The Two Most Dangerous Ideas
There are two ideas that have been responsible for killing more people than anything in history and they both came from the French elite. The first was the idea that land was wealth. This was propagated by the Physiocrats who argued agriculture was the wealth of a nation. Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations was a direct response to that idea showing that the true wealth of a nation was its people and its total productivity.
This old world concept remains the greatest problem that plagues Russia to this day with the concept that landmass means power. Those that cheer Russia is getting bigger do not bother to look at the economic facts. Under this theory that landmass is power, then why did Japan reach the second largest economy with only 145,925 square miles with a GDP of about $4.866 trillion and Algeria with 919,595 square miles reached only $325 billion GDP? Russia does not need more land. It has 6,592,800 square miles. However, its economy is half that of Japan even on a bad day – just $2.383 trillion with all its oil, gas, gold and platinum reserves of which Japan had none.
If Russia focused on building its economy as did China, it could be a major economic power. Landmass does not make a country great. It is the total productivity of its people who constitutes its National Wealth.
The second idea to come from the French Elite has been Communism and this notion of “social justice.” Europe thought that what made American economically powerful was a single currency. They failed to see that its taxes were half of that in Europe and the regulations promoted small business formation rather than suppress it. The European who cheered the Euro was more valuable than the dollar missed the entire point of economics just as Russian who only see Russia getting bigger and that is most important.
Europe failed to understand that it is the people who are a nation’s greatest asset and their total productivity. This is why Communism failed for it suppressed the very element that makes a country rich – the total productivity of its people. Communism was a French idea they sold to Marx. The French elite like Christine Lagarde and Thomas Piketty are at it again determined to impose their brain-dead idea of “social justice” upon the world that made Russia so hated. No other idea has been responsible for more wars and the death of millions than this French idea of “social justice”.
To survive the future, it is time to realize “social justice” suppresses economic growth and lowers the living standards for everyone. Not every country can have a trade surplus. Someone has to have a trade deficit. This theory is simply insane. It is indistinguishable from handing out the same grades in school regardless if the students show up at all for we have to be fair to everyone. This is about as stupid as thinking that landmass equals power. Both of these ideas threaten our future like nothing every before. If we are not careful, we will once again see half the population of the world killed by these two terrible ideas,
Russia covertly Behind the Pro-Russian Seizure of cities in the Eastern Ukraine
Everything that took place in Crimea is unfolding in the Eastern region of Ukraine. Men in the same green uniforms without markings have appeared in the region with military grade weapons. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said that Russia has the right under international law to invade if Russians are threatened there, drawing a parallel with the 2008 Georgian war. Lavrov has repeated Russia’s demand that Ukraine withdraw all its military units from the country’s east.
Ukraine’s government faces an armed revolt there by pro-Russia separatists. They have stopped “Russian Tourists” from entering the border if they are men between 18 and 60. Apparently, you can visit Ukraine with military weapons as a tourist if you are looking for a different vacation from the norm.
Kiev and the West are saying Moscow commands the gunmen in eastern Ukraine and of course this is something Russia denies. But grass-roots type of uprising do not have military weapons and the same green uniforms without markings.
Nonetheless, in recent weeks, pro-Russian militants have seized administrative buildings in at least a dozen towns in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. This is a boiling pot and we will see the East taken by Russia. The typical Russian that just believes the government, as their American counterparts blindly support the NSA and Obama, see the old world vision of greatness related to size rather than economic power. Their response is interesting just restating Russia is getting bigger so that is good.