--- Dennis Redmond <dredmond at efn.org> wrote:
>
> Clone Finland's industrial policies. Reason: it was
> a northern
> resource-based economy, which no mainstream
> economist ever thought would
> amount to anything. But Finland upscaled from
> forestry into cellphones and
> the rest is euro-history. Russia could do the same.
>
Finland used to be part of Russia.
Actually Russia has clocked growth rates between 5-8% each year since 1998. Things are so much better than they were during the 1990s it's unbelievable. Thank you Vladimir Putin and high oil prices. (As an aside, I note that despite the Chinese economic boom and the Russian economic collapse of the 1990s, living standards in Russia are still markedly higher than in the PRC.)
I interviewed the CEO of Beiersdorf Russia (a really nice guy) in 2001 and he said that from the point of view of his company Russia's sheer size was a problem. To ship skin cream via truck between Moscow and Novosibirsk is a much more daunting task than between Berlin and Rome.
This place is so huge. It's like the Ringworld. And to think it used to contain Poland and Alaska. I'm taking the train to Rostov-on-Don tomorrow. This is a 20-hour trip from Moscow!!!: http://www.russiatrek.com/r_rostov.shtml
Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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