Russia's President Predicted an Imminent American Calamity -- Now He Wishes to Cash In On the Enormous Opportunity He Sees

In the great game of international dominance, the leading contenders always look for opportunities and openings, to make a move. Russia's president Medvedev--just before the Russian invasion and ethnic cleansing of Georgia this past summer--predicted an imminent calamity for the US. Now, Medvedev hopes to seize the opportunity he perceives in the recent credit crunch and congressional bailout, to move Russia's interests to the forefront. Europe and the rest of the world doesn't seem to mind in the slightest.

President Dmitri Medvedev said Thursday that the U.S. crisis showed that "the times when one economy and one country dominated are gone for good." Speaking of the United States, Medvedev said the world no longer needed a "megaregulator."

Russia has argued that the freewheeling Anglo-American style of capitalism is to blame for the crisis, a position echoed by Germany and other Continental European nations. Medvedev even called it financial "egoism."

A drumbeat of similar pronouncements has been heard in Russia in recent days. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin made a major speech Wednesday on U.S. financial "irresponsibility," blaming the plunge of more than 50 percent in the Russian stock market on the global economic slowdown and U.S. financial turmoil, rather than on any troubles endemic to Russia. _IHT

So Putin is blaming the US for Russian economic problems? Convenient. And Medvedev is asserting that the days of one-country dominance are over permanently? What a charming ignorance of history. Or is Russia secretly harbouring a desire for its own dysfunctional and demographically shrinking nation to take over from the US, as international hegemon? That appears more likely, than the literal interpretation of Medvedev's words.

It is true that the US dominance of international financial, political, and military affairs that began after WWII, is unlikely to last forever. China is leveraging its economic success into a rapidly expanding military strength on land, sea, air and space, which guarantees dangerous conflicts in the future.

Although Russia is shrinking in population and ability to mount a serious conventional military threat, its nuclear weapons technology and ICBM capability is being modernised just enough to keep Armageddon on the table. Russia's fossil fuel wealth--although incompetently managed--is sufficient to finance Russian belligerence and financing of proxy terror for many years yet.

The proximate and ultimate threat to US dominance, however, is US politics. If the US Democratic Party comes to total dominance over the US government--not just corrupt control of congress--several hugely destructive statist policies that have been smoldering relatively quietly, will burst into full flaming consumption of US reserve capacity to bounce back from adversity. It is not the large strike from the outside that will bring the US--and the entire western world as well--to its knees. It is the death from a thousand cuts, self inflicted, that weakens the nation to the point that it lacks the capacity--and eventually the desire--to get back up.

All of this is expected. It has always been expected. It is only a matter of timing. Everything changes, and it is up to the wise person to prepare himself for that change.

A few years ago, the Bush administration along with a number of Republican legislators (including Sen. McCain), tried to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac policies in order to preven exactly the credit crunch that we see today. They were blocked in that attempted reform by the same people who larded up the recent porky-pig bailout. One thing leads to another.

The credit problem is not actually a calamity for the US. It is how the credit problem was allowed to happen by those who are likely to be setting US policy for the next several years that is a calamity. The bailout did not reform the underlying problems. The bailout is a very expensive bandaid that papers over the problem--temporarily. There are much worse problems in the pipeline for the US, due to pop up from time to time.

After watching the way this problem was handled, we can fully expect that the next, larger crises will be handled similarly, with a resultant amping up of the underlying unsoundness of the foundations of the US hybrid economy and the US government's ability to affect national and international affairs in a constructive way.

Think of it as a nation-wide Hurricane Katrina on steroids and crystal meth. Think of the coming US governmental regime as Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco writ large. Think of all the corrupt DP political machines in the history of the US, all combined for one large cannibalistic glutton-fest at the public trough. At least, that is what the porky bailout combined with opinion polls suggests for the future.

Obama has charmed many US voters, and is the preferred candidate of most journalists, foreign leaders, and Hamas. Obama promises change, and change is one thing you can be sure of.