Reply #4: Absolutely, Positively [View All]

[On the Road]

It started under Bush I but was continued under Clinton.

The transition was too fast -- there was a power vacuum which was filled by organized crime and the most ruthless elements within the old Soviet government. We allowed former apparatchiks to steal much of the country's natural wealth. Standards of living plummeted. This was not a good tradeoff for ordinary Russians.

Instead of businessmen looking for privatization contracts, the US needed to send non-ideological economists with a respect for government and no axe to grind. John Kenneth Galbraith, for example, proposed that the consumer sector be turned over to the free market immediately, since it was a disaster, while the government-owned natural resouce companies be retained for awhile until the economic, political, and legal structures were more stable. His views were not accepted.