
I will now recommend the Sad Oligarch podcast. Short series on the mysterious deaths of Russian oligarchs in the last few years.
defenestration podcast.
That’s the scientific name, yes.
A friend of a friend is the daughter of a Russian oligarch. It was a messy situation in which she was at risk of being drawn into the politics, even though her dad was an asshole who she would’ve been glad to see defenestrated. I only know the surface level info, but it sounds like a fucked up situation in many ways
Hadn’t considered people born into the crosshairs like that. Cheers.
He’ll soon be struck off.
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The billionaires?
Soon these oligarchs won’t even own a window to jump out of
Tea is cheap.
The government will provide one, they are generous like that.
Our window.
that cunt Zuckerberg should pay attention.
Your comment will probably get removed. So for this sweet moment. I agree.
It’s not a threat to someone’s health or life. Simply pointing out that he’s a fool to think that similar groups wouldn’t turn on him if they wanted to. All gung ho to try and join them. I think the comment is safe.
The reddit still echo’s in my head. Although not totally safe here, the past trauma is real.
hes an android, so he is incapable of fear or disgust. also FACEBOOK still promotes right wing/russian propaganda, so hes on good terms with trump.
And let this be a lesson to US Billionaires.
If most of them are as smart and lucid as Musk, they won’t learn anything.
US billionaires think they can control Trump, and that’s very likely true. The worst is yet to come for these rich guys when someone who can truly reverse the power dynamics and thus rule them with an iron fist, as well as the common people, takes the throne.
Trump cannot be controlled, everything is purely transactional with him. The moment he gains more from taking businesses by force, thats what he will do.
Trust and deals have no meaning to him. This is a theif without honor.
He can be controlled for as long as you have access. He bends to the will of the nearest person like a weed blowing in the wind.
We should treat him like the threat that he is,an absolute unchecked tyrant.
It’s giving Elon-Trump vibes
This is a pretty good example of why I say even millinoaires and billionaires should support a functional democractic society with taxation and regulation and social safety nets. Its the old penny wise and pound foolish. Getting a sliver more and a sliver more and then you lose it all because the rule of law was thrown out long ago. It won’t necessarily take that long to. At a certain point it could happen at any time. Maybe it will. Maybe it won’t.
This all depends on the people born into wealth being reasonable people.
Most are unhinged psychopaths or nepo babies with too much ego.
Which is why wealth needs to be forcefully redistributed, they won’t do it voluntarily.
Wealth is actually being redistributed quite a bit in Russia right now. The oligarchs are paying for the war and “the people” are getting much higher wages either in the military or because of labor shortages.
It’s not great, what with all the death and destruction. But Russians gini coefficient is going down fast.
Hamilton Nolan has made a similar argument
Smaller scale millionaires perhaps. Once they go multinational, it becomes very difficult to significantly harm them even if one country decides to dispossess their business. This has already happened to large corporations that exist today through nationalization at various places and points in time. E.g. Shell after Venezuelan oil nationalization.
Not if its the home nation. Shell was a us company in venezuela but if the same thing happened in the US the owners would be lucky to get out of the country with what they could carry and if they worked fast enough maybe they could have a small fraction of what they used to.
Yes, of course.
A billionaire cannot exist in 2 countries at the same time. It doesn’t matter if his company is multinational, he isn’t.
If you jail that billionaire, which is not hard as a state if said billionaire resides in your country, you can “convince” him to give even assets in foreign countries.
That’s why they removed his passport.
Right but how do you make most countries want to arrest them? We currently don’t have a setup allowing for this if no international criminal offenses are involved. It only happens if the billionaire resides mostly in an “authoritarian” country where they could get “arbitrarily” arrested. The rest of the world isn’t currently setup to do this. I’m not saying it can’t be setup or shouldn’t be setup like that.
The comment you replied to originally was talking about why billionaires should support a democratic society.
If the society is not democratic, it would be authoritarian. Therefore what I explained could happen.
Yes. Of course what you said could happen. My point is that in the current status quo there’s still plenty of non-authoritarian countries and billionaires are still operating on easy-to-jump-ship basis when they destroy one democracy or another for increased profit. So I think that’s why this cost isn’t factored in. Competition for increased profits dominates. If we’re left with only a few democracies that tolerate billionaires, then that calculus could change. It’s similar to capitalism’s treatment of any finite resource - plunder that bitch till there’s nothing left, then deal with the consequences. If we don’t, the other guy would do it and we’d lose on the profit, and the other guy gains power over us given by the newly acquired capital.
