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Guest Post: Doug Casey On The Russian Bear
Submitted by Doug Casey of the Casey Report, interview by Louis James, Conversations with Casey
L: Doug, I'm in Belarus this week, a pit stop to help
some of my students with their various business ideas. I'm struggling
with my Russian, but getting along. And that has me thinking about
Russia's role on the global economic stage. I know this is something
you've given some thought to… What do you think? Is Putin out to take
over the world? What do investors need to keep in mind?
Doug: Well, the first thing to keep in mind is that
any time you're talking about a large group of people, I think it's
about 150 million in Russia's case, it's hard to generalize. Russia
makes headlines, being one of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia,
India, China), which are "emerging" economies seen as a sort of wave of
the future. But I have to say that Russia doesn't really belong in this
group. We may lose some Russian readers by my saying this, but while
Russia has a lot of resources and should have a bright future, I don't
think it will.
L: Whoa, I didn't see that one coming. Why?
Doug: There are many reasons, and it's hard to tease
out which one is the most important driver, but taking it all together,
including Russia's history and resulting culture, I just don't see that
Russia has The Right Stuff. That culture, which is transmitted
explicitly, verbally, and more subtly, attitudinally, is one shaped by
centuries of state oppression. It has strong streaks of isolationism,
collectivism, and brutal authority. Russia's long history is full of
sadness, fear, and violence. It's been relatively calm for the last few
years, but that's a drop in the ocean of Russian tears.
L: Hm. They suffered under the Tsars, threw them out,
only to get a greater tyranny in the form of a totalitarian socialist
regime, which actively suppressed the kind of individual creative
virtues that make for success on the global economic stage. I guess I
could see that as a cultural handicap…
Doug: Think of it this way – if you keep mowing down
the tallest poppies in a field of poppies, pretty soon you don't get
many tall poppies. It's a not a survival trait to stand out in a field
like that. It would be politically incorrect to suggest that various
cultures have encouraged and suppressed different character traits to
such a degree that there are now subtle genetic differences between
people of different cultures – but I think it's possible.
It's like Darwin's finches in the Galapagos. And breeds like the
poodle, dachshund, and shar-pei – which are all pretty different – that
evolved in historic times. Vive la difference. Thousands of years
hence, when mankind has spread throughout the galaxy, we'll undoubtedly
evolve into different species. Just as there were numerous different
hominids on the planet until homo sapiens sapiens decisively started
taking over perhaps 40,000 years ago.
L: Well, I could imagine decades of brutal selection
under the Soviets resulting in a greater incidence of timidity and
acquiescence among Muscovites, and a greater tendency towards
independent, rebellious thinking among the survivors in Siberia and
other places the Soviets sent troublemakers they didn't kill outright.
Doug: I don't think there are any statistics on this
sort of thing, but that's my general impression. I first went to Russia
in 1976, which was right at the peak of the Cold War. At the time, the
whole place had the feel of an armed military camp. I've been back
three or four times since then, and there have been great improvements,
at least in the big cities.
But once you get out of Moscow and St. Petersburg, it's really still
pretty backward. Shiny new buildings in the capital don't alter the
fact that most of the people across the country live in towns and
villages that are aging, run-down, depressing, and poor. It seems like
most of the smart, upwardly mobile Russians have emigrated long ago. Or
at least moved to Moscow.
To make things worse, there's a big problem in that culture with alcohol abuse, especially among the men.
L: I've seen that in my travels in Eastern Europe, but
you're such a bon vivant, it's a bit surprising to hear you pointing to
this as an important variable.
Doug: You've seen me drink, but you've never seen me drunk.
L: That's true.
Doug: I'm far from a prude, but many of these people don't just drink too much, they drink way too much. I'm not talking about having a great party; I'm talking about alcoholism, which is a real fault. And chronic, widespread alcoholism is a serious social problem.
L: Sure enough.
Doug: And that's not all. The population seems to have
fallen into a terminal decline curve. It takes about 2.2 children per
female to maintain a stable population, and in Russia, the birth ratio
is down to something like 1.2 - 1.4. This is not just a decline; the
population is actually collapsing. That's true of most of Europe,
Japan, and other relatively advanced countries as well, so it's not
just a Russian problem, but when you add this factor to Russia's other
problems – like a high death rate – the future looks considerably less
bright.
L: That fits, I guess… I just hadn't thought of
it. I'm told that in Belarus, I would be considered a "Hero Father" by
the state and eligible for extra benefits because I have five children.
