Russia is doing well, not in spite of the sanctions, but because of the sanctions. The ruble suffered a large depreciation at first, but since has recovered and stabilized, with the current interest rate set at 12.5 per cent (I well remember when I carried a set mortgage at 12 per cent, while the official rate rose to over 20 per cent). Russia's debt load is very small in relation to its foreign reserves/gold reserves and in relation to the GDP.
It is forecast that Russian GDP will fall two or three per cent over the year, but that has two caveats. First is that the GDP is probably one of the worst and most easily manipulable statistics available; secondly, by comparison, if the U.S.GDP was measured accurately and without using manipulated statistics such as the consumer price index (inflation), it would be showing declines year over year since 2008.
In other areas, the Russian economy is doing well. Sanctions have forced Russia to repatriate its manufacturing, and many businesses are improving technologically and financially because of this. Agriculture, always a difficult area for financial survival, has been reinvigorated by Russia's counter-sanctions against various western agricultural producers.
Ironically, the U.S. is not stopping trade with Russia in three important areas. First is the space station, reliant on Russian rocket power for supplies and access. Next, the U.S. purchases about twenty per cent of its uranium from Russia - more US$ to support Russia's favorable trade balance and foreign reserves! To top it off, U.S. oil imports include eight per cent of its total imported from Russia.
Isolation is not a problem for Russia. China has become a major industrial, military, and financial partner, along with the other BRIC nations. Much of Latin America, most of Asia, and many African countries, independently and through their Chinese connections, are working with Russia. Importantly, Egypt is working with Russia for trade, and the triangle of Iran-Russia-China is strengthening.
Several European countries are expressing a distaste for sanctions and several are having lower level officials attending Moscow's May 09 Victory Day parade, along with many other global leaders outside the EU, most importantly, China's president Xi Jinping. The Chinese leader intends to visit Crimea during his visit. The visit coincides with two Chinese warships showing the flag in the Black Sea alongside Russian ships. An isolated feeling is certainly not the reality.
The World Island - and the New Silk Road.
Eurasia as a whole - the World Island - is a natural economic unit. It is entirely sustainable through its various geographic regions for all resource materials - agriculture, mining, forestry, fishing, natural gas, oil, coal, water. These may not all be distributed equally, but given the land mass and the possibilities for trade and transportation, that only creates the natural idea of a New Silk Road to incorporate trade throughout all regions.
Both China and Russia have large industrial sectors, large technological sectors, and trained and well educated work forces. India has a large and technologically savvy work force. Iran has many resources and a strong technological base. Germany - well, that is where Eurasia finds a dividing line, the artificial boundary of the New Cold War as manipulated by the U.S.
Europe is a natural trade partner with other elements of the World Island. Unfortunately its sycophantic puppet leaders of the EU/NATO have been sucked into the two main artificial fears created by the U.S. - fear of terror/Islam and fear of Russia. What it truly amounts to is the U.S. fear of losing its dominant global position should Europe, or even part of Europe, align itself with the rest of the World Island by joining in the infrastructure development being initiated by China and Russia.
The leaders of France, Germany, and the U.K. in particular appear to be only interested in maintaining their own power and control among the world elite. Their wilful ignorance - or natural stupidity - allows the U.S. to continue to dictate to them what their foreign - and indeed domestic - policies should be. But cracks in European/NATO unity are apparent.
One of the major faultlines is the new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Originating with China, this new bank has received applications for participation from many countries around the world. Significantly, most of the G7 countries (not Canada!) have signed on, as has Israel as mentioned above. Huge sums of money are to be spent/earned by supporting infrastructure development throughout Asia and Europe: high speed rail lines, highways, internet connections, pipelines, bridges, seaports, mines, airports, tech centres, schools, hospitals, and a host of supporting structures required for a growing wealthier society.
The U.S. fear of losing its dominance is well grounded, not militarily but financially. Should the US$ be slowly sidelined as the hegemonic fiat currency - or perhaps rapidly sidelined due to the weight of its own domestic 'house of cards' weaknesses - the New World Order will not be quite what the U.S. neocons envisioned in their original concept of the idea. The neocon wars serve several purposes: the destabilization of any organized opposition, especially in the Middle East vis a vis Israel and resources; the support of domestic military industries, about the only industries growing in the U.S. today; and along with the latter, control of other regions to bolster the use of the US$ as the reigning global fiat currency.
Thus the two are intertwined - war and finances. Their uses/abuses by the U.S. are its waning attempts to prevent the rise of a multipolar world - which already it truly is - or worse for the U.S. - a singular world order peacefully trading within itself without using the US$.
Last as always - the environment
Burdened with an enormous and growing consumer oriented human population, the earth's environment is changing. How adaptable it all is only time will tell. Pollutants are dispersed throughout all parts of the world, Antarctic to Arctic, from the depths of the oceans to the summits of it land masses. Along with concerns about environmental changes, many chemical pollutants enter our environment from the procurement of resources (e.g. mining, fracking, transportation), and their refinement into consumer products. These pollutants are widespread, including among others DU weapons, chemical sprays used militarily and in agriculture, and the unstable wastes from nuclear reactors.
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