Back as far as I can remember, Russia was a big item in the news. I cut my teeth on Sputnik. It didn't change my life, but it gave me a chance to cash in on my abilities in both math and science. Prior to Sputnik the common currency was not math and science. I am sad to say that here in the USA, it is now falling out of favor again when we need it even more. Enough of that. Now to the real subject of this Blog.
I predicted the fall of Russia and its empire long before it happened and anyone suspected that there was a serious problem in Russia. Like most of my opinions, they are based on some very simple facts. During the 50's, 60's and 70's Russia was building up their military much faster than the USA. They were doing this even though they had a significantly smaller GNP. That meant they were spending much more as a percentage of their human and natural resources on military than the USA was. I knew the impact that it was having on the USA and knew that Russia could not survive with that policy in the long fun. It was like a poker game. Reagan raised them that one more time and they folded. I could see that coming and wondered at the time why they had not folded earlier.
I saw another thing happening in Russia. I was living, working and teaching in San Jose during the 60's and noticed how fast technology was changing. I knew at the time that Russia did not recognize any of our patents and were active in stealing technology from all over the world including Santa Clara Valley. The problem for Russia that I recognized was that with central planning on everything, there was no way that they could steal the technology fast enough and in the long run, they would fall behind. Central planning is OK for technology that has a long economic life like a cement plant or a paper mill, but not electronics. I also knew that Russia had the corner on math because all my graduate school math books were not French, but Russian. Here in the USA, since we were weaker in basic math, we relied on horse power to solve advanced math problems while Russia solved the elegantly with pencil and paper. At first Russia had the edge, but later as computers got faster, the edge came back to the USA. It was clear to me at the time that Russia had lost the race, but just did not know it yet. Before your car crashes into the tree, you can see you end coming. In this case I saw it coming from a long way off.
That was then and this is now. The currency of the past has changed and it has again put Russia back in the driver's seat. Recall what the new currency is? Energy, Food, Fresh Water, Low Population Density, Education, Key Minerals. If you look at Russia today, you will find they are back on top. With energy, you can buy food, for example. The big players will be Russia, Canada, Australia, Brasil and the USA. There are some smaller countries who will do OK too, like New Zealand or Chile, but there are not too many.
The only concern that I have for Russia is that they just might screw up a good thing. I noticed on the web that Finland was one of the best educated countries in the world and they are similar to Russia. Education is the big weak link for the USA. 40% of our kids drop out of high school and our high schools are second rate when it comes to teaching. Our colleges and universities are full of students taking "fuzzy feel good" type majors. Most of our degrees are worthless. The statistics on USA education include a lot of water that needs to be wrung out.
Again, congratulations to Russia. Just don't screw it up.
PS, The first time that I ever saw a piece of Titanium was in 1956. It looked like Aluminum, but much stronger and heat resistant. In about 1965 I read in the news paper that an Oregon company imported the partially processed Titanium from Russia. This made me rethink my opinion about the level of advanced technology and resources of Russia. The USA was behind when it came to key minerals and still is.
