http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/world/eu...ml?_r=1&hpw

The NYT apparently doesn't let us read anymore without registering, and I'm too lazy to do that right now.

MOSCOW — One of the largest mass layoffs in recent Russian history is to occur on Wednesday, and the Kremlin itself is decreeing it, economic crisis or not.
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Times Topics: Russia

The government is shutting down every last legal casino and slot-machine parlor across the land, under an antivice plan promoted by Vladimir V. Putin that as recently as a few months ago was widely perceived as far-fetched. But the result will be hundreds of thousands of people thrown out of work.

And in a move that at times seems to have taken on almost farcical overtones, the Kremlin has offered the gambling industry only one option for survival: relocate to four regions in remote areas of Russia, as many as 4,000 miles from the capital. The potential marketing slogans — Come to the Las Vegas of Siberia! Have a Ball near the North Korean Border! — may not sound inviting, but that is in part what the government envisions.

All the same, none of the four regions are prepared for the transfer, and no casino is expected to reopen for several years. As of July 1, not even two decades after casinos began proliferating here in the free-for-all post-Soviet era, the industry’s workers will be out on the street.

“This is shaking my life to the core — such a blow for me and my family,” said Irina Mysachka, 32, a single mother who is a supervisor at the Shangri-La Casino in Moscow, which appears as orderly and preened (if your tastes run to fire-breathing neon dragons and other Oriental kitsch) as any similar luxury attraction in the United States.

“The authorities are taking this step without thinking at all,” she said. “They have not considered what this decision means for the workers. With the crisis, it is going to be very difficult for us.”

Unable to find a job in Moscow, she said she was going to leave her 5-year-old son, Yegor, with her mother and venture abroad.

Aleksandr Osin, 24, who has been at Shangri-La for five years, said he would try his luck in the insurance business, but was not hopeful. “We all thought that this was some kind of government thing that would not happen,” he said. “But now we know.”

The law that started the whole process was introduced in 2006 by Mr. Putin, then the president and now the prime minister, who spoke of the perils of the blackjack tables and the one-armed bandits, of shady characters having a grip on the industry.

The casinos have repeatedly asked for a reprieve, proposing a regulatory body to cut down on abuses, and lately pointing out that the ban would create hardships for workers during the crisis. The industry has also said it pays more than $1 billion a year in taxes. But Mr. Putin and his protégé, President Dmitri A. Medvedev, have not yielded. “The rules will not be revised in any way,” Mr. Medvedev said last month, “and there will be no backsliding, although various business organizations have been lobbying for precisely this.”

The gambling industry here does not have the loftiest of reputations, and many Russians will not grieve for it. Still, many of the 40 or so casinos in Moscow sought in recent years to behave more respectably, even as hundreds of slot-machine parlors retained a seedy, enter-at-your-own-risk feel.

The gambling industry says the ban will leave more than 400,000 people without work in Russia, at a time when it has been hard hit by the economic downturn: the World Bank predicts the economy will contract by 7.9 percent this year. The government has put the figure at 60,000 people, though industry analysts say that is absurdly low.

Storm International, a gambling conglomerate controlled by a British expatriate, Michael Boettcher, said that until recently, it alone employed 6,000 people at Shangri-La and several other casinos in Moscow.

Casinos in Russia are now to be confined to the Altai region of Siberia; the coastal area of the Far East, near the border with North Korea and China; Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania; and the Azov Sea region in the south. Until casinos open there, Russia will be one of the few countries in Europe without them, though underground ones are likely to be established.

After the law passed, federal officials and casino executives seemed certain that it would be watered down, which is apparently why neither the casinos nor the four regions did anything to prepare. “You know, in our country, the decisions are made by only one person,” said Samuil Binder, deputy executive director of the Russian Association for Gaming Business Development. He was referring to Mr. Putin.

After the Soviet Union’s fall in 1991, gambling sprang up everywhere in Russia, from first-class locations in Moscow to side-alley hangouts in the provinces. The crazy-quilt growth was something of a metaphor for capitalism here, full of possibilities and schemes and corruption.

The industry has been largely unregulated, and especially in recent years, almost anyone could get a license, for as little as $50. Russia is not a strait-laced place — rates of smoking and drinking are high — but an outcry about gambling ensued. “It is not only young people, but also retirees who lose their last kopecks and pensions through gambling,” Mr. Putin said in 2006.

His plan was announced during a spy scandal between Russia and its neighbor Georgia, and the timing suggested that Mr. Putin was in part seeking to wound the Georgian diaspora here, which is said to have an influential role in the industry.

As with the workers, it seems to have dawned on the gamblers themselves only recently that the casinos are closing.

