Night of the Long Trousers

This was quite a performance by Medvedev - managed to look like a little boy who's just been let out in public in long trousers for the first time, while invoking the powers of the President of the Russian Federation. Reminds me of the "Who's Queen?" scene in Blackadder. When you have to remind people of your authority, it means you don't have any.

Clearly, Kudrin wanted to be fired, or he would not have spoken out in public.
Why did he want to be fired? One view has it that he wanted to go into public politics earlier this year, and head up Pravoe Delo, instead of Prokhorov. I have no idea why he would want to do this – the only real perk that I can see is that as a deputy you get immunity from prosecution. But even this can be taken away if the authorities really want to get you. Possibly he saw it as a semi-retirement job – you get a blue light, no one bothers you, and he gets to spend more time with his mistress.

Anyway, Kudrin was apparently dissuaded from doing this, and Putin promised him that if he stayed on as Finance Minister another year, Putin would make him Prime Minister when he became President. So basically Putin screwed Kudrin, hence the outburst on Saturday – it was a signal to force Putin to fire him. I imagine that when you want to leave a lucrative job like Finance Minister, you have to pay people in order to get it done, just as you have to pay people to get appointed. Forcing Putin to fire him means that Kudrin doesn’t have to share any of his gains with anyone. In this way Kudrin gets to spend more time with his loved ones (his money and his mistress) – it’s really quite an elegant exit ticket.

Medvedev signed his political suicide note yesterday – his public petulance makes him look weak to any Russian who holds a rank higher than secretary. It’s reminiscent of the boss’s son trying to impose his authority over the harmless department that his dad has given him to run. It also means that Medvedev will now have to fire anyone who disagrees with him publicly, so he could end up without a team quite soon. I think Putin’s plan is to keep him in place until the first minor economic crisis, and then fire him. Or possibly force Medvedev to put his name to an austerity budget in 2013, and then fire him when people protest.

For the record, I got it wrong on Putin – I thought he would keep Medvedev as President, but perhaps Medvedev was letting the power go to his head, and threatened to run against Putin. I had also thought that Putin was getting tired of running Russia and was happy doing butch photo-opportunities, but I guess he has realized that whatever stooge he appoints President will eventually begin to believe that he is worthy of the job.

Is there anything that Putin doesn't do?

On New Year's Day we were treated to a report of Putin dressing down Boris Gromov, for failing to restore electricity to some villages in Moscow oblast by the deadline of 1800 on New Year's Eve. Gromov stammered that not everything depended on him, but Putin's short answer was that this is no excuse, and ordered Gromov to spend New Year's Eve (the most important family holiday in Russia) in one of the villages that has no electricity. Today (4 January) we saw Putin picking up the phone and talking to the captain of an ice-bound ship, checking that the crew had enough food and water.

Can you imagine Obama doing the same to one of his governors? Well, of course, in the USA, governors are chosen by the people, not by central government, so the governors don't report to the Federal Executive in the same way. But it takes a major disaster for the Commander-in-Chief to be so publicly involved. In Russia, it's taken for granted that Putin will be involved from the word go, as in the case of the stranded freighter. Of course, in stickier situations like the Kursk sinking, or Beslan, or even the Nord-Ost siege, senior management stay away until things are more clear. Of course, this skill of knowing when to be present or absent is basic for any politician in any organisation in the world. In fact the two core skills in any political organisation from a Parliament to a corporation are the ability to take credit for other people's successes, and to be able to blame others for one's own failure. But in Russia, it's not just politics.

If Obama were so directly involved, it would probably be seen as a sign of failure - he was unable to appoint competent deputies or to establish structures of power to ensure that things are dealt with. No, everything has to run through him, and be seen to run through him, and it's a sign of how weak he feels his power to be. If anyone else gets the credit for something, there is the fear that they will get the credit, and become a threat to him. Still, in the final analysis, it's mostly PR, designed to create the impression that the country can't function without Putin.

