Russia cuts off gas to Ukraine, other European countries

Continuing its bid to remain a James Bond franchise villain, Russia's oil and gas giant Gazprom pulled the plug - or, rather, put it in - to the pipelines running to Ukraine.

Infrastructure being what it is, Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Bosnia and Macedonia are also affected by the decision.

The row began during negotiations between the two countries over natural gas futures. Instead of purchasing gas on the open market as prices rise and fall, Ukraine must purchase its gas at a yearly rate from its obnoxious neighbor. It's an all-eggs-in-one-basket yearly futures price.

Last year, the rate was $179.50 US per 1000 cubic meters. Moscow wanted to raise its prices to $250. Ukraine said, "nyet: $201."

Moscow replied, "da: $450."

Russia's excuses range from attempting to make up for the recent fall in energy prices which coincides with the credit crunch and massive debts on the part of Russian interests to the so-Cold War claim that Ukraine has been "stealing gas."

Seriously. As though a bunch of Ukrainian kids have been out at the natural gas line tapping it through vinyl hoses. 

So much to love and learn from this:

• Pursuing more energy sources insulates countries from - and creates problems for - countries who live off oil and gas generation, almost all of which are corrupt and most of which are deplorable.
• The Russian government is still vile. Russians remain unwilling or unable to fix this.
• The contrast will be missed: America knocks over and occupies a terrorist country rich in petro resources, hands it over to its people after practically ending a thousand years of ethno- religious war by establishing a pluralistic democracy, and allows the country to sell its resources on the open market. Russia uses its petro resources to bully its neighbors. Progressives will criticize America.
• We get a taste of what truly awful petro companies look like. Progressives are constantly harping about the bottomless sins of ExxonMobile and other American energy companies. But the largest, most unscrupulous ones are owned by the States of countries like Russia, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Somehow, their behavior elicits a lefty yawn.
• While Progressives have been acting as though the recent economic crisis around the world is the fault of capitalism or greeeeed! – despite the fact that capitalism was what built the vast majority of the world's wealth in the first place (talk about childish ingratitude) – you can clearly see the kinds of misbehavior inherent in a monopolistic or oligopolistic system. (All Statist enterprises are monopolistic or oligopolistic.) Such systems lack the choice properties of a free market system, and are therefore almost guaranteed to provide inferior products - or no products at all - at excessive costs.

For more, see the Independent UK.