Bizarro World: Putin Lectures US On Free Markets

I stole the Superman reference from Justin Raimondo at AntiWar.com. He has written a piece describing Vladimir Putin's speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland as our entrance into the Bizarro World. After all, who would have thought the Russians would be lecturing the United States on free markets? I would absolutely recommend reading this article

A few of my more favorite Putin quotes from the speach (all used by Raimondo in his piece):

I just want to remind you that, just a year ago, American delegates speaking from this rostrum emphasized the U.S. economy's fundamental stability and its cloudless prospects. Today, investment banks, the pride of Wall Street, have virtually ceased to exist. In just 12 months, they have posted losses exceeding the profits they made in the last 25 years. This example alone reflects the real situation better than any criticism.

. . .

The entire economic growth system, where one regional center prints money without respite and consumes material wealth, while another regional center manufactures inexpensive goods and saves money printed by other governments, has suffered a major setback.

. . .

This means we must assess the real situation and write off all hopeless debts and 'bad' assets. True, this will be an extremely painful and unpleasant process. Far from everyone can accept such measures, fearing for their capitalization, bonuses, or reputation. However, we would 'conserve' and prolong the crisis, unless we clean up our balance sheets.

. . .

In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state's role absolute. In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated.

. . .

Nor should we turn a blind eye to the fact that the spirit of free enterprise, including the principle of personal responsibility of businesspeople, investors, and shareholders for their decisions, is being eroded in the last few months. There is no reason to believe that we can achieve better results by shifting responsibility onto the state

. . .

Unfortunately, we are increasingly hearing the argument that the buildup of military spending could solve today's social and economic problems. The logic is simple enough. Additional military allocations create new jobs.

At a glance, this sounds like a good way of fighting the crisis and unemployment. This policy might even be quite effective in the short term. But in the longer run, militarization won't solve the problem but will rather quell it temporarily. What it will do is squeeze huge financial and other resources from the economy instead of finding better and wiser uses for them.