It’s a known fact that the Soviet Union intentionally did not develop a massive car/truck/road infrastructure, as such infrastructure is extremely inferior from and economic standpoint. For example, it requires 5 to 10 times more fuel to transport a given weight of freight one kilometer by truck than by rail. In addition the labor inputs required with trucking are much higher than those required with rail. With trucking, one driver is assigned to one and only one load, and the size of that load is limited by the requirements of the highway system and safety. (For example, the height of a truck cannot exceed the minimum clearance of any bridge on the overall highway system). Trucking is an intrinsically inefficient and resource-intensive way of transporting a kilogram of anything from point a to point b. The Soviets knew this and decided to emphasize railroad construction over highway construction. Of course I don’t even need to mention how inefficient it is to have millions of (i)passenger(/i) vehicles clogging up the highways in and around every metropolitan center of the US, carrying an average of only 1.2 people per vehicle, and consuming massive quantities of limited hydrocarbon fuels, while spewing carbon and other toxic pollutants into the atmosphere in unthinkable and unimaginable tonnages.

The United States has 226,612 km of railways, as opposed to Russia with 87,157 km of railways (source CIA World Factbook for
Russia and
the USA.)

This means the US only has 2.6 times more kilometers of railways than Russia does (note: I am speaking only of the Russian Federation, not the former USSR, where the combined total is much larger).

Given that the US Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2006 was $13 trillion and the GDP of the Russian Federation was $1.746 trillion (in PPP), this means that the Russian federation has 49.9 thousand kilometers of rail track in service for each trillion dollars of GDP. By contrast, the USA has only 17.4 thousands kilometers of rail track in service for each trillion dollars of GDP. Or, put another way, based on the comparisons of Russian and US GDPs, we would assume that the USA would have 7.3 times more rail track than Russia does. The fact that the US actually only has 2.6 times more, this seems to indicate that the US has fallen way behind.

Russia’s current population is only about 50 percent of the level of US population, so just on that basis alone we already would expect that most economic statistics should be at least halved, right from the outset, just as a control, when comparing the US and the RF.

The simple fact is that even though the US is one of the largest oil producers in the world (yes it is), producing 7.61 million barrels of oil daily, the US still needs to import a massive 13.15 million barrels per day from unstable regions such as the mid-east, Venezuela, and other regions, simply due to the rank inefficiency of the retarded US transportation system for hauling freight and people around the country. We now see declining world oil reserves, and increased demand from India and China, and oil over $100 a barrel (a new record price, even in “real term” inflation adjusted terms). By the same token the problem of “global warming” and the massive emissions of carbon into the atmosphere has now reached the point where it threatens the future viability of our species and our planet.

Is there anyone who can honestly doubt the words that former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan wrote in his book, that the US war in Iraq is mostly driven by the lust for oil? The recent outbreak of US war rampages and US neo-imperialism is directly connected to the profound sense of vulnerability and insecurity that the US ruling class feels over its energy and economic insecurity. The fact is that the US has declined as an economic power steadily since the end of the 2nd world war. In 1945, the USA alone was responsible for almost 50 percent of total world industrial production. But by 1965 (20 years after the war), the US had dropped to only 35 percent of world industrial production. By 1975 the US share was only 28 percent, and today the US only produces about 14 percent of world industrial output.

We are now witnessing a situation where the American dollar is basically in a free fall globally. The US ruling class is increasingly desperate to hold onto the advantages gained of its worldwide empire, and its control over the world’s banking and financial systems, because that ultimately has become the only basis for US economic survival. The US regime has increasingly resorted to a new outbreak of global imperialism, which involves the most unjustified and brutal wars of aggression, under false pretenses.

While all of this is happening the corporate-controlled US media has essentially conspired with the ruling class in the USA and co-operates with the ruling class to lull the American people to sleep, and to convince them that their heroic nation is somehow “out there” on the front lines and the high seas of world anarchy, trying to establish such things as” freedom”, “democracy” and “justice. Even that that small minority of Americans who are aware of what is going on cannot bring themselves to oppose the evil based on an appeal to morality and ethics. Even as the Americans are still bogged down in their pointless and savage war against Iraq, the American regime is mouthing new murderous threats against other peaceful countries in the world.

