Russian heavy industry resorting to barter
Below from Grackle list. URL at end for full story.
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"Does the Taganrog Automobile Factory have a deal for you! Rows of freshly minted Hyundai Santa Fe sport utility vehicles are available right now. In exchange - well, do you have any circuit boards? Or sheet metal? Or sneakers?
"Here is a sign of the financial times in Russia: Barter is back on the table.
"Advertisements are beginning to appear in newspapers and online, like one that offered '2,500,000 rubles’ worth of premium underwear for any automobile,' and another promising 'lumber in Krasnoyarsk for food or medicine.' A crane manufacturer in Yekaterinburg is paying its debtors with excavators.
And one of Russia’s original commodities traders, German L. Sterligov, has rolled out a splashy 'anti-crisis' initiative that he says will link long chains of enterprises in a worldwide barter system."
Full story at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/world/europe/08barter.html