President Vladimir Putin needs two years to fix Russia’s current economic mess. At least that is what he gave himself at his December end-of-year news conference.
To date, Putin’s actions have concentrated on shoring up the financial sector, with bank bailouts and sporadic, largely ineffective currency interventions. Putin has offered relatively little, however, for Russia’s Main Street – just tired old proposals that he hopes will buy time until the Russian people adapt, in Putin’s words, to their new “fact(s) of life.”
Indeed, Putin’s economic plan can be reduced to two historical essentials — bread and vodka.
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