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Russia

Dmitry Rogozin Certainly Has A Sweet Deal Right Now

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
December 4, 2019
Filed under
Dmitry Rogozin Certainly Has A Sweet Deal Right Now

A big salary, luxury cars, and a new dacha–Russia’s space leader lives large, Ars Technica
“A leading critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Alexei Navalny, recently turned his attention toward the country’s space program. In an entertaining 13-minute video not unlike those produced by “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” on HBO, Navalny tackles corruption surrounding the construction of the Vostochny Spaceport in far-eastern Russia, as well as the apparently lavish lifestyle of Roscosmos leader Dmitry Rogozin. (The video is in Russian; it was translated for Ars by Robinson Mitchell. The English-language captions are mostly accurate.) … Evidently Rogozin’s job has other perks. According to the documents, Rogozin has also purchased new vehicles: for himself, a Mercedes-Benz S560, and his wife, a Range Rover. Combined, these vehicles are valued at about $300,000. And then the Roscosmos chief also acquired an 8,600 sq. foot dacha north of Moscow worth about $3 million. And the documents appear to obscure even more gains, Navalny argues.”
Vostochny Spaceport Corruption Has Not Gone Away, earlier post
Russia Wants To Lead In Space By Spending Less Money On It, earlier post
Vostochny Spaceport Has A Few Criminal Issues, earlier post
Putin Wants To Jail Spaceport Employees, earlier post
Earlier Russia postings

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

14 responses to “Dmitry Rogozin Certainly Has A Sweet Deal Right Now”

  1. ThomasLMatula says:
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    What do you expect since its a socialist nation?

    • Todd Austin says:
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      It is? That’s funny, having studied Russia for decades and lived there myself, I thought it was a corrupt authoritarian oligarchy controlled by an association of the state security apparatus and the ultra rich. But hey, what do I know.

      And for those playing along at home, socialism, social democracy, and national socialism are radically different things, despite the seeming similarity.

      • Michael Spencer says:
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        Indeed. Those criticizing from the right love to talk about Russia, and Venezuela, neither of which are ‘socialist’.

        Better examples, and closer to socialism though not congruent: Netherlands, Finland, a few others; all of which when polled reveal happy citizens leading productive and long lives.

        In truth any citizen living in a western society pays for social benefits in one way or another. When costs are shared, citizen health meets in th middle of any curve. When costs aren’t shared, many re left behind. Far too many.

        • ThomasLMatula says:
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          Social benefits are different than socialism. Socialism in economic terms is about who owns the means of production. In Venezuela the government owns the key driver of the economy, the oil industry, which it nationalize in 1976.

          In Russia the pipelines are a government monopoly as is natural gas production. The rest of the oil industry is a mix of government and private corporations. Energy exports is a major driver of the Russian economy.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            Thank you, Professor. Of course you are right, when viewed more sharply. Control of the means of production is a central communist and socialist tenet to be sure.

            However, would you agree that in common parlance ‘socialism’ is understood to include the countries that I named, and more, because – and help me out here if it’s off base – because the citizenry regards a fairly wide range of products and services as rightly a collective responsibility, and is willing to pay for it?

            Health care is the obvious example, but so too education at every level, as well as (to some extent) some basic housing.

            In the US, the term is often understood to mean higher taxes. And more to the point, it means that my money is being used for your benefit; and that you should get off your ass and provide these benefits yourself!

            It’s the land of the free, after all, where you have the opportunity to provide for your family and if you haven’t then there’s something wrong with you!

            Anyway, that is my own understanding of how I use the term used.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            The term socialism is used that way, but that is not correct. Technically those countries are seen as being capitalist but with a more extensive “safety net” funded by taxes.

            But it has greatly strained their economies and they are being forced to reign it in, but as the nationwide strike in France shows it’s hard to “downsize” benefits. The basic driver of the strike is the raising of the French retirement age from 52 years old to 57 to keep France from going broke.

        • Todd Austin says:
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          Actually, Michael, despite the misuse of the term by Senator Sanders, our European partners are not socialist countries. They are social democracies. They choose to provide those things we all need centrally, because it’s more efficient (cheaper) and because it makes sure that people don’t through the cracks. There is no artificial barrier between police/fire/defense/elementary education/environmental protection and medical care/higher education/etc.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            Todd: Yep! I responded more fully above to Dr. Matula, making the point that the word is often misused, even by people who know better, like me.

      • ThomasLMatula says:
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        Who owns the stock of the Roscosmos Corporation? What exchange is it traded on?

        There are degrees of socialism from pure communism where the government owns everything to milder forms were the government owns selected key industries. Don’t confuse political science labels with economic definitions.

        • Todd Austin says:
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          Who owns stock in NASA, ESA, or JAXA?

          Regardless of the source of the labels, our European partners are not socialist, they are capitalist. Russia is a mishmash of private ownership and nominal state ownership.

          I say nominal because certain industries have been re-nationalized (e.g., Lukoil) in order to wrest control from oligarchs who were not sufficiently subservient to the monopoly on political power demanded by the oligarch named Putin. It’s not that those industries are state-owned so much as they are Putin-owned/controlled.

          State-directed capitalism is not socialism.

          Putin recognized years ago that free-market capitalism (including it’s social-democratic variant) would not leave him with the level of power and wealth that he wanted. That’s why he set up an office of his United Russia party in Beijing – to learn everything he could about strict authoritarian control of a capitalist wealth-generating economy. He’s succeeded in his plan rather well.

          Rogozin is just a player in the game. He gets his seat at the table as an oligarch, while his chunk of the economy produces sufficient payback and a sufficiently-low level of embarrassing revelations that he doesn’t lose his job (or his head).

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            Roscosmos technically is not a space agency but a corporation owned by the state. This makes it a bit different than NASA, JAXA, etc. TVA would be a closer analogy in the United States. ESA is an international consortium which is a different beast entirely.

            And the term you are searching for is actually fascism, but unfortunately that term has even more negative baggage in the West than the term socialism. But if you look at the relationship of the government to industry it is the same as it was in 1930’s Germany, Italy and Spain where a one party government run by a strong leader forced private industry to toe the line or it would be nationalize. If you look up the economic description of fascism you will see it matches the way the Russia economy is today although again, because of its association with Nazi Germany, it has such negative baggage in the West folks go out of their way to avoid using the proper label for it.

            BTW fascism first emerged in Italy after WWI as a counter to communism without the perceived baggage of capitalism. It was widely praised in Europe at the time as a third choice between capitalism and communism. As such it should have been expected that Russia would fall into a similar economic system. It was only after Germany adopted it and it got tangled up with their racism and the holocaust, political not economic policies, that it became reviled in the West.

    • hikingmike says:
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      Less disparity? 🙂

  2. hikingmike says:
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    Go anti-corruption movement!

  3. mfwright says:
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    Think of how much they could have achieved with their space program if spending that money on the facility.