Thoughts on the Khodorkovsky verdict

There was genuine hope that justice might prevail in the second YUKOS trial - after all, if the aim was just to put Khodorkovsky away for another 6 years, why go to the expense and waste of a long trial? The fact that the process was so drawn out suggested that there was a real disagreement within the elite. Towards the end of the trial, it seemed that the prosecutors were actively trying to drag out the process, implying that their bosses did not have enough political support for a guilty verdict. But in the end, the result was what the pessimists expected - Khodorkovsky and Lebedev got the maximum sentence, and there really is no semblance of justice being done. Also, the trial seems to have established the precedent that any transfers inside a corporate group can be construed as theft, and that you can infringe on the rights of minority shareholders even if you own 100% of a company. This puts the rest of corporate Russia on watch that anyone can be jailed, if the elite wills it.

What happens next? There will be an appeal, presumably, and this should allow greater clarity on the absurdity of the charges. There was some merit in the first jail sentence - I remember a comment on the Johnson Russia List by a senior lawyer at RenCap who had gone through the charges, and it did seem that Khodorkovsky and YUKOS had indulged in tax evasion. The fact that everyone else had been doing it, and the schemes had been signed off on by the Tax Inspectorate doesn't constitute an adequate defense. This time there were numerous procedural violations, and the judge even concluded that Khodorkovsky and Lebedev had stolen more oil than Yuganskneftegaz had produced. The prosecutors tried to amend this fact late in the day, but the judge seems to have decided that they nonetheless proved the impossible. So there are grounds to appeal, although it's unlikely that this will work on legal grounds, as it would imply that there is something wrong with the Russian legal system, and we all know that this is not the case, as Putin, Lavrov, and Medvedev have repeatedly told us how independent the courts are. But if the political ground does shift in the meantime, then presumably they could use one of the many procedural violations as grounds to declare a mistrial.

There's not much hope that the political ground will shift much before 2012. I still think that Medvedev will stay President, because the status quo suits Putin, as he can shift a lot of ceremonial duties off on to Medvedev, without ceding any real power. On the other hand, a six year term could embolden Medvedev to broaden his power base, and Putin could pre-empt this by taking back the Presidency. Medvedev clearly has not built his own power base, and those few ministers who have shifted towards his camp could shift back quite fast. The only thing that could really undermine Putin would some sort of corruption scandal in the areas under his control, and perhaps this is why the elite are so worried about Bout and what he might reveal about who controls Russia's arms exports, and where the money goes.

In the meantime, what's the conclusion for the future of Russia? Russia's rulers stay firmly in the autocratic camp - the executive is in control of the judiciary and the legislature, so the only checks and balances are those generated by internal politics, and the budget constraint. So the prognosis is that nothing will really change until there's an economic crisis, and Putin's government has proved very adept at staying on just the right side of a budgetary crisis, while increasing transfers from commodity producers to the various social groups that live off the state budget. As long as the budget has revenues from commodity income, Russia won't change.

The Khodorkovsky trial - an Unfinished Symphony.

Most comments on the Khodorkovsky trial start with the inevitability of a guilty verdict. Yet there were whispers from serious people that a not guilty verdict might be possible, that the trial is an embarrassment to Medvedev and his people. One enterprising bank economist said that there was a 40% chance that Khodorkovsky would be acquitted. This a clever position that allowed him to claim to have been the most optimistic about a not-guilty verdict, if this were the outcome, but also not wrong about a guilty verdict. But clever fence-sitting will never actually tell you how to bet.

Khodorkovsky and Lebedev have been pronounced guilty, but the trial still drags on while the judge reads the conclusion. No doubt the judges will claim the maximum possible recess while considering sentencing. And then there will be an appeal. This story will not be closed for some time, which to my mind reflects that fact that there is no clear political view on Khodorkovsky, and so the decision hangs in limbo. In a way this is good news - if the forces of darkness really were in the ascendant in Russia, then the trial would have been quick, and Khodorkovsky back in Siberia, freeing up prosecutorial manpower to harrass some other unwilling-to-share oligarch.

The trial balloon about swapping Bout for Khodorkovsky was a sign of the Russian leadership's lack of options. They know that there is no real benefit to keeping Khodorkovsky in jail, as no oligarch will again try to gain the sort of power that he claimed, and the proceeds of Russia's mineral wealth will mostly accrue to the State. On the other hand, once Khodorkovsky is out, his enemies fear him, as all bullies fear anyone who might fight back. So Putin and his team need to keep Khodorkovsky in jail, even though Medvedev and the people around him would like to let him out.