Clearly, the US is not on the assent in terms of its global status and prestige. Like all empires, the sun must one day set on the US Empire too, and the sun is presently crashing down on the American empire. But certainly the US ruling elite is not going to relinquish its exalted position without a fight, and without a new outbreak of war and violence that will threaten (and actually destroy) the lives of millions of the world’s citizens. This is simply a “price we are willing to pay”, as former Secretary of State Madeline Albright said.

The latest brutal outbreak of US neo-imperialism is unlike anything the world has seen since the days of Adolph Hitler and Nazi Germany. There is one nation in the world that is deploying its army far outside its own borders, to the opposite side of the planet, creating increasing violence, instability and insecurity in the world. It is not Russia that is scouring the earth looking for new misadventures and new things to bomb. There is only one country today that has spilled out of its borders and has unleashed a global reign of terror, war, destruction and the senseless destruction of innocent lives. Needless to say that country s the United States of America, certainly not the Russian Federation.

Hmmm . . . so Russia doesn't WANT more roads, is that it?

LOL

"Russia’s current population is only about 50 percent of the level of US population, so just on that basis alone we already would expect that most economic statistics should be at least halved, right from the outset, just as a control, when comparing the US and the RF."

That's quite insane. First you blame the USSR for the lack of roads, then you forget that the USSR had far more people than America. Truth hurts, doesn't it?

It's quite true, however, that Russia doesn't have nearly enough people to maintain its ridiculously large territory, and its population gets smaller all the time. It's another fundamental flaw in Russia's basic model of survival.

Why? Because instead of calling actively for reform and change, so-called "patriots" like you choose to rationalize and continue the failure.

@Misha: I don't think you get the point of this. It's to say that Russia shouldn't be challenging the USA to a duel because it's not equipped to fight one. By saying Russia has only half as many people, you are only making one more argument that the author is correct.

The lack of good roads is Russia's strategic resource. All the invaders from the West, starting from Napoleon, would roll smoothly along European highways but get stuck in Russian M&S (Mud&Snow) :p

2Anonymous 11/07/2007 4:45 AM
Was David equipped to fight a duel with Goliath? Or Sparta, with the Persian Empire?

"Russia shouldn't be challenging the USA to a duel because it's not equipped to fight one."

Who says Russia is challenging the USA to a duel? Russia is concerned with protecting its own sovereign territory as well as its economic and security interests. Any objective observer can discern that the fundamental posture of the Russian Federation is defensive in nature, and it is the USA and its allies who are “on the rampage” in the world, starting new wars and threatening world peace and stability. It is the US that is hell bent to install qualitatively new weapons systems in the European theater, in violation of previous arms agreements. This of course will have the effect of destabilizing the security situation and forcing a Russian response. At the end of the day sharp rhetoric is exchanged, and the world is once again put on the path towards a resumption of cold war. But this is the intentional result of American actions and policies, not Russian. Russia long ago ratified the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty and Russia has always abided by its obligations under the treaty. The treaty became obsolete (and ridiculous) after the countries of Eastern Europe went into NATO. (For example, the armed forces in the Baltic States and Poland are counted on Russia’s side.) The treaty was renegotiated to take account of the changes since the first treaty, but so far only Russia has adapted the new CFE treaty, and only Russia has abided by its terms. For years the Russian side patiently urged the Western countries to ratify the treaty. They’ve had every chance to do so but have not. Instead NATO and even the US acting unilaterally (outside of the NATO framework) has remilitarized these former Warsaw Pact nations, and brought the military threat to Russia right to its doorstep. Now, as I said, the Americans are hell-bent to install destabilizing new weapons systems, such as huge radars, mounted directly on the Russian border, as well as a fleet of missile interceptors. The Americans are pushing for this even over the genuine misgivings of the other NATO partners. Russia has never attacked or invaded Europe and has no real motive to do so. Europe’s population is significantly larger than the Russian side. Europe is valuable to Russia as a trading partner and eventually as a counterbalance to what would otherwise be unbridles American domination of the planet. In the period after the 2nd world war, Russia did maintain a system of “buffer states” in the Warsaw Pact, but this was designed to prevent a repeat performance by the West of its Operation Barbarossa. Russia suffered more than any other nation in the war (by far).

