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By Ian Bremmer
The opinions expressed are his own,http://www.airjordanpascherrfr4.com/.

After a week full of anti-government and pro-government protests, Russians woke up on Monday to big news,Giubbotti Moncler. Mikhail Prokhorov, a political novice with billions of dollarsand the New Jersey Nets to his name, announced his Presidential bid.? Alexei Kudrin, a longtime bureaucratic infighter, also declared his plans to re-enter the political arena. These developments were even more significant considering both were ousted in rather public quarrels with the powers that be just months ago. Kudrin said he would support and aid a pro-reform liberal party that would stand as a counterweight to the incumbent United Russia. Prokhorov intends to challenge Putin for the presidency in March 2012 on a platform that would appeal to Russia’s “disenchanted middle class.”

No matter what Kudrin and Prokhorov say in public, they both represent the same thing to Russia and the world: Vladimir Putin’s iron grip on power. As I’ve written before, on the planet. To think that either man would risk his freedom or his fortune to oppose Putin’s Kremlin, no matter what their stated reasons are, is just wrong. That said, there are reasons to watch this “race” as it will give some insight into Putin’s inevitable third term as president.

Putin has had to deal with a growing sense of dissatisfaction in Russia as of late.? Growth and living standards are stagnating, while economic inequality persists. It is unclear whose pockets are being lined with the wealth generated by Russia’s massive natural resources. The lack of freedom of the press, centralized control over economic opportunity,Moncler Outlet Online, and pervasive corruption that makes a mockery of the justice and security systems and other institutions, are Putin’s levers of power– and also the focal points for protesters. The protestors’ complaints crystallized last week over United Russia, Putin’s party, winning a smaller but still strong majority in the parliamentary elections. Accusations of election fraud were widespread and . Putin has not been in a position to crack down on these protests — they’re too visible and too widespread — but be sure that the oligarchs and ruling classes in Russia are on Putin’s side. While his tactics for retaining power have had to change, the outcome is the same.

Monday, a pro-United Russia rally in Moscow had the distinct air of a made-for-media event, with the college kids in attendance in order to compel them to turn out to show their “support” for the current regime. But the numbers, even if not to the extent that the state television claims, were there. Though Prokhorov and Kudrin will deny it endlessly, their candidacies are without a doubt sanctioned by the Kremlin. Just this year, Prokhorov was the leader of a pro-business liberal party that was created by and quite obviously aligned with the Kremlin. He quit because of a falling out with one of Putin’s Kremlin advisors — but it was not a falling out so great that Prokhorov became persona non grata. Quite the opposite,jordan, Prokhorov’s political resurrection may prove too useful for either Putin or the Kremlin middlemen to pass up,http://www.2012moncleroutletsitoufficiale.com/.

Prokhorov has not forgotten that he owes his fortune and therefore his allegiance to Putin. As he already stated in his press conference, he doesn’t plan to dwell on attacking Putin (no more than 10% of his platform will be anti-Putin), but rather would like to talk about his plans for Russia. Kudrin has all but ignored Putin in laying out his case for a new party,Piumino Moncler. Imagine if Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney came out tomorrow and said they were done attacking President Obama and wanted to focus solely on their plans for the U.S. Both Kudrin and Prokhorov represent ‘acceptable opposition’ to Moscow. That’s a recipe for a gracious but certain defeat. Kudrin owes his allegiance to Putin for slightly different reasons, but the result is the same: both candidates exist to draw off votes and appease the intellectual classes who are disenchanted with Putin’s leadership. But they will do nothing to keep Putin from a third term as President.

Putin will run a campaign — he will go to a supermarket, complain that prices are too high, and prices will be lowered. He will find some way to distribute a token amount of the natural resource wealth to the public, such as ordering a price cap on gasoline.? He will spend the money it takes to make a noticeable impact for his base. He’ll make the gestures to the public and the media that he deserves a third term. And he’ll get it,moncler sito ufficiale.

What will be interesting is whether Putin makes any adjustments to his leadership style upon winning that third term. Will he embrace some limited reforms? Will he attempt to prepare Russia for a day when he is no longer president,air jordan france? Putin,Moncler Sito Ufficiale, as president and now prime minister, has spent years gutting Russia’s institutions, in order to consolidate power. Could that, in the face of these protests, begin to be reversed, ever so slightly?