The main issue here is that investment in Russia is woefully low, below 20% of GDP (China is around 40%), and letting Khodorkovsky out would greatly help the economic authorities to persuade foreign and domestic investors that Russia is a good place to put their money. At the moment, it's telling that if you look at the various public filings, not one Russian oligarch holds his wealth onshore, whether in his own name or via a corporate entity. All of them, without exception hold their wealth in offshore jurisdictions. So if the most connected people with the best lawyers don't trust the Russian legal system, why should any other investor?

There is another issue, which is that if you ask just about any ordinary Russian, they are well aware that most murderers get let out after 10 years or so. So the Khodorkovsky sentence is getting harder and harder to justify, and Putin is painting himself into a corner. It's not enough to throw mud at Khodorkovsky, and say that his associates were responsible for murder. Does that mean that Putin or Medevedev should take responsibility for everything that their subordinates do?

The Bout-Khodorkovsky swap is an elegant tactical move, which is why it appeals to the securocrats - it makes them feel clever. They are concerned that Bout, unlike Khodorkovsky, will happily agree terms with his captors in order to avoid jail. And Bout knows a lot about which senior Russian officials have taken which payoffs in regards to Russian illegal arms shipments and other trades, and can probably direct the CIA to the relevant bank accounts. Why else would the Russians exert such massive pressure on the Thai government in order to prevent the extradition of a private individual who has not really lived in Russia for the past two decades?

The problem for the Russians is that Khodorkovsky does not mean a lot to the Americans, and if anything, he is worth more to them in jail, because he’s a stick with which to beat Medvedev. And also a symbol of Medvedev’s impotence. YUKOS did pay a lot of money to Washington lobbyists, and there probably is some residual goodwill, but there is no political capital to be made in the US by supporting a Russian oligarch. Post-crisis, and post-Macondo, rich foreigners from oil companies are not so popular in America. Furthermore, Bout must have some useful information about sales to Al-Quaeda and similar groups, and that's obviously a big priority for the US.

And of course Khodorkovsky would have to agree to any deal, which is also not that likely. It would be tantamount to admitting that he was an American agent, and probably any deal would require his exile. He might have accepted exile in return for avoiding jail, but now that he's done his time, why pay the price twice? This is how the Russian elite are good at tactics, and bad at strategy. They scored a massive tactical victory by putting Khodorkovsky away, but now they are in a strategic corner. They fear Khodorkovsky out of jail, but to keep him in jail, they have to abandon the myth that Russia has an independent or fair legal system. Once he is out of jail, he no longer has anything to fear, and he has plenty of resources to fight back.

When the South Africans jailed Mandela, they had no idea they were creating a martyr (and Mandela was not a very attractive character back in the 1960s, head of the Soviet sponsored Stalinist wing of the ANC). By the end, the Botha regime were desperate to let him out, which meant that it was Mandela who dictated the terms of his own release, even delaying the time he walked out of jail, to show that it was he, not the regime, who was in control. It's the same with Khodorkovsky, the longer he stays in jail, the more people will remember him for the injustices that were done to him, than for the injustices that he did to others. The regime knows this, which is why there will be no final decision until after the 2012 election.

Medvedev is trying, but no one really believes it

Medvedev really does seem to be trying to establish himself as independent political figure from Putin, but the picture in the mainstream Russian media comes across that it's still Putin who is in charge. Last night we saw a huge ceremonial meeting in Volgograd, ahead of Victory day on May 9th. The President was there, with a load of senior ministers, governors, and a lot of discussions about things like veterans' housing and Medvedev was making tough talk about chasing regions which were not following through on promises to provide housing to veterans. He really did seem presidential.

The only problem was that at the same time, Putin was in Moscow, in heavy discussions with the Ukrainian prime minister about gas prices and gas transit, and it all just seemed more serious. Not just because the Ukraine gas situation allows you to steal billions, whereas there are only millions at stake with veterans' housing. It was just that it seemed clear that Putin has retained control of the really big issues in Russian government, and Medvedev does not really seem to impinge on them.

For instance, there was a big meeting last week about modernisation and technology, two of Medvedev's favourite topics. It now seems clear that a lot of criticism of the Federal Migration Service (FMS) came out of that meeting. The new national technopark is to be based near Skolkovo, a new, modern business school that is to breed national champions, and its associated technopark will be Russia's Silicon Valley. Only the business school has pointed out that it's virtually impossible for them to hire Western talent because of Russia's migration laws. One administrator says: "Once the candidates start to see what is required of them to start coming to work here, they start looking at opportunities in Brazil and India."