The Americans are still beating their chests over how the old man Ronald Reagan (with maybe a little help from God) “whipped” the Soviet Union. In fact, in the mid-1980s, the USSR had one of the largest armies in the world, and essential strategic parity with the United States. It was a Russian decision to allow the dismantling of the Soviet Empire without a shot being fired. Certainly the Red Army could have acted in the earliest days of the Solidarity strikes in Poland. Russia could have brought the boot down, fast and hard, as it did in Czechoslovakia and Hungary. It was Russia’s own decision to allow the dismemberment of the Warsaw Pact. Certainly you must understand that this was not an inevitable outcome. Russia was not forced into this by military defeat. During this time the Red Army still had plenty of ammunition and missiles safe and sound, waiting for orders to launch. But Russia was tired of the Cold War and ready to cease the pointless division of the world into two systems, and the absurd massing of arms by both sides. The West and the United States gave assurances to Russia that NATO would not attempt to project its own forces into the areas being vacated by Russia. Now all of these assurances have proved to be worthless. The Americans are militarizing this region as fast as they can. The Americans have also violated long-standing arms control agreements, such as the treaty restricting missile defenses. The Americans simply say they have reviewed the treaty and now they’ve decided it is no longer in their interests to abide by it. Technically they did not “violate” the treaty, because it contained provisions that allow either side to cancel the treaty, with proper notice to the other side. But in fact all treaties contain such provisions, including the SALT and START treaties, as well as the treaty limiting Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBMs) in Europe.

Now, given the massive American military buildup, and the continuation of the arms race, Russia has no choice but to make some kind of response. Russia too is reviewing the treaties it is a party to, with an eye towards possibly withdrawing from them. If the American missile defense plans go ahead, then it is all but assured that Russia will need to pull out of the IRBM treaty and once again begin deployment of SS-20 style missiles aimed at Europe. Certainly Russia cannot accept sharp limits on the number of its missiles when the US is actively deploying systems to intercept missiles. Russia has neither the funds nor the inclination to match the Americans system-by-system, and dollar for dollar. Instead Russia will simply adapt an asymmetrical response to the new US threats by deploying so many missiles that they would completely overwhelm any US defensive system. This may require Russia to break old arms control treaties (or more properly said, to withdraw from them). But as the Yankees have said, it is the right of nations to review old treaties and withdraw from them when they no longer serve current security interests.

As I said, anyone who looks at the situation objectively can easily see that all Russia’s actions are defensive in nature. The Russian security posture is completely defensive, while the posture of the USA and the West is aggressive and ever inventing new military threats against Russia.

I doubt if anyone in Europe can’t sleep at night because they fear massed Russian tanks are about to come rolling into their country. Russia has never invaded Europe and has no plans to do so now. Russia already has enough land and resources of its own. Envy, avarice, and sheer ethnic bigotry have not been and are not now motivating elements in Russian foreign and defense policies, but Russia has often enough been the victim of such motives on the part of the West.

Russia is determined to defend its country and its people, and it will defend them. If the US insists on deploying arms and troops ever closer to Russia, and bringing in new forms of weapons, then Russia will make the appropriate asymmetrical responses to inure that its security is not threatened. At the end of the day the new aggressor will find out what the old aggressors already know, that it is quite impossible for anyone to attack or invade the Russian motherland without destroying themselves in the process.

This should not be taken as that Russia somehow “wants” a new arms race, or a new Cold War. Such a thing would be absurd! Russia most definitely does not want this. Russia has continued to comply with all its arms control commitments, and Russia has urged the other side to comply as well. Russia has abided by the CFE treaty, even while it became more and more absurd, and less and less in Russia’s interests to do so, and while the West violated the terms of that treaty and refused to ratify it for years. No, it is not Russia that is leading the world into a new Cold War. It is the aggressive and irresponsible actions by the West, and especially by the Americans (lead by the fearless McChimpy McFlightsuit, arguably the most incompetent and reckless US president in the history of that republic).

