Georgia rules

The current international economic turmoil has one very interesting piece that is all but overlooked in the US press: one might say that Russia's chickens are coming home to roost (sorry Jeremiah). For the last two days, the Russian stock market has crashed and trading had to be suspended. In normal times, one would assume that US or Western European institutions would step in to help the Russian governmental institutions to steady this market. Because of the Russian invasion of Georgia, however, no such help has been forthcoming. Some will argue that the US and big European countries have enough on their plate already without assisting the Russians, but that misses the point. No one has even said anything about the Russian meltdown -- which, by the way, is substantially worse than anything happening in the West. The Russian economy is heavily dependant on oil revenues, and these have been plummeting with the decline in the oil price. As a result, there is little in the way of economic strength that the Russians have to cushion the shock of this economic upset. Hopefully, Putin and Medvedev will get the message that their invasion of Georgia had real and enormous costs to Russia. Maybe next time they will think twice before going ahead with the attack.