WTF am I reading?

Also, it was aliens.

NowhereMon: [tnation.t-nation.com image 314x350]

well thanks, now I no longer have to do this.

When did the timecube guy start studying economics?

That source tag always looks like "NAMBLA" to me, so my first reaction to these articles is usually, "Wow, that's quite an outreach program they're doing" before I realize it's something to do with Russia.

Duma elections are this year, it sounds like he's trying to stir up his constituency.

This is nonsense. It's equivilant to saying all water poured into the ground goes to America. Ergo America is stealing all the water.

So we prolong their civil war by sending troops to the USSR in 1918 and 1920, causing their Soviet government to completely hate us for decades, and yet they are paying us a tribute.

Pravda should stop drinking so much vodka.

Sergei Fydorov is a journalist? I thought he was just the Red Wings' center...

// has anyone won both a Stanley Cup and a Pulitzer?
// or a Hart and a Peabody?
// or a Shmoke and a Pancake?

I think he's trying to make the "inflation is a tax" argument, but I can't really tell, because TFA is written entirely in gibberish. I've read it four times, and I get more confused each time.

imontheinternet: I think he's trying to make the "inflation is a tax" argument, but I can't really tell, because TFA is written entirely in gibberish. I've read it four times, and I get more confused each time.

I don't know, I get a "our currency is backed by American dollars" vibe out of it. Which is true as long as they control the exchange rate (kind of like China). While it may be true that they do change 300 billion in rubies or funyuns or whatever they use for money over there, the currency HAS to be changed back to avoid serious DEflation.

Think about it, if 10% of the rubles in the world were changed over to dollars, there would be fewer rubles with which to purchase things. The government is trying to offset this by printing more rubles, but all that results is a glut of a currency that is already inflating.

Heinlein touched on this in For Us the Living, but he made some seriously incorrect assumptions, and his system would only work in a closed economy with no other currency one could use to purchase things.

ClintonKun: Can anyone reproduce the text? Most Russian sites and sometimes Pravda usually make my anti-virus and other security systems go on red alert, so not gonna chance it. I wanna see the derp.

Russia pays tribute to US budget
21.05.2012


There are many elementary things that recieve no attention at all, although they can be extremely important. If you take a Russian banknote in your hands, you will see that it says: "Note of the Bank of Russia." If you take a look at Soviet banknotes, you will see that they say: "State Treasury Note." It means that it is not the Russian state that makes the money that all Russians use in their everyday lives today. This is a consequence of 1991 - the time when the Soviet Union collapsed.

Modern-day bank notes are made in today's Russia on the base of the Constitution, as well as on the base of the laws about the Central Bank. The production volumes of today's banknotes in Russia are proportionate to the volume of the purchased virtual foreign currency. In other words, in order to pay, let's say, a note of 100 rubles to a cashier in a supermarket, the Russian economy has paid the United States of America the face value of this note.

If we add the structure of the Russian reserves, the general systems of balance of payments, the crediting mechanism - i.e. the elements of economic sovereignty, which Russia does not have, - then we will see that today, Russia pays nearly $200-300 billion to the US. This amount corresponds to the taxes, which Russian tax-payers pay - without customs payments.

Conditionally, every Russian citizen pays two taxes. One of them goes to the Russian budget, and the other one - in the same amount - goes to the American budget. Russia spends this money on the inflation mechanism, because this money is withdrawn from the economy. Therefore, Russia will never solve the inflation problem until it solves the problem of the Central Bank. Hungary tried to do it, for example, but was punished for it.

Russia is not alone here, of course. America defeated many countries of the world. The above is not a specific problem of Russia. That is why the USA consumes a half of the world's GDP because they collect tribute from everyone, not just Russia.

Sergey Fyodorov

State Duma deputy

Emposter: What the hell? The words were in English, and yet the article made no sense at all. That was either A) a high level article with complicated ideas, translated by a first year English student using babblefish, or B) bullshiat by Russia's version of teabaggers.

Why can't it be both?

That is why the USA consumes a half of the world's GDP because they collect tribute from everyone, not just Russia.

Oh, so that's what that fancy red-draped procession into the white house was. The Russian tribute to America. All the many poorly carved wooden bears and videos of techno viking make sense now!