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The USA has been adding nearly 1 million barrels @day of oil production annually for the last three years.This year the same thing will happen. Citibank projects that the USA will do the same thing through 2017 with oil independence projected for that year. Under these circumstances the dollar has nowhere to go but up. A strong dollar and an oil supply shock—mean that the direction of oil prices is down. Gold too. Therefor the Russian government cannot depend on oil or gold revenues to pay for government checks to party and pensioners. Sergey Glaziev’s analysis sounds like quackery to western ears. But judging by his prescriptions he understands there are big changes coming that Russia needs to respond to. His prescriptions are pretty solid. But he’ll likely run into the same wall that Medvedev did. Putin is an oil guy. Because that’s what he knows and oil has worked for him before. It would require serious serious pain in the form of lower oil and gold prices for Putin to change. So maybe the reforms will come but not before oil and gold prices plunge much further.

For anyone with a historical rhyming ear its helpful to recall that the first OPEC stikes in 1973 coincided roughly with the beginning of US oil imports and the first Watergate hearings. Just as this year US oil production hikes and import reductions coincide with Obama Benghazi,IRS AP & Fox troubles.