Minsk isn't Moscow, and I find Belarusians to be quite different from
Russians, especially on moral issues, but Belarus still has a very
state-controlled economy – perhaps the most Soviet-style economy left
in the world today.
It's hard to create new businesses here and most young people simply
don't see many opportunities. So they put off having children… If
that's the culture in Russia too, I can definitely see the problem.
Doug: I don't know how much the population collapse
relates to perceived lack of opportunity, the alcoholism, a remnant
culture of fear from the Soviet era, or any number of other variables,
but it's a very serious problem.
L: And this isn't a problem for which one can look to
history for solutions. Effective, widespread birth control is a recent
innovation. And in the agrarian economies we've known for most of
history, having a lot of children was a good thing; they helped on the
farm.
Doug: That's right, kids were financial assets then.
They were your pension plan if you had enough that some might survive
to look after you, if you were lucky enough to reach old age. In an
industrial, urbanized setting, they are expensive liabilities – at
least from an economic point of view. And in the modern world, the
state is supposed to steal money from everyone else to take care of you
in your old age. So, if people feel less economic necessity and,
perhaps subtly or not so subtly, that their world is not the nice place
they want to have kids in, it's hardly surprising to see birth rates
falling across the developed world.
L: Hm. As you say, this doesn't apply to Russia alone. I wonder why we don't hear more about this problem?
Doug: Well, since Paul Ehrlich wrote his famous book, The Population Bomb, and perhaps farther back, since Malthus' paradigm-shifting 1798 Essay on the Principle of Population, overpopulation has been the bugaboo of intellectuals around the world.
L: Radical environmentalists have taken up the cause
as well; too many people making too much trash. We're going to bury the
rain forests in Styrofoam cups – if we don't chop them down first to
make toilet paper.
Doug: Hysteria is the ruling psychological state in
today's world. But population decline is something intellectuals
approve of because, I believe, they basically hate people. The
chattering classes want to see, but don't particularly want to report
on, terminal population decline in the developed world. That might lead
to the conclusion humans aren't going to destroy the planet after all.
It's the elephant in the room nobody's talking about.
And, back to Russia, the other big issue there is that it's what's left
of an empire, put together by force, encompassing many very different
people from very different predecessor cultures. They lost the Baltic
states and southeastern Europe when the Soviet Union broke up, but
whatever the odds are for Chechen independence, and so forth, there's
still a lot of stress within the Russian Federation. Just a few days
ago, there were those bombings in the Moscow subway, perpetrated, I
understand, by widows of slain Muslim rebels. This sort of thing is
likely to continue and push the country towards further disintegration,
one way or another.
L: This is not how I expected this conversation to go.
When I asked you, I thought we'd talk about Putin's KGB past and his
probable desire to be king of the world, etc. But with all these
structural issues, what you're saying is that it almost doesn't matter
who's at the helm. Russia's in trouble going forward, regardless.
Doug: Another echo of Rome,
perhaps. After a certain point – arguably about 180 A.D., and certainly
by the 4th century – it wouldn't have mattered who the emperor was;
larger trends were going to take it down.
Demographics are as important, or even more important, than any other
megatrend you can point to. They are, for example, the factor that will
ultimately result in the demise of Israel. One of the more shrewd
things said by a leading political figure in recent history was Yasser
Arafat's comment that the most potent weapon the people of Palestine
had was the womb of the Palestinian woman. And he's right, because, as
in most advanced cultures, the rich, urban Israelites aren't
reproducing quickly, but the Palestinians are. There's really not much
they can do to overcome the demographic trend; it is what it is.
The same is true for the Russians, who also have a rapidly growing
Muslim population, among other rapidly growing minorities. Demographic
trends are huge factors that carry a lot of momentum; they change
slowly over long periods of time and rarely respond to the feeble
efforts of officialdom. The whole world is going to look very different
in 100 years – even if we don't first go through something resembling
World War III, which I think we will.
L: Sounds like "the dismal science" should be demographics, not economics.
Doug: Right. But no one will talk about this. It's
partly because the chattering class doesn't want to admit that it was
wrong about the population bomb. Just as the same people won't ever own
up to the scam of global warming.
But also because the places where there is explosive population growth
are among the poorest populations, which goes beyond social and
cultural to racial implications. And it's a total no-no to even talk
about that, as people like Charles Murray and Philip Rushton have discovered.
