Speaking of Pirates -- What's Up In Russia?

The stories on the front page of The New York Times today and yesterday about the Russians putting oil billionaire and YUKOS boss Mikhail Khodorkovsky in jail and ultimately on trial, look like strange anecdotes that won't have much to do with our lives -- WRONG.

The Piratization of Russia: Russian Reform Goes Awry by Marshall Goldman is a must read. Economics Professor Marshall Goldman at Wellesley spoke earlier this year on CSPAN about his new book, and I found his presentation absolutely riveting. If you thought the Enron boys were a bunch of crooks, you won't believe what's going on in Russia. Take a peek at this synopsis of the book from Amazon.

In 1991, a small group of Russians emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union claiming ownership some of the most valuable petroleum, natural gas and metal deposits in the world. By 1997, five of those individuals were on Forbes Magazine's list of the world's richest billionaires. These self-styled oligarchs were accused of using guile, intimidation, and occasionally violence to reap these rewards. This revelatory work examines the structure of the Russian economy and considers why it collapsed in 1998 and why it began its recovery in 1999. It also provides a close examination of the Russian oil industry and the oligarchs who control it and who have now decided to go "legitimate".

It's hard to imagine a few nobodies, or should I say, thugs, going from rags to the Forbes 400 list in six years. I expect we'll be hearing a lot more about this.