Russia understands that it is not as rich or technologically advanced as the west. It would be absurd and insane for Russia to pursue a course of war with the combined western powers. There are no such plans and there will never be any such plans. Russia is ready not only to comply with existing arms control agreements, but even to enter into new and even more dramatic agreements (even all the way towards reducing world nuclear and military forces to zero, with maybe a small police force retained for border and coastal patrol). The warmongers in the west only add insult to injury when they provoke a new round of the arms race and manage to blame Russia for it at the same time.

Russia is not leading the arms race and not panting for the resumption of the Cold War. Russia wants peaceful relations with its neighbors, based on mutual security and mutual respect. Neither Europe nor Russia is going to simply evaporate and disappear any time soon. They are neighbors and will remain neighbors. Russia wants neighborly relations with its neighbors. It is to the advantage of both sides to expand trade relations and to increase cultural understanding and friendship. Russia has reached out to its European neighbors, to Germany, France and others, in an effort to forge a new partnership. Russia needs Europe and needs expanded trade and other relations with Europe.

If you want to understand why there is a new chill in relations between Russia and the EU, then it might be helpful to ask who really wants those relations to be chilled, and who stands to benefit from such a chill? You don’t have look far before you will see that it is mainly the United States (and its trusty lap dog the UK) who do not want relations between Europe and Russia to warm and expand. The European Union (EU) is already economically larger than the USA, and its new currency the euro is now a viable replacement for the US dollar as a world reserve currency. (Recently the dollar has been moving to record lows, even as the euro moves to record highs.)

The EU is both politically and economically stronger than the Anglo-American British Empire currently is. But the one downfall of the EU is that it has not been able to marshal its resources into a cohesive military or foreign policy doctrine. The EU lacks a common army and a common foreign policy. As long as that is true, the EU can never translate its superior economic potential into any viable force on the world stage. By default this leaves world leadership to the Anglo-American entity, which has controlled the world since the end of WWII.

As I said, if you want to know who is behind the resumption of the Cold War and the arms race, you must look for who wants it and who stands to benefit from it. Certainly that is not Russia. The notion that Russia is gearing up or marshalling its forces in order to pose a threat to the West is absurd.

The Americans desire and need to maintain the appearance of Russia as a “threat” in Europe; only the Americans benefit from such a worldview. It is only this alleged “threat” that gives NATO and the massive American military presence in Europe its raison d'etre. Surely the US can search for (or even concoct) new “threats” to Europe, such as “Iranian missiles”, or something else. But these threats lack the potency of the threat posed by the big bad Russian Bear.

Here is the essential dilemma for the US: If the “Russian threat” ever goes away, then what is the justification for the existence of NATO? Why would the USA still be maintaining an occupation of Germany some 65 years after the end of the 2nd World War? Why the need for millions of troops in Europe and the continued fuelling of the American military-industrial complex?

Why is the US installing massive radar stations in Poland, directly on the Russian border? Did Russia threaten to attack Poland? Or is the US intentionally trying to destabilize the European security situation, in order to provoke Russia into making a response?

The current purpose of NATO is not to “protect Europe from Russia” because there is no threat from Russia. It would be suicide for Russia to attack Europe (assuming it wanted to, which it does not). The current purpose in NATO, is to prevent the rise of an independent EU, with an independent foreign and military power. Such a power is probably the only entity in the world, since the demise of the USSR, which could actually challenge Anglo-American global hegemony.

For its part Russia would be threatened more directly by such a powerful EU (as Russia is the nation that its member nations have most often invaded throughout history). So Russia probably has more to fear from the rise of the EU than the Americans do. However, the EU is an entity that is not based on war and imperial conquest, but rather based on the mutual trust and respect for nations. This gives rise to the hope that an emergent EU would not constitute a threat to Russia, and that Russian-European relations could be conducted on the basis of mutual respect and mutual security.

