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Greetings, comrades. I want to start today's episode with a little example that showcases what today's episode is going to be about. I experimented with

putting the explanation before this and after that and all this stuff, but in the recording,

everything else sounded really silly. Don't worry, we'll get to the meaning of this, but I decided

to give you a little picture of an introduction and then explain why it all actually matters.

See, when Yegor Gaidhar, at that point a promising 34-year-old economist that had just very recently joined Yeltsin's government,

first visited the state treasury in late 1981 to check how much money the newly minted Russian country would

actually have at their disposal, he expected to see a somewhat healthy balance.

You know, maybe a couple of dusty Soviet gold bars, stuck to the drawer somewhere, or, well,

more likely, a reassuring spreadsheet in Times New Roman that said, you know, something to the likes

of, don't worry, comrade, we got this, except, well, in economist speak.

Gorbachev at that point had fled.

In a month, the Soviet Union would be dissolved, there would be a lot of problems that

needed solving, yes.

But the USSR was an oil exporter.

It had been huge and powerful. And sure, there had been disasters and when Gorbachev and the

filthy, Comey bastard finally vacated the office, he definitely pocketed a decent amount of cash.

But after all, it was the Soviet Union's money he would be

inheriting, and it was just too much of it to be there.

Gaidah, having just received his PhD in economy, about a month earlier, was eager to put the funds

to good use.

He wanted to go down in history, and he really wanted to do much good to his country.

...