L: But facts are facts, and the current trends
indicate that the average skin color will be much darker in each
succeeding generation for the foreseeable future.
Doug: That's just the way it is. During the 19th
century, it seemed the whites were going to take over the world. Now
non-Europeans are in the ascendant. Some people don't want to talk
about it, but I don't see that as being a problem in any way. The
chances are good that races on this planet will meld together. Who
knows? Maybe people will speciate on different bases in the future.
L: Not being particularly white has only mattered a few times in my life, but I'm glad it never mattered at Casey Research.
Doug: You know I form my relationships based on what
people's values, ethics, spirituality, etc., are. And these things have
absolutely nothing to do with race.
L: Okay, so back to Russia. I visited Moscow two
summers ago, and I came to two very strong impressions of the people I
met. First, they were very hungry for better lives. Everyone everywhere
wants a better life, but apathy and sloth are also common human traits.
Russians impress me as highly motivated and intensely focused on
getting ahead. That's normally a very good thing.
But their traditional ethics were paved over by the Soviets, and
whatever collectivist ethics they tried to instill have blown away on
the wind with the Soviet empire itself, leaving most of the people with
no moral compass. Many are turning to religion again, but the old
Orthodox Church doesn't seem to have much impact on moral choices made
by modern Russians. This is not a good thing; ambitious people with few
ethical constraints on what they are willing to do to get ahead can be
very dangerous.
Added together, this gives me an impression that feels like new
barbarians at the gates of Rome. It's no surprise to me that people
fear new Russian military expansion, Russian hackers, Russian pirates,
etc.
Doug: That's a good analogy, but these barbarians are
highly educated barbarians. They're using computers and mathematics,
rather than clubs and swords. On the other hand, I'm not sure they are
much more thoughtful than the barbarians of the Middle Ages.
Another thing about barbarians; they don't manufacture much. Production
is mostly in natural resources, which is certainly the case with
Russia. They do sell some high-tech spin-offs of old defense industry
research and development, but that's nothing compared to the oil and
gas exports, minerals, and other resources. There's a lot of truth to
the joke that in places like Russia the chief import is stolen cars,
and the chief export is prostitutes. Did you see anything else going on
there?
L: That was pretty much it. Gazprom rules. Lukoil is
coming to America (I'm sure we'll have more to say on the implications
of all this in our energy newsletters). Some people see a new world
order in which Russia supplies the resources, Chindia the labor and
manufacturing, and the West the high-tech applications. I suspect that
may be giving the West too much credit and perhaps the Chinese too
little, but the Russians should prosper regardless, with all the
resources they have to deliver to a hungry world, shouldn't they?
Doug: Well, there are groupings within the Russian
Federation that may do well, but for all the reasons we cited above, I
think the whole cobbled-together society won't last. But even among
those groups, abundant natural resources may not be a blessing. When
such riches fall into the laps of people who don't have a culture for
putting them to productive use, the kleptocrats in charge get rich
while the masses continue to suffer.
Look at Nigeria, for example, or Saudi Arabia, for that matter. Oil is
the worst thing that's ever happened to Venezuela. Without a culture
that respects individual rights and productivity, upholds the sanctity
of contracts, honors honest effort and achievement, etc., inequality
and misery just get worse. They'd be better off if all anyone had in
such a society were sand and rocks. And, in fact, that's why Hong Kong
and Japan, to name just two places, prospered. They had nothing, except
what they created.
Actually, it was the commodities boom back in the 1970s that helped
make it seem at the time that communism would triumph. There were high
metals prices, high oil prices, and that was stuff they had. What
little capital this accumulated was directed into their space and
military programs, which made them look like a formidable power. But it
didn't last, of course. Commodities cycled down and knocked the last
leg out from under their stool.
L: What about the barbarian propensity for plunder? Do you see no danger of renewed Russian militarism?
Doug: No. The chances of Russia going on the march in
some sort of new effort aimed at conquest are almost zero. They have
enough on their plates, they're busting apart at the seams as it is.
Another thing: backward cultures don't usually understand the
importance of sustaining capital, and the Russians were no exception.
Most of their submarines and other military hardware turned into junk
shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Putin may want to be a new tsar. That sort of thing is just natural for
the kind of sociopath who rises to the top in such political
environments. But I don't think it will go anywhere. For all the
reasons we've been discussing, the place is on a one-way slope downhill.