No one can look back fondly on the days of the political competition between the USA and the USSR, in what has come to be known as the Cold War. However, there was one good thing that happened for the world as a result of that competition. It was that there was a genuine plurality of political and economic systems in the world. The capitalist says that competition is always healthy. I believe that the world benefitted from the competition between the US and USSR.

Now the USSR is gone from history. It exists only in books, old films and the memories of its people, some of whom can remember what it was like to live in a society that was constructed on the basis of socialism, and the attempt to improve everyone’s material and social conditions at the same pace, for the glory of society, not only for the increase of capitalist profit, before the dark days of the rule of Yeltsin and his band of oligarch robber barons, before the collapse of the soviet economy (which fell by 50 percent under the “shock therapy” that the west prescribed for Russia).

But the USSR is gone, and the nostalgic yearning for its return is probably not a useful emotion, though it is certainly a forgivably one, on the part the people who lived under both the new and the old systems. Now, with the USSR gone, and the USA still beating its chest and celebrating Reagan’s single-handed accomplishment, what has replaced the political, economic and military competition that was the Cold War? We see the Americans did not lose any time in proudly proclaiming “a New World Order” and a “New American Century”. They certainly did not de-militarize or adapt a more peaceful stance towards Russia and the world. On the contrary, it is fair to say that the American empire immediately embarked upon a rampage of war and aggression in the world. Now, with the USSR safely out of the way, the Americans began a new series of wars and conquests in parts of the world which were formerly off limits to them. This phase of world history is proceeding as I write, with the barbaric US occupation of Iraq, and the murderous threats against other countries in the region. The new wars are transparently wars of imperial aggression, in the interests of seizing the natural resources of other countries, for their use by the Empire. (As Alan Greenspan, the former head of the US central bank has said, it is time we should admit what people don’t want to say, which is that the war in Iraq was about oil.)

Now the dynamic of competition is gone, and there is only one world system, only one political and economic model, the American one, and it includes Starbucks and a McDonalds on every street corner in the world. Now we are all Americans, and she should be happy about that. We should not dream about something else or want something else, because the end of history has arrived. Russians should be happy to see trillions of dollars in former socialist state assets suddenly reappear on the balance sheets of 10 or 12 oligarchs. Russia should also be happy to have these same oligarchs use their newfound wealth to buy control over the Russian state, if not to elect themselves to positions of control. Russians are told are the new rules of “democracy”, which hold that it is wrong for Russia to take any measures to defend its society, its people, its culture, when rich men use their wealth and influence to control the organs of media, and thus control the thoughts and opinions of the people, or when these same men conspire with the intelligence agencies of foreign governments, sworn enemies of Russia, in so-called “color revolution” designed undermine and manipulate the just-born democratic institutions in Russia. Russians are supposed to be horrified when a leader emerges in their midst who sends these same criminal oligarchs packing, with money still falling out of the cracks of their suitcases as they flee, into exile to their real homes, in the US, UK or Israel.

Against this backdrop, Russia has managed to stem the hemorrhaging and dismemberment of its own country, society and culture which was in full swing in the years after the end of the USSR. The current hysteria about President Putin is not being put forward by those who have the best interests of Russia or Russians at heart. Rather this hysteria is being put forward by sworn enemies of Russia, who would like nothing better than the complete collapse of the Russian nation, people and culture. Make no mistake about it. These people have not succeeded in deceiving the Russian people and they will not succeed.

Russia is not a threat to any country. But anyone who believes that Russia can be successfully attacked and occupied makes an enormous miscalculation. They will learn the same lesson that successive generations of would-be invaders have learned in the forests and swamps of Russia. In short, they will have their asses handed to them in a hand basket. Russia is a patient nation, slow to anger, and not prone to vengence, but Russia is fearsome when roused to war. Russia is not a nation of cowards or conscientious objectors, but a nation of brave men and women, who have always been ready to make any sacrifices to defend the Motherland from foreign enemies. Russia is not Iraq. Russia is capable of defending itself and Russia will do whatever it must to insure that it will remain capable of defending itself, and deterring aggression against it, regardless of how the nature of the threat changes.