“It is going to be strange, and even now, it’s hard to believe,” said Aleksei Ustinenko, 29, a construction executive who was playing at Shangri-La.

“Here we are, in one of the biggest, most beautiful, most expensive cities in the world,” he said. “And yet other people can decide that I cannot gamble if I want to.”

Some casinos said they might try to devote some space to private poker clubs, which they believe will be allowed under the law. But executives say such clubs are far less lucrative, and will employ very few workers.

And so laborers have been pulling down gambling signs and carting slot machines from sites all over Moscow.

“There was a time when all these clubs and casinos grew like a cancer tumor,” said Moscow’s mayor, Yuri M. Luzhkov. “We will close them all. By July 1, Moscow will be clean.”

This has nothing to do with socialism. It's totalitarianism.

touche.

But this behavior isn't spawned in a non-socialist republic....

Has obama shut down your Dairy Queen yet, brv?

you apparently haven't yet figured out that socialism is the buzzword for anything bad. ever.

Think of all the 550 lbs 14 year olds who would be saved if they did.

Judging by the demographics of the people in Florida who keep trying to shut down Indian Casinos and put caps on poker buy-ins.....I would say Russia's problem is some republican conservatives snuck into their country and convinced Putin that Jesus hates gambling.

That's why I prefer the term 'statism' -- the belief that the state should intervene in voluntary consensual behavior. Socialism and totalitarianism are basically just different words for the same belief.

On a scale of 1-10, it's like socialism is 10, and totalitarianism goes all the way to 11.

why didn't you just make socialism a 9 and totalitarianism a 10?

Sometimes when you need that little bit extra..push it over the cliff...it's like you're at 10..and you need that little extra, so you go to eleven.

Or it could be that Russian casinos are not like an American casino, only in Russia.

They might be a little...different.

There is no way to know. Unless Sarah Palin has an insight into Russian casinos from her front porch view of the area.

Ohh...hahahahaha..Sarah Palin....oh, good one.

I had forgot about her, but you brought her back...

Cause she said she could see Russia from her house...


Except she didn't say that,


Tina Fey did.



She said: "They're our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska."

Which is in fact not only true, but something most people do not know. Russia and America are as close as 3 miles apart when you look at the islands we each own, 50 miles if you go for more continental land masses.

So your favorite reason to hate Palin is in fact a media distortion that you willingly bought; hook, line and sinker.


Liberals..they never get accused of wasting effort on truth when it comes to destroying the character of a political foe.

Which is why this lie about Palin has had the legs it has had.

I would be willing to bet 50 rubles that there are ways for us to know...

But there is nowhere to bet rubles anymore. See?

And I can think of 50 better reasons to dislike Palin. You can keep blaming Tina Fey though. It sounds like Putin wants all Russian casinos moved to the part of Russia you can see from Alaska. We might have something there.

I concede, this new reading does show that she was a worldly diplomat with a deep insight into foreign cultures. We have made a big mistake. Although all is not lost, I am sure I can still vote for her next time.

[insert picture from "This is Spinal Tap"]

but this one goes to 11

I don't make enough.


Also, this thread has nothing to do with Obama

Wouldn't that be Jews?

nh






Keep snapping your fingers and pretend your distraction methods are working. Palin was the number 2 on the ticket, she should be compared to Biden, who she easily trumps in all comparisons of intellect.

But if you keep pretending that marginalizing Palin somehow lends gravitas to your side of the issues, then I guess you can enjoy your world that only exists in a world that lets you pretend that you can marginalize a person to lend strength to your side of an issue.



And dapokerbum...I did the Spinal Tap joke....pay attention!

Although I remember hearing that Spinal Tap might be making a sequal...

so that's a no, then?

Jews love gambling. Even though there are lots of Jewish people in South Florida, they dont occupy a lot of space in the state legislature. Most of the anti-gambling thrust comes from the central and northern parts of Florida which are much more like South Georgia than South Florida. And much of it comes from the right/religious representatives as I implied.

Our (Republican moderate) governor signed an agreement last year allowing Indian casinos to have blackjack, pai gow poker, three card poker, and vegas style slots. The FL legislature has been trying to tear down that agreement (through the legislative and judicial branches of Florida) ever since. You would think in a state ranked dead last in education that the legislature would have more pressing matters.....

I would prefer to lean toward "not yet".

I would prefer to lean toward " a bunch of chicken little nonsense"

Again... this thread has nothing to do with Obama. Also he's made it pretty clear that most of his taxes will be on incomes of $250k and above. That probably won't affect me directly for at least a couple more months.

Yes, but I like the quote I used better.

I never said it did. .. I could start another thread entitled "hey brv, did obama shut down your dairyqueen like you were panicing irrationally pre-election about because you are a knee jerk reactionary conservative" but that title's a little long, and I figured I could just ask you here.

You have a valid point in reference to the 08 election. However, going forward, Biden is not being held forth as the New Hope for his party.



Marginalize? Marginalize?! Why would I want to marginalize her? I want to centralize her. She is one of the most entertaining, ridiculous political figures to appear in the last several decades. The more the republicans treat her as a legitimate presidential candidate the more humorous it gets from my perspective. I am getting my Palin 2012 bumper sticker!

she said this in response to a question about her credentials, that's why she was made fun of.

This fits Obama pretty nicely, oh wait he attended madrasas err grade school in Indonesia so Iguess thats his insight into foreign cultures.

Out of curiosity except for Bush the elder who was the last wordly diplomat elected prez?

yeah, but Al gore said he invented the internet, right?

Nixon

dont forget McCain's illegitimate black child. The GOP is such a lofty institution steeped in noble goals.

That's why the GOP has made every effort to ensure that only half of their members who called for Clinton to resign during the Lewinsky scandal are outed as being adulterers themselves.

<----------hopes it's Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin battling it out for the 2012 nomination.

Right now I guess I'd bet on milquetoast Republican lapdog Tim Pawlenty.

Politics sucks.

The classic tactics of the left.

Here's an issue:

Uhhhhh

(Misdirect) "Sarah Palin is dumb"

When called on their tactics:

Uhhhhhh

(Muddy the debate) "You guys did the same thing I did only worse."

( Declare victory by exagerating this claim ) "In fact half of your guys are adulterers who pollute streams with aborterd fetuses made of asbestoes"

(Leave the issue never having addressed it NOR understanding that IF you want to blame the republicans for underhanded deeds, you shouldn't do it as a defence for your own culpibility in doing the EXACT SAME DEEDS if you want to be taken seriously)

( Finish with another attack on a person who was never part of the debate to begin with )

Rinse

Repeat

End up defending Joseph Biden as an intelligent man, thereby completely destroying any manhood left in your soul.

Yep.

BG, I would bother replying in full but you dont understand the difference between "defense of" and "pointing out rampant hypocrisy".

I will say that if you go back to the "Who Should they pick as VP thread" I made a vigorous argument that the WORST thing Obama could do was pick Joe Biden. And if you are proud that the GOP went and picked the one available person who might, just might, be stupider than Joe Biden, then congratulations.

Keep marginalizing her.

It is necessary because of your upbringing that taught you to show respect for women to marginalize her in order to justify your need to excuse your behaviour towards her. As long as you can continue to destroy her as a person, you can justify the actions of destroying her as a person. It's a viceous circle that has no real end for your side.

I personally think that the left has maintained their hatred of Sarah because they are a party invested in hate, having finetuned this core belief system for 8 years and having all the political power spots filled with their own people, they are hungry to feed their hate.

How else can you explain the party that houses the feminist movement that has decried the attacks on women in power as glass ceiling men in the back rooms keeping the woman down, but is strangely silent when Sarah Palin is called a tramp and her children are the butts of sexual assult jokes.

It was similar when Clinton was sleeping with an intern who was impressed with his powerful position and the feminist gave him a complete pass and their continued full support.

The left has no god but power

No, that''s not my issue. I don't care about palin. I think it's more interesting when you accuse liberals of doing something you yourself do, all the time. They call that "projection" in the business.


If you don't want to muddy the debate, don't throw dirt in the water by saying things like

What business is that?

The business of OBFUSCATION?

I edited my last post, maybe you didn't see this part..



If you don't want to muddy the debate, don't throw dirt in the water by saying things like

That wasn't dirt...that was bait


Truth is a painful thing to face when you are on the wrong side of it

The insane never believes his thinking is off.

We can both agree on that.

I am no feminist, nor have I called Palin a tramp. My criticism of her is that she lacks the intellectual capacity to hold an important public office, and I think by putting herself out in public as a potential candidate she is open to that criticism. Biden deserves the ridicule he gets for the absurd things that come out of his mouth, and so does Sarah Palin.

Fame and power are double-edged swords. You can't be known by everyone and vie for their support without also being criticized and disliked by some.

Especially when you are dumb as a rock and also a tramp.

I actually disagree with you guys on this one.

LOL I was just knocking the ball back at him, I don't actually believe any of Balloon guy's retarded catchphrases.

Youve lost all credability, I can never hate you after reading your soccer posts on nwp.





By the way, when was the last time the republicans won the white house without a Bush or Nixon on the ticket?