This gets back to our starting point: Russia doesn't belong among the
BRIC countries. It's simply not headed in the same direction.
L: Well, whether you like China or not, it's
certainly true that they have a powerful, almost Yankee can-do attitude
that gets things done in a third of the time it takes to do them in the
West. And they certainly don't have a collapsing population there, nor
in India, nor in Brazil.
Doug: Right, and the workers in those places
will work two jobs, will save for the future, and so forth. None of
those productive Confucian values exist in Russia. You mentioned that
they are focused on getting ahead – but that's not the same thing as
having a work ethic and an appreciation for the importance of
accumulating capital through greater production than consumption. The
Chinese will eventually take over Siberia, demographically.
L: So… In spite of the great wealth of resources
Russia has waiting to be developed, you're not investing in Russia. Not
even a high-stakes speculation?
Doug: No, I'm not interested in investing in Russia.
Maybe at some point in the future, when the place has really melted
down and the stock market gets very, very cheap, it might be worth a
punt. But I don't see the country as a growth environment in which you
can count on steady average growth rates. There might be occasional
hit-and-run speculative opportunities, but good ones will be rare
indeed. It's a place to watch, but not one to enter, financially,
without great caution.
L: If that changes, I'm sure you'll let readers know in The Casey Report.
What might you advise our Russian readers who have not already stopped
reading our obviously hateful and slanderous conversation?
Doug: The smart ones will take their education and
training and leave. Russia just doesn't have the capital to make the
best use of them or provide them with the best opportunities. Most of
the capital accumulation seems to flow to the oligarchs, who don't
reinvest it in ways that produce more; they just spend it to consume
more.
That's why there are these jokes going around about Russians, like the
one about Yuri and Boris who go to London. Yuri tells Boris, "Look at
this new tie I bought for £1,000." Boris replies: "You should have
asked me first; I could have shown you a place where you can get the
exact same tie for £2,000!"
Look, I had a friend, an American of Russian background. He decided to
go back to the old world and scrambled around for years trying to get
into one business or another. It's not easy. I don't want to be
negative, but in general, I have to say that trying to make any serious
investments in Russia is a mistake. The Russian stock and bond markets
are worth watching, but you'd need to dedicate yourself to becoming an
expert in them, so you can identify exceptional opportunities – it's
like speculating on penny mining stocks, but even riskier.
I'm not really looking to buy in the current global economic
environment, but I could be talked into buying and holding select
Chinese, Indian, or Brazilian stocks much more easily. Not Russia.
They're just hot potatoes, and the country is heading for trouble.
Time to get out of Dodge.
L: Okay then. Noted and logged. Thanks.
Doug: You're welcome. Till next week.
»
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this guy is obviously biased, racist, "west-centric" and ignorant of eastern european culture. this garbage is not worth the hard drive space it's published on.
In mother Russia you no employ hacker, hacker employ you.
So, from your clear-eyed perspective the Western world and Western culture are not slowly dying from demographic attrition and other forms of decay?
Was this question directed at me? I can't quite tell, but...
Yes the Western world is dying and degrading slowly, but Russia is not quite the Western world. Russia already went through its collapse and is in the phase of rebuilding. Recently they revealed that their population grew for the first time in decades.
I tend to be biased and "west-centric" and I will tell you that this article is definitely not worth the hard drive space it's published on.
What's this? Stream of consciousness at a local Starbucks? Not worthy of ZH.
You want to understand the Russians, read Clark's "Barbarossa", it took five weeks for the French to throw in the towel, these guys never did, and they never will,
http://www.amazon.com/Barbarossa-Alan-Clark/dp/0688042686
i'm afraid that the people who run zero hedge share the ignorant views in this article, which is why they posted it. they obviously enjoy talking ignorant slander of other cultures. maybe it makes them feel better that their own country is in freefall?
Eh? Well returning officers and troops were disarmed, then subsequently murdered or sent to camps and worked to death.
Brave Russia!
The banking cartels supplied financing for the Reds and the Reds supplied the human place holders for German artillery to fire at. Russia was too busy preening itself with violent fervor and central planning to much of any threat before the financing arrived.
Funny comment about s.o.c.! But I also thought a lot of made sense. Frightful demographics, corruption, and alcoholism.
Most of this is nonsensical generalities. Also, what kind of "sociopath" (his word regardingPutin) would submit an interview of himself? Go smoke your stogies in Paraguay or wherever you reside these days.
