\nBarack Obama in Interview with The Economist<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n
On the eve of Obama\u2019s meeting with African politicians, he gave an interview<\/a> with\u00a0obsequious editors and reporters from The Economist.\u00a0 He used it to attack Russia and Putin once again.\u00a0 The objective was clear:\u00a0 To dismiss Russia as weak and irrelevant and so to drive other countries away from it, including China and the EU.<\/p>\n But Obama\u2019s effort was quite strange.\u00a0 Like the entire U.S. anti-Ukraine, anti-Russian effort, it seemed to have little relationship to the truth.\u00a0\u00a0 To the very anti-Putin interviewers he feigned dismissiveness of Russia. \u00a0(If he was not lying and believes this stuff, we are really in deep trouble, because his ignorance could well reap the whirlwind for the human race.)\u00a0 Among other things he claimed that:\u00a0\u201cRussia doesn\u2019t make anything. Immigrants aren\u2019t rushing to Moscow in search of opportunity. … The population is shrinking.<\/em>\u201d A few graphs will make clear that this is way off the mark.\u00a0\u00a0 The implication is that Russia is failing economically.\u00a0 So let us look at Russia\u2019s GDP, especially under Putin.\u00a0 We can see it at a glance here:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It is clear that the period of the drunkard Yeltsin, so cherished in the West, was a disaster for Russia and that Putin reversed it.\u00a0 Russia\u2019s growth continues, interrupted only by the global financial disaster made in the good ol\u2019 USA on Wall St where so many of Obama\u2019s backers reside.\u00a0 (Should we call them the Wall St. oligarchs?) So much for general economic well being.\u00a0 How about \u201cmaking things\u201d as Obama put it?\u00a0 That is a very non-technical and imprecise way of speaking, surely no accident for President Teleprompter.\u00a0 Thus it is subject to much interpretation, backtracking and denial if need be?\u00a0\u00a0 But how about the more technical term \u201cindustrial output\u201d?\u00a0 How has Putin\u2019s Russia fared in this regard.\u00a0 Quite well as can be seen here which depicts Year on Year (YoY) Industrial Growth:<\/p>\n Now what about population?\u00a0 Indeed population did fall as the U.S. preyed on Russia after the crackup of the Soviet Union.\u00a0 \u00a0But it has now stabilized and even ticked up a bit as can be read\u00a0here<\/a> and seen in the graph here<\/a>. (Sorry, dear readers, but you must go to link to the graphic which mightily resisted my attempts to copy it so that it would appear right before your eyes.) The population situation is summed up thus<\/a>, wherein Obama’s other claim in his\u00a0 interview that there is no immigration into Russia is debunked:<\/p>\n The population hit a historic peak at 148,689,000 in 1991, just before the\u00a0breakup of the Soviet Union<\/a>, but then began a decade-long decline, falling at a rate of about 0.5% per year due to declining birth rates, rising death rates and emigration.[9]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/sup>The decline slowed considerably in the late 2000s, and in 2009 Russia recorded population growth for the first time in 15 years, adding 23,300 people.[10]<\/a><\/sup>[11]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0Key reasons for the slow current population growth are improving health care, changing fertility patterns among younger women, falling emigration and steady influx of immigrants<\/strong> from the ex-USSR countries. In 2012, Russia’s population increased by 292,400 people.[12]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/sup>As of 2013, Russian\u00a0TFR<\/a>\u00a0of 1.707 children per woman[5]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0was the highest in Eastern, Southern and Central Europe. In 2013, Russia experienced the first natural population growth since 1990 at 22,700 people. Taking into account immigration, the population grew by 294,500 people.[13]<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0<\/sup><\/em>(Emphasis, jw)<\/p>\n Again one has to worry about Obama’s notions. \u00a0If he is so out of touch with reality in that famous bubble of his, we are in deep trouble. \u00a0And if he is simply lying, then we have to worry that the U.S. elite feels so contemptuous of the people of the world. \u00a0Either way, the imperial elite may be led to miscalculate badly about its actions, a potential threat to our survival.<\/p>\n But Obama did not stop at trashing Russia.\u00a0 As a follow-up he had a few words of warning to China where the tone of dismissal was replaced by condescension and threat.\u00a0 Here is that part of the interview:<\/p>\n The Economist<\/strong>: Because that is the key issue, whether China ends up inside that system or challenging it. That\u2019s the really big issue of our times, I think.<\/em><\/p>\n Mr Obama<\/strong>: It is. \u2026..One thing I will say about China, though, is you also have to be pretty firm with them, because they will push as hard as they can until they meet resistance. They\u2019re not sentimental, and they are not interested in abstractions. And so simple appeals to international norms are insufficient. There have to be mechanisms both to be tough with them when we think that they\u2019re breaching international norms, but also to show them the potential benefits over the long term. \u00a0<\/span>And what is true for China then becomes an analogy for many of the other emerging markets.\u00a0 (That means you BRICS. jw)<\/p>\n Watch out China.\u00a0 The message is that the U.S. will use the stick and the carrot to keep you in your place. The message is that you better obey and fit into the \u201cinternational system\u201d in the way prescribed by President Wall St.\u00a0 And do not look to Russia if you decide to be disobedient \u2013 it is a basket case in the distorted world view of Obama.\u00a0 And in case there is any doubt about the big plan for the21st Century, Obama tells us plainly what it is: Mr Obama:<\/strong> Well, look, there\u2019s no doubt that a robust, interventionist foreign policy on behalf of certain principles, ideals or international rules is not a tradition that most countries embrace. And in the 20th century and in the early stages of the 21st century, the United States continues to be the one indispensable power that is willing to spend blood and treasure on that.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cBlood and treasure.\u201d\u00a0 Got that.\u00a0 Bribes when they work and war when they do not.\u00a0 This is the world that the U.S. elite has planned for us all.\u00a0 Is it one that we want? Is it one that humanity can live with? Is it even compatible with humanity’s survival?<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/0\/06\/Russian_economy_since_fall_of_Soviet_Union.PNG\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/8\/8f\/Russia_industrial_growth_chart_YoY.PNG\")
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![here<\/a>. (Sorry, dear readers, but you must go to link to the graphic which mightily resisted my attempts to copy it so that it would appear right before your eyes.) The population situation is summed up](\"http:\/\/http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Demographics_of_Russia#mediaviewer\/File:Population_of_Russia.PNG\"){kind=link}