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For anyone paying attention, the seller of the painting is Dmitry Rybolovlev. How did Rybolovlev amass so much money? Through pollution. His company Uralkali is
by dbkelly 9y ago
For anyone paying attention, the seller of the painting is Dmitry Rybolovlev. How did Rybolovlev amass so much money? Through pollution. His company Uralkali is listed as one of the top polluters in Russia. This is how externalities work: He keeps the profits, you (literally) eat the losses. Perhaps this detail is the biggest story here.
- saiya-jin 9y agoWell he is a typical russian arrogant oligarch asshole. Culprit in various murders, even served some jail time for it (of course not much compared to us peasants). It would be actually strange if any common good would ever come from such a person.
- adventured 9y agoEven for a Russian oligarch, context is relevant. It's not his company. He hasn't owned it since 2010. The roots of Uralkali go back 80 years, he owned it for 15 years. Uralkali is 20% of the global potash market, without their mining a billion people wouldn't have food - at a minimum - given the present 7.6 billion world population. Russia has become a wheat juggernaut [1], to put it mildly; without their food production, the developing world will not develop given the population growth occuring. That doesn't defend the pollution, it does however bring some very important context to the situation that you entirely neglected. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-15/europe-is-falling-behind-russia-in-the-global-wheat-market https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-15/europe-is...