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Where Is Russia On The Road To Recreating USSR 2.0?
Given the 2008 Russian invasion of Georgia and escalating conflict between Russia and the Ukraine, JPMorgan asks, where is Russia on the road to recreating something like the Soviet Union as an economic, political and financial counterweight to the West?
Via JPMorgan's CIO Michael Cembalest,
This is more art than science, but I think there are ways of quantifying it.
Let’s take all Warsaw Pact/ CoMEcon/Soviet orbit countries of the 1980s (this is a big region; its current GDP is similar to Russia, and its trade is 2.5x larger).
Some have willingly and enthusiastically re-entered the Russian sphere of influence, such as early entrants and applicants into the Russian-sponsored Eurasian Economic Union (e.g., Belarus, Kazakhstan).
At the other end of the spectrum, there are countries that exist under the umbrella of NATO and/or the European Union (Poland, Baltic States, etc).
In the middle, there are 2 variations: countries with their own political and economic ambitions, but which differ in terms of the risk of being subject to Russian military and economic influence.
We then examine economic, human capital and geologic indicators and figure out how much of each has re-entered the Russian orbit. For example, when looking at the first bar showing the current GDP of countries in the old Soviet Bloc, ~70% now falls under the NATO/EU umbrella, and another 8% is at low risk of Russian influence.
While today’s Russian orbit countries interact with more economic independence than the “vassal states” of the old USSR, let’s assume for the sake of argument that this orbit functions as a coordinated bloc. As shown in the chart, the Russian orbit now includes much of the fossil fuel and mineral wealth of the old Soviet Bloc, and in the case of oil, most of it. There have also been substantial Russian orbit gains in arable land. However, when looking at broader measures of economic strength (GDP, trade, capital formation, portfolio investment, patent filings/ innovation), most has either been integrated with the West or with China (e.g., Mongolia), or is in my (subjective) view at low risk of an “unwilling” integration with Russia.
While the Russian Federation may be plotting an increasingly divergent course from the West, the economic and political independence achieved by most Soviet Bloc countries in the early 1990’s does not appear at risk of being meaningfully reversed or morphing into USSR 2.0.
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So far...
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This seems a fair question, I'm mystified, or amused, or saddened by so many ZH stalwarts finding it somehow offensive. Would Putin find it offensive? Is the ZH zeitgeist supposed to be anarchy? Someone better update the FAQ.
I've assumed for ten years that this was basically what Putin had in mind, Sovietsky 2.0 just with more oligarchs, quite a juggling act. Hey, I've played Risk and I know what a mess it is trying to create a unified, defensible Euroasian nation, and the economics and demographics and stuff are even worse. Russia has to be big enough and strong enough to keep Pussy Riot off the stage, and armed invasion of Ukraine is obviously the next step towards that goal.
IWC >>> Try harder!!! Say it out much louder!!!
Repeat after me:
"Sorry ZHers,,, I'm really a fucktard to ever try to litter ZH with my craps!!!'
My sincere apology and I promise to never do it again, here.
I wonder when these JPM fucksticks will have another twitter party so I can prepare torches and pitchforks.
JPM, BoA, GS, and the rest of the rapists of nations can one by one die in a fire.
ha ha ha jpm's most successful twitter party :-) ha ha ha f**king awesome
Putin would be a moron to want to recreate the USSR. I don't know if he remembers, but the economy of the USSR was pretty shitty. Food was hard to come by and money was a mere token. I think Puttie Poot is smarter than that, and I think he knows he's about to trade Syria for a piece of Ukraine, so it's down to deciding how much of Ukraine he gets.
OT:
BP fine is strickly political:
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/mobile/business/article/oil-spill-fines-co...
Nobody is going to win the next round of the worldwide stupid contest, it's going to come down to who loses the least.
Russia been around for about what 13-1400 years.
China good for a couple thousand years
u.s. about 230 years.
I'm betting Russia and China will do fine against yet another empire wannabee in their long history.
Both have been around for a long time it's true, neither has really prospered in a long. True too... :/ China is no friend to Russia. I laugh every time I see someone posting shit like that. China and Russia ganging up on the US, the West, the World, the whatever.
China is part and parcel of the status quo. They don't want to knock the dollar off anytime soon, that's bad for business. They have riches now and will do what needs to be done to keep peace, and prosperity.