It's quite true, however, that Russia doesn't have nearly enough people to maintain its ridiculously large territory...

Who says Russia’s territory is “ridiculously large”? It is ridiculous for who? I imagine only for those who jealously lust after Russia’s resources and want to take those resources away from her. But if you mean Russia harm, then why not just come out and say so honestly? Why pretend to be someone who really cares about Russia and Russians, and who is only just concerned because the big bad President Putin is harming Russia and undermining its interests?

The quote above ties in closely with remarks made by former US secretary of State Madeline Albright, who said that Siberia contained too many natural resources to be controlled by only one nation.

During President Putin’s recent annual “question and answer” session (where the Russian president accepts questions from ordinary citizens), a mechanic from the Siberian city of Novosibirsk asked the President about Albright’s comments (that Siberia has too many resources to belong to Russia alone). Mr. Putin replied as follows:

"I know that some politicians play with such ideas in their heads. This, in my view, is the sort of political erotica that might satisfy a person but hardly leads to a positive result," Mr. Putin responded. "The best example of that are the events in Iraq -- a small country that can hardly defend itself and which possesses huge oil reserves. And we see what's going on there. They've learned to shoot there, but they are not managing to bring order."

"One can wipe off a political map some tyrannical regime … but it's absolutely pointless to fight with a people," he said. "Russia, thank God, isn't Iraq. It has enough strength and power to defend itself and its interests, both on its territory and in other parts of the world."

So there you have it, Russia isn’t Iraq and Russia has enough strength and power to defend itself. Some in the west might engage in auto-erotic fantasies about one day taking Siberia away from Russia, but it will never happen.

