Thread: "Russophobia" and "Russophilia" :)

What is the population size of Norway? Less than 5 million. And the oil and gas income is only 30% of their state budget. Hm...

By the way, on the rise of prices in Crimea. Maybe it will surprise some Russian emigrants to know (я не перехожу на личности...), that unlike as it used to be in the Soviet times, the Russian government doesn't set the prices on consumer goods - we have liberal capitalist economy now (we appreciate the liberal values indeed!). So what is the accusation of the government about? It's the retailers who are to blame. Prices in Russia are higher than in Ukraine (because the standard of living is higher), but not twice. But you cannot deny that the government promised to gradually raise the pensions and it is fulfilling the promise.

Originally Posted by SergeMak

What is the population size of Norway? Less than 5 million. And the oil and gas income is only 30% of their state budget. Hm...

That's not true. And there's something else than just a state budget http://rosreferendum.com/information/menunorway.html

But the most important thing that Norway doesn't own their oil and gas, they just collect tax from BP.
Norway had exchanged their sovereignty for garanteed piece of their oil pie.
That's the best what they could do. Small country in Europe just had no choice when all the world oi is being sold for dollars.
And what they have in return? One of the happiest nation on earth.

But norway is a small nation. Furthermore they fully accept all the european "values".

Nobody would let russia be anything close to that. In 90s they were getting Russia redy to be thrown into chaos and split like Yugoslavia before and Ukraine now.
The phrase that "fossils belong to the people of Russia" was erased from the constitution. And Putin still can't brake through "liberal" resistence to bring it back.
Khodorkovsky was almost done with his deal of selling almost half of Siberia to BP. Etc

Originally Posted by SergeMak

By the way, on the rise of prices in Crimea. Maybe it will surprise some Russian emigrants to know (я не перехожу на личности...), that unlike as it used to be in the Soviet times, the Russian government doesn't set the prices on consumer goods - we have liberal capitalist economy now (we appreciate the liberal values indeed!). So what is the accusation of the government about? It's the retailers who are to blame. Prices in Russia are higher than in Ukraine (because the standard of living is higher), but not twice. But you cannot deny that the government promised to gradually raise the pensions and it is fulfilling the promise.

You started to discuss cuases of high prises having no idea what the prices really are. (I don't take into account provided links to Ukrainian media)
Half of this thread is full of basles cpeculations like this