Skip to main content

Alexander Litvinenko RIP

In what may be the weirdest story of 2006, former KGB agent Alexander Litvenenko died from radiation poisoning. Apparently, Mr. Litvenenko consumed Polonium 210. I must confess that I had never heard of Polonium before, but you can't buy it in your local hardware store, unless your local hardware store happens to have a nuclear reactor, or your local school district has invested in a particle accelerator.

In a deathbed statement, he accused Prime Minister Putin of having him assasinated.

Apparently Mr. Litvenenko had recently dined at a popular Picadilly Circus sushi bar, and became ill soon after.

I've actually been more than willing to give Mr. Putin the benefit of the doubt. However, bit by bit the successful parts of the Russian economy have been expropriated by the central government, the press co-opted, and journalists eliminated. This is looking like a message from the old Soviet: get in our way and we'll take you out, even if you are in a free country, and we'll do it in a way that will be painful. Looks like the resumption of the Cold War.

Comments

Unknown said…
Really???

I'll do some google work and see what I find...

Popular posts from this blog

Stimulus Plan

Mr. President: The House stimulus bill is awful. Dangerous. Counter-productive. It has a very high probability of making things worse!. Your man Rahm Emanuel is supposed to be a tough guy: turn him loose on the House Dems - they are selling you down the river. Some simple tests: the spending will improve long-term productivity; the spending will reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and the spending will happen fast; very, very fast. There may need to be some legislation to enable spending without years of environmental review. For example, spending on wind farms would improve long-run productivity and reduce dependence on foreign oil. But let's say the wind farm is a couple of miles offshore. You can't have environmental groups stopping the development to see if some fish will be harmed. This spending has to happen now. And, no tax cuts with the possible exception of AMT. People aren't going to spend any tax savings; they are going to pay their credit card bills or r...

No Steve No

To:Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer: Please, please don't spend my money on Yahoo. Spend $4 billion per year for the next 10 years building something new and better. This has to now be an ego deal, not an economic deal. If you withdraw the bid, YHOO is a $15 stock. You are too smart for this. Many times the best deals are the ones you don't make. This is one of those times. Don't spend my money on this. Sincerely, gene

So Who Wins?

Every recession plants the seeds for economic advantage in the future recovery. In the very tough 1973-1974 recession, prices fell so low that it enabled the creation of the leveraged buyout industry. With many manufacturing companies in particular trading at 3-4 times cash flow, new market entrants like KKR, Forstmann Little and Dyson Kisner Moran came in and created gigantic wealth for themselves and early investors. In the 1991-1992 downturn, engendered in part by the massive office space overbuilding funded by Savings and Loans (Resolution Trust Co, anyone?) made it possible for telcom and internet start-ups in Austin, San Jose, Northern VA, Boston's Route 128, Dallas, etc. to rent offices at a fraction of the cost had those communities not been overbuilt. And the 2001-02 downturn gave us cheap fiber and bandwidth, and bargain-priced software to feed productivity gains in corporations everywhere. So, where is the upside? At this moment, all that I can project with some confid...