"I think the government should have been more conservative in its financial policy and save more money that it received from the high global oil prices," he said.
I did find this comment very strange:
Kudrin, who is also a deputy prime minister, said the financial crisis had set back the Russian economy by five years -- but added that the United States had fared even worse.
"We only retreated back five years," he said. "As far as I know, U.S. stock markets have fallen back 10 years."
He seems to be equating stock market performance with economic performance.
For Venezuela The Economist is forecasting GDP growth of -3% in 2009 and -5.4% in 2010 and an inflation rate well above 30% and government is ill prepared, hell they aren't even claiming responsibility.
