Category: Economics

Alexey Navalny Died In Darkness

Photograph by Stefano de Luigi

Here goes another martyr, †Alexey Navalny died in Russian’s prison.

Breathtaking portrait of Navalny from 2011 :

Navalny and his supporters are keenly aware of such brutal reprisals. “I have a lot of respect for what he’s doing, but I think they’ll arrest him,” I was told by a high-ranking employee at a state corporation that Navalny is investigating. “He’s taunting really big people and he’s doing it in an open way and showing them that he’s not afraid. In this country, people like that get crushed.” When I asked Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila, if she was afraid for her son, she melted into tears before I even got the question out. “I have forgotten what normal sleep is,” she said. “I believe in what he’s doing, he’s doing the right thing, but I’m not ready. I’m not ready for my son to become a martyr.”

→ The New Yorker

Prophet and Loss

A 2000 piece about the supposed Real Wolf of Wall Street, †Dana Giacchetto :

Anxiously tugging at his Dolce & Gabbana T-shirt, Giacchetto launched into a passage from Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, in which Cassandra declares that despite the machinations of her enemies, her legend will endure.

“I am not like a bird,” he intoned, “scared at an empty bush, trembling for nothing. Wait: When you shall see my death atoned with death … then witness for me – these and all my prophecies were utter truth.”

Giacchetto’s New Year’s performance notwithstanding, the mythological character he’s often compared to these days is not Cassandra but Icarus, who got burned flying too close to the sun. “I just had a suspicion it wouldn’t last,” says one intimate. “He was flying too high, had too many people signing on. You knew that if anything ever went wrong, they’d all start jumping ship. He was a New York Magazine article waiting to happen.”

→ New York Magazine

Andreessen Horowitz saw the future — but did the future leave it behind?

In many ways, a16z created the playbook for the boom times in tech. During the era of fawning tech journalism and low interest rates, valuations of private companies exploded. Founders were “geniuses” and “rockstars”; it was easy to raise and easy to spend. There were herds of “unicorns,” companies that are valued at more than $1 billion. (This is to say nothing of “decacorns.”) Startups stopped running lean and instead got fat, attempting to outspend their competition.

This strategy is now at least two vibe shifts behind.

→ The Verge

Market Concentration Is Threatening the US Economy

Americans’ need the same resolve in fighting for competition that their corporations have shown in fighting against it.

The challenge, as always, is political. But with US corporations having amassed so much power, there is reason to doubt that the American political system is up to the task of reform. Add to that the globalization of corporate power and the orgy of deregulation and crony capitalism under Trump, and it is clear that Europe will have to take the lead.

→ Project Syndicate

[Russian Oligarchs] May Have to Explain Source of Wealth to Get UK Visa

Finally :

Downing Street confirmed it was looking at individuals who were still in the UK and holding tier 1 visas, which allow anyone who invests more than £2m in the British economy to stay for 40 months.

‘Cause it never seemed so :

Responding to the reports on the delay with Abramovich’s visa, the Kremlin claimed that Russian businesses often encountered “unfair and unfriendly” actions when applying to come to the UK.

Those “people” applying for a tier 1 visa are so entangled with the Russian “government” :

But Theresa May’s official spokesman said: “The prime minister has been absolutely clear that our argument is not with the Russian people, our dispute is with the Russian government.”

→ Guardian