--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote: Finland is a small country that can do nicely exporting high-value-added products (though cell phones are getting pretty commodified now, and Nokia's falling behind on the cool factor). Russia is a huge country, with 27 times the pop of Finland, that would have to generate a large internal market; its exports are now mostly natural resources.
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Russia also has to spend lots of money on things Finland doesn't have to -- a large military, making Siberia liveable (and many or most of the natural resources are in Siberia, so they can't just leave), trying to strengthen a border that stretches from Estonia to Japan, and maintaining an infrastructure that extends across 11 time zones.
Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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