Ah Misha,
You remind me of the (myth) of the scientists that say all the reasons as to why the bumblebee cant fly, while showing a film of them flying. Reality is reality, your models are models. if the premise of the models is false, then the outcomes of the model will be false. With me so far? Socialists are DISMAL at economics, communists are even worse.
It’s a known fact that the Soviet Union intentionally did not develop a massive car/truck/road infrastructure, as such infrastructure is extremely inferior from and economic standpoint.
Ready, the outcome of the model is dependent on the validity of the arguments going in. the fact that the US and every other country that created large road systems became economic giants, says your premises are all WRONG when COMBINED with everything else.
+2 + -2 = 0
Lets take your premises apart… and I will show you the atomization of your thoughts, so that you don’t see this as a functional system.. but see it as a bunch of still photographs (somewhere online there is a long monograph that shows that socialist thinkers are dependent on takeing still images to prove their points, and then use the borders to cut out everything not helpful)
I don’t have the time to do a total analysis, but I will show you a bit of the steps since I believe that your not trying to be ingenuous. Lets hope I am not wrong/
For example, it requires 5 to 10 times more fuel to transport a given weight of freight one kilometer by truck than by rail.
This is a snapshot… and true to form it’s a half truth…
Whats outside the border of the photograph is costs of preparing the ground for such systems. Trains cant climb grades as steep as trucks, so mountain areas are going to suffer. Train tracks and things take a lot longer to construct, and on it goes.
The ARGUMENT is not one of efficiency at the atomic level, but of efficiency at the combined level!!! When one tallies up the wins and loses of battles in a war, does the total have a correlation with the end result? well, it was proven in the Vietnam conflict that it doesn’t, you can win EVERY battle, and lose the war.
This is the difference that comes from complex systems… and soviet style thinking is all based on simplifying the world and forcing it to the will… while the west is more like judo, think about the complexity, and let each individual compute the outcome.
So like a true totalitarian, your looking at the problem globally. As I say, socialism is digital, and has to simplify as it throws out information, and then come up with a general rule for all situations. While, capitalism makes the only assertion that it be efficient enough to make a productivity enough to satisfy the small unit.
So from top down, you start to look at all the problems as one massive problem.. and then start to list out the problems you might have. you then try to come up with one whole solution to satisfy the problem over the total place.
Well I will show you how your wrong.
the height of a truck cannot exceed the minimum clearance of any bridge on the overall highway system
A simple truth. but the premise of that truth is the (astronomically expensive need) that all the roads meet the same standards. Something that for totalitarians IS a need… otherwise it gets too complex (notice how they do hide behind complexity as a shield for reasoned incompetence)
How did the west solve this problem… well the west didnt say we are going to dictate everything… what it did was create the LARGE HIGHWAYS to connect the areas and since that was federal, they made the bridges and overpasses higher than needed… (another false part of the argument is that the extra cost of making a bridge 8 feet higher is prohibitive… is it when the outcome is such a high level of mobility?)
As far as the local roads… well that was up to the local people to decide what to build. And so they built SERVICE roads for the roads in which the bridges are too low…
You saw a low bridge and said, we cant get through, so its wrong to build roads.
They saw a low bridge and said, how much is it to make a 100 foot piece of pavement AROUND it, and how much does that increase the cost of delivery?
The socialist forgoes all profit by denying the rules of supply and demand… and the rules show that when supply is low and the thing is desired, the money profit increased till the desire meets the top value, or the value is reached that makes it economical to do.
When you come from a planning base, you cant think that way!!! because you cant plan that need… which means you cant plan the value… which means everything has the same value… and its too expensive to build roads.
Of course you neglected to mention how its not too expensive to build nuclear weapons to threaten all your neighbors too stupid to fail!!!
If the kremlin or you invented the circulatory system, we would all be dead, or insects!!! Why? because your system only thinks it worth building the large blood vessels, and cant conceive of capillaries.
But in the west… you have the autobahn… wasteful in gas, but not if the need is great enough to justify the expense, and of course, in a centralized system the arguments like yours ends up REASONABLY killing all profits!!!
So the west created the large arteries with trains too, and so with those two they can run massive amounts of material (Conway rail trains can be as long as 10 miles of cars!!), and from those massive arteries, are trucks that can distribute from them to other centers… and from their smaller and smaller trucks.
Meanwhile… employers have the ability to place their companies anywhere… this makes a competitive market for land and employees. Which drives companies a bit farther into rural areas for better salaries… of course since these roads also are used by a humongous base of car owners who work really hard to pay for the roads and the cars and the gas, even a two ton pickup can make a lot of cash if the owner is a bit inventive!
But without being able to see inventions before their invented, the soviet system self limits…
However reading your post is hilarious. I mean it really is… as it shows someone that is intelligentsia… that tries to work wkith the world from their imagination. And since you are in line with this, you are still trying to justify things and have no idea of all the things your missing. And the fact that your facts are off doesn’t help.
The simple fact is that even though the US is one of the largest oil producers in the world (yes it is),
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/topworldtables1_2.htm
yes we are one of the top producers… however we do that from very little reserves, and we are the top consumers, so most of it doesn’t leave the country.
again, a snapshot and the important information that proves or disproves the point are outside the frame.
what this fact does is ignore the political systems of the other producers… and the reason that’s important is that they don’t produce and compete in a free market, but in a manipulated market. OPEC produces as one nation… the countries in opec produce together and control their production to maintain prices (while russia keeps making cheap weapons and fomenting instability to double profits without improving productivity, like in the west).
So if one were to be truthful, one would have to link up all the states that work together in oil production and such. done this way, OPEC is one entity, the US is one entity, and so on.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is an international cartel[1][2] made up of Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. The Vienna-based organization has maintained its headquarters there since 1965, hosting regular meetings between the oil ministers of its member states.
You cant consider the members of a cartel to be individuals in this competition! but you do because you think that lying that way will win at any cost. You don’t care if your right, you just care that you win (or else you wouldn’t be arguing that russias decision that helped lead to starvations, depriviations, low productivity, inability to compete, etc, are good things, or justified. What it shows is that they were and are INCOMPETENT, and are VERY COMPETENT at inventing excuses and reasons to justify the outcome of their incompetence. Anyone care to ask a psychologist as to sociopaths and their ability to invent excuses to manipulate people regardless of morals or validity?
If you take that list… and you take the list I provide as to the top oil producers in 2006… you will find that all these authoritarian states are acting together as one entity. In this then russia seems to stand alone, but any cursory look at that list shows many of the states under their influence.
You talk about waste… do you want to look at the figures for burn off? they are so inefficient that they waste more in burn off than the pollution your claiming towards American cars and such.
Meanwhile… do you want to compare the efficiency of cars from the west and cars from russia? How about motors efficiency… care to talk about how efficient electric motors are.
And why is the US so LOW in pollution compared to the states that yoru claiming did things for efficiency and clean air? After all, the fewer smaller horribly inefficient truks that run on the cheap oil from the huge reserves don’t have to get better… the people buying them are not so moral as you are an apologist for them. (did you realize that fewer roads concentrates the pollution and diminishes the surface area that breaks it down? that’s how complex this gets!)
http://www.american.edu/TED/russair.htm
read this report, then go back to your assertions that they did this for pollution reasons.. that’s a huge joke… they would kill 50 million of their own by torturous practices and such, but they want the air clean for the butterflies.
Is this why russia has some of the highest pollution levels in all categories. levels so high that they cant use trucks in a city because of ALL the sources of smog and such including trucks and cars that are horribly inefficient?

