Year: 2017

Macroeconomists happily report that growth-rates were only 1.4 percent, instead of the predicted 1.7 percent, without telling us that some measurements of GDP cannot be taken within 5 percent accuracy. Some figures for growth of GDP could be off by up to 10 percent!

Let me be clear: I am rooting for Russia in the current knife-sharpening between the US and Russian governments.

Here’s a fun excerpt from their battle of words:

The Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation recently announced a proposal to build a memorial commemorating the genocide of American Indians in front of the American Embassy in Moscow.

Civic Chamber member Valery Korovin told the Observer, “This monument must become the silent reproach of the modern American elites which had significantly deviated from the idealistic principles that were laid into the foundation of the American state.”

Vladimir Larin, a video blogger in Moscow, and a handful of friends got the idea for the memorial after learning of the Ukraine famine memorial unveiled in Washington D.C. last year. The 1932-33 famine, known by Ukrainians as Holodomor or “death by hunger,” came about, many historians say, when Russian dictator Joseph Stalin deliberately starved them in reprisal for their resistance to Soviet collectivism policies.

Russia is not the closest contender for vicious world empire; the USG is. If\When that changes, I’ll happily support the next empire’s enemies as well.