Yeah that was one of the worst privatization schemes in history. They basically carved state assets into stocks then distributed the stocks among the workers. You cannot eat stocks or pay rent with them. So the Oligarchs and/or black market guys bought them at pennies on the dollar....

First by backing the drunk Elzin and then by using the Oligarchs to consolidate some power in Russia.

Collectively the western world must realize that our governments are our enemies, not our brothers

Before the KGB got the lead act in the show of course.

I think that the Russians now are far closer to making this conclusion than you are @Snake

If tehre is a good and strong leader who thinks for his people and does sh*t the Russian people are willing to follow.

BUT

The key word is DOES SHIT!

They will shoot any cowards, traitors or banksters!

Putin has said that Eastern Orthodox Christianity was closer to Islam than Protestantism or Catholicism. We are all Christians mother fucker

Putin is a full blown KGB sell-out by this point.

Well they do not segment religion on that demography but Muslims are about the only growing demographic there. So Putin's picking a winning side in a way.

I would be all over him, if there wasn't this KGB smell all over him.

Putin **made** them the winning side

By opening the borders of Russia to ex communists state like Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan

Muslim states

Then gets flooded by terrorists

Putin is starting to look like the regular commie traitor with each and every day.

Like Europe

To be honest most of the country wants him gone by this point.

The problem is the KGB has nothing else to offer any more.

Likely for the same reasons. European demography is almost as bad. Worse some places. So they tried to import a solution......

He’s a Eurasianist, he doesn’t believe Europe and Russia are the same civilization, he think he has more in common with the Muslim and Asian worlds

So the people are confused and do not know what to do.

Which is false, Slavic peoples are western. Christianity, their language is from Greece, they westernized before

They do not know what is next and this is why they would rather have him and his muslim sympathizers than accept help from the West!

This all started with the communists to distance themselves from NATO

It's partly your fault, too, I believe.

But ironically communism came from the western world

Communism, yet another bad idea that came from Europe.....

I'm not saying the KGB are right but if you hadn't lost your sh*ts with all these LGBQT whatever bunch and the muslims raping and killing in yours countries you could have been a raw model.

And now you are just a laughing stock for the KGB propaganda machine.

Russia is European through and through, Putin should stop denying the facts and reject this suicidal, genocidal, vicious rhetoric

@yordanyordanov I’d still would want Russia doing better than us

But it is this rhetoric that keeps him in power, can't you see it?

At least someone would be left standing

I know it is

That’s the sad part

Yeah @Snake

I don’t want Russia to die

It’s the last thing I want

The sad part is that when you f*cked up America inadvertently you f*cked up the rest of the world, too.

Cause you made everyone who sympathized with you cry.

Then you took away the little hope people in far worse places than you were in had that things can change, that things can be better, that there are solutions for their problems, that some people somewhere out there know the way.

Can you see my point?

Now all we have left are Islam or degeneracy.

Not much of a choice, is it?

We fuck up because we can *afford to*.

Well, then face the same choice as us all-islam or degeneracy, not much of a choice, huh?

No. OK when I was going on about demographics. The only place in the developed world without shit demography? The US. Grab any edgy atheist on this server and they will tell you we're more religious than any industrialized nation too. On several factors we are a freakishly odd country. But the way we do things lets us get away with shit other places can't.

No, it's not the US.

Actually it's Hungary.

Oh I thought you were still on the Yankee thing.....

You can't beat the Mag'yar at making babies. They will be the last ones to ever give up in Europe.

Well, I'm @Jym but I just don't want to embarass myself any more.

The discussion got too serious.

And too sad, too.

A 'good demography' is not just making babies. This might be a wall O' text but here goes...

I will wait.

Ok when you are young you spend money. Because you don't have anything yet so you go into debt. Car loans mortgages etc etc etc. You make less too because you don't have any skills yet. So young people generate consumption but also debt.

Middle aged people have more experience they earn more but they also save more. Which means they invest more (this is more true in the US most countries the majority of finance comes from banks. Most US finance is in the markets).

Then you retire and you have to like off of savings. Which means you want safe low-yield investments. Like T-Bills and CDs and the sort of thing that provides the equity to loan to the young people creating all that consumption lead growth.

So "lots of babies" if you don't have the demographics to supply their need for credit and goods is not helpful.

I think with our current levels of automation and advanced economy we can allow for it.