A sure sign of this criticism was a big photo event two days later, where Putin visited the FMS, and they proudly showed off a new database. The thing is, the FMS is Putin's sphere of influence, because it relates to security, the border and, most importantly customs. Control of this allows him and his allies to skim off billions (just look at the quality of buildings that the State Customs Committee works in) and he isn't letting this go. So this was Putin saying: "This is my area, it's all fine, don't criticise me."

Today in Vedomosti there is a lead article saying that the rules for migration need to change, and the FMS has promised to put together new rules that will start working from the beginning of 2011. But no one has been fired at the FMS, and presumably the new rules are a concession that are designed to ward off criticism, and make sure that there is no increased oversight of the FMS. Because oversight could mean that Putin starts to lose control. Medvedev's problem is that he has no leverage - he could use the courts, or the prosecutors, like Putin did when he came to power, but they are already controlled by Putin. Essentially, Medvedev needs a Praetorian Guard (although maybe Saddam's Imperial Guard is a better analogy), and that is just not his style.

The Political Consequences of the Magnitsky Affair

Thoughts on the Magnitsky affair, and the current state of government in Russia



We seem to have an ongoing rush of scandals and disasters, and Medvedev's response to them is different from Putin's. Firstly, Medvedev at least acknowledges that something bad has happened - the Magnitsky affair got prime time coverage a week after the lawyer's death. It also got oblique coverage almost in real time - the day after Magnitsky died in custody, Medvedev had a meeting with the Minister of Justice . At the time, I thought this was a very good sign, because it implied to me that the prison department would not be made to carry the can for the lawyer's death, and that Medvedev would go after the officials at the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) who had really been calling the shots.

However, last Friday, the Ministry of Justice confirmed that it had fired 20 senior officials, including a deputy Minister, and the Director of Butyrka prison, where Magnitsky died. So the official spin is that there is no problem outside the prison system, and although the seniority of the firings at least implies an understanding that this is not an isolated incident, it falls short of what Magnitsky's supporters hoped for. (See Jamison Firestone's op-ed in Moscow Times). It's not realistic to expect that this would lead to a wide-ranging reform of the criminal justice system (there are very few countries where you would get 1 year's pre-trial detention for a tax case), but there was some hope that this case would at least lead to some serious investigation of why Magnitsky was in prison.

For instance, there is no investigation of Magnitsky's allegation that he was told that he would be freed if he withdrew his testimony against a senior MVD officer on charges of embezzlement. That same officer had got himself appointed to the investigative team, and presumably was pushing for Magnitsky to be kept in pre-trial detention, and to receive minimal medical treatment. This should be a national scandal, and it isn't. Actually, it's worth noting that there was barely any mention of these dismissals on Russian TV over the weekend. Clearly the official line has not filtered its way down to the TV editors, so they kept it out of the headlines. Anywhere else, of course, it would be the single biggest scandal of the week.

The sad thing is that, probably, behind the scenes, there is a huge battle being waged. No doubt Kudrin is on the warpath, because someone in the Ministry of Finance signed off on the disbursement of the tax refund that was essentially stolen through a complex fraud scheme that was discovered by Magnitsky. Or if Kudrin himself signed off on it (not impossible given the size of the transaction), then presumably his enemies are going after him. Big, well-connected companies need to fight tooth and nail to get much more legitimate tax refunds from the government. It's very rare for the Ministry of Finance to pay out within two days of the first court decision. There would be at least one appeal, if not more. But my guess is that Kudrin would not put his name to something so corrupt, but one of his deputy Ministers almost certainly did.

So Kudrin is probably complaining to Medvedev and Putin that the theft was approved by some deputy Minister who was forced on him by some other deputy Prime Minister as part of the endless power games inside the Russian government. And Putin and Medvedev are looking at the situation, and working out the political angles - can they move against whoever is behind this theft, and if not, can they claim a cut of the money? My guess is that the whole scheme was initiated by some senior security minister, probably in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, given that it seems to be an MVD colonel who seems to be running the scheme.

