According to the Moscow Times, Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin believes that, unfortunately, the Kremlin just can't manage to share Russia's oil windfall with the general public, because that would be "catastrophic" for Russia. His maxim is "a rise in government spending cannot come at the expense of macroeconomic indicators." Whatever that means. Apparently, the "catastrophe" would be a major loss of power by the Kremlin as its wealth was transferred to the poplulation combined with the "disaster" of rising public expectations and resentment if economic progress was curtailed, which might even translate into actual public opposition.