Why is China such a great place? They certainly have most of the governmental restrictions that Russia has had and they aren't exactly a nation that respects the rights of their civilian population. What China has is cheap labor and a population that is able to be centrally controlled..that's it. That's why in the end they will win!
As for the Death of the West (which Casey seems to recycle from Buchanan's library), I agree that population wars will be a problem in the future. However, they won't be as important as you might think....as might makes right. Dropping bombs from 10,000 feet has a funny way of neutralizing cultural, economic and population differences.
I think Doug makes some valid points to consider but like "cyberseer" I would say the same points could be applied to most Western countries including the U.S. especially when it comes to birth rates among urban populations.
Having been to Brazil I will comment that the people are great but 75% of them are struggling to survive while the remaining 25% control or own all the assets. If this is the future growth engine for the world it is a scary future indeed.
"Having lived in the US I will comment that the people are great but 99% of them are struggling to survive while the remaining 1% control or own all the assets. If this is the future growth engine for the world it is a scary future indeed."
Fixed it for you.
Gimp,
This has been the case for most of South America, as long as I have been alive.
And, it's reverting back to the same old dictatorial BS as before.
Yup. Socialism is a pretty strong undercurrent because of it's promises. They are well aware of the corruption - so they watch futbol and telenovelas instead of worrying about it. Kind of like America but beans and rice instead of burgers.
Plus, Brazilians take every opportunity they can to go to the beach.
Vamos a praia gente!
Shares my views on the matter... interesting read regardless.
How about scenarios where the Persian Gulf is blocked? More than one.
Think Russia's Oil & Gas and think the EU,
http://www.nord-stream.com/fileadmin/Dokumente/3__PNG_JPG/4__Maps/global...
http://www.independent.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00031/World-Oil_31948a.jpg
"abundant natural resources may not be a blessing. When such riches fall into the laps of people who don't have a culture for putting them to productive use"
We should be so lucky. BTW, you ever heard of the Russian school of Mathematics? Kolmogorov, master mathematician. Barbarians.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrey_Kolmogorov
There are many great Russian mathematians today, such as Vladimir Arnold and Grigori Perelman, just to name a couple. Both would abhor being compared to Kolmogorov. Perelman is so opposed to materialism and power and hierarchy that he even refused the Abel Prize of $1 million.
Casey forgot to peel back the onion. Russia is more advanced than the United States. How is that you ask ? In the US, politics and crime make good bedpartners but too many of its players are dumbshits. In Russia, you have highly skilled, well-organized criminal minds with Ph'ds, engineering degrees, etc. in various levels of organizations throughout the world. Why settle for just economic power - no, the Russian criminal organizations play for much higher stakes. Hollywood took notice of their boldness and lack of fear a long time ago. The alcoholism in Russia does exist but what do unemployed Americans do, read books (I don't think so). We've heard about Russian billionaires, and Russian billionaire playboys, but their organized crime is making more Russian millionaires faster than India or Wall Street could imagine. Disrespect them at your own peril !
Check this out while you're at it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1u2PrPqdUc
If you travel in Russia, you'll notice interesting differences. For example, in Kalmykian Republic where the people are of Mongolian origin, street vendors sell books and study material. In towns where Slavic people are the majority, they sell beer & vodka. That reflects a big difference in peoples viewpoints and values. In my opinion, in their future as well.
I don't subscribe to Casey's "subtle genetic differences"-stuff. Even in Soviet times, the smartest probably got by better than the others. Tall poppies were not being plucked away, Russians are not that systematic. Lack of individual creative virtues is a problem of culture and the prevaling system, where you can't benefit much from innovation.
Otherwise, he is correct in many things:
Actually the Russian society model may be where the US is heading today. Stephen Zweig had written a very penetrating essay on Maxim Gorky in which he showed how all the riches, culture, and education were restricted to a tiny minority of about 10,000 nobles while the vast population suffered in silence. This was back in the Tsarist era, for those who think that this reply is along the lines of "Obama is trying to recreate the CCCP in the US." We still have our middle class, so we have a long way to go to reach the elitist goal of imitating Tsarist Russia and even further to go before an American Lenin makes his appearance. Zweig also makes the point that many famous Russian writers, such as Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky "identified" with the starving peasants of their era even though there was no possibility that the peasants would someday rise up.
Lets go back to the mid 80s shall we, you know when Rocky went to the frozen steppes to take on the not so Russian Russian Dolph Lundgren.
