Russian Oligarchs

Found at Marginal Revolution

"When the economy almost collapsed in 2008, the Russian government bailed out state-supported banks first, to the tune of 5 trillion rubles (approximately $230 billion), in a move which government ministers who sat on boards (such as Finance Minister Kudrin, who sat on the board of VTB Bank) simply helped themselves to their own private stimulus package.  But instead of using the money to stabilize the Russian ruble (which plummeted from 23RR/US$ to 36RR/US$) or the stock market (which lost 80 percent of its value), it only stimulated capital flight.  Kudrin estimated that between October 2008 and January 2009, $200 billion was taken out of the country — i.e., virtually the entire stimulus."

I don't see a lot of difference between the Russian and the US response to the collapse. Our bail-out was larger and the American plebs did get a little of it,.. very little, OK, maybe we got some benefits from giving it to them? OK. The US Oligarchs got damned near all of it but it stopped them from crashing the economy completely and taking our pensions,... well all of our pensions,...

Anyway,.. I guess he biggest difference I see is that the American Oligarchs didn't have to move their cut out of the country. They got to keep it at home.