In Conversation with Sergei Guriev: Spin Dictators and Rising Tensions with Russia 

Really good! Sergei Guriev is really excellent economist and also as person! The answers were all spot on! thank you

Excellent lecture, very important topic. Greetings from Hungary. It makes me a bit happier when the crap what is happening in my country is researched in such a sophisticated way. Also it is crazy that I can listen sometimes the best lectures of the world, thanks to chanels like this.

I'm from Russia. The problem is the lack of real opposition. The opposition in Russia is not interested in the economy or demographics, they have nothing to offer the voters. A clear conscience or moral principles is not something that wins elections in any country. All they do is scream about corruption and violation of rights when people are worried about jobs and the future of their children. Since the 90 was already mentioned, people not only did not benefit from the transition to a capitolist democracy, many lost everything, there were people who were dying of hunger, left without work and money, and the state as such did not exist to help them. People in Russia do not believe in propaganda because they peacefully overthrew communism. Because they saw that life is better under capitolism. Putin offers a kind of stability and possible growth. The opposition offers to pay reporations to Ukraine and repents. Which only strengthens Putin's position. People can and have voted for someone else who would offer them not a populist slogan, but a path to prosperity as in 2007.

“While the rest of the species is descended from apes, redheads are descended from cats.” ― Mark Twain

20th Century Hitler was voted into power, was the legal chancellor, was loved by the German people to the day he died. And they wore uniforms back then because uniformed men were highly respected and it was seen as attractive. This thesis that dictators back then projected an aura of aggression and now they pretend to be elected leaders... sorry, I see massive flaws in that thesis. There is no difference at all. Back then many of the dictators were doing the same thing as today's dictators. Mussolini and Hitler were very popular, Hitler didn't pretend to be a democrat, no, but he was democratically elected and was never feared by the majority of the population. And he certainly didn't try to portrait himself that way. He was seen as a man of the people and tried to always show himself in the media as a statesman and close to the common folk. This separation between 20th century dictators and today's dictators is completely arbitrary. I see very few differences with how Putin runs things, to how Hitler did it. They stay in the background, portrait themselves as strong leaders but also approachable, of the people. They act diplomatically the same, they even make the same mistakes in war. They're different because Putin doesn't wear a Uniform? Nonsense. And Hitler never oppressed the German people. Not even close. He oppressed certain minorities, obviously, but the vast majority loved him even at the height of the war.

Where is Biden and Zelensky?