Believe it or not the Russians bought the bullshit - I know it is hard to believe but the western propaganda was extremely effective back then.
Along came Gorby and all that so they decided to embrace freedom - everything was going to work out brilliantly but it did not.
The West sent in its Jackals to rape and Pillage - that is now in the collective memory.
The point I am making is that if there is a new adventure in the Persian Gulf the Russians are unlikely to back down as before.
The Leaders of the USSR during the Cuban crisis new the price of conflict.
Today's leaders Know the price of surrender.
Doug Casey is desperately short on true facts. Let me just point out that Russia's government leadership is comprised of anti-Russian globalists that take hundreds of billions of budget rubles every year and transfer them to the muslim parts of Russia, hence a higher birth rate in the Caucuses, while "mainland" Russia and its slavic population are bled dry with taxes, puny budget allocations and widespread muslim/jewish mafia control of all parts of economic and political life. One may argue that the Russia's government is set on a deliberate path to ethnically cleanse Russia of its indigenous Russian population. The news media is quite deliberately promulgating anti-social and anti-family values with various shows lead by jewish media personalities that completely blocked out in recent years the authentic Russian culture with perverted and filthy propaganda. Russian are being told every day by the government officials and news media outlets to be more tolerant to all kinds of non-Russian "immigrants" and respect their cultural traditions, while any sort of a Russian oriented organization is immediately shut down by authorities out of fear that it is nationalist (because in today's Russia only Russians are not allowed to gather in groups based on ethnicity).
In educational system, children of former Chechen terrorists are given free education in most prestigious colleges in Moscow and are enrolled without an exam, while an ethnic Russian has to pony up on average $3-5K a year, which is quite a large sum of money there. Just recently Putin single handedly gave out hundreds of millions of dollars to help educate people in Africa and Middle East, while right now there is a piece of legislation working its way through the parliament that would make secondary (yes school) education fee based, most parents certainly wont be able to afford it.
As you see, you can talk all day long about trends of population and stuff like that, but without considering true facts on the ground of why a population may be in decline, you will continue to talk about how all these trends are so irreversible. They are only irreversible so long as you have Rothschilds' puppet governments in white countries committing a hidden genocide against indigenous populations in those countries. This applies not only to Russia, but also to Europe and other parts of the world settled and built up by fine and hard working descendants of mother Europe. We can only hope that this impending crisis will bring this whole globalist world political and economic system crashing down and sane nationalist forces will once again reign supreme over our lands and our numbers will start to increase.
Uuugh. I don't believe one bit of what you wrote.
How can Putin be an anti-Russian globalist when he was behind the persecution of the anti-Russian globalist oligarchs with Rothschild connection, like Khodorovsky?
Many of them in jail, many of them dead, many of them ran abroad, and you're telling me Putin is just one of them?
No. Putin is obviously a Russian nationalist.
He is not a nationalist. He said "those who say that Russia is for Russians, are either idiots or agent provokateurs". It is a sad state of affairs that some one like Putin is viewed as a nationalist in the West. He is cozying up with Nathaniel Rothschild himself of BP, he does not need Khodorkovsky. Use a search engine or something.
Belrev, are you saying alcoholism & abortion have nothing to do with the demographics figures of Slavic Russians? Is there somebody pressing a gun on Russians' heads, telling them to drink yet another bottle of vodka? I guess the fact that Israel's demographics is also bad, is also due to a Jewish conspiracy?
The money sent to Caucasian "blacks" is nothing compared to the costs of Chechnyan wars. Ruling others has never come cheap, though. Forcing their will on others is a conscious choice Russian Slavs have made. Caucasians, Kalmyks, Buryats, all probably would want to go... And some day they will. Georgians, with their pathetic tie-munching president, are happy without Russia. So are the Balts, Poles, Hungarians... The Soviet Union was a prison of nations, and Russia seems to want to continue this legacy all the way to the grave. A geographically smaller Slavic nation-state would provide a great future for its citizens, but of course you'd have to give up all imperial pretense, and space program, too.
The current Russian ruling party is just like all the ones before. Russia has had and will always a deep concern for the enviroment and the rule of law. Russians enjoy freedom of speech and of the press. The Russian people can always vote out any rogue politician who may be corrupt. Russia is a paradise. Unmatched cultural refinement and a genuine concern for the well being of not only its citizens but the worlds.
