His organization unites some of the Altai's biggest smokestack companies, and not surprisingly it would like to see credit loosened and more money printed. That's easy for the industrialists to say, because up to now they have never had to worry about constraints on their behavior. Bankruptcy has been virtually unheard of. Most company stocks are owned by the directors and are not traded openly, so even the worst managers cannot easily be dislodged. That has translated into mountains of so-called interenterprise debt.
Companies trade promissory notes, known as vekseli, or do business by barter.
Now it constitutes well over half of the total. Some of the territory's big companies do up to 90 percent of their business in barter, and only 10 percent in cash. Eager to avoid layoffs, local governments across Russia allow and even encourage cash-free business. Periodically, the factory hands over a few hundred cases to a middleman hired by the government, who then tries to sell them. Until it does, the hospital employees must wait for their salaries.