KKR and Russia's New Wealth

I recently read the book "Barbarians at the Gate", which I think is the best book I have ever read. It is the true story of the merger of RJ Reynolds Tobacco and Nabisco Foods, and how the public company was then taken private by the firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts. What I think the book does a fabulous job of doing is showing how most people in the financial and corporate world have emotions and understand the consequences of their actions, and are not merely faceless businessmen. The book does a good job of showing how there are no "bad guys", no Monty Burns', but rather, just smart people trying to outsmart one another. Anyway, here is an interesting article on Henry Kravis the self-made billionaire who founded KKR back in the 70's (you have to have a washingtonpost.com or slate.com account to read the link; they are both free, and I highly recommend getting them). If the book is a good representation, I have to say he seems like a really good guy.

Here is also an interesting article from Washington Post on the new wealth in Russia. One of my favorite stories is the one of Ronald Reagan showing Boris Yeltsin (then Mayor of Moscow I believe)around Washington DC in the late 1980's. Reagan commented to his staff that maybe Yeltsin, who was a reformer in the Soviet Union pushing for liberalization of the economy and advocate of glasnost, may not have been the American ally the conservative administration was hoping for, as he seemed indifferent to the National Monument and the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials. Then, on their way back to the White House, they passed a local grocery store and Yeltsin walked in and started to cry. He was astonished at how easy it was for Americans to get food. Anyway, I am no fan of communism. But this article reminds me of something Milton Friedman said recently. I am paraphrasing and babbling, but basically he said something like "For decades I advocated and advised developing nations to liberalize, liberalize, liberalize, and when your done liberalizing, then you can liberalize some more. Looking back, we should have established the rule of law first, then liberalize". Corruption is really the killer, which is why the commuted sentence of Scooter Libby, the Justice Department debacle, and the joke that is/was Tom DeLay and ARMPAC bothers me so much. (FYI, and I am shocked that this was not reported on more, but David Iglesias, the US Attorney for New Mexico who was fired by the Justice Department to make way for more lawyers from Regent University, one of the worst law schools in the country, is actually the lawyer in the GITMO case which was the inspiration for Aaron Sorkin's play and then the movie A Few Good Men).