A high-level Russian delegation will visit London this week for talks with senior City figures about plans to create a world-class financial centre in Moscow.
The basic problem is the rule of law.
No, not gangsters, that can be dealt with. There have been financial centres that dealt with gangsters. That were gangsters in fact.
The problem is if the State becomes one of the gangsters……
But that doesn’t mean that London-based consultants shouldn’t make some hard cash advising the Russians…
What better place than a Kleptocracy to advise them
Blue Eyes has it in one.
The City largely earns its money from expensively advising the rest of the world.
If I had a quid for every time I heard of Russians announcing some grand plan or project which never gets further than, well, a grand announcement, I could quit the oil business. Anyone remember Gazprom’s Sahara pipeline which would transport Nigerian gas to Europe? Or the hi-tec business park in Moscow which would eliminate all bureaucracy for businesses within? How are they all going?
Isn’t Hodges shake down of starbucks essentially gangster government. And won’t that become an issue at some stage?