Its the sins! of Econ teachers in Undergrad programs all over the Europe and here in the State, if they were failing these idiots until they understand simple Elementary Micro that each freshman should take, we wouldn't see such ideas anywhere close to office! Sometimes I think if it was not for the Soviet Union and the necessity of having an opposing ideology Free Market, Capitalism and a system of Property rights would never expand as much as it did through GATT and WTO. Look at what Presidential candidates and the Senators say here in the US about trade and other stuff these days, maybe its not a very bad idea to have another strong Russia, the problem is maybe this time US would become the Socialist side!

Don't worry the owners of Selfridges -- not to mention London club owners will survive without Russians as they did already during the long years of the cold war. I know from my own experience that Jet-setting "noviy russkiy" would never ever consider Sankt Peterburg or Moscow as substitutes for Paris and London. The point is that among these people success or "being something" is equal to having an apartment in France and shopping in London. Putin understands this perfectly well and therefore the only civil rights (considered as fundamental in the West) not being under threat in contemporary Russia are the freedom to travel including the opportunities of shopping and buying property in the West. For the rich Russians consider these rights as fundamental distincting their lives definitly from the old poor Soviet way of living they dispise more than anything. Once threatened to lose their Western safe havens by freezing their assets and denying visas would effectively show these people they can no more live by double standards: becoming prosperous by supporting Putin's policy at home but being simultaneously fully integrated members of the Western world and enjoying all the luxuries the Western way of living offers for wealthy persons. Therefore if you undermine the collective sense of well being of this group you undermine the very authority of the current regime.

Russian bureaucrats are now corrupt billionaires who fear financial costs to their policies most. Anecdotally, it seems that Russian plutocrats are fans of the most ostentatious bling and luxury. The proposed sanctions would hit them much harder than Bush Co's "empty rhetoric". That and more robust economic sanctions would probably allow Nato (US) to better encircle Russia with military bases and missile defence sheilds.