rossiya2

And the new improved PATRIOT ACT II where Ms. Fourth Amendment is sodomized and left for dead by dirty old men.

I said 3 years ago that Bush Jr. changed when he met Putin. He realized it was simple to herd a semi-democracy into autocracy. After all Putin successfully stemmed the tide of democracy merely by restoring order. All Bush Jr. needed was an event to package. The CIA trained Osama filled the vacuum with boxcutter technology. Now the fair leader can detain and arrest a person for 15 days without a warrant or strip their citizenship for "unknowingly" being connected with a terrorist group. What is this connection? Perhaps breathing the same air? And the detentions have grossly exceeded 15 days in practice already.

The vice president was actually involved in offshore company formation in his career. However these are not the players who are targeted. Bush probably realized he doesn't need to give a fuck about the economy as long as the corporate leaders promise their allegiance onto him. The perception and ensuing reality is that people will not matter in the new economy. Corporations are the basic unit of the economy. Hunger, working 16 hours daily for $5.50, joblessness or rotting in prison without charges will be irrelevant. It is microeconomics. In fact this is exactly the structure the "Harvard economists" spammed to the Yeltsin administration all through the 90s using taxpayer $.

The American model was wealth by production. In Russia wealth is usually obtained by seizure. Bush Jr.'s choice is clear to me. But it will take decades to complete his goals, and I wonder if his rapidly aging supporters will last the course. His troupe may shrivel into a band of grumpy octagenerians while the younger set decides there's more to life than trusting trusts.