The United States and 1990s Era Russian Economic Chaos

The reconstruction of the Russian political economy following the collapse of the Soviet Union has been a thing to marvel about. I read a book named An Economic History of the Soviet Union written by Alex Noyes long ago. Some day I would like to read another named An Economic History of Post-Soviet Russia.

I took a course on Russian governance from St. Petersburg University last year that had a good history of the 1990s to 2017 political changes in Russia- and there were a lot, yet the economic history is somewhat more vague. An American can compare it to the reconstruction of the South after the civil war, yet that was so long ago and in a very different historical era. For a modern nation to reconstruct an economic system from the ground up is something of a miracle in progress- and accomplished mostly without state violence (at a Stalin scale) or dictatorship.

The United States was concerned with international security and the problem of transition all of Europe too that had formerly been somewhat forcibly made part of the Soviet bloc. To get peace and prosperity for all while containing military conflicts in Serbia and Iraq-Kuwait while preventing nuclear weapons proliferation from old Soviet stockpiles (especially those in Kazakhstan) wasn’t simple.

Unfortunately some of the rough spots in present Russian-American and European relations were sewn in the Clinton administration era that did not comprehend the importance of the Ukraine and Crimea to Russians. While Russia was addressing some of its own problems with places like Chechnya the United States had issues with 9–11 and a war on terrorism. For some reason the U.S. Democratic Party developed a real antipathy to Russia and Vladimir Putin, and reasons for not developing closer relations were made to be more important than finding a way to go ahead and develop closer economic and social ties.

It is possible that bureaucracies and military industrial complexes are loathe to change old relationships such as old dogs can’t be taught new tricks (cliche).

Gregory Sachs is/was a good consulting economist, yet the huge problems of Russia changing to a privatized from a communist foundation were more than tweaking a few things like interest rates. It is hard to be a back seat driver for people with their own ideas. The entire structure required reconstruction and no one actually had any experience at that. Germany for example, after the Second World War, like the rest of Europe, had plenty of experience with western economic history, ideas and institutions. Russia was without most of those.

Democracy and capitalism allow competitive free markets, so it is difficult to find completely impartial, benevolent actors in macro-economics with the power to reform foreign economies- for that is beyond the interest or power of most corporations and governments, including the United States of America. Maybe the United States should have had a Marshall Plan for Russia, yet it seemed best to provide some assistance to Russia while allowing them to go ahead and organize themselves.

The Economic Balance of East and West

The historian of civilizations Arnold Toynbee late in his life regarded the world as being one civilization. With the economic entanglement between the United States and China, that is easy to see. Certainly there are many differences culturally, yet they are not separate civilizations nor is the world economy entirely localized in developed nations.

I would disagree that the east was ever in power of anyone besides itself. From the Shang dynasty to the Chin and Han China had no dominating power over the west. The Mongols were influential and devastated Russian lands however their conquest and Empire did not encompass much of western Europe. In the 14th century a Turkic-Mongol named Tamerlane conquered much of Iraq, the Caucasus and Southern Russia. The Americas were conquered by people from its East; Europeans, in the 15th century, and never recovered though a synthetic Euro-Afro American culture developed that became indigenous itself. Muslims conquered more lands that were formerly European obviously, yet the Arabs were not too Eastern of a people.

China regaining or recovering power is occurring within a western economic philosophy, or rather two western philosophical paradigms; Marxism and Capitalism. Much of the brilliant Chinese scientific contributions are done with collaboration from westerners or even while working at for instance, American Universities. China has lots of foreign investment, though some investors have relocated production to Vietnam recently to avoid the problems of Chinese tariffs and recalcitrance at becoming fully equal economic players on a level field with western nations on issues such as protection of intellectual properties, patents and currency valuation.

World economic powers of wealth and capital are trans-national these days, unfortunately in some respects, good in others. If one region of the world were to collapse the economy would be exploited for profit and redeveloped by others to exploit cheap labor or consumers. If the population of a region were to collapse from genomic terrorism and mass die off such as the 13th century Bubonic plagiues of Europe, others would swiftly move in to fill the shoes of the departed, and the population that remained might become more fecund and replace their population within a couple of generations.

regions of the world are no longer remote or isolated. People scour the world for investment opportunities or cheap places to live. If any part of the world were to collapse that would present an opportunity for regional reconstruction and renewal such that it would be better than it was before.

In my opinion the best prospect for collapse is simple the world population itself. The causes could be the collapse of the ecosphere’s ability to support human life stimulating a cascade of disasters such as wars, famines and plagues, or genomic terror effort gone awry.

Why Leftists Hope Hurricane Dorian Will Hit Conservative Voters

In the Northern Hemisphere hurricanes spin from the left (counter-clockwise) to punish the right as best as can be worked. Conservatives are like the calm at the eye of the storm around which leftist radicals fueled by the warm waters of the broadcast media circle in a hateful rage. Plainly a sunscreen at L1 need be constructed at and launched from a moon base to dampen increasing global heating and leftist chaos storming while time permits.

Leftist Coriolis forces are driven with bi-polar vector capitalization in pursuit of thermodynamic redistributionist goals. Equalization storms of temporal hurricane strength occasionally arise even though astonishing permanent Bush 2 tax cuts from a Left President sometimes drop all political direction like infiltration with a cold, occluded front.

What Is Coriolis Effect? How Does It Affect The Hurricane Spin?

Examples of Capital- What it Is

Wiki has a good list of kinds of economic capital.

Capital - Wikipedia The main point presented is that capital is any asset useful for production. I should add to the wiki list that military capital is useful for producing war, peace and political capital. Christian capital is useful for producing eternal life with the Lord God.

I tend to regard anything of value as capital, since any material or intellectual property may be useful for production of other goods or ideas.

Consider invention of new ideas; pre-existing ideas combined together can produce a new synthetic idea(s).  That is comparable to arithmetic where with a two and a three, it is possible to produce a five.

Humans exist embedded in a thermodynamic physical field of being in which they are self-aware and aware of the field and characteristics of it objectively. If they were unchanging and static beings the concept of production might not be so important; capital is consistent with thermodynamic change or artificial production that supports human life and its proprietary interests.

Natural capital such as comprise forests and the services they produce in supporting human life, and oceans, rivers, clouds, the sun etc all may be regarded as natural capital beneficial to human existence. Ecological economics is a field that values natural capital and seeks to sustain or increase it so far as possible.

Social and political capital exist useful for production in marketing and political goals respectively. The late President Ronald Reagan had much social capital before he began building political capital, for example.

Scientific capital can reap innumerable production benefits. Even the Chinese lunar probe that discovered a gel like substance of unusual color on the dark side of the moon (possible ET scat), may be useful for something someday (coprolite research dump for exopologists).

China's lunar rover discovers 'gel-like' substance in crater on moon

Breakthrough enables storage and release of mechanical waves without energy loss

Synopsis: Quantum Interference Across an Astronomical Distance

A New Way to Store Information in Molecules for Millions of Years

Large corporations often have technical and intellectual as well as financial capital that allows quick production of material objects from new ideas they can invent, purchase or redistribute unto themselves from others in sundry ways.

An interesting example of capital is the dirt (regolith) of the moon. Apparently it can yield Helium 3 useful for fusion reactors (or not because there are scientific questions about that) and more immediately, lunar materials could be used to produce a sun screen to reflect light when the mirroring surface (600,000 square kilometers) are launched from the moon inexpensively (compared to Earth) to the Lagrange Point 1. Mirroring surface at L1 facing the sun could screen out 1 or 2% of the sunlight reaching the Earth and cool it down a little. That might be a practical dampener of some of the global warming problem. A moon base would be required to build the sun screen, and fortunately President Trump is trying to fund a moon base (although the global warming problem is not perhaps interesting to him). The moon dirt and other minerals have real value for production.

Monetary capital compounded with investment produces more monetary capital. The 1% have so much monetary capital as well as other kinds that it dwarfs the capital of the rest of society (at least that of the bottom half). The monetary and financial capital of the richest is so deep that it is like a gravity well such as the sun that brings all of the objects of the solar system to orbit around it and eventually gobble them up as would a black hole.

Select Strengths of the Electoral College

The Electoral College is a defender of the equal rights of states and the rights of citizens of the states. The United States is composed of fifty states. Each state is equal. Citizens of each state elect federal representatives and senators to send to attend the federal legislature. Senator apportionment of two for each state is permanent. Populations may shift about interstate yet states remain equal. The people of New York and California cannot just out-vote and plunder Alaska or Rhode Island (though corporations can plunder well enough).

The Executive branch is one of three parts of the federal government. The other branch is the Judicial and its members on high courts require approval by Congress (and the Congress is more or less equally representing all of the states interests). The Judicial branch is not generally a problem.

The Executive is elected by the voters of each state through an electoral college. That electoral college is selected something like the way the Congress is selected; two for the senators of each state plus the number of representatives. That is fair and proportionate selection of the electoral college. It keeps the election of the president fair and balanced representing state and popular interests together just like the legislature.

To eliminate the electoral college would throw the selection out of balance regarding states. To restore the balance one would also need to eliminate the extra representatives given to populous states. Perhaps each state would then have just three representatives.

There are 435 U.S. Representatives and 100 Senators = 535. There are 538 members of the electoral college. The people of states elect the electors and the electors elect the Executive (as the way the citizens voted).

Of course the most populous states would like to have their cake and eat it too getting rid of the electoral college yet keeping the extra representatives in the U.S. Congress. Such an act would be a reason to de-unionize the states and return to independent status so the most populous states would need to rely upon their own resources rather than plunder less populous state’s resources.

The equality of states as abstract entities is equal in my opinion. One sees that in the U.S. Senate apportionment. The people are significant too as relates to the composition of the Federal government legislative branch and electoral college for the Executive branch. So the representation in Congress is proportional as is the composition of the electoral college. That is pragmatic. People are not abstract entities.

The federal government is of the nation and the people. It is appropriate that its members are selected with the rights of states and the populous together for the Legislative, Judicial and Executive branches.

Some Democrats would of course like a Moscow style strong central government with states being fairly meaningless and subject to the transcending power of the Chief Executive. 

It is interesting that the Republic of Plato had two philosopher-kings ruling the people for life. He probably got his idea from Sparta, except Sparta hadn’t a philosopher ruling the military state. One could find the divine right of kings implicit in philosopher-kings ruling within the realm of forms paradigm of temporal forms, and blame The Republic for middle ages divine rights theories of monarchy, yet even some primitive tribes had ideas about god-kings long before Plato.

Socrates and his student Plato liked the oligarchy and hated the democracy. It is ironic that the concept of abolishing the electoral college would best serve to accomplish the absolute power of oligarchy or plutonomy through places of power like Wall Street in New York.

The United States probably has the best form of hybrid government, or did before it crept in to corporatism-socialism. Many are always at work these days trying to destroy it-sometimes inadvertently.

Electoral College is Right for the United States

The electoral college protects state's rights. States are given electors according to their Senate and representative numbers. It is part of a brilliant and accurate design to permit a federal system to function while letting states keep a substantial element of self-determination.

What is the Electoral College?

There are complete idiots in the Democrat Party that would abolish the electoral college and let concentrated urban populations in a few states determine the winner of Presidential elections. States need proportional election of the Chief Executive as well as the Congress.

Another alternative reform, if the electoral college were eliminated, would be to allow every state to have two Senators and just three representatives in order to allow democracy to flourish in each state on a level field. 

With elimination of the electoral college state's rights would essentially disappear as a federal executive and congress composed of urban proles passed whatsoever plundering laws they liked to extract anything of value from the less densely populated states.

Why Democrats Want to Abolish the Electoral College—And Republicans Don't

One better reform than abolishing the electoral college and the states would be to let the states be free to leave the union altogether and keep a loose confederacy. The large urban center dominated minority of the states would be allowed to keep the federal government and its public debt. 

Trumps Challenges; To Reduce Global Warming, Fund the Moon Program and Grow the Economy

Ecological economics theory has sustainable growth in quality and zero growth in quantity. Classical economics has a robust growth rate of more than 5%. President Obama was borrowing a little from ecological economic theory to explain the insipid 1% growth rate that was satisfactory to select Harvard marionettes of his administration I would guess; typical Democrat party trickery with Eleatic economics.

A history of economics and capital named Capital in the Twenty-First Century, written by Thomas Piketty, explained that the rate of growth tends to follow select patterns during the growth phase compared with a mature economy that settles down to a lower rate, China’s economy is has grown rapidly the past couple of decades in keeping with their entry into limited market economics with an immature economy. Looking at Piketty’s charts one would guess that China’s economy would settle down in two or three decades. It might be compared to where the United States was in, oh, the 1950s.

President Obama’s economy was not a sustainable ecological economic economy with sustainable infrastructure. Democrats don’t actually understand what that is and try to substitute ‘Cargo Cult’ economic policy for actually well-founded ecological economics. With so much work outsourced abroad these days the 1% was deceptive; it was a government job security and bureaucracy economy with high, unemployment and underemployment compelling citizens to live on government programs. Quite an unhealthy situation.

The Trump economy is the Obama economy plus plundering natural resources for an extra few percentage points of growth. Neither Obama nor Trump has a clue about Ecological Economics or capacity to lead the nation toward that. The President should at least use the L1 solar reflecting mirrors to cool the Earth 1% as his campaign idea for reducing global warming. It would require building the mirrors on the moon of regolith and launching them to L1 with the low delta v required…even an electromagnetic mass driver on the moon would provide most of the push. President Trump’s moon program is just what is needed to get the mirror project going. Of course the Democrats won’t fund the moon program willingly though it will be needed to cool the Earth in the decades ahead most likely. The idea was developed at a Sept. 2001 White House meeting on global warming, probably before 9-11. The timing is appropriate for politicians ignored warnings then too.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7407175/Humans-ruining-world-Stone-Age.html

President Trump has the challenge of dealing with a growing Chinese economy that is in the classical economic criterion while transitioning the nation to sustainable quality growth only. That is beyond his capacity so he is just growing it the old fashioned way by exploiting endangered, natural resources causing harm to the ecosphere and adding to global warming. really, all of the politicians running for the job are clueless- even the Yang campaign seems to have some fairly socialist ideas about giving 1000 dollars to everyone in the nation without working. That would create a surplus of gamers I would guess.