Is Putin Evil? A Conversation with Alex Krainer
Geopolitical analysis and a million side stories for the curious mind
| |||||||||||||||
This story has been inspired by my conversation with Alex Krainer, a Croatian-born intellectual and an author of several books, including a heavily censored book about Bill Browder and the Magnitsky Act.¹ Alex has had a long and successful career as a hedge fund manager in Monaco—which came to an abrupt ending in 2020.
Alex and I talked about Russia, his take on President Putin (we don’t have identical takes but the conversation was fun), tyranny, our democracy, the flaws of the Western civilization, and many other things. We talked for two hours, and I loved it. It reminded me of the post-Soviet open-minded philosophical discussions of my teen years where knowledge was sought for the joy of knowing, not to build a brand, sell a book, or have the last word over other people in the room.
Alex’s bio
Alex Krainer was born and raised in former Yugoslavia. As a 17-year old he joined a student exchange program and spent a year in California. Extending his stay, he took up his university studies there, ultimately transferring to Switzerland where he completed a degree in Business and Economics. From Switzerland his path led him to Venezuela where he lived for a year and experienced his first banking crisis when 9 of Venezuela’s 16 largest banks failed and brought the country’s economy to a grinding halt. With his plans and endeavors thwarted, he returned to Croatia and joined the military where he served through 1995 during the last phases of Croatia’s war of independence.
Soon after finishing his military service, Alex took employment at an oil trading company in Monaco. By the year 2000 he became the firm’s risk manager and originated the firm’s research and development program in market analysis and application of neural networks and artificial intelligence in trading of financial and commodities markets. By 2007 Alex launched his own investment management business and was among the small minority of managers who generated positive investment returns (+27%) through the 2008 financial crisis. Over the following six years, his fund outperformed the Dow Jones Credit Suisse index of Blue Chip commodities trading funds. This opened the door into the big league asset managers and in 2011 Alex Joined Lee Robinson’s Altana Wealth with the mandate of managing the firm’s inflation hedging strategy.
In 2015 Alex published his first book titled, “Mastering Uncertainty in Commodities Trading”. In 2021 this book was selected as #1 on Financial-Expert.co.uk’s list of The 5 Best Commodities Books for Investors and Traders.
Having discovered a passion for writing and stumbling upon the story of Bill Browder and the Magnitsky Act, Alex wrote his second book, unrelated to trading. “The Killing of William Browder” attempts to deconstruct Bill Browder’s narrative, which has played an important role in the conflict between Russia and the West – a needless conflict that could escalate towards a hot war. Within five weeks, Browder’s lawyer leaned on Amazon to suppress the book. In July of 2018 the book was republished by a brave publisher Red Pill Press as “Grand Deception: the truth about Bill Browder, the Magnitsky Act and anti-Russia sanctions.” However, after only six weeks on the market, the book was again banned. In 2021 he published “Alex Krainer’s Trend Following Bible”.
You can find Alex on Substack and Twitter.
Interview: bird’s eye view
Alex’s take on nations and civilizations is rooted in his analytical approach and his background in finance. He believes that despite the fact that abuse exists in every empire, the Western civilization is the one who’s adopted a mechanical, parasitic, profit-squeezing business model that completely neglects the human interest of any sort (except for the oligarchs’) and methodically sucks blood.
We also talked about the dramatic censorship of Alex’s book about Bill Browder. Browder is the founder of Hermitage Capital Management, which in the 1990s was the largest investment fund in Russia. Initially, Browder had praised Putin for his business model but then he became Putin’s most prominent critic and demonizer. Alex’s research for his book led him to believe that the rumors about Putin’s corruption are greatly exaggerated, and that Bill Browder’s “exposes” are lies.
Alex also thinks that Russia’s COVID measures, obnoxious as they were, were a geopolitical move that ultimately, for now at least, stalled the system of global Digital ID.
On my end, I believe that the things upstairs are cynical, and that we are in a tragic war of the mobs. Two unseemly facts are true at the same time, in my opinion. On the one hand, the financial owners of the West are effen livid that Russia is not quite available to them to feast on. They are very fidgety and willing to try every trick on the book to weaken Russia—and then eat it whole. On the other hand, the owners of Russia aren’t Easter bunnies, either, they are another mob. It’s the domination system as usual: mobsters fight for their ambitious goals, and the peasants cry and die from the yoke.
As an original take (I think), I believe that the root of the aggressive push against oil by the West serves primarily the purpose of weakening Russia because Russia is rich in oil and it does very well exporting it. All the extra perks for the Western owners—like creating a whole new phony “green” market out of the thin air—is a bonus, and a significant one, but the main goal is to weaken Russia. I am pretty sure that if they were to succeed and get their hands on Russia, they would “absolve” oil the next day and explain to us how it suddenly became “green.” When I mentioned it to Alex, he agreed.
A vignette on Bill Browder (facts I didn’t know, not in the interview)
Bill Browder’s grandfather, Earl Browder, was the leader of the Communist Party USA from 1930 to 1945 and ran for U.S. president in 1936 and 1940
His father Felix Browder counted Eleanor Roosevelt among his supporters,
His son Joshua Browder founded DoNotPay, a highly touted startup that automates select legal services
Despotic vortex vs. algorithmic vortex
Okay, so that’s was Bill Browder. Now let’s talk philosophy. In the interview, Alex and I discussed the juxtaposition of the so called “West” and the so called “East.” So, how do the rulers do “domination” in the West vs. in the East?
