Should the Kremlin bail out the billionaires?

Washington Post| With stock markets here down more than two-thirds from their May highs and continuing to fall, almost all of Russia's billionaires -- men and women who made their fortunes in the transition to capitalism after the Soviet Union's fall -- are hurting. According to one analysis, the wealth of the top 25 on the Forbes Russia list has plunged nearly $240 billion in the past five months.
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These losses have been felt across the Russian economy, as the tycoons' businesses trim jobs, cut salaries and suspend projects, and have presented Prime Minister Vladimir Putin with a delicate political question: Should the Kremlin bail out the billionaires?

Putin has already reached into the nation's huge reserve funds, the third-largest in the world, and announced one emergency measure after another in an attempt to end the turmoil that has gripped the Russian financial system. The government has pledged more than $200 billion thus far to bolster stock markets and banks, an amount equal to about 15 percent of the country's gross domestic product.

But it remains uncertain whether the money will be enough, how it will be distributed, and to what extent the Kremlin will try to use it to help friends and punish enemies. In a sign of growing dissatisfaction with Putin's handling of the crisis, an influential business group published an unusually blunt letter last week warning that the reserves could be exhausted within two years and urging the Kremlin to refrain from playing favorites as it distributes aid.

"The principles of providing state support to companies should be made public and transparent," wrote Alexander Shokhin, president of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, complaining that the Kremlin often only helps the few, privileged businessmen who can get meetings with officials.