--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> Because China's growing like crazy, and has been for
> 20 years; wages
> are low but workers are productive; and the
> infrastructure is good (I
> hear India's jealous).
Russia's been growing like mad since 1998; wages are low (higher than in China though). It's true though that productivity is low. I imagine corruption is a factor.
>
> What's Russia got besides oil, rocks, and trees?
>
If by "rocks" you mean diamonds and natural gas -- ALROSA is the second-largest diamond company in the world, Norilsk Nickel is the largest palladium-metals company in the world (if I remember aright), this new Gazprom-Yukos thing is the world's largest energy company...
And don't forget the weapons!
They're building a huge techopark in Dubna, near Moscow, which was a closed scientific city in Soviet times. Be interesting to see what happens to it.
Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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