In the “East,” domination is an openly subjective beast. Eastern tyrants are pretty open about the notion that their boot is major factor in their subjects’ fate. They don’t try to hide behind the algorithm. They abuse you, and they do it because then can.
In the “West,” at least right now, there is some veneer. The veneer is quickly being demolished before our eyes there is still a technological sheen and all this talk about “our democracy” and “being civilized.” On the other hand, the Russian talk is all about grander and mystery, a different beast.
 |
|
It is not all black and white though—and sometimes, Eastern and Western leaders do the exact same thing and copy each other’s tricks. But if I had tocome up with a clear distinction I would say that in the “East,” the mass abuse comes from human intentions while in the “West,” the abuse comes from—well, also human intentions—but presented to the abused as a deified machine. Then again, for the peasants, the result may very well be the same.
Through the peasant’s eyes
If you find yourself on the receiving end of the boot, does it matter if you are being murdered by Romans, by Turks, by Slavs, by Aryans, or by the Han? Is there a difference between the experience of a modern-day Afghani being killed by an American soldier vs. a Russian soldier? Is there a difference in the experience of a Russian-owned Russian slave (serf) and an American-owned African slave? Are you better off if you are sold into slavery by one of your own? I would say that the difference is between the individual fates.
Expansion of “Russia”: an interlude
Below is an approximate map of Russia’s expansion. I did not nitpickingly verify every change—so I don’t guarantee that it is perfect—but the overall trajectory sounds about right. Did Russia colonize all the various nations in the form or a subjective personal boot or in the form of an industrial process? It’s the former, I think. But it did colonize—and so did, by definition, every empire on Earth. And yikes, my old homeland had slaves! Russian slavery didn’t appear overnight, it developed over time, it was technically serfdom—and again, the severity of abuse depended on individual aristocrats—but they were owned, bought, sold, etc. Slaves. And allegedly, once the serfdom was abolished in 1861, lots of peasants moved to Siberia, “colonizing” more.
 |
What I think is true is that in the olden days, and especially in the olden “pagan” days, the culture was different, the sensory perception of the world was very different from today’s, people could handle “raw,” there was a lot more subjectivity to everything, people lived fuller lives, men fought in the first person which means that wars were personal, etc. So when there was abuse, it had a “human” face, not an automatic face.
Colonization through religious sales: a side remark
Once the aspiring masters figured out that in order to “expand one’s imperial area of influence,” it was helpful to compel the leaders of the target land to “plug in” into the “world religion” of the empire, the sales dance ensued. Peasants got the boot sword in the form of forced conversions (to Christianity² in Kievan Rus, to Buddhism in Tibet, etc.)—but the leaders were often seduced over some decades.
Today, after centuries passed, we get all sorts of “winners write history” takes about how great it was, etc. But the geopolitically motivated sales process of religious faiths to the local leaders was high art. And it’s not for sure if the reactions of the local leaders were really motivated by God. :)
 |
Was the ruthless character of the Roman culture influenced by the “Yamnaya Culture” people from the Russian / Ukrainian steppes?
I will end the story with this intricate flower of a theory. Among the archeologists, linguists, and geneticists, there is a theory that the “forefathers” of the Indo-European languages were so called “Yamnaya Culture” people, a nomadic ethnic group who roamed the Russian / Ukrainian steppes some thousands of years ago. “Yamnaya” is a Russian adjective derived from the word “yama,” which means “a pit.” The researchers say that the fierce “Yamnaya” people modified the cultures and the genetic makeup of many European, Central Asian, Indians, and Chinese nations in an undeniable way.
The suggested plot is that they were ruthless warriors who started spreading from the steppes some 5000 years ago in different directions, and wherever they went, whoever survived ended up becoming more brutal and more militarized.
The genetic signature of this ethnic group is allegedly present in many places, including in Italy. ³,⁴ So, theoretically, it is possible that the militaristic, expansive feature of the Roman empire goes back to them. And if that is the case, it becomes pretty difficult to separate the “East” and the “West.” (That is just a thought experiment, I am skeptical about all simple theories, and the world is usually complex.)
Here is the finishing touch to the flower, Science Daily:
 |
A note to readers: If you are in the position to do so, I very much encourage you to become a paid subscriber or donate. I love you in any case, but it helps A LOT, and I am in a dire need to get more donations and paid subscribers while keeping my posts free. Thank you from my heart for your support!
Tessa Fights Robots is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Articles about the “Yamnaya” people
https://www.science.org/
https://www.cambridge.org/
https://www.eupedia.com/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/
https://indo-european.eu/2019/
https://www.livescience.com/
The Magnitsky Act was passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by Obama in December 2012. Its purpose is to “punish Russian officials responsible for the death of Russian tax lawyer [accountant, not lawyer, per Alex Krainer] Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow prison in 2009 and also to grant permanent normal trade relations status to Russia. The Global Magnitsky Act of 2016 within the NDAA 2017 authorizes the U.S. government to sanction those foreign government officials worldwide that are human rights offenders, freeze their assets, and ban them from entering the U.S. (Wikipedia). Based on this logic, Trudeau and Netanyahu are gonna have their U.S. visas denied and any U.S. assets frozen, am I right?
Before Vladimir the Great ordered his subjects to convert to Eastern Christianity in 988 (or else), he and his people carefully evaluated which theological choice would work the best. The choices were Eastern Christianity, Western Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten