Quote:
Originally Posted by Catfish
Not sure what to make of this, but it sounds reasonable enough, and maybe not propaganda .. :
https://www.russia-briefing.com/news...llapsing.html/
PPP is the point. We know it was not a good idea to switch a country's industry to the service sector alone. As long as money is being printed and paid for no real equivalent value it works for a "short" (10-20 years or so) time, but then the money being paid for services has to come from somewhere again.
So e.g. Thatcher's decision to mow down industrial capacities and cut each others' hair instead has led to major empoverishment, now even more than before. We know the difference between poor and rich in the UK is based and obviously accepted together with the class society, but what about the rest of Europe?
Russia does have the resources. If it ever properly develops its economy and infrastructure together with proper education, it indeed will be a world power. |
^For the same reason the material reserve of the Russian military is not correctly understood, too. We read the official defence budget (there is a black budget as well, I bet, like in any other country...) and think "This is the number, now compare - ooops, does not sound that impressive, the miliutary is not that big." However, they pay lower wages to their factory workers, the y have in general much lower production costs for military equipment, and they have the ressources and ores they need mostly themselves, they must not buy them on the world market. With the money they have, they can get further, in quantity at least. Thats why the Russian military, on a quantity level, is much bigger than the defence budget seems to express. And thats why I think they can sustain this war of atrition longer than we like to realise. Their problem is not material, but morale.