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i've heard his wealth estimated at $200 billion USD. but at this point i don't think it matters. he has an entire country.

adventured 8y ago
I've been reading about those claims for well over a decade now. Not one of them has ever explained where he could have come up with ~$200 billion (or the old numbers, which were more like $40b to $50b) from. There is no entity inside of Russia capable of spitting off that kind of hidden side profit - just for him - in the time frame in question. Their entire economy is a mere $1.5 trillion. If you figure most of the graft occured in the last 13 to 15 years, where was he siphoning $12+ billion per year from? Again, there are no entities in Russia capable of subtly delivering that sort of cash. If he owned 100% of Rosneft (or Lukoil) and Gazprom, he'd still be worth closer to ~$100b-$120b than $200b. Needless to say, he doesn't own those two. He'd have had to be taking a very large share of the annual total industrial profit of Russia, to squirrel away these sorts of numbers over time. The notion that Putin is secretly the richest person (they keep increasing the mythical sum over time to stay ahead of Gates etc), is nothing more than empty bravado that Russia likes to encourage to artificially prop up the projection of power that Putin relies upon to govern.
- JetSpiegel 8y ago
  Putin de facto owns those companies and more, the oligarchs are in his pocket. He might not be on the corporate hierarchy, but his decisions override the board.
  - gadders 8y ago
    When he can have the CEO killed like Berezovsky, he pretty much has a veto over policy.
- akiselev 8y ago
  I agree that the claim itself is probably propaganda, but claiming that there "is no entity inside of Russia capable of spitting off that kind of hidden side profit - just for him - in the time frame in question" is also a massive stretch. Russian Ministry of Defense officials estimate that about 25% of the military budget is literally stolen or lost to corruption while anti-corruption gov't auditors estimate the number is at least 40%. Even if Putin only ever gets 1% of that graft, that's $100-200 million a year in revenue from an industry that accounts for less than 5% of the GDP. That math almost certainly extends to most of the economy because this kind of corruption is damn-near omnipresent in Russian society. I'd need both hands to count the number of times my travel plans were disrupted because someone stole the funds for antifreeze (in Sheremetyevo International no less) or airport/train/border security. Likewise, you could see at Sochi just how vast the chasm was between what was budgeted for and what was actually built. The sheer scale of it is more than enough to generate a few hundred billion dollars for a single person, after paying off all the levels below to maintain power. Also, what evidence do we have that the stolen funds are even included in the GDP calculation? Are the indicators used to estimate GDP susceptible to the same corruption or can they effectively?

adventured 8y ago

I've been reading about those claims for well over a decade now. Not one of them has ever explained where he could have come up with ~$200 billion (or the old numbers, which were more like $40b to $50b) from. There is no entity inside of Russia capable of spitting off that kind of hidden side profit - just for him - in the time frame in question. Their entire economy is a mere $1.5 trillion. If you figure most of the graft occured in the last 13 to 15 years, where was he siphoning $12+ billion per year from? Again, there are no entities in Russia capable of subtly delivering that sort of cash. If he owned 100% of Rosneft (or Lukoil) and Gazprom, he'd still be worth closer to ~$100b-$120b than $200b. Needless to say, he doesn't own those two. He'd have had to be taking a very large share of the annual total industrial profit of Russia, to squirrel away these sorts of numbers over time. The notion that Putin is secretly the richest person (they keep increasing the mythical sum over time to stay ahead of Gates etc), is nothing more than empty bravado that Russia likes to encourage to artificially prop up the projection of power that Putin relies upon to govern.

JetSpiegel 8y ago
Putin de facto owns those companies and more, the oligarchs are in his pocket. He might not be on the corporate hierarchy, but his decisions override the board.
- gadders 8y ago
  When he can have the CEO killed like Berezovsky, he pretty much has a veto over policy.
akiselev 8y ago
I agree that the claim itself is probably propaganda, but claiming that there "is no entity inside of Russia capable of spitting off that kind of hidden side profit - just for him - in the time frame in question" is also a massive stretch. Russian Ministry of Defense officials estimate that about 25% of the military budget is literally stolen or lost to corruption while anti-corruption gov't auditors estimate the number is at least 40%. Even if Putin only ever gets 1% of that graft, that's $100-200 million a year in revenue from an industry that accounts for less than 5% of the GDP. That math almost certainly extends to most of the economy because this kind of corruption is damn-near omnipresent in Russian society. I'd need both hands to count the number of times my travel plans were disrupted because someone stole the funds for antifreeze (in Sheremetyevo International no less) or airport/train/border security. Likewise, you could see at Sochi just how vast the chasm was between what was budgeted for and what was actually built. The sheer scale of it is more than enough to generate a few hundred billion dollars for a single person, after paying off all the levels below to maintain power. Also, what evidence do we have that the stolen funds are even included in the GDP calculation? Are the indicators used to estimate GDP susceptible to the same corruption or can they effectively?