That requires rule of law to actually work. Putin is well known to murder problematic oligarchs. Combined with some proper blackmail, that tends to work very well.
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A functional society doesn’t need money.
Money implies poverty.
Rich people live under the fear of losing it all. As sharing is synonymous with losing to them, no one wants it and everyone is caught in this loop.
I’m becoming convinced it’s an actual mental disease, or at least grossly maladaptive
It’s a mental disease in the same sense as drapetomania used to be
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drapetomania
Drapetomania was a proposed mental illness that […] hypothesized as the cause of enslaved Americans fleeing captivity.
I could make some guesses, but I’m not sure what you meant by this. What did you mean?
Some adaptation pretty human mechanism which looks unnatural because it’s not us who experience it although given the same circumstances we would do the same
I see right, yeah, it’s the conditions social and material that give rise to the “disorder” whereas if we fix the conditions, it just evaporates. Like abolishing slavery or private property.
Exactly like that 💯
Or you end being shoot on the street and the entire world celebrates it.
That was a fun day
If you nationalize your industry, you should be doing it to reform and re-gear it to support your country.
Clearly, Putin here is not interested in making it good for the country, but that his petty war has him cash-strapped and needs to forcibly ‘borrow’ his billionaire friends’ assets.
That’s what you get for siding with fascists. People will never learn.
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Let’s make a bingo card out of it. What are our options?
The Putin giveth and the Putin taketh away.
Minus the giveth part.
Conversely, if Putin falls out a window, maybe they can keep their business.
Please. There are hundreds ready to take Putins place. Some politically, but hundreds behind the scenes who also have finger puppets ready for ”power” who can step in for both Medvedev and Putin. The rest of the dog kennel (like Lavrov) will keep barking for their masters sake.
Please. There are hundreds ready to take Putins place. Some politically, but hundreds behind the scenes who also have finger puppets ready for ”power” who can step in for both Medvedev and Putin. The rest of the dog kennel (like Lavrov) will keep barking for their masters sake.
It sure sounds like you’re advocating staying meek and submissive in the face of Tyranny.
I guess you didn’t really read. Just pointing out that you need to do more than kill the puppetmaster to replace all those who he either trained or who learned how to thrive in his absence.
I guess you didn’t really read. Just pointing out that you need to do more than kill the puppetmaster to replace all those who he either trained or who learned how to thrive in his absence.
I guess you didn’t really understand my comment.
You’d have to be a complete knuckehead to think that the point of killing a Tyrant is to have one of their trainees take over.
Maybe I should clarify: Oh you spring child who knows nothing of the year, how it turns and how winter turns planted hopes into frozen fears.
Pre-edit: You’re right. Which is why Putin’s death won’t bring much boon. Staying silent, quiet or passive won’t bring much in opposition to the face of tyranny either. But eliminating the current tyranny will be more difficult than what the people tried to accomplish over a hundred years ago, as the dissemination of power is different nowadays. Before, one used to think that cutting the head of a hydra might be difficult, but possible in the long run. Today, well…
You’re right. Which is why Putin’s death won’t bring much boon. Staying silent, quiet or passive won’t bring much in opposition to the face of tyranny either. But eliminating the current tyranny will be more difficult than what the people tried to accomplish over a hundred years ago, as the dissemination of power is different nowadays. Before, one used to think that cutting the head of a hydra might be difficult, but possible in the long run. Today, well…
The more you talk, the more you sound like you’re following marching orders:
Drive home the point that resistance is futile.
Let them fight lol, also medvedev has zero chances of becoming anything but bootlicker for his new master.
They’re scared they’ll go down with him. But they’ll finally have to accept the fact that they’re fucked either way. At this point, getting rid of him is their best chance.
They’re scared they’ll go down with him. But they’ll finally have to accept the fact that they’re fucked either way. At this point, getting rid of him is their best chance.
Yup. They’re at the point where the consequences of obedience are as bad as defiance.
Best have him fall out a window and see if prospects change.
putin is paranoid enough not to go any windows, he often only ventures from his PALACES under fsb protection to a room where he has 20m table away from his inner circle.
Must be nice for him to have absolute guaranteed loyalty from every human that he’s required to interact with on a daily basis.
His guilded prison.
