georgephillip
Diamond Member
- Thread starter
- #41
I think it's guaranteed rich Russians have little regard for personal autonomy, but many Russians remember how rich Americans looted their country in the 1990s:I don't think Russia and China can be viewed together. Russia seems to be about Putin's Russia reacquiring its territories of the Czarist era. That includes Ukriaine. Geogia and the Baltics. Putin's already reacquired Belarus. At the heart, I just don't think Russian's view personal autonomy as being as central to the reason of being as Westerners do.
Dollar Recycling | Michael Hudson
"The ideal the United States would like China to do is to let U.S. investors do to it what they did to Russia after 1991.
"They told Russia that it needed to back its domestic Ruble issues by holding an equivalent amount of U.S. dollars, in the form of private dollar loans or dollar-denominated U.S. Treasury securities.
"This involved borrowing dollars from the United States instead of simply issuing domestic rubles.
"Russia paid 100 percent interest a year to U.S. investors in 1993-1994.
"Yet Russia did not need foreign exchange to pay domestic ruble-wages or to pay for domestic goods and services.
"But neoliberal advisors convinced Russia to back all Ruble money or domestic currency credit it created by backing it with U.S. dollars. Obtaining these dollars involved paying enormous interest to the United States for this needless backing.
"There was no need for such backing.
"At the end of this road the United States convinced Russia to sell off its raw materials, its nickel mines, its electric utilities, its oil reserves, and ultimately tried to pry Crimea away from Russia."