Computers going to deal with that . Maybe all the lights will go out. Maybe toasters will start, you know, talking, maybe airplanes will fall out of the sky. It was a strange almost distraction. I mean, im not saying it wasnt a real concern. But the flipping of a calendar into a new millennium was a heck of a milestone to live through. You thought it would have been an occasion for a lot of awe and wonder maybe even spiritual if not just numerological reflection. But mostly we were just really freaked out about y2k. That was kind of the experience of december 31st, 1999. But its interesting. One very large country where they didnt end up freaking out all that much about y2k on december 31st, 99 while america and the rest of the world was worried about that problem, one place this they ended up not all distracted by that problem, they ended up not freaking out about that as the clock ticked toward midnight, was russia. Because russia was distracted by Something Else on december 31th, 1999, they had Something Else totally crazy happen to them at the turn of the millennium. New years eve is a huge holiday in russia. Its a huge party there. Everybody that day was gearing up for the celebration even bigger than usual because it was 99, but then shock and surprise, with no warning, at noon on new years eve, 1999 in russia, their president got on tv, it was a surprise broadcast, and he said goodbye. He said goodbye. Im quitting effective immediately. Boris yeltsin randomly quit as president of russia on new years eve, 1999. It was a total shock. I mean, that said, russia had been through a lot of shocks at that point, 1989, of course, the berlin wall fell, 1991, the soviet union collapsed. That year 1991, Boris Yeltsin had been elected president of russia. Before that, all soviet leaders had just been picked by the communist party. They had just been chosen internally by the party up to and including mikhail gorbachev. He was elected as the leader of the new russia after the end of the soviet union. Yeltsin was a fascinating i think sort of frequently underestimated figure. In the west, i think we disproportionately remember him for being publicly drunk especially at inappropriate times. But he was a formidable person. He was occasionally brilliant, he could be incredibly cunning and intimidating and he was the first democratically elected leader of russia and that made him the first russian leader to have the problem that democratically elected leaders have all over the world, which is if you get elected democratically, one youre elected, you got to get reelected. Yeltsin got elected in 1991, 1996 he was up for reelection. This is a new problem for a russian, right . But it turned out his reelection was really something to worry about. The country was kind of a mess, the government was broke. Yeltsin was broke in terms of the assets and money he needed to mount his reelection campaign. And by 96, by the time he was running for reelection, there was this ongoing process of the former soviet union selling off what had been governmentowned enterprises. They were deep into the process of privatizing what had been a totally staterun economy. But in order to finance his reelection in 1996, which he was very worried about, yeltsin came up with a particularly terrible scheme. For turning this ongoing dodgy privatization process into something that would specifically result in him getting cash for his reelection effort. And the scheme was basically an auction scheme. Through this auction scheme, banks would loan the yeltsin government money, cash, and as collateral for the loan, what the government put up was big stakes in big governmentrun businesses. And then when the government didnt pay back the loans the government didnt pay back the loans the bank got these big stakes in bankrun businesses, multibillion dollar stakes in companies. And the way it went down is legendary. It basically changed the course of modern history. Not only was t a terrible plan to give away these National Assets that rightfully belonged to the people of russia, not only a bad process, by the time it got to the 1996 reelection effort and yeltsin trying to get cash and get reelected, by that time it was a totally rigged process. The guys who ran the banks in russia rigged the process so these stateowned properties came up for auction, the banks who were running the auction arranged things so that miraculously they themselves won all the bidding. You know, theyre competitors who also wanted to bid on something just didnt have their bids accept or they got lost in the mail. The banks themselves are running the auctions. They win the bidding themselves and boy, did they get great deals. A Big Russian Oil company was auctioned off for Something Like 350 million through one of these rigged auctions. Within two years of it being sold for 350 million in 1994, by 1996, two years later it was worth 9 billion. So think about that. Youre running a bank. You can scare up a loan to yourself to buy an asset like that. Within two years you can pay back the loan to yourself and pocket over 8 billion in profit. Thats more than a nice deal. That is a crime on a history changing scale. Thats how we got the russian oligarchs, right . And it happened with oil, it happened with gas, it happened with nickel, it happened with copper, it happened with platinum. It happened with all the giant russianstateowned properties, to suck all the assets out of the grounds and out of the mountains. It came out from the pockets of the russians and went to these people. All the assets of the russian people out the window sold on a fraction of a penny on the dollar to the guys who riggeded the system so they could buy everything for cheap. And Boris Yeltsin did