Posted on 06/22/2016 9:54:15 AM PDT by NRx
Russia is not the country you think it is. Its economy is smaller than South Korea’s. Its people are poorer than Kazakhstan’s. It trails Finland in technology. And it has a smaller military budget than Saudi Arabia...
...Russia hosted the Olympics, punched Georgia in the nose, took back the Crimea, invaded Ukraine, flew bombers through NATO airspace, built military bases in the Arctic, and generally flexed and posed like an oiled, aged, but still buff, body builder. And we’ve been paying increasingly rapt attention, not noticing the geriatric walker hidden just off stage. A closer look is almost shocking.
According to the International Monetary Fund’s most recent data, the Russian economy is approximately the same size as Australia and slightly smaller than South Korea. As an exporter, it is now less important than Belgium, Mexico, and Singapore.
And it is poor. The World Bank ranks Russia’s GDP per capita below Lithuania, Equatorial Guinea, and Kazakhstan. A larger proportion of its population lives below the poverty rate than in Indonesia, India, or Sri Lanka. It is ranked 67th in the world in the Global Competitive Index and 66th in the UN’s Human Development Index.
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonglobe.com ...
Russia is not the country you think it is. Its economy is smaller than South Korea’s. Its people are poorer than Kazakhstan’s. It trails Finland in technology. And it has a smaller military budget than Saudi Arabia... Russia hosted the Olympics, punched Georgia in the nose, took back the Crimea, invaded Ukraine, flew bombers through NATO airspace, built military bases in the Arctic, and generally flexed and posed like an oiled, aged, but still buff, body builder. And we’ve been paying increasingly rapt attention, not noticing the geriatric walker hidden just off stage. A closer look is almost shocking. According to the International Monetary Fund’s most recent data, the Russian economy is approximately the same size as Australia and slightly smaller than South Korea. As an exporter, it is now less important than Belgium, Mexico, and Singapore. And it is poor. The World Bank ranks Russia’s GDP per capita below Lithuania, Equatorial Guinea, and Kazakhstan. A larger proportion of its population lives below the poverty rate than in Indonesia, India, or Sri Lanka. It is ranked 67th in the world in the Global Competitive Index and 66th in the UN’s Human Development Index.
“What’s your source, Putin?”
It sure as Hell isn’t you! You’re known for your idiotic views on government and the economy, such as claiming the BLS numbers on unemployment are the honest truth.
Thanks cloudmountain.
Hitting the vodka early, eh?
Putin clarifies Trump comment and says America is the world’s ‘only superpower’
The Guardian | 18 June 2016 | Alan Yuhas
Posted on 06/18/2016 8:52:30 PM PDT by Cronos
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3441639/posts
Yes, yes Boston Fishwrap. We have no need for a military, do we? What a masturbating Leftist rag you are.
Many years ago the FOX network show “COPS” went to Russia and followed the local gendarmerie around. Now, while that was back in the 1990s just after the fall of the USSR, and I supposed at Russia’s nadir economically, it was still shocking. The clothes were shabby, the apartments where they lived were like the worst public housing tenements of New York or Chicago. But most shocking was the Emergency Room at a Moscow Hospital where a stabbing victim was being treated. I’ve seen cleaner mens’ rooms at interstate truck stops. It was absolutely the last place I’d want to recieve medical treatment.
Did things get better? Maybe. And then maybe they’ve gotten worse again as Putin and his cronies loot the country. Russia should be quite well off, and her people living comfortably. They have all the resources for it. But they are not.
However, we are not far from that should we elect our own kleptocracy this November.
As with Trump, I don’t care what you say I would vote for Putin if I could.
The Boston Globe says we should not worry about a drunken thug with nuclear weapons. Our president is a dictator-appeasing, terrorist-excusing, anti-American coward, and I think we should worry about a drunken thug nation with nuclear weapons and an aggressive dictator in charge.
Leo Mechelin. No, no, I’m pulling your leg. He’s just the guy who founded Nokia. It’s not that the Finns invented the cell phone, it’s that they brought the technology into the every day lives of Finns better than most other countries. The U.S. often invents things. . . and then is years and years behind other countries in integrating the technology into people’s lives.
I remember watching my German family members texting like crazy in 2001. I had just worked on a college campus in the U.S. - I saw no texting. I lived in Europe for three months that year. I was amazed at how much more advanced they were in cell phone usage, payment plans, international calls, texting, etc. This was all the more stunning considering how backward they were regarding phones just 30 years earlier. Many of my German relatives couldn’t even afford phones in the 1970s! In Italy, in the 1970s - even in Rome - you sometimes had to wait three days for a dial tone! I’m not making that up.
Russia’s flying junk yard is good enough to beat up countries without air forces. That’s it. Kleptocratic one party state fascist Russia is only a “player” because countries with real economies like Germany make it so.
“Yes, yes Boston Fishwrap. We have no need for a military, do we?”
I certainly did not see that anywhere in the article. I think you are perhaps projecting a bit here. The article makes a pretty cogent argument that Russia is not the all powerful bogyman that many have made it out to be. But we certainly have enemies in the world and countries that if not perhaps enemies, are at least not friendly to our interests (think China).
And our military spending compared to the rest of the world looks pretty overwhelming.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures
Russian GDP: $2.097 trillion.
South Korean GDP: $1.305 Trillion.
You realize that Russia’s population is about 3x South Koreas’...the math is pretty easy. Just to be equal to South Korea their GDP would have double in size.
I’m more concerned about a certain islammy theocracy with nukular weapons in their hands.
Russia is doing something right in Syria. Belittle them all you want. Administration agenda is to belittle them to take focus off our own messed up foreign policy.
Most of the Russian economy and technology is underground. They have zero trust in banks and government so entire mining operations, factories, farms, etc operate on suitcases of cash and don’t exist on paper. I’ll bet even some military contracts, etc are handled in cash and/or diamonds.
While a good banking system and representative law can allow for greater potential growth, it also creates a government slushfund that promotes vast corruption and vote-buying.
Because of this corruption, we now have 25%-50% of our citizens brainwashed to be America-hating gibsmedats. They will blame America and riot the first second a war shuts down the EBTs and TVs.
You can’t fight a full-blown war when 25% of your citizens are destroying your cities from the inside...
Apparently the poor drunk Russian hooligans build better rocket engines than the United States...go figure.
No where does the article mention that Russia is an oil and gas superpower.
The collapse of oil prices skews their GDP numbers big time.
They are having a real hard time, after oil prices, sanctions and currency collapse hit all at once. Oil prices have crept back up to $50, and are likely to creep up some more this year, and the worst seems to be over for the currency.
It is true that they are not ten feet tall, but this article seems to exaggerate. Pulau has a better university system? Please...
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