Putin

Putin's really enjoying life post-Presidency. The other week, he accused Mechel, a Russian mining company, of price-fixing and tax evasion causing a crash not only in the Mechel share price but also in the whole Russian stock market as investors panicked that there would be a return to the sort of fraud investigations which bankrupted Yukos. Now he's saying that Russia needs to re-establish its positions in Cuba, upping the ante against the US with whom he's furious because of its proposal to expand Nato to include Ukraine and Georgia and to base an anti-missile defence system in eastern Europe. Greenspan, Blair, Putin are thorns in the sides of Bernanke, Brown and Medvedev but they make life more entertaining for the rest of us.