I mean any government centered on the wellbeing of its young will know better than let them sink into debt and not have babies.

Or get their brains f*cked up by communist ideas.

What the Mag'yars are essentially doing right now is exactly socialism in the government and markets in the economy.

I mean they let the Western style market economy replace communist central planning while simultaneously keep some communist era ideas about the central role of the family and social benefits for mothers with many children.

Debt is just selling and buying time. If you want a 50,000 car you can save 100 a week for 10 years *or* take out a car loan.

Well, I don't think they have any clear idea what they are heading into yet and I will agree it is still a work in progress but this is how they are actually managing to pull themselves out of the degeneracy trap of the Western civilization. And a strong sense of nationalism, too.

@Jym What they are doing is that these loans are actually paid by the old by the government redistribution of taxes.

In essence the state subsides the young when they have more children, so they are motivated to do so.

Oh we're horrendously nationalist it just does not show because we rarely think about other nations. The reason Americans hate 'coastal elites' is because they do not agree with the general premise that this is the greatest nation to ever exist. But hear me out on this. We also have the old pay for the desires of the young. That older stable investing demographic provides the capital that gets the young family their first mortgage and car loan and etc. The *interest* is partially paid back to the old to fund their retirement.

Well, than I can say that the Hungarian system is some kind of a "nationalized" form of this.

The government is the middle man, not the banks and this is why they want to raise teh taxes there all the time.

There are just way too many programs to fund-the social care for the old, the stimuluses for the young, defense, rising costs of living due to the EU economy doing not so well lately and the desire of the population to reach Western living standards and so on.

It's actually starting to get a little bit of a mess out there as far as I know but I'm damn sure one of the last things they will cut will be stimulus package for child care.

Sure. I guess, getting back to my point, the *way* we do the same thing means we can do things that would be disastrous for other nations. Like the banking crisis. We solved it with a really stupid idea where we just printed money and fed it to the banks. But most of our finance is not in the banks so it could not screw up half the economy. Europe tried the same trick but they do not do things like we do so they are still in a sovereign debt crisis many places.

I don't think you did the best thing wither.

Yes. TARP was very stupid. But we can get away with doing stupid things. Like I said...

I actually do think all those money you printed will come back at you and bite you in the ass some day when China or Russia decide to dump their dollar reserves ad send you into hyperinflation.

WEll, and I really do not mean this in a jingoistic way, they can't. Because nobody wants to trade in Yaun or Rubles.

And I told you that it might send you into hyperinflation soon enough. And you will be at the mercy of foreign powers for that. So you don't even have full control over the process now.

That's not entirely correct @Jym

All that will take for the US to go into hyperinflation will be for the EU to start trading in rubles.

Which we will do if Trump presses too hard and the English screw us over Brexit.

It then becomes-we, most of Asia and half of Africa and if the Russian and the Chinese decide to dump those dollars,

oh boy

It will HURT!

Oh. I guess I need to go into trade. The US does not really do it. By which I mean we are also the least globally connected economy on the planet. Imports make about 12% of USGDP and 2/3rds of that are N. America. The global trade network was never an integral part of the US economy. It was a bribe by us to get allies in the cold war. This being outside of the problems with attempting to establish a different exchange currency (of which there are several)

Like I said. We do things in a very weird way.

If the dollar looses its international stance you can no longer sustain that empire of yours Wallstreet built for you.

And then you are left basically in autarky.

Which will mean you will no longer be the first worldpower, too.

See above. It's not built on what they trade in most of the world. Not exactly Autarky but if one were to want autarky this would be the place to do it.

By any means TRY becoming an autarky, see what will happen in the most capitalistically oriented country in the world when you are forced on that path.

I don't even think the term 'Empire' is accurate as Empire extracted wealth from their overseas holdings. I think American Hegemony is a better term. Not that I am in favor of eaither.

I mean the prices of a ton of stuff would go up and you couldn't get the most lucrative contracts anywhere in the world any more.

You would also have to let go of those damn cheap Chinese goods, too.

Then, you would be forced to pay more for imports and prop up your industry again, well, that's exactly what trump wants, isn't it?

Scroll up. Goods not in the US, Mexico, or Canada only account for about 4% of our GDP. I do agree prices would go up. It's just that that would not matter much here.

But if prices go up you will loose wealth and living standard wouldn't you?