OK, and now that I've seen Dell's actual question--it seems a lot more hostile and less helpful than I originally assumed.

The U.S. financial media certainly seems to be reporting this story in a limited way.

Er ... and, of course, when I say "Davos" (the name of a place in Switzerland) all through that last post, I mean to say "Dell" (the name of a CEO). Careless mistake.

The Davos-Putin exchange could be seen as an example of cross-cultural miscommunication. But it could be something more interesting.

Davos' offer of "help"--delivered no doubt with sparkling visions of new markets dancing before his eyes--was surely not intended as a patronizing, unfavorable assessment of Russia's technological prowess. It reads like standard, feelgood, let's-be-friends sales jargon, akin to "Now, what do I have to do to get you into this '92 Toyota Tercel today?"

People in the U.S. are accustomed to tuning out and toning down this kind of sales pitch, but Russia's nascent capitalistic culture seems much more direct, even brutal in certain respects. Putin probably doesn't have much of a frame of reference for all this Dale Carnegie happy crap.

So, while it's plausible that Putin simply took it the wrong way, who knows? He's no idiot--maybe he intentionally misinterpreted Davos as a signal that Russia intends to take advantage of the United States' weakened economic situation as an opportunity to change the rules of the game.