■"Kremlin Gobbles Up Sibneft: Gazprom's $13.1 Billion Purchase Widens State Control in Oil Sector," by Gregory L. White, Wall Street Journal, 29 September 2005, p. A16.

Russian gas giant Gazprom (#1 in company reserves in the world) just snaps up Sibneft (Russian acronym for Siberia oil, which is "neft" in Russian).

Yet another sad loss for democracy and capitalism in Russia? Only if you think that it was fair and right for Kremlin insiders like Khordorkovksy to simply buy up vast chunks of Russia's energy sector for kopecks on the ruble back in the 1990s. Imagine if the U.S. created Microsoft and then sold it to Bill Gates for $10 million back in 1998. Imagine how much more loved Bill would be in that scenario. Then imagine the lack of public outrage when Bill was prosecuted for tax evasion and put in jail.

So Putin continues his quest to buy back Russian energy interests for the government (the Kremlin owns a slim majority of Gazprom, creating Exxon-level global competitors in the process that recaptures "some of the geopolitical heft that vanished with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991."

So Putin is building his Standard Oil that corresponds to where Russia stands in its economic development history, far closer to America at the start of the 20th century than the 21st, not unlike China-not unlike any New Core state.