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Russia
Oct 29, 2013 3:35:06 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Oct 29, 2013 3:35:06 GMT -5
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Deleted
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Russia
Oct 29, 2013 4:42:02 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Oct 29, 2013 4:42:02 GMT -5
Alexander Herzen, leading light of the Russian intelligentsia in the 1840s, lived in exile in London during the 1850s and early 1860s. There, he opened the first uncensored press in the Russian language, including two journals, The Polar Star and The Bell. Gathering news from informants in Russia, he published what could not be printed under conditions of tight censorship. In reward for this vital service, he was attacked from all sides.
Herzen also named writers who, far from defending their colleagues, "did not even remain silent," but publicly expressed their support for state repression. Among his most painful passages are the ones in which he names former friends who urged him to stop publishing names and to silence The Bell altogether.
(We must be obliged to Miss Frede must we not for that contribution about an aspect of the human condition well expressed in the following: "Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me." Or if you prefer how about Brutus?)
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Russia
Oct 30, 2013 19:50:52 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Oct 30, 2013 19:50:52 GMT -5
A correspondent who desires for the time being to remain anonymous has written-in to jog our memory as follows: ... Mikhail Khodorkovsky was the owner of Bank Menatep - a St Petersburg-based bank with branches all over Russia. One day in 1998, Bank Menatep surprisingly closed its doors, and said it couldn't honour its commitments to savers. It's estimated that the bank's owners defrauded savers - primarily small savers, small businesses, and pensioners - of around $8 million dollars. Strangely enough, that was exactly the amount of money needed to purchase his holding in the Yukos Gas company a few years later. Mr Khodorkovsky never disclosed where he'd got the money from. And he or she concludes with the pungent line: I hope they throw the key away. Our correspondent's story of the bank's closing its doors reminds me of the Pyramid Building Society in the Antipodes, which did exactly the same. In that case the government had a fortnight earlier told depositors "No worries, we guarantee all deposits." But after the collapse the government changed its tune. (About seven years later some of the depositors got a percentage back, but even that came only after many marches and much disorder in the streets.) So here is some advice for our younger inexperienced readers: watch out for managers, directors, whatever, who talk about "sport," and whenever you see such stay well clear! In business - and indeed everywhere - the invocation of "sport" is the final refuge of the scoundrel. Bankers' code: if a bank appears to be attempting to tell you something about "footleball" it is already in the process of going under; get out while you can.
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Russia
Oct 31, 2013 2:24:59 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2013 2:24:59 GMT -5
It is true that bankers and businessmen in general like to talk about sport, far more, for example, than the arts. I am far more likely to be asked about Chelsea's performance against Arsenal, for example, than the latest opera to hit Covent Garden.
Businessmen tend to be very competitive, and there is a natural parallel between the competition in sport and the competition in business. Some people argue that all successful businessmen tend to be crooks. How else could they accumulate such vast wealth so quickly?
I suppose that it is the old Eleventh Commandment, Sydney! Don't get caught!
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