And this is where the politics starts. There was a comment on RFL discussing the Magnitsky affair, and praising the response, but suggesting that any real changes would be minimal, and that any actions would be more the result of political fights, than any genuine improvement in either transparence or accountability. Tantalisingly, though, they did not say anything about what the fight might be. The main battle at the moment seems to surround the MVD, Rashid Nurgaliyev. He has been under fire since a police officer went on the rampage in Moscow, and the attacks intensified when a public protest against local corruption in Krasnodar became a YouTube hit. This even led to a senior Edinstvo party official suggesting that the MVD should be disbanded, and all policemen asked to reapply for their jobs, as in Ukraine and Georgia. No one is taking this seriously, of course, but it's telling that the idea was even aired.

Control of the MVD is very important in Russia. It gives you the muscle on the street that you need in order to shake down businesses - nothing frightens an owner more than a gang of masked policemen turning up for a "search". The FSB can do this, although they are on shaky ground when they do so, and so can the drug police, but it's the police that can do it with impunity, so there are plenty of earning opportunities. Similarly, the police can basically arrest anyone they like, and keep them in "pre-trial detention" for up to a year, which is a strong deterrent to critics. Obviously other agencies and power centres are jealous of this power, so the Minister of Internal Affairs is often under attack, and there's been quite a lot of turnover in the post. The post is rarely a stepping stone to higher things - the Minister is normally put there by a senior political figure, and allowed to occupy the post for long enough to earn his way out, and then is replaced by another figure who reflects the balance of political power at that time.

There's an article in today's RBK daily talking about these sorts of issues. The head of the investigative committee of the MVD is past retirement age. He's a former classmate of Putin's, and there is talk of his being replaced by a former classmate of Medvedev's. The investigative committee is key, because they are the people who start investigations into corruption, or into businesses, or whatever is required. For instance, the investigative committee of the General Prosecutor's office is currently working on a review of municipal construction in Moscow. This is seen in the press as an attempt by the Federal Government to gain controls of the cash flows associated with construction in Moscow, which of course are huge. Two former senior managers of the Moscow City Government are under arrest, and clearly this is a big deal, because of the sums involved.

Is it a real clean-up, or just a diversion from one corrupt group to another? Probably a bit of both, and generally in Russia, it's more likely to be the latter than the former. But you need a blunt weapon like the investigative committee to start the process, which is why control of these is so important. One of the more regrettable aspects of Putin's presidency was the proliferation of investigative committees. In addition to the MVD, and the FSB, who have always had a free hand to do whatever they want, you had the creation of another investigative committee in the General Prosecutor's office. Also, there was a Federal anti-Drugs Committee, which was headed by a close Putin ally, and started poking its nose into all sorts of thing. The logical conclusion of this is a proliferation of private armies, although no one is saying it's going to go that far. There is endless talk of reform, but instead of reform abolishing the old, bad structures, they seem to remain, and some new group acquires overlapping powers, and becomes another unknown in the system of simultaneous equations that is the Russian government.

In this system, each new scandal becomes a weapon to be used by one clan against another. So the corruption in the MVD can be used by the General Prosecutor's office to attack the MVD, and possibly gain more power. The problem is that there is never enough force to say, completely disband the MVD, as was suggested by one Duma deputy. The old MVD still has enough weight, and presumably compromat, to keep its old position, and still cause problems, and the new guys only have enough strength to start up their own competing structure. This means an extravagant duplication of functions, so more government spending, and also a new set of corrupt officials, who buy their positions, and have to find a new way to generate money, which means more attacks on business. This cycle will repeat itself, as long as Russia has plenty of natural resources to finance it all, and only really comes under threat when there's an economic collapse, which seems to come along every 10 years or so.

Some Thoughts About Bill Browder

Bill Browder was a client of mine when I was a broker, and a number of friends have worked at Hermitage, and he is a good friend of a good friend of mine. He used to be a major Russian success story, a Salomon banker who took a small amount of seed money from some investors, and turned it into a $3 bln fund. His presentations were always fascinating, because they were sure to include some data analysis that you had not seen anywhere else, and which gave you something new and interesting to think about.

He spent a lot of time and money to improve corporate governance in the biggest Russian companies. This was partly a business move - normally when you don't like a company's practices you just vote with your feet and sell the stock. This wasn't really an option for Hermitage because they were so big - they had to try to change the way that companies were managed because they had no choice but to own them. Actually, it would be good for the economy if shareholders the world over were to follow his example - portfolio investors have had woefully little input into the boards of the world's largest companies and this has undoubtedly weakened management.