get the cash he needed for his government which was not that much in the grand scheme of things, but he was able to spend money the way he needed to to get himself reelected in 1996. Kind of a pyrrhic victory, in part because the privatization, particularly the luridly corrupt privatization that he oversaw obviously just gutted his own country. And then the universe has a way of the taking care of these things. Right after he got reelected yeltsin had a massive heart surgery. He spent most of his second term in office in and out of the hospital. He was increasingly rarely seen. When he was seen he was thought to be increasingly erratic. There were increasingly worries about the drunk boris problem. Then surprise, new years eve 1999. Americans are all worried about y2k and russians are worried about do we have a democracy . And this was their first democratically elected president. But yeltsin had a plan for his succession. He announced that he wanted his Prime Minister to take over. And that happened. And now those of us who follow, you know, World Affairs and world history, we dont have to worry about learning or memorizing a succession of russian names of all the russian leaders that have come to power since the collapse of the soviet union because there isnt a big, long list. There was just Boris Yeltsin, then the next guy he pick to go after him, his Prime Minister, to whom he handed over power after he surprisingly stepped down on y2k, his Prime Minister was that sadfaced little devil, Vladimir Putin. Vladimir putin had been Prime Minister under yeltsin from 99 to 2000, then on y2k yeltsin poofed, Vladimir Putin became president. To 2008, then went back to being Prime Minister, and hes been president since then and will run for reelection as president in 2018. This is russias post this is it. This is russias post soviet leadership. It has been 25 years, but thats all you have to remember. Yeltsin for a hot minute and it ended weird and now putin forever. Thats it. But its interesting. Putin very clearly learned from some of yeltsins experience. He decided that he didnt need to cook up some complicated scheme where banks got involved as auctioneers and bidders and favored rich guys got good deals in staterun business so he could get kickback cash from them, he learned from what happened to yeltsin and decided it didnt have to be nearly as complicated as that. He decided that he would cut out all the middlemen. What putin is believed to have done since hes been in power is hes just taken for himself secretly but hes just taken for himself ownership stakes, big ownership stakes in all of russias partially stateowned companies. All these massive former soviet enterprises. Theyre some of the biggest individual companies on earth that control in some cases they have almost monopoly control over some of the elements that we use for things on earth. And theyre huge companies. If you hold a stake not in just one or two but all of them and your equity stake mysteriously gets a little bit larger every year that you stay in power and you stay in power for 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, how long is this going to go on, how many years, that starts to add up over time. Being president of russia pays 136,000 a year. Thats considerably less than a half of what the american president gets paid for a salary, but unofficially being president of russia pays very, very, very well. Let me put it this way. You know that Clothing Company zara . Yeah, me neither. But theres a Clothing Company called zara, closely held by a spanish guy thats considered to be maybe this generations world retail genius. Apparently part of the magic is not that he owns the whole company but owns it all the way down the supply chains. I dont necessarily understand all that stuff but thats made him, according to Forbes Annual ranking, the second richest man on earth. The zara guy worth 67 billion. Warren buffett is close. Hes considered to be the greatest investing genius on earth. Hes like 61 billion. Carlos slim, telecom, hes at 50 billion. Forbes says the richest billionaire on earth is officially bill gates. He pips them with 75 billion. But u. S. Intelligence agencies now say as best they can tell bill gates is actually way behind as is the zara guy and Warren Buffett and carlos slim and all the rest of them. Theyre way behind. U. S. Intelligence agencies have now started to count up all of Vladimir Putins secretly held assets, and they say they believe that Vladimir Putin is clearly, by far, the richest man on the face of the earth. With assets totaling, in their estimation, 85 billion. I have no idea if yeltsin saw this coming, but when he handed off power to his little Prime Minister in that surprise tv announcement. What he was doing was laying the groundwork, making it possible for this one man to amass the greatest fortune in humankind. And the reason u. S. Intelligence agencies have that number now, the reason theyre working on tracking his secret assets, the reason theyve come up with that 85 billion number is because nbc news reports theyre basically doing Contingency Planning for a financial attack on him. Theyre basically doing Contingency Planning for how the United States government might retaliate against russia in a way that actually hurts. Fo their attacks on the u. S. Elections. Nbc reported that intelligence agencies concluded it wasnt just generic action of the u. S. Russian government to target the u. S. Election. It was micro managed by putin himself up to and including how hacked material from democrats would be leak or otherwise used. So yeah, if youre trying to figure out how to retaliate not with just another country messing with your election, but an individual foreign leader