Russian oligarch yachts

limb wrote:This is a thread to discuss the cost of the yachts of Russian oligarchs. It's also to compare how much oligarchs in Russia spend on building their yachts compared to how much the Russian navy gets funds for building ships and their engines.

How many yachts are left in Russia? Can the oligarchs get their yachts confiscated? Why did the Russian government never forbid these oligarchs from wasting money on them when those hundreds of millions of dollars could've gone to vessels that Russia actually needs?

lancelot wrote:You know what. This is a popular meme right now. But you won't get any money back by capturing these yachts. Resale value of a yacht is pretty low.
These are status symbols and are typically custom designed for each client. And no one wants a used one.

Even if you discount the Yeltsin years I think the major problem plaguing the Russian Navy right now was reliance on foreign production. Ukrainian engines, transmissions, and European engines. Then you have the problem with poor productivity in Russian shipyards in general. But I think that is a complex problem. Some lacked infrastructure, some lacked trained personnel, perhaps the ship designs themselves are not amenable to quick production, and then you have the problem of, you guessed it, delays in delivering components to the yard which also cause delays. I mean how long has the Admiral Gorshkov class been delayed because of engine supply issues, or debugging the radar systems in it? Would buying less yatches solve this issue? I doubt it.

There are also lots of claims of funding issues. But you know what? I would not be surprised if the Russian state did that on purpose to it could purchase these hastily privatized Yeltsin era former Soviet assets back. By starving private yards of contracts, they went bankrupt, and were easily put into the fold of USC.

So this argument is mostly important from a moral point of view. And I think that is important as well. But let us not mix issues here.

GarryB wrote:All oligarchs world wide are selfish evil people who care more about themselves than their countries or the people in them.

The Russian government can tell rich Russians what to do just as much as US or UK politicians can... money is power and these people control western politicians.

How many carrier groups could Beezos afford with his 120 billion personal wealth?

But then that is his money, so why is that relevant... did you sponsor a tank for the army of the country you live in?

Besides ironically these yachts and assets being seized are in the west, and most of the Russian oligarchs have already fled Russia to live in the west so they are only Russian oligarchs because that is where they stole their money from.

It is actually good for Russia that these assets are being seized because it makes ethnically Russian rich people fear having their wealth located in the west because evil western governments can make any accusation they like and steal their property... just say they are friends with Putins gardner and then seize their house and lock their bank accounts.

This is brilliant for Russia because it means most will try to return their money and wealth back to Russia even if they lose a lot on tax they will keep most of it.

This is a case of the west being dumber than normal.

It is like soccer teams... with that Russian selling that British soccer team... hahahaha... he wasn't Russian... that is where the money he stole came from... most of the Russian billionaires got CIA seed money to buy up Soviet state assets like factories etc etc and then asset strip them of anything valuable like machinery and tools, fire the staff and keep their pension funds and then sell it to someone else all for an enormous profit... that is how you get to be a billionaire so easily.

You have to be a real cold hearted  because you are essentially destroying the lives of your workers because their pensions are now gone, and many are now also unemployed, but you made a lot of easy money... so you piss off to London and buy a soccer team and they all think you are wonderful... for a dirty ugly Russian...

I would say take their yachts and their soccer teams and really you should also be doing that to your own 1%s because they have far too much money too... it is obscene.