Russia's economy is crap because its government dos not provide and enforce a rule of law. You might build up a successful small business there, but some day an oligarch will send an offer to purchase your business far below value. You may refuse, but then the corrupt government will wage war against the business, you'd get into trouble for tax issues even if there are none, business partners wills top doing business for you, the government won't buy anything from you any more, the business will come into conflict with authorities over a multitude of petty things and if nothing works, you'll go to jail for some reason. The oligarch will eventually take over your business, if need be after the government seized it. It won't be well-run afterwards, of course.
That's basically the reason why Russia hasn't much to offer besides exploiting natural resources and Soviet legacy stuff (selling arms and replacement gas turbines). Russia is stagnating and decaying. Its economic and political models are a gross failure. Whatever economic growth Russia had in the past twenty years was about commodity prices related to their exploitation of natural resources.
Western countries don't behave like this. Even Hungary doesn't.
This, by the way, means that I don't count the United States as a Western country, for its government now DOES such things. It bends laws well beyond their meaning, arbitrarily threatening businesses, including businesses in the United States itself.
The U.S. are on path to a 'controlled democracy' with federal election results manipulated according to the will of the head of state, and a plutocracy moving towards oligarchy. Ah yes, and Fascism.
See for yourself
www.bbc.com/news/business-53633315
That's "crony capitalism".
That's "crony capitalism".
The 'controlled democracy' part? Well, fearmongering, hatemongering, lying, packing courts, gerrymandering, voter suppression and calling for/welcoming foreign government interference in American elections don't suffice the American right wing to win any more. Now they're moving to corrupt and degrade the United States Postal Service* (which is a mandated Federal government function by force of the constitution) so the mail-in ballot vote can be suppressed and manipulated.
The constitution mandates that the president's and vice president's time in office ends on January 20th, 2021.** They can only stay in office if their re-election is official. There are now substantial and founded doubts that such a peaceful transition of power is going to happen.
By the way; the only two economic policies of the American right wing that really work (in the real world, not just in their fantasy) are exploitation of natural resources (drill baby, drill!) and fiscal stimulus by federal budget deficit. Both require no governing or economic competence whatsoever, and both are laden with often undesirable side effects.
S O
defence_and_freedom@gmx.de
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*: The sabotage of the USPS began in 2006, then presumably because no billionaire or millionaire can make profit off the postal service as long as it's public, not private for-profit.
**: The then almost certainly left-wing speaker of the House of Representatives (presumed to be Pelosi) would become president if the election result is still not official at that time.
**: The then almost certainly left-wing speaker of the House of Representatives (presumed to be Pelosi) would become president if the election result is still not official at that time.
Unlike Russia, the US has a military and intelligence agencies that are scary. How fucked will we be in Germany if the US election becomes a joke and Trump stays in office despite the voters deciding otherwise? I think this is by now a real possibility and if not with Trump this time, then with one of the next US-presidents.
ReplyDeleteYoyr knowledge about Russia is a tremendous blank space in your ignorance
ReplyDeleteAll the best!
I consider such comments to be a voicing of discomfort.
DeleteA real critique of someone who knows better includes an argument and/or evidence.
I think a more suitable comparison would be with very early 1930s in Germany where workers organizations started to demand more equality and doing so menaced stablished business that reacted supporting nazi party.
ReplyDeleteOf course this is a very simplistic comparison.
JM
I strongly doubt that the workers of 1930-1932 had equality in mind. They were unemployed or fearing unemployment at the time. It was the time of the Great Depression.
DeleteI find it amusing that you won't let go of the ghosts of the past. You can clearly see the Americans sliding into fascism, yet must rail against the Russians to maintain balance. In my assessment, the US is far more rotten than the RF ever was, and it by far hasn't reached it's nadir 1998 moment and 1999-2000. In retrospect the implosion of the USSR was far better managed than the American delusional denial of their decline of the last 30 years through short-term gimmicks like exporting their industry to China and taking up 27 trillion in debt.
ReplyDeleteWe should be sad that we are on the cusp of a new Dark Age, and mourn for the super-civilisations (USSR and USA pre-80s) of the recent-past, but at this point we should start thinking about what comes next.
Keep in mind that a particular delusional political wing is treating the Russian Federation as a positive example of saving society from "decay"...
DeleteYou lost me at the mail in voting...
ReplyDeleteWhy? Because previous mail in voting fraud has been done by the American left not the right. And the right have been pointing this long for the left started to accuse them of intending to use it to cheat. You are just another delusional nut that can't think for themselves, a shame really.
I also find it highly amusing you think the left has any chance of winning this time. Trump won last time because he was disliked less than his opponent. Biden is not only guilty of what trump was impeached for without real evidence. (Biden bragged about it on camera, while for trump. Guy overheard a guy who overhears trump *rolls eyes*) but Biden is clearly not mentally capable, has actually said racist things (unlike trump). There is no way people would choose creepy Joe Biden over trump in 2016 let lone now after trumps incredible pre-covid economy and the riots.
But what did I expect from a blog
It appears I "lost" you because my blog post was reality-based.
DeleteYou should try out this thing called reality:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53353404
"There have been isolated cases of postal ballot fraud, such as in the 2018 North Carolina primary, which was re-run after a consultant for the Republican candidate tampered with voting papers.
There was also a case earlier this year in New Jersey which saw two Democratic councillors charged with alleged fraud in relation to postal voting, after hundreds of ballots were found stuffed in a post box.
But the rate of voting fraud overall in the US is between 0.00004% and 0.0009%, according to a 2017 study by the Brennan Center for Justice.
A Washington Post review of the 2016 election found one proven case of postal voting fraud.
And a voter fraud database collated by Arizona State University between 2000 and 2012, found 491 cases of postal ballot fraud out of hundreds of millions of votes.
Oregon has held postal elections since 2000 and has only reported 14 fraudulent votes attempted by mail."
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About the Biden thing; what Biden said was damning to proapaganda-fed right wingers and completely unproblematic to someone who knows a bit about Eastern European big business as well as someone who paid attention to the context, like the rest of the world wanting the same as Biden. It also sounded completely innocuous to anyone who actually thought through how ridiculously complicated the allegations were. Burisma could have ended any investigation by simply bribing the known-to-be-corrupt prosecutor instead of bribing a son of a foreign politician who himself had marginal influence on the whole affair.
Republicons got riled up about one nothingburger after another by their propaganda echo chamber in the past years. Meanwhile, they look away from the overt corruption and unconstitutionality of the current crooks & liars clique.
Moreover, final warning: I will not wave through any more lies here. You clearly LIED when you claimed that the lying moron did not say racist things.
https://www.vox.com/2016/7/25/12270880/donald-trump-racist-racism-history
The riots happen under the lying moron's administration. Republicons would blame them on the president if the president was a Democrat. Sadly, he's an autocrat.
The "incredible pre-covid economy" was nothing but a continuation of the trend of 2011...2016 under Obama. There's absolutely no sign of special political achievement in the 2017...2019 economy. And that's BAD because the Republicons who faked to be concerned about deficits and debt for eight years gave up all the pretence and went deep into deficit spending. They also gave up all "small government" pretence and increased the budget. These hundreds of billions of dollars per year of deficit spending were a fiscal stimulus. The economic results should have been vastly better with that much stimulus. They weren't because of the net harmful stupid trade wars.
In short; Anonymous, you've been fed propaganda bollocks, and you did fail to resist it.
Try looking at reality for a change.
https://aneconomicsense.org/2020/09/10/trumps-economic-record-in-charts/
Delete