What I consider a missed chance is how Russia invited American economists to help set up Russia after the wall fell. They started with the big items; they should have started with the small items.

Yes, Jeltsin was quite culpable, but one cannot build a new economy from the top-down. The first choice was the wrong choice.

It would have been better to give everyone their own apartment as a gift, and let folks learn the intricacies of economics first hand. Plenty would have burned their hands on the new economics, but folks would have learned and learned quickly.

Instead, the big items were divided among the mobsters or the mobsters to be. The path forward was put in place by Russians listening particularly to American economists, who did not start at the beginning. The Russians should have been given ownership of the few things they were living with already.