If it was not for Putins vigilance and resolve to protect mother Russia's borders, Moscow would be overun from immigrants wanting to live there.
And the borders are overrun like never before. You obviously have not been to Russia in a long time.
These days, I laugh uproariously whenever I hear the latest screed about how Russia is doomed.
Russia has $450 billion in forex reserves, almost no government debt (about 5% of GDP -- no, that's not a type, five as in two-plus-three-equals), very low levels of private debt (maybe 25% of GDP, far lower than the OECD average), seven million university students, some of the best scientists and engineers in the world, and vast energy reserves. It's demographic crisis is over -- the birth rate has been rebounding and the population stabilized in 2009.
1:41 is still a demographic death spiral:
http://www.indexmundi.com/russia/total_fertility_rate.html
And the real Russian numbers have to be far worse than that, subtracting the growth of Muslim fifth columns within it.
The Soviets killed millions upon millions of Orthodox, the part of the population that really mattered, the part that would have had children at above replacement level and made up for all these "modern" sterile Russians.
Boy, criticism of Russia sure brings out the crazies. Certainly many things I have read from a variety of sources agree with this article. The only criticism I had for this author is this is basically all old news if you read widely.
However, if anyone sane is following this thread, the book (below) is one I read a number of years ago and discusses the issue of falling birthrates in developed countries and what it means. Probably not every conclusion is correct but the basic idea that the economy cannot grow (for an extended period) as the population shrinks seems sound to me.
The Empty Cradle: How Falling Birthrates Threaten World Prosperity And What To Do About It
A subdued birth rate is not a big sign of worry. Russia has a higher birth rate than Germany, South Korea, UK, Japan and Taiwan. Many of these countries also like to dabble in the drink but I wouldn't call that a problem.
This article is pretty much garbage in general. It is a diatribe of simplistic generalizations and personal opinions.
to wit:
and
A lot of debatable points in the interview. However, if I were to pick one out it would be the 'ethnical' issue. Russia for the last ten years has been flooded with immigrants from nearby FSU countries. You can basically divide them into two groups:
1. Cheap labor. These are poor people who come to Russia to earn whatever they can on basic construction and other similar jobs that don't generally require much professional training. There is some outcry that they are taking jobs away from Russians - and ther is some truths to that (like in cases where they take over local bazaars to sell fruit and vegetables by bribing or other unsightly means), but the typical Russian laziness and inbred delusions of national grandeur ("Russia is a special country with its own way") also play a large part in this.
2. Criminals. That is people who from the start don't habe any intention to do honest work. These are either through-and-through criminals or for a major part people who go to work in the public sector that allows them to develop and then feed on the corruption. For example a lot of them go into militia - just imagine in 10-20 years most of the militia would be populated by people with a totally different culture and values. And these people will be carrying guns legitimally and will have upper-seated clanbuddies to cover up for them if they really 'misbehave'. We already see this in many documented situations where they work in drug-control branches and they are controlling them alright just not in the way that was intended by the geverment. And this is widespread as is the corruption.
The interview is not totally coherent and fact-backed but the general idea is correct. Russia as a nation is three-tiered: the actual leaders that are in bed with a small group of oligarchs (although the general feeling is that the oligarchs are allowed to do their thing as long as they are within the Party line), the mostly useless, bureaucratic and utterly corrupted public sector, and all the rest - the SMB-sector which is at the gang-rape mercy of the first two and the general populace which is there for paying taxes and keeping their mouth shut.
Add to that the ethnical retexturing or Russia and it has all the chances of disintergrating in a couple of generations. Oh, and the West is on the same road too. Once a culturally alien and, dare I say it less developed, group wields enough power (i.e. Greece vs. EU, Arabs vs. French etc.) you can kiss the good ole' days goodbye. And you can take that to the bank.
The proprietary indicators I use can identify trend changes before they occur and they have been warning of a USD rally since last year.
Just posted a new EURUSD chart: showing long term trendline with important support around 1.2770
http://www.zerohedge.com/forum/latest-market-outlook-0
I'm far from a prude, but many of these people don't just drink too much, they drink way too much
Gogol talks about going to the roadhouse and ordering your PINT of vodka, straight. As if it was commonplace, which it apparently still is. That's what, 20 oz? Might as well order a 'boot to the head', Eric Blair style. I'd bring a sack of oranges with me and mix some screwdrivers, make an evening of it.
Regards