Im from the good ole united states and you know one of the main scares we have besides china growing so much per year is one the shrinking supplies of oil and two the vast land russia will have when global warming hits the world, this my fellow people of the world will change global powers significantly. The united states, china and parts of western europe will be deserts while the upper continents such as russia and canada will become fertile utopias. I just hope by this time russia will pull its head out of its ... on this love/hate relationship with the united states and other "evil" nato countries because we are going to need each other more than ever.
RT had a little documentary on the PSKOV region… these beautiful little villages and sub cultures that Russia still has. The story was that the one village only had 200 people left and its about to die.
Russia if you let that happen, you crazy.
Look at your villages and if those people need a damn tractor, give it to them.
If they need a little technology, give it to them, be it bee keeping, making wood alcohol, charcoal… whatever.
Make guesthouses and advertise them for the villagers…
Give them a hot air balloon… whatever…. ensuring the sub culture is maintained.
Connect all these villages either by light air, or high - speed train.
Don’t make it a loan… make it something like money for a tax on all village exports... including tourism.
You want stimulus… it’s a great way to do it.
Most first world people are sick of big glossy cities… real people are much more fascinating.
Russia is a gold mine, and its real value is not its gas... gas is just the starter.
Which country still even has a black smith... don’t loose that stuff... just help them bootstrap.
Cities suck... the little villages you about to lose are very special... and I think, the future.
Yes, Russia´s GDP will continue to grow strongly during the next years.
Note that during the last couple of years we have watched and read about BRAZIL in the English speaking media, which is building a destiny for investors leaving China.
First we read those articles about the discovery of gas and oil fields some hundreds Kms away from the shores of Rio...even if according to experts it is very expensive and far away the exploition of those gas and oil fields. But it was a good sign for the propaganda machine.
Then came the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics. Another great impulse to make Brazil a reliable nation for investors: 200 million people with an income per head twice as high as China, reserves of $250 billion, inflation at 5%....Yes, but as we now all that data is surpassed by RUSSIA:
1. If Brazil has future oil and gas "projects", the Russian Federation is already the first producer of gas and the second producer of oil (first some years, ahead of Saudi Arabia)
2. If Brazil has an income per head twice as high as China´s, the Russian Federation has an income per head three times as high as the Chinese and a third as high ast the Brazilian.
3. If Brazil has $200 bn. currency reserves, the Russian Federation has twice as much: over $400 bn. currency reserves. And half the National Debt.
4. If Brazil produces 70 million tonnes of cereals a year, the Russian Federation produces 100 million and exports over 15 million tonnes a year.
5. If Brazil has an small space program based in the town of Alcantara, the Russian Federation is the first rocket launcher in the World, ahead of the U.S.A.
6. If Brazil has 6 companies among the Fortune 500, the Russian Federation has 8 companies.
So, during the next years, when the Anglo media (Economist, FT etc) try to attract investors to Brazil, something they deserve being a great Atlantic nation, the Russian Government can publish in the same media the comparison with Brazil.
Yes, Russia's GDP will proceed to grow if the whole world economy restore, nevertheless the russian ecomony remains to be depended on oil's speculative prices and a russians goverment wont be able to change this situation next 10 years!
Brazil has offshore oil and gas "projects" while Russia enjoys hard physical assets as a guarantee for investors.
Russia borders at the same time the largest market in the World (E.U.) and the largest emerging market (China) being better prepared to supply both of them than Brazil.
What Russia needs the most now to improve its position as the better destiny for investors in the World is improving its place in the CPI index of Transparency International, and improving the infraestructure.
Ok, so lets stop drinking the cool-aid for a second a take a look at the hard facts. Russia is plagued with corruption, has no credible institutions to speak of and is accompanied by an extremely high degree of political risk. High speculative real estate returns and high energy prices are not the correct ingredients for long term economic growth, with even Russian billionairs themselves preferring to invest their long term assets off shore rather than in Russia. Russia will have periodic spouts of growth during the booms times, but apart from its natural resources the country has nothing much to offer and hence the long term picture looks pretty fragile. When the world economy crashed in 2008, money poured put of Russia, this should tell you quite a lot about the country's economic fundamentals.......Weak institutions, weak patent laws, weak law enforcement, loads of red tape, high corruption and a conventional economy that will increasingly be crippled by Dutch disease.
A lot of people have suggested that there are many similarities between Russia and China, I would beg to differ. China has benefited from export led growth and high marginal rates of return due to its comparatively low level of relative capital accumulation. Essentially it's strong, efficient and sustainable manufacturing sector has allowed the Chinese economy to be sustained by global demand during the good times and in more recent times it has tapped its reserves to boost domestic demand as international demand has waned. The Chinese model itself has considerable problems, which I won't go into now, but Russia itself is destined for erratic and speculative growth in the future. You can have the brightest minds in the world, there is no substitute for a functioning system. Russia is broken .
