Streetwise Professor

Are basically the SWP conclusions. First, “economic difficulties are affecting Russia’s political structure, and the remedy could break the whole system apart.”  Second, following the Kudrin recommendations of purging the Sechin wise guys from their corporate perches would destroy the equilibrium between the competing clans, and hence Putin is unlikely to do so.  Third, given these realities, Putin’s most realistic options are to either (a) ignore Kudrin’s proposals and retain the status quo in the hopes that the fallout from the economic crisis can be contained (or that a rebound in the world economy gets the rents flowing again), or (b) reform at the edges in order to mitigate the effect of the crisis, but maintain the essence of the system.

Commentor So? dismisses all of this as “astrology.”  I don’t agree.  But if it is, what does it say about a system that is so opaque, so unaccountable, and so (for lack of a better word) effed up, that it is necessary for observers to consult the stars to try to divine what is going on?