messing with your election, you might want to hit him where it might hurt him, hit him in the money. And so it would help to know where his money is and how much of it there is. So thats why weve now got that number. Thats why weve now got a new entry for the richest man on earth. Beyond retaliation, beyond knowing what his fortune is what the u. S. Government might go after, that is an incredible testament to how well hes used the power of Political Office to siphon money out of his own country and into his own pocket. If you want to know why hes held on to political power for so long, obviously part of the incentive here is that hes figured out a way to turn high Political Office, political control, hes figured out a way to turn that into a firehose of money directed at himself. He has made himself literally the richest man on the face of the earth and it is his hold on Political Office that has allowed him to do that. And that is an art. That is what we call the art of kleptocracy. Using political power, using high Political Office to steal, to get money, to get resources, to get assets, to get control of remune rattive things, to get business advantages that you could not get if you didnt have political power. Kleptocracy. Pause. Did you see today that they formally announced the latest cabinet pick for the Incoming Administration . Weve been told this pick was coming, but now we have the official announcement that the nominee to run the department of the interior which controls a lot of National Assets like, you know, oil and gas on federal lands and stuff, the pick will be this man, a first term congressman from montana. We previously had been told that the pick for this job was liky to be cathy mcmorrisrodgers, longtime political leader in the house who has had some subject area of expertise in this matter. But it be this relatively unknown guy from montana. He was reportedly chosen for the job because Donald Trumps son, donald jr. Likes him. Theyve gone hunting together. Don jr. Likes him so thats why were getting him as secretary of the interior. Donald jr. Famously will also be running his familys Business Empire along with his younger brother while his father retains his ownership stake in the company but busies himself with being president. The president handing daytoday control of his businesses to his sons, that will put some sort of cushion, some sort of distance between the running of his business and the running of our government, but one of the sons who is running the business is also apparently picking the cabinet. And it goes both ways. I mean, imagine youre a fair to middling Real Estate Company that has real global ambitions, what would you give, how much value would it be to your company to have one of your high profile executives take a personal meeting with the ceos of apple, google, facebook, amazon, intel, cisco, microsoft, ibm, oracle, should i go on . Think about that. If youre in your meeting, would a meeting like that be of value to your business, an ambitious American Company . Would it value you to have facetime with all of these companies . After sitting in this week on a transition meeting with the heads of all of those companies and more, donald trump jr. Tweeted afterwards, quote, honored to have sat in on this meeting. The most Impressive Group of minds ive seen assembled. The new president is inviting multiple executives from his company to sit in on top level government meetings including with all of these ceos. Hes also reportedly having his Business Executives pick members of his cabinet. Today was the day the president elect was to give a Major Press Conference detailing how he would stop what is now an ongoing process of him using the presidency to benefit his family business, you know, leveraging his Political Office to enrich himself and his family. Today was the day we were supposed to get a Big Press Conference to hear about his big plan to stop doing that, which hes already doing. That press conference, that announcement was canceled several days ago. Its now been rescheduled for the 15th of never. They keep telling us it will happen, but theres been no announcement. All we get from the president elect is repeated insistences that he doesnt have to separate himself from his business at all. But come on. Kleptocracy is hard to spell. And the United States is not russia. The u. S. Government certainly is not russia. Theres no putin here. Theres not just one man in charge. Even if youve got a president who cant bring himself to stop trying to cash in on his office for himself and his family, right, even if you got that craziness going on at the top, could be a source of comfort that, you know, in our system, the u. S. Governments a big thing. Maybe the professionalism, the experience, the subject matter skill of the people working around the president , i mean, were in uncharted territory here, but maybe that, the people around him, that could be a kind of mitigating force for professionalism and Civic Responsibility and just experience and gravitas and heft for the new government. In addition to the new cabinet secretary who was reportedly chosen by donald jr. Today the transition announced that another fox news commentator will be a Deputy National security adviser, thats her on the left, it was reported that another fox news commentator is the leader to be the White House Press secretary. Another cable news commentator, someone who recently worked at cnbc is in line to chair the council on economic advisers. And today they decided to add some new heft to their the Transition Team with this person who you might recognize from season one of the apprentice, they added her to the team. Theyve got a formal announcement that the manager of the n