Word: oiled
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...decade ago, he and others point out: Russia currently has a whopping $550 billion in foreign-currency reserves, a hefty budget surplus, a negligible national debt and an economy that remains on course to grow by 7% this year. The fount of much of the nation's newfound wealth - oil and gas - isn't affected by these banking liquidity problems. As long as the price of oil stays somewhere above about $70 per barrel, the windfall profits will continue to roll in. Moreover, only about 2% of Russian households - the very affluent - own stocks, so the market plunge...
...variety of factors are speeding a shakeout. They include falling oil prices and Russia's war with Georgia, which spooked foreign investors and sparked capital flight. Of course, the tumult on Wall Street and the general seizing up of global finance has caused a liquidity squeeze for banks worldwide. But the root cause of Russia's current crisis is homegrown: wannabe oligarchs who used debt to continue doubling down while the going was good, only to find themselves on shaky ground now that the market has turned. As one wag said this month, it's a case of minigarchs turning...
...Russian authorities have responded by injecting $44 billion into the three big banks. President Dmitri Medvedev has also pledged to make a further $20 billion from the state budget available to support the stock market. However, earlier talk by other officials that some of the nation's oil windfall should be used to support the stock market has been dropped...
...back with a nice rum and Coke if a squabble about who would fight big oil more breaks...
...right-wing Bush Administration and the left-wing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, whose clashes are rocking Latin America. Lula, in fact, is one of the few leaders both Bush and Chavez will listen to. "I joke with them and tell them their fight is very weird," Lula says, "because oil makes them so dependent on one another...