Whatever occurs in Russia, be sure that this is no ,Moncler Outlet Online. Changes are a long way off in Putin’s Russia. But the reemergence of Prokhorov and Kudrin in the political arena may just indicate that the Kremlin is toying with an idea of reform.

This essay is based on a transcribed interview with Bremmer.

Photo: Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov speaks during a news conference in Moscow December 12, 2011. Prokhorov announced on Monday his intention to run for president during the March 2012 election. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin

“You didn’t build that.”

“Corporations aren’t people.”

With the first, a revealing gaffe, and the second, a wildly cheered campaign refrain, one party has certainly made it clear how it feels about American business these days.

It ain’t good.

Well, big surprise, we don’t agree. We consider entrepreneurs American heroes and, as we’ve opined recently, we think many corporations brim with humanity. Business can’t operate unfettered, of course, without any form of oversight or control. But our view, essentially, is that business is a source of great good for society, with the power to create hope and opportunity like no other institution going.

Indeed, the positives so outweigh the negatives that lately we’ve been trying to identify why some people hate business so fervently. After all, the risks of this movement’s efforts to demonize business are frighteningly high.

Here’s where we’ve landed.

First,jordan pas cher, there’s clearly a group of people that disdains business because they support some or all of the fundamental leveling tenets of socialism. This ideology is too multifaceted to summarize here and is well-known in any regard, but suffice it to say that its adherents believe, as the president once put it, “You’ve got to spread the wealth around.”

Then there are people who hate business not because of ideology but because of personal experience they’ve been wrongly fired, endured a dreadful boss, or watched a schmoozer get the promotion that, by rights, belonged to someone better. Whatever the specifics, these individuals see business as a place where good people get burned.

For still others,air jordan, their hostility derives from the recent financial meltdown, when the sheer negligence of many financial institutions and rating agencies, they believe, resulted in blameless Americans losing their jobs and their homes and threatened to bring down the entire economy.

Finally, and perhaps most pernicious because of its outsize influence,moncler outlet, is the hostility toward business that radiates from the intellectual elite the opinion leaders in journalism, academia and government. To them, business is rotten because it’s just so completely unfair. Otherwise, how do you explain the success of the party animal who lived down the hall in college?

You know what we mean. With the intellectual elite,Moncler Outlet, you have a group of people who, once upon a time,Moncler, took their studies very seriously, ran their college newspapers and clubs and protested for social justice in their free time. After graduation, they took jobs where they felt they could fight the good fight, even if it meant financial sacrifice. That was all well and good until 10 or 15 years out, when they started hearing stories about the obnoxious loudmouths in their college dorms who majored in playing the angles and minored in beer pong. These “lightweights” (in their view) had, horrifyingly, struck it rich on Wall Street. And not by making the world a better place. No simply by showing up and chumming around.

O.K., so maybe that is enough to make you hate business.

Except, you shouldn’t. First of all, even if Wall Street allows some former party animals to make a fortune, Wall Street is but a piece of American business. It may show up in movies and on TV as the archetype, but far more of U.S. business consists of consumer and manufacturing companies making and selling real stuff, family-run enterprises, startups, farms, sports teams, ice cream shops,Giubbotti Moncler, art galleries, summer camps, record labels you name it. American business is what America does every day.

But just as important, you shouldn’t vilify American business because it’s our only road back to a thriving country, free of the noose of debt and offering opportunity to all who are willing to work, create,nike air jordan, compete and grow.

Everyone knows that our economy must improve, but it can only improve in an environment that encourages business and, yes, even loves it. Atmosphere matters. When hostility reigns, big enterprises worry about the regulations coming down the pike that might crimp operations and profits, and most hunker down on the capital spending front, human and otherwise. Entrepreneurs worry it’s not the right time or climate to expand, borrow on their credit line or hire, and they do the same,nike air jordan.

Look, if you want jobs and who doesn’t? you have to come to terms with reality. Hating business doesn’t just hurt business,http://www.monclersitooutlettufficiale.com/.

It destroys the way forward for everyone,http://www.airjordanmagasinfrrr.com/.

Jack Welch was the CEO of General Electric for 21 years and is the founder of the . Suzy Welch is an author, speaker and the former Editor of the Harvard Business Review.

PHOTO: An Occupy Wall Street activist takes part in a march in downtown Manhattan in New York, July 11, 2012. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz