[FPSPACE] A bit off topic, but the rammifications are relevant...

[Peter Pesavento]

Igor,

Unlike your speculation on whether Obama's decision was purposeful in having
a deleterious affect on the Russian space program, this financial reportage
comes directly from the writings of the person who would know if Russia was
attempting to bring down the USA in the economics sphere.  That was Hank
Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury.

He said this.  It is reported directly from his book, that he wrote.

While it may be true that the Russians react to what the Americans do
space-wise in plans, in regards to what Paulson says, I will say this:

Paulson was a US Cabinet-level official, and he would know whether Putin was
trying to harm the USA.

I am going to leave it at that.

In my opinion, Putin has severe nostalgia for the USSR days.  He
conveniently forgets at what cost that was done to the well being of the
Russian people to sustain the Soviet empire.  I have seen him at some of the
anniversaries abroad celebrated in Europe about events of World War 2 this
past year, and he was always reluctantly admitting to the errors of the
Stalin era, and attempts to always see an "up" side to them.  Indeed, if
memory serves, he has been attempting to shove through the Duma some law
that if one attempts to critically look at the errors of the 20th Century
Communist Era, one can be put in jail.  

-----Original Message-----
From: Igor Lissov [mailto:lissov-i at yandex.ru] 
Sent: Sunday, January 31, 2010 3:33 AM
To: Peter Pesavento; fpspace at friends-partners.org
Subject: Re: [FPSPACE] A bit off topic, but the rammifications are
relevant...

No we should have retained Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and lost
$65 billion. Are you really mad, Peter? :-)

More on topic, if tomorrow's Obama budget will indeed cancel
Constellation entirely, here in Russia we will probably lost
the drive to the new spaceship/rocket/launch site program.
Should I see the Obama move as an attempt to force the Russian
government to kill our future space program?

Igor Lissov

> It appears that Putin attempted, before and during the height of the late
> 2008 economic crisis, to severely damage the USA economically (beyond what
> was happening already) by dumping Russia's entire shareload of Fannie Mae
> and Freddie Mac stock, and concurrently attempted to get the PRC to do the
> same, at the same time.  The PRC demurred.