Poll: 30% Want Yukos Nationalized

[54anickel]

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2004/07/30/051.html

Three in 10 Russians think embattled oil major Yukos should be taken over by the state, and few have much sympathy for the firm or its management, a survey by Romir polling agency showed Thursday.

Some 29 percent of respondents thought the company, which has been pushed to the brink of bankruptcy by a $7 billion tax claim after a court froze its bank accounts, should be renationalized either in whole or piecemeal.

Only 19 percent said legal action against Yukos and jailed major shareholder Mikhail Khodorkovsky should stop if the company agrees to pay its taxes.

snip>

Many Russians support action to crack down on the oligarchs -- a tiny business elite who made billion dollar fortunes in shady privatization deals in the 1990s.

more...

[aquart]

1. I agree. Energy is too important to a nation

To be left in private hands.

[nodehopper]

2. yeah, except the Russian government is totally corrupt

and there's the whole issue of the illegal detention and imprisonment of Khodorkovsky, which incidentally dovetails with the Halliburton agenda.

[aquart]

3. Oh. I was talking about here.

[nodehopper]

5. I think it has been "nationalized" here by the gov't. That's the problem.

At least Iraqi oil has been "nationalized" by the US government.

[htuttle]

6. Other way around

US oil hasn't been nationalized. The US government has become corporatized.

[nodehopper]

9. hence my quotation marks of sarcasm

[htuttle]

4. Ask yourself how Khodorkovsky ended up owning Russia's oil production

The Soviet Union used to own all that. Then they fell, and suddenly some private person 'owned' it. Who did they buy it from, and for how much money?

So one day, Khodorkovsky is running a small organization affliated with the Soviet Union's Youth program, and the next, he's owns most of Russia's oil production. Where did he get the money from? How much was it?

I don't think Putin's motives are pure either, but I'll tell you one thing. The entire process of Russian 'privatization' was a flat-out heist by Yeltsin's cronies and their minions. The goal was the disempowerment of the Russian state to put it at the mercy of the mobsters who'd become the new oligarchs, not to mention pure greed.

If Bush sold off the Grand Canyon for $2 to Disney, I'd be inclined to want the government to eventually seize it back, too. (and this sort of thing does happen in the US, on a somewhat smaller scale. Case in point would be Barrack Gold purchasing mineral rights to $10 BILLION dollars worth of gold in Nevada for a mere $10,000).

[nodehopper]

7. yes, that's true, but two wrongs don't make a right

Putin's actions towards Khodorkovsky is straight out of the 1930s. Well, maybe not, because in 1930s he would have been shot, rather than just imprisoned, but you get my point.

[Fovea]

8. I vote for nationalization

Not just for Yukos, but all American oil production be re claimed by the federal govt and profits mandated into public transit, health care and education.

[Jack_DeLeon]

10. Only 30%