Your whole arguments totally ignore how things have improved on the side where the claim was ineeficciency… which disproves the claim.
What you don’t get is half of something is better than all of nothing.
By creating all these roads and cars, they may not have had the MOST efficient system, but they sure didn’t wait till they invented it before they got something, and the something, because ti doesn’t go to the state, was put back in to relieve ALL the inefficiencies it could… note that things that pollute are not efficient!
So as things progressed the things that were used to disprove a course of action, were minimized to the point where russias system, has much less than we do, but has many times the level of pollution!!!!!!!!!!

The results of your arguments points HAVE been tested…
America… many times the roads, rails, products, productivity and strength….
Russia, less than half the roads, rails, double the land, fewer products, abysmal productivity, weak, and the land full of pollution… since the kremlin need not live in the villages with the people who live the results of their choices.
So rather than go on and make a huge post… of which this is pretty large, I will just quote some information as to the results of the experiement.
[do note that your points all failed… none of your assertions ended up being true given that 10 of our cars puts out less pollution than one of Russians.. and as such, we get to sell ours all round the world, while russia sells almost nothing and have the lowest survival rates, highest deformity rates, of industrialized nations]
The extent of pollution and ecological collapse in Russia is due to decades of ill-considered military and industrial development undertaken in virtual secrecy and with scant concern for the environmental and health consequences. Environmental pollution clamps a stranglehold on the big cities in Russia. Pollution in Russia now threatens the health of millions of citizens and the safety of crops, water and air. In 84 of Russia's largest cities the air pollution is ten times the accepted safety levels. In some areas, especially among children, levels of respiratory problems are 50 per cent higher than the national average. Moreover, Russia is a major contributor to global ozone depletion, being the World's largest producers and consumers of Ozone Depleting Substances (ODS). Thus, Russias emphasis on production at all costs has cost this country its environmental integrity
Just from that alone… I can tell that you made up all your points… like ‘russian’ does. after all, at no point has Russian state ever did anything other than lip service to environment… and in fact its fomenting of environmentalism in the west, while deflecting them from looking to it, is just another tactic to get the west to voluntarily lower productivity… (and since the kremlin don’t care what happens to the land or people, as is clearly evident, they will lie and they believe score a productivity coupe)
Is there anyone who can honestly doubt the words that former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan wrote in his book, that the US war in Iraq is mostly driven by the lust for oil?
Yes… since the actions and outcomes have not resulted in more oil for the people being asserted to be doing this for oil!!!!! Its kind of like you claiming that the reason russia is dying is justified because the choices were sacrifices for the environment… the war is to stop weapons flow… when that happens, do you care to list out how many groups will have a big problem? lets see… al qeada, most Islamic terrorist fronts, most of the stuff in Africa, and a lot of it in southa merica!

Misha, don't you think that you should make your comments shorter in order for anyone to want to read them?