RUSSIAN ANALYST PREDICTS DECLINE AND BREAKUP OF USA
A leading Russian political analyst has said the economic turmoil in the United States has confirmed his long-held view that the country is heading for collapse, and will divide into separate parts.
Professor Igor Panarin said in an interview with the respected daily IZVESTIA published on Monday: “The dollar is not secured by anything. The country’s foreign debt has grown like an avalanche, even though in the early 1980s there was no debt. By 1998, when I first made my prediction, it had exceeded $2 trillion. Now it is more than 11 trillion. This is a pyramid that can only collapse.”
He’s not wrong about the debt, though his certainty that a GDP of $14 trillion can’t carry a debt of $11 trillion seems premature.
When asked when the U.S. economy would collapse, Panarin said: “It is already collapsing. Due to the financial crisis, three of the largest and oldest five banks on Wall Street have already ceased to exist, and two are barely surviving. Their losses are the biggest in history. Now what we will see is a change in the regulatory system on a global financial scale: America will no longer be the world’s financial regulator.”
When asked who would replace the U.S. in regulating world markets, he said: “Two countries could assume this role: China, with its vast reserves, and Russia, which could play the role of a regulator in Eurasia.”
Now this is just hilarious. While some diminishment of the US role in world markets seems inevitable (due to our crappy stewardship, for starters), the idea that anyone would trust China or Russia in such roles is ludicrous. China’s “vast reserves” are predicated on the co-dependent economic relationship they’ve had with us for the last two decades. We’ve been borrowing and spending their money to buy more of their stuff, while they loan us most of their savings instead of dealing with their massive infrastructure and pollution problems. If our economy really hits the skids, they’ll have a worse depression than we will. Combined with demographic instability, political tension, and the dashing of their new-minted business class’s expectation (shared with ours) of constant growth and profit, they’re looking at revolution long before we are.
As for Russia, why would anyone trust that pack of violent gangsters and resource oligarchs, prone to invading former provinces and extorting concessions with their oil and gas pipelines?
Asked why he expected the U.S. to break up into separate parts, he said: “A whole range of reasons. Firstly, the financial problems in the U.S. will get worse. Millions of citizens there have lost their savings. Prices and unemployment are on the rise. General Motors and Ford are on the verge of collapse, and this means that whole cities will be left without work. Governors are already insistently demanding money from the federal center. Dissatisfaction is growing, and at the moment it is only being held back by the elections and the hope that Obama can work miracles. But by spring, it will be clear that there are no miracles.”
He also cited the “vulnerable political setup”, “lack of unified national laws”, and “divisions among the elite, which have become clear in these crisis conditions.”
What we’re seeing here is the effect of our doom-n-gloom media on outsiders. “Entire cities left out of work?” Obama is not going to pass any miracles, but that’s about the only truth here.
He predicted that the U.S. will break up into six parts - the Pacific coast, with its growing Chinese population; the South, with its Hispanics; Texas, where independence movements are on the rise; the Atlantic coast, with its distinct and separate mentality; five of the poorer central states with their large Native American populations; and the northern states, where the influence from Canada is strong.
This is classic transference. Their tyrannical polyglot polyethnic empire falls, and its unwilling vassals jumped at the chance for freedom. The USA is nowhere near falling apart in this fashion.
Keep dreaming, Panarin. We’re in for some hard times, but there’s a lot more ruin left in the USA before we’re as decrepit as the USSR was.
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Articles like this are actually commonplace; I have been reading them since the 70s, including the now-famous general consensus the America would become “Japan, Inc.”
Like most puerile fantasies, they reflect the deeply neurotic anger of the writer, and betray their silliness through astonishing assertions like the “Russian Regulator” proposal — as naive and hilarious a notion as I have seen in some time.
Sigh. Sometimes I think that’s all we are seeing of late - from Moscow, Beijing, the Europenis capitols, and, especially, Washington, D.C.
And Chicago, IL, of course.
I never thought it was not a universal syndrome.
While there is no doubt that the debt has grown considerably (and problematically) since that point in time, it is hardly the case that we had no debt in the early 1980s. Indeed, if memory serves, we have had a national debt since the Revolutionary War period.
I never knew reruns of DeGrassi Junior High could foment rebellion.
I eagerly await the Native American rebellion and establishment of the Dakota Nation in our heartland. This guy has been watching too many Kevin Costner movies.