They didn't do Russia any favors when they bought gas barely above cost. They'll buy gas in Yuan? Might as well be dollars, can't figure out why? You don't belong here anyway.
The US is uniting them, also. See South China Sea. That's a serious counterbalance the MIC can cash in on!
The world (read the West) needs an enemy. Hard to control the masses if they aren't afraid, harder still to fleece them....
Today I had an urge check BBC news. This is what I found on front page:
"Anti-Semitism 'on the rise' say Europe's Jews"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24857207
I am not sure if I should cry or laugh.
"Anti-Zionism 'on the rise' say Europe's Jews"
FTFY.
Israel has easily killed more than 2,000 Palestinian civilians in its current campaign, Operation Protective Edge, including some 430 children, but "it was Hamas that forced them to do it," says Israel's Genocide Chief Benjamin Netanyahu.
And "roughly 90 percent of Jewish Israelis support the war, according to recent polls. Less than 4 percent believe the army has used 'excessive firepower,' the Israel Democracy Institute found, though even Israeli officials admit that a majority of the 1,800 Palestinians killed so far are civilians." -- Gregg Carlstrom, Foreign Policy | August 20, 2014
As journalist Christopher Hedges said: Israel's violence against Palestine started virtually on day one when, in 1948 -- the very year the Israeli state was born on Palestinian soil -- some 800,000 Palestinians were driven out of their homeland by Jewish militants.
And true to form, Sydney Morning Herald columnist Mike Carlton has been fired after criticizing Israel's bombardment of Gaza.
Money is power; Fed money is total power.
really now? how did that happen? everlasting ghetto mentality.
Anti-Semitism? America’s problem appears to be pro-Semitism.
From AFP:
“There are currently 41 members of Congress who hold dual U.S. Israeli citizenship, 12 senators and 29 representatives. Most Americans would consider that a conflict of interest. Perhaps it helps explain why Congress voted to give $325 million more to Israel, and we were the only country in the world to not condemn Israel’s war crimes in Gaza.”
Add to that the key man at the Federal Reserve; unofficially dual-citizenship Fischer has been directing the Fed for several years. Now it’s official, with Israel’s former central bank chief, Stanley Fischer, as vice chairman (still in control of owning, issuing and controlling America’s and the world's reserve currency).
That is why the first step to fixing the USA is an amendment to the constitution that outlaws dual citizens from holding any goverment office. Either elected or appointed.
Right: And those who will oppose this amendment have just admitted that their dual citizenship is, at the least, dual loyalty.
Welcome to Catholicism for Slow Learners.
The Catholic Church was saying this 800 years ago, at the Fourth Lateran Council. The Protestant USA is only catching up now.
Why don´t they change the Word "Anti-Semitism" to "Anti-Zinonism", so everybody knows what this whole thing is about ....
Finkelstein tells a young jewish Girl to shut up, as she starts crying about Holocaust, when the actual Theme is Israel destroying Gaza
http://youtu.be/Q7tupJRSi7M
Bravo!!
JP Morgan. Look at his face.
The Satanic agent of Satanic Red Shield, Rothschild.
The USSR was CREATED and FINANCED by Wallstreet
Just check it out, to understand their game:
Anthony Sutton "Wallstreet and the Bolshevik Revolution"
or listen to him:
http://youtu.be/kEVOIO4TbZs
jp morgan go f*ck yourself
When you start your article with a bullshit premise, (i.e. russian invasion of Georgia) its pretty obvious that everything that follows is going to be false. You propaganda guys are making it too easy, but thanks for saving me the time I would have spent reading this crap.
lol its hilarious to see how many readers on here got their "jimmies rustled" by "Given the 2008 Russian invasion of Georgia". Of course Russia invaded Gerogia, same way it is invading Ukraine now. Russia got no friends in Eastern Europe.
lucky Putin invaded. imagine what wudda happened when the PM finished eating hs tie.
Jump Michael Cembalest jump. You terrorist M'Fer. Die die die. Jump bankster jump.
round one of communism wasn't enough
let's have another
stupid communists
When you get paid to lie, it's hard to see the truth... F/U J.P. Morgue
Where is America on the road to creating a fascist state to rival Nazi Germany ?
First, you have to define what is at the end of the road in a fascist state. Without doing that, you can't estimate how far down the road you are.
Second, in the case of the United States, fascism doesn't have an element of anti-semitism in it for obvious reasons. Jews are more likely to be in powerful positions in the fascist state like they were in Italy under Mussolini.
