At the very beginning of his press-conference, Putin assured his listeners that the current crisis in the Russian economy is temporary because the world economy will grow. If the world economy grows, there will be a growing need for Russian oil. Russia will come out of its current crisis in two years at most. [Putin seems to believe that the US fracking gains will be exhausted sooner than everybody predicts, which is 2020, according to everybody but Putin.]
In case there is anybody who still doesn’t know it, Putin is a hard-core Milton-Friedmanist. The main idea he expressed today (and has been expressing for the past 15 years) is that the market will correct all imbalances and regulate itself. His message at the press-conference was “keep spending, stop saving because spending is good for the economy.”
The so-called Russian journalists were stellar as always. “Now that we have seen you smile a few times, Mr. President, we all feel much better,” one of them said sycophantically.
The same journalist asked if Russia was ever going to “kick the oil habit” and Putin responded that the Russian government can’t do anything about it because that’s what the world economy is like. And then he was back to his favorite idea that markets will regulate themselves. Market forces, tax holidays, private property, business, investment, and anyway the markets need to be free to regulate themselves.
The Berlin Wall never really fell, Putin said. Americans decided after 1989 that they were a new empire, the winners, and they started to rebuild a virtual Berlin Wall. Instead, Putin said, Americans should have worked to advance a system of economic freedom. [Because markets regulate themselves, in case you have forgotten.]
[To be continued. . .]
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