As regular readers know, Le Proprietaire was doing business in Russia, mostly in Moscow and St. Pete, in the 1990's as part of the overall international business portfolio during his past corporate life.
It was an exciting and somewhat nerve-wracking experience, but one that vividly drove home certain lessons about government, currency, and the resilience of the human spirit that have served well in the following decade. Moscow Memories of 1997
I have to admit I was not aware of this series about Russia by the Wall Street Journal, given a long term preference for The Economist and The Financial Times. Thanks to Zero Hedge for bringing this story about it from The Nation (which I would have never read, being a long time conservative) about the Journal and Steve Liesman to light.
As someone involved there I can say that anyone who did not perceive the growing crisis was living in a bubble, or carrying some particularly optimistic slant in their outlook.
The decline of the Russian economy was oppressive, palpable, almost on everyone's mind. Hard to miss, even at the occasional showy party in English thrown by western corporations for an audience largely made up of ex-pats. The move out of the rouble into just about anything else with substance was becomng a groundswell, later to become unstoppable default. Any presentation about a Russian venture in the 1990's had better contain some plans regarding currency risk.
But why bring this up now? Le Cafe has no particular squabble with the Liesman, and since we do not watch CNBC anymore, are largely immune to whatever it is he says that does not appear in a youtube excerpt, generally involving his getting owned by Rick Santelli.
We bring it up because this article below exposes the typical modus operandi of the Western press, now and over the past twenty years. Carry a party line until the situation explodes, cover it up and distract the public with phony debates and verbal circuses, and then back to give breaking coverage of Armageddon, with a twist of shared guilt. No one is to blame.
Can you remember the coverage of the tech bubble of 2000 by the media? Giddy excitement as the numbers climbed higher, with reassurance as they turned down that this was just a temporary setback.
And I will never forget, as the stocks collapsed and people were wiped out, the CNBC regular arrogantly saying "Well, no one FORCED them to buy those stocks."
Keep this in mind, because we are nearing that point again, with the western media reassuring its public that all is well, while the insiders sell, and the grifters and grafters are draining the nation of its wealth, while the propaganda puppets mouth the slogans of the day. And after it blows up, they will shift gears without an afterthought, keeping the public mind moving on, trusting to the collective amnesia of a distracted populace.
As they said on Bloomberg this morning regarding the crisis just passed, 'We are all to blame; the regulators, the government, the rating agencies, the banks, and the public who was apathetic, who failed to act."
And then they moved on to let us know that Ashley Dupre will be providing a weekly advice column in the NY Post. Romance with a financial twist?
The difference here, at least it seems to me, is that the American public is still a believer in what the government says. The Russian people, at least by that time, did not. So perhaps there are a few more good years left.
The Nation
The Journal's Russia Scandal
By Matt Taibbi & Mark Ames
October 4, 1999
Just before Christmas in 1997, as a tumultuous stock-market
crisis ravaged emerging markets in every corner of the globe, readers of the
Wall Street Journal were treated to some good news: Russia was going to emerge
from the mess unscathed. While conceding that "few debt markets outside
Southeast Asia were hit harder by recent financial turmoil than Russia's," the
Journal's Moscow bureau chief, Steve Liesman, added quickly that "many analysts
believe an equally strong rebound may be in the offing." Moreover, Liesman
wrote, investors were rapidly coming to the realization that "Russia's problems
are far different and, for the moment, less dire than those that undermined
Asian economies." The December 16 piece was headlined, "Russian Debt Markets Due
for Rebound."
A few weeks later, Liesman and the Journal used even
stronger language to trumpet Russia's economic merits. They chided investors who
were too busy "fretting over Asia's financial crisis" to notice what they called
"one of the decade's major economic events: the end of Russia's seven-year
recession."
The Journal's prediction was more than a little precipitate.
Instead of getting better, things in Russia got worse. A lot worse. Nine months
after Liesman declared that Russia's debt market was due for a rebound, and just
over seven months after proclaiming the end of the Russian recession, the
Journal--like most US newspapers--found itself having to explain the near-total
collapse of Russia's economy and capital markets...
Read the rest here: The Journal's Russia Scandal - Matt Taibbi, The Nation 1999
