The age of oil rents is over, says head of Russia’s largest commercial bank: Petr Aven, Russian bn’aire, former foreign trade minister, and current president of Russia’s largest commercial lender Alfa Bank, along with co-authors Vladimir Nazarov and Samvel Lazaryan, have a number of dire warnings for petrostates such as Russia and the GCC, but which easily apply to rentier economies such as Egypt’s. In their diagnosis of the resource curse, the authors note: “The vast majority of oil-producing states have paid for their windfalls with the entrenchment of authoritarian or populist left-wing regimes, repression of civil society and infringement of women’s rights.” The result, the authors argue, could not have greater bearing on Egypt’s future, and coming from a Putin ally, should serve as a national wake-up call to Egyptians who seek to emulate Russia’s model of separating and prioritizing economic rights above civil and political rights. In a passage one wishes could be laser-engraved into our collective consciousness: “The full enjoyment of Western comforts and technologies will no longer be compatible with a negation of its values and institutes. Only those countries that embrace modernization and carry it further than they did in the previous oil downcycle can hope [to] not be relegated to a historical footnote.” (Read: Twilight of the Petrostate)