This preamble is intended to show that Bill Browder and Hermitage have, by and large, been a force for good on the Russian market. They have acted toughly in their own interests, and I'd be willing to believe that if management of a company offered them, say, a buyout on terms that were not available to other shareholders, they would take it. I have been in a meeting with them where they made it clear they expected to trade on inside information. They are not saints, but as activist shareholders they have worked tirelessly to improve Russian corporate governance. Yes, their primary motivation for this is that it will help make money for their investors and themselves, but the beauty of the free market is that it aligns the greater good with individuals pursuing their self interest.

The background to the story is that Bill Browder lost his Russian visa back in 2007 - my general feeling back then was that he had been a little too vigorous in his investigations of Surgut, and that this had threatened the incomes of some well-connected people. There was no official explanation for the denial of the visa, and Browder has been a little coy about the subject, but this is understandable - the last thing you want to do in these situations is to go public, as this only makes things worse.

Fast forward to this year, and it turns out that in the aftermath of the visa denial, Hermitage were investigated for tax evasion, and during this investigation, documents for some of their shell companies were confiscated. It then turned out that those shell companies were used to defraud the Russian tax ministry of hundreds of millions of dollars. The fraud was complicated, but the basic idea was that the shell companies had been quite profitable, because they had held Gazprom and Sberbank over a long period of time. Hermitage had paid taxes on those profits. The confiscated documents were used to make fictitious transactions that nullified the profits, and on the basis of this, the people who now controlled these companies demanded tax refunds from the government, which they duly got.

Anyone who lives and works here will tell you that it's virtually impossible to get tax refunds. It's a sore point with exporters, who must pay VAT on everything that they make, and can then claim that VAT back when they show that the goods have been exported. It takes months and months, and often ends up in court. In this case, the tax claims were paid within a week, according to Hermitage - there have to be some questions about this, because although the court cases that underlay the tax refunds are relatively easy to get, I'd be interested to know how they got hold of information that the claims were actually paid.

Taking the Hermitage view of the story at face value, it's clear that very senior people must be involved in this - you couldn't get that kind of tax refund without senior ministerial approval - I wouldn't be surprised if it required ministerial approval. Of course these revelations have merely provoked more backlash - here's an article on the aftermath.

I don't think that this is showing corruption at the very top of Russian power. What it shows is that there are people embarrassingly close to the Russian leadership who have been caught stealing, and they are backpedalling furiously to fight back. Interestingly, the story was initially broken in Vedomosti, which gave chapter and verse - this suggests that there are people in the leadership who want there to be questions raised about it. I wouldn't be surprised if the Kudrin finance bloc, for instance, is very unhappy at the rampant corruption of the security services leaders who are close to Putin, is behind this sort of disclosure.

How does it play through? Russia has put out an extradition request for Browder. Interestingly the justification for this request is tax evasion, using a scheme that is used by just about every Russian finance house - certainly two of my former employers used it, and although it's wrong, it's perfectly legal. Browder's lawyers should have no problems in fending off this one, especially since no one has a particularly high opinion of the Russian court system and its independence. And Browder will continue to ensure that this keeps a high profile, and who knows what else he may be able to disclose - he recently opened a court case that will allow him to subpoena documents from the offshore domains where the tax refund money was transferred. He's happy to name names, and presumably those names have enemies, who will use this to go after them. It's times like these when you start to worry about a person's personal safety, although one protection is that although no one really went to town about the Litvinenko case, because the victim was a Russian, Medvedev would get some very tough questions about any assassination of Bill Browder. It's not so much that the perpetrators would be worried about being brought to justice, it's just that they would probably have to pay away most of their ill-gotten gains to avoid this.

What does this mean for the future of Russia? Nothing good - the criminals who did this are very very sophisticated. I had a feeling of some admiration for the ingenuity of the scheme, and they are clearly very financially literate. These are not thugs with umbrellas. The original motivation for the attack on Browder was to stop revelations about theft from an oil company. Yet they were smart enough to check all the documents that they confiscated as part of the intimidation, and used that to steal more money. This suggests that the new generation of Russians who have reached adulthood since the fall of communism are not a new generation that will abandon the ways of their parents, but are doing much the same thing, only in much more modern ways. And they have no interest in making the government more transparent and accountable.