Randy Newman explains the Nuland-American solution:
Randy Newman - Political Science (lyrics)
"Political Science"
No one likes us-I don't know why
We may not be perfect, but heaven knows we try
But all around, even our old friends put us down
Let's drop the big one and see what happens
We give them money-but are they grateful?
No, they're spiteful and they're hateful
They don't respect us-so let's surprise them
We'll drop the big one and pulverize them
Asia's crowded and Europe's too old
Africa is far too hot
And Canada's too cold
And South America stole our name
Let's drop the big one
There'll be no one left to blame us
We'll save Australia
Don't wanna hurt no kangaroo
We'll build an All American amusement park there
They got surfin', too
Boom goes London and boom Paree
More room for you and more room for me
And every city the whole world round
Will just be another American town
Oh, how peaceful it will be
We'll set everybody free
You'll wear a Japanese kimono
And there'll be Italian shoes for me
They all hate us anyhow
So let's drop the big one now
Let's drop the big one now
Sing it, Randy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGO42gvCSPI&index=2&list=RD1NvgLkuEtkA
The swine that control US foreign policy won't recognize any rival power, won't accept a (return to the historical norm of a) multi-polar international order. So instead of recognizing the truth (that Russia is simply re-establishing itself as a great power, one among many, after decades of decline), they have to cook up a new boogeyman to crusade against. We need a govenrment that can be realistic about foreign policy, that doesn't turn every dispute between rival and more or less morally eqauivlent powers into some Great Cause.
you've got to RAAAAAAAGE!
It won't let me edit, so I'll continue here...
War was so much more limited and civilized when it was universally recognized as a squabble between Princes; when governments did not moralize the issue and intentionally inflame mass passions to turn a property dispute between cousins into a national war of extermination between peoples.
The Western media lies – it is a “den of prostitutes that sells war for money.”
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts continues:
“The Western media recently fell in step with Washington and blamed the downed Malaysian airliner on Russia. No evidence was provided. In its place the media used constant repetition. Washington withheld the evidence that proved that Kiev was responsible. The media’s purpose was not to tell the truth, but to demonize Russia.
"Now we have the media story of the armored Russian column that allegedly crossed into Ukraine and was destroyed by Ukraine’s rag-tag forces…
“The media story is preposterous for a number of reasons that should be obvious to a normal person.
“The first reason is that the Russian government has made it completely clear that its purpose is to de-escalate the situation in Ukraine…”
“The second reason the story is obviously false is that if the Russian government decides to invade Ukraine, Russia would not send in one small armored group unprotected by air cover or other forces…
“The third reason that the story is obviously false is that not a single Western news organization hyping the story has presented a shred of evidence in its behalf... the stooge Kiev government was forced by facts on the ground to officially acknowledge that the trucks only contained aid for those that the Kiev stooge government has been bombing and attacking with artillery…”
Laments Roberts, this repetition of bald-faced lies by Western media propaganda shills ”has become truth for huge numbers of people. These Western lies are dangerous, because they provoke war.
“The same group in Washington and the same Western ‘media’ are telling the same kind of lies that were used to justify Washington’s wars in Iraq (weapons of mass destruction), Afghanistan (Taliban equals al Qaeda), Syria (use of chemical weapons), Libya (an assortment of ridiculous charges) and the ongoing U.S. military murders in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.
“The city upon the hill, the light unto the world, the home of the exceptional, indispensable people is the home of Satan’s lies where truth is prohibited and war is the end game.”
http://americanfreepress.net/?p=19184#more-19184
"This is more art than science..."
Says it all, really.
The same bankster, which publishes today on ZH, financed the jewish bolshewik revolution 95 years ago.
So what is the point to publish his views, Tyler?
http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/us-and-allies-must-...
repost, because i can't directly linkback (i am, but you'll have to scroll to the next page)
a few weeks ago, i got downvoted into oblivion for merely presenting various views on dugin and eurasianism.
i have no comment on it. consider this cultural awareness training. decide for yourself what it all means.
and if you want to go read from the horse's mouth
Thanks, it's a good read.
However, the problems in Georgia and Ukraine originated from The Empire with its rainbow colors of revolutions;
it was NOT Russia which started both crises. Any discussion that missed this point is therefore not sincere and lacks of credibility.