My understanding is what is being considered it deliberate temporary inflation to clear past debts and get currency circulating again, albeit it at a lower value. I do not accept neo-liberal propaganda that any inflation is automatically hyper-inflation.
Certainly none of this is about any easy solutions. There has got to be a lot of pain, but there is a lot of pain now. What is ridiculous is if the Russian people cannot even trade internally for lack of money. If they get this sorted out, they clearly must be able to control capital transfers in and out of the country much more effectively. That might be a currency board.
I am aware that the regime has made conciliatory gestures towards the group of 7, which is meeting tomorrow eventually to discuss the Russian crisis, but as the Group of 7 did not know what to do, it is best anyway for Russia to decide itself. I suggest the test will be whether the new regime operates in the interests of 90% of the population including democratic capitalists, willing to have their activities controlled and integrated into a collective framework of social regulation.
This might not look much better for some time than a sort of christian democracy, but that could be a stepping stone to more socialist options, and certainly better than rampant neo-liberalism or fascism, or both.
Chris Burford
London.