# Kazakhstan-It's about Inequality & Energy Pr **URL:** \ **Category:** Macro Economic Trends and Risks\ **Created:** [January 18, 2022, 10:26am UTC](https://discussion.fool.com/t/kazakhstan-its-about-inequality-energy-pr/58750 "2022-01-18T10:26:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![tjscott0](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/motleyfoolfree/user_avatar/discussion.fool.com/tjscott0/32/1083_2.png) [@tjscott0](https://discussion.fool.com/u/tjscott0)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2022, 10:26am UTC](https://discussion.fool.com/t/kazakhstan-its-about-inequality-energy-pr/58750/1 "2022-01-18T10:26:39Z")
[https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2022/01/what-kazakhs…](https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2022/01/what-kazakhstan-isnt/) _Knowledge of Kazakhstan in the West is extremely slim, particularly among western media, and many responses to events there have been wildly off-beam._ _The narrative on the right is that Putin is looking to annex Kazakhstan, or at least the majority ethnic Russian areas in the north. This is utter nonsense._ _The narrative on the left is that the CIA is attempting to instigate another colour revolution and put a puppet regime into Nur-Sultan (as the capital is called this week). This also is utter nonsense._ _The lack of intellectual flexibility among western commentators entrapped in the confines of their own culture wars is a well-established feature of modern political society._ What the protest are about is the deregulation of LPG & subsequent increase in pricing. _These brought people onto the streets. The government quickly backed down and tried to reinstate price controls but not producer subsidies; that would have led gas stations to sell at a loss. The result was fuel shortages that just made protest worse._ _Kazakhstan is an authoritarian dictatorship with extreme divisions in wealth and power between the ruling class – often still the old Soviet nomenklatura and their families – and everybody else. No political opposition is permitted. Infamously, after a massacre of striking miners, Tony Blair contacted former dictator Nazarbayev offering his PR services to help limit political fallout._ _The unrest will be blamed, entirely untruthfully, on Islamic terrorists and western support._ The current regime will now owe Putin for saving their \